When Mitya was summoned from his cell, he always went downstairs, to the place set aside for interviews. As Alyosha entered the room he came upon Rakitin, who was just taking leave of Mitya. They were both talking loudly. Mitya was laughing heartily as he saw him out, while Rakitin seemed grumbling. Rakitin did not like meeting Alyosha, especially of late. He scarcely spoke to him, and bowed to him stiffly. Seeing Alyosha enter now, he frowned and looked away, as though he were entirely absorbed in buttoning his big, warm, fur-trimmed overcoat. Then he began looking at once for his umbrella.
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«I must mind not to forget my belongings,» he muttered, simply to say something. «Mind you don’t forget other people’s belongings,» said Mitya, as a joke, and laughed at
once at his own wit. Rakitin fired up instantly.
«You’d better give that advice to your own family, who’ve always been a slave-driving lot, and not to Rakitin,» he cried, suddenly trembling with anger.
«What’s the matter? I was joking,» cried Mitya. «Damn it all! They are all like that.» He turned to Alyosha, nodding towards Rakitin’s hurriedly retreating figure. «He was sitting here, laughing and cheerful, and all at once he boils up like that. He didn’t even nod to you. Have you broken with him completely? Why are you so late? I’ve not been simply waiting, but thirsting for you the whole morning. But never mind. We’ll make up for it now.»
«Why does he come here so often? Surely you are not such great friends?» asked Alyosha. He, too, nodded at the door through which Rakitin had disappeared.
«Great friends with Rakitin? No, not as much as that. Is it likely- a pig like that? He considers I am… a blackguard. They can’t understand a joke either, that’s the worst of such people. They never understand a joke, and their souls are dry, dry and flat; they remind me of prison walls when I was first brought here. But he is a clever fellow, very clever. Well, Alexey, it’s all over with me now.»
He sat down on the bench and made Alyosha sit down beside him.
«Yes, the trial’s to-morrow. Are you so hopeless, brother?» Alyosha said, with an appre-hensive feeling.
«What are you talking about?» said Mitya, looking at him rather uncertainly. «Oh, you mean the trial! Damn it all! Till now we’ve been talking of things that don’t matter, about this trial, but I haven’t said a word to you about the chief thing. Yes, the trial is to-morrow; but it wasn’t the trial I meant, when I said it was all over with me. Why do you look at me so critically?»
«What do you mean, Mitya?»
«Ideas, ideas, that’s all! Ethics! What is ethics?» «Ethics?» asked Alyosha, wondering.
«Yes; is it a science?»
«Yes, there is such a science… but… I confess I can’t explain to you what sort of science it is.»
«Rakitin knows. Rakitin knows a lot, damn him! He’s not going to be a monk. He means to go to Petersburg. There he’ll go in for criticism of an elevating tendency. Who knows, he may be of use and make his own career, too. Ough! they are first-rate, these people, at making a career! Damn ethics, I am done for, Alexey, I am, you man of God! I love you more than anyone. It makes my heart yearn to look at you. Who was Karl Bernard?»
«Karl Bernard?» Alyosha was surprised again.
«No, not Karl. Stay, I made a mistake. Claude Bernard. What was he? Chemist or what?»
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«He must be a savant,» answered Alyosha; «but I confess I can’t tell you much about him, either. I’ve heard of him as a savant, but what sort I don’t know.»
«Well, damn him, then! I don’t know either,» swore Mitya. «A scoundrel of some sort, most likely. They are all scoundrels. And Rakitin will make his way. Rakitin will get on anywhere; he is another Bernard. Ugh, these Bernards! They are all over the place.»
«But what is the matter?» Alyosha asked insistently.
«He wants to write an article about me, about my case, and so begin his literary career. That’s what he comes for; he said so himself. He wants to prove some theory. He wants to say ‘he couldn’t help murdering his father, he was corrupted by his environment,’ and so on. He explained it all to me. He is going to put in a tinge of Socialism, he says. But there, damn the fellow, he can put in a tinge if he likes, I don’t care. He can’t bear Ivan, he hates him. He’s not fond of you, either. But I don’t turn him out, for he is a clever fellow. Awfully conceited, though. I said to him just now,’ The Karamazovs are not blackguards, but philo-sophers; for all true Russians are philosophers, and though you’ve studied, you are not a philosopher- you are a low fellow.’ He laughed, so maliciously. And I said to him, ‘De ideabus non est disputandum.’* Isn’t that rather good? I can set up for being a classic, you see!» Mitya laughed suddenly.
