The Brothers Karamazov (13 page)

“So it shall be and so be it!” Father Paisii echoed with stern solemnity.

“All this is very, very strange,” Miusov said. He sounded somehow more personally offended than angry.

“What exactly strikes you as so strange?” the monastery librarian asked him quietly.

“What is it all about finally?” Miusov shouted, as though no longer able to bear it. “What is this about the State being eliminated and the Church raised to the status of a state! This is no longer Ultramontanism, this is Arch-Ultramontanism! This is something that Pope Gregory VII himself could not have dreamed up!”

“You have completely misunderstood, sir,” Father Paisii said sternly. “It is not the Church that is to be turned into the State. That is Rome and its dream. It is the third temptation of the devil! Just the opposite is true—it is the State that will be transformed into the Church. It will rise to the status of a church and become the universal Church. It is just the opposite of Ultramontanism, of Rome, and of your interpretation, and it is the great mission and destination of the Orthodox Church on earth. The star will rise in the East!”

Miusov maintained a dignified silence. His entire person contrived to convey his tremendous respect for himself. A condescending smile twisted his lips. Alyosha’s heart pounded as he watched them all. What had been said had shaken him to his very foundations. For a second his glance rested on Rakitin. Rakitin was still standing by the door, motionless, listening, following intently, although he kept his eyes lowered. From his flushed cheeks, Alyosha could see that Rakitin was no less excited than he himself, and he guessed what the cause of his excitement was.

Suddenly Miusov broke his silence, speaking with overbearing condescension.

“I wonder,” he said, “if you gentlemen would allow me to tell you a little story. When I was in Paris a few years ago—it was soon after the December 
coup d’état
—I went to see an acquaintance of mine who at that time held a very important position in the government, and during my visit I met an extremely interesting gentleman. This character was not only a secret agent—he was in charge of a whole team of secret agents which, in its way, made him a man of considerable influence. I took advantage of the opportunity to make him talk, as I was quite intrigued. Now, since he was there as a subordinate, to make some sort of report to my acquaintance, whereas I was received as a personal friend—a fact which he realized very well—he answered my questions with a certain degree of frankness—or at least he was extremely courteous rather than frank, the way Frenchmen can be courteous, especially to foreigners. But I understood him perfectly. The main topic of our conversation was the socialist revolutionaries who, incidentally, were at that time being persecuted. I will spare you the brunt of the conversation and repeat only a curious remark that the gentleman made quite inadvertently: ‘We aren’t really too worried about all these socialists, anarchists, atheists, revolutionaries, and the like. We keep our eye on them and we know what they’re likely to try next. But there are among them some, though not many, peculiar types who believe in God—Christians who are at the same time socialists. They are the ones who worry us most. They are the most dangerous! A Christian socialist is much more dangerous than an atheistic socialist.’ I was struck by these words at the time and now they come back to me . . .”

“You mean that you apply them to us and that you regard us as socialists?” Father Paisii asked him point blank.

But before Miusov could answer, the door opened and Dmitry Karamazov made his very late appearance. Apparently they had all given up hope of seeing him, since his sudden arrival seemed to cause a certain surprise.

Chapter 6: Why Should Such A Man Live?

AT TWENTY -eight, Dmitry Karamazov looked much older than he was. He was of medium height, powerfully muscled, and obviously endowed with great physical strength, but his thin, sallow, hollow-cheeked face left an impression of ill-health. And there was something vague about the otherwise determined look in his rather large, dark, somewhat bulging eyes. Even when he grew excited and spoke irritatedly, his eyes seemed disconnected from his inner state and to express something quite unrelated to what he was saying. “Hard to know what he’s thinking,” was the general impression he produced on people who talked to him. At times, he would look at people with a dreamy, melancholy gaze and then suddenly surprise them by bursting into gay laughter, which probably reflected gay and playful thoughts that had been churning in his head all the while.

It must be said that anyone could think of many good reasons for Dmitry’s drawn and haggard features; everyone had heard of the irregular and dissipated life he had been leading, particularly of late, and they also knew how upset and irritated he was by his arguments with his father over money. Several stories on the subject were going around town. It is true, though, that Dmitry had by nature a temper that he found hard to control. “An unbalanced and unpredictable spirit,” as our justice of the peace, Semyon Kachalnikov, once aptly described him at a public gathering.

