The Brothers Karamazov, Fyodor Dostoyevsky [children's books read aloud TXT] 📗

centuries since man has ceased

to see signs from heaven.

 

No signs from heaven come to-day

 

To add to what the heart doth say.

 

There was nothing left but faith in what the heart doth say. It is

true there were many miracles in those days. There were saints who

performed miraculous cures; some holy people, according to their

biographies, were visited by the Queen of Heaven herself. But the

devil did not slumber, and doubts were already arising among men of

the truth of these miracles. And just then there appeared in the north

of Germany a terrible new heresy. ‘A huge star like to a torch’

(that is, to a church) ‘fell on the sources of the waters and they

became bitter.’ These heretics began blasphemously denying miracles.

But those who remained faithful were all the more ardent in their

faith. The tears of humanity rose up to Him as before, awaited His

coming, loved Him, hoped for Him, yearned to suffer and die for Him as

before. And so many ages mankind had prayed with faith and fervour, ‘O

Lord our God, hasten Thy coming’; so many ages called upon Him, that

in His infinite mercy He deigned to come down to His servants.

Before that day He had come down, He had visited some holy men,

martyrs, and hermits, as is written in their lives. Among us,

Tyutchev, with absolute faith in the truth of his words, bore

witness that

 

Bearing the Cross, in slavish dress,

 

Weary and worn, the Heavenly King

 

Our mother, Russia, came to bless,

 

And through our land went wandering.

 

And that certainly was so, I assure you.

 

“And behold, He deigned to appear for a moment to the people, to

the tortured, suffering people, sunk in iniquity, but loving Him

like children. My story is laid in Spain, in Seville, in the most

terrible time of the Inquisition, when fires were lighted every day to

the glory of God, and ‘in the splendid auto da fe the wicked

heretics were burnt.’ Oh, of course, this was not the coming in

which He will appear, according to His promise, at the end of time

in all His heavenly glory, and which will be sudden ‘as lightning

flashing from east to west.’ No, He visited His children only for a

moment, and there where the flames were crackling round the

heretics. In His infinite mercy He came once more among men in that

human shape in which He walked among men for thirty-three years

fifteen centuries ago. He came down to the ‘hot pavements’ of the

southern town in which on the day before almost a hundred heretics

had, ad majorem gloriam Dei, been burnt by the cardinal, the Grand

Inquisitor, in a magnificent auto da fe, in the presence of the

king, the court, the knights, the cardinals, the most charming

ladies of the court, and the whole population of Seville.

 

“He came softly, unobserved, and yet, strange to say, everyone

recognised Him. That might be one of the best passages in the poem.

I mean, why they recognised Him. The people are irresistibly drawn

to Him, they surround Him, they flock about Him, follow Him. He

moves silently in their midst with a gentle smile of infinite

compassion. The sun of love burns in His heart, and power shine from

His eyes, and their radiance, shed on the people, stirs their hearts

with responsive love. He holds out His hands to them, blesses them,

and a healing virtue comes from contact with Him, even with His

garments. An old man in the crowd, blind from childhood, cries out, ‘O

Lord, heal me and I shall see Thee!’ and, as it were, scales fall from

his eyes and the blind man sees Him. The crowd weeps and kisses the

earth under His feet. Children throw flowers before Him, sing, and cry

hosannah. ‘It is He-it is He!’ repeat. ‘It must be He, it can be no

one but Him!’ He stops at the steps of the Seville cathedral at the

moment when the weeping mourners are bringing in a little open white

coffin. In it lies a child of seven, the only daughter of a

prominent citizen. The dead child lies hidden in flowers. ‘He will

raise your child,’ the crowd shouts to the weeping mother. The priest,

coming to meet the coffin, looks perplexed, and frowns, but the mother

of the dead child throws herself at His feet with a wail. ‘If it is

Thou, raise my child!’ she cries, holding out her hands to Him. The

procession halts, the coffin is laid on the steps at His feet. He

looks with compassion, and His lips once more softly pronounce,

‘Maiden, arise!’ and the maiden arises. The little girl sits up in the

coffin and looks round, smiling with wide-open wondering eyes, holding

a bunch of white roses they had put in her hand.

 

“There are cries, sobs, confusion among the people, and at that

moment the cardinal himself, the Grand Inquisitor, passes by the

cathedral. He is an old man, almost ninety, tall and erect, with a

withered face and sunken eyes, in which there is still a gleam of

light. He is not dressed in his gorgeous cardinal’s robes, as he was

the day before, when he was burning the enemies of the Roman Church-at this moment he is wearing his coarse, old, monk’s cassock. At a

