The Brothers Karamazov
laughter. These conversations mostly took place in the evenings, in the
company of ladies; women particularly liked listening to me then and
they made the men listen.
“But how can I possibly be responsible for all?” every one would laugh
in my face. “Can I, for instance, be responsible for you?”
“You may well not know it,” I would answer, “since the whole world has
long been going on a different line, since we consider the veriest lies
as truth and demand the same lies from others. Here I have for once in
my life acted sincerely and, well, you all look upon me as a madman.
Though you are friendly to me, yet, you see, you all laugh at me.”
“But how can we help being friendly to you?” said my hostess, laughing.
The room was full of people. All of a sudden the young lady rose, on
whose account the duel had been fought and whom only lately I had
intended to be my future wife. I had not noticed her coming into the
room. She got up, came to me and held out her hand.
“Let me tell you,” she said, “that I am the first not to laugh at you,
but on the contrary I thank you with tears and express my respect for
you for your action then.”
Her husband, too, came up and then they all approached me and almost
kissed me. My heart was filled with joy, but my attention was
especially caught by a middle-aged man who came up to me with the
others. I knew him by name already, but had never made his acquaintance
nor exchanged a word with him till that evening.
_(d) The Mysterious Visitor_
He had long been an official in the town; he was in a prominent
position, respected by all, rich and had a reputation for benevolence.
He subscribed considerable sums to the almshouse and the orphan asylum;
he was very charitable, too, in secret, a fact which only became known
after his death. He was a man of about fifty, almost stern in
appearance and not much given to conversation. He had been married
about ten years and his wife, who was still young, had borne him three
children. Well, I was sitting alone in my room the following evening,
when my door suddenly opened and this gentleman walked in.
I must mention, by the way, that I was no longer living in my former
quarters. As soon as I resigned my commission, I took rooms with an old
lady, the widow of a government clerk. My landlady’s servant waited
upon me, for I had moved into her rooms simply because on my return
from the duel I had sent Afanasy back to the regiment, as I felt
ashamed to look him in the face after my last interview with him. So
prone is the man of the world to be ashamed of any righteous action.
“I have,” said my visitor, “with great interest listened to you
speaking in different houses the last few days and I wanted at last to
make your personal acquaintance, so as to talk to you more intimately.
Can you, dear sir, grant me this favor?”
“I can, with the greatest pleasure, and I shall look upon it as an
honor.” I said this, though I felt almost dismayed, so greatly was I
impressed from the first moment by the appearance of this man. For
though other people had listened to me with interest and attention, no
one had come to me before with such a serious, stern and concentrated
expression. And now he had come to see me in my own rooms. He sat down.
“You are, I see, a man of great strength of character,” he said; “as
you have dared to serve the truth, even when by doing so you risked
incurring the contempt of all.”
“Your praise is, perhaps, excessive,” I replied.
“No, it’s not excessive,” he answered; “believe me, such a course of
action is far more difficult than you think. It is that which has
impressed me, and it is only on that account that I have come to you,”
he continued. “Tell me, please, that is if you are not annoyed by my
perhaps unseemly curiosity, what were your exact sensations, if you can
recall them, at the moment when you made up your mind to ask
forgiveness at the duel. Do not think my question frivolous; on the
contrary, I have in asking the question a secret motive of my own,
which I will perhaps explain to you later on, if it is God’s will that
we should become more intimately acquainted.”
All the while he was speaking, I was looking at him straight into the
face and I felt all at once a complete trust in him and great curiosity
on my side also, for I felt that there was some strange secret in his
soul.
“You ask what were my exact sensations at the moment when I asked my
opponent’s forgiveness,” I answered; “but I had better tell you from
the beginning what I have not yet told any one else.” And I described
all that had passed between Afanasy and me, and how I had bowed down to
the ground at his feet. “From that you can see for yourself,” I
concluded, “that at the time of the duel it was easier for me, for I
had made a beginning already at home, and when once I had started on
that road, to go farther along it was far from being difficult, but
became a source of joy and happiness.”
I liked the way he looked at me as he listened. “All that,” he said,
“is exceedingly interesting. I will come to see you again and again.”
And from that time forth he came to see me nearly every evening. And we
should have become greater friends, if only he had ever talked of
himself. But about himself he scarcely ever said a word, yet
continually asked me about myself. In spite of that I became very fond
of him and spoke with perfect frankness to him about all my feelings;
“for,” thought I, “what need have I to know his secrets, since I can
see without that that he is a good man? Moreover, though he is such a
serious man and my senior, he comes to see a youngster like me and
treats me as his equal.” And I learned a great deal that was profitable
from him, for he was a man of lofty mind.
“That life is heaven,” he said to me suddenly, “that I have long been
thinking about”; and all at once he added, “I think of nothing else
indeed.” He looked at me and smiled. “I am more convinced of it than
you are, I will tell you later why.”