Dmitry arrived impeccably dressed in the latest fashion, wearing a black coat buttoned all the way down and black gloves, and carrying a top-hat in his hand. Having recently retired from the army, he still wore an officer’s moustache. His dark-brown hair was short and combed forward at the temples. He walked with the long, firm stride of a military man. He stopped for a second by the door as he came in, glanced quickly around, and then went straight over to the elder, guessing him to be the host. He bowed deeply to him and asked for his blessing. The elder half rose from his seat and blessed him. Dmitry kissed his hand with great reverence and then, sounding very agitated, almost angry, said:

“Please forgive me for being so late. My father’s servant, Smerdyakov, who was sent to inform me of this meeting, repeated twice with the utmost assurance, when I asked him about the time, that it was set for one p.m. . . . And now suddenly I’m told that it was for . . .”

“Please think nothing of it. Don’t let it worry you,” the elder interrupted him. “Even if you are a little late, no harm has been done at all . . .”

“Thank you very much. I could not have expected less from a man of your kindness,” Dmitry said, interrupting him in his turn. He bowed once more to the elder, and then, turning abruptly toward his father, unexpectedly bowed to him just as deeply and respectfully. It was quite evident that he had planned that bow well in advance, sincerely feeling that it was his duty to register his good intentions and his respect for his father.

Although Mr. Karamazov was caught unawares by his son’s gesture, he managed to cope with the situation in his own style: he answered Dmitry’s bow by leaping up from his chair and bowing back to him just as solemnly and respectfully. His face took on a grave and solemn expression, and this somehow made him look positively evil.

Dmitry looked around the room, bowed once more, this time generally to all the other people there, and walked in his long, firm soldier’s stride toward the window where, near Father Paisii, stood the last unoccupied chair. He sat down, leaning forward, ready to listen to the conversation he had interrupted by his arrival.

All this had taken no more than a couple of minutes, and the conversation was resumed as a matter of course. Miusov, however, did not find it necessary to answer Father Paisii’s pressing and almost angry question.

“Allow me to decline to discuss this subject any further,” he said with urbane casualness. “It is a rather intricate matter, you know . . . But I see that Ivan Karamazov is smiling at us: I suppose he has some interesting comment to make. Why don’t you ask him?”

“I’d just like to share a small observation with you,” Ivan answered immediately, “namely, that for a long time European liberals and even our native Russian liberal dilettantes have frequently confused the final results of socialism and of Christianity. Such an absurd idea is, of course, characteristic of these people. Actually the liberals and the dilettantes are not the only ones to lump socialism and Christianity together. In some cases the security police do so too—I mean abroad, of course. And your Paris story, Mr. Miusov, is quite typical.”

“I must ask you once more, gentlemen, to excuse me if I refuse to discuss this subject any further,” Miusov repeated. “Let me, instead, tell you another little story, this one about Mr. Ivan Karamazov himself, an extremely interesting and characteristic story, I think. Well, not more than five days ago, in a company consisting mostly of ladies of our town, he solemnly declared, in the course of a discussion, that there was nothing on earth to force men to love their fellow men, that there was no law of nature that a man should love mankind, and that if there was love on earth it did not stem from any natural law but rather from man’s belief in immortality. And here he added parenthetically that if there was any natural law, it was precisely this: Destroy a man’s belief in immortality and not only will his ability to love wither away within him but, along with it, the force that impels him to continue his existence on earth. Moreover, nothing would be immoral then, everything would be permitted, even cannibalism. He went even further, finally asserting that, for every individual—people like us now, for instance—who does not believe in God or immortality, the natural moral law immediately becomes the opposite of religious law and that absolute egotism, even carried to the extent of crime, must not only be tolerated but even recognized as the wisest and perhaps the noblest course. From this paradox you may draw your own conclusions, gentlemen, as to what other declarations may be expected from our dear eccentric and lover of paradoxes, Ivan Karamazov.”

“Just a minute!” Dmitry shouted unexpectedly. “I want to get it straight: crime must be considered not only as admissible but even as the logical and inevitable consequence of an atheist’s position. Did I get it right?”

“You’ve got it right,” Father Paisii said.

“Good, I’ll remember that.”

Having said this, Dmitry lapsed into silence just as abruptly as he had butted into the conversation. They all looked curiously at him.

“Is this really your conviction about what would happen if men lost their faith in the immortality of the soul?” the elder asked, looking at Ivan.

“Yes, I did argue that there is no virtue if there is no immortality.”

“If you believe that, you must be either blissfully happy or desperately unhappy.”

“Why unhappy?” Ivan asked, smiling.

“Because it is extremely unlikely that you yourself believe either in the immortality of your soul or even in what you wrote about the Church and the problems of Church and State.”

“You may be right. But I wasn’t simply joking when I said all that,” Ivan admitted quite unexpectedly, albeit blushing slightly.

