THE BROTHERS KARAMAZOV
by Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky
1879
 
 translated by Constance Garnett
 
 
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 we'd 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 won't speak of grown-up people is that, besides
being disgusting and unworthy of love, they have a compensation --
they've eaten the apple and know good and evil, and they have become
'like gods.' They go on eating it still. But the children haven't 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 another's 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
little -- up to seven, for instance -- are so remote from grown-up
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 don't 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 brother's 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 them -- all
sorts of things you can't imagine. People talk sometimes of bestial
cruelty, but that's 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, that's 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. They've
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 baby's face. The baby laughs with glee, holds out its
little hands to the pistol, and he pulls the trigger in the baby's face
and blows out its brains. Artistic, wasn't 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 doesn't exist, but man has created him, he has
created him in his own image and likeness."
 
"Just as he did God, then?" observed Alyosha.
 
"'It's 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 I've 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 beating -- rods and scourges -- that's 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 don't 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 executed -- a 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 wouldn't even give 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 labourer 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 him -- all philanthropic and
religious Geneva. All the aristocratic and well-bred 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, I've 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 it's 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 you've 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, that's 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 it's national. Though to us it's absurd to cut off
a man's 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,' everyone must have seen it. It's 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 defenceless 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
action -- it's awful in Nekrassov. But that only a horse, and God has
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
well-educated, cultured gentleman and his wife beat their own child
with a birch-rod, 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 be 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 client's defence. 'It's 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
favourable verdict. The public roars with delight that the torturer is
acquitted. Ah, pity I wasn't there! I would have proposed to raise a
subscription in his honour! Charming pictures.
 
"But I've still better things about children. I've collected a great,
great deal about Russian children, Alyosha. There was a little girl of
five who was hated by her father and mother, 'most worthy and
respectable people, of good education and breeding.' You see, I must
repeat again, it is a peculiar characteristic of many people, this love
of torturing children, and children only. To all other types of
humanity these torturers behave mildly and benevolently, like
cultivated and humane Europeans; but they are very fond of tormenting
children, even fond of children themselves in that sense. it's just
their defencelessness that tempts the tormentor, just the angelic
confidence of the child who has no refuge and no appeal, that sets his
vile blood on fire. In every man, of course, a demon lies hidden -- the
demon of rage, the demon of lustful heat at the screams of the tortured
victim, the demon of lawlessness let off the chain, the demon of
diseases that follow on vice, gout, kidney disease, and so on.
 
"This poor child of five was subjected to every possible torture by
those cultivated parents. They beat her, thrashed her, kicked her for
no reason till her body was one bruise. Then, they went to greater
refinements of cruelty -- shut her up all night in the cold and frost
in a privy, and because she didn't ask to be taken up at night (as
though a child of five sleeping its angelic, sound sleep could be
trained to wake and ask), they smeared her face and filled her mouth
with excrement, and it was her mother, her mother did this. And that
mother could sleep, hearing the poor child's groans! Can you understand
why a little creature, who can't even understand what's done to her,
should beat her little aching heart with her tiny fist in the dark and
the cold, and weep her meek unresentful tears to dear, kind God to
protect her? Do you understand that, friend and brother, you pious and
humble novice? Do you understand why this infamy must be and is
permitted? Without it, I am told, man could not have existed on earth,
for he could not have known good and evil. Why should he know that
diabolical good and evil when it costs so much? Why, the whole world of
knowledge is not worth that child's prayer to dear, kind God'! I say
nothing of the sufferings of grown-up people, they have eaten the
apple, damn them, and the devil take them all! But these little ones! I
am making you suffer, Alyosha, you are not yourself. I'll leave off if
you like."
 
"Nevermind. I want to suffer too," muttered Alyosha.
 
