The Karamazov Brothers

by Fyodor Dostoevsky

  ‘Nothing at all,’ replied Ivan. ‘He’s decided to show me respect, he’s a lackey and a scoundrel. But when the time comes, he’ll be top dog.’

  ‘Top dog?’

  ‘There’ll be others—even worse than him, but there’ll be his sort too. First his sort, and then the really bad ones.’

  ‘And when will that be?’

  ‘The rocket will go up and fizzle out perhaps. Just now, people don’t particularly want to listen to these soup-stirrers.’

  ‘True, my boy, but this Balaam’s ass won’t stop thinking and, left to his own devices, heaven only knows what he might come up with in the end.’

  ‘He’s collecting his thoughts,’ Ivan smiled.

  ‘That’s as may be, but I know he can’t abide me, or anybody else for that matter, including you, even though you might think he’s decided to “look up to you”. As for Alyosha, it goes without saying he despises him. It’s true he doesn’t steal or gossip, he keeps his mouth shut, never washes dirty linen in public, makes an excellent koulibiaca,* but when all’s said and done—to hell with him! Surely he’s not worth talking about?’

  ‘Of course he’s not.’

  ‘As to what he may think up, if you ask me, the Russian peasant ought to be flogged. I’ve always maintained as much. Our peasant’s a rogue, he doesn’t deserve pity, and it’s a good job he’s still birched. Russia’s strength is in its birches. Once they do away with the forests—that’ll be the end of Russia. I’m all for clever people. But we were too clever by half when we stopped flogging the peasants, they carry on flogging one another just the same though. And a good thing too. With what measure ye mete, it shall yourself be measured,* or words to that effect… In short, it shall be measured. But Russia’s a pigsty. My boy, if only you knew how I hate Russia… not Russia, mind, but all these vices… come to think of it, Russia too. Tout cela c’est de la cochonnerie.* You know what I really like? I like a sense of humour.’

  ‘You’ve already had another brandy, haven’t you? That’s enough for now, isn’t it?’

  ‘I’m just going to have another one, and then one more after that, and that’ll be it. No, wait a minute, you interrupted me. When we passed through Mokroye, I talked to an old peasant and he said: “What we enjoy most of all”, he said, “is sentencing the girls to a thrashing and letting the lads get on with it. The one the lad thrashes today, he’ll marry tomorrow, so it works out well for the girls too,” he says. Can you imagine such Marquises de Sade,* eh? Still, say what you like, you must admit it’s clever… Why don’t we go there and see for ourselves, eh? Alyosha, you’re blushing? No need to be bashful, my child. Pity I didn’t stay for lunch at the abbot’s, I could have told the monks about the girls at Mokroye. Alyosha, don’t be angry with me for offending your abbot. It infuriates me, my boy. If there is a God, if He exists–well then of course I’m guilty and I’ll be answerable, but if He doesn’t, those fathers of yours should get what’s coming to them! Chopping off their heads would be too good for them, they stand in the way of progress. This question torments me, do you believe me, Ivan? No, you don’t believe me, I see it in your eyes. You believe those who say I’m just a buffoon. Alyosha, do you believe that I’m not just a buffoon?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘And I believe that you believe that, and that you’re being sincere. You look sincere, and you speak sincerely. But not you Ivan. You’re arrogant… Still, if I were you Alyosha, I’d leave that monastery of yours. It would be nice to sweep all this mystical mumbo-jumbo clean out of Russia and bring all fools to their senses once and for all. Think how much gold and silver that would bring the Exchequer!’

  ‘Why sweep it away?’ Ivan asked.

  ‘So that truth should triumph all the sooner, that’s why.’

  ‘Once truth triumphed, you’d be the first to get fleeced and then… thrown on the scrap heap.’

  ‘Ah! Come to think of it, you may be right. Oh, what an ass I am,’ Fyodor Pavlovich suddenly cried out, lightly striking his forehead. ‘Well then, let your monastery stay, Alyosha, if that’s the case. We smart ones will carry on sitting pretty, enjoying our brandy. You know, Ivan, God must have arranged things like this on purpose, mustn’t He? Tell me, Ivan: does God exist or not? Wait, be serious, tell me the truth! Why are you laughing again?’

  ‘I’m laughing at your witty comment on Smerdyakov’s belief in the two hermits who can move mountains.’

