The Brother's Karamazov (The Unabridged Garnett Translation). Fyodor Dostoevsky

I lost my temper. If there is a God, if He exists, then, of course, I’m to blame, and I shall have to answer for it. But if there isn’t a God at all, what do they deserve, your fathers? It’s not enough to cut their heads off, for they keep back progress. Would you believe it, Ivan, that that lacerates my sentiments? No, you don’t believe it as I see from your eyes. You believe what people say, that I’m nothing but a buffoon. Alyosha, do you believe that I’m nothing but a buffoon?”

      “No, I don’t believe it.”

      “And I believe you don’t, and that you speak the truth. You look sincere and you speak sincerely. But not Ivan. Ivan’s supercilious. . . . I’d make an end of your monks, though, all the same. I’d take all that mystic stuff and suppress it, once for all, all over Russia, so as to bring all the fools to reason. And the gold and the silver that would flow into the mint!”

      “But why suppress it?” asked Ivan.

      “That Truth may prevail. That’s why.”

      “Well, if Truth were to prevail, you know, you’d be the first to be robbed and suppressed.”

      “Ah! I dare say you’re right. Ah, I’m an ass!” burst out Fyodor Pavlovitch, striking himself lightly on the forehead. “Well, your monastery may stand then, Alyosha, if that’s how it is. And we clever people will sit snug and enjoy our brandy. You know, Ivan, it must have been so ordained by the Almighty Himself. Ivan, speak, is there a God or not? Stay, speak the truth, speak seriously. Why are you laughing again?”

      “I’m laughing that you should have made a clever remark just now about Smerdyakov’s belief in the existence of two saints who could move mountains.”

      “Why, am I like him now, then?”

      “Very much.”

      “Well, that shows I’m a Russian, too, and I have a Russian characteristic. And you may be caught in the same way, though you are a philosopher. Shall I catch you? What do you bet that I’ll catch you to-morrow? Speak, all the same, is there a God, or not? Only, be serious. I want you to be serious now.”

      “No, there is no God.”

      “Alyosha, is there a God?”

      “There is.”

      “Ivan, and is there immortality of some sort, just a little, just a tiny bit?”

      “There is no immortality either.”

      “None at all?”

      “None at all.”

      “There’s absolute nothingness then. Perhaps there is just something? Anything is better than nothing!”

      “Alyosha, is there immortality?”

      “God and immortality?”

      “God and immortality. In God is immortality.”

      “H’m! It’s more likely Ivan’s right. Good Lord! to think what faith, what force of all kinds, man has lavished for nothing, on that dream, and for how many thousand years. Who is it laughing at man? Ivan For the last time, once for all, is there a God or not? I ask for the last time!”

      “And for the last time there is not.”

      “Who is laughing at mankind, Ivan?”

      “It must be the devil,” said Ivan, smiling.

      “And the devil? Does he exist?”

      “No, there’s no devil either.”

      “It’s a pity. Damn it all, what wouldn’t I do to the man who first invented God! Hanging on a bitter aspen tree would be too good for, him.”

      “There would have been no civilisation if they hadn’t invented God.”

      “Wouldn’t there have been? Without God?”

      “No. And there would have been no brandy either. But I must take your brandy away from you, anyway.”

      “Stop, stop, stop, dear boy, one more little glass. I’ve hurt Alyosha’s feelings. You’re not angry with me, Alyosha? My dear little Alexey!”

      “No, I am not angry. I know your thoughts. Your heart is better than your head.”

      “My heart better than my head, is it? Oh Lord! And that from you. Ivan, do you love Alyosha?”

      “You must love him” (Fyodor Pavlovitch was by this time very drunk). “Listen, Alyosha, I was rude to your elder this morning. But I was excited. But there’s wit in that elder, don’t you think, Ivan?”

      “Very likely.”

“There is, there is. Il y a du Piron la-dedans.⁵ He’s a Jesuit, a Russian one, that is. As he’s an honourable person there’s a hidden indignation boiling within him at having to pretend and affect holiness.”

⁵ There’s something of Piron inside of him.

      “But, of course, he believes in God.”

      “Not a bit of it. Didn’t you know? Why, he tells everyone so, himself. That is, not everyone, but all the clever people who come to him. He said straight out to Governor Schultz not long ago: ‘Credo, but I don’t know in what.’”

      “Really?”

      “He really did. But I respect him. There’s something of Mephistopheles about him, or rather of ‘The hero of our time’ . . . Arbenin, or what’s his name? . . . You see, he’s a sensualist. He’s such a sensualist that I should be afraid for my daughter or my wife if she went to confess to him. You know, when he begins telling stories . . . The year before last he invited us to tea, tea with liqueur (the ladies send him liqueur), and began telling us about old times till we nearly split our sides. . . . Especially how he once cured a paralysed woman. ‘If my legs were not bad I know a dance I could dance you,’ he said. What do you say to that? ‘I’ve plenty of tricks in my time,’ said he. He did Demidov, the merchant, out of sixty thousand.”

      “What, he stole it?”

      “He brought him the money as a man he could trust, saying, ‘Take care of it for me, friend, there’ll be a police search at my place to-morrow.’ And he kept it. ‘You have given it to the Church,’ he declared. I said to him: ‘You’re a scoundrel,’ I said. ‘No,’ said he, ‘I’m not a scoundrel, but I’m broadminded.’ But that wasn’t he, that was someone else. I’ve muddled him with someone else . . . without noticing it. Come, another glass and that’s enough. Take away the bottle, Ivan. I’ve been telling lies. Why didn’t you stop me, Ivan, and tell me I was lying?”

      “I knew you’d stop of yourself.”

      “That’s a lie. You did it from spite, from simple spite against me. You despise me. You have come to me and despised me in my own house.”

      “Well, I’m going away. You’ve had too much brandy.”

      “I’ve begged you for Christ’s sake to go to Tchermashnya for a day or two, and you don’t go.”

      “I’ll go to-morrow if you’re so set upon it.”

      “You won’t go. You want to keep an eye on me. That’s what you want, spiteful fellow. That’s why you won’t go.”

      The old man persisted. He had reached that state of drunkenness when the drunkard who has till then been inoffensive tries to pick a quarrel and to assert himself.

      “Why are you looking at me? Why do you look like that? Your eyes look at me and say, ‘You ugly drunkard!’ Your eyes are mistrustful. They’re contemptuous. . . . You’ve come here with some design. Alyosha, here, looks at me and his eyes shine. Alyosha doesn’t despise me. Alexey, you mustn’t love Ivan.”