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035 - Book Five Chapter Four · Brothers Karamazov

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Speaker 1: Chapter thirty five of the Brothers Karamtzov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky,
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Speaker 1: translated by Constance Garnet. This LibriVox recording is in the
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Speaker 1: public domain recording by Tony Addison, Chapter four rebellion. I
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Speaker 1: must make you one confession, Ivan began. I could never
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Speaker 1: understand how one can love one's neighbors. It's just one's
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Speaker 1: neighbors to my mind, that one can't love, though one
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Speaker 1: might love those at a distance. I once read somewhere
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Speaker 1: of John the Mercifal, a saint, that when a hungry,
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Speaker 1: frozen beggar came to him, he took him into his bed,
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Speaker 1: held him in his arm, and began breathing into his mouth,
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Speaker 1: which was putrid and loathsome from some awful disease. I
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Speaker 1: am convinced that he did that from self laceration, from
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Speaker 1: the self laceration of falsity, for the sake of the
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Speaker 1: charity imposed by duty, as a penance laid on him.
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Speaker 1: For anyone to love a man, he must be hidden,
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Speaker 1: for as soon as he shows his face, love is gone.
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Speaker 1: Father Zossima has talked of that more than once observed Alyosha,
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Speaker 1: He too said that the face of a man often
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Speaker 1: hinders many people not practiced in love from loving him.
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Speaker 1: But yet there's a great deal of love in mankind,
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Speaker 1: and almost christ like love. I know that myself, ivan well,
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Speaker 1: I know nothing of it so far and can't understand it.
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Speaker 1: And the innumerable mass of mankind are with me there.
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Speaker 1: The question is whether that's due to men's bad qualities,
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Speaker 1: or whether it's inherent in their nature. To my thinking,
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Speaker 1: christ like love for men is a miracle impossible on earth.
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Speaker 1: He was God, but we are not God's Suppose I,
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Speaker 1: for instance, suffer intensely. Another can never know how much
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Speaker 1: I suffer, because he is another and not I. And
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Speaker 1: what's more, a man is rarely ready to admit another's suffering,
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Speaker 1: as though it were a distinction. Why won't he admit it?
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Speaker 1: Do you think because I smell unpleasant, because I have
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Speaker 1: a stupid face, because I once trod on his foot. Besides,
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Speaker 1: there is suffering and suffering, degrading, humiliating suffering such as
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Speaker 1: humbles me hunger, for instance. My benefactor will perhaps alami,
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Speaker 1: But when you come to hire suffering for an idea,
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Speaker 1: for instance, he will very rarely admit that, perhaps because
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Speaker 1: my face strikes him as not at all what he fancies.
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Speaker 1: A man should have who suffers for an idea, and
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Speaker 1: so he deprives me instantly of his favor, and not
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Speaker 1: at all from badness of heart. Beggars, especially genteel beggars,
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Speaker 1: ought never to show themselves, but to ask for charity
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Speaker 1: through the newspapers. One can love one's neighbors in the abstract,
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Speaker 1: or even at a distance, but at close quarters it's
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Speaker 1: almost impossible. If it were on the stage, in the
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Speaker 1: ballet or where. If beggars come in they wear silken
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Speaker 1: rags and tattered lace and beg for arms, dancing gracefully,
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Speaker 1: then one might like looking at them. But even then
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Speaker 1: we should not love them. But enough of that, I
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Speaker 1: simply wanted to show you my point of view. I
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Speaker 1: meant to speak of the suffering of mankind generally, But
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Speaker 1: we had better confine ourselves to the sufferings of the children.
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Speaker 1: That reduces the scope of my argument to attempt of
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Speaker 1: what it would be. Still, we'd better keep to the children,
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Speaker 1: though it does weaken my case. But in the first place,
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Speaker 1: the children can be loved even at close quarters, even
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Speaker 1: when they are dirty, even when they are ugly. I fancy,
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Speaker 1: though children never are ugly. The second reason why I
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Speaker 1: won't speak of grown up people is that, besides being
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Speaker 1: disgusting and unworthy of love, they have a compensation. They've
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Speaker 1: eaten the apple and no good and evil, and they
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Speaker 1: have become like gods. They go on eating it still.
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Speaker 1: But the children haven't eaten anything, and are so far innocent.
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Speaker 1: Are you fond of children, Alyosha, I know you are,
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Speaker 1: and you will understand why I prefer to speak of them.
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Speaker 1: If they too suffer horribly on earth. They must suffer
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Speaker 1: for their father's sins. They must be punished for their
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Speaker 1: fathers who have eaten the apple. But that reasoning is
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Speaker 1: of the other world and is incomprehensible for the heart
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Speaker 1: of man here on earth. The innocent must not suffer
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Speaker 1: for another's sins, and especially such innocence. You may be
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Speaker 1: surprised at me, Alyosha, but I am awfully fond of
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Speaker 1: children too, and observe cruel people, the violent, the rapacious.
