The Karamazov Brothers

by Fyodor Dostoevsky

  ‘I don’t quite understand what this means, Ivan,’ smiled Alyosha, who had been listening quietly all this time. ‘Is it sheer unrestrained fantasy or some sort of mistake by the old man, a kind of impossible confusion?’

  ‘Accept the latter proposition, if you like,’ laughed Ivan, ‘if modern realism has rendered you incapable of accepting anything supernatural—if you want confusion, so be it. It’s true’, he laughed again, ‘that the old man is ninety and his Idea* could long ago have driven him mad. Alternatively, he could just have been struck by the appearance of the prisoner. It could turn out to be nothing but delirium, the hallucination of a ninety-year-old man nearing his death, over-excited as he was by the auto-da-fé of a hundred heretics the night before. But what does it matter to us whether it’s confusion or unrestrained fantasy? What matters is that the old man has to speak out, that in his ninetieth year he at last says out loud what he has refrained from saying all his ninety years.’

  ‘And the prisoner is also silent? He looks at him and doesn’t say a word?’

  ‘Yes, that’s how it has to be and will always have to be,’ Ivan laughed again. ‘As the old man himself says to Him, He doesn’t have the right to add anything to what He has already said. You could say this is the fundamental principle of Roman Catholicism, in my opinion at least: “You’ve delegated everything to the Pope, now the Pope’s responsible for everything, so there’s no need for You to return at all, don’t disturb us, at least not until the appointed hour.” They not only talk like that, they write like that too, at least the Jesuits do. I’ve read their theologians myself. “Have You the right to reveal to us one single mystery of that world from which You came?” the old man asks Him, and answers himself. “No, You have not, so as not to add to what has already been said, and so as not to take away from mankind that liberty that You valued so highly when You were on earth. Anything further that You might say would endanger men’s freedom of faith, for it would appear as a miracle, and freedom of faith was dearer than everything else to You then, fifteen hundred years ago. And didn’t You Yourself say so often, ‘I want to make you free’?* Well, now You’ve seen them, these ‘free’ men,” adds the old man suddenly, with a knowing grin. “Yes, that business cost us dearly,” he continues, looking at Him sternly, “but in the end we dealt with it in Your name. For fifteen centuries we suffered from that freedom, but now it’s all finished, settled once and for all. Don’t You believe it’s settled? You look at me so humbly, won’t You even honour me with Your indignation? But let me tell You that now, at this very time, these people are more than ever convinced of their absolute freedom, and yet they themselves have brought their freedom to us and laid it submissively at our feet. But it is we who have brought this about, and is that what You wanted, that kind of freedom?”’

  ‘Again, I don’t understand,’ Alyosha broke in. ‘Is he being sarcastic, is he mocking Him?’

  ‘Not in the least. He’s claiming credit for himself and those like him for having done away with freedom and for having done so in order to make mankind happy. “For only now”—he is speaking of the Inquisition, of course—“has it become possible to contemplate human happiness for the first time. Man was created a rebel; surely rebels cannot be happy, can they? You were warned,” he says to Him, “there was no lack of warnings and signs, but You didn’t listen to the warnings, You rejected the only means of making people happy, but fortunately when You departed You left the task in our hands. You promised, You gave Your word, You gave us the right to bind and to loose,* and, of course, You cannot think of taking away that right now. Why then have You come to disturb us?”’

  ‘And what does that mean: “there was no lack of warnings and signs”?’ asked Alyosha.

  ‘That’s the essence of what the old man said.’

