The Brothers Karamazov
“And you are quite convinced that there has been some one here?” asked
Alyosha.
“Yes, on that sofa in the corner. You would have driven him away. You
did drive him away: he disappeared when you arrived. I love your face,
Alyosha. Did you know that I loved your face? And _he_ is myself,
Alyosha. All that’s base in me, all that’s mean and contemptible. Yes,
I am a romantic. He guessed it ... though it’s a libel. He is
frightfully stupid; but it’s to his advantage. He has cunning, animal
cunning—he knew how to infuriate me. He kept taunting me with believing
in him, and that was how he made me listen to him. He fooled me like a
boy. He told me a great deal that was true about myself, though. I
should never have owned it to myself. Do you know, Alyosha,” Ivan added
in an intensely earnest and confidential tone, “I should be awfully
glad to think that it was _he_ and not I.”
“He has worn you out,” said Alyosha, looking compassionately at his
brother.
“He’s been teasing me. And you know he does it so cleverly, so
cleverly. ‘Conscience! What is conscience? I make it up for myself. Why
am I tormented by it? From habit. From the universal habit of mankind
for the seven thousand years. So let us give it up, and we shall be
gods.’ It was he said that, it was he said that!”
“And not you, not you?” Alyosha could not help crying, looking frankly
at his brother. “Never mind him, anyway; have done with him and forget
him. And let him take with him all that you curse now, and never come
back!”
“Yes, but he is spiteful. He laughed at me. He was impudent, Alyosha,”
Ivan said, with a shudder of offense. “But he was unfair to me, unfair
to me about lots of things. He told lies about me to my face. ‘Oh, you
are going to perform an act of heroic virtue: to confess you murdered
your father, that the valet murdered him at your instigation.’”
“Brother,” Alyosha interposed, “restrain yourself. It was not you
murdered him. It’s not true!”
“That’s what he says, he, and he knows it. ‘You are going to perform an
act of heroic virtue, and you don’t believe in virtue; that’s what
tortures you and makes you angry, that’s why you are so vindictive.’ He
said that to me about me and he knows what he says.”
“It’s you say that, not he,” exclaimed Alyosha mournfully, “and you say
it because you are ill and delirious, tormenting yourself.”
“No, he knows what he says. ‘You are going from pride,’ he says.
‘You’ll stand up and say it was I killed him, and why do you writhe
with horror? You are lying! I despise your opinion, I despise your
horror!’ He said that about me. ‘And do you know you are longing for
their praise—“he is a criminal, a murderer, but what a generous soul;
he wanted to save his brother and he confessed.”’ That’s a lie,
Alyosha!” Ivan cried suddenly, with flashing eyes. “I don’t want the
low rabble to praise me, I swear I don’t! That’s a lie! That’s why I
threw the glass at him and it broke against his ugly face.”
“Brother, calm yourself, stop!” Alyosha entreated him.
“Yes, he knows how to torment one. He’s cruel,” Ivan went on,
unheeding. “I had an inkling from the first what he came for. ‘Granting
that you go through pride, still you had a hope that Smerdyakov might
be convicted and sent to Siberia, and Mitya would be acquitted, while
you would only be punished with moral condemnation’ (‘Do you hear?’ he
laughed then)—‘and some people will praise you. But now Smerdyakov’s
dead, he has hanged himself, and who’ll believe you alone? But yet you
are going, you are going, you’ll go all the same, you’ve decided to go.
What are you going for now?’ That’s awful, Alyosha. I can’t endure such
questions. Who dare ask me such questions?”
“Brother,” interposed Alyosha—his heart sank with terror, but he still
seemed to hope to bring Ivan to reason—“how could he have told you of
Smerdyakov’s death before I came, when no one knew of it and there was
no time for any one to know of it?”
“He told me,” said Ivan firmly, refusing to admit a doubt. “It was all
he did talk about, if you come to that. ‘And it would be all right if
you believed in virtue,’ he said. ‘No matter if they disbelieve you,
you are going for the sake of principle. But you are a little pig like
Fyodor Pavlovitch, and what do you want with virtue? Why do you want to
go meddling if your sacrifice is of no use to any one? Because you
don’t know yourself why you go! Oh, you’d give a great deal to know
yourself why you go! And can you have made up your mind? You’ve not
made up your mind. You’ll sit all night deliberating whether to go or
not. But you will go; you know you’ll go. You know that whichever way
you decide, the decision does not depend on you. You’ll go because you
won’t dare not to go. Why won’t you dare? You must guess that for
yourself. That’s a riddle for you!’ He got up and went away. You came
and he went. He called me a coward, Alyosha! _Le mot de l’énigme_ is
that I am a coward. ‘It is not for such eagles to soar above the
earth.’ It was he added that—he! And Smerdyakov said the same. He must
be killed! Katya despises me. I’ve seen that for a month past. Even
Lise will begin to despise me! ‘You are going in order to be praised.’
That’s a brutal lie! And you despise me too, Alyosha. Now I am going to
hate you again! And I hate the monster, too! I hate the monster! I
don’t want to save the monster. Let him rot in Siberia! He’s begun
singing a hymn! Oh, to-morrow I’ll go, stand before them, and spit in
their faces!”
