The Brothers Karamazov

by Fyodor Dostoevsky

His left eye winked and he grinned as if to say, “Where are you going? You won’t pass by; you see that we two clever people have something to say to each other.”

Ivan shook. “Get away, miserable idiot. What have I to do with you?” was on the tip of his tongue, but to his profound astonishment he heard himself say, “Is my father still asleep, or has he waked?”

“Why I smile you must understand of yourself, if you are a clever man,” his screwed-up left eye seemed to say.

“Why should I go to Tchermashnya?” Ivan asked in surprise. Smerdyakov was silent again. “Fyodor Pavlovitch himself has so begged you to,” he said at last, slowly and apparently attaching no significance to his answer. “I put you off with a secondary reason,” he seemed to suggest, “simply to say something.”

“What do you mean by ‘a long fit’?” “A long fit, lasting a long time—several hours, or perhaps a day or two. Once it went on for three days. I fell from the garret that time. The struggling ceased and then began again, and for three days I couldn’t come back to my senses. Fyodor Pavlovitch sent for Herzenstube, the doctor here, and he put ice on my head and tried another remedy, too . . . I might have died.” “But they say one can’t tell with epilepsy when a fit is coming. What makes you say you will have one to-morrow?” Ivan inquired, with a peculiar, irritable curiosity. “That’s just so. You can’t tell beforehand.”

You look out for her,’ says he, ‘till midnight and later; and if she does come, you run up and knock at my door or at the window from the garden. Knock at first twice, rather gently, and then three times more quickly, then,’ says he, ‘I shall understand at once that she has come, and will open the door to you quietly.’ Another signal he gave me in case anything unexpected happens. At first, two knocks, and then, after an interval, another much louder. Then he will understand that something has happened suddenly and that I must see him, and he will open to me so that I can go and speak to him. That’s all in case Agrafena Alexandrovna can’t come herself, but sends a message. Besides, Dmitri Fyodorovitch might come, too, so I must let him know he is near. His honour is awfully afraid of Dmitri Fyodorovitch, so that even if Agrafena Alexandrovna had come and were locked in with him, and Dmitri Fyodorovitch were to turn up anywhere near at the time, I should be bound to let him know at once, knocking three times. So that the first signal of five knocks means Agrafena Alexandrovna has come, while the second signal of three knocks means ‘something important to tell you.’

“And couldn’t I be sent for from Tchermashnya, too—in case anything happened?” Ivan shouted suddenly, for some unknown reason raising his voice. “From Tchermashnya, too . . . you could be sent for,” Smerdyakov muttered, almost in a whisper, looking disconcerted, but gazing intently into Ivan’s eyes. “Only Moscow is farther and Tchermashnya is nearer. Is it to save my spending money on the fare, or to save my going so far out of my way, that you insist on Tchermashnya?” “Precisely so . . .” muttered Smerdyakov, with a breaking voice. He looked at Ivan with a revolting smile, and again made ready to draw back. But to his astonishment Ivan broke into a laugh, and went through the gate still laughing. Any one who had seen his face at that moment would have known that he was not laughing from lightness of heart, and he could not have explained himself what he was feeling at that instant. He moved and walked as though in a nervous frenzy.

He sat up late that night, till two o’clock. But we will not give an account of his thoughts, and this is not the place to look into that soul—its turn will come.

Of Katerina Ivanovna he almost forgot to think, and wondered greatly at this afterwards, especially as he remembered perfectly that when he had protested so valiantly to Katerina Ivanovna that he would go away next day to Moscow, something had whispered in his heart, “That’s nonsense, you are not going, and it won’t be so easy to tear yourself away as you are boasting now.”

This Gorstkin looks like a peasant, he wears a blue kaftan, but he is a regular rogue. That’s the common complaint. He is a liar. Sometimes he tells such lies that you wonder why he is doing it. He told me the year before last that his wife was dead and that he had married another, and would you believe it, there was not a word of truth in it? His wife has never died at all, she is alive to this day and gives him a beating twice a week.

“I shall be no use in such a business. I have no eye either.” “Stay, wait a bit! You will be of use, for I will tell you the signs by which you can judge about Gorstkin. I’ve done business with him a long time. You see, you must watch his beard; he has a nasty, thin, red beard. If his beard shakes when he talks and he gets cross, it’s all right, he is saying what he means, he wants to do business. But if he strokes his beard with his left hand and grins—he is trying to cheat you. Don’t watch his eyes, you won’t find out anything from his eyes, he is a deep one, a rogue—but watch his beard!

I’ll give you a note and you show it to him. He’s called Gorstkin, though his real name is Lyagavy;4 but don’t call him so, he will be offended.

“You force me to go to that damned Tchermashnya yourself, then?” cried Ivan, with a malignant smile.

“It’s a true saying then, that ‘it’s always worth while speaking to a clever man,’” answered Smerdyakov firmly, looking significantly at Ivan.

“Why is it worth while speaking to a clever man? What did he mean by that?”

“I won’t go to Tchermashnya. Am I too late to reach the railway by seven, brothers?” “We shall just do it. Shall we get the carriage out?” “At once. Will any one of you be going to the town to-morrow?” “To be sure. Mitri here will.” “Can you do me a service, Mitri? Go to my father’s, to Fyodor Pavlovitch Karamazov, and tell him I haven’t gone to Tchermashnya. Can you?” “Of course I can. I’ve known Fyodor Pavlovitch a long time.” “And here’s something for you, for I dare say he won’t give you anything,” said Ivan, laughing gaily. “You may depend on it he won’t.” Mitya laughed too. “Thank you, sir. I’ll be sure to do it.”

