The Karamazov Brothers

by Fyodor Dostoevsky

  ‘Why are you testing me?’ Alyosha burst out in bitter desperation. ‘Are you going to tell me in the end?’

  ‘Of course I’m going to tell you, I was leading up to that. You’re very dear to me, and I don’t want to lose you and I shall not let your Zosima take possession of you.’

  Ivan paused for a moment, and his expression suddenly became very sad.

  ‘Listen: I’ve confined myself to children to make it clearer. I’ve said nothing about all the other human tears in which the world is drowning; I’ve deliberately limited my thesis. I’m a flea on the face of the earth, and I admit in all humility that I cannot understand in the least why things are the way they are. It must be men themselves who are to blame; they were offered paradise, but they wanted freedom and stole fire from heaven knowing that they would be unhappy, so there’s no need to pity them. Oh, in my poor, earthly, Euclidean mind I know only that suffering exists, that no one is to blame, that one thing leads to another just like that, that life goes on and things find their own equilibrium in the end—but then, that is just Euclidean nonsense, I know that, and when it comes down to it I can’t agree to live by it! What difference does it make to me that no one is to blame and that I accept it—I must have retribution, otherwise I’ll do away with myself. And that retribution must not be at some unspecified place and some unspecified time, but here and now on earth, where I myself can witness it. I have believed, so I want to witness it for myself, and if by then I’m already dead, may I be resurrected, for it would be too awful if it were all to come to pass without me. It was not for that that I suffered, that I, evil sinner that I am with my agonies and misdeeds, might be exploited for the benefit of someone else’s future harmony. I want to see the lion lying down with the lamb with my own eyes, and the murdered rising up and embracing their murderers. I want to be here when everyone suddenly finds out the why and the wherefore of everything. This is the desire on which all religions on earth are based, and I am a believer. But then, what about the children, what shall I do about them? That’s the question I cannot answer. For the hundredth time I repeat—the questions are endless, but I am only considering the children because in their case what I have to say is incontrovertibly clear. Listen: if everyone has to suffer in order to bring about eternal harmony through that suffering, tell me, please, what have children to do with this? It’s quite incomprehensible that they too should have to suffer, that they too should have to pay for harmony by their suffering. Why should they be the grist to someone else’s mill, the means of ensuring someone’s future harmony? I understand the universality of sin, I understand the universality of retribution, but children have no part in this universal sin, and if it’s true that they are stained with the sins of their fathers, then, of course, that’s a truth not of this world, and I don’t understand it. Some cynic may say that the children will grow up and will in time sin themselves, but he didn’t grow up, that eight-year-old torn apart by the dogs. Oh, Alyosha, I’m not blaspheming! I understand how the universe will shake when heaven and earth shall unite in a single paean of praise, and all that lives and has lived will cry out, “You are just, O Lord, for your ways are revealed to us!” When the mother embraces the murderer whose dogs tore her son apart, and all three shall cry out weeping, “You are just, O Lord”—that, of course, will be the summit of all knowledge, and all will be explained. But here’s the snag; that’s just what I can’t accept. And while I’m still on this earth I resort to my own methods. You see, Alyosha, perhaps it really will happen like that, and I shall live to see it or be resurrected, and then perhaps I too, seeing the mother embracing her child’s torturer, will cry out in unison with them, “You are just, O Lord”, but it will be against my will. While there’s still time I want to guard myself against this, and therefore I absolutely reject that higher harmony. It’s not worth one little tear from one single little tortured child, beating its breast with its little fists in its foul-smelling lock-up, and praying with its unexpiated tears to its “Dear Father God!” No, it’s not worth this, because those tears have remained unexpiated. And they have to be expiated, otherwise there can be no harmony. But how, how can they be expiated? Surely it isn’t possible? Or is it going to be done by avenging them? But what’s the good of avenging them, what’s the good of consigning their murderers to hell, what good can hell do when the children have already been tortured to death? And how can harmony exist if hell exists too? I want forgiveness, I want to embrace everyone, I want an end to suffering. And if the suffering of children is required to make up the total suffering necessary to attain the truth, then I say here and now that no truth is worth such a price. And above all, I don’t want the mother to embrace the torturer whose dogs tore her son apart! She has no right to forgive him! Let her, if she will, forgive him her own suffering, her own extreme anguish as a mother, but she has no right to forgive the suffering of her mutilated child; even if the child himself forgives, she has no right! And if that is so, if the right to forgive does not exist, then where is harmony? Is there in all the world a single being who could forgive and has the right to do so? I don’t want harmony; for the love of humankind, I don’t want it. I would rather that suffering were not avenged. I would prefer to keep my suffering unavenged and my abhorrence unplacated, even at the risk of being wrong. Besides, the price of harmony has been set too high, we can’t afford the entrance fee. And that’s why I hasten to return my entry ticket. If I ever want to call myself an honest man, I have to hand it back as soon as possible. And that’s exactly what I’m doing. It’s not that I don’t accept God, Alyosha; I’m just, with the utmost respect, handing Him back my ticket.’