- There’s no disputing ideas.
«Why is it all over with you? You said so just now,» Alyosha interposed.
«Why is it all over with me? H’m!… The fact of it is… if you take it as a whole, I am sorry to lose God- that’s why it is.»
«What do you mean by ‘sorry to lose God’?»
«Imagine: inside, in the nerves, in the head- that is, these nerves are there in the brain… (damn them!) there are sort of little tails, the little tails of those nerves, and as soon as they begin quivering… that is, you see, I look at something with my eyes and then they begin quivering, those little tails… and when they quiver, then an image appears… it doesn’t appear at once, but an instant, a second, passes… and then something like a moment appears; that is, not a moment- devil take the moment!- but an image; that is, an object, or an action, damn it! That’s why I see and then think, because of those tails, not at all because I’ve got a soul, and that I am some sort of image and likeness. All that is nonsense! Rakitin explained it all to me yesterday, brother, and it simply bowled me over. It’s magnificent, Alyosha, this science! A new man’s arising- that I understand…. And yet I am sorry to lose God!»
«Well, that’s a good thing, anyway,» said Alyosha.
«That I am sorry to lose God? It’s chemistry, brother, chemistry! There’s no help for it, your reverence, you must make way for chemistry. And Rakitin does dislike God. Ough! doesn’t he dislike Him! That’s the sore point with all of them. But they conceal it. They tell lies. They pretend. ‘Will you preach this in your reviews?’ I asked him. ‘Oh, well, if I did it openly, they won’t let it through, ‘he said. He laughed. ‘But what will become of men then?’
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I asked him, ‘without God and immortal life? All things are lawful then, they can do what they like?’ ‘Didn’t you know?’ he said laughing, ‘a clever man can do what he likes,’ he said. ‘A clever man knows his way about, but you’ve put your foot in it, committing a murder, and now you are rotting in prison.’ He says that to my face! A regular pig! I used to kick such people out, but now I listen to them. He talks a lot of sense, too. Writes well. He began reading me an article last week. I copied out three lines of it. Wait a minute. Here it is.»
Mitya hurriedly pulled out a piece of paper from his pocket and read:
«‘In order to determine this question, it is above all essential to put one’s personality in contradiction to one’s reality.’ Do you understand that?»
«No, I don’t,» said Alyosha. He looked at Mitya and listened to him with curiosity.
«I don’t understand either. It’s dark and obscure, but intellectual. ‘Everyone writes like that now,’ he says, ‘it’s the effect of their environment.’ They are afraid of the environment. He writes poetry, too, the rascal. He’s written in honour of Madame Hohlakov’s foot. Ha ha ha!»
«I’ve heard about it,» said Alyosha.
«Have you? And have you heard the poem?» «No.»
«I’ve got it. Here it is. I’ll read it to you. You don’t know- I haven’t told you- there’s quite a story about it. He’s a rascal! Three weeks ago he began to tease me. ‘You’ve got yourself into a mess, like a fool, for the sake of three thousand, but I’m going to collar a hundred and fifty thousand. I am going to marry a widow and buy a house in Petersburg.’ And he told me he was courting Madame Hohlakov. She hadn’t much brains in her youth, and now at forty she has lost what she had. ‘But she’s awfully sentimental,’ he says; ‘that’s how I shall get hold of her. When I marry her, I shall take her to Petersburg and there I shall start a newspaper.’ And his mouth was simply watering, the beast, not for the widow, but for the hundred and fifty thousand. And he made me believe it. He came to see me every day. ‘She is coming round,’ he declared. He was beaming with delight. And then, all of a sudden, he was turned out of the house. Perhotin’s carrying everything before him, bravo! I could kiss
