The Brothers Karamazov
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.