  ‘What’s that got to do with it?’

  ‘A lot.’

  ‘Well, that means I’m a true Russian, I too have that Russian streak in me, and you, you philosopher, I can catch you out by your Russian streak. Do you want me to catch you out? It’s a bet, tomorrow I’ll do it. But I still want you to tell me: does God exist or not? Seriously now! I insist you be serious.’

  ‘No, there is no God.’

  ‘Alyosha, does God exist?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And what about immortality, Ivan, any sort of immortality, just a tiny bit, just a teeny bit of immortality?’

  ‘There’s no immortality either.’

  ‘None at all?’

  ‘None.’

  ‘You mean absolutely none, or just a little something after all? Perhaps a smidgen of something? Surely not complete nothingness!’

  ‘Complete nothingness.’

  ‘Alyosha, is the soul immortal?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So there is God and immortality?

  ‘Yes, both God and immortality of the soul. Immortality is in God.’

  ‘Hm, I’d say Ivan’s right. Oh Lord, to think how much faith, how much energy man has wasted on this forlorn hope for thousands of years! Who is it who’s been mocking mankind so cruelly, Ivan? For the last time, yes or no: does God exist or not? For the last time!’

  ‘And for the last time, no.’

  ‘Who is it, then, who’s been mocking mankind, Ivan?’

  ‘The devil, perhaps,’ Ivan Fyodorovich smiled.

  ‘Does the devil exist?’

  ‘No, there’s no devil either.’

  ‘Pity. Dammit, I’d like to lay my hands on whoever first invented God! Stringing him up from an aspen tree would be too good for him.’

  ‘There wouldn’t have been any civilization at all if God hadn’t been invented.’

  ‘There wouldn’t, would there? You mean without God?’

  ‘That’s right. And no brandy either. I think I’d better take that bottle from you now.’

  ‘Wait, wait, wait, my dear chap, just one more glass. I’ve offended Alyosha. Are you angry with me, Aleksei? My dear, dear Aleksei!’

  ‘No, I’m not angry. I know your thoughts. Your heart is better than your head.’

  ‘“My heart is better than my head”?… Good Lord, and it’s you who says so? Ivan, do you love Alyosha?’

  ‘Yes, I do.’

  ‘You should.’ (Fyodor Pavlovich was getting very drunk.) ‘Listen, Alyosha, I was awfully rude to your starets. But I was distraught. But that starets is a clever one, don’t you think, Ivan?’

  ‘I’d say he is.’

  ‘He is, he is, il y a du Piron là-dedans.* He’s a Jesuit, a Russian one, that is. As befits a noble soul, he’s tortured by repressed indignation at the need to dissemble… to put on a sanctimonious act.’

  ‘But surely he believes in God.’

  ‘Not a bit of it. Didn’t you know? He’s quite frank about it to everyone, well, not everyone, but to all the intelligent people that come to him. He came straight out with it to Governor Schulz: “Credo,* but what in, I don’t know.”’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘That’s what he said. Word for word. But I respect him. There’s something mephistophelean about the man, or rather, something of A Hero of Our Time … Arbenin* or someone… in a word, you see, he’s a sensualist, he’s such a sensualist that even now I’d be afraid if my daughter or wife were to go to confession to him. Once he starts telling stories… About three years ago he invited us to a tea
party, liqueur was passed round (the ladies keep him stocked up with liqueur), and you should have heard him go on about the olden days, we nearly split our sides… Especially how he came to cure a palsied woman. “If it wasn’t for my bad leg,” he said, “I’d dance for you.” Fancy that! “The unholy things I got up to in my time,” he says. He got sixty thousand off the merchant Demidov.’

  ‘What, he stole it?’

  ‘Yes, the man brought the money to him in all good faith: “Look after it for me, my friend, I’m expecting a police raid tomorrow.” And he did look after it for him. “You donated it to the Church,” he said to him. “You’re a rogue,” he said. “No,” he says, “I’m not a rogue—I’m just broad-minded…” On second thoughts, it wasn’t him… It was someone else. I’m getting him mixed up with someone else… Don’t know what I’m talking about. Well, one more glass and that’ll be it; take the bottle away, Ivan. I was talking out of the back of my head, why didn’t you stop me, Ivan?… Why didn’t you tell me I was talking out of the back of my head?’