  ‘That’s rebellion,’ Alyosha said quietly, without looking up.

  ‘“Rebellion”? I wouldn’t have expected to hear such a word from you,’ said Ivan thoughtfully. ‘Can one live in a state of rebellion? For I want to live. Tell me honestly, I challenge you—answer me: imagine that you are charged with building the edifice of human destiny, whose ultimate aim is to bring people happiness, to give them peace and contentment at last, but that in order to achieve this it is essential and unavoidable to torture just one little speck of creation, that same little child beating her breast with her little fists, and imagine that this edifice has to be erected on her unexpiated tears. Would you agree to be the architect under those conditions? Tell me honestly!’

  ‘No, I wouldn’t agree,’ said Alyosha quietly.

  ‘And could you accept the idea that the people for whom you are building the edifice have agreed to buy their own happiness with the price of the unexpiated blood of a little tortured child, and that, having accepted this, they could remain happy for ever?’

  ‘No, I couldn’t accept that. Ivan,’ Alyosha said suddenly, his eyes flashing, ‘you asked just now: “is there in all the world any single being who could forgive and who has the right to do so?” But there is such a being, and He can forgive everything, He can forgive everyone for everything, because He Himself shed His innocent blood for everyone and for everything. You forgot about Him; it is He who is the cornerstone of the building, and it is to Him that people will cry out, “You are just, O Lord, for your ways are revealed to us.”’

  ‘Ah, this “only one without sin”, who has shed his blood! No, I haven’t forgotten about Him; on the contrary, I’ve been wondering all this time why you hadn’t brought Him up for so long, for your lot usually play that card first in any argument. You know, Alyosha, don’t laugh, but I wrote a kind of a poem about a year ago. If you can bear with me for a little longer, I’ll let you hear it.’

  ‘You’ve written a poem?’

  ‘Oh no, I didn’t write it,’ Ivan laughed, ‘and in all my life I’ve never written so much as two verses. But I dreamed up this tale and I can still remember it. I dreamed it up in a moment of inspiration. You’ll be my first reader, that is, my first listener. Why indeed should an author neglect a single listener?’ laughed Ivan. ‘Do you want to hear it or not?’

  �
��I’d like very much to hear it,’ said Alyosha.

  ‘My tale is called “The Grand Inquisitor”, an absurd title, but I’d like you to hear it.’

