Book V. Pro And Contra Chapter I. The Engagement

Madame Hohlakov was again the first to meet Alyosha. She was flustered;
something important had happened. Katerina Ivanovna's hysterics had ended
in a fainting fit, and then "a terrible, awful weakness had followed, she
lay with her eyes turned up and was delirious. Now she was in a fever.
They had sent for Herzenstube; they had sent for the aunts. The aunts were
already here, but Herzenstube had not yet come. They were all sitting in
her room, waiting. She was unconscious now, and what if it turned to brain
fever!"

Madame Hohlakov looked gravely alarmed. "This is serious, serious," she
added at every word, as though nothing that had happened to her before had
been serious. Alyosha listened with distress, and was beginning to
describe his adventures, but she interrupted him at the first words. She
had not time to listen. She begged him to sit with Lise and wait for her
there.

"Lise," she whispered almost in his ear, "Lise has greatly surprised me
just now, dear Alexey Fyodorovitch. She touched me, too, and so my heart
forgives her everything. Only fancy, as soon as you had gone, she began to
be truly remorseful for having laughed at you to-day and yesterday, though
she was not laughing at you, but only joking. But she was seriously sorry
for it, almost ready to cry, so that I was quite surprised. She has never
been really sorry for laughing at me, but has only made a joke of it. And
you know she is laughing at me every minute. But this time she was in
earnest. She thinks a great deal of your opinion, Alexey Fyodorovitch, and
don't take offense or be wounded by her if you can help it. I am never
hard upon her, for she's such a clever little thing. Would you believe it?
She said just now that you were a friend of her childhood, 'the greatest
friend of her childhood'--just think of that--'greatest friend'--and what
about me? She has very strong feelings and memories, and, what's more, she
uses these phrases, most unexpected words, which come out all of a sudden
when you least expect them. She spoke lately about a pine-tree, for
instance: there used to be a pine-tree standing in our garden in her early
childhood. Very likely it's standing there still; so there's no need to
speak in the past tense. Pine-trees are not like people, Alexey
Fyodorovitch, they don't change quickly. 'Mamma,' she said, 'I remember
this pine-tree as in a dream,' only she said something so original about
it that I can't repeat it. Besides, I've forgotten it. Well, good-by! I am
so worried I feel I shall go out of my mind. Ah! Alexey Fyodorovitch, I've
been out of my mind twice in my life. Go to Lise, cheer her up, as you
always can so charmingly. Lise," she cried, going to her door, "here I've
brought you Alexey Fyodorovitch, whom you insulted so. He is not at all
angry, I assure you; on the contrary, he is surprised that you could
suppose so."

"_Merci, maman._ Come in, Alexey Fyodorovitch."

Alyosha went in. Lise looked rather embarrassed, and at once flushed
crimson. She was evidently ashamed of something, and, as people always do
in such cases, she began immediately talking of other things, as though
they were of absorbing interest to her at the moment.

"Mamma has just told me all about the two hundred roubles, Alexey
Fyodorovitch, and your taking them to that poor officer ... and she told
me all the awful story of how he had been insulted ... and you know,
although mamma muddles things ... she always rushes from one thing to
another ... I cried when I heard. Well, did you give him the money and how
is that poor man getting on?"

"The fact is I didn't give it to him, and it's a long story," answered
Alyosha, as though he, too, could think of nothing but his regret at
having failed, yet Lise saw perfectly well that he, too, looked away, and
that he, too, was trying to talk of other things.

Alyosha sat down to the table and began to tell his story, but at the
first words he lost his embarrassment and gained the whole of Lise's
attention as well. He spoke with deep feeling, under the influence of the
strong impression he had just received, and he succeeded in telling his
story well and circumstantially. In old days in Moscow he had been fond of
coming to Lise and describing to her what had just happened to him, what
he had read, or what he remembered of his childhood. Sometimes they had
made day-dreams and woven whole romances together--generally cheerful and
amusing ones. Now they both felt suddenly transported to the old days in
Moscow, two years before. Lise was extremely touched by his story. Alyosha
described Ilusha with warm feeling. When he finished describing how the
luckless man trampled on the money, Lise could not help clasping her hands
and crying out:

"So you didn't give him the money! So you let him run away! Oh, dear, you
ought to have run after him!"

"No, Lise; it's better I didn't run after him," said Alyosha, getting up
from his chair and walking thoughtfully across the room.

"How so? How is it better? Now they are without food and their case is
hopeless?"

"Not hopeless, for the two hundred roubles will still come to them. He'll
take the money to-morrow. To-morrow he will be sure to take it," said
Alyosha, pacing up and down, pondering. "You see, Lise," he went on,
stopping suddenly before her, "I made one blunder, but that, even that, is
all for the best."

"What blunder, and why is it for the best?"

"I'll tell you. He is a man of weak and timorous character; he has
suffered so much and is very good-natured. I keep wondering why he took
offense so suddenly, for I assure you, up to the last minute, he did not
know that he was going to trample on the notes. And I think now that there
was a great deal to offend him ... and it could not have been otherwise in
his position.... To begin with, he was sore at having been so glad of the
money in my presence and not having concealed it from me. If he had been
pleased, but not so much; if he had not shown it; if he had begun
affecting scruples and difficulties, as other people do when they take
money, he might still endure to take it. But he was too genuinely
delighted, and that was mortifying. Ah, Lise, he is a good and truthful
man--that's the worst of the whole business. All the while he talked, his
voice was so weak, so broken, he talked so fast, so fast, he kept laughing
such a laugh, or perhaps he was crying--yes, I am sure he was crying, he
was so delighted--and he talked about his daughters--and about the situation
he could get in another town.... And when he had poured out his heart, he
felt ashamed at having shown me his inmost soul like that. So he began to
hate me at once. He is one of those awfully sensitive poor people. What
had made him feel most ashamed was that he had given in too soon and
accepted me as a friend, you see. At first he almost flew at me and tried
to intimidate me, but as soon as he saw the money he had begun embracing
me; he kept touching me with his hands. This must have been how he came to
feel it all so humiliating, and then I made that blunder, a very important
one. I suddenly said to him that if he had not money enough to move to
another town, we would give it to him, and, indeed, I myself would give
him as much as he wanted out of my own money. That struck him all at once.
Why, he thought, did I put myself forward to help him? You know, Lise,
it's awfully hard for a man who has been injured, when other people look
at him as though they were his benefactors.... I've heard that; Father
Zossima told me so. I don't know how to put it, but I have often seen it
myself. And I feel like that myself, too. And the worst of it was that
though he did not know, up to the very last minute, that he would trample
on the notes, he had a kind of presentiment of it, I am sure of that.
That's just what made him so ecstatic, that he had that presentiment....
And though it's so dreadful, it's all for the best. In fact, I believe
nothing better could have happened."

"Why, why could nothing better have happened?" cried Lise, looking with
great surprise at Alyosha.

"Because if he had taken the money, in an hour after getting home, he
would be crying with mortification, that's just what would have happened.
And most likely he would have come to me early to-morrow, and perhaps have
flung the notes at me and trampled upon them as he did just now. But now
he has gone home awfully proud and triumphant, though he knows he has
'ruined himself.' So now nothing could be easier than to make him accept
the two hundred roubles by to-morrow, for he has already vindicated his
honor, tossed away the money, and trampled it under foot.... He couldn't
know when he did it that I should bring it to him again to-morrow, and yet
he is in terrible need of that money. Though he is proud of himself now,
yet even to-day he'll be thinking what a help he has lost. He will think
of it more than ever at night, will dream of it, and by to-morrow morning
he may be ready to run to me to ask forgiveness. It's just then that I'll
appear. 'Here, you are a proud man,' I shall say: 'you have shown it; but
now take the money and forgive us!' And then he will take it!"

Alyosha was carried away with joy as he uttered his last words, "And then
he will take it!" Lise clapped her hands.

"Ah, that's true! I understand that perfectly now. Ah, Alyosha, how do you
know all this? So young and yet he knows what's in the heart.... I should
never have worked it out."

"The great thing now is to persuade him that he is on an equal footing
with us, in spite of his taking money from us," Alyosha went on in his
excitement, "and not only on an equal, but even on a higher footing."

" 'On a higher footing' is charming, Alexey Fyodorovitch; but go on, go
on!"

"You mean there isn't such an expression as 'on a higher footing'; but
that doesn't matter because--"

"Oh, no, of course it doesn't matter. Forgive me, Alyosha, dear.... You
know, I scarcely respected you till now--that is I respected you but on an
equal footing; but now I shall begin to respect you on a higher footing.
Don't be angry, dear, at my joking," she put in at once, with strong
feeling. "I am absurd and small, but you, you! Listen, Alexey
Fyodorovitch. Isn't there in all our analysis--I mean your analysis ... no,
better call it ours--aren't we showing contempt for him, for that poor
man--in analyzing his soul like this, as it were, from above, eh? In
deciding so certainly that he will take the money?"

"No, Lise, it's not contempt," Alyosha answered, as though he had prepared
himself for the question. "I was thinking of that on the way here. How can
it be contempt when we are all like him, when we are all just the same as
he is? For you know we are just the same, no better. If we are better, we
should have been just the same in his place.... I don't know about you,
Lise, but I consider that I have a sordid soul in many ways, and his soul
is not sordid; on the contrary, full of fine feeling.... No, Lise, I have
no contempt for him. Do you know, Lise, my elder told me once to care for
most people exactly as one would for children, and for some of them as one
would for the sick in hospitals."

"Ah, Alexey Fyodorovitch, dear, let us care for people as we would for the
sick!"

"Let us, Lise; I am ready. Though I am not altogether ready in myself. I
am sometimes very impatient and at other times I don't see things. It's
different with you."

"Ah, I don't believe it! Alexey Fyodorovitch, how happy I am!"

"I am so glad you say so, Lise."

"Alexey Fyodorovitch, you are wonderfully good, but you are sometimes sort
of formal.... And yet you are not a bit formal really. Go to the door,
open it gently, and see whether mamma is listening," said Lise, in a
nervous, hurried whisper.

Alyosha went, opened the door, and reported that no one was listening.

"Come here, Alexey Fyodorovitch," Lise went on, flushing redder and
redder. "Give me your hand--that's right. I have to make a great
confession, I didn't write to you yesterday in joke, but in earnest," and
she hid her eyes with her hand. It was evident that she was greatly
ashamed of the confession.