  ‘I knew you’d stop of your own accord.’

  ‘Liar, it was out of spite, out of sheer spite! You despise me. You come to my house and you despise me in my own house.’

  ‘In that case I’ll go now; the brandy’s gone to your head.’

  ‘I’ve been asking you for the love of Christ to go to Chermashnya for a day or two, but you won’t.’

  ‘I’ll go tomorrow, if you insist.’

  ‘You won’t. You want to spy on me here, that’s what you want, you’re evil, that’s why you don’t want to go!’

  The old man refused to calm down. He had reached that point of inebriation when some drunkards suddenly switch from a sociable to an aggressive and histrionic state.

  ‘What are you staring at me for? Just look at your eyes! Your eyes are staring at me and they’re saying: “You drunken sot.” They’re suspicious, your eyes, there’s contempt in those eyes… You’ve come here for a purpose. Look, Alyosha’s looking at me, but his eyes are shining. Alyosha doesn’t despise me. Aleksei, you shouldn’t love Ivan…’

  ‘Don’t be angry with my brother! Stop insulting him,’ Alyosha said suddenly in a firm voice.

  ‘All right then. Oh, my head. Take the brandy away, Ivan, I’m telling you for the third time.’ He mused a while, and suddenly an expansive, cunning smile spread over his features. ‘Ivan, don’t be angry with a foolish old man. I know you don’t like me, but still, there’s no need to be angry. I know there’s not much to love in me. If you go to Chermashnya, I’ll come to visit you myself and bring you a present. There’s a girl I want to show you, I’ve had an eye on her for a long time. She still runs around barefoot. Don’t shy away from the barefooted ones, don’t turn your nose up at them—they’re pearls!…’

  And he blew an enthusiastic kiss of appreciation.

  ‘For me,’ he said animatedly, as though he had sobered up for an instant as soon as he had touched upon his favourite topic, ‘for me… oh, my children! You innocent little puppies of mine, for me… in my whole life, there’s never been such a thing as an ugly woman, that’s my motto! Do you know what I mean? But how can you: you’ve still got milk in your veins instead of blood; you’re not weaned yet! By my rule, dammit, in every woman you can find something extraordinarily interesting that you won’t find in any other—only you must know how to look for it, that’s the secret! It’s an art! For me, there’s no such thing as an ugly woman: the very fact that she’s a woman means I’m halfway there already… but how can you understand! Even in an old maid you can sometimes uncover things that’d make you wonder why the stupid punters had left her on the shelf and allowed her to grow old! The barefoot, ugly little one must first and foremost be taken by surprise—that’s how you deal with her. You didn’t know? You have to surprise her, sweep her off her feet, spellbind her, even make her ashamed that such a gentleman has fallen for such a common little trollop. It’s truly wonderful, there always have been and always will be gentlemen and scoundrels in this world, and every little skivvy will always have her very own lord and master—what more does one need for happiness in life! Wait… listen, Alyosha, I was always full of surprises for your dear departed mother, but in a different way. I’d ignore her for days on end, and then suddenly, without warning, I’d be kneeling, grovelling in front of her, kissing her feet, till in the end she’d always burst out laughing—I can still remember it as if she were here now—that queer, soft, nervous, fragile, tinkling laughter of hers. She always laughed like that. I’d take it as a sign she was going to be ill again, that come the next day she’d be shrieking her head off once more; I knew that that soft laughter of hers had no joy in it, but pretence too can bring ecstasy with it. Now that’s what I call getting to the heart of things! One day Belyavsky—a local fellow, handsome and rich too—who’d taken a fancy to her and started dropping in on us, suddenly dealt me a slap across the face, in my own house and in front of her. Normally she wouldn’t say boo to a goose, but I thought she was going to kill me because he’d slapped my face—how she set about me! “You’ve been thrashed now, utterly thrashed,” she says. “He slapped your face!” she says. “You’ve prostituted my honour… How dare he strike you in my presence! Don’t you dare come near me ever again, ever! Go at once and challenge him to a duel…” That’s when I had to take her to the monastery for the holy fathers to say prayers over her and calm her down. But as God is my witness, Alyosha, I never wronged my little klikusha! Except perhaps once only, in our first year: she was always praying then, especially on any feastdays of the Holy Virgin,* and then she’d banish me from her sight to the study. So I thought, let’s knock that holy nonsense out of her! “Look,” I said, “look, here’s your icon, here it is, I’m going to take it down. Watch this. You think it can work miracles, but I’m going to spit on it now, in front of you, and nothing will happen to me!…” When she saw me do that, Good Lord, I almost thought she was really going to kill me, but she merely jumped up, held up her hands, then suddenly buried her face in them, began to shake all over, and fell to the floor… collapsed, just like that… Alyosha, Alyosha! What’s the matter, what’s the matter with you?’

