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 hanging on to eighty in fact, so he says. He means it only

too seriously, though he is a buffoon. He stands on a firm rock,

too, he stands on his sensuality though after we are thirty, indeed,

there may be nothing else to stand on.... But to hang on to seventy is

nasty, better only to thirty; one might retain 'a shadow of

nobility' by deceiving oneself. Have you seen Dmitri to-day?"

    "No, but I saw Smerdyakov," and Alyosha rapidly, though

minutely, described his meeting with Smerdyakov. Ivan began

listening anxiously and questioned him.

    "But he begged me not to tell Dmitri that he had told me about

him," added Alyosha. Ivan frowned and pondered.

    "Are you frowning on Smerdyakov's account?" asked Alyosha.

    "Yes, on his account. Damn him, I certainly did want to see

Dmitri, but now there's no need," said Ivan reluctantly.

    "But are you really going so soon, brother?"

    "What of Dmitri and father? how will it end?" asked Alyosha

anxiously.

    "You are always harping upon it! What have I to do with it? Am I

my brother Dmitri's keeper?" Ivan snapped irritably, but then he

suddenly smiled bitterly. "Cain's answer about his murdered brother,

wasn't it? Perhaps that's what you're thinking at this moment? Well

damn it all, I can't stay here to be their keeper, can I? I've

finished what I had to do, and I am going. Do you imagine I am jealous

of Dmitri, that I've been trying to steal his beautiful Katerina

Ivanovna for the last three months? Nonsense, I had business of my

own. I finished it. I am going. I finished it just now, you were

witness."

    "At Katerina Ivanovna's?"

    "Yes, and I've released myself once for all. And after all, what

have I to do with Dmitri? Dmitri doesn't come in. I had my own

business to settle with Katerina Ivanovna. You know, on the

contrary, that Dmitri behaved as though there was an understanding

between us. I didn't ask to do it, but he solemnly handed her over

to me and gave us his blessing. It's all too funny. Ah, Alyosha, if

you only knew how light my heart is now! Would you believe it, I sat

here eating my dinner and was nearly ordering champagne to celebrate

my first hour of freedom. Tfoo! It's been going on nearly six

months, and all at once I've thrown it off. I could never have guessed

even yesterday, how easy it would be to put an end to it if I wanted."

    "You are speaking of your love, Ivan?"

    "Of my love, if you like. I fell in love with the young lady, I

worried myself over her and she worried me. I sat watching over her...

and all at once it's collapsed! I spoke this morning with inspiration,

but I went away and roared with laughter. Would you believe it? Yes,

it's the literal truth."

    "You seem very merry about it now," observed Alyosha, looking into

his face, which had suddenly grown brighter.

    "But how could I tell that I didn't care for her a bit! Ha ha!

It appears after all I didn't. And yet how she attracted me! How

attractive she was just now when I made my speech! And do you know she

attracts me awfully even now, yet how easy it is to leave her. Do

you think I am boasting?"

    "No, only perhaps it wasn't love."

    "Alyosha," laughed Ivan, "don't make reflections about love,

it's unseemly for you. How you rushed into the discussion this

morning! I've forgotten to kiss you for it.... But how she tormented

me! It certainly was sitting by a 'laceration.' Ah, she knew how I

loved her! She loved me and not Dmitri," Ivan insisted gaily. "Her

feeling for Dmitri was simply a self-laceration. All I told her just

now was perfectly true, but the worst of it is, it may take her

fifteen or twenty years to find out that she doesn't care for

Dmitri, and loves me whom she torments, and perhaps she may never find

it out at all, in spite of her lesson to-day. Well, it's better so;

I can simply go away for good. By the way, how is she now? What

happened after I departed?"

    Alyosha told him she had been hysterical, and that she was now, he

heard, unconscious and delirious.

    "Isn't Madame Hohlakov laying it on?"

    "I think not."