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Speaker 1: The Caramatzovs are sometimes very fond of children. Children, while
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Speaker 1: they are quite little up to seven, for instance, are
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Speaker 1: so remote from grown up people. They are different creatures,
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Speaker 1: as it were, of a different species. I knew a
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Speaker 1: criminal in prison who had, in the course of his
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Speaker 1: career as a burglar, murdered whole families, including several children.
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Speaker 1: But when he was in prison he had a stranger
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Speaker 1: affection for them. He spent all his time at his
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Speaker 1: window watching the children playing in the prison yard. He
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Speaker 1: trained one little boy to come up to his window
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Speaker 1: and made great friends with him. You don't know why
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Speaker 1: I am telling you all this, Alyosha. My head aches,
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Speaker 1: and I am sad. You speak with a strange head,
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Speaker 1: observed Alyosha, uneasily, as though you were not quite yourself.
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Speaker 1: By the way a Bulgarian I met Lakely in Moscow,
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Speaker 1: Ivan went on, seeming not to hear his brother's words.
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Speaker 1: Told me about the crimes committed by Turks and Circassians
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Speaker 1: in all parts of Bulgaria, through fear of a general
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Speaker 1: rising of the Slabs. They burned villagers, murder, outrage women
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Speaker 1: and children. They nailed their prisoners by the ears to
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Speaker 1: the fences, leave them so till morning, and in the
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Speaker 1: morning they hang them. All sorts of things you can't imagine.
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Speaker 1: People talk sometimes of bustial cruelty, but that's a great
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Speaker 1: injustice and insult to the beasts. A beast can never
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Speaker 1: be so cruel as a man so artistically cruel. The
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Speaker 1: tiger only tears and gnaws. That's all he can do.
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Speaker 1: He would never think of nailing people by the ears,
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Speaker 1: even if he were able to do it. These turks
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Speaker 1: took a pleasure in torturing children, too, cutting the unborn
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Speaker 1: child from the mother's womb and tossing babies up in
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Speaker 1: the air and catching them on the points of their
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Speaker 1: bayonets before their mother's eyes. Doing it before the mother's
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Speaker 1: eyes was what gave zest to the amusement. Here is
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Speaker 1: another scene that I thought very interesting. Imagine a trembling
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Speaker 1: mother with her baby in her arms, a circle of
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Speaker 1: invading turks around her. They've planned a diversion. They pet
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Speaker 1: the baby laugh to make it laugh. They succeed. The
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Speaker 1: baby laughs. At that moment, a turk points a pistol
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Speaker 1: four inches from the baby's space. The baby laughs with glee,
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Speaker 1: holds out its little hands to the pistol, and he
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Speaker 1: pulls the trigger in the baby space and blows out
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Speaker 1: its brains. Artistic, wasn't at By the way. The Turks
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Speaker 1: are particularly fond of sweet things. They said, brother, what
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Speaker 1: are you driving at, asked Alyosha. I think if the
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Speaker 1: devil doesn't exist, but man has created him, he has
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Speaker 1: created him in his own image and likeness, just as
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Speaker 1: he did. God then observed Alyosha, It's wonderful how you
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Speaker 1: can turn words, as Polonius says in Hamlet loved. If
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Speaker 1: I'm you turn my words against me, well, I am glad.
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Speaker 1: Yours must be a fine God, if man created him
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Speaker 1: in his image and likeness. You asked just now what
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Speaker 1: I was driving at? You see, I am fond of
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Speaker 1: collecting certain facts, and would you believe I even copy
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Speaker 1: anecdotes of a certain sort from newspapers and books, And
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Speaker 1: I've already got a fine collection. The Turks, of course,
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Speaker 1: have gone into it, but they are foreigners specimens from
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Speaker 1: home that are even better than the Turks. You know,
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Speaker 1: we prefer beating rods and scourges. That's our national institution.
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Speaker 1: Nailing ears is unthinkable for us, for we are, after
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Speaker 1: all Europeans. But the rod and the scourge we have
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Speaker 1: always with us, and they cannot be taken from us abroad.
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Speaker 1: Now they scarcely do any beating manners are more humane,
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Speaker 1: or laws have been passed so that they don't dare
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Speaker 1: to flog men now, but they make up for it
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Speaker 1: in another way, just as national as ours, and so
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Speaker 1: national that it will be practically impossible among us, though
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Speaker 1: I believe we are being inoculated with it since the
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Speaker 1: religious movement began in our aristocracy. I have a charming
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Speaker 1: pamphlet translated from the French are describing how, quite recently,
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Speaker 1: five years ago a murderer, Richard, who was executed a
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Speaker 1: young man I believe of three and twenty, who repented
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Speaker 1: and was converted to the Christian faith at the very scaffold.