"One picture, only one more, because it's so curious, so
characteristic, and I have only just read it in some collection of
Russian antiquities. I've forgotten the name. I must look it up. It was
in the darkest days of serfdom at the beginning of the century, and
long live the Liberator of the People! There was in those days a
general of aristocratic connections, the owner of great estates, one of
those men -- somewhat exceptional, I believe, even then -- who,
retiring from the service into a life of leisure, are convinced that
they've earned absolute power over the lives of their subjects. There
were such men then. So our general, settled on his property of two
thousand souls, lives in pomp, and domineers over his poor neighbours
as though they were dependents and buffoons. He has kennels of hundreds
of hounds and nearly a hundred dog-boys -- all mounted, and in uniform.
One day a serf-boy, a little child of eight, threw a stone in play and
hurt the paw of the general's favourite hound. 'Why is my favourite dog
lame?' He is told that the boy threw a stone that hurt the dog's paw.
'So you did it.' The general looked the child up and down. 'Take him.'
He was taken -- taken from his mother and kept shut up all night. Early
that morning the general comes out on horseback, with the hounds, his
dependents, dog-boys, and huntsmen, all mounted around him in full
hunting parade. The servants are summoned for their edification, and in
front of them all stands the mother of the child. The child is brought
from the lock-up. It's a gloomy, cold, foggy, autumn day, a capital day
for hunting. The general orders the child to be undressed; the child is
stripped naked. He shivers, numb with terror, not daring to cry....
'Make him run,' commands the general. 'Run! run!' shout the dog-boys.
The boy runs.... 'At him!' yells the general, and he sets the whole
pack of hounds on the child. The hounds catch him, and tear him to
pieces before his mother's eyes!... I believe the general was
afterwards declared incapable of administering his estates. Well --
what did he deserve? To be shot? To be shot for the satisfaction of our
moral feelings? Speak, Alyosha!
 
"To be shot," murmured Alyosha, lifting his eyes to Ivan with a pale,
twisted smile.
 
"Bravo!" cried Ivan delighted. "If even you say so... You're a pretty
monk! So there is a little devil sitting in your heart, Alyosha
Karamazov!"
 
"What I said was absurd, but-"
 
"That's just the point, that 'but'!" cried Ivan. "Let me tell you,
novice, that the absurd is only too necessary on earth. The world
stands on absurdities, and perhaps nothing would have come to pass in
it without them. We know what we know!"
 
"What do you know?"
 
"I understand nothing," Ivan went on, as though in delirium. "I don't
want to understand anything now. I want to stick to the fact. I made up
my mind long ago not to understand. If I try to understand anything, I
shall be false to the fact, and I have determined to stick to the
fact."
 
"Why are you trying me?" Alyosha cried, with sudden distress. "Will you
say what you mean at last?"
 
"Of course, I will; that's what I've been leading up to. You are dear
to me, I don't want to let you go, and I won't give you up to your
Zossima."
 
Ivan for a minute was silent, his face became all at once very sad.
 
