At the end of the novel, by Ilyusha's stone, Alyosha tells the twelve boys that there is nothing higher, stronger, healthier or more useful for life than a good memory, especially one from childhood and from the parental home.
He speaks after the funeral, to children who know nothing of great ideas. He makes an agreement with them that they will never forget Ilyusha, nor one another. He says that if they carry many good memories into life, a person is saved for his whole life. He admits they may turn bad, laugh at the tears of others, and mock anyone who says "I want to suffer for all men," as Kolya once said, and yet, when they remember that day, they will not dare mock what they were in that moment. He asks them to be good first, then honest, and closes with advice: do not fear life, which is good when one does something good and true.
Kolya asks whether it is true that religion says they will all rise and see one another again, and Ilyusha too. Alyosha answers, half laughing, half in ecstasy: they will certainly rise, see one another and joyfully tell one another everything that happened. He invites them to the funeral meal, to go hand in hand, and Kolya shouts: hurrah for Karamazov.
The speech resolves nothing, neither Mitya's fate nor Ivan's. The wager is modest: a good memory works as a restraint, not as a doctrine, and salvation is a memory kept, not an act. It is the novel's last word.