Suddenly she snatched his hand and impulsively kissed it three times.

"Ah, Lise, what a good thing!" cried Alyosha joyfully. "You know, I was
perfectly sure you were in earnest."

"Sure? Upon my word!" She put aside his hand, but did not leave go of it,
blushing hotly, and laughing a little happy laugh. "I kiss his hand and he
says, 'What a good thing!' "

But her reproach was undeserved. Alyosha, too, was greatly overcome.

"I should like to please you always, Lise, but I don't know how to do it,"
he muttered, blushing too.

"Alyosha, dear, you are cold and rude. Do you see? He has chosen me as his
wife and is quite settled about it. He is sure I was in earnest. What a
thing to say! Why, that's impertinence--that's what it is."

"Why, was it wrong of me to feel sure?" Alyosha asked, laughing suddenly.

"Ah, Alyosha, on the contrary, it was delightfully right," cried Lise,
looking tenderly and happily at him.

Alyosha stood still, holding her hand in his. Suddenly he stooped down and
kissed her on her lips.

"Oh, what are you doing?" cried Lise. Alyosha was terribly abashed.

"Oh, forgive me if I shouldn't.... Perhaps I'm awfully stupid.... You said
I was cold, so I kissed you.... But I see it was stupid."

Lise laughed, and hid her face in her hands. "And in that dress!" she
ejaculated in the midst of her mirth. But she suddenly ceased laughing and
became serious, almost stern.

"Alyosha, we must put off kissing. We are not ready for that yet, and we
shall have a long time to wait," she ended suddenly. "Tell me rather why
you who are so clever, so intellectual, so observant, choose a little
idiot, an invalid like me? Ah, Alyosha, I am awfully happy, for I don't
deserve you a bit."

"You do, Lise. I shall be leaving the monastery altogether in a few days.
If I go into the world, I must marry. I know that. _He_ told me to marry,
too. Whom could I marry better than you--and who would have me except you?
I have been thinking it over. In the first place, you've known me from a
child and you've a great many qualities I haven't. You are more light-
hearted than I am; above all, you are more innocent than I am. I have been
brought into contact with many, many things already.... Ah, you don't
know, but I, too, am a Karamazov. What does it matter if you do laugh and
make jokes, and at me, too? Go on laughing. I am so glad you do. You laugh
like a little child, but you think like a martyr."

"Like a martyr? How?"

"Yes, Lise, your question just now: whether we weren't showing contempt
for that poor man by dissecting his soul--that was the question of a
sufferer.... You see, I don't know how to express it, but any one who
thinks of such questions is capable of suffering. Sitting in your invalid
chair you must have thought over many things already."

"Alyosha, give me your hand. Why are you taking it away?" murmured Lise in
a failing voice, weak with happiness. "Listen, Alyosha. What will you wear
when you come out of the monastery? What sort of suit? Don't laugh, don't
be angry, it's very, very important to me."

"I haven't thought about the suit, Lise; but I'll wear whatever you like."

"I should like you to have a dark blue velvet coat, a white pique
waistcoat, and a soft gray felt hat.... Tell me, did you believe that I
didn't care for you when I said I didn't mean what I wrote?"

"No, I didn't believe it."

"Oh, you insupportable person, you are incorrigible."

"You see, I knew that you--seemed to care for me, but I pretended to
believe that you didn't care for me to make it--easier for you."

"That makes it worse! Worse and better than all! Alyosha, I am awfully
fond of you. Just before you came this morning, I tried my fortune. I
decided I would ask you for my letter, and if you brought it out calmly
and gave it to me (as might have been expected from you) it would mean
that you did not love me at all, that you felt nothing, and were simply a
stupid boy, good for nothing, and that I am ruined. But you left the
letter at home and that cheered me. You left it behind on purpose, so as
not to give it back, because you knew I would ask for it? That was it,
wasn't it?"

"Ah, Lise, it was not so a bit. The letter is with me now, and it was this
morning, in this pocket. Here it is."

Alyosha pulled the letter out laughing, and showed it her at a distance.

"But I am not going to give it to you. Look at it from here."

"Why, then you told a lie? You, a monk, told a lie!"

"I told a lie if you like," Alyosha laughed, too. "I told a lie so as not
to give you back the letter. It's very precious to me," he added suddenly,
with strong feeling, and again he flushed. "It always will be, and I won't
give it up to any one!"

Lise looked at him joyfully. "Alyosha," she murmured again, "look at the
door. Isn't mamma listening?"

"Very well, Lise, I'll look; but wouldn't it be better not to look? Why
suspect your mother of such meanness?"

"What meanness? As for her spying on her daughter, it's her right, it's
not meanness!" cried Lise, firing up. "You may be sure, Alexey
Fyodorovitch, that when I am a mother, if I have a daughter like myself I
shall certainly spy on her!"

"Really, Lise? That's not right."

"Oh, my goodness! What has meanness to do with it? If she were listening
to some ordinary worldly conversation, it would be meanness, but when her
own daughter is shut up with a young man.... Listen, Alyosha, do you know
I shall spy upon you as soon as we are married, and let me tell you I
shall open all your letters and read them, so you may as well be
prepared."

"Yes, of course, if so--" muttered Alyosha, "only it's not right."

"Ah, how contemptuous! Alyosha, dear, we won't quarrel the very first day.
I'd better tell you the whole truth. Of course, it's very wrong to spy on
people, and, of course, I am not right and you are, only I shall spy on
you all the same."

"Do, then; you won't find out anything," laughed Alyosha.

"And, Alyosha, will you give in to me? We must decide that too."

"I shall be delighted to, Lise, and certain to, only not in the most
important things. Even if you don't agree with me, I shall do my duty in
the most important things."

"That's right; but let me tell you I am ready to give in to you not only
in the most important matters, but in everything. And I am ready to vow to
do so now--in everything, and for all my life!" cried Lise fervently, "and
I'll do it gladly, gladly! What's more, I'll swear never to spy on you,
never once, never to read one of your letters. For you are right and I am
not. And though I shall be awfully tempted to spy, I know that I won't do
it since you consider it dishonorable. You are my conscience now....
Listen, Alexey Fyodorovitch, why have you been so sad lately--both
yesterday and to-day? I know you have a lot of anxiety and trouble, but I
see you have some special grief besides, some secret one, perhaps?"

"Yes, Lise, I have a secret one, too," answered Alyosha mournfully. "I see
you love me, since you guessed that."

"What grief? What about? Can you tell me?" asked Lise with timid entreaty.

"I'll tell you later, Lise--afterwards," said Alyosha, confused. "Now you
wouldn't understand it perhaps--and perhaps I couldn't explain it."

"I know your brothers and your father are worrying you, too."

"Yes, my brothers too," murmured Alyosha, pondering.

"I don't like your brother Ivan, Alyosha," said Lise suddenly.

He noticed this remark with some surprise, but did not answer it.

"My brothers are destroying themselves," he went on, "my father, too. And
they are destroying others with them. It's 'the primitive force of the
Karamazovs,' as Father Paissy said the other day, a crude, unbridled,
earthly force. Does the spirit of God move above that force? Even that I
don't know. I only know that I, too, am a Karamazov.... Me a monk, a monk!
Am I a monk, Lise? You said just now that I was."

"Yes, I did."

"And perhaps I don't even believe in God."

"You don't believe? What is the matter?" said Lise quietly and gently. But
Alyosha did not answer. There was something too mysterious, too subjective
in these last words of his, perhaps obscure to himself, but yet torturing
him.

"And now on the top of it all, my friend, the best man in the world, is
going, is leaving the earth! If you knew, Lise, how bound up in soul I am
with him! And then I shall be left alone.... I shall come to you, Lise....
For the future we will be together."

"Yes, together, together! Henceforward we shall be always together, all
our lives! Listen, kiss me, I allow you."

Alyosha kissed her.

"Come, now go. Christ be with you!" and she made the sign of the cross
over him. "Make haste back to _him_ while he is alive. I see I've kept you
cruelly. I'll pray to-day for him and you. Alyosha, we shall be happy!
Shall we be happy, shall we?"

"I believe we shall, Lise."

Alyosha thought it better not to go in to Madame Hohlakov and was going
out of the house without saying good-by to her. But no sooner had he
opened the door than he found Madame Hohlakov standing before him. From
the first word Alyosha guessed that she had been waiting on purpose to
meet him.

"Alexey Fyodorovitch, this is awful. This is all childish nonsense and
ridiculous. I trust you won't dream--It's foolishness, nothing but
foolishness!" she said, attacking him at once.

"Only don't tell her that," said Alyosha, "or she will be upset, and
that's bad for her now."

"Sensible advice from a sensible young man. Am I to understand that you
only agreed with her from compassion for her invalid state, because you
didn't want to irritate her by contradiction?"

"Oh, no, not at all. I was quite serious in what I said," Alyosha declared
stoutly.

"To be serious about it is impossible, unthinkable, and in the first place
I shall never be at home to you again, and I shall take her away, you may
be sure of that."

"But why?" asked Alyosha. "It's all so far off. We may have to wait
another year and a half."

"Ah, Alexey Fyodorovitch, that's true, of course, and you'll have time to
quarrel and separate a thousand times in a year and a half. But I am so
unhappy! Though it's such nonsense, it's a great blow to me. I feel like
Famusov in the last scene of _Sorrow from Wit_. You are Tchatsky and she
is Sofya, and, only fancy, I've run down to meet you on the stairs, and in
the play the fatal scene takes place on the staircase. I heard it all; I
almost dropped. So this is the explanation of her dreadful night and her
hysterics of late! It means love to the daughter but death to the mother.
I might as well be in my grave at once. And a more serious matter still,
what is this letter she has written? Show it me at once, at once!"

"No, there's no need. Tell me, how is Katerina Ivanovna now? I must know."

"She still lies in delirium; she has not regained consciousness. Her aunts
are here; but they do nothing but sigh and give themselves airs.
Herzenstube came, and he was so alarmed that I didn't know what to do for
him. I nearly sent for a doctor to look after him. He was driven home in
my carriage. And on the top of it all, you and this letter! It's true
nothing can happen for a year and a half. In the name of all that's holy,
in the name of your dying elder, show me that letter, Alexey Fyodorovitch.
I'm her mother. Hold it in your hand, if you like, and I will read it so."

