I AM NOT a doctor, but yet I feel that the moment has come when

I must inevitably give the reader some account of the nature of Ivan's

illness. Anticipating events I can say at least one thing: he was at

that moment on the very eve of an attack of brain fever. Though his

health had long been affected, it had offered a stubborn resistance to

the fever which in the end gained complete mastery over it. Though I

know nothing of medicine, I venture to hazard the suggestion that he

really had perhaps, by a terrible effort of will, succeeded in

delaying the attack for a time, hoping, of course, to check it

completely. He knew that he was unwell, but he loathed the thought

of being ill at that fatal time, at the approaching crisis in his

life, when he needed to have all his wits about him, to say what he

had to say boldly and resolutely and "to justify himself to himself."

    He had, however, consulted the new doctor, who had been brought

from Moscow by a fantastic notion of Katerina Ivanovna's to which I

have referred already. After listening to him and examining him the

doctor came to the conclusion that he was actually suffering from some

disorder of the brain, and was not at all surprised by an admission

which Ivan had reluctantly made him. "Hallucinations are quite

likely in your condition," the doctor opined, 'though it would be

better to verify them... you must take steps at once, without a

moment's delay, or things will go badly with you." But Ivan did not

follow this judicious advice and did not take to his bed to be nursed.

"I am walking about, so I am strong enough, if I drop, it'll be

different then, anyone may nurse me who likes," he decided, dismissing

the subject.

    And so he was sitting almost conscious himself of his delirium

and, as I have said already, looking persistently at some object on

the sofa against the opposite wall. Someone appeared to be sitting

there, though goodness knows how he had come in, for he had not been

in the room when Ivan came into it, on his return from Smerdyakov.

This was a person or, more accurately speaking, a Russian gentleman of

a particular kind, no longer young, qui faisait la cinquantaine,* as

the French say, with rather long, still thick, dark hair, slightly

streaked with grey and a small pointed beard. He was wearing a

brownish reefer jacket, rather shabby, evidently made by a good tailor

though, and of a fashion at least three years old, that had been

discarded by smart and well-to-do people for the last two years. His

linen and his long scarf-like neck-tie were all such as are worn by

people who aim at being stylish, but on closer inspection his linen

was not overclean and his wide scarf was very threadbare. The

visitor's check trousers were of excellent cut, but were too light

in colour and too tight for the present fashion. His soft fluffy white

hat was out of keeping with the season.



    * Fiftyish.



    In brief there was every appearance of gentility on straitened

means. It looked as though the gentleman belonged to that class of

idle landowners who used to flourish in the times of serfdom. He had

unmistakably been, at some time, in good and fashionable society,

had once had good connections, had possibly preserved them indeed,

but, after a gay youth, becoming gradually impoverished on the

abolition of serfdom, he had sunk into the position of a poor relation

of the best class, wandering from one good old friend to another and

received by them for his companionable and accommodating disposition

and as being, after all, a gentleman who could be asked to sit down

with anyone, though, of course, not in a place of honour. Such

gentlemen of accommodating temper and dependent position, who can tell

a story, take a hand at cards, and who have a distinct aversion for

any duties that may be forced upon them, are usually solitary

creatures, either bachelors or widowers. Sometimes they have children,

but if so, the children are always being brought up at a distance,

at some aunt's, to whom these gentlemen never allude in good

society, seeming ashamed of the relationship. They gradually lose

sight of their children altogether, though at intervals they receive a

birthday or Christmas letter from them and sometimes even answer it.

    The countenance of the unexpected visitor was not so much

good-natured, as accommodating and ready to assume any amiable

expression as occasion might arise. He had no watch, but he had a

tortoise-shell lorgnette on a black ribbon. On the middle finger of

his right hand was a massive gold ring with a cheap opal stone in it.

    Ivan was angrily silent and would not begin the conversation.

The visitor waited and sat exactly like a poor relation who had come

down from his room to keep his host company at tea, and was discreetly

silent, seeing that his host was frowning and preoccupied. But he

was ready for any affable conversation as soon as his host should

begin it. All at once his face expressed a sudden solicitude.

