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

even the whole of Rome, it’s false-those are the worst of

the Catholics the Inquisitors, the Jesuits!… And there could not

be such a fantastic creature as your Inquisitor. What are these sins

of mankind they take on themselves? Who are these keepers of the

mystery who have taken some curse upon themselves for the happiness of

mankind? When have they been seen? We know the Jesuits, they are

spoken ill of, but surely they are not what you describe? They are not

that at all, not at all…. They are simply the Romish army for the

earthly sovereignty of the world in the future, with the Pontiff of

Rome for Emperor… that’s their ideal, but there’s no sort of mystery

or lofty melancholy about it…. It’s simple lust of power, of

filthy earthly gain, of domination-something like a universal

serfdom with them as masters-that’s all they stand for. They don’t

even believe in God perhaps. Your suffering Inquisitor is a mere

fantasy.”

 

“Stay, stay,” laughed Ivan. “how hot you are! A fantasy you say,

let it be so! Of course it’s a fantasy. But allow me to say: do you

really think that the Roman Catholic movement of the last centuries is

actually nothing but the lust of power, of filthy earthly gain? Is

that Father Paissy’s teaching?”

 

“No, no, on the contrary, Father Paissy did once say something

rather the same as you… but of course it’s not the same, not a bit

the same,” Alyosha hastily corrected himself.

 

“A precious admission, in spite of your ‘not a bit the same.’ I

ask you why your Jesuits and Inquisitors have united simply for vile

material gain? Why can there not be among them one martyr oppressed by

great sorrow and loving humanity? You see, only suppose that there was

one such man among all those who desire nothing but filthy material

gain-if there’s only one like my old Inquisitor, who had himself eaten

roots in the desert and made frenzied efforts to subdue his flesh to

make himself free and perfect. But yet all his life he loved humanity,

and suddenly his eyes were opened, and he saw that it is no great

moral blessedness to attain perfection and freedom, if at the same

time one gains the conviction that millions of God’s creatures have

been created as a mockery, that they will never be capable of using

their freedom, that these poor rebels can never turn into giants to

complete the tower, that it was not for such geese that the great

idealist dreamt his dream of harmony. Seeing all that he turned back

and joined-the clever people. Surely that could have happened?”

 

“Joined whom, what clever people?” cried Alyosha, completely

carried away. “They have no such great cleverness and no mysteries and

secrets…. Perhaps nothing but Atheism, that’s all their secret. Your

Inquisitor does not believe in God, that’s his secret!”

 

“What if it is so! At last you have guessed it. It’s perfectly

true, it’s true that that’s the whole secret, but isn’t that

suffering, at least for a man like that, who has wasted his whole life

in the desert and yet could not shake off his incurable love of

humanity? In his old age he reached the clear conviction that

nothing but the advice of the great dread spirit could build up any

tolerable sort of life for the feeble, unruly, ‘incomplete,

empirical creatures created in jest.’ And so, convinced of this, he

sees that he must follow the counsel of the wise spirit, the dread

spirit of death and destruction, and therefore accept lying and

deception, and lead men consciously to death and destruction, and

yet deceive them all the way so that they may not notice where they

are being led, that the poor blind creatures may at least on the way

think themselves happy. And note, the deception is in the name of

Him in Whose ideal the old man had so fervently believed all his

life long. Is not that tragic? And if only one such stood at the

head of the whole army ‘filled with the lust of power only for the

sake of filthy gain’- would not one such be enough to make a

tragedy? More than that, one such standing at the head is enough to

create the actual leading idea of the Roman Church with all its armies

and Jesuits, its highest idea. I tell you frankly that I firmly

believe that there has always been such a man among those who stood at

the head of the movement. Who knows, there may have been some such

even among the Roman Popes. Who knows, perhaps the spirit of that

accursed old man who loves mankind so obstinately in his own way, is

to be found even now in a whole multitude of such old men, existing

not by chance but by agreement, as a secret league formed long ago for

the guarding of the mystery, to guard it from the weak and the

unhappy, so as to make them happy. No doubt it is so, and so it must

be indeed. I fancy that even among the Masons there’s something of the

same mystery at the bottom, and that that’s why the Catholics so

detest the Masons as their rivals breaking up the unity of the idea,

while it is so essential that there should be one flock and one

shepherd…. But from the way I defend my idea I might be an author

impatient of your criticism. Enough of it.”

 

“You are perhaps a Mason yourself!” broke suddenly from Alyosha.

“You don’t believe in God,” he added, speaking this time very

sorrowfully. He fancied besides that his brother was looking at him

ironically. “How does your poem end?” he asked, suddenly looking down.

“Or was it the end?”

