The Brothers Karamazov

he 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.