  5

  THE GRAND INQUISITOR

  ‘WELL, first of all there has to be an introduction, a literary introduction, that is.’ Ivan laughed. ‘God knows, I’m no author! You see, the action takes place in the sixteenth century, and at that time, as you will remember from school, at that time it was the custom to introduce celestial beings in poetical works. I’m not talking about Dante. In France juristic clerks and even the monks in the monasteries used to perform plays where Our Lady, angels, saints, Christ, and God Himself appeared on stage. These pieces were all very naïve. In Victor Hugo’s Notre Dame de Paris, to celebrate the birth of the French Dauphin in the reign of Louis XI, the public is regaled in the Paris town hall with an edifying free performance entitled Le Bon Jugement de la très sainte et gracieuse Vierge Marie,* in which the Virgin appeared in person and pronounced her own bon jugement. In Moscow before the time of Peter the Great we also occasionally used to have somewhat similar dramatic performances, mostly based on the Old Testament; but in addition to dramatic performances, many poems and stories circulated throughout the whole world at that time, in which saints, angels, and all the heavenly hosts appeared as appropriate. In our monasteries too such works were translated, copied, even written—and all this while under the Tatar yoke. There is for example one minor monastic poem (translated from the Greek, of course), The Virgin among the Damned, which in its descriptive power and daring can be compared with Dante. The Mother of God visits hell and the Archangel Michael acts as her guide. She sees the sinners and their torments. There is by the way one particularly curious category of sinners in a burning lake; some of these have been plunged into this lake and can never escape from it, even God has forgotten these—a conception of remarkable depth and power. The Virgin, devastated and weeping, falls to her knees before the throne of God and begs mercy for all in hell, for all those she has seen there, without favour. Her conversation with God is interesting in the extreme. She begs, she insists, and when God shows her the marks of the nails on the hands and feet of her son and asks, “How can I forgive his torturers?” she calls upon all the saints, all the martyrs, all the angels and archangels to kneel with her and to plead for mercy for all, without distinction. It ends with her winning from God an annual cessation of tortures from Good Friday to Pentecost, and the sinners from hell thank Him there and then, crying out to Him, “You are just, O Lord, in your judgement of us.” Well, my little tale would have been something along those lines had it been written in those times. In my piece He appears on the scene; true, He doesn’t say anything in the poem, but just appears and passes by. Some fifteen centuries have elapsed since He promised to come into His kingdom, fifteen centuries since His prophet wrote, “Behold, I come quickly”.* “But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only,”* as He himself said when He was still on this earth. And the human race awaits Him with all its former faith and emotion, or rather with even greater faith, for fifteen centuries have elapsed since heaven ceased to give pledges to man:

  Believe what your heart says,

  Heaven makes no pledges.*

  ‘So there was faith only in what the heart had decreed! True, many miracles also occurred then. There were saints who performed miraculous cures; certain righteous men, so it is written in the hagiographies, were visited by the Queen of Heaven herself. But the devil doesn’t sleep, and mankind began to doubt the authenticity of these miracles. Just at that time a terrible new heresy* erupted in the north, in Germany. A great star* “like a flaming torch” (that is, the Church) “fell upon the sources of the waters and turned them bitter”. This heresy began blasphemously to deny the miracles. But the faithful believed all the more ardently. The tears of humanity ascend to Him as before, they await Him, love Him, place their hopes in Him as before, long, as before, to suffer and die for Him… And thus for so many centuries has mankind fervently and devoutly implored, “Lord appear unto us”,* for so many centuries have they cried to Him that in his infinite mercy He finally vouchsafed to come down to his supplicants. He had already come down on occasion and revealed Himself to certain just men, martyrs, and saintly anchorites on earth, as has been recorded in their “lives”. Our Tyutchev, a poet of great sincerity wrote:

  In slave’s guise and laden with the Cross,

  Over you, my native land,

  Passed heaven’s Lord

  And blessed you as he passed.*

  That this was truly so, I can promise you. And He wanted to appear, if only for a moment, to his tortured, suffering, wickedly sinful people, who nevertheless loved Him with the innocent love of childhood. The action of my poem takes place in Spain, in Seville, at the most terrible time of the Inquisition, when to the glory of God pyres were lit daily in the country and

