He suddenly recalled Sonia’s words, ‘Go to the cross-roads, bow down to the people, kiss the earth… and say aloud to the whole world, I am a murderer.’ … It came over him like a fit… He fell to the earth on the spot…. He knelt down… and kissed that filthy earth with bliss and rapture.
He finally does what she asked. The marketplace witnesses what his room could not. Touching the ground makes the abstract real. The gesture doesn’t fix everything, but it begins something new. The crowd’s mockery proves it’s not performative; he endures it. The earth becomes a stage for truth instead of domination.