The Brothers Karamazov

“The devil! He’s taken to visiting me. He’s been here twice, even almost three times. He taunted me, saying I’m angry that he’s simply a devil and not Satan, with scorched wings, with thunder and lightning. But he’s not Satan, he’s lying. He’s an impostor. He’s simply a devil, a rotten little devil. He goes to the public baths. Undress him and you’re sure to find a tail, long and smooth as a Great Dane’s, a good three feet long, brown ... Alyosha, you’re chilly, you were out in the snow, do you want some tea? What? It’s cold? Shall I tell them to make some hot? C’est à ne pas mettre un chien dehors ...”

Alyosha ran quickly to the sink, wetted the towel, persuaded Ivan to sit down again, and put the wet towel around his head. He sat down beside him.

“What were you saying earlier about Liza?” Ivan began again. (He was becoming very talkative.) “I like Liza. I said something nasty to you about her. I was lying, I like her ... I’m afraid for Katya tomorrow, afraid most of all. For the future. She’ll drop me tomorrow and trample me under her feet. She thinks I’m destroying Mitya out of jealousy over her! Yes, that’s what she thinks! But no, it won’t be! Tomorrow the cross, but not the gallows. No, I won’t hang myself. Do you know, I’d never be able to take my own life, Alyosha! Is it out of baseness, or what? I’m not a coward. Out of thirst for life! How did I know Smerdyakov had hanged himself? But it was he who told me...”

“And you’re firmly convinced that someone was sitting here?” Alyosha asked.

“On that sofa in the corner. You’d have chased him away. And you did chase him away: he disappeared as soon as you came. I love your face, Alyosha. Did you know that I love your face? And he—is me, Alyosha, me myself. All that’s low, all that’s mean and contemptible in me! Yes, I’m a ‘romantic,’ he noticed it ... though it’s a slander. He’s terribly stupid, but he makes use of it. He’s cunning, cunning as an animal, he knew how to infuriate me. He kept taunting me with believing in him and got me to listen to him that way. He hoodwinked me, like a boy. By the way, he told me a great deal that’s true about myself. I would never have said it to myself. You know, Alyosha, you know,” Ivan added, terribly seriously, and as if confidentially, “I would much prefer that he were really he and not I!”

“He has worn you out,” Alyosha said, looking at his brother with compassion.

“He taunted me! And cleverly, you know, very cleverly: ‘Conscience! What is conscience? I make it up myself. Why do I suffer then? Out of habit. Out of universal human habit over seven thousand years. So let us get out of the habit, and we shall be gods! ‘ He said that, he said that!”

“And not you, not you!” Alyosha cried irrepressibly, looking brightly at his brother. “So never mind him, drop him, and forget about him! Let him take with him all that you curse now and never come back!”

“Yes, but he’s evil! He laughed at me. He was impudent, Alyosha,” Ivan said with a shudder of offense. “He slandered me, slandered me greatly. He lied about me to my face. ‘Oh, you are going to perform a virtuous deed, you will announce that you killed your father, that the lackey killed your father at your suggestion ... !’”

“Brother,” Alyosha interrupted, “restrain yourself: you did not kill him. It’s not true!”

“He says it, he, and he knows it: ‘You are going to perform a virtuous deed, but you don’t even believe in virtue—that’s what makes you angry and torments you, that’s why you’re so vindictive.’ He said it to me about myself, and he knows what he’s saying ...”

“You are saying it, not him!” Alyosha exclaimed ruefully, “and you’re saying it because you’re sick, delirious, tormenting yourself!”

“No, he knows what he’s saying. You’re going out of pride, he says, you’ll stand up and say: ‘I killed him, and you, why are you all shrinking in horror, you’re lying! I despise your opinion, I despise your horror! ‘ He said that about me, and suddenly he said: And, you know, you want them to praise you: he’s a criminal, a murderer, but what magnanimous feelings he has, he wanted to save his brother and so he confessed!’ Now that is a lie, Alyosha!” Ivan suddenly cried, flashing his eyes. “I don’t want the stinking rabble to praise me. He lied about that, Alyosha, he lied, I swear to you! I threw a glass at him for that, and it smashed on his ugly snout.”

“Brother, calm yourself, stop!” Alyosha pleaded.