  In magnificent autos-da-fé

  They burned the evil heretics.*

  O, of course, it was not that coming when, according to His promise, He will return at the end of time in all His celestial glory, suddenly, “as the lightning cometh out of the east and shineth even unto the west”.* No, He simply wanted to appear, if only for a moment, to visit his children at the very place where the heretics’ fires crackled. In his infinite mercy He walks once more among the people in that human form in which, for three years, he went among men fifteen centuries previously. He descends into the scorching streets of a southern city, where only the night before, on the order of the Grand Inquisitor and in the presence of the King, the court, knights, cardinals, and the most beautiful ladies of the court, and watched by the thronging populace of Seville, nearly a hundred heretics had been burned in a “magnificent auto-da-fé” ad majorem gloriam Dei.* He arrives quietly, surreptitiously, and everyone—strange to say—recognizes Him. That could well be one of the most intriguing ideas in the tale, namely, precisely why they recognize Him. The people, drawn by an irresistible force, stream towards Him, surround Him, and the crowd grows and follows Him. He walks silently among them with a serene smile of infinite compassion. The flame of love burns in his heart, rays of light, wisdom, and omnipotence flow from his eyes over the people, lighting upon them and causing their hearts to throb with a reciprocal love. He stretches out His arms to them, blesses them, and healing flows from His touch, even from the touch of His garments. Then, from the crowd, an old man, blind from childhood, cries out, “Lord, heal me, that I too may see You,” and, as if the scales had fallen from his eyes, the blind man sees Him. The crowd weeps and kisses the ground where He walks. Children throw flowers before his feet, sing and cry “Hosanna!” “It is He, it is really He,” they all keep repeating, “It must be He, it can be no one but He.” He stops on the steps of Seville Cathedral, just as weeping relatives are carrying in the little white open coffin of a child, a seven-year-old girl, the only daughter of a prominent citizen. The dead child lies bestrewn with flowers. “He will resurrect your child,” the crowd cries to the weeping mother. The prebendary who comes out to receive the coffin stares in amazement and frowns. But the wailing of the bereaved mother rings out. She throws herself at His feet. “If it is You, raise my child from the dead,” she cries, reaching out her hands to Him. The cortège comes to a halt, and the coffin is lowered on to the steps at His feet. He looks at the child with compassion, and gently His lips pronounce once more, “Talitha cumi”—“and straightway the damsel arose”.* The little girl sits up in the coffin and looks around her, smiling, her eyes wide open and astonished. In her hands she has a posy of white roses which had been placed in the coffin with her. There is confusion in the crowd, cries, sobbing, and then, just at that very moment, through the square in front of the cathedral, suddenly comes the Cardinal, the Grand Inquisitor himself. He is an old man of nearly ninety, tall and erect, with a withered face and sunken eyes, which, however, still glint with a fiery gleam. No, he isn’t wearing his magnificen
t cardinal’s vestments in which he paraded before the people the previous night, when the enemies of the Roman faith were burned—no, now he wears only an old, coarse, monk’s cassock. Behind him, at a respectful distance, follow his sombre aides, his servants, and the Guardians of the Holy Office. He stops and observes the crowd from afar. He has seen everything, seen them lay the coffin at His feet, seen the child raised from the dead—and his face darkens. His thick, grey brows contract, and his eyes gleam with a sinister fire. He points a finger and orders his guards to seize Him. And such is his power, and so accustomed to it, so cowed and so tremulously obedient are the people, that the crowd promptly parts before the guards and, in the deathly silence that has suddenly fallen, they lay hands on Him and lead Him away. The crowd, as one man, immediately bows down to the ground before the old Inquisitor, who silently blesses them and passes on. The guards take the prisoner to a cramped and dark vaulted prison in the ancient building of the Holy Office, and lock Him up. The day passes and night falls, a dark, hot, airless Seville night. The air is heavy with the scent of laurel and lemon. In the dark depths the iron door of the prison suddenly opens and the Grand Inquisitor himself slowly enters with a flaming brand in his hand. He is alone; the door is immediately locked behind him. He stops on the threshold and gazes for a long time, a minute or two, into His face. At last he quietly advances, places the brand on the table, and says to Him, “Is it You? You?” There being no answer, he adds quickly, “Don’t answer, remain silent. After all, what could You say? I know only too well what You would say. And You have no right to add anything to what You have already said. So why have You come to disturb us? For You really have come to disturb us, and You know it. But do You know what is going to happen tomorrow? I don’t know who You are and I don’t want to know—whether You are He or whether You are just a semblance of Him—but tomorrow I shall judge You and burn You at the stake, like the vilest of the heretics, and that same crowd which today kissed Your feet, tomorrow, at a sign from me, will rush to stoke up the fire, do You know that? Yes, perhaps You do know it,” he added thoughtfully, never taking his gaze from his prisoner for a moment.’