«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.
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«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.
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«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.
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ALYOSHA coming in told Ivan that a little over an hour ago Marya Kondratyevna had run to his rooms and informed him Smerdyakov had taken his own life. «I went in to clear away the samovar and he was hanging on a nail in the wall.» On Alyosha’s inquiring whether she had informed the police, she answered that she had told no one, «but I flew straight to you, I’ve run all the way.» She seemed perfectly crazy, Alyosha reported, and was shaking like a leaf. When Alyosha ran with her to the cottage, he found Smerdyakov still hanging. On the table lay a note: «I destroy my life of my own will and desire, so as to throw no blame on anyone.» Alyosha left the note on the table and went straight to the police captain and told him all about it. «And from him I’ve come straight to you,» said Alyosha, in conclusion, looking intently into Ivan’s face. He had not taken his eyes off him while he told his story, as though struck by something in his expression.
«Brother,» he cried suddenly, «you must be terribly ill. You look and don’t seem to un-derstand what I tell you.»
«It’s a good thing you came,» said Ivan, as though brooding, and not hearing Alyosha’s exclamation. «I knew he had hanged himself.»
«From whom?»
«I don’t know. But I knew. Did I know? Yes, he told me. He told me so just now.»
Ivan stood in the middle of the room, and still spoke in the same brooding tone, looking at the ground.
«Who is he?» asked Alyosha, involuntarily looking round. «He’s slipped away.»
Ivan raised his head and smiled softly.
«He was afraid of you, of a dove like you. You are a ‘pure cherub.’ Dmitri calls you a cherub. Cherub!… the thunderous rapture of the seraphim. What are seraphim? Perhaps a whole constellation. But perhaps that constellation is only a chemical molecule. There’s a constellation of the Lion and the Sun. Don’t you know it?»
«Brother, sit down,» said Alyosha in alarm. «For goodness’ sake, sit down on the sofa! You are delirious; put your head on the pillow, that’s right. Would you like a wet towel on your head? Perhaps it will do you good.»
«Give me the towel: it’s here on the chair. I just threw it down there.»
«It’s not here. Don’t worry yourself. I know where it is- here,» said Alyosha, finding a clean towel, folded up and unused, by Ivan’s dressing-table in the other corner of the room. Ivan looked strangely at the towel: recollection seemed to come back to him for an instant. «Stay»- he got up from the sofa- «an hour ago I took that new towel from there and wetted it. I wrapped it round my head and threw it down here… How is it it’s dry? There
was no other.»
«You put that towel on your head?» asked Alyosha.
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«Yes, and walked up and down the room an hour ago… Why have the candles burnt down so? What’s the time?»
«Nearly twelve»
«No, no, no!» Ivan cried suddenly. «It was not a dream. He was here; he was sitting here, on that sofa. When you knocked at the window, I threw a glass at him… this one. Wait a minute. I was asleep last time, but this dream was not a dream. It has happened before. I have dreams now, Alyosha… yet they are not dreams, but reality. I walk about, talk and see…
