And then, I am the only one you have."
"You are troubling yourself in vain. Do you know, papa, what I'll
tell you? Either give me full freedom, or take all my business
into your own hands. Take everything! Everything--to the last
rouble!"
This proposition burst forth from Foma altogether unexpectedly to
himself; he had never before thought of anything like it. But now
that he uttered such words to his godfather it suddenly became
clear to him that if his godfather were to take from him all his
property he would become a perfectly free man, he could go
wherever he pleased, do whatever he pleased. Until this moment he
had been bound and enmeshed with something, but he knew not his
fetters and was unable to break them, while now they were falling
off of themselves so simply, so easily. Both an alarming and a
joyous hope blazed up within his breast, as though he noticed
that suddenly light had begun to flash upon his turbid life, that
a wide, spacious road lay open now before him. Certain images
sprang up in his mind, and, watching their shiftings, he muttered
incoherently:
"Here, this is better than anything! Take everything, and be done
with it! And--as for me--I shall be free to go anywhere in the
wide world! I cannot live like this.
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