A Simple, Extraordinary Gift/1

“And I am with you, too, I won’t leave you now, I will go with you for the rest of my life,” the dear, deeply felt words of Grushenka came from somewhere near him. And his whole heart blazed up and turned towards some sort of light, and he wanted to live and live, to go on and on along some path, towards the new, beckoning light, and to hurry, hurry, right now, at once!

“What? Where?” he exclaims, opening his eyes and sitting up on the chest, as if he were just coming out of a faint, and smiling brightly. Over him stands Nikolai Parfenovich, inviting him to listen to the transcript and sign it. Mitya guessed that he had slept for an hour or more, but he did not listen to Nikolai Parfenovich. It suddenly struck him that there was a pillow under his head, which, however, had not been there when he had sunk down powerlessly on the chest.

“Who put that pillow under my head? What good person did it?” he exclaimed with a sort of rapturous gratitude, in a sort of tear-filled voice, as though God knows what kindness had been shown him. The good man remained unidentified even later–perhaps one of the witnesses, or even Nikolai Parfenovich’s clerk, had arranged that a pillow be put under his head, out of compassion–but his whole soul was as if shaken with tears. He went up to the table and declared that he would sign whatever they wanted.

“I had a good dream, gentlemen,” he said somehow strangely, with a sort of new face, as if lit up with joy.

–Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

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