"Listen! I took the case of children only to make my case clearer. Of
the other tears of humanity with which the earth is soaked from its
crust to its centre, I will say nothing. I have narrowed my subject on
purpose. I am a bug, and I recognise in all humility that I cannot
understand why the world is arranged as it is. Men are themselves to
blame, I suppose; they were given paradise, they wanted freedom, and
stole fire from heaven, though they knew they would become unhappy, so
there is no need to pity them. With my pitiful, earthly, Euclidian
understanding, all I know is that there is suffering and that there are
none guilty; that cause follows effect, simply and directly; that
everything flows and finds its level -- but that's only Euclidian
nonsense, I know that, and I can't consent to live by it! What comfort
is it to me that there are none guilty and that cause follows effect
simply and directly, and that I know it? -- I must have justice, or I
will destroy myself. And not justice in some remote infinite time and
space, but here on earth, and that I could see myself. I have believed
in it. I want to see it, and if I am dead by then, let me rise again,
for if it all happens without me, it will be too unfair. Surely I
haven't suffered simply that I, my crimes and my sufferings, may manure
the soil of the future harmony for somebody else. I want to see with my
own eyes the hind lie down with the lion and the victim rise up and
embrace his murderer. I want to be there when everyone suddenly
understands what it has all been for. All the religions of the world
are built on this longing, and I am a believer. But then there are the
children, and what am I to do about them? That's a question I can't
answer. For the hundredth time I repeat, there are numbers of
questions, but I've only taken the children, because in their case what
I mean is so unanswerably clear. Listen! If all must suffer to pay for
the eternal harmony, what have children to do with it, tell me, please?
It's beyond all comprehension why they should suffer, and why they
should pay for the harmony. Why should they, too, furnish material to
enrich the soil for the harmony of the future? I understand solidarity
in sin among men. I understand solidarity in retribution, too; but
there can be no such solidarity with children. And if it is really true
that they must share responsibility for all their fathers' crimes, such
a truth is not of this world and is beyond my comprehension. Some
jester will say, perhaps, that the child would have grown up and have
sinned, but you see he didn't grow up, he was torn to pieces by the
dogs, at eight years old. Oh, Alyosha, I am not blaspheming! I
understand, of course, what an upheaval of the universe it will be when
everything in heaven and earth blends in one hymn of praise and
everything that lives and has lived cries aloud: 'Thou art just, O
Lord, for Thy ways are revealed.' When the mother embraces the fiend
who threw her child to the dogs, and all three cry aloud with tears,
'Thou art just, O Lord!' then, of course, the crown of knowledge will
be reached and all will be made clear. But what pulls me up here is
that I can't accept that harmony. And while I am on earth, I make haste
to take my own measures. You see, Alyosha, perhaps it really may happen
that if I live to that moment, or rise again to see it, I, too,
perhaps, may cry aloud with the rest, looking at the mother embracing
the child's torturer, 'Thou art just, O Lord!' but I don't want to cry
aloud then. While there is still time, I hasten to protect myself, and
so I renounce the higher harmony altogether. It's not worth the tears
of that one tortured child who beat itself on the breast with its
little fist and prayed in its stinking outhouse, with its unexpiated
tears to 'dear, kind God'! It's not worth it, because those tears are
unatoned for. They must be atoned for, or there can be no harmony. But
how? How are you going to atone for them? Is it possible? By their
being avenged? But what do I care for avenging them? What do I care for
a hell for oppressors? What good can hell do, since those children have
already been tortured? And what becomes of harmony, if there is hell? I
want to forgive. I want to embrace. I don't want more suffering. And if
the sufferings of children go to swell the sum of sufferings which was
necessary to pay for truth, then I protest that the truth is not worth
such a price. I don't want the mother to embrace the oppressor who
threw her son to the dogs! She dare not forgive him! Let her forgive
him for herself, if she will, let her forgive the torturer for the
immeasurable suffering of her mother's heart. But the sufferings of her
tortured child she has no right to forgive; she dare not forgive the
torturer, even if the child were to forgive him! And if that is so, if
they dare not forgive, what becomes of harmony? Is there in the whole
world a being who would have the right to forgive and could forgive? I
don't want harmony. From love for humanity I don't want it. I would
rather be left with the unavenged suffering. I would rather remain with
my unavenged suffering and unsatisfied indignation, even if I were
wrong. Besides, too high a price is asked for harmony; it's beyond our
means to pay so much to enter on it. And so I hasten to give back my
entrance ticket, and if I am an honest man I am bound to give it back
as soon as possible. And that I am doing. It's not God that I don't
accept, Alyosha, only I most respectfully return him the ticket."
 
"That's rebellion," murmered Alyosha, looking down.
 
"Rebellion? I am sorry you call it that," said Ivan earnestly. "One can
hardly live in rebellion, and I want to live. Tell me yourself, I
challenge your answer. Imagine that you are creating a fabric of human
destiny with the object of making men happy in the end, giving them
peace and rest at last, but that it was essential and inevitable to
torture to death only one tiny creature -- that baby beating its breast
with its fist, for instance -- and to found that edifice on its
unavenged tears, would you consent to be the architect on those
conditions? Tell me, and tell the truth."
 
"No, I wouldn't consent," said Alyosha softly.