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 straightforward. Ive led the conversation to my despair, and the more stupidly I have presented it, the better for me.
You will explain why you dont accept the world? said Alyosha.
To be sure I will, its not a secret, thats what Ive been leading up to. Dear little brother, I dont 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.
Chapter IV.
Rebellion
I must make you one confession, Ivan began. I could never understand how one can love ones neighbors. Its just ones neighbors, to my mind, that one cant love, though one might love those at a distance. I once read somewhere of John the Merciful, a saint, that when a hungry, frozen beggar came to him, he took him into his bed, held him in his arms, and began breathing into his mouth, which was putrid and loathsome from some awful disease. I am convinced that he did that from selflaceration, from the selflaceration of falsity, for the sake of the charity imposed by duty, as a penance laid on him. For any one to love a man, he must be hidden, for as soon as he shows his face, love is gone.
Father Zossima has talked of that more than once, observed Alyosha; he, too, said that the face of a man often hinders many people not practiced in love, from loving him. But yet theres a great deal of love in mankind, and almost Christlike love. I know that myself, Ivan.
Well, I know nothing of it so far, and cant understand it, and the innumerable mass of mankind are with me there. The question is, whether thats due to mens bad qualities or whether its inherent in their nature. To my thinking, Christlike love for men is a miracle impossible on earth. He was God. But we are not gods. Suppose I, for instance, suffer intensely. Another can never know how much I suffer, because he is another and not I. And whats more, a man is rarely ready to admit anothers suffering (as though it were a distinction). Why wont he admit it, do you think? Because I smell unpleasant, because I have a stupid face, because I once trod on his foot. Besides, there is suffering and suffering; degrading, humiliating suffering such as humbles mehunger, for instancemy benefactor will perhaps allow me; but when you come to higher sufferingfor an idea, for instancehe will very rarely admit that, perhaps because my face strikes him as not at all what he fancies a man should have who suffers for an idea. And so he deprives me instantly of his favor, and not at all from badness of heart. Beggars, especially genteel beggars, ought never to show themselves, but to ask for charity through the newspapers. One can love ones neighbors in the abstract, or even at a distance, but at close quarters its almost impossible. If it were as on the stage, in the ballet, where if beggars come in, they wear silken rags and tattered lace and beg for alms dancing gracefully, then one might like looking at them. But even then we should not love them. But enough of that. I simply wanted to show you my point of view. I meant to speak of the suffering of mankind generally, but we had better confine ourselves to the sufferings of the children. That reduces the scope of my argument to a tenth of what it would be. Still wed better keep to the children, though it does weaken my case. But, in the first place, children can be loved even at close quarters, even when they are dirty, even when they are ugly (I fancy, though, children never are ugly). The second reason why I wont speak of grownup people is that, besides being disgusting and unworthy of love, they have a compensationtheyve eaten the apple and know good and evil, and they have become like gods. They go on eating it still. But the children havent eaten anything, and are so far innocent. Are you fond of children, Alyosha? I know you are, and you will understand why I prefer to speak of them. If they, too, suffer horribly on earth, they must suffer for their fathers sins, they must be punished for their fathers, who have eaten the apple; but that reasoning is of the other world and is incomprehensible for the heart of man here on earth. The innocent must not suffer for anothers sins, and especially such innocents! You may be surprised at me, Alyosha, but I am awfully fond of children, too. And observe, cruel people, the violent, the rapacious, the Karamazovs are sometimes very fond of children. Children while they are quite littleup to seven, for instanceare so remote from grownup people; they are different creatures, as it were, of a different species. I knew a criminal in prison who had, in the course of his career as a burglar, murdered whole families, including several children. But when he was in prison, he had a strange affection for them. He spent all his time at his window, watching the children playing in the prison yard. He trained one little boy to come up to his window and made great friends with him. You dont know why I am telling you all this, Alyosha? My head aches and I am sad.
You speak with a strange air, observed Alyosha uneasily, as though you were not quite yourself.
By the way, a Bulgarian I met lately in Moscow, Ivan went on, seeming not to hear his brothers words, told me about the crimes committed by Turks and Circassians in all parts of Bulgaria through fear of a general rising of the Slavs. They burn villages, murder, outrage women and children, they nail their prisoners by the ears to the fences, leave them so till morning, and in the morning they hang themall sorts of things you cant imagine. People talk sometimes of bestial cruelty, but thats a great injustice and insult to the beasts; a beast can never be so cruel as a man, so artistically cruel. The tiger only tears and gnaws, thats all he can do. He would never think of nailing people by the ears, even if he were able to do it. These Turks took a pleasure in torturing children, too; cutting the unborn child from the mothers womb, and tossing babies up in the air and catching them on the points of their bayonets before their mothers eyes. Doing it before the mothers eyes was what gave zest to the amusement. Here is another scene that I thought very interesting. Imagine a trembling mother with her baby in her arms, a circle of invading Turks around her. Theyve planned a diversion: they pet the baby, laugh to make it laugh. They succeed, the baby laughs. At that moment a Turk points a pistol four inches from the babys face. The baby laughs with glee, holds out its little hands to the pistol, and he pulls the trigger in the babys face and blows out its brains. Artistic, wasnt it? By the way, Turks are particularly fond of sweet things, they say.
Brother, what are you driving at? asked Alyosha.
I think if the devil doesnt exist, but man has created him, he has created him in his own image and likeness.
Just as he did God, then? observed Alyosha.