"No, I won't show it to you. Even if she sanctioned it, I wouldn't. I am
coming to-morrow, and if you like, we can talk over many things, but now
good-by!"

And Alyosha ran downstairs and into the street.

When Alyosha arrives at the Khokhlakovs', Madame Khokhlakov is on her way out the door to tend to Katerina, who is now running a fever. Alyosha and Lise are alone, so Alyosha tells Lise about his encounter with Snegiryov. He reveals that he's actually glad that Snegiryov rejected the money because it gave Snegiryov the chance to prove he was an honorable man. Alyosha decides that Snegiryov will be more receptive to the money the next day. Lise then tells Alyosha that her note to him actually wasn't a joke at all. Alyosha tells her he knows, and Lise is annoyed because he seems so cold. But then he kisses her, which surprises them both. He confesses that he had her letter in his pocket all along. Lise asks Alyosha why he seems so terribly sad, and he mentions how troubled he is by his family's conflicts and Zosima's ill health. After kissing Lise good-bye, Alyosha heads downstairs only to be headed off by Madame Khokhlakov, who is distressed by what she's overheard between him and Lise. Alyosha refuses to show her Lise's letter and continues out the door.

A Betrothal Back at Madame Khokhlakov's house, Alyosha discovers that Katerina has come down with a fever, apparently due to her intense humiliation over Dmitri's decision to leave her. Alyosha talks with Lise and tells her about his failure to convince the captain to take Katerina's money. Deeply moved by Alyosha's gentle wisdom, Lise suddenly admits that her love letter was sincere. Alyosha also loves Lise, and the two young people begin to plan their marriage. Alyosha also confesses that he deceived Lise about the letter. He refused to give it back to her, not because he did not have it with him, as he claimed, but because it was too important to him to give up. As Alyosha leaves, Madame Khokhlakov stops him. She has listened in on his conversation with Lise, and says that she is bitterly unhappy at the thought of his marriage to Lise. Madame Khokhlakov implies that Lise has been increasingly unreliable and difficult lately. When the daughter marries, she says, the mother has nothing to look forward to but death. Alyosha tries to calm her by telling her that the marriage will not take place for at least another year and a half, but when she presses him to show her Lise's letter, he refuses outright


Chapter II. Smerdyakov With A Guitar

He had no time to lose indeed. Even while he was saying good-by to Lise,
the thought had struck him that he must attempt some stratagem to find his
brother Dmitri, who was evidently keeping out of his way. It was getting
late, nearly three o'clock. Alyosha's whole soul turned to the monastery,
to his dying saint, but the necessity of seeing Dmitri outweighed
everything. The conviction that a great inevitable catastrophe was about
to happen grew stronger in Alyosha's mind with every hour. What that
catastrophe was, and what he would say at that moment to his brother, he
could perhaps not have said definitely. "Even if my benefactor must die
without me, anyway I won't have to reproach myself all my life with the
thought that I might have saved something and did not, but passed by and
hastened home. If I do as I intend, I shall be following his great
precept."

His plan was to catch his brother Dmitri unawares, to climb over the
fence, as he had the day before, get into the garden and sit in the
summer-house. If Dmitri were not there, thought Alyosha, he would not
announce himself to Foma or the women of the house, but would remain
hidden in the summer-house, even if he had to wait there till evening. If,
as before, Dmitri were lying in wait for Grushenka to come, he would be
very likely to come to the summer-house. Alyosha did not, however, give
much thought to the details of his plan, but resolved to act upon it, even
if it meant not getting back to the monastery that day.

Everything happened without hindrance, he climbed over the hurdle almost
in the same spot as the day before, and stole into the summer-house
unseen. He did not want to be noticed. The woman of the house and Foma
too, if he were here, might be loyal to his brother and obey his
instructions, and so refuse to let Alyosha come into the garden, or might
warn Dmitri that he was being sought and inquired for.

There was no one in the summer-house. Alyosha sat down and began to wait.
He looked round the summer-house, which somehow struck him as a great deal
more ancient than before. Though the day was just as fine as yesterday, it
seemed a wretched little place this time. There was a circle on the table,
left no doubt from the glass of brandy having been spilt the day before.
Foolish and irrelevant ideas strayed about his mind, as they always do in
a time of tedious waiting. He wondered, for instance, why he had sat down
precisely in the same place as before, why not in the other seat. At last
he felt very depressed--depressed by suspense and uncertainty. But he had
not sat there more than a quarter of an hour, when he suddenly heard the
thrum of a guitar somewhere quite close. People were sitting, or had only
just sat down, somewhere in the bushes not more than twenty paces away.
Alyosha suddenly recollected that on coming out of the summer-house the
day before, he had caught a glimpse of an old green low garden-seat among
the bushes on the left, by the fence. The people must be sitting on it
now. Who were they?

A man's voice suddenly began singing in a sugary falsetto, accompanying
himself on the guitar:

    With invincible force
    I am bound to my dear.
    O Lord, have mercy
    On her and on me!
    On her and on me!
    On her and on me!

The voice ceased. It was a lackey's tenor and a lackey's song. Another
voice, a woman's, suddenly asked insinuatingly and bashfully, though with
mincing affectation:

"Why haven't you been to see us for so long, Pavel Fyodorovitch? Why do
you always look down upon us?"

"Not at all," answered a man's voice politely, but with emphatic dignity.
It was clear that the man had the best of the position, and that the woman
was making advances. "I believe the man must be Smerdyakov," thought
Alyosha, "from his voice. And the lady must be the daughter of the house
here, who has come from Moscow, the one who wears the dress with a tail
and goes to Marfa for soup."

"I am awfully fond of verses of all kinds, if they rhyme," the woman's
voice continued. "Why don't you go on?"

The man sang again:

    What do I care for royal wealth
    If but my dear one be in health?
    Lord have mercy
    On her and on me!
    On her and on me!
    On her and on me!

"It was even better last time," observed the woman's voice. "You sang 'If
my darling be in health'; it sounded more tender. I suppose you've
forgotten to-day."

"Poetry is rubbish!" said Smerdyakov curtly.

"Oh, no! I am very fond of poetry."

"So far as it's poetry, it's essential rubbish. Consider yourself, who
ever talks in rhyme? And if we were all to talk in rhyme, even though it
were decreed by government, we shouldn't say much, should we? Poetry is no
good, Marya Kondratyevna."

"How clever you are! How is it you've gone so deep into everything?" The
woman's voice was more and more insinuating.

"I could have done better than that. I could have known more than that, if
it had not been for my destiny from my childhood up. I would have shot a
man in a duel if he called me names because I am descended from a filthy
beggar and have no father. And they used to throw it in my teeth in
Moscow. It had reached them from here, thanks to Grigory Vassilyevitch.
Grigory Vassilyevitch blames me for rebelling against my birth, but I
would have sanctioned their killing me before I was born that I might not
have come into the world at all. They used to say in the market, and your
mamma too, with great lack of delicacy, set off telling me that her hair
was like a mat on her head, and that she was short of five foot by a wee
bit. Why talk of a wee bit while she might have said 'a little bit,' like
every one else? She wanted to make it touching, a regular peasant's
feeling. Can a Russian peasant be said to feel, in comparison with an
educated man? He can't be said to have feeling at all, in his ignorance.
From my childhood up when I hear 'a wee bit,' I am ready to burst with
rage. I hate all Russia, Marya Kondratyevna."

"If you'd been a cadet in the army, or a young hussar, you wouldn't have
talked like that, but would have drawn your saber to defend all Russia."

"I don't want to be a hussar, Marya Kondratyevna, and, what's more, I
should like to abolish all soldiers."

"And when an enemy comes, who is going to defend us?"

"There's no need of defense. In 1812 there was a great invasion of Russia
by Napoleon, first Emperor of the French, father of the present one, and
it would have been a good thing if they had conquered us. A clever nation
would have conquered a very stupid one and annexed it. We should have had
quite different institutions."

"Are they so much better in their own country than we are? I wouldn't
change a dandy I know of for three young Englishmen," observed Marya
Kondratyevna tenderly, doubtless accompanying her words with a most
languishing glance.

"That's as one prefers."

"But you are just like a foreigner--just like a most gentlemanly foreigner.
I tell you that, though it makes me bashful."

"If you care to know, the folks there and ours here are just alike in
their vice. They are swindlers, only there the scoundrel wears polished
boots and here he grovels in filth and sees no harm in it. The Russian
people want thrashing, as Fyodor Pavlovitch said very truly yesterday,
though he is mad, and all his children."

"You said yourself you had such a respect for Ivan Fyodorovitch."

"But he said I was a stinking lackey. He thinks that I might be unruly. He
is mistaken there. If I had a certain sum in my pocket, I would have left
here long ago. Dmitri Fyodorovitch is lower than any lackey in his
behavior, in his mind, and in his poverty. He doesn't know how to do
anything, and yet he is respected by every one. I may be only a soup-
maker, but with luck I could open a cafe restaurant in Petrovka, in
Moscow, for my cookery is something special, and there's no one in Moscow,
except the foreigners, whose cookery is anything special. Dmitri
Fyodorovitch is a beggar, but if he were to challenge the son of the first
count in the country, he'd fight him. Though in what way is he better than
I am? For he is ever so much stupider than I am. Look at the money he has
wasted without any need!"

"It must be lovely, a duel," Marya Kondratyevna observed suddenly.

"How so?"

"It must be so dreadful and so brave, especially when young officers with
pistols in their hands pop at one another for the sake of some lady. A
perfect picture! Ah, if only girls were allowed to look on, I'd give
anything to see one!"

"It's all very well when you are firing at some one, but when he is firing
straight in your mug, you must feel pretty silly. You'd be glad to run
away, Marya Kondratyevna."

"You don't mean you would run away?" But Smerdyakov did not deign to
reply. After a moment's silence the guitar tinkled again, and he sang
again in the same falsetto:

    Whatever you may say,
    I shall go far away.
    Life will be bright and gay
    In the city far away.
    I shall not grieve,
    I shall not grieve at all,
    I don't intend to grieve at all.

Then something unexpected happened. Alyosha suddenly sneezed. They were
silent. Alyosha got up and walked towards them. He found Smerdyakov
dressed up and wearing polished boots, his hair pomaded, and perhaps
curled. The guitar lay on the garden-seat. His companion was the daughter
of the house, wearing a light-blue dress with a train two yards long. She
was young and would not have been bad-looking, but that her face was so
round and terribly freckled.