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Speaker 1: This Richard was an illegitimate child who was given as
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Speaker 1: a child of six by his parents to some shepherds
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Speaker 1: on the Swiss mountains. They brought him up to work
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Speaker 1: for them. He grew up like a little wild beast
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Speaker 1: among them. The shepherds taught him nothing, and scarcely fed
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Speaker 1: or clothed him, but sent him out at seven to
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Speaker 1: herd the flock in cold and wet, and no one
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Speaker 1: hesitated or scrupled to treat himself. Quite the contrary, they
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Speaker 1: felt they had every right, for Richard had been given
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Speaker 1: to them as a chattel, and they did not even
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Speaker 1: see the necessity of feeding him. Richard himself describes how
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Speaker 1: in those years, like the prodigal son in the Gospel,
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Speaker 1: he longed to eat of the mash given to the pigs,
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Speaker 1: which were fattened for sale. But they wouldn't even give
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Speaker 1: him that, and beat him when he stole from the pigs.
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Speaker 1: And that was how he spent all his childhood and
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Speaker 1: his youth till he grew up and was strong enough
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Speaker 1: to go away and be a thief. The savage began
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Speaker 1: to earn his living as a day laborer in Genieberg.
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Speaker 1: He drank what he earned. He lived like a brute,
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Speaker 1: and finished by killing and robbing an old man. He
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Speaker 1: was caught, tried, and condemned to death. They are not
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Speaker 1: sentimentalists there and in prison he was immediately surrounded by pastors,
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Speaker 1: members of Christian brotherhoods, philanthropic ladies and the like. They
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Speaker 1: taught him to read and write in prison, and expounded
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Speaker 1: the Gospel to him. They exhorted him, worked upon him,
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Speaker 1: drummed at him incessantly, till at last he solemnly confessed
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Speaker 1: his crime. He was converted. He wrote to the court
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Speaker 1: himself that he was a monster, but that in the
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Speaker 1: end God had vouchsaped him light and shone grace. All
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Speaker 1: Geneva was in excitement about him. All philanthropic and religious Geneva,
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Speaker 1: or the aristocratic and well bred society of the town,
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Speaker 1: rushed to the prison, kissed Richard and embraced him. You
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Speaker 1: are our brother. You have found grace. And Richard does
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Speaker 1: nothing but weep with emotion. Yes, I found grace on
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Speaker 1: my youth and childhood. I was glad of pigs food.
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Speaker 1: But no, now even I have found grace. I am
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Speaker 1: dying in the Lord. Yes, Richard, die in the Lord.
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Speaker 1: You have shed blood and must die. Though it's not
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Speaker 1: your fault that you knew, not the Lord when you
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Speaker 1: coveted the pig's food and were beaten for stealing it,
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Speaker 1: which was very wrong. Give you for stealing is forbidden.
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Speaker 1: But you've shed blood and you must die. And on
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Speaker 1: the last day, Richard perfectly limp did nothing but cry
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Speaker 1: and repeat every minute, this is my happiest day. I
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Speaker 1: am going to the Lord. Yes, cried the pastors and
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Speaker 1: the judges and philanthropic ladies. This is the happiest day
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Speaker 1: of your life, for you are going to the Lord.
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Speaker 1: They all walk or drive to the scaffold in procession
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Speaker 1: behind the prison van the scaffold they call to Richard,
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Speaker 1: die brother, die in the lord, for even thou hast
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Speaker 1: found grace, and so covered with his brother's kisses. Richard
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Speaker 1: is dragged onto the scaffold and led to the guillotine,
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Speaker 1: and they chupped off his head in brotherly fashion, because
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Speaker 1: he had found grace. Yes, that's characteristic. That pamphlet is
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Speaker 1: translated into Russian by some Russian philanthropists of aristocratic rank
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Speaker 1: and evangelical aspirations, and has been distributed Gratis for the
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Speaker 1: enlightenment of the people. The case of Richard is interesting
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Speaker 1: because it's national. Though to us it's absurd to cut
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Speaker 1: off a man's head because he has become our brother
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Speaker 1: and has foann grace. Yet we have our own speciality,
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Speaker 1: which is all but worse. Our historical pastime is the
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Speaker 1: direct satisfaction of inflicting pain. There are lines in Nekrassov
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Speaker 1: describing how a peasant lashes a horse on the eyes,
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Speaker 1: on its meek eyes. Every one must have seen it.