    "I say," he began to Ivan, "excuse me, I only mention it to remind

you. You went to Smerdyakov's to find out about Katerina Ivanovna, but

you came away without finding out anything about her, you probably

forgot-"

    "Ah, yes." broke from Ivan and his face grew gloomy with

uneasiness. "Yes, I'd forgotten... but it doesn't matter now, never

mind, till to-morrow," he muttered to himself, "and you," he added,

addressing his visitor, "I should have remembered that myself in a

minute, for that was just what was tormenting me! Why do you

interfere, as if I should believe that you prompted me, and that I

didn't remember it of myself?"

    "Don't believe it then," said the gentleman, smiling amicably,

"what's the good of believing against your will? Besides, proofs are

no help to believing, especially material proofs. Thomas believed, not

because he saw Christ risen, but because he wanted to believe,

before he saw. Look at the spiritualists, for instance.... I am very

fond of them... only fancy, they imagine that they are serving the

cause of religion, because the devils show them their horns from the

other world. That, they say, is a material proof, so to speak, of

the existence of another world. The other world and material proofs,

what next! And if you come to that, does proving there's a devil prove

that there's a God? I want to join an idealist society, I'll lead

the opposition in it, I'll say I am a realist, but not a

materialist, he he!"

    "Listen," Ivan suddenly got up from the table. "I seem to be

delirious... I am delirious, in fact, talk any nonsense you like, I

don't care! You won't drive me to fury, as you did last time. But I

feel somehow ashamed... I want to walk about the room.... I

sometimes don't see you and don't even hear your voice as I did last

time, but I always guess what you are prating, for it's I, I myself

speaking, not you. Only I don't know whether I was dreaming last

time or whether I really saw you. I'll wet a towel and put it on my

head and perhaps you'll vanish into air."

    Ivan went into the corner, took a towel, and did as he said, and

with a wet towel on his head began walking up and down the room.

    "I am so glad you treat me so familiarly," the visitor began.

    "Fool," laughed Ivan, "do you suppose I should stand on ceremony

with you? I am in good spirits now, though I've a pain in my

forehead... and in the top of my head... only please don't talk

philosophy, as you did last time. If you can't take yourself off, talk

of something amusing. Talk gossip, you are a poor relation, you

ought to talk gossip. What a nightmare to have! But I am not afraid of

you. I'll get the better of you. I won't be taken to a mad-house!"

    "C'est charmant, poor relation. Yes, I am in my natural shape. For

what am I on earth but a poor relation? By the way, I am listening

to you and am rather surprised to find you are actually beginning to

take me for something real, not simply your fancy, as you persisted in

declaring last time-"

    "Never for one minute have I taken you for reality," Ivan cried

with a sort of fury. "You are a lie, you are my illness, you are a

phantom. It's only that I don't know how to destroy you and I see I

must suffer for a time. You are my hallucination. You are the

incarnation of myself, but only of one side of me... of my thoughts

and feelings, but only the nastiest and stupidest of them. From that

point of view you might be of interest to me, if only I had time to

waste on you-"

    "Excuse me, excuse me, I'll catch you. When you flew out at

Alyosha under the lamp-post this evening and shouted to him, 'You

learnt it from him! How do you know that he visits me?' You were

thinking of me then. So for one brief moment you did believe that I

really exist," the gentleman laughed blandly.

    "Yes, that was a moment of weakness... but I couldn't believe in

you. I don't know whether I was asleep or awake last time. Perhaps I

was only dreaming then and didn't see you really at all-"

    "And why were you so surly with Alyosha just now? He is a dear;

I've treated him badly over Father Zossima."

    "Don't talk of Alyosha! How dare you, you flunkey!" Ivan laughed

again.

    "You scold me, but you laugh- that's a good sign. But you are ever

so much more polite than you were last time and I know why: that great

resolution of yours-"

    "Don't speak of my resolution," cried Ivan, savagely.

    "I understand, I understand, c'est noble, c'est charmant, you

are going to defend your brother and to sacrifice yourself... C'est

chevaleresque."

    "Hold your tongue, I'll kick you!"

    "I shan't be altogether sorry, for then my object will be

attained. If you kick me, you must believe in my reality, for people

don't kick ghosts. Joking apart, it doesn't matter to me, scold if you

like, though it's better to be a trifle more polite even to me. 'Fool,

flunkey!' what words!"

    "Scolding you, I scold myself," Ivan laughed again, "you are

myself, myself, only with a different face. You just say what I am

thinking... and are incapable of saying anything new!"

    "If I am like you in my way of thinking, it's all to my credit,"

the gentleman declared, with delicacy and dignity.