I listened to him and thought that he evidently wanted to tell me
something.
“Heaven,” he went on, “lies hidden within all of us—here it lies hidden
in me now, and if I will it, it will be revealed to me to-morrow and
for all time.”
I looked at him; he was speaking with great emotion and gazing
mysteriously at me, as if he were questioning me.
“And that we are all responsible to all for all, apart from our own
sins, you were quite right in thinking that, and it is wonderful how
you could comprehend it in all its significance at once. And in very
truth, so soon as men understand that, the Kingdom of Heaven will be
for them not a dream, but a living reality.”
“And when,” I cried out to him bitterly, “when will that come to pass?
and will it ever come to pass? Is not it simply a dream of ours?”
“What then, you don’t believe it,” he said. “You preach it and don’t
believe it yourself. Believe me, this dream, as you call it, will come
to pass without doubt; it will come, but not now, for every process has
its law. It’s a spiritual, psychological process. To transform the
world, to recreate it afresh, men must turn into another path
psychologically. Until you have become really, in actual fact, a
brother to every one, brotherhood will not come to pass. No sort of
scientific teaching, no kind of common interest, will ever teach men to
share property and privileges with equal consideration for all. Every
one will think his share too small and they will be always envying,
complaining and attacking one another. You ask when it will come to
pass; it will come to pass, but first we have to go through the period
of isolation.”
“What do you mean by isolation?” I asked him.
“Why, the isolation that prevails everywhere, above all in our age—it
has not fully developed, it has not reached its limit yet. For every
one strives to keep his individuality as apart as possible, wishes to
secure the greatest possible fullness of life for himself; but meantime
all his efforts result not in attaining fullness of life but
self-destruction, for instead of self-realization he ends by arriving
at complete solitude. All mankind in our age have split up into units,
they all keep apart, each in his own groove; each one holds aloof,
hides himself and hides what he has, from the rest, and he ends by
being repelled by others and repelling them. He heaps up riches by
himself and thinks, ‘How strong I am now and how secure,’ and in his
madness he does not understand that the more he heaps up, the more he
sinks into self-destructive impotence. For he is accustomed to rely
upon himself alone and to cut himself off from the whole; he has
trained himself not to believe in the help of others, in men and in
humanity, and only trembles for fear he should lose his money and the
privileges that he has won for himself. Everywhere in these days men
have, in their mockery, ceased to understand that the true security is
to be found in social solidarity rather than in isolated individual
effort. But this terrible individualism must inevitably have an end,
and all will suddenly understand how unnaturally they are separated
from one another. It will be the spirit of the time, and people will
marvel that they have sat so long in darkness without seeing the light.
And then the sign of the Son of Man will be seen in the heavens....
But, until then, we must keep the banner flying. Sometimes even if he
has to do it alone, and his conduct seems to be crazy, a man must set
an example, and so draw men’s souls out of their solitude, and spur
them to some act of brotherly love, that the great idea may not die.”
Our evenings, one after another, were spent in such stirring and
fervent talk. I gave up society and visited my neighbors much less
frequently. Besides, my vogue was somewhat over. I say this, not as
blame, for they still loved me and treated me good-humoredly, but
there’s no denying that fashion is a great power in society. I began to
regard my mysterious visitor with admiration, for besides enjoying his
intelligence, I began to perceive that he was brooding over some plan
in his heart, and was preparing himself perhaps for a great deed.
Perhaps he liked my not showing curiosity about his secret, not seeking
to discover it by direct question nor by insinuation. But I noticed at
last, that he seemed to show signs of wanting to tell me something.
This had become quite evident, indeed, about a month after he first
began to visit me.
“Do you know,” he said to me once, “that people are very inquisitive
about us in the town and wonder why I come to see you so often. But let
them wonder, for _soon all will be explained_.”
Sometimes an extraordinary agitation would come over him, and almost
always on such occasions he would get up and go away. Sometimes he
would fix a long piercing look upon me, and I thought, “He will say
something directly now.” But he would suddenly begin talking of
something ordinary and familiar. He often complained of headache too.
One day, quite unexpectedly indeed, after he had been talking with
great fervor a long time, I saw him suddenly turn pale, and his face
worked convulsively, while he stared persistently at me.
“What’s the matter?” I said; “do you feel ill?”—he had just been
complaining of headache.
“I ... do you know ... I murdered some one.”
He said this and smiled with a face as white as chalk. “Why is it he is
smiling?” The thought flashed through my mind before I realized
anything else. I too turned pale.
“What are you saying?” I cried.
“You see,” he said, with a pale smile, “how much it has cost me to say
the first word. Now I have said it, I feel I’ve taken the first step
and shall go on.”
For a long while I could not believe him, and I did not believe him at