"Will my brother Dmitri soon be back?" asked Alyosha with as much
composure as he could.

Smerdyakov got up slowly; Marya Kondratyevna rose too.

"How am I to know about Dmitri Fyodorovitch? It's not as if I were his
keeper," answered Smerdyakov quietly, distinctly, and superciliously.

"But I simply asked whether you do know?" Alyosha explained.

"I know nothing of his whereabouts and don't want to."

"But my brother told me that you let him know all that goes on in the
house, and promised to let him know when Agrafena Alexandrovna comes."

Smerdyakov turned a deliberate, unmoved glance upon him.

"And how did you get in this time, since the gate was bolted an hour ago?"
he asked, looking at Alyosha.

"I came in from the back-alley, over the fence, and went straight to the
summer-house. I hope you'll forgive me," he added, addressing Marya
Kondratyevna. "I was in a hurry to find my brother."

"Ach, as though we could take it amiss in you!" drawled Marya
Kondratyevna, flattered by Alyosha's apology. "For Dmitri Fyodorovitch
often goes to the summer-house in that way. We don't know he is here and
he is sitting in the summer-house."

"I am very anxious to find him, or to learn from you where he is now.
Believe me, it's on business of great importance to him."

"He never tells us," lisped Marya Kondratyevna.

"Though I used to come here as a friend," Smerdyakov began again, "Dmitri
Fyodorovitch has pestered me in a merciless way even here by his incessant
questions about the master. 'What news?' he'll ask. 'What's going on in
there now? Who's coming and going?' and can't I tell him something more.
Twice already he's threatened me with death."

"With death?" Alyosha exclaimed in surprise.

"Do you suppose he'd think much of that, with his temper, which you had a
chance of observing yourself yesterday? He says if I let Agrafena
Alexandrovna in and she passes the night there, I'll be the first to
suffer for it. I am terribly afraid of him, and if I were not even more
afraid of doing so, I ought to let the police know. God only knows what he
might not do!"

"His honor said to him the other day, 'I'll pound you in a mortar!' "
added Marya Kondratyevna.

"Oh, if it's pounding in a mortar, it may be only talk," observed Alyosha.
"If I could meet him, I might speak to him about that too."

"Well, the only thing I can tell you is this," said Smerdyakov, as though
thinking better of it; "I am here as an old friend and neighbor, and it
would be odd if I didn't come. On the other hand, Ivan Fyodorovitch sent
me first thing this morning to your brother's lodging in Lake Street,
without a letter, but with a message to Dmitri Fyodorovitch to go to dine
with him at the restaurant here, in the market-place. I went, but didn't
find Dmitri Fyodorovitch at home, though it was eight o'clock. 'He's been
here, but he is quite gone,' those were the very words of his landlady.
It's as though there was an understanding between them. Perhaps at this
moment he is in the restaurant with Ivan Fyodorovitch, for Ivan
Fyodorovitch has not been home to dinner and Fyodor Pavlovitch dined alone
an hour ago, and is gone to lie down. But I beg you most particularly not
to speak of me and of what I have told you, for he'd kill me for nothing
at all."

"Brother Ivan invited Dmitri to the restaurant to-day?" repeated Alyosha
quickly.

"That's so."

"The Metropolis tavern in the market-place?"

"The very same."

"That's quite likely," cried Alyosha, much excited. "Thank you,
Smerdyakov; that's important. I'll go there at once."

"Don't betray me," Smerdyakov called after him.

"Oh, no, I'll go to the tavern as though by chance. Don't be anxious."

"But wait a minute, I'll open the gate to you," cried Marya Kondratyevna.

"No; it's a short cut, I'll get over the fence again."

What he had heard threw Alyosha into great agitation. He ran to the
tavern. It was impossible for him to go into the tavern in his monastic
dress, but he could inquire at the entrance for his brothers and call them
down. But just as he reached the tavern, a window was flung open, and his
brother Ivan called down to him from it.

"Alyosha, can't you come up here to me? I shall be awfully grateful."

"To be sure I can, only I don't quite know whether in this dress--"

"But I am in a room apart. Come up the steps; I'll run down to meet you."

A minute later Alyosha was sitting beside his brother. Ivan was alone
dining.

Alyosha decides he'll try to catch Dmitri at the gazebo by his father's house again, so he plants himself there in the hope that Dmitri will show up eventually. He's surprised to hear the sound of guitar playing and a man's voice singing. A woman replies, and Alyosha realizes it's Smerdyakov playing the guitar to one of the neighbor girls, Maria Kondatrievna. All of a sudden, Alyosha sneezes. He can't eavesdrop on the two any longer, so he goes up to them and inquires after Dmitri. Smerdyakov tells Alyosha that he isn't Dmitri's "keeper," that Dmitri is constantly threatening him. Maria adds that the other day she heard Dmitri telling Smerdyakov that he would grind his head in a mortar. Smerdyakov tells Alyosha that Dmitri was invited to meet up with Ivan at a local tavern, so Alyosha takes leave of them and heads to the tavern. When Alyosha arrives at the tavern, Ivan invites him up to his private room, where he's dining alone.

Smerdyakov with a Guitar Alyosha thinks about Dmitri's violent and passionate behavior, and decides to try to help his brother rather than return to Zosima's bedside in the monastery as he longs to do. Alyosha notes that Dmitri seems to be avoiding him, so Alyosha decides to stake out the gazebo that he knows Dmitri often visits to watch for Grushenka. There, Alyosha overhears Smerdyakov playing a guitar and singing a song for the housekeeper's daughter. Alyosha tentatively interrupts this scene and asks Smerdyakov if he knows where Dmitri has gone. Smerdyakov says that Dmitri has gone to meet Ivan at a restaurant


Chapter III. The Brothers Make Friends

Ivan was not, however, in a separate room, but only in a place shut off by
a screen, so that it was unseen by other people in the room. It was the
first room from the entrance with a buffet along the wall. Waiters were
continually darting to and fro in it. The only customer in the room was an
old retired military man drinking tea in a corner. But there was the usual
bustle going on in the other rooms of the tavern; there were shouts for
the waiters, the sound of popping corks, the click of billiard balls, the
drone of the organ. Alyosha knew that Ivan did not usually visit this
tavern and disliked taverns in general. So he must have come here, he
reflected, simply to meet Dmitri by arrangement. Yet Dmitri was not there.

"Shall I order you fish, soup or anything. You don't live on tea alone, I
suppose," cried Ivan, apparently delighted at having got hold of Alyosha.
He had finished dinner and was drinking tea.

"Let me have soup, and tea afterwards, I am hungry," said Alyosha gayly.

"And cherry jam? They have it here. You remember how you used to love
cherry jam when you were little?"

"You remember that? Let me have jam too, I like it still."

Ivan rang for the waiter and ordered soup, jam and tea.

"I remember everything, Alyosha, I remember you till you were eleven, I
was nearly fifteen. There's such a difference between fifteen and eleven
that brothers are never companions at those ages. I don't know whether I
was fond of you even. When I went away to Moscow for the first few years I
never thought of you at all. Then, when you came to Moscow yourself, we
only met once somewhere, I believe. And now I've been here more than three
months, and so far we have scarcely said a word to each other. To-morrow I
am going away, and I was just thinking as I sat here how I could see you
to say good-by and just then you passed."

"Were you very anxious to see me, then?"

"Very. I want to get to know you once for all, and I want you to know me.
And then to say good-by. I believe it's always best to get to know people
just before leaving them. I've noticed how you've been looking at me these
three months. There has been a continual look of expectation in your eyes,
and I can't endure that. That's how it is I've kept away from you. But in
the end I have learned to respect you. The little man stands firm, I
thought. Though I am laughing, I am serious. You do stand firm, don't you?
I like people who are firm like that whatever it is they stand by, even if
they are such little fellows as you. Your expectant eyes ceased to annoy
me, I grew fond of them in the end, those expectant eyes. You seem to love
me for some reason, Alyosha?"

"I do love you, Ivan. Dmitri says of you--Ivan is a tomb! I say of you,
Ivan is a riddle. You are a riddle to me even now. But I understand
something in you, and I did not understand it till this morning."

"What's that?" laughed Ivan.

"You won't be angry?" Alyosha laughed too.

"Well?"

"That you are just as young as other young men of three and twenty, that
you are just a young and fresh and nice boy, green in fact! Now, have I
insulted you dreadfully?"

"On the contrary, I am struck by a coincidence," cried Ivan, warmly and
good-humoredly. "Would you believe it that ever since that scene with her,
I have thought of nothing else but my youthful greenness, and just as
though you guessed that, you begin about it. Do you know I've been sitting
here thinking to myself: that if I didn't believe in life, if I lost faith
in the woman I love, lost faith in the order of things, were convinced in
fact that everything is a disorderly, damnable, and perhaps devil-ridden
chaos, if I were struck by every horror of man's disillusionment--still I
should want to live and, having once tasted of the cup, I would not turn
away from it till I had drained it! At thirty, though, I shall be sure to
leave the cup, even if I've not emptied it, and turn away--where I don't
know. But till I am thirty, I know that my youth will triumph over
everything--every disillusionment, every disgust with life. I've asked
myself many times whether there is in the world any despair that would
overcome this frantic and perhaps unseemly thirst for life in me, and I've
come to the conclusion that there isn't, that is till I am thirty, and
then I shall lose it of myself, I fancy. Some driveling consumptive
moralists--and poets especially--often call that thirst for life base. It's
a feature of the Karamazovs, it's true, that thirst for life regardless of
everything; you have it no doubt too, but why is it base? The centripetal
force on our planet is still fearfully strong, Alyosha. I have a longing
for life, and I go on living in spite of logic. Though I may not believe
in the order of the universe, yet I love the sticky little leaves as they
open in spring. I love the blue sky, I love some people, whom one loves
you know sometimes without knowing why. I love some great deeds done by
men, though I've long ceased perhaps to have faith in them, yet from old
habit one's heart prizes them. Here they have brought the soup for you,
eat it, it will do you good. It's first-rate soup, they know how to make
it here. I want to travel in Europe, Alyosha, I shall set off from here.
And yet I know that I am only going to a graveyard, but it's a most
precious graveyard, that's what it is! Precious are the dead that lie
there, every stone over them speaks of such burning life in the past, of
such passionate faith in their work, their truth, their struggle and their
science, that I know I shall fall on the ground and kiss those stones and
weep over them; though I'm convinced in my heart that it's long been
nothing but a graveyard. And I shall not weep from despair, but simply
because I shall be happy in my tears, I shall steep my soul in my emotion.
I love the sticky leaves in spring, the blue sky--that's all it is. It's
not a matter of intellect or logic, it's loving with one's inside, with
one's stomach. One loves the first strength of one's youth. Do you
understand anything of my tirade, Alyosha?" Ivan laughed suddenly.