    "You choose out only my worst thoughts, and what's more, the

stupid ones. You are stupid and vulgar. You are awfully stupid. No,

I can't put up with you! What am I to do, what am I to do?" Ivan

said through his clenched teeth.

    "My dear friend, above all things I want to behave like a

gentleman and to be recognised as such," the visitor began in an

access of deprecating and simple-hearted pride, typical of a poor

relation. "I am poor, but... I won't say very honest, but... it's an

axiom generally accepted in society that I am a fallen angel. I

certainly can't conceive how I can ever have been an angel. If I

ever was, it must have been so long ago that there's no harm in

forgetting it. Now I only prize the reputation of being a

gentlemanly person and live as I can, trying to make myself agreeable.

I love men genuinely, I've been greatly calumniated! Here when I

stay with you from time to time, my life gains a kind of reality and

that's what I like most of all. You see, like you, I suffer from the

fantastic and so I love the realism of earth. Here, with you,

everything is circumscribed, here all is formulated and geometrical,

while we have nothing but indeterminate equations! I wander about here

dreaming. I like dreaming. Besides, on earth I become superstitious.

Please don't laugh, that's just what I like, to become

superstitious. I adopt all your habits here: I've grown fond of

going to the public baths, would you believe it? and I go and steam

myself with merchants and priests. What I dream of is becoming

incarnate once for all and irrevocably in the form of some

merchant's wife weighing eighteen stone, and of believing all she

believes. My ideal is to go to church and offer a candle in

simple-hearted faith, upon my word it is. Then there would be an end

to my sufferings. I like being doctored too; in the spring there was

an outbreak of smallpox and I went and was vaccinated in a foundling

hospital- if only you knew how I enjoyed myself that day. I subscribed

ten roubles in the cause of the Slavs!... But you are not listening.

Do you know, you are not at all well this evening? I know you went

yesterday to that doctor... well, what about your health? What did the

doctor say?"

    "Fool!" Ivan snapped out.

    "But you are clever, anyway. You are scolding again? I didn't

ask out of sympathy. You needn't answer. Now rheumatism has come in

again-"

    "Fool!" repeated Ivan.

    "You keep saying the same thing; but I had such an attack of

rheumatism last year that I remember it to this day."

    "The devil have rheumatism!"

    "Why not, if I sometimes put on fleshly form? I put on fleshly

form and I take the consequences. Satan sum et nihil humanum a me

alienum puto."*



    * I am Satan, and deem nothing human alien to me.



    "What, what, Satan sum et nihil humanum... that's not bad for

the devil!"

    "I am glad I've pleased you at last."

    "But you didn't get that from me." Ivan stopped suddenly,

seeming struck. "That never entered my head, that's strange."

    "C'est du nouveau, n'est-ce pas?"* This time I'll act honestly and

explain to you. Listen, in dreams and especially in nightmares, from

indigestion or anything, a man sees sometimes such artistic visions,

such complex and real actuality, such events, even a whole world of

events, woven into such a plot, with such unexpected details from

the most exalted matters to the last button on a cuff, as I swear

Leo Tolstoy has never invented. Yet such dreams are sometimes seen not

by writers, but by the most ordinary people, officials, journalists,

priests.... The subject is a complete enigma. A statesman confessed to

me, indeed, that all his best ideas came to him when he was asleep.

Well, that's how it is now, though I am your hallucination, yet just

as in a nightmare, I say original things which had not entered your

head before. So I don't repeat your ideas, yet I am only your

nightmare, nothing more."



    * It's new, isn't it?



    "You are lying, your aim is to convince me you exist apart and are

not my nightmare, and now you are asserting you are a dream."

    "My dear fellow, I've adopted a special method to-day, I'll

explain it to you afterwards. Stay, where did I break off? Oh, yes!

I caught cold then, only not here but yonder."

    "Where is yonder? Tell me, will you be here long. Can't you go

away?" Ivan exclaimed almost in despair. He ceased walking to and fro,

sat down on the sofa, leaned his elbows on the table again and held

his head tight in both hands. He pulled the wet towel off and flung it

away in vexation. It was evidently of no use.

    "Your nerves are out of order," observed the gentleman, with a

carelessly easy, though perfectly polite, air. "You are angry with

me even for being able to catch cold, though it happened in a most

natural way. I was hurrying then to a diplomatic soiree at the house

of a lady of high rank in Petersburg, who was aiming at influence in

the Ministry. Well, an evening suit, white tie, gloves, though I was

God knows where and had to fly through space to reach your earth....