distance behind him come his gloomy assistants and slaves and the

‘holy guard.’ He stops at the sight of the crowd and watches it from a

distance. He sees everything; he sees them set the coffin down at

His feet, sees the child rise up, and his face darkens. He knits his

thick grey brows and his eyes gleam with a sinister fire. He holds out

his finger and bids the guards take Him. And such is his power, so

completely are the people cowed into submission and trembling

obedience to him, that the crowd immediately makes way for the guards,

and in the midst of deathlike silence they lay hands on Him and lead

him away. The crowd instantly bows down to the earth, like one man,

before the old Inquisitor. He blesses the people in silence and passes

on’ The guards lead their prisoner to the close, gloomy vaulted

prison-in the ancient palace of the Holy, inquisition and shut him in

it. The day passes and is followed by the dark, burning,

‘breathless’ night of Seville. The air is ‘fragrant with laurel and

lemon.’ In the pitch darkness the iron door of the prison is

suddenly opened and the Grand Inquisitor himself comes in with a light

in his hand. He is alone; the door is closed at once behind him. He

stands in the doorway and for a minute or two gazes into His face.

At last he goes up slowly, sets the light on the table and speaks.

 

“‘Is it Thou? Thou?’ but receiving no answer, he adds at once.

‘Don’t answer, be silent. What canst Thou say, indeed? I know too well

what Thou wouldst say. And Thou hast no right to add anything to

what Thou hadst said of old. Why, then, art Thou come to hinder us?

For Thou hast come to hinder us, and Thou knowest that. But dost

thou know what will be to-morrow? I know not who Thou art and care not

to know whether it is Thou or only a semblance of Him, but to-morrow I

shall condemn Thee and burn Thee at the stake as the worst of

heretics. And the very people who have to-day kissed Thy feet,

to-morrow at the faintest sign from me will rush to heap up the embers

of Thy fire. Knowest Thou that? Yes, maybe Thou knowest it,’ he

added with thoughtful penetration, never for a moment taking his

eyes off the Prisoner.”

 

“I don’t quite understand, Ivan. What does it mean?” Alyosha,

who had been listening in silence, said with a smile. “Is it simply

a wild fantasy, or a mistake on the part of the old man-some

impossible quid pro quo?”

 

“Take it as the last,” said Ivan, laughing, “if you are so

corrupted by modern realism and can’t stand anything fantastic. If you

like it to be a case of mistaken identity, let it be so. It is

true,” he went on, laughing, “the old man was ninety, and he might

well be crazy over his set idea. He might have been struck by the

appearance of the Prisoner. It might, in fact, be simply his

ravings, the delusion of an old man of ninety, over-excited by the

auto da fe of a hundred heretics the day before. But does it matter to

us after all whether it was a mistake of identity or a wild fantasy?

All that matters is that the old man should speak out, that he

should speak openly of what he has thought in silence for ninety

years.”

 

“And the Prisoner too is silent? Does He look at him and not say a

word?”

 

“That’s inevitable in any case,” Ivan laughed again. “The old

man has told Him He hasn’t the right to add anything to what He has

said of old. One may say it is the most fundamental feature of Roman

Catholicism, in my opinion at least. ‘All has been given by Thee to

the Pope,’ they say, ‘and all, therefore, is still in the Pope’s

hands, and there is no need for Thee to come now at all. Thou must not

meddle for the time, at least.’ That’s how they speak and write too-the Jesuits, at any rate. I have read it myself in the works of

their theologians. ‘Hast Thou the right to reveal to us one of the

mysteries of that world from which Thou hast come?’ my old man asks

Him, and answers the question for Him. ‘No, Thou hast not; that Thou

mayest not add to what has been said of old, and mayest not take

from men the freedom which Thou didst exalt when Thou wast on earth.

Whatsoever Thou revealest anew will encroach on men’s freedom of

faith; for it will be manifest as a miracle, and the freedom of

their faith was dearer to Thee than anything in those days fifteen

hundred years ago. Didst Thou not often say then, “I will make you

free”? But now Thou hast seen these “free” men,’ the old man adds

suddenly, with a pensive smile. ‘Yes, we’ve paid dearly for it,’ he

goes on, looking sternly at Him, ‘but at last we have completed that

work in Thy name. For fifteen centuries we have been wrestling with

Thy freedom, but now it is ended and over for good. Dost Thou not

believe that it’s over for good? Thou lookest meekly at me and

deignest not even to be wroth with me. But let me tell Thee that

now, to-day, people are more persuaded than ever that they have

perfect freedom, yet they have brought their freedom to us and laid it

humbly at our feet. But that has been our doing. Was this what Thou

didst? Was this Thy freedom?’”

 

“I don’t understand again.” Alyosha broke in. “Is he ironical,

is he jesting?”

 

“Not a bit of it! He claims it as a merit for himself and his

Church that at last they have vanquished freedom and have done so to

make men happy. ‘For now’ (he is speaking of the Inquisition, of

course) ‘for the first time it has become possible to think of the

happiness of men. Man was created a rebel; and how can rebels be

happy? Thou wast warned,’ he says to Him. ‘Thou hast had no lack of

admonitions and warnings, but Thou didst not listen to those warnings;

Thou didst reject the only way by