The Brothers Karamazov Fyodor Dostoevsky (the reader ebook txt) 📖

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 anyone 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 anyone? 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, tomorrow 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 everyone his having served the cause he does not