“There is no immortality either.”
“None at all?”
“None at all.”
“There’s absolute nothingness then. Perhaps there is just something? Anything is better than nothing!”
“Alyosha, is there immortality?”
“God and immortality?”
“God and immortality. In God is immortality.”
“H’m! It’s more likely Ivan’s right. Good Lord! to think what faith, what force of all kinds, man has lavished for nothing, on that dream, and for how many thousand years. Who is it laughing at man? Ivan For the last time, once for all, is there a God or not? I ask for the last time!”
“And for the last time there is not.”
“Who is laughing at mankind, Ivan?”
“It must be the devil,” said Ivan, smiling.
“And the devil? Does he exist?”
“No, there’s no devil either.”
“It’s a pity. Damn it all, what wouldn’t I do to the man who first invented God! Hanging on a bitter aspen tree would be too good for, him.”
“There would have been no civilisation if they hadn’t invented God.”
“Wouldn’t there have been? Without God?”
“No. And there would have been no brandy either. But I must take your brandy away from you, anyway.”
“Stop, stop, stop, dear boy, one more little glass. I’ve hurt Alyosha’s feelings. You’re not angry with me, Alyosha? My dear little Alexey!”
“No, I am not angry. I know your thoughts. Your heart is better than your head.”
“My heart better than my head, is it? Oh Lord! And that from you. Ivan, do you love Alyosha?”
“You must love him” (Fyodor Pavlovitch was by this time very drunk). “Listen, Alyosha, I was rude to your elder this morning. But I was excited. But there’s wit in that elder, don’t you think, Ivan?”
“Very likely.”
“There is, there is. Il y a du Piron la-dedans.* He’s a Jesuit, a Russian one, that is. As he’s an honourable person there’s a hidden indignation boiling within him at having to pretend and affect holiness.”
* There’s something of Piron inside of him.
“But, of course, he believes in God.”
“Not a bit of it. Didn’t you know? Why, he tells everyone so, himself. That is, not everyone, but all the clever people who come to him. He said straight out to Governor Schultz not long ago: ‘Credo, but I don’t know in what.’”
“Really?”
“He really did. But I respect him. There’s something of Mephistopheles about him, or rather of ‘The hero of our time’… Arbenin, or what’s his name?… You see, he’s a sensualist. He’s such a sensualist that I should be afraid for my daughter or my wife if she went to confess to him. You know, when he begins telling stories… The year before last he invited us to tea, tea with liqueur (the ladies send him liqueur), and began telling us about old times till we nearly split our sides…. Especially how he once cured a paralysed woman. ‘If my legs were not bad I know a dance I could dance you,’ he said. What do you say to that? ‘I’ve plenty of tricks in my time,’ said he. He did Demidov, the merchant, out of sixty thousand.”
“What, he stole it?”
“He brought him the money as a man he could trust, saying, ‘Take care of it for me, friend, there’ll be a police search at my place tomorrow.’ And he kept it. ‘You have given it to the Church,’ he declared. I said to him: ‘You’re a scoundrel,’ I said. ‘No,’ said he, ‘I’m not a scoundrel, but I’m broadminded.’ But that wasn’t he, that was someone else. I’ve muddled him with someone else… without noticing it. Come, another glass and that’s enough. Take away the bottle, Ivan. I’ve been telling lies. Why didn’t you stop me, Ivan, and tell me I was lying?”
“I knew you’d stop of yourself.”
“That’s a lie. You did it from spite, from simple spite against me. You despise me. You have come to me and despised me in my own house.”
“Well, I’m going away. You’ve had too much brandy.”
“I’ve begged you for Christ’s sake to go to Tchermashnya for a day or two, and you don’t go.”
“I’ll go tomorrow if you’re so set upon it.”
“You won’t go. You want to keep an eye on me. That’s what you want, spiteful fellow. That’s why you won’t go.”
The old man persisted. He had reached that state of drunkenness when the drunkard who has till then been inoffensive tries to pick a quarrel and to assert himself.
“Why are you looking at me? Why do you look like that? Your eyes look at me and say, ‘You ugly drunkard!’ Your eyes are mistrustful. They’re contemptuous…. You’ve come here with some design. Alyosha, here, looks at me and his eyes shine. Alyosha doesn’t despise me. Alexey, you mustn’t love Ivan.”
“Don’t be ill-tempered with my brother. Leave off attacking him,” Alyosha said emphatically.
“Oh, all right. Ugh, my head aches. Take away the brandy, Ivan. It’s the third time I’ve told you.”
He mused, and suddenly a slow, cunning grin spread over his face.
“Don’t be angry with a feeble old man, Ivan. I know you don’t love me, but don’t be angry all the same. You’ve nothing to love me for. You go to Tchermashnya. I’ll come to you myself and bring you a present. I’ll show you a little wench there. I’ve had my eye on her a long time. She’s still running about barefoot. Don’t be afraid of barefooted wenches — don’t despise them — they’re pearls!”
And he kissed his hand with a smack.
“To my thinking,” he revived at once, seeming to grow sober the instant he touched on his favourite topic. “To my thinking… Ah, you boys! You children, little sucking-pigs, to my thinking… I never thought a woman ugly in my life — that’s been my rule! Can you understand that? How could you understand it? You’ve milk in your veins, not blood. You’re not out of your shells yet. My rule has been that you can always find something devilishly interesting in every woman that you wouldn’t find in any other. Only, one must know how to find it, that’s the point! That’s a talent! To my mind there are no ugly women. The very fact that she is a woman is half the battle… but how could you understand that? Even in vieilles filles, even in them you may discover something that makes you simply wonder that men have been such fools as to let them grow old without noticing them. Barefooted girls or unattractive ones, you must take by surprise. Didn’t you know that? You must astound them till they’re fascinated, upset, ashamed that such a gentleman should fall in love with such a little slut. It’s a jolly good thing that there always are and will be masters and slaves in the world, so there always will be a little maid-of-all-work and her master, and you know, that’s all that’s needed for happiness. Stay… listen, Alyosha, I always used to surprise your mother, but in a different way. I paid no attention to her at all, but all at once, when the minute came, I’d be all devotion to her, crawl on my knees, kiss her feet, and I always, always — I remember it as though it were to-day — reduced her to that tinkling, quiet, nervous, queer little laugh. It was peculiar to her. I knew her attacks always used to begin like that. The next day she would begin shrieking hysterically, and this little laugh was not a sign of delight, though it made a very good counterfeit. That’s the great thing, to know how to take everyone. Once Belyavsky — he was a handsome fellow, and rich —