Its wonderful how you can turn words, as Polonius says in Hamlet, laughed Ivan. You turn my words against me. Well, I am glad. Yours must be a fine God, if man created Him in his image and likeness. You asked just now what I was driving at. You see, I am fond of collecting certain facts, and, would you believe, I even copy anecdotes of a certain sort from newspapers and books, and Ive already got a fine collection. The Turks, of course, have gone into it, but they are foreigners. I have specimens from home that are even better than the Turks. You know we prefer beatingrods and scourgesthats our national institution. Nailing ears is unthinkable for us, for we are, after all, Europeans. But the rod and the scourge we have always with us and they cannot be taken from us. Abroad now they scarcely do any beating. Manners are more humane, or laws have been passed, so that they dont dare to flog men now. But they make up for it in another way just as national as ours. And so national that it would be practically impossible among us, though I believe we are being inoculated with it, since the religious movement began in our aristocracy. I have a charming pamphlet, translated from the French, describing how, quite recently, five years ago, a murderer, Richard, was executeda young man, I believe, of three and twenty, who repented and was converted to the Christian faith at the very scaffold. This Richard was an illegitimate child who was given as a child of six by his parents to some shepherds on the Swiss mountains. They brought him up to work for them. He grew up like a little wild beast among them. The shepherds taught him nothing, and scarcely fed or clothed him, but sent him out at seven to herd the flock in cold and wet, and no one hesitated or scrupled to treat him so. Quite the contrary, they thought they had every right, for Richard had been given to them as a chattel, and they did not even see the necessity of feeding him. Richard himself describes how in those years, like the Prodigal Son in the Gospel, he longed to eat of the mash given to the pigs, which were fattened for sale. But they wouldnt even give him that, and beat him when he stole from the pigs. And that was how he spent all his childhood and his youth, till he grew up and was strong enough to go away and be a thief. The savage began to earn his living as a day laborer in Geneva. He drank what he earned, he lived like a brute, and finished by killing and robbing an old man. He was caught, tried, and condemned to death. They are not sentimentalists there. And in prison he was immediately surrounded by pastors, members of Christian brotherhoods, philanthropic ladies, and the like. They taught him to read and write in prison, and expounded the Gospel to him. They exhorted him, worked upon him, drummed at him incessantly, till at last he solemnly confessed his crime. He was converted. He wrote to the court himself that he was a monster, but that in the end God had vouchsafed him light and shown grace. All Geneva was in excitement about himall philanthropic and religious Geneva. All the aristocratic and wellbred society of the town rushed to the prison, kissed Richard and embraced him; You are our brother, you have found grace. And Richard does nothing but weep with emotion, Yes, Ive found grace! All my youth and childhood I was glad of pigs food, but now even I have found grace. I am dying in the Lord. Yes, Richard, die in the Lord; you have shed blood and must die. Though its not your fault that you knew not the Lord, when you coveted the pigs food and were beaten for stealing it (which was very wrong of you, for stealing is forbidden); but youve shed blood and you must die. And on the last day, Richard, perfectly limp, did nothing but cry and repeat every minute: This is my happiest day. I am going to the Lord. Yes, cry the pastors and the judges and philanthropic ladies. This is the happiest day of your life, for you are going to the Lord! They all walk or drive to the scaffold in procession behind the prison van. At the scaffold they call to Richard: Die, brother, die in the Lord, for even thou hast found grace! And so, covered with his brothers kisses, Richard is dragged on to the scaffold, and led to the guillotine. And they chopped off his head in brotherly fashion, because he had found grace. Yes, thats characteristic. That pamphlet is translated into Russian by some Russian philanthropists of aristocratic rank and evangelical aspirations, and has been distributed gratis for the enlightenment of the people. The case of Richard is interesting because its national. Though to us its absurd to cut off a mans head, because he has become our brother and has found grace, yet we have our own speciality, which is all but worse. Our historical pastime is the direct satisfaction of inflicting pain. There are lines in Nekrassov describing how a peasant lashes a horse on the eyes, on its meek eyes, every one must have seen it. Its peculiarly Russian. He describes how a feeble little nag has foundered under too heavy a load and cannot move. The peasant beats it, beats it savagely, beats it at last not knowing what he is doing in the intoxication of cruelty, thrashes it mercilessly over and over again. However weak you are, you must pull, if you die for it. The nag strains, and then he begins lashing the poor defenseless creature on its weeping, on its meek eyes. The frantic beast tugs and draws the load, trembling all over, gasping for breath, moving sideways, with a sort of unnatural spasmodic actionits awful in Nekrassov. But thats only a horse, and God has given horses to be beaten. So the Tatars have taught us, and they left us the knout as a remembrance of it. But men, too, can be beaten. A welleducated, cultured gentleman and his wife beat their own child with a birchrod, a girl of seven. I have an exact account of it. The papa was glad that the birch was covered with twigs. It stings more, said he, and so he began stinging his daughter. I know for a fact there are people who at every blow are worked up to sensuality, to literal sensuality, which increases progressively at every blow they inflict. They beat for a minute, for five minutes, for ten minutes, more often and more savagely. The child screams. At last the child cannot scream, it gasps, Daddy! daddy! By some diabolical unseemly chance the case was brought into court. A counsel is engaged. The Russian people have long called a barrister a conscience for hire. The counsel protests in his clients defense. Its such a simple thing, he says, an everyday domestic event. A father corrects his child. To our shame be it said, it is brought into court. The jury, convinced by him, give a favorable verdict. The public roars with delight that the torturer is acquitted. Ah, pity I wasnt there! I would have proposed to raise a subscription in his honor! Charming pictures.