Of course, it took only an instant, but you know a ray of light from

the sun takes full eight minutes, and fancy in an evening suit and

open waistcoat. Spirits don't freeze, but when one's in fleshly

form, well... in brief, I didn't think, and set off, and you know in

those ethereal spaces, in the water that is above the firmament,

there's such a frost... at least one can't call it frost, you fancy,

150 degrees below zero! You know the game the village girls play- they

invite the unwary to lick an axe in thirty degrees of frost, the

tongue instantly freezes to it and the dupe tears the skin off, so

it bleeds. But that's only in 30 degrees, in 150 degrees I imagine

it would be enough to put your finger on the axe and it would be the

end of it... if only there could be an axe there."

    "And can there be an axe there?" Ivan interrupted, carelessly

and disdainfully. He was exerting himself to the utmost not to believe

in the delusion and not to sink into complete insanity

    "An axe?" the guest interrupted in surprise.

    "Yes, what would become of an axe there?" Ivan cried suddenly,

with a sort of savage and insistent obstinacy.

    "What would become of an axe in space? Quelle idee! If it were

to fall to any distance, it would begin, I think, flying round the

earth without knowing why, like a satellite. The astronomers would

calculate the rising and the setting of the axe; Gatzuk would put it

in his calendar, that's all."

    "You are stupid, awfully stupid," said Ivan peevishly. "Fib more

cleverly or I won't listen. You want to get the better of me by

realism, to convince me that you exist, but I don't want to believe

you exist! I won't believe it!"

    "But I am not fibbing, it's all the truth; the truth is

unhappily hardly ever amusing. I see you persist in expecting

something big of me, and perhaps something fine. That's a great

pity, for I only give what I can-"

    "Don't talk philosophy, you ass!"

    "Philosophy, indeed, when all my right side is numb and I am

moaning and groaning. I've tried all the medical faculty: they can

diagnose beautifully, they have the whole of your disease at their

finger-tips, but they've no idea how to cure you. There was an

enthusiastic little student here, 'You may die,' said he, 'but

you'll know perfectly what disease you are dying of!' And then what

a way they have of sending people to specialists! 'We only

diagnose,' they say, 'but go to such-and-such a specialist, he'll cure

you.' The old doctor who used to cure all sorts of disease has

completely disappeared, I assure you, now there are only specialists

and they all advertise in the newspapers. If anything is wrong with

your nose, they send you to Paris: there, they say, is a European

specialist who cures noses. If you go to Paris, he'll look at your

nose; I can only cure your right nostril, he'll tell you, for I

don't cure the left nostril, that's not my speciality, but go to

Vienna, there there's a specialist who will cure your left nostril.

What are you to do? I fell back on popular remedies, a German doctor

advised me to rub myself with honey and salt in the bath-house. Solely

to get an extra bath I went, smeared myself all over and it did me

no good at all. In despair I wrote to Count Mattei in Milan. He sent

me a book and some drops, bless him, and, only fancy, Hoff's malt

extract cured me! I bought it by accident, drank a bottle and a half

of it, and I was ready to dance, it took it away completely. I made up

my mind to write to the papers to thank him, I was prompted by a

feeling of gratitude, and only fancy, it led to no end of a bother:

not a single paper would take my letter. 'It would be very

reactionary,' they said, 'none will believe it. Le diable n'existe

point.* You'd better remain anonymous,' they advised me. What use is a

letter of thanks if it's anonymous? I laughed with the men at the

newspaper office; 'It's reactionary to believe in God in our days,'

I said, 'but I am the devil, so I may be believed in.' 'We quite

understand that,' they said. 'Who doesn't believe in the devil? Yet it

won't do, it might injure our reputation. As a joke, if you like.' But

I thought as a joke it wouldn't be very witty. So it wasn't printed.

And do you know, I have felt sore about it to this day. My best

feelings, gratitude, for instance, are literally denied me simply from

my social position."



    * The devil does not exist.



    "Philosophical reflections again?" Ivan snarled malignantly.

