The Idiot

by Fyodor Dostoevsky

Fetch a soldier and stand him right in front of a cannon during a battle and fire at him, he’ll go on hoping; but read out a certain death sentence to that same soldier and he’ll go off his head or burst into tears.

there were times when I used to have very restless moods. I kept thinking how I was going to spend my life; I wanted to test the future that awaited me. There were certain moments when I used to feel restless; you know how those moments come, especially when you are alone. We had a waterfall there, quite a small one, dropping high off the mountain in a delicate thread, almost vertical—white, pattering, foaming; it fell from a great height but it seemed quite low, it was a good half-mile off, but it seemed only fifty yards away. I loved to listen to it at night; it was in moments like those that I sometimes reached a peak of anxiety. Also at mid-day sometimes, on mountain walks, I’d be alone among the mountains, pine-trees all around me, ancient, tall, resinous; up there on the rock an old castle, medieval and ruinous; our village far away below, barely visible; the sun bright in the blue sky, a fearful silence. It was there that I used to sense a something that kept calling me elsewhere, and it seemed that if I walked straight ahead for a long long time, past the line, that line where sky and earth meet, the whole puzzle would be resolved and I should see a new life, a thousand times more vital and tumultuous than ours;

a foolish woman with a heart and no brains is as bad as one with brains and no heart.

“just as a mother rejoices when she notices her baby smile for the first time, so does God rejoice every time he beholds from on high a sinner kneeling before him, praying with all his heart.”

the essence of religious feeling has nothing to do with reasoning, or transgressions, or crimes, or atheism; it is something quite different and always will be, it is something our atheists will always gloss over and avoid discussing.

To begin with, what is liberalism really, speaking in general, if not an assault (reasonable or erroneous is not the point) on the existing order of things? That’s so, isn’t it? Well then, my fact is that Russian liberalism is not an assault on the existing order of things, it is an attack on the very essence of the things we have, the things themselves, not just on their ordering, not on the Russian system but on Russia herself. My liberal has reached the stage of denying Russia itself—that is, he hates and beats his own mother. Every evidence of the wretchedness and failure of Russia prompts him to laughter, delight even.

Artists always depict Christ according to the gospel stories; I would paint him differently: I would show him alone—his disciples did leave him alone sometimes, after all. I would leave him alone with just one little child. The child would be playing near him, perhaps telling him something in his childish prattle. Christ would be listening to him, but presently fall to thinking; his hand would rest unconsciously on the child’s little fair head. He looks towards the distant horizon; a thought as great as the whole world dwells in his look; his face is sad. The child has fallen silent and leans his elbow against his knees and, cheek on hand, raises his head and stares intently at him, wondering as children sometimes do. The sun is setting … That’s my picture! You are innocent and all your perfection is in your innocence. Ah, remember only that! Why should you care about my passion for you? You are now all mine, I will be close to you all my life … I shall soon be dead.’

‘How on earth could he have submitted to a faith that is … unchristian? … Catholicism is the same as an unchristian religion!’

‘First of all, it is an unchristian religion!’ the prince began again, very much agitated and speaking with undue harshness. ‘That’s the first thing, and the second thing is that Roman Catholicism is even worse than out-and-out atheism, that’s how I see it! Yes, that’s how I see it! Atheism just preaches negation, but Catholicism goes further than that: it preaches a distorted Christ, traduced and abused by itself, the

opposite of Christ! It preaches the Antichrist, I swear it, I can assure you of that. It is my own long-held conviction and it has indeed tormented me … Roman Catholicism believes that without universal temporal dominion, the Church cannot survive on earth: ‘Non possumus’,* they cry. In my opinion, Roman Catholicism is not even a faith, it’s a continuation of the Western Roman Empire, and everything in it is subordinate to that idea, beginning with their faith. The pope seized the earth, an earthly throne, and took up the sword; since that time everything has gone the same way, except that to the sword they’ve added lies, intrigue, deceit, fanaticism, superstition, and evil-doing. They have trifled with the most sacred, truthful, innocent, and ardent emotions of the people and bartered them all, all of them, for money and paltry temporal power. Is not this the teaching of Antichrist? Atheism was bound to come from them! Atheism did come from them, from Roman Catholicism itself! Atheism first came into being through them: could they believe in themselves? It gained strength from the abhorrence

which they were held; it is the spawn of their lies and spiritual impotence! Atheism! In our country it is only the social élite who do not believe, as Mr Radomsky put it so splendidly the other day, they have lost their roots; meanwhile in Europe, great masses of the common people are themselves losing their faith—at first...

After all, socialism too is the spawn of Catholicism and its essence! Like its brother, atheism, it too was born out of despair, in moral opposition to Catholicism, to try to replace the lost moral power of religion, to assuage the spiritual thirst of parched humanity and save it, not through Christ, but again through violence! This too is freedom through violence, unification through sword and bloodshed!