"I understand too well, Ivan. One longs to love with one's inside, with
one's stomach. You said that so well and I am awfully glad that you have
such a longing for life," cried Alyosha. "I think every one should love
life above everything in the world."

"Love life more than the meaning of it?"

"Certainly, love it, regardless of logic as you say, it must be regardless
of logic, and it's only then one will understand the meaning of it. I have
thought so a long time. Half your work is done, Ivan, you love life, now
you've only to try to do the second half and you are saved."

"You are trying to save me, but perhaps I am not lost! And what does your
second half mean?"

"Why, one has to raise up your dead, who perhaps have not died after all.
Come, let me have tea. I am so glad of our talk, Ivan."

"I see you are feeling inspired. I am awfully fond of such _professions de
foi_ from such--novices. You are a steadfast person, Alexey. Is it true
that you mean to leave the monastery?"

"Yes, my elder sends me out into the world."

"We shall see each other then in the world. We shall meet before I am
thirty, when I shall begin to turn aside from the cup. Father doesn't want
to turn aside from his cup till he is seventy, he dreams of hanging on to
eighty in fact, so he says. He means it only too seriously, though he is a
buffoon. He stands on a firm rock, too, he stands on his sensuality--though
after we are thirty, indeed, there may be nothing else to stand on.... But
to hang on to seventy is nasty, better only to thirty; one might retain 'a
shadow of nobility' by deceiving oneself. Have you seen Dmitri to-day?"

"No, but I saw Smerdyakov," and Alyosha rapidly, though minutely,
described his meeting with Smerdyakov. Ivan began listening anxiously and
questioned him.

"But he begged me not to tell Dmitri that he had told me about him," added
Alyosha. Ivan frowned and pondered.

"Are you frowning on Smerdyakov's account?" asked Alyosha.

"Yes, on his account. Damn him, I certainly did want to see Dmitri, but
now there's no need," said Ivan reluctantly.

"But are you really going so soon, brother?"

"Yes."

"What of Dmitri and father? how will it end?" asked Alyosha anxiously.

"You are always harping upon it! What have I to do with it? Am I my
brother Dmitri's keeper?" Ivan snapped irritably, but then he suddenly
smiled bitterly. "Cain's answer about his murdered brother, wasn't it?
Perhaps that's what you're thinking at this moment? Well, damn it all, I
can't stay here to be their keeper, can I? I've finished what I had to do,
and I am going. Do you imagine I am jealous of Dmitri, that I've been
trying to steal his beautiful Katerina Ivanovna for the last three months?
Nonsense, I had business of my own. I finished it. I am going. I finished
it just now, you were witness."

"At Katerina Ivanovna's?"

"Yes, and I've released myself once for all. And after all, what have I to
do with Dmitri? Dmitri doesn't come in. I had my own business to settle
with Katerina Ivanovna. You know, on the contrary, that Dmitri behaved as
though there was an understanding between us. I didn't ask him to do it,
but he solemnly handed her over to me and gave us his blessing. It's all
too funny. Ah, Alyosha, if you only knew how light my heart is now! Would
you believe, it, I sat here eating my dinner and was nearly ordering
champagne to celebrate my first hour of freedom. Tfoo! It's been going on
nearly six months, and all at once I've thrown it off. I could never have
guessed even yesterday, how easy it would be to put an end to it if I
wanted."

"You are speaking of your love, Ivan?"

"Of my love, if you like. I fell in love with the young lady, I worried
myself over her and she worried me. I sat watching over her ... and all at
once it's collapsed! I spoke this morning with inspiration, but I went
away and roared with laughter. Would you believe it? Yes, it's the literal
truth."

"You seem very merry about it now," observed Alyosha, looking into his
face, which had suddenly grown brighter.

"But how could I tell that I didn't care for her a bit! Ha ha! It appears
after all I didn't. And yet how she attracted me! How attractive she was
just now when I made my speech! And do you know she attracts me awfully
even now, yet how easy it is to leave her. Do you think I am boasting?"

"No, only perhaps it wasn't love."

"Alyosha," laughed Ivan, "don't make reflections about love, it's unseemly
for you. How you rushed into the discussion this morning! I've forgotten
to kiss you for it.... But how she tormented me! It certainly was sitting
by a 'laceration.' Ah, she knew how I loved her! She loved me and not
Dmitri," Ivan insisted gayly. "Her feeling for Dmitri was simply a self-
laceration. All I told her just now was perfectly true, but the worst of
it is, it may take her fifteen or twenty years to find out that she
doesn't care for Dmitri, and loves me whom she torments, and perhaps she
may never find it out at all, in spite of her lesson to-day. Well, it's
better so; I can simply go away for good. By the way, how is she now? What
happened after I departed?"

Alyosha told him she had been hysterical, and that she was now, he heard,
unconscious and delirious.

"Isn't Madame Hohlakov laying it on?"

"I think not."

"I must find out. Nobody dies of hysterics, though. They don't matter. God
gave woman hysterics as a relief. I won't go to her at all. Why push
myself forward again?"

"But you told her that she had never cared for you."

"I did that on purpose. Alyosha, shall I call for some champagne? Let us
drink to my freedom. Ah, if only you knew how glad I am!"

"No, brother, we had better not drink," said Alyosha suddenly. "Besides I
feel somehow depressed."

"Yes, you've been depressed a long time, I've noticed it."

"Have you settled to go to-morrow morning, then?"

"Morning? I didn't say I should go in the morning.... But perhaps it may
be the morning. Would you believe it, I dined here to-day only to avoid
dining with the old man, I loathe him so. I should have left long ago, so
far as he is concerned. But why are you so worried about my going away?
We've plenty of time before I go, an eternity!"

"If you are going away to-morrow, what do you mean by an eternity?"

"But what does it matter to us?" laughed Ivan. "We've time enough for our
talk, for what brought us here. Why do you look so surprised? Answer: why
have we met here? To talk of my love for Katerina Ivanovna, of the old man
and Dmitri? of foreign travel? of the fatal position of Russia? Of the
Emperor Napoleon? Is that it?"

"No."

"Then you know what for. It's different for other people; but we in our
green youth have to settle the eternal questions first of all. That's what
we care about. Young Russia is talking about nothing but the eternal
questions now. Just when the old folks are all taken up with practical
questions. Why have you been looking at me in expectation for the last
three months? To ask me, 'What do you believe, or don't you believe at
all?' That's what your eyes have been meaning for these three months,
haven't they?"

"Perhaps so," smiled Alyosha. "You are not laughing at me, now, Ivan?"

"Me laughing! I don't want to wound my little brother who has been
watching me with such expectation for three months. Alyosha, look straight
at me! Of course I am just such a little boy as you are, only not a
novice. And what have Russian boys been doing up till now, some of them, I
mean? In this stinking tavern, for instance, here, they meet and sit down
in a corner. They've never met in their lives before and, when they go out
of the tavern, they won't meet again for forty years. And what do they
talk about in that momentary halt in the tavern? Of the eternal questions,
of the existence of God and immortality. And those who do not believe in
God talk of socialism or anarchism, of the transformation of all humanity
on a new pattern, so that it all comes to the same, they're the same
questions turned inside out. And masses, masses of the most original
Russian boys do nothing but talk of the eternal questions! Isn't it so?"

"Yes, for real Russians the questions of God's existence and of
immortality, or, as you say, the same questions turned inside out, come
first and foremost, of course, and so they should," said Alyosha, still
watching his brother with the same gentle and inquiring smile.

"Well, Alyosha, it's sometimes very unwise to be a Russian at all, but
anything stupider than the way Russian boys spend their time one can
hardly imagine. But there's one Russian boy called Alyosha I am awfully
fond of."

"How nicely you put that in!" Alyosha laughed suddenly.

"Well, tell me where to begin, give your orders. The existence of God,
eh?"

"Begin where you like. You declared yesterday at father's that there was
no God." Alyosha looked searchingly at his brother.

"I said that yesterday at dinner on purpose to tease you and I saw your
eyes glow. But now I've no objection to discussing with you, and I say so
very seriously. I want to be friends with you, Alyosha, for I have no
friends and want to try it. Well, only fancy, perhaps I too accept God,"
laughed Ivan; "that's a surprise for you, isn't it?"

"Yes, of course, if you are not joking now."