    "God preserve me from it, but one can't help complaining

sometimes. I am a slandered man. You upbraid me every moment with

being stupid. One can see you are young. My dear fellow,

intelligence isn't the only thing! I have naturally a kind and merry

heart. 'I also write vaudevilles of all sorts.' You seem to take me

for Hlestakov grown old, but my fate is a far more serious one. Before

time was, by some decree which I could never make out, I was

predestined 'to deny' and yet I am genuinely good-hearted and not at

all inclined to negation. 'No, you must go and deny, without denial

there's no criticism and what would a journal be without a column of

criticism?' Without criticism it would be nothing but one

'hosannah.' But nothing but hosannah is not enough for life, the

hosannah must be tried in the crucible of doubt and so on, in the same

style. But I don't meddle in that, I didn't create it, I am not

answerable for it. Well, they've chosen their scapegoat, they've

made me write the column of criticism and so life was made possible.

We understand that comedy; I, for instance, simply ask for

annihilation. No, live, I am told, for there'd be nothing without you.

If everything in the universe were sensible, nothing would happen.

There would be no events without you, and there must be events. So

against the grain I serve to produce events and do what's irrational

because I am commanded to. For all their indisputable intelligence,

men take this farce as something serious, and that is their tragedy.

They suffer, of course... but then they live, they live a real life,

not a fantastic one, for suffering is life. Without suffering what

would be the pleasure of it? It would be transformed into an endless

church service; it would be holy, but tedious. But what about me? I

suffer, but still, I don't live. I am x in an indeterminate

equation. I am a sort of phantom in life who has lost all beginning

and end, and who has even forgotten his own name. You are laughing-

no, you are not laughing, you are angry again. You are for ever angry,

all you care about is intelligence, but I repeat again that I would

give away all this superstellar life, all the ranks and honours,

simply to be transformed into the soul of a merchant's wife weighing

eighteen stone and set candles at God's shrine."

    "Then even you don't believe in God?" said Ivan, with a smile of

hatred.

    "What can I say?- that is, if you are in earnest-"

    "Is there a God or not?" Ivan cried with the same savage

intensity.

    "Ah, then you are in earnest! My dear fellow, upon my word I don't

know. There! I've said it now!"

    "You don't know, but you see God? No, you are not someone apart,

you are myself, you are I and nothing more! You are rubbish, you are

my fancy!"

    "Well, if you like, I have the same philosophy as you, that

would be true. Je pense, donc je suis,* I know that for a fact; all

the rest, all these worlds, God and even Satan- all that is not

proved, to my mind. Does all that exist of itself, or is it only an

emanation of myself, a logical development of my ego which alone has

existed for ever: but I make haste to stop, for I believe you will

be jumping up to beat me directly."



    * I think, therefore I am.



    "You'd better tell me some anecdote!" said Ivan miserably.

    "There is an anecdote precisely on our subject, or rather a

legend, not an anecdote. You reproach me with unbelief; you see, you

say, yet you don't believe. But, my dear fellow, I am not the only one

like that. We are all in a muddle over there now and all through

your science. Once there used to be atoms, five senses, four elements,

and then everything hung together somehow. There were atoms in the

ancient world even, but since we've learned that you've discovered the

chemical molecule and protoplasm and the devil knows what, we had to

lower our crest. There's a regular muddle, and, above all,

superstition, scandal; there's as much scandal among us as among

you, you know; a little more in fact, and spying, indeed, for we

have our secret police department where private information is

received. Well, this wild legend belongs to our middle ages- not

yours, but ours- and no one believes it even among us, except the

old ladies of eighteen stone, not your old ladies I mean, but ours.

We've everything you have, I am revealing one of our secrets out of

friendship for you; though it's forbidden. This legend is about

Paradise. There was, they say, here on earth a thinker and

philosopher. He rejected everything, 'laws, conscience, faith,' and,

above all, the future life. He died; he expected to go straight to

darkness and death and he found a future life before him. He was

astounded and indignant. 'This is against my principles!' he said. And

he was punished for that... that is, you must excuse me, I am just

repeating what I heard myself, it's only a legend... he was

sentenced to walk a quadrillion kilometres in the dark (we've

adopted the metric system, you know): and when he has finished that

quadrillion, the gates of heaven would be opened to him and he'll be

forgiven-"

    "And what tortures have you in the other world besides the

quadrillion kilometres?" asked Ivan, with a strange eagerness.

