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Reading books fiction Have you ever thought about what fiction is? Probably, such a question may seem surprising: and so everything is clear. Every person throughout his life has to repeatedly create the works he needs for specific purposes - statements, autobiographies, dictations - using not gypsum or clay, not musical notes, not paints, but just a word. At the same time, almost every person will be very surprised if he is told that he thereby created a work of fiction, which is very different from visual art, music and sculpture making. However, everyone understands that a student's essay or dictation is fundamentally different from novels, short stories, news that are created by professional writers. In the works of professionals there is the most important difference - excogitation. But, oddly enough, in a school literature course, you don’t realize the full power of fiction. So using our website in your free time discover fiction for yourself.



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Read books online » Fiction » The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky (best e book reader for android txt) 📖

Book online «The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky (best e book reader for android txt) 📖». Author Fyodor Dostoyevsky



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that it’s useless for him to repine at

life’s being a moment, and he will love his brother without need of

reward. Love will be sufficient only for a moment of life, but the

very consciousness of its momentariness will intensify its fire, which

now is dissipated in dreams of eternal love beyond the grave’… and

so on and so on in the same style. Charming!”

 

Ivan sat with his eyes on the floor, and his hands pressed to

his ears, but he began trembling all over. The voice continued.

 

“The question now is, my young thinker reflected, is it possible

that such a period will ever come? If it does, everything is

determined and humanity is settled for ever. But as, owing to man’s

inveterate stupidity, this cannot come about for at least a thousand

years, everyone who recognises the truth even now may legitimately

order his life as he pleases, on the new principles. In that sense,

‘all things are lawful’ for him. What’s more, even if this period

never comes to pass, since there is anyway no God and no

immortality, the new man may well become the man-god, even if he is

the only one in the whole world, and promoted to his new position,

he may lightheartedly overstep all the barriers of the old morality of

the old slaveman, if necessary. There is no law for God. Where God

stands, the place is holy. Where I stand will be at once the

foremost place… ‘all things are lawful’ and that’s the end of it!

That’s all very charming; but if you want to swindle why do you want a

moral sanction for doing it? But that’s our modern Russian all over.

He can’t bring himself to swindle without a moral sanction. He is so

in love with truth-”

 

The visitor talked, obviously carried away by his own eloquence,

speaking louder and louder and looking ironically at his host. But

he did not succeed in finishing; Ivan suddenly snatched a glass from

the table and flung it at the orator.

 

“Ah, mais c’est bete enfin,”* cried the latter, jumping up from

the sofa and shaking the drops of tea off himself. “He remembers

Luther’s inkstand! He takes me for a dream and throws glasses at a

dream! It’s like a woman! I suspected you were only pretending to stop

up your ears.”

 

* But after all, that’s stupid.

 

A loud, persistent knocking was suddenly heard at the window. Ivan

jumped up from the sofa.

 

“Do you hear? You’d better open,” cried the visitor; “it’s your

brother Alyosha with the most interesting and surprising news, I’ll be

bound!”

 

“Be silent, deceiver, I knew it was Alyosha, I felt he was coming,

and of course he has not come for nothing; of course he brings

‘news,’” Ivan exclaimed frantically.

 

“Open, open to him. There’s a snowstorm and he is your brother.

Monsieur sait-il le temps qu’il fait? C’est a ne pas mettre un chien

dehors.”*

 

* Does the gentleman know the weather he’s making? It’s not

weather for a dog.

 

The knocking continued. Ivan wanted to rush to the window, but

something seemed to fetter his arms and legs. He strained every effort

to break his chains, but in vain. The knocking at the window grew

louder and louder. At last the chains were broken and Ivan leapt up

from the sofa. He looked round him wildly. Both candles had almost

burnt out, the glass he had just thrown at his visitor stood before

him on the table, and there was no one on the sofa opposite. The

knocking on the window frame went on persistently, but it was by no

means so loud as it had seemed in his dream; on the contrary, it was

quite subdued.

 

“It was not a dream! No, I swear it was not a dream, it all

happened just now!” cried Ivan. He rushed to the window and opened the

movable pane.

 

“Alyosha, I told you not to come,” he cried fiercely to his

brother. “In two words, what do you want? In two words, do you hear?”

 

“An hour ago Smerdyakov hanged himself,” Alyosha answered from the

yard.

 

“Come round to the steps, I’ll open at once,” said Ivan, going

to open the door to Alyosha.