"Joking? I was told at the elder's yesterday that I was joking. You know,
dear boy, there was an old sinner in the eighteenth century who declared
that, if there were no God, he would have to be invented. _S'il n'existait
pas Dieu, il faudrait l'inventer._ And man has actually invented God. And
what's strange, what would be marvelous, is not that God should really
exist; the marvel is that such an idea, the idea of the necessity of God,
could enter the head of such a savage, vicious beast as man. So holy it
is, so touching, so wise and so great a credit it does to man. As for me,
I've long resolved not to think whether man created God or God man. And I
won't go through all the axioms laid down by Russian boys on that subject,
all derived from European hypotheses; for what's a hypothesis there, is an
axiom with the Russian boy, and not only with the boys but with their
teachers too, for our Russian professors are often just the same boys
themselves. And so I omit all the hypotheses. For what are we aiming at
now? I am trying to explain as quickly as possible my essential nature,
that is what manner of man I am, what I believe in, and for what I hope,
that's it, isn't it? And therefore I tell you that I accept God simply.
But you must note this: if God exists and if He really did create the
world, then, as we all know, He created it according to the geometry of
Euclid and the human mind with the conception of only three dimensions in
space. Yet there have been and still are geometricians and philosophers,
and even some of the most distinguished, who doubt whether the whole
universe, or to speak more widely the whole of being, was only created in
Euclid's geometry; they even dare to dream that two parallel lines, which
according to Euclid can never meet on earth, may meet somewhere in
infinity. I have come to the conclusion that, since I can't understand
even that, I can't expect to understand about God. I acknowledge humbly
that I have no faculty for settling such questions, I have a Euclidian
earthly mind, and how could I solve problems that are not of this world?
And I advise you never to think about it either, my dear Alyosha,
especially about God, whether He exists or not. All such questions are
utterly inappropriate for a mind created with an idea of only three
dimensions. And so I accept God and am glad to, and what's more, I accept
His wisdom, His purpose--which are utterly beyond our ken; I believe in the
underlying order and the meaning of life; I believe in the eternal harmony
in which they say we shall one day be blended. I believe in the Word to
Which the universe is striving, and Which Itself was 'with God,' and Which
Itself is God and so on, and so on, to infinity. There are all sorts of
phrases for it. I seem to be on the right path, don't I? Yet would you
believe it, in the final result I don't accept this world of God's, and,
although I know it exists, I don't accept it at all. It's not that I don't
accept God, you must understand, it's the world created by Him I don't and
cannot accept. Let me make it plain. I believe like a child that suffering
will be healed and made up for, that all the humiliating absurdity of
human contradictions will vanish like a pitiful mirage, like the
despicable fabrication of the impotent and infinitely small Euclidian mind
of man, that in the world's finale, at the moment of eternal harmony,
something so precious will come to pass that it will suffice for all
hearts, for the comforting of all resentments, for the atonement of all
the crimes of humanity, of all the blood they've shed; that it will make
it not only possible to forgive but to justify all that has happened with
men--but though all that may come to pass, I don't accept it. I won't
accept it. Even if parallel lines do meet and I see it myself, I shall see
it and say that they've met, but still I won't accept it. That's what's at
the root of me, Alyosha; that's my creed. I am in earnest in what I say. I
began our talk as stupidly as I could on purpose, but I've led up to my
confession, for that's all you want. You didn't want to hear about God,
but only to know what the brother you love lives by. And so I've told
you."

Ivan concluded his long tirade with marked and unexpected feeling.

"And why did you begin 'as stupidly as you could'?" asked Alyosha, looking
dreamily at him.

"To begin with, for the sake of being Russian. Russian conversations on
such subjects are always carried on inconceivably stupidly. And secondly,
the stupider one is, the closer one is to reality. The stupider one is,
the clearer one is. Stupidity is brief and artless, while intelligence
wriggles and hides itself. Intelligence is a knave, but stupidity is
honest and straightforward. I've led the conversation to my despair, and
the more stupidly I have presented it, the better for me."

"You will explain why you don't accept the world?" said Alyosha.

"To be sure I will, it's not a secret, that's what I've been leading up
to. Dear little brother, I don't want to corrupt you or to turn you from
your stronghold, perhaps I want to be healed by you." Ivan smiled suddenly
quite like a little gentle child. Alyosha had never seen such a smile on
his face before.

Ivan tells Alyosha that it's about time they got acquainted, since they haven't really gotten to know each other since Ivan left for school when he was 15 and Alyosha 11. Thinking about his dramatic scene with Katerina, Ivan tells Alyosha that he still thirsts for life, which he believes is a very Karamazov quality. Alyosha agrees and professes that we should all love life, even more than meaning. Ivan asks Alyosha whether he's seen Dmitri today. Alyosha says no, but he did see Smerdyakov. Ivan is intensely interested in what Smerdyakov had to say. Alyosha asks Ivan what will happen between Dmitri and their father, and Ivan fends off the question, asking Alyosha if he's Dmitri's "keeper" . Despite everything, Ivan seems to be in a celebratory mood and is positively happy about being free of Katerina. In fact, he wonders if he ever loved her in the first place. He then claims that it's important for Alyosha to understand exactly what kind of man he is, and goes off on a long monologue about how he believes in God but rejects the world that God created.

The Brothers Get Acquainted When Alyosha arrives at the restaurant, he finds Ivan sitting at a table alone. Ivan asks Alyosha to join him and says he has begun to admire him and would like to get to know him better. Alyosha is worried about what will happen to Fyodor Pavlovich and Dmitri if Ivan leaves for Moscow, but Ivan firmly declares that what happens to the others is not his responsibility. He says, in fact, that it was Fyodor Pavlovich's repulsiveness that caused him to come to this restaurant in the first place, simply to escape


Chapter IV. Rebellion

"I must make you one confession," Ivan began. "I could never understand
how one can love one's neighbors. It's just one's neighbors, to my mind,
that one can't love, though one might love those at a distance. I once
read somewhere of John the Merciful, a saint, that when a hungry, frozen
beggar came to him, he took him into his bed, held him in his arms, and
began breathing into his mouth, which was putrid and loathsome from some
awful disease. I am convinced that he did that from 'self-laceration,'
from the self-laceration of falsity, for the sake of the charity imposed
by duty, as a penance laid on him. For any one to love a man, he must be
hidden, for as soon as he shows his face, love is gone."

"Father Zossima has talked of that more than once," observed Alyosha; "he,
too, said that the face of a man often hinders many people not practiced
in love, from loving him. But yet there's a great deal of love in mankind,
and almost Christ-like love. I know that myself, Ivan."

"Well, I know nothing of it so far, and can't understand it, and the
innumerable mass of mankind are with me there. The question is, whether
that's due to men's bad qualities or whether it's inherent in their
nature. To my thinking, Christ-like love for men is a miracle impossible
on earth. He was God. But we are not gods. Suppose I, for instance, suffer
intensely. Another can never know how much I suffer, because he is another
and not I. And what's more, a man is rarely ready to admit another's
suffering (as though it were a distinction). Why won't he admit it, do you
think? Because I smell unpleasant, because I have a stupid face, because I
once trod on his foot. Besides, there is suffering and suffering;
degrading, humiliating suffering such as humbles me--hunger, for
instance--my benefactor will perhaps allow me; but when you come to higher
suffering--for an idea, for instance--he will very rarely admit that,
perhaps because my face strikes him as not at all what he fancies a man
should have who suffers for an idea. And so he deprives me instantly of
his favor, and not at all from badness of heart. Beggars, especially
genteel beggars, ought never to show themselves, but to ask for charity
through the newspapers. One can love one's neighbors in the abstract, or
even at a distance, but at close quarters it's almost impossible. If it
were as on the stage, in the ballet, where if beggars come in, they wear
silken rags and tattered lace and beg for alms dancing gracefully, then
one might like looking at them. But even then we should not love them. But
enough of that. I simply wanted to show you my point of view. I meant to
speak of the suffering of mankind generally, but we had better confine
ourselves to the sufferings of the children. That reduces the scope of my
argument to a tenth of what it would be. Still we'd better keep to the
children, though it does weaken my case. But, in the first place, children
can be loved even at close quarters, even when they are dirty, even when
they are ugly (I fancy, though, children never are ugly). The second
reason why I won't speak of grown-up people is that, besides being
disgusting and unworthy of love, they have a compensation--they've eaten
the apple and know good and evil, and they have become 'like gods.' They
go on eating it still. But the children haven't eaten anything, and are so
far innocent. Are you fond of children, Alyosha? I know you are, and you
will understand why I prefer to speak of them. If they, too, suffer
horribly on earth, they must suffer for their fathers' sins, they must be
punished for their fathers, who have eaten the apple; but that reasoning
is of the other world and is incomprehensible for the heart of man here on
earth. The innocent must not suffer for another's sins, and especially
such innocents! You may be surprised at me, Alyosha, but I am awfully fond
of children, too. And observe, cruel people, the violent, the rapacious,
the Karamazovs are sometimes very fond of children. Children while they
are quite little--up to seven, for instance--are so remote from grown-up
people; they are different creatures, as it were, of a different species.
I knew a criminal in prison who had, in the course of his career as a
burglar, murdered whole families, including several children. But when he
was in prison, he had a strange affection for them. He spent all his time
at his window, watching the children playing in the prison yard. He
trained one little boy to come up to his window and made great friends
with him.... You don't know why I am telling you all this, Alyosha? My
head aches and I am sad."

"You speak with a strange air," observed Alyosha uneasily, "as though you
were not quite yourself."

"By the way, a Bulgarian I met lately in Moscow," Ivan went on, seeming
not to hear his brother's words, "told me about the crimes committed by
Turks and Circassians in all parts of Bulgaria through fear of a general
rising of the Slavs. They burn villages, murder, outrage women and
children, they nail their prisoners by the ears to the fences, leave them
so till morning, and in the morning they hang them--all sorts of things you
can't imagine. People talk sometimes of bestial cruelty, but that's a
great injustice and insult to the beasts; a beast can never be so cruel as
a man, so artistically cruel. The tiger only tears and gnaws, that's all
he can do. He would never think of nailing people by the ears, even if he
were able to do it. These Turks took a pleasure in torturing children,
too; cutting the unborn child from the mother's womb, and tossing babies
up in the air and catching them on the points of their bayonets before
their mothers' eyes. Doing it before the mothers' eyes was what gave zest
to the amusement. Here is another scene that I thought very interesting.
Imagine a trembling mother with her baby in her arms, a circle of invading
Turks around her. They've planned a diversion: they pet the baby, laugh to
make it laugh. They succeed, the baby laughs. At that moment a Turk points
a pistol four inches from the baby's face. The baby laughs with glee,
holds out its little hands to the pistol, and he pulls the trigger in the
baby's face and blows out its brains. Artistic, wasn't it? By the way,
Turks are particularly fond of sweet things, they say."

"Brother, what are you driving at?" asked Alyosha.

"I think if the devil doesn't exist, but man has created him, he has
created him in his own image and likeness."

"Just as he did God, then?" observed Alyosha.