    "What tortures? Ah, don't ask. In old days we had all sorts, but

now they have taken chiefly to moral punishments- 'the stings of

conscience' and all that nonsense. We got that, too, from you, from

the softening of your manners. And who's the better for it? Only those

who have got no conscience, for how can they be tortured by conscience

when they have none? But decent people who have conscience and a sense

of honour suffer for it. Reforms, when the ground has not been

prepared for them, especially if they are institutions copied from

abroad, do nothing but mischief! The ancient fire was better. Well,

this man, who was condemned to the quadrillion kilometres, stood

still, looked round and lay down across the road. 'I won't go, I

refuse on principle!' Take the soul of an enlightened Russian

atheist and mix it with the soul of the prophet Jonah, who sulked

for three days and nights in the belly of the whale, and you get the

character of that thinker who lay across the road."

    "What did he lie on there?"

    "Well, I suppose there was something to lie on. You are not

laughing?"

    "Bravo!" cried Ivan, still with the same strange eagerness. Now he

was listening with an unexpected curiosity. "Well, is he lying there

now?"

    "That's the point, that he isn't. He lay there almost a thousand

years and then he got up and went on."

    "What an ass!" cried Ivan, laughing nervously and still seeming to

be pondering something intently. "Does it make any difference

whether he lies there for ever or walks the quadrillion kilometres? It

would take a billion years to walk it?"

    "Much more than that. I haven't got a pencil and paper or I

could work it out. But he got there long ago, and that's where the

story begins."

    "What, he got there? But how did he get the billion years to do

it?"

    "Why, you keep thinking of our present earth! But our present

earth may have been repeated a billion times. Why, it's become

extinct, been frozen; cracked, broken to bits, disintegrated into

its elements, again 'the water above the firmament,' then again a

comet, again a sun, again from the sun it becomes earth- and the

same sequence may have been repeated endlessly and exactly the same to

every detail, most unseemly and insufferably tedious-"

    "Well, well, what happened when he arrived?"

    "Why, the moment the gates of Paradise were open and he walked in;

before he had been there two seconds, by his watch (though to my

thinking his watch must have long dissolved into its elements on the

way), he cried out that those two seconds were worth walking not a

quadrillion kilometres but a quadrillion of quadrillions, raised to

the quadrillionth power! In fact, he sang 'hosannah' and overdid it

so, that some persons there of lofty ideas wouldn't shake hands with

him at first- he'd become too rapidly reactionary, they said. The

Russian temperament. I repeat, it's a legend. I give it for what

it's worth, so that's the sort of ideas we have on such subjects

even now."

    "I've caught you!" Ivan cried, with an almost childish delight, as

though he had succeeded in remembering something at last. "That

anecdote about the quadrillion years, I made up myself! I was

seventeen then, I was at the high school. I made up that anecdote

and told it to a schoolfellow called Korovkin, it was at Moscow....

The anecdote is so characteristic that I couldn't have taken it from

anywhere. I thought I'd forgotten it... but I've unconsciously

recalled it- I recalled it myself- it was not you telling it!

Thousands of things are unconsciously remembered like that even when

people are being taken to execution... it's come back to me in a

dream. You are that dream! You are a dream, not a living creature!"

    "From the vehemence with which you deny my existence," laughed the

gentleman, "I am convinced that you believe in me."

    "Not in the slightest! I haven't a hundredth part of a grain of

faith in you!"

    "But you have the thousandth of a grain. Homeopathic doses perhaps

are the strongest. Confess that you have faith even to the

ten-thousandth of a grain."

    "Not for one minute," cried Ivan furiously. "But I should like

to believe in you," he added strangely.

    "Aha! There's an admission! But I am good-natured. I'll come to

your assistance again. Listen, it was I caught you, not you me. I told

you your anecdote you'd forgotten, on purpose, so as to destroy your

faith in me completely."

    "You are lying. The object of your visit is to convince me of your

existence!"

    "Just so. But hesitation, suspense, conflict between belief and

disbelief- is sometimes such torture to a conscientious man, such as

you are, that it's better to hang oneself at once. Knowing that you

are inclined to believe in me, I administered some disbelief by

telling you that anecdote. I lead you to belief and disbelief by

turns, and I have my motive in it. It's the new method. As soon as you

disbelieve in me completely, you'll begin assuring me to my face

that I am not a dream but a reality. I know you. Then I shall have

attained my object, which is an honourable one. I shall sow in you

only a tiny grain of faith and it will grow into an oak-tree- and such

an oak-tree that, sitting on it, you will long to enter the ranks of

'the hermits in the wilderness and the saintly women,' for that is

what you are secretly longing for. You'll dine on locusts, you'll

wander into the wilderness to save your soul!"