Chapter 10

“It Was He Who Said That”

 

ALYOSHA coming in told Ivan that a little over an hour ago Marya

Kondratyevna had run to his rooms and informed him Smerdyakov had

taken his own life. “I went in to clear away the samovar and he was

hanging on a nail in the wall.” On Alyosha’s inquiring whether she had

informed the police, she answered that she had told no one, “but I

flew straight to you, I’ve run all the way.” She seemed perfectly

crazy, Alyosha reported, and was shaking like a leaf. When Alyosha ran

with her to the cottage, he found Smerdyakov still hanging. On the

table lay a note: “I destroy my life of my own will and desire, so

as to throw no blame on anyone.” Alyosha left the note on the table

and went straight to the police captain and told him all about it.

“And from him I’ve come straight to you,” said Alyosha, in conclusion,

looking intently into Ivan’s face. He had not taken his eyes off him

while he told his story, as though struck by something in his

expression.

 

“Brother,” he cried suddenly, “you must be terribly ill. You

look and don’t seem to understand what I tell you.”

 

“It’s a good thing you came,” said Ivan, as though brooding, and

not hearing Alyosha’s exclamation. “I knew he had hanged himself.”

 

“From whom?”

 

“I don’t know. But I knew. Did I know? Yes, he told me. He told me

so just now.”

 

Ivan stood in the middle of the room, and still spoke in the

same brooding tone, looking at the ground.

 

“Who is he?” asked Alyosha, involuntarily looking round.

 

“He’s slipped away.”

 

Ivan raised his head and smiled softly.

 

“He was afraid of you, of a dove like you. You are a ‘pure

cherub.’ Dmitri calls you a cherub. Cherub!… the thunderous

rapture of the seraphim. What are seraphim? Perhaps a whole

constellation. But perhaps that constellation is only a chemical

molecule. There’s a constellation of the Lion and the Sun. Don’t you

know it?”

 

“Brother, sit down,” said Alyosha in alarm. “For goodness’ sake,

sit down on the sofa! You are delirious; put your head on the

pillow, that’s right. Would you like a wet towel on your head? Perhaps

it will do you good.”

 

“Give me the towel: it’s here on the chair. I just threw it down

there.”

 

“It’s not here. Don’t worry yourself. I know where it is-here,”

said Alyosha, finding a clean towel, folded up and unused, by Ivan’s

dressing-table in the other corner of the room. Ivan looked

strangely at the towel: recollection seemed to come back to him for an

instant.

 

“Stay”- he got up from the sofa- “an hour ago I took that new

towel from there and wetted it. I wrapped it round my head and threw

it down here… How is it it’s dry? There was no other.”

 

“You put that towel on your head?” asked Alyosha.

 

“Yes, and walked up and down the room an hour ago… Why have

the candles burnt down so? What’s the time?”

 

“Nearly twelve”

 

“No, no, no!” Ivan cried suddenly. “It was not a dream. He was

here; he was sitting here, on that sofa. When you knocked at the

window, I threw a glass at him… this one. Wait a minute. I was

asleep last time, but this dream was not a dream. It has happened

before. I have dreams now, Alyosha… yet they are not dreams, but

reality. I walk about, talk and see… though I am asleep. But he

was sitting here, on that sofa there…. He is frightfully stupid,

Alyosha, frightfully stupid.” Ivan laughed suddenly and began pacing

about the room.

 

“Who is stupid? Of whom are you talking, brother?” Alyosha asked

anxiously again.

 

“The devil! He’s taken to visiting me. He’s been here twice,

almost three times. He taunted me with being angry at his being a

simple devil and not Satan, with scorched wings, in thunder and

lightning. But he is not Satan: that’s a lie. He is an impostor. He is

simply a devil-a paltry, trivial devil. He goes to the baths. If

you undressed him, you’d be sure to find he had a tail, long and

smooth like a Danish dog’s, a yard long, dun colour…. Alyosha, you

are cold. You’ve been in the snow. Would you like some tea? What? Is

it cold? Shall I tell her to bring some? C’est a ne pas mettre un

chien dehors…”

 

Alyosha ran to the washing-stand, wetted the towel, persuaded Ivan

to sit down again, and put the wet towel round his head. He sat down

beside him.

 

“What were you telling me just now about Lise?” Ivan began

again. (He was becoming very talkative.) “I like Lise. I said

something nasty about her. It was a lie. I like her… I am afraid for

Katya to-morrow. I am more afraid of her than of anything. On

account of the future. She will cast me off to-morrow and trample me

under foot. She thinks that I am ruining Mitya from jealousy on her

account! Yes, she thinks that! But it’s not so. To-morrow the cross,

but not the gallows. No, I shan’t hang myself. Do you know, I can

never commit suicide, Alyosha. Is it because I am base? I am not a

coward. Is it from love of life? How did I know that Smerdyakov had

hanged himself? Yes, it was he told me so.”

 

“And you are quite convinced that there has been someone 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 offence. “But he was unfair

to me, unfair to me about lots of things. He told lies about

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