 

“I meant to end it like this. When the Inquisitor ceased

speaking he waited some time for his Prisoner to answer him. His

silence weighed down upon him. He saw that the Prisoner had listened

intently all the time, looking gently in his face and evidently not

wishing to reply. The old man longed for him to say something, however

bitter and terrible. But He suddenly approached the old man in silence

and softly kissed him on his bloodless aged lips. That was all his

answer. The old man shuddered. His lips moved. He went to the door,

opened it, and said to Him: ‘Go, and come no more… come not at

all, never, never!’ And he let Him out into the dark alleys of the

town. The Prisoner went away.”

 

“And the old man?”

 

“The kiss glows in his heart, but the old man adheres to his

idea.”

 

“And you with him, you too?” cried Alyosha, mournfully.

 

Ivan laughed.

 

“Why, it’s all nonsense, Alyosha. It’s only a senseless poem of

a senseless student, who could never write two lines of verse. Why

do you take it so seriously? Surely you don’t suppose I am going

straight off to the Jesuits, to join the men who are correcting His

work? Good Lord, it’s no business of mine. I told you, all I want is

to live on to thirty, and then… dash the cup to the ground!”

 

“But the little sticky leaves, and the precious tombs, and the

blue sky, and the woman you love! How will you live, how will you love

them?” Alyosha cried sorrowfully. “With such a hell in your heart

and your head, how can you? No, that’s just what you are going away

for, to join them… if not, you will kill yourself, you can’t

endure it!”

 

“There is a strength to endure everything,” Ivan said with a

cold smile.

 

“The strength of the Karamazovs-the strength of the Karamazov

baseness.”

 

“To sink into debauchery, to stifle your soul with corruption,

yes?”

 

“Possibly even that… only perhaps till I am thirty I shall

escape it, and then-”

 

“How will you escape it? By what will you escape it? That’s

impossible with your ideas.”

 

“In the Karamazov way, again.”

 

“‘Everything is lawful,’ you mean? Everything is lawful, is that

it?”

 

Ivan scowled, and all at once turned strangely pale.

 

“Ah, you’ve caught up yesterday’s phrase, which so offended

Muisov-and which Dmitri pounced upon so naively and paraphrased!”

he smiled queerly. “Yes, if you like, ‘everything is lawful’ since the

word has been said, I won’t deny it. And Mitya’s version isn’t bad.”

 

Alyosha looked at him in silence.

 

“I thought that going away from here I have you at least,” Ivan

said suddenly, with unexpected feeling; “but now I see that there is

no place for me even in your heart, my dear hermit. The formula,

‘all is lawful,’ I won’t renounce-will you renounce me for that,

yes?”

 

Alyosha got up, went to him and softly kissed him on the lips.

 

“That’s plagiarism,” cried Ivan, highly delighted. “You stole that

from my poem. Thank you though. Get up, Alyosha, it’s time we were

going, both of us.”

 

They went out, but stopped when they reached the entrance of the

restaurant.

 

“Listen, Alyosha,” Ivan began in a resolute voice, “if I am really

able to care for the sticky little leaves I shall only love them,

remembering you. It’s enough for me that you are somewhere here, and I

shan’t lose my desire for life yet. Is that enough for you? Take it as

a declaration of love if you like. And now you go to the right and I

to the left. And it’s enough, do you hear, enough. I mean even if I

don’t go away to-morrow (I think I certainly shall go) and we meet

again, don’t say a word more on these subjects. I beg that

particularly. And about Dmitri too, I ask you specially, never speak

to me again,” he added, with sudden irritation; “it’s all exhausted,

it has all been said over and over again, hasn’t it? And I’ll make you

one promise in return for it. When at thirty, I want to ‘dash the

cup to the ground,’ wherever I may be I’ll come to have one more

talk with you, even though it were from America, you may be sure of

that. I’ll come on purpose. It will be very interesting to have a look

at you, to see what you’ll be by that time. It’s rather a solemn

promise, you see. And we really may be parting for seven years or ten.

Come, go now to your Pater Seraphicus, he is dying. If he dies without

you, you will be angry with me for having kept you. Goodbye, kiss

me once more; that’s right, now go.”

 

Ivan turned suddenly and went his way without looking back. It was

just as Dmitri had left Alyosha the day before, though the parting had

been very different. The strange resemblance flashed like an arrow

through Alyosha’s mind in the distress and dejection of that moment.

He waited a little, looking after his brother. He suddenly noticed

that Ivan swayed as he walked and that his right shoulder looked lower

than his left. He had never noticed it before. But all at once he

turned too, and almost ran to the monastery. It was nearly dark, and

he felt almost frightened; something new was growing up in him for

which he could not account. The wind had risen again as on the

previous evening, and the ancient pines murmured gloomily about him

when he entered the hermitage copse. He almost ran. “Pater Seraphicus-he got that name from somewhere-where from?” Alyosha wondered. “Ivan,

poor Ivan, and when shall I see you again?… Here is the hermitage.

Yes, yes, that he is, Pater Seraphicus, he will save me-from him

and for ever!”

 

Several times afterwards he wondered how he could, on