    "I must find out. Nobody dies of hysterics, though. They don't

matter. God gave woman hysterics as a relief. I won't go to her at

all. Why push myself forward again?"

    "But you told her that she had never cared for you."

    "I did that on purpose. Alyosha, shall I call for some

champagne? Let us drink to my freedom. Ah, if only you knew how glad I

am!"

    "No, brother, we had better not drink," said Alyosha suddenly.

"Besides I feel somehow depressed."

    "Yes, you've been depressed a long time, I've noticed it."

    "Have you settled to go to-morrow morning, then?"

    "Morning? I didn't say I should go in the morning.... But

perhaps it may be the morning. Would you believe it, I dined here

to-day only to avoid dining with the old man, I loathe him so. I

should have left long ago, so far as he is concerned. But why are

you so worried about my going away? We've plenty of time before I

go, an eternity!"

    "If you are going away to-morrow, what do you mean by an

eternity?"

    "But what does it matter to us?" laughed Ivan. "We've time

enough for our talk, for what brought us here. Why do you look so

surprised? Answer: why have we met here? To talk of my love for

Katerina Ivanovna, of the old man and Dmitri? of foreign travel? of

the fatal position of Russia? of the Emperor Napoleon? Is that it?"

    "No."

    "Then you know what for. It's different for other people; but we

in our green youth have to settle the eternal questions first of

all. That's what we care about. Young Russia is talking about

nothing but the eternal questions now. just when the old folks are all

taken up with practical questions. Why have you been looking at me

in expectation for the last three months? To ask me, 'What do you

believe, or don't you believe at all?' That's what your eyes have been

meaning for these three months, haven't they?"

    "Perhaps so," smiled Alyosha. "You are not laughing at me, now,

Ivan?

    "Me laughing! I don't want to wound my little brother who has been

watching me with such expectation for three months. Alyosha, look

straight at me! Of course, I am just such a little boy as you are,

only not a novice. And what have Russian boys been doing up till

now, some of them, I mean? In this stinking tavern, for instance,

here, they meet and sit down in a corner. They've never met in their

lives before and, when they go out of the tavern, they won't meet

again for forty years. And what do they talk about in that momentary

halt in the tavern? Of the eternal questions, of the existence of

God and immortality. And those who do not believe in God talk of

socialism or anarchism, of the transformation of all humanity on a new

pattern, so that it all comes to the same, they're the same

questions turned inside out. And masses, masses of the most original

Russian boys do nothing but talk of the eternal questions! Isn't it

so?"

    "Yes, for real Russians the questions of God's existence and of

immortality, or, as you say, the same questions turned inside out,

come first and foremost, of course, and so they should," said Alyosha,

still watching his brother with the same gentle and inquiring smile.

    "Well, Alyosha, it's sometimes very unwise to be a Russian at all,

but anything stupider than the way Russian boys spend their time one

can hardly imagine. But there's one Russian boy called Alyosha I am

awfully fond of."

    "How nicely you put that in!" Alyosha laughed suddenly.

    "Well, tell me where to begin, give your orders. The existence

of God, eh?"

    "Begin where you like. You declared yesterday at father's that

there was no God." Alyosha looked searchingly at his brother.

    "I said that yesterday at dinner on purpose to tease you and I saw

your eyes glow. But now I've no objection to discussing with you,

and I say so very seriously. I want to be friends with you, Alyosha,

for I have no friends and want to try it. Well, only fancy, perhaps

I too accept God," laughed Ivan; "that's a surprise for you, isn't

it?"

    "Yes of course, if you are not joking now."

    "Joking? I was told at the elder's yesterday that I was joking.