“I am a scoundrel,” he whispered to himself.

In the evening there was another trouble in store for Fyodor Pavlovitch; he was informed that Grigory, who had not been well for the last three days, was completely laid up by his lumbago.

That evening he reckoned on Grushenka’s coming almost as a certainty. He had received from Smerdyakov that morning an assurance “that she had promised to come without fail.”

He had to be on the alert. Dmitri might be on the watch for her somewhere, and when she knocked on the window (Smerdyakov had informed him two days before that he had told her where and how to knock) the door must be opened at once.

The mild serenity of age takes the place of the riotous blood of youth.

I enjoyed listening and looking at them. “My dear friends and comrades,” said I, “don’t worry about my resigning my commission, for I have done so already. I have sent in my papers this morning and as soon as I get my discharge I shall go into a monastery—it’s with that object I am leaving the regiment.” When I had said this every one of them burst out laughing. “You should have told us of that first, that explains everything, we can’t judge a monk.”

Apparently, this kind of conversion moment is common in the lives of Saints.

No sort of scientific teaching, no kind of common interest, will ever teach men to share property and privileges with equal consideration for all. Every one will think his share too small and they will be always envying, complaining and attacking one another.

He heaps up riches by himself and thinks, ‘How strong I am now and how secure,’ and in his madness he does not understand that the more he heaps up, the more he sinks into self-destructive impotence. For he is accustomed to rely upon himself alone and to cut himself off from the whole; he has trained himself not to believe in the help of others, in men and in humanity, and only trembles for fear he should lose his money and the privileges that he has won for himself.

there’s no denying that fashion is a great power in society.

No one is wise from another man’s woe.”

In the rich, isolation and spiritual suicide; in the poor, envy and murder; for they have been given rights, but have not been shown the means of satisfying their wants.

They have succeeded in accumulating a greater mass of objects, but the joy in the world has grown less.

The salvation of Russia comes from the people. And the Russian monk has always been on the side of the people.

I’ve seen in the factories children of nine years old, frail, rickety, bent, and already depraved. The stuffy workshop, the din of machinery, work all day long, the vile language and the drink, the drink—is that what a little child’s heart needs? He needs sunshine, childish play, good examples all about him, and at least a little love. There must be no more of this, monks, no more torturing of children, rise up and preach that, make haste, make haste!

“You are rich and noble, you are clever and talented, well, be so, God bless you. I respect you, but I know that I too am a man.

Every one can love occasionally, even the wicked can.

My brother asked the birds to forgive him; that sounds senseless, but it is right; for all is like an ocean, all is flowing and blending; a touch in one place sets up movement at the other end of the earth.

Sounds a lot like the Butterfly Effect but that wasn't known yet.

Of the pride of Satan what I think is this: it is hard for us on earth to comprehend it, and therefore it is so easy to fall into error and to share it, even imagining that we are doing something grand and fine.

God took seeds from different worlds and sowed them on this earth, and His garden grew up and everything came up that could come up, but what grows lives and is alive only through the feeling of its contact with other mysterious worlds. If that feeling grows weak or is destroyed in you, the heavenly growth will die away in you. Then you will be indifferent to life and even grow to hate it. That’s what I think.

And even if the law itself makes you his judge, act in the same spirit so far as possible, for he will go away and condemn himself more bitterly than you have done.

This seems naive.

The righteous man departs, but his light remains.

Fathers and teachers, I ponder, “What is hell?” I maintain that it is the suffering of being unable to love.

Love can never be an offence to Christ.

She regarded Rakitin as a most religious and devout young man. He was particularly clever in getting round people and assuming whatever part he thought most to their taste, if he detected the slightest advantage to himself from doing so.

The unbelievers rejoiced, and as for the believers some of them rejoiced even more than the unbelievers, for “men love the downfall and disgrace of the righteous,” as the deceased elder had said in one of his exhortations.

But in some cases it is really more creditable to be carried away by an emotion, however unreasonable, which springs from a great love, than to be unmoved. And this is even truer in youth, for a young man who is always sensible is to be suspected and is of little worth—that’s my opinion!

I am glad that my hero showed himself not too reasonable at that moment, for any man of sense will always come back to reason in time, but, if love does not gain the upper hand in a boy’s heart at such an exceptional moment, when will it?

“I am not rebelling against my God; I simply ‘don’t accept His world.’” Alyosha suddenly smiled a forced smile.

Essentially, there is injustice he cannot understand or accept.

“Well, one way or another, vodka or sausage, this is a jolly fine chance and mustn’t be missed. Come along.”

He was a practical person and never undertook anything without a prospect of gain for himself.

Alyosha bent a long wondering look upon her and a light seemed to dawn in his face.

He's seeing, perhaps, that even the seemingly wicked can have redeeming facets.

You had much better look at her—do you see how she has pity on me? I came here to find a wicked soul—I felt drawn to evil because I was base and evil myself, and I’ve found a true sister, I have found a treasure—a loving heart. She had pity on me just now . . . Agrafena Alexandrovna, I am speaking of you. You’ve raised my soul from the depths.”

And you hush, Rakitin, because you are telling lies. I had the low idea of trying to get him in my clutches, but now you are lying, now it’s all different.

“I shall begin to cry, I shall,” repeated Grushenka. “He called me his sister and I shall never forget that. Only let me tell you, Rakitin, though I am bad, I did give away an onion.”