    "Then it's for the salvation of my soul you are working, is it,

you scoundrel?"

    "One must do a good work sometimes. How ill-humoured you are!"

    "Fool! did you ever tempt those holy men who ate locusts and

prayed seventeen years in the wilderness till they were overgrown with

moss?"

    "My dear fellow, I've done nothing else. One forgets the whole

world and all the worlds, and sticks to one such saint, because he

is a very precious diamond. One such soul, you know, is sometimes

worth a whole constellation. We have our system of reckoning, you

know. The conquest is priceless! And some of them, on my word, are not

inferior to you in culture, though you won't believe it. They can

contemplate such depths of belief and disbelief at the same moment

that sometimes it really seems that they are within a hair's-breadth

of being 'turned upside down,' as the actor Gorbunov says."

    "Well, did you get your nose pulled?"

    "My dear fellow," observed the visitor sententiously, "it's better

to get off with your nose pulled than without a nose at all. As an

afflicted marquis observed not long ago (he must have been treated

by a specialist) in confession to his spiritual father- a Jesuit. I

was present, it was simply charming. 'Give me back my nose!' he

said, and he beat his breast. 'My son,' said the priest evasively,

'all things are accomplished in accordance with the inscrutable

decrees of Providence, and what seems a misfortune sometimes leads

to extraordinary, though unapparent, benefits. If stern destiny has

deprived you of your nose, it's to your advantage that no one can ever

pull you by your nose.' 'Holy father, that's no comfort,' cried the

despairing marquis. 'I'd be delighted to have my nose pulled every day

of my life, if it were only in its proper place.' 'My son,' sighs

the priest, 'you can't expect every blessing at once. This is

murmuring against Providence, who even in this has not forgotten

you, for if you repine as you repined just now, declaring you'd be

glad to have your nose pulled for the rest of your life, your desire

has already been fulfilled indirectly, for when you lost your nose,

you were led by the nose.'

    "Fool, how stupid!" cried Ivan.

    "My dear friend, I only wanted to amuse you. But I swear that's

the genuine Jesuit casuistry and I swear that it all happened word for

word as I've told you. It happened lately and gave me a great deal

of trouble. The unhappy young man shot himself that very night when he

got home. I was by his side till the very last moment. Those Jesuit

confessionals are really my most delightful diversion at melancholy

moments. Here's another incident that happened only the other day. A

little blonde Norman girl of twenty- a buxom, unsophisticated beauty

that would make your mouth water- comes to an old priest. She bends

down and whispers her sin into the grating. 'Why, my daughter, have

you fallen again already?' cries the priest: 'O Sancta Maria, what

do I hear! Not the same man this time, how long is this going on?

Aren't you ashamed!' 'Ah, mon pere,' answers the sinner with tears

of penitence, 'Ca lui fait tant de plaisir, et a moi si peu de

peine!'* Fancy, such an answer! I drew back. It was the cry of nature,

better than innocence itself, if you like. I absolved her sin on the

spot and was turning to go, but I was forced to turn back. I heard the

priest at the grating making an appointment with her for the

evening- though he was an old man hard as flint, he fell in an

instant! It was nature, the truth of nature asserted its rights! What,

you are turning up your nose again? Angry again? I don't know how to

please you-"



    * Ah, my father, this gives him so much pleasure, and me so little

pain!



    "Leave me alone, you are beating on my brain like a haunting

nightmare," Ivan moaned miserably, helpless before his apparition.

"I am bored with you, agonisingly and insufferably. I would give

anything to be able to shake you off!"

    "I repeat, moderate your expectations, don't demand of me

'everything great and noble,' and you'll see how well we shall get

on," said the gentleman impressively. "You are really angry with me

for not having appeared to you in a red glow, with thunder and

lightning, with scorched wings, but have shown myself in such a modest

form. You are wounded, in the first place, in your asthetic

feelings, and, secondly, in your pride. How could such a vulgar

devil visit such a great man as you! Yes, there is that romantic

strain in you, that was so derided by Byelinsky. I can't help it,

young man, as I got ready to come to you I did think as a joke of

appearing in the figure of a retired general who had served in the

Caucasus, with a star of the Lion and the Sun on my coat. But I was

positively afraid of doing it, for you'd have thrashed me for daring

to pin the Lion and the Sun on my coat, instead of, at least, the

Polar Star or the Sirius. And you keep on saying I am stupid, but,

mercy on us! I make no claim to be equal to you in intelligence.