  ‘“The terrible and clever spirit, the spirit of self-destruction and annihilation,” the old man continues, “the great spirit spoke to You in the wilderness, and it has been written in the books that he is said to have tempted You.* Isn’t that so? And could anything more truthful have been said than that which he revealed to You in the three offers, that which You rejected, and which in the books are called the ‘temptations’? And if there ever really was a truly awesome miracle on earth, then it was on that day, on the day of those three temptations. For truly the miracle was contained in the conception of those three temptations. If it were possible, for the sake of argument, to suppose that those three temptations devised by the terrible spirit had been erased from the books and that it were necessary to rediscover them, to reinvent them, to imagine them anew so as to restore them to the books, and to this end all the wise men of the world were gathered together—rulers, high priests, sages, philosophers, poets—and were given this task: to conceive and devise three temptations which would not only correspond to the enormity of the event, but above and beyond that would also, in three words, in three human phrases, express the whole future history of the world and of mankind—do You think that all the wise men of the world together could imagine anything approaching the power and the depth of those three temptations which were in fact put to You at that time in the desert by that mighty and cunning spirit? By those temptations alone, by the sheer audacity of their conception, we can see that we are not dealing with a temporal human mind, but with an eternal and absolute one. For those three temptations combine and predict, as it were, the whole future history of mankind, and manifest three images in which all the insoluble historical contradictions of human nature the world over will come together. At that time this could not have been so evident, because the future was unknown, but now that fifteen centuries have passed we see that everything in those three temptations has been foreseen and predicted, and proven true to such an extent that nothing more can be added to or subtracted from them.

