“Many of you have come here from curiosity; a few have come because of their love. But I have the same message for everyone. All the great teachers of the world have loved their fellows: no man can teach or be taught without love. Because I desire to teach you something now, I ask any of you who hate me, or secretly jeer at me, or despise me, to kill that hate and that mockery and that contempt. Indeed, no man among you can hate me without also hating himself. For we are all one. We are not a thousand different souls, but one soul. There is only one soul in all the wide world, but each of your bodies contains a part of that soul: the great, brooding spirit of the Universe is split up into millions of parts. Of those millions of parts I possess but one. It is the dearest thing I have: it is the only thing I have. My body is nothing—just dust. It is the same with you all: your bodies are merely the prisons of your souls.
“Many of you will not understand me now, but I ask you, when I am gone from among you, to consider my words. You will all, however, understand this: no man gives unless he loves. If I want to give you something, it is because I love you. I do want to give you something. I want to give you myself: my soul. It is yours. Take it.”
He paused. The blank faces of the men and women hurt him. They thought him mad. He could see that many of the people were whispering to each other. Some were even smiling.
“Listen!” he shouted, passionately. “I want to give you myself so that I may prove to you that we are all one—that our souls are one soul. If my soul can depart from my body into your bodies, then you will know that we are, in truth, all one, and that to hate or hurt your neighbour is to hurt and hate yourselves, and that to injure yourselves by wickedness is to injure all the souls in all the world.
“I ask all who love me, and who have understood the words I have spoken, to make themselves ready to receive me.”
With excitement and passion, he attempted to confuse his mind and reduce it to chaos by inviting a multitude of varied thoughts. He stiffened his muscles and opened his eyes to their widest. He willed his soul to depart. Madness painted his face a ghastly white, his features became convulsed, the veins in his forehead stood out horribly....
And now the onlookers stared in fascination. A few murmured with fear and disgust.
For a minute and more Dmitri stood in silence, goading himself on to unrestrainable madness. His mind broke. He began to paw the air with his hands. And then, smiling stupidly, he sat down and played with his fingers.
His disciples rushed upon him.
“The miracle has come to pass!” exclaimed one.