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Speaker 1: It's peculiarly Russian. He describes how a feeble little nag
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Speaker 1: has founded under too heavy a load and cannot move
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Speaker 1: the peasant beats it, beats it, savagely, beats it. At last,
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Speaker 1: not knowing what he is doing, in the intoxication of cruelty,
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Speaker 1: thrashes it mercilessly, over and over again. However weak you are,
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Speaker 1: you must pull if you die for it. The nag strains,
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Speaker 1: and then he begins lashing the poor, defenseless creature on
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Speaker 1: its weeping, on its meek eyes. The frantic beast tugs
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Speaker 1: and draws the load, trembling all over, gasping for breath,
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Speaker 1: moving sideways with a sort of unnatural spasmodic action. It's
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Speaker 1: awful in neck grasshop. But that's only a horse, and
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Speaker 1: God has given horses to be beaten. So the Tatars
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Speaker 1: have tortis, and they left us the naut as a
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Speaker 1: remembrance of it. But man too can be beaten. A
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Speaker 1: well educated, cultured gentleman and his wife beat their own
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Speaker 1: child with a birch route, a girl of seven. I
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Speaker 1: have an exact account of it. The papa was glad
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Speaker 1: that the birch was covered with twigs. It stings more,
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Speaker 1: said he, and so we began stinging his daughter. I
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Speaker 1: know for a fact there are people who, whatever reblow
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Speaker 1: or worked up to sensuality, to literal sensuality, which increases progressively.
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Speaker 1: At every blow they inflict. They beat but a minute,
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Speaker 1: for five minutes, but ten minutes, more often and more savagely.
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Speaker 1: The child screams. At last, the child cannot scream, It
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Speaker 1: gasps Daddy, Daddy. By some diabolical, unseemly chance, the case
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Speaker 1: was brought into court. A council is engaged. The Russian
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Speaker 1: people have long called a barrister a conscience for heim.
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Speaker 1: The council protests in his client's defense. It's such a
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Speaker 1: simple thing, he says, an every day domestic event. A
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Speaker 1: father corrects his child. To our shame, be it said.
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Speaker 1: It is brought into court. The jury, convinced by him,
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Speaker 1: give a favorable verdict. The public roars with delight that
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Speaker 1: the torturer is acquitted. Ah, pity I wasn't there. I
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Speaker 1: would have proposed to raise a subscription in his honor.
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Speaker 1: Charming pictures. But I've still better things about children. I've
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Speaker 1: collected a great, great deal about Russian children. Alyosha, there
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Speaker 1: was a little girl of five who was hated by
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Speaker 1: her father and mother, most worthy and respectable people of
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Speaker 1: good education and breeding. You see, I must repeat again.
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Speaker 1: It is a peculiar characteristic of many people, this love
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Speaker 1: of torturing children and children only to all other types
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Speaker 1: of humanity. These torturers behave mildly and benevolently like cultivated
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Speaker 1: and humane Europeans, but they are very fond of tormenting children,
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Speaker 1: even fond of children themselves. In that sense, it's just
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Speaker 1: that defenselessness that tempts the tormentor just the angelic confidence
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Speaker 1: of the child who has no refuge and no appeal,
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Speaker 1: that sets his wild blood on fire. In every man,
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Speaker 1: of course, a demon lies hidden, the demon of rage,
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Speaker 1: the demon of lustful heat. But the screams of the
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Speaker 1: tortured victim, the demon of lawlessness, let up the chain.
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Speaker 1: The demon of diseases that follow on vice gout, kidney disease,
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Speaker 1: and so on. This poor child of five was subjected
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Speaker 1: to every possible torture by those cultivated parents. They beat her,
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Speaker 1: thrashed her, kicked her for no reason till her body
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Speaker 1: was worn bruise. Then they went to greater refinements of cruelty,
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Speaker 1: shut her up all night in the cold and frost
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Speaker 1: in a privy and because she didn't ask to be
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Speaker 1: taken up at night, as though a child of five,
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Speaker 1: sleeping its angelic sound sleep could be trained to waken ask.
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Speaker 1: They smeared her face and filled her mouth with excrement,
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Speaker 1: and it was her mother. Her mother did this, and
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Speaker 1: that mother could sleep hearing the poor child's groans. Can
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Speaker 1: you understand why a little creature who can't even understand
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Speaker 1: what's done to her should beat her little aching heart
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Speaker 1: with her tiny fist in the dark and the cold,
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Speaker 1: and weep her meek, unresentful tears to dear kind God
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Speaker 1: to protect her? Do you understand that, friend and brother,
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Speaker 1: you pious and humble novice, do you understand why this
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Speaker 1: infamy must be and is permitted? Without it? I am
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Speaker 1: told man could not have existed on earth, for he
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Speaker 1: could not have known good and evil. Why should he
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Speaker 1: know that diabolical good and evil when it costs so much?
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Speaker 1: Why the whole world of knowledge is not worth that
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Speaker 1: child's prayer to dear kind God. I say nothing of
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Speaker 1: the sufferings of grown up people. They have eaten the apple,
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