  ‘“Decide for Yourself: who was right, You or he who tempted You? Remember the first temptation: perhaps not literally, but the sense of it was, ‘You want to enter the world, and You go with empty hands, with some vague promise of freedom which they, in their simplicity and innate stupidity, could not even comprehend and which frightens and overawes them—for nothing has ever been so intolerable to man and to human society as freedom! And do You see these stones in this barren white-hot desert? Turn them into bread, and mankind will come running after You, a grateful and obedient flock, although they will always tremble in fear that You may withdraw Your hand and stop their supply of bread.’ But You did not want to deprive man of his freedom, so You rejected the suggestion, for what sort of freedom would it be, You judged, if obedience were bought with bread? You replied that man does not live by bread alone. But do You know that it will be in the name of just that terrestrial bread that the spirit of the earth will rise against You, will do battle with You and defeat You, and all men will follow that spirit, exclaiming, ‘Who is like unto the beast? He maketh fire come down from heaven.’* Do You know that ages will pass and mankind will proclaim with its voice of wisdom and science that there is no crime and consequently no sin, but only starving people. ‘Feed them, and then ask for virtue!’ That’s what they’ll write on their banner which they will raise against You and with which they will destroy Your temple. A new edifice will arise in place of Your temple, the terrible Tower of Babel will arise anew, and although this, like the other one, will remain uncompleted, nevertheless You could have avoided the erection of that new tower and cut short men’s suffering by a thousand years, for it is to us that they will turn after they have suffered with their tower for a thousand years! And they will seek us out when we are underground once more, hiding in the catacombs (because we shall be tortured and persecuted again), they will find us and cry out to us, ‘Feed us, for those who promised us heavenly fire did not give it to us.’ And then we shall complete their tower, for he who feeds them will complete it, and we alone shall feed them in Your name, and when we say that it is in Your name, we shall be lying. Oh, never, never will they be able to feed themselves withou
t us! So long as they remain free no science will ever give them bread, and in the end they will bring their freedom and lay it at our feet, saying, ‘Enslave us, but feed us!’ And they will come to understand that freedom together with an abundance of earthly bread for all is inconceivable, for they will never, never learn to share among themselves! They will become convinced, too, that they can never be free because they are weak, depraved, worthless, and rebellious. You promised them the bread of heaven, but, I repeat again, can that, in the eyes of the weak, eternally depraved and eternally ignoble human tribe, compare with earthly bread? And if, in the name of the bread of heaven, thousands and tens of thousands follow You, what will become of the millions and tens of thousands of millions who will not have the strength to forgo earthly bread for the bread of heaven? Or are only the tens of thousands of the great and the strong dear to You, while the remaining millions, the weak, who are as numerous as grains of sand on the shore, but who love You, must serve only as chattels for the great and the strong? However, the weak too are dear to us. They are depraved and rebellious, but in the end it is they who will become obedient. They will wonder at us and take us for gods because, placing ourselves at their head, we shall have agreed to take away their freedom and rule over them—so terrible will they find it in the end to be free! But we shall tell them that we obey You and rule in Your name. We shall be deceiving them again, because we shall no longer let You near us. This deception will bring us suffering too, for we shall have to lie. That was the meaning of that first temptation in the desert, and that is what You rejected in the name of freedom, which You elevated above everything else. But in that temptation lay the great mystery of this world. In accepting the ‘loaves’, You would have responded to the universal and eternal dilemma of man as an individual and of humanity as a whole: whom to worship? When man finds himself free, there is no concern more pressing and more tormenting to him than the desire immediately to seek out someone to worship. But man seeks to worship only what is indisputable, so indisputable that all men will agree unanimously to worship it universally. For these pitiful creatures yearn to find not only that which I or someone else could worship, but something in which we all believed and before which all bowed down, and indeed necessarily together. It is this demand for a universality of worship that has been the chief torment of each and every man individually and of the whole of humankind from the beginning of time. For this universality of worship, men have put one another to the sword. They have created gods and appealed to one another, ‘Leave your gods and come and worship ours, otherwise death to you and to your gods!’ And thus it will be till the end of the world, and even when the gods have vanished from the face of the earth they will still prostrate themselves before idols. You knew, You could not but know, this fundamental secret of human nature, but You rejected the one absolute banner that was offered to You to make all men worship You uniquely—the banner of earthly bread—and You rejected it in the name of freedom and the bread of heaven. Look what You have done since then. And again, all in the name of freedom! I tell You, man has no more pressing need than to find someone to whom he can give up that gift of freedom with which he, unhappy being that he is, was endowed at birth. But only he who appeases men’s consciences can relieve them of their freedom. In bread, You were offered an incontrovertible banner: give man bread and he will worship You, for nothing is more incontrovertible than bread, but if at the same time someone other than You relieves him of his conscience—oh, then he will even throw away Your bread and follow him who seduces his conscience. You were right about this. For the secret of human existence lies not only in living, but in knowing what to live for. Without a firm conviction of the purpose of living, man will not consent to live and will destroy himself rather than remain on earth, though he be surrounded by bread. This is so, and yet what happened? Instead of relieving men of their freedom, You increased it even more! Had You forgotten that peace and even death are dearer to man than freedom of choice in the knowledge of good and evil? Indeed, nothing is more beguiling to man than freedom of conscience, but nothing is more tormenting either. But, instead of tangible grounds for the appeasement of the human conscience once and for all, You took all that was most extraordinary, most hypothetical, and most vague, all that was beyond the understanding of the people, and thus You acted as though You did not love them at all—and who was this? The one who had come to give His life for them! Instead of taking control of human freedom, You intensified it and burdened man’s spiritual domain with its torments for ever. You desired man to have freedom of choice in love so that he would follow You freely, lured and captivated by You. Instead of the old immutable law, man should henceforth decide with a free heart what is good and what is evil, having only Your image before him as a guide—but didn’t it occur to You that in the end men would reject and dispute even Your image and Your truth if they were saddled with such a terrible burden as freedom of choice? They will cry out in the end that truth is not in You, for they could not have been left in worse confusion and torment than that in which You left them, bequeathing them so many problems and unresolved questions. So You Yourself sowed the seed of the destruction of Your own kingdom; blame no one else for this. But was that in fact what You were offered? There are three forces, only three forces on earth that can subdue and imprison the conscience of these weak-willed rebels for ever for their own good—these forces are miracle, mystery, and authority. You rejected all three, and thus You Yourself set the example. When the terrible and clever spirit set You on a pinnacle of the temple and said to You, ‘If You would know whether you are the Son of God, cast Yourself down: for it is written, the angels will take charge of Him and bear Him up lest He fall and be hurt, and you will know then if You are the Son of God, and have proved what faith You have in your Father,’* You, having listened, rejected the temptation, did not submit and did not cast Yourself down. Oh, of course, You acted proudly and magnificently, like God, but men, that weak and rebellious tribe—are they gods? Oh, You understood then that had You taken a single step, made a single move to cast Yourself down, You would immediately have tempted the Lord, would have lost all Your faith in Him, and would have been dashed to pieces on the earth that You had come to redeem, and the cunning spirit that had tempted You would have rejoiced. But, I repeat, are there many like You? Surely You can’t suggest, even for a moment, that men too would be able to resist such a temptation? Is human nature fashioned in such a way as to refuse a miracle and, at such terrible moments, moments beset with the most profound and terrible spiritual problems, to hold on only to a free decision of the heart? Oh, You knew that Your glorious deed would be recorded in the Scriptures, would reach to the depths of time and to the furthest limits of the earth, and You hoped that, in following You, man too would remain with God without need of miracles. But You didn’t know that as soon as man rejected miracles he would also reject God, for man seeks not so much God as miracles.* And since man cannot manage without miracles he will create new miracles for himself, his own this time, and he will worship false miracles of sorcery and witches, though he be a hundred times rebel, heretic, and atheist. You did not come down from the cross when they shouted at You, mocking You and ridiculing You, ‘Come down from the cross, and we shall believe that it is you.’* You did not come down because once again You did not want to enslave man by a miracle, and You thirsted for a faith that was free and not inspired by miracles. You thirsted for love freely given, and not the slavish gratitude of the captive before the mighty power that has terrified him for all time. But there too You judged men too highly, because of course they are slaves even though they have been created rebels. Look around and decide, now that fifteen centuries have passed, take a look at them: whom have You raised up to Yourself? I swear to You, man was created weaker and baser than You thought! Can he, can he do what You did? You respected him so much that You acted as if You had ceased to feel compassion for him, because You demanded too much of him—and who was this? He who loved mankin
