The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky (best e book reader for android txt) 📖

Chapter 3

The Brothers Make Friends

 

IVAN was not, however, in a separate room, but only in a place

shut off by a screen, so that it was unseen by other people in the

room. It was the first room from the entrance with a buffet along

the wall. Waiters were continually darting to and fro in it. The

only customer in the room was an old retired military man drinking tea

in a corner. But there was the usual bustle going on in the other

rooms of the tavern; there were shouts for the waiters, the sound of

popping corks, the click of billiard balls, the drone of the organ.

Alyosha knew that Ivan did not usually visit this tavern and

disliked taverns in general. So he must have come here, he

reflected, simply to meet Dmitri by arrangement. Yet Dmitri was not

there.

 

“Shall I order you fish, soup, or anything. You don’t live on

tea alone, I suppose,” cried Ivan, apparently delighted at having

got hold of Alyosha. He had finished dinner and was drinking tea.

 

“Let me have soup, and tea afterwards, I am hungry,” said

Alyosha gaily.

 

“And cherry jam? They have it here. You remember how you used to

love cherry jam when you were little?”

 

“You remember that? Let me have jam too, I like it still.”

 

Ivan rang for the waiter and ordered soup, jam, and tea.

 

“I remember everything, Alyosha, I remember you till you were

eleven, I was nearly fifteen. There’s such a difference between

fifteen and eleven that brothers are never companions at those ages. I

don’t know whether I was fond of you even. When I went away to

Moscow for the first few years I never thought of you at all. Then,

when you came to Moscow yourself, we only met once somewhere, I

believe. And now I’ve been here more than three months, and so far

we have scarcely said a word to each other. To-morrow I am going away,

and I was just thinking as I sat here how I could see you to say

good-bye and just then you passed.”

 

“Were you very anxious to see me, then?”

 

“Very. I want to get to know you once for all, and I want you to

know me. And then to say good-bye. I believe it’s always best to get

to know 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-humouredly. “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 drivelling

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 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 everyone

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?”

 

* Professions of faith.

 

“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