“True, you weren’t just joking: you haven’t quite solved that problem in your heart and it still torments you. But a man who suffers also sometimes likes to divert himself with his own despair, and that also out of despair, we may say. For the moment, your despair is driving you, too, to divert yourself, either by writing magazine articles or by expressing daring, sophisticated opinions in cultured company, while you do not believe in your dialectics yourself and laugh at them inwardly, although it hurts you . . . Within you, that problem has not been solved and yours is a great unhappiness, because the problem demands an answer.”

“But is it possible that there is an answer for me? I mean, could there be an affirmative answer?” Ivan said in a strange questioning tone, looking at the elder with a quizzical little smile.

“If the answer cannot be affirmative, it can never be negative either, for, as you know very well yourself, that is a peculiarity of your nature and the source of your suffering. But you must thank your Creator for having given you a heart so noble that it can experience this torment: ‘to mind high things and to seek high things forasmuch as our dwelling is in heaven.’ May God grant that your heart find the answer while you are still on this earth, and may He bless you on your journey through life!”

The elder raised his hand and was about to make the sign of the cross toward Ivan, when Ivan suddenly got up, walked over to him, received his blessing, kissed his hand, and went back to his seat—all without uttering a sound. He looked grave and determined. Ivan’s unexpected action, and his dialogue with the elder, puzzled everyone in the room, and they were all struck by his almost solemn air. They remained silent for a moment, Alyosha looking quite alarmed. Then Miusov shrugged his shoulders, and at that very moment old Karamazov leaped up from his chair.

“O divine and saintly elder!” he cried, addressing the elder and pointing to Ivan. “This is my son, flesh of my flesh, the dearest of my flesh and blood. He is, I may say, my most dutiful Karl Moor, while this other son of mine, the one who just came in, Dmitry, against whom I am seeking justice from you, is my most undutiful Franz Moor—both from Schiller’s 
The Robbers
—and in that case I myself am the Regierender Graf von Moor! Judge us and save us! We ask not only your prayers but also your prophetic insights.”

“Try to speak simply, without playing the clown, and don’t start by being offensive to your children,” the elder said in an exhausted voice. He was visibly tiring, the strength draining from him.

“A disgraceful farce! Just as I expected on my way here!” Dmitry shouted, also jumping to his feet. “Please forgive me, Reverend Father,” he said, turning to the elder. “I am an ignorant man who doesn’t even know how to address you . . . You have been deceived and you have been much too kind in allowing us to meet here. All my father wants is a disgraceful public scene, which he somehow calculates is in his interest. He’s always calculating. But I think I know now, why . . .”

“They all keep accusing me, every single one of them!” Old Karamazov was shouting now too. “Take Miusov, for instance. You accused me, Mr. Miusov, didn’t you?” He suddenly turned on Miusov, although the man was not even thinking of interrupting. “They accuse me of tucking my children’s money away in my boots and swindling them all. But tell me, isn’t there such a thing as legal action? The judges will help you to reckon up that money if you’re really interested, Dmitry. They will add up the sums mentioned on your own receipts, your letters, and the agreements you signed, and it will be clear how much you had, how much you have spent, and how much there is still coming to you! Why does Mr. Miusov refuse to act as arbitrator? Dmitry is no stranger to him. It’s because, while they all make accusations against me, in actual fact, it is Dmitry who owes me money, and not just a small sum, but several thousand rubles. I have the documents to prove it! And besides, the whole town is in an uproar about his wild revelries! And before, while he was still in the army, he thought nothing of spending a thousand or two on seducing respectable young ladies; that’s something I’m very well informed about, Dmitry, in every detail, and I’ll prove it when the time comes . . . Believe me, Holy Father, he gained the affections of a most honorable young lady, from a good and wealthy family, the daughter of his former superior officer, a brave and gallant colonel, a bearer of the Order of St. Anne with palms. He compromised the young lady. He offered to marry her. And now that his poor, orphaned fiancée has come to our town, he is running after a certain local beauty in front of her very eyes. And although that local beauty is, as they say, living in sin with a most respectable man, she is a very independent character, an unassailable fortress to other men, just as if she were lawfully married, because she’s a virtuous woman—yes, holy fathers,” he said, looking in turn at each of the monks, “a virtuous woman, just as I say! But Dmitry wants to break into that fortress, to unlock it with a golden key, and if he’s trying to bully me now, it’s to get money out of me for that purpose. Indeed, he has already wasted a good thousand rubles on the beauty, and that’s why he keeps borrowing money . . . And where do you think he’s borrowing it? Shall I tell them, Mitya, my boy?”