  The old man leapt to his feet in terror. Alyosha’s expression had begun to change the moment his father had started to talk about his mother. His face reddened, his eyes glared, his lips quivered… The tipsy old man was spluttering saliva and had noticed nothing until the moment when something very strange happened to Alyosha, exactly as it had happened to his mother. Alyosha suddenly jumped to his feet, held up his hands, covered his face and slumped into a chair, shaking violently in a sudden fit of hysterical, silent weeping. The uncanny resemblance to his mother astounded the old man.

  ‘Ivan, Ivan! Quick, some water. It’s just like her, just like his mother that time! Take a mouthful of water and spit it in his face, that’s what I did to her… He’s only doing this to me because of his mother, because of his mother,’ he mumbled to Ivan.

  ‘Doesn’t it occur to you that his mother was my mother too?’ Ivan suddenly burst out with uncontrollable rage and contempt. The glint in his eyes sent a shudder down the old man’s spine. But at this point something very strange happened, though only for a brief instant: it actually appeared to have slipped the old man’s memory that Alyosha’s mother was Ivan’s mother too…

  ‘What do you mean, your mother?’ he mumbled in bewilderment. ‘You’re not suggesting…? What mother are you talking about…? Was she really…? Goddammit! Of course, she was yours too! Goddammit! Well, my boy, never had such a lapse of memory before, I’m sorry, I really thought, Ivan… He-he-he!’ He stopped. A broad, drunken, half-witted leer spread over his face. But at that very moment a terrible commotion erupted in the hall, wild shouts were heard, the door burst open, and Dmitry Fyodorovich rushed into the room. The old man ran towards Ivan in terror:

  ‘He’s going to kill me, he’s going to kill me! Stop him, stop him!’ he shouted, holding on to Ivan Fyodorovich’s
coat-tails.

  9

  SENSUALISTS

  GRIGORY and Smerdyakov ran into the drawing-room hard on Dmitry Fyodorovich’s heels. They had struggled with him in the porch to prevent him entering (as instructed by Fyodor Pavlovich himself a few days earlier). Taking advantage of the fact that he had managed to enter the room, Dmitry Fyodorovich stopped momentarily to get his bearings, Grigory ran around the table to the far end of the room, bolted the double doors that led to the inner rooms, and stood before the closed doors with his arms akimbo, ready as it were to defend the entrance to the last drop of his blood. Seeing this, Dmitry hurled himself at Grigory with a shout that was more like a shriek.

  ‘So she’s there! They’ve hidden her in there! Out of the way, you wretch!’ He tried to pull Grigory away, but the latter pushed him off. Beside himself with rage, Dmitry lashed out and struck Grigory with all his strength. The old man fell as if poleaxed, and Dmitry leapt over him and flung open the door. Smerdyakov, pale and trembling, remained at the other end of the room, clinging to Fyodor Pavlovich.

  ‘She’s here,’ Dmitry Fyodorovich yelled, ‘I saw her myself just now, going towards the house, only I couldn’t catch up with her. Where is she? Where is she?’

  The cry: ‘She’s here!’ had an electrifying effect upon Fyodor Pavlovich. All fear left him.

  ‘Stop him, stop him!’ he howled, and dashed after Dmitry Fyodorovich. In the meantime Grigory had got up from the floor, still somewhat dazed. Ivan Fyodorovich and Alyosha rushed after their father. From the third room came a resounding crash of something falling to the floor and shattering: it was a tall glass vase (not a particularly valuable one), which Dmitry Fyodorovich had knocked off its marble pedestal as he ran past.

  ‘After him!’ yelled the old man. ‘Help!’

  Ivan and Alyosha caught up with the old man and forcibly dragged him back to the drawing-room.