d more than Himself! Had You respected him less You would have demanded less of him, and that would have been closer to love because the burden would have been lighter. He is weak and base. Does it matter if at present he is in revolt everywhere against our authority and is proud of his rebellion? This is the pride of a child, of a schoolboy. They are little children who have rebelled in class and driven their teacher out. But there comes an end to children’s triumphs, and it costs them dearly. They will tear down the temples and drench the earth with blood. But at last the foolish children will realize that, rebels though they may be, they are feeble rebels, unable to sustain their own revolt. Weeping their foolish tears, they will finally admit that He who created them rebels undoubtedly wished to make fools of them. They will say this in despair, and what they say will be blasphemy and that will render them even more unhappy, for human nature cannot endure blasphemy and in the end always avenges it. And so, restlessness, confusion, and unhappiness—that is the present lot of men after You suffered so much for their liberty! In a vision and an allegory Your great prophet tells how he saw all the participants in the first resurrection, and that there were twelve thousand from each of the twelve tribes of Israel.* But, to be so numerous, they would have to be not men but gods. They endured Your crucifixion, they endured decades in the arid and barren desert, living on locusts and roots*—so of course You can point with pride to these children of freedom, of love freely given, of free and magnificent sacrifice made in Your name. But remember that they were only several thousand, and gods at that, and what of the others? What are they guilty of, the others, the weak, who cannot endure what the strong endure? How is the weak spirit guilty for not being able to cope with such terrible gifts? Can it really be that You came only to the chosen ones and on behalf of the chosen ones? But if so, then there is a mystery here which we shall not be able to understand. And if there is a mystery, then we too were right to preach mystery and to teach them that what is important is not the free choice of the heart, nor love, but mystery, to which they must submit blindly, even against the dictates of their conscience. That is what we have done. We have improved upon Your creation and founded it instead on miracle, mystery, and authority. And men were delighted that once more they were led like sheep, and that that terrible gift which had brought them so much suffering was lifted from their hearts at last. Tell us, were we right to teach thus and to act thus? Have we not really loved man when we have so humbly recognized his weakness, have lightened his burden out of love, and out of consideration for his feeble nature have even allowed him to sin, so long as it is with our permission? So why then have You come to interfere now? And why do You look at me so silently with your humble, piercing eyes? Why are You not angry? I do not want Your love, because I do not love You. Why should I conceal anything from You? I know who I am talking to, don’t I? Everything I have to tell You, You already know, I can read it in Your eyes. How can I keep our secret from You? Perhaps that is precisely what You want, to hear it from my lips—listen then: we are not with You but with him—that is our secret! We ceased to be with You and went over to him a long time ago, already eight centuries ago.* Exactly eight centuries ago we accepted from him what You had rejected with indignation, that last gift that he offered You, showing You all the kingdoms of the earth: we accepted Rome and the sword of Caesar from him, and we proclaimed ourselves the only kings on earth, the only true kings, although we have not yet been able to complete our work. But who is to blame? Oh, this work is still in its infancy, but it has begun. We shall have to wait a long time for its completion, and the world will have to endure much suffering, but we shall achieve it and we shall be the Caesars, and then we shall think about universal human happiness. And meanwhile, You could still have accepted the sword of Caesar. Why did You refuse that last gift? Had You accepted that third suggestion of the mighty spirit, You could have provided all that man seeks on earth—that is to say, someone to worship, someone to take charge of his conscience, and finally, a way to be united unequivocally in a communal and harmonious antheap, for the need for universal unity is mankind’s third and last torment. Mankind as a whole has always striven towards universal organization above all. There have been many great peoples, each with an illustrious history, but the more elevated the nations the unhappier they were, because they were more conscious than others of the need for universal unity of mankind. The great conquerors, the Tamerlanes and the Genghis Khans, rampaged over the earth like whirlwinds, seeking to conquer the world, but they too, even if unconsciously, were giving expression to that selfsame overriding need of mankind for a universal and general unity. By accepting the world and Caesar’s purple, You would have founded a universal kingdom and brought universal peace. For to whom is it given to rule over men, if not to those who rule over their conscience and in whose hands is their bread? And so we took Caesar’s sword and, having taken it, of course we renounced You and followed him. Oh, there are still centuries of excess to come, excess of spiritual freedom, of science and anthropophagy, because having started to erect their Tower of Babel without us they will end in anthropophagy. But that is when the beast will come crawling to us, lick our feet, and spatter us with bloody tears from its eyes. And we shall mount the beast and raise up the cup, and on it will be written ‘Mystery’.