" 'It's wonderful how you can turn words,' as Polonius says in _Hamlet_,"
laughed Ivan. "You turn my words against me. Well, I am glad. Yours must
be a fine God, if man created Him in his image and likeness. You asked
just now what I was driving at. You see, I am fond of collecting certain
facts, and, would you believe, I even copy anecdotes of a certain sort
from newspapers and books, and I've already got a fine collection. The
Turks, of course, have gone into it, but they are foreigners. I have
specimens from home that are even better than the Turks. You know we
prefer beating--rods and scourges--that's our national institution. Nailing
ears is unthinkable for us, for we are, after all, Europeans. But the rod
and the scourge we have always with us and they cannot be taken from us.
Abroad now they scarcely do any beating. Manners are more humane, or laws
have been passed, so that they don't dare to flog men now. But they make
up for it in another way just as national as ours. And so national that it
would be practically impossible among us, though I believe we are being
inoculated with it, since the religious movement began in our aristocracy.
I have a charming pamphlet, translated from the French, describing how,
quite recently, five years ago, a murderer, Richard, was executed--a young
man, I believe, of three and twenty, who repented and was converted to the
Christian faith at the very scaffold. This Richard was an illegitimate
child who was given as a child of six by his parents to some shepherds on
the Swiss mountains. They brought him up to work for them. He grew up like
a little wild beast among them. The shepherds taught him nothing, and
scarcely fed or clothed him, but sent him out at seven to herd the flock
in cold and wet, and no one hesitated or scrupled to treat him so. Quite
the contrary, they thought they had every right, for Richard had been
given to them as a chattel, and they did not even see the necessity of
feeding him. Richard himself describes how in those years, like the
Prodigal Son in the Gospel, he longed to eat of the mash given to the
pigs, which were fattened for sale. But they wouldn't even give him that,
and beat him when he stole from the pigs. And that was how he spent all
his childhood and his youth, till he grew up and was strong enough to go
away and be a thief. The savage began to earn his living as a day laborer
in Geneva. He drank what he earned, he lived like a brute, and finished by
killing and robbing an old man. He was caught, tried, and condemned to
death. They are not sentimentalists there. And in prison he was
immediately surrounded by pastors, members of Christian brotherhoods,
philanthropic ladies, and the like. They taught him to read and write in
prison, and expounded the Gospel to him. They exhorted him, worked upon
him, drummed at him incessantly, till at last he solemnly confessed his
crime. He was converted. He wrote to the court himself that he was a
monster, but that in the end God had vouchsafed him light and shown grace.
All Geneva was in excitement about him--all philanthropic and religious
Geneva. All the aristocratic and well-bred society of the town rushed to
the prison, kissed Richard and embraced him; 'You are our brother, you
have found grace.' And Richard does nothing but weep with emotion, 'Yes,
I've found grace! All my youth and childhood I was glad of pigs' food, but
now even I have found grace. I am dying in the Lord.' 'Yes, Richard, die
in the Lord; you have shed blood and must die. Though it's not your fault
that you knew not the Lord, when you coveted the pigs' food and were
beaten for stealing it (which was very wrong of you, for stealing is
forbidden); but you've shed blood and you must die.' And on the last day,
Richard, perfectly limp, did nothing but cry and repeat every minute:
'This is my happiest day. I am going to the Lord.' 'Yes,' cry the pastors
and the judges and philanthropic ladies. 'This is the happiest day of your
life, for you are going to the Lord!' They all walk or drive to the
scaffold in procession behind the prison van. At the scaffold they call to
Richard: 'Die, brother, die in the Lord, for even thou hast found grace!'
And so, covered with his brothers' kisses, Richard is dragged on to the
scaffold, and led to the guillotine. And they chopped off his head in
brotherly fashion, because he had found grace. Yes, that's characteristic.
That pamphlet is translated into Russian by some Russian philanthropists
of aristocratic rank and evangelical aspirations, and has been distributed
gratis for the enlightenment of the people. The case of Richard is
interesting because it's national. Though to us it's absurd to cut off a
man's head, because he has become our brother and has found grace, yet we
have our own speciality, which is all but worse. Our historical pastime is
the direct satisfaction of inflicting pain. There are lines in Nekrassov
describing how a peasant lashes a horse on the eyes, 'on its meek eyes,'
every one must have seen it. It's peculiarly Russian. He describes how a
feeble little nag has foundered under too heavy a load and cannot move.
The peasant beats it, beats it savagely, beats it at last not knowing what
he is doing in the intoxication of cruelty, thrashes it mercilessly over
and over again. 'However weak you are, you must pull, if you die for it.'
The nag strains, and then he begins lashing the poor defenseless creature
on its weeping, on its 'meek eyes.' The frantic beast tugs and draws the
load, trembling all over, gasping for breath, moving sideways, with a sort
of unnatural spasmodic action--it's awful in Nekrassov. But that's only a
horse, and God has given horses to be beaten. So the Tatars have taught
us, and they left us the knout as a remembrance of it. But men, too, can
be beaten. A well-educated, cultured gentleman and his wife beat their own
child with a birch-rod, a girl of seven. I have an exact account of it.
The papa was glad that the birch was covered with twigs. 'It stings more,'
said he, and so he began stinging his daughter. I know for a fact there
are people who at every blow are worked up to sensuality, to literal
sensuality, which increases progressively at every blow they inflict. They
beat for a minute, for five minutes, for ten minutes, more often and more
savagely. The child screams. At last the child cannot scream, it gasps,
'Daddy! daddy!' By some diabolical unseemly chance the case was brought
into court. A counsel is engaged. The Russian people have long called a
barrister 'a conscience for hire.' The counsel protests in his client's
defense. 'It's such a simple thing,' he says, 'an everyday domestic event.
A father corrects his child. To our shame be it said, it is brought into
court.' The jury, convinced by him, give a favorable verdict. The public
roars with delight that the torturer is acquitted. Ah, pity I wasn't
there! I would have proposed to raise a subscription in his honor!
Charming pictures.

"But I've still better things about children. I've collected a great,
great deal about Russian children, Alyosha. There was a little girl of
five who was hated by her father and mother, 'most worthy and respectable
people, of good education and breeding.' You see, I must repeat again, it
is a peculiar characteristic of many people, this love of torturing
children, and children only. To all other types of humanity these
torturers behave mildly and benevolently, like cultivated and humane
Europeans; but they are very fond of tormenting children, even fond of
children themselves in that sense. It's just their defenselessness that
tempts the tormentor, just the angelic confidence of the child who has no
refuge and no appeal, that sets his vile blood on fire. In every man, of
course, a demon lies hidden--the demon of rage, the demon of lustful heat
at the screams of the tortured victim, the demon of lawlessness let off
the chain, the demon of diseases that follow on vice, gout, kidney
disease, and so on.

"This poor child of five was subjected to every possible torture by those
cultivated parents. They beat her, thrashed her, kicked her for no reason
till her body was one bruise. Then, they went to greater refinements of
cruelty--shut her up all night in the cold and frost in a privy, and
because she didn't ask to be taken up at night (as though a child of five
sleeping its angelic, sound sleep could be trained to wake and ask), they
smeared her face and filled her mouth with excrement, and it was her
mother, her mother did this. And that mother could sleep, hearing the poor
child's groans! Can you understand why a little creature, who can't even
understand what's done to her, should beat her little aching heart with
her tiny fist in the dark and the cold, and weep her meek unresentful
tears to dear, kind God to protect her? Do you understand that, friend and
brother, you pious and humble novice? Do you understand why this infamy
must be and is permitted? Without it, I am told, man could not have
existed on earth, for he could not have known good and evil. Why should he
know that diabolical good and evil when it costs so much? Why, the whole
world of knowledge is not worth that child's prayer to 'dear, kind God'! I
say nothing of the sufferings of grown-up people, they have eaten the
apple, damn them, and the devil take them all! But these little ones! I am
making you suffer, Alyosha, you are not yourself. I'll leave off if you
like."

"Never mind. I want to suffer too," muttered Alyosha.

"One picture, only one more, because it's so curious, so characteristic,
and I have only just read it in some collection of Russian antiquities.
I've forgotten the name. I must look it up. It was in the darkest days of
serfdom at the beginning of the century, and long live the Liberator of
the People! There was in those days a general of aristocratic connections,
the owner of great estates, one of those men--somewhat exceptional, I
believe, even then--who, retiring from the service into a life of leisure,
are convinced that they've earned absolute power over the lives of their
subjects. There were such men then. So our general, settled on his
property of two thousand souls, lives in pomp, and domineers over his poor
neighbors as though they were dependents and buffoons. He has kennels of
hundreds of hounds and nearly a hundred dog-boys--all mounted, and in
uniform. One day a serf-boy, a little child of eight, threw a stone in
play and hurt the paw of the general's favorite hound. 'Why is my favorite
dog lame?' He is told that the boy threw a stone that hurt the dog's paw.
'So you did it.' The general looked the child up and down. 'Take him.' He
was taken--taken from his mother and kept shut up all night. Early that
morning the general comes out on horseback, with the hounds, his
dependents, dog-boys, and huntsmen, all mounted around him in full hunting
parade. The servants are summoned for their edification, and in front of
them all stands the mother of the child. The child is brought from the
lock-up. It's a gloomy, cold, foggy autumn day, a capital day for hunting.
The general orders the child to be undressed; the child is stripped naked.
He shivers, numb with terror, not daring to cry.... 'Make him run,'
commands the general. 'Run! run!' shout the dog-boys. The boy runs.... 'At
him!' yells the general, and he sets the whole pack of hounds on the
child. The hounds catch him, and tear him to pieces before his mother's
eyes!... I believe the general was afterwards declared incapable of
administering his estates. Well--what did he deserve? To be shot? To be
shot for the satisfaction of our moral feelings? Speak, Alyosha!"

"To be shot," murmured Alyosha, lifting his eyes to Ivan with a pale,
twisted smile.

"Bravo!" cried Ivan, delighted. "If even you say so.... You're a pretty
monk! So there is a little devil sitting in your heart, Alyosha
Karamazov!"

"What I said was absurd, but--"

"That's just the point, that 'but'!" cried Ivan. "Let me tell you, novice,
that the absurd is only too necessary on earth. The world stands on
absurdities, and perhaps nothing would have come to pass in it without
them. We know what we know!"

"What do you know?"

"I understand nothing," Ivan went on, as though in delirium. "I don't want
to understand anything now. I want to stick to the fact. I made up my mind
long ago not to understand. If I try to understand anything, I shall be
false to the fact, and I have determined to stick to the fact."

"Why are you trying me?" Alyosha cried, with sudden distress. "Will you
say what you mean at last?"

"Of course, I will; that's what I've been leading up to. You are dear to
me, I don't want to let you go, and I won't give you up to your Zossima."

Ivan for a minute was silent, his face became all at once very sad.