Mephistopheles declared to Faust that he desired evil, but did only

good. Well, he can say what he likes, it's quite the opposite with me.

I am perhaps the one man in all creation who loves the truth and

genuinely desires good. I was there when the Word, Who died on the

Cross, rose up into heaven bearing on His bosom the soul of the

penitent thief. I heard the glad shrieks of the cherubim singing and

shouting hosannah and the thunderous rapture of the seraphim which

shook heaven and all creation, and I swear to you by all that's

sacred, I longed to join the choir and shout hosannah with them all.

The word had almost escaped me, had almost broken from my lips...

you know how susceptible and aesthetically impressionable I am. But

common sense- oh, a most unhappy trait in my character- kept me in due

bounds and I let the moment pass! For what would have happened, I

reflected, what would have happened after my hosannah? Everything on

earth would have been extinguished at once and no events could have

occurred. And so, solely from a sense of duty and my social

position, was forced to suppress the good moment and to stick to my

nasty task. Somebody takes all the credit of what's good for

Himself, and nothing but nastiness is left for me. But I don't envy

the honour of a life of idle imposture, I am not ambitious. Why am

I, of all creatures in the world, doomed to be cursed by all decent

people and even to be kicked, for if I put on mortal form I am bound

to take such consequences sometimes? I know, of course, there's a

secret in it, but they won't tell me the secret for anything, for then

perhaps, seeing the meaning of it, I might bawl hosannah, and the

indispensable minus would disappear at once, and good sense would

reign supreme throughout the whole world. And that, of course, would

mean the end of everything, even of magazines and newspapers, for

who would take them in? I know that at the end of all things I shall

be reconciled. I, too, shall walk my quadrillion and learn the secret.

But till that happens I am sulking and fulfil my destiny though it's

against the grain- that is, to ruin thousands for the sake of saving

one. How many souls have had to be ruined and how many honourable

reputations destroyed for the sake of that one righteous man, Job,

over whom they made such a fool of me in old days! Yes, till the

secret is revealed, there are two sorts of truths for me- one, their

truth, yonder, which I know nothing about so far, and the other my

own. And there's no knowing which will turn out the better.... Are you

asleep?"

    "I might well be," Ivan groaned angrily. "All my stupid ideas-

outgrown, thrashed out long ago, and flung aside like a dead carcass

you present to me as something new!"

    "There's no pleasing you! And I thought I should fascinate you

by my literary style. That hosannah in the skies really wasn't bad,

was it? And then that ironical tone a la Heine, eh?"

    "No, I was never such a flunkey! How then could my soul beget a

flunkey like you?"

    "My dear fellow, I know a most charming and attractive young

Russian gentleman, a young thinker and a great lover of literature and

art, the author of a promising poem entitled The Grand Inquisitor. I

was only thinking of him!"

    "I forbid you to speak of The Grand Inquisitor," cried Ivan,

crimson with shame.

    "And the Geological Cataclysm. Do you remember? That was a poem,

now!"

    "Hold your tongue, or I'll kill you!"

    "You'll kill me? No, excuse me, I will speak. I came to treat

myself to that pleasure. Oh, I love the dreams of my ardent young

friends, quivering with eagerness for life! 'There are new men,' you

decided last spring, when you were meaning to come here, 'they propose

to destroy everything and begin with cannibalism. Stupid fellows! they

didn't ask my advice! I maintain that nothing need be destroyed,

that we only need to destroy the idea of God in man, that's how we

have to set to work. It's that, that we must begin with. Oh, blind

race of men who have no understanding! As soon as men have all of them

denied God- and I believe that period, analogous with geological

periods, will come to pass- the old conception of the universe will

fall of itself without cannibalism, and, what's more, the old

morality, and everything will begin anew. Men will unite to take

from life all it can give, but only for joy and happiness in the

present world. Man will be lifted up with a spirit of divine Titanic

pride and the man-god will appear. From hour to hour extending his

conquest of nature infinitely by his will and his science, man will

feel such lofty joy from hour to hour in doing it that it will make up

for all his old dreams of the joys of heaven. Everyone will know

that he is mortal and will accept death proudly and serenely like a

god. His pride will teach him 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.