You know, dear boy, there was an old sinner in the eighteenth

century who declared that, if there were no God, he would have to be

invented. S'il n'existait pas Dieu, il faudrait l'inventer. And man

has actually invented God. And what's strange, what would be

marvellous, is not that God should really exist; the marvel is that

such an idea, the idea of the necessity of God, could enter the head

of such a savage, vicious beast as man. So holy it is, so touching, so

wise and so great a credit it does to man. As for me, I've long

resolved not to think whether man created God or God man. And I

won't go through all the axioms laid down by Russian boys on that

subject, all derived from European hypotheses; for what's a hypothesis

there is an axiom with the Russian boy, and not only with the boys but

with their teachers too, for our Russian professors are often just the

same boys themselves. And so I omit all the hypotheses. For what are

we aiming at now? I am trying to explain as quickly as possible my

essential nature, that is what manner of man I am, what I believe

in, and for what I hope, that's it, isn't it? And therefore I tell you

that I accept God simply. But you must note this: if God exists and if

He really did create the world, then, as we all know, He created it

according to the geometry of Euclid and the human mind with the

conception of only three dimensions in space. Yet there have been

and still are geometricians and philosophers, and even some of the

most distinguished, who doubt whether the whole universe, or to

speak more widely, the whole of being, was only created in Euclid's

geometry; they even dare to dream that two parallel lines, which

according to Euclid can never meet on earth, may meet somewhere in

infinity. I have come to the conclusion that, since I can't understand

even that, I can't expect to understand about God. I acknowledge

humbly that I have no faculty for settling such questions, I have a

Euclidian earthly mind, and how could I solve problems that are not of

this world? And I advise you never to think about it either, my dear

Alyosha, especially about God, whether He exists or not. All such

questions are utterly inappropriate for a mind created with an idea of

only three dimensions. And so I accept God and am glad to, and

what's more, I accept His wisdom, His purpose which are utterly beyond

our ken; I believe in the underlying order and the meaning of life;

I believe in the eternal harmony in which they say we shall one day be

blended. I believe in the Word to Which the universe is striving,

and Which Itself was 'with God,' and Which Itself is God and so on,

and so on, to infinity. There are all sorts of phrases for it. I

seem to be on the right path, don't I'? Yet would you believe it, in

the final result I don't accept this world of God's, and, although I

know it exists, I don't accept it at all. It's not that I don't accept

God, you must understand, it's the world created by Him I don't and

cannot accept. Let me make it plain. I believe like a child that

suffering will be healed and made up for, that all the humiliating

absurdity of human contradictions will vanish like a pitiful mirage,

like the despicable fabrication of the impotent and infinitely small

Euclidian mind of man, that in the world's finale, at the moment of

eternal harmony, something so precious will come to pass that it

will suffice for all hearts, for the comforting of all resentments,

for the atonement of all the crimes of humanity, of all the blood

they've shed; that it will make it not only possible to forgive but to

justify all that has happened with men- but thought all that may

come to pass, I don't accept it. I won't accept it. Even if parallel

lines do meet and I see it myself, I shall see it and say that they've

met, but still I won't accept it. That's what's at the root of me,

Alyosha; that's my creed. I am in earnest in what I say. I began our

talk as stupidly as I could on purpose, but I've led up to my

confession, for that's all you want. You didn't want to hear about

God, but only to know what the brother you love lives by. And so

I've told you."

    Ivan concluded his long tirade with marked and unexpected feeling.

    "And why did you begin 'as stupidly as you could'?" asked Alyosha,

looking dreamily at him.

    "To begin with, for the sake of being Russian. Russian

conversations on such subjects are always carried on inconceivably

stupidly. And secondly, the stupider one is, the closer one is to

reality. The stupider one is, the clearer one is. Stupidity is brief

and artless, while intelligence wriggles and hides itself.

Intelligence is a knave, but stupidity is honest and straight forward.

I've led the conversation to my despair, and the more stupidly I

have presented it, the better for me."

    "You will explain why you don't accept the world?" said Alyosha.

    "To be sure I will, it's not a secret, that's what I've been

leading up to. Dear little brother, I don't want to corrupt you or

to turn you from your stronghold, perhaps I want to be healed by you."

Ivan smiled suddenly quite like a little gentle child. Alyosha had

never seen such a smile on his face before.