The Brothers Karamazov

“So, what? They put your nose out of joint?” “My friend,” the visitor observed sententiously, “it’s sometimes better to have your nose put out of joint than to have no nose at all, as one afflicted marquis (he must have been treated by a specialist) uttered not long ago in confession to his Jesuit spiritual director. I was present—it was just lovely. ‘Give me back my nose!’ he said, beating his breast. ‘My son,’ the priest hedged, ‘through the inscrutable decrees of Providence everything has its recompense, and a visible calamity sometimes brings with it a great, if invisible, profit. If a harsh fate has deprived you of your nose, your profit is that now for the rest of your life no one will dare tell you that you have had your nose put out of joint.’ ‘Holy father, that’s no consolation!’ the desperate man exclaimed. ‘On the contrary, I’d be delighted to have my nose put out of joint every day of my life, if only it were where it belonged!’ ‘My son,’ the priest sighed, ‘one cannot demand all blessings at once. That is to murmur against Providence, which even here has not forgotten you; for if you cry, as you have just cried, that you would gladly have your nose put out of joint for the rest of your life, in this your desire has already been fulfilled indirectly; for, having lost your nose, you have thereby, as it were, had your nose put out of joint all the same ...”

“Pah, how stupid!” cried Ivan.

“My friend, I merely wanted to make you laugh, but I swear that is real Jesuit casuistry, and I swear it all happened word for word as I’ve told it to you. That was a recent incident, and it gave me a lot of trouble. The unfortunate young man went home and shot himself that same night; I was with him constantly up to the last moment ... As for those little Jesuit confessional booths, that truly is my pet amusement in the sadder moments of life. Here’s another incident for you, from just the other day. A girl comes to an old priest, a blonde, from Normandy, about twenty years old. Beautiful, buxom, all nature—enough to make your mouth water. She bends down and whispers her sin to the priest through the little hole. ‘What, my daughter, can you have fallen again so soon ... ?’ the priest exclaims.’O Sancta Maria, what’s this I hear? With another man now? But how long will it go on? What shame! ‘ ‘Ah, mon père,’ the sinner replies, bathed in tears of repentance, ‘ça lui fait tant de plaisir, et à moi si peu de peine!’^[320] Well, just imagine such an answer! At that even I backed off: it was the very cry of nature, which, if you like, is better than innocence itself. I remitted her sin on the spot and turned to leave, but I had to come back at once: I heard the priest arranging a rendezvous with her for that evening through the hole; the old man was solid as a rock, but he fell in an instant! It was nature, the truth of nature, claiming its own! What, are you turning your nose up again, are you angry again? I really don’t know how to please you . . .” “Leave me, you’re throbbing in my brain like a persistent nightmare,” Ivan groaned painfully, powerless before his apparition. “I’m bored with you, it’s unbearable, agonizing! I’d give a lot to be able to get rid of you!”