"Listen! I took the case of children only to make my case clearer. Of the
other tears of humanity with which the earth is soaked from its crust to
its center, I will say nothing. I have narrowed my subject on purpose. I
am a bug, and I recognize in all humility that I cannot understand why the
world is arranged as it is. Men are themselves to blame, I suppose; they
were given paradise, they wanted freedom, and stole fire from heaven,
though they knew they would become unhappy, so there is no need to pity
them. With my pitiful, earthly, Euclidian understanding, all I know is
that there is suffering and that there are none guilty; that cause follows
effect, simply and directly; that everything flows and finds its level--but
that's only Euclidian nonsense, I know that, and I can't consent to live
by it! What comfort is it to me that there are none guilty and that cause
follows effect simply and directly, and that I know it?--I must have
justice, or I will destroy myself. And not justice in some remote infinite
time and space, but here on earth, and that I could see myself. I have
believed in it. I want to see it, and if I am dead by then, let me rise
again, for if it all happens without me, it will be too unfair. Surely I
haven't suffered, simply that I, my crimes and my sufferings, may manure
the soil of the future harmony for somebody else. I want to see with my
own eyes the hind lie down with the lion and the victim rise up and
embrace his murderer. I want to be there when every one suddenly
understands what it has all been for. All the religions of the world are
built on this longing, and I am a believer. But then there are the
children, and what am I to do about them? That's a question I can't
answer. For the hundredth time I repeat, there are numbers of questions,
but I've only taken the children, because in their case what I mean is so
unanswerably clear. Listen! If all must suffer to pay for the eternal
harmony, what have children to do with it, tell me, please? It's beyond
all comprehension why they should suffer, and why they should pay for the
harmony. Why should they, too, furnish material to enrich the soil for the
harmony of the future? I understand solidarity in sin among men. I
understand solidarity in retribution, too; but there can be no such
solidarity with children. And if it is really true that they must share
responsibility for all their fathers' crimes, such a truth is not of this
world and is beyond my comprehension. Some jester will say, perhaps, that
the child would have grown up and have sinned, but you see he didn't grow
up, he was torn to pieces by the dogs, at eight years old. Oh, Alyosha, I
am not blaspheming! I understand, of course, what an upheaval of the
universe it will be, when everything in heaven and earth blends in one
hymn of praise and everything that lives and has lived cries aloud: 'Thou
art just, O Lord, for Thy ways are revealed.' When the mother embraces the
fiend who threw her child to the dogs, and all three cry aloud with tears,
'Thou art just, O Lord!' then, of course, the crown of knowledge will be
reached and all will be made clear. But what pulls me up here is that I
can't accept that harmony. And while I am on earth, I make haste to take
my own measures. You see, Alyosha, perhaps it really may happen that if I
live to that moment, or rise again to see it, I, too, perhaps, may cry
aloud with the rest, looking at the mother embracing the child's torturer,
'Thou art just, O Lord!' but I don't want to cry aloud then. While there
is still time, I hasten to protect myself, and so I renounce the higher
harmony altogether. It's not worth the tears of that one tortured child
who beat itself on the breast with its little fist and prayed in its
stinking outhouse, with its unexpiated tears to 'dear, kind God'! It's not
worth it, because those tears are unatoned for. They must be atoned for,
or there can be no harmony. But how? How are you going to atone for them?
Is it possible? By their being avenged? But what do I care for avenging
them? What do I care for a hell for oppressors? What good can hell do,
since those children have already been tortured? And what becomes of
harmony, if there is hell? I want to forgive. I want to embrace. I don't
want more suffering. And if the sufferings of children go to swell the sum
of sufferings which was necessary to pay for truth, then I protest that
the truth is not worth such a price. I don't want the mother to embrace
the oppressor who threw her son to the dogs! She dare not forgive him! Let
her forgive him for herself, if she will, let her forgive the torturer for
the immeasurable suffering of her mother's heart. But the sufferings of
her tortured child she has no right to forgive; she dare not forgive the
torturer, even if the child were to forgive him! And if that is so, if
they dare not forgive, what becomes of harmony? Is there in the whole
world a being who would have the right to forgive and could forgive? I
don't want harmony. From love for humanity I don't want it. I would rather
be left with the unavenged suffering. I would rather remain with my
unavenged suffering and unsatisfied indignation, _even if I were wrong_.
Besides, too high a price is asked for harmony; it's beyond our means to
pay so much to enter on it. And so I hasten to give back my entrance
ticket, and if I am an honest man I am bound to give it back as soon as
possible. And that I am doing. It's not God that I don't accept, Alyosha,
only I most respectfully return Him the ticket."

"That's rebellion," murmured Alyosha, looking down.

"Rebellion? I am sorry you call it that," said Ivan earnestly. "One can
hardly live in rebellion, and I want to live. Tell me yourself, I
challenge you--answer. Imagine that you are creating a fabric of human
destiny with the object of making men happy in the end, giving them peace
and rest at last, but that it was essential and inevitable to torture to
death only one tiny creature--that baby beating its breast with its fist,
for instance--and to found that edifice on its unavenged tears, would you
consent to be the architect on those conditions? Tell me, and tell the
truth."

"No, I wouldn't consent," said Alyosha softly.

"And can you admit the idea that men for whom you are building it would
agree to accept their happiness on the foundation of the unexpiated blood
of a little victim? And accepting it would remain happy for ever?"

"No, I can't admit it. Brother," said Alyosha suddenly, with flashing
eyes, "you said just now, is there a being in the whole world who would
have the right to forgive and could forgive? But there is a Being and He
can forgive everything, all and for all, because He gave His innocent
blood for all and everything. You have forgotten Him, and on Him is built
the edifice, and it is to Him they cry aloud, 'Thou art just, O Lord, for
Thy ways are revealed!' "

"Ah! the One without sin and His blood! No, I have not forgotten Him; on
the contrary I've been wondering all the time how it was you did not bring
Him in before, for usually all arguments on your side put Him in the
foreground. Do you know, Alyosha--don't laugh! I made a poem about a year
ago. If you can waste another ten minutes on me, I'll tell it to you."

"You wrote a poem?"

"Oh, no, I didn't write it," laughed Ivan, "and I've never written two
lines of poetry in my life. But I made up this poem in prose and I
remembered it. I was carried away when I made it up. You will be my first
reader--that is listener. Why should an author forego even one listener?"
smiled Ivan. "Shall I tell it to you?"

"I am all attention," said Alyosha.

"My poem is called 'The Grand Inquisitor'; it's a ridiculous thing, but I
want to tell it to you."

Ivan continues to explain his refusal to accept the world that God created by citing the suffering of the most innocent of human beings: small children. He lists for Alyosha examples of horrendous child abuse: a Turk killing a Bulgarian child before its mother; a Swiss named Richard who had a miserable childhood and grew up to kill a man, but eagerly awaited his hanging because he'd meet God, or so he's told; parents who flog their daughter mercilessly, and the public outcry that the parents were even brought before a court; parents who made their daughter sleep in an outhouse all night; and a general who, furious that a kid hurt his dog, ordered his hounds to hunt the kid down and tear him apart. After these horrendous examples, Ivan concludes that he could not accept a world founded on the suffering of just one child, and asks Alyosha if he could either. Alyosha agrees, but he then suggests that the world is founded on the suffering of an innocent who did have the right to forgive all wrongs - Jesus Christ. Ivan rejects Alyosha's reply and tells Alyosha that he'd like to share a little poem with him, which - get this - he hasn't written, but has memorized.

Rebellion The two brothers begin to discuss questions of God's existence and the immortality of the soul. Ivan says that, in his heart, he has not rejected God, but that at the same time he feels himself unable to accept God or the world that God has created. Ivan says that he can love humanity in the abstract, but that, when he meets individual men and women, he finds it impossible to love them. Moreover, he is deeply troubled by the injustice of suffering on Earth. He asks Alyosha how a just God could permit the suffering of children, creatures too young even to have sinned. He says that to love such a God would be the equivalent of a tortured man choosing to love his torturer. When Alyosha is troubled by Ivan's position, Ivan asks him if he could accept even a perfect world in which the perfection depended on the suffering of an innocent creature. Alyosha reminds Ivan of the sacrifice of Christ, and Ivan, insisting that he has not forgotten Christ, recites a prose poem, called The Grand Inquisitor, that he wrote some time ago.

Book V: Pro and Contra, Chapters 1-4 Lise is portrayed as a character poised between the two philosophical poles of the novel: the love represented by Alyosha and the despair represented by Ivan. Lise's gleefully mischievous behavior in the early part of the novel is actually the early onset of what finally becomes a wild, temperamental capriciousness. She struggles to be happy, but, as is clear from her increasingly antagonistic behavior toward her mother, she is beginning to distrust the authority figures in her life and to feel frustrated with the shortcomings of the world around her. She reacts to her inner turmoil with wild mood swings and displays of extreme affection and extreme hatred. In this way, Lise is linked to the "shriekers" described in Books I and II, women who are so unable to cope with the horrors of the world that they collapse into hysteria, and thus serve as symbols of the despair that besets those who share the anguished doubt embodied by Ivan. In this part of the novel, Lise seizes on Alyosha as a possible source of salvation. But while she admires his blithe faith, she is unable to share it, and she eventually succumbs to a petulant, spiteful despair. Though this scene seems happy, the seeds of Lise's downfall are already apparent in the way that she rebels against her mother, in the extremity of her emotional displays, and in the way she oscillates between admitting and hiding her love for Alyosha. Ivan's dinner conversation with Alyosha adds a new level of complexity to the novel's exploration of religion and spirituality. The novel does not simplistically suggest that belief in God brings unmitigated happiness while doubt brings unmitigated suffering, and the brothers' dinner conversation provides the rationale behind the idea that not believing in God is more reasonable and compassionate than believing in him. Through his description of the unjust suffering of children and of the general misery of mankind's situation on Earth, Ivan presents the strongest case against religion in the novel. Ivan's dilemma mirrors the biblical dilemma of Job, who asked how a loving God could allow mankind to endure injustice and misery for no apparent reason. Ivan cannot understand why young children would be made to suffer under a loving God. In rejecting outright the explanation that God's ways are too mysterious for mankind to comprehend, Ivan illustrates the depth of his commitment to rational coherence. He can only believe in a God who is rational like the human beings he created, and he thinks that a truly loving God would have made the universe comprehensible to mankind. As such, Ivan's religious doubt is slightly different from atheism, because Ivan says that if God does indeed exist, he is not good or just. The problem is not resolvable. Either no God exists, or a God exists who is the equivalent of a torturer. This problem is the ultimate source of Ivan's despair. Ivan's understanding of the world means that mankind is alone in the universe and that Fyodor Pavlovich's revolting attitude toward life is acceptable and even logical. If this is not the case, then God himself must be a heartless tyrant