He jumped up in a frenzy, flung off the towel, and fell to pacing up
and down the room again. Alyosha recalled what he had just said. “I
seem to be sleeping awake.... I walk, I speak, I see, but I am asleep.”
It seemed to be just like that now. Alyosha did not leave him. The
thought passed through his mind to run for a doctor, but he was afraid
to leave his brother alone: there was no one to whom he could leave
him. By degrees Ivan lost consciousness completely at last. He still
went on talking, talking incessantly, but quite incoherently, and even
articulated his words with difficulty. Suddenly he staggered violently;
but Alyosha was in time to support him. Ivan let him lead him to his
bed. Alyosha undressed him somehow and put him to bed. He sat watching
over him for another two hours. The sick man slept soundly, without
stirring, breathing softly and evenly. Alyosha took a pillow and lay
down on the sofa, without undressing.
As he fell asleep he prayed for Mitya and Ivan. He began to understand
Ivan’s illness. “The anguish of a proud determination. An earnest
conscience!” God, in Whom he disbelieved, and His truth were gaining
mastery over his heart, which still refused to submit. “Yes,” the
thought floated through Alyosha’s head as it lay on the pillow, “yes,
if Smerdyakov is dead, no one will believe Ivan’s evidence; but he will
go and give it.” Alyosha smiled softly. “God will conquer!” he thought.
“He will either rise up in the light of truth, or ... he’ll perish in
hate, revenging on himself and on every one his having served the cause
he does not believe in,” Alyosha added bitterly, and again he prayed
for Ivan.
Book XII. A Judicial Error
Chapter I.
The Fatal Day
At ten o’clock in the morning of the day following the events I have
described, the trial of Dmitri Karamazov began in our district court.
I hasten to emphasize the fact that I am far from esteeming myself
capable of reporting all that took place at the trial in full detail,
or even in the actual order of events. I imagine that to mention
everything with full explanation would fill a volume, even a very large
one. And so I trust I may not be reproached, for confining myself to
what struck me. I may have selected as of most interest what was of
secondary importance, and may have omitted the most prominent and
essential details. But I see I shall do better not to apologize. I will
do my best and the reader will see for himself that I have done all I
can.
And, to begin with, before entering the court, I will mention what
surprised me most on that day. Indeed, as it appeared later, every one
was surprised at it, too. We all knew that the affair had aroused great
interest, that every one was burning with impatience for the trial to
begin, that it had been a subject of talk, conjecture, exclamation and
surmise for the last two months in local society. Every one knew, too,
that the case had become known throughout Russia, but yet we had not
imagined that it had aroused such burning, such intense, interest in
every one, not only among ourselves, but all over Russia. This became
evident at the trial this day.
Visitors had arrived not only from the chief town of our province, but
from several other Russian towns, as well as from Moscow and
Petersburg. Among them were lawyers, ladies, and even several
distinguished personages. Every ticket of admission had been snatched
up. A special place behind the table at which the three judges sat was
set apart for the most distinguished and important of the men visitors;
a row of arm-chairs had been placed there—something exceptional, which
had never been allowed before. A large proportion—not less than half of
the public—were ladies. There was such a large number of lawyers from
all parts that they did not know where to seat them, for every ticket
had long since been eagerly sought for and distributed. I saw at the
end of the room, behind the platform, a special partition hurriedly put
up, behind which all these lawyers were admitted, and they thought
themselves lucky to have standing room there, for all chairs had been
removed for the sake of space, and the crowd behind the partition stood
throughout the case closely packed, shoulder to shoulder.
Some of the ladies, especially those who came from a distance, made
their appearance in the gallery very smartly dressed, but the majority
of the ladies were oblivious even of dress. Their faces betrayed
hysterical, intense, almost morbid, curiosity. A peculiar
fact—established afterwards by many observations—was that almost all
the ladies, or, at least the vast majority of them, were on Mitya’s
side and in favor of his being acquitted. This was perhaps chiefly
owing to his reputation as a conqueror of female hearts. It was known
that two women rivals were to appear in the case. One of them—Katerina
Ivanovna—was an object of general interest. All sorts of extraordinary
tales were told about her, amazing anecdotes of her passion for Mitya,
in spite of his crime. Her pride and “aristocratic connections” were
particularly insisted upon (she had called upon scarcely any one in the
town). People said she intended to petition the Government for leave to
accompany the criminal to Siberia and to be married to him somewhere in
the mines. The appearance of Grushenka in court was awaited with no
less impatience. The public was looking forward with anxious curiosity
to the meeting of the two rivals—the proud aristocratic girl and “the
hetaira.” But Grushenka was a more familiar figure to the ladies of the
district than Katerina Ivanovna. They had already seen “the woman who
had ruined Fyodor Pavlovitch and his unhappy son,” and all, almost
without exception, wondered how father and son could be so in love with
“such a very common, ordinary Russian girl, who was not even pretty.”
In brief, there was a great deal of talk. I know for a fact that there
were several serious family quarrels on Mitya’s account in our town.
Many ladies quarreled violently with their husbands over differences of
opinion about the dreadful case, and it was only natural that the
husbands of these ladies, far from being favorably disposed to the
prisoner, should enter the court bitterly prejudiced against him. In
fact, one may say pretty certainly that the masculine, as distinguished