* And only then will the kingdom of peace and happiness for mankind begin. You pride Yourself on Your chosen ones, but You have only the chosen ones, whereas we shall bring peace to all. Besides, that’s not all: how many of those chosen ones, of those mighty ones who could have become the chosen ones, have grown weary of waiting for You and have taken and will continue to take their strength of spirit and their passionate hearts to another altar, and will end by raising their banner of freedom against You Yourself? But it is You Yourself who will have raised the banner. With us, on the other hand, everyone will be happy and will not rebel any more or exterminate one another, as they did everywhere under Your freedom. Oh, we shall convince them that only in surrendering their freedom to us and submitting to us can they be free. Well, shall we be right or shall we be lying? They will see for themselves that we are right, for they will remember to what horrors of slavery and confusion Your freedom led them. Freedom, science, and independence of spirit will lead them into such a labyrinth and confront them with such miracles and such insoluble mysteries that some of them, intractable and savage, will destroy themselves, while others, intractable but less strong, will destroy one another; and those who remain, feeble and unhappy, will crawl up to our feet and will cry out to us, ‘Yes, you were right, you alone held his secret, and we are returning to you: save us from ourselves.’ When they receive bread from us they will understand, of course, that we take their own bread from them, made by their own hands, in order to redistribute it without any miracle; they will see that we have not turned stones into bread, and they will truly rejoice not so much over the bread itself, but over the fact that they receive it from our hands! Because they will remember only too well that without us the very bread that they made turned to stones in their hands, but that when they returned to us the very stones turned to bread in their hands. They will appreciate, they will appreciate only too well what it means to subjugate themselves for ever! And as long as men do not understand this, they will be unhappy. Who has contributed most of all to this incomprehension, tell me? Who divided the flock and dispersed the sheep into unknown ways? But the flock will reassemble and will submit again once and for all. Then we shall endow them with a quiet, humble happiness, a happiness suited to feeble creatures such as they were created. Oh, we shall persuade them in the end not to be proud, for You elevated them and taught them pride; we shall show them that they are feeble, that they are only pitiful children, but that childish happiness is the sweetest of all. They will become scared and will begin to look to us and to huddle up to us in fear, as chickens huddle up to the broody hen. They will wonder at us and fear us, and be proud that we are powerful and clever enough to subdue such a turbulent flock, a thousand million
strong. They will tremble mightily before our anger, their spirit will be rendered submissive, their eyes tearful like those of children and women, but at a sign from us they will readily give themselves to gaiety and laughter, shining joy and happy, childlike singing. Yes, we shall require them to work, but in their free time we shall devise for them a life such as a child’s game, with children’s songs in chorus and innocent dances. Oh, we shall even allow them to sin, for they are weak and feeble, and for having been allowed to sin they will love us in the way that children do. We shall tell them that every sin will be expiated if it is committed with our permission; we shall allow them to sin because we love them, and the punishment for those sins—so be it, we shall take that upon ourselves. We shall take it upon ourselves, and they will worship us as benefactors who have taken on the burden of their sins before God. And they shall have no secrets from us. We shall permit or forbid them to live with their wives and mistresses, to have children or not to have them—subject to their obedience—and they will submit to us cheerfully and willingly. They will bring us their most tormenting problems of conscience—everything, they will bring everything to us and we shall resolve everything, and they will accept our judgement with joy, because it will spare them the great burden and terrible torment of personal and free choice that they suffer today. And everyone will be happy, all the millions of beings, except the hundred thousand who govern them. For only we, we who guard the mystery, only we shall be unhappy. There will be thousands of millions of happy children, and a hundred thousand martyrs who have taken upon themselves the curse of the knowledge of good and evil. They will die in peace, depart peacefully in Your name, and beyond the grave will encounter only death. But we shall withhold the secret and, to keep them happy, we shall opiate them with promises of eternal reward in heaven. Because even if there really were anything in the hereafter, it certainly would not be for such as them. It is said and prophesied* that You will return triumphant, that You will come with Your chosen ones, Your proud and mighty ones, but we shall tell them that they saved only themselves, whereas we have saved everyone. It is said that the whore* riding the beast and holding her mystery in her hands shall be disgraced, that the weak shall rise up again, that they shall tear her finery and lay bare her impure body. But then I shall arise and show You thousands of millions of happy children who have not known sin. And we who have, for their own happiness, taken upon ourselves their sins, we shall stand before You and say, ‘Judge us if You can and if You dare.’ Know that I do not fear You. Know that I too was in the desert, that I too fed upon locusts and roots, that I too have blessed the freedom with which You have blessed mankind, and that I was ready to join Your chosen ones, to unite with the strong and the mighty ones who yearn ‘to make up their number’. But I came to my senses and did not wish to serve insanity. I have turned back and joined the legions of those who have improved upon Your creation. I have left the proud and have turned back to the humble, for the sake of the happiness of those humble ones. What I have said shall be, and our kingdom will be created. I tell you again, tomorrow You shall see that obedient flock, at a sign from me, rush to stoke with hot coals the pyre on which I shall burn You for having come to interfere with us. For if anyone deserves our pyre more than all others, it is You. Tomorrow I shall burn You. Dixi.”’*