The Brothers Karamazov - Fyodor Dostoyevsky (reading an ebook TXT) 📗

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?”

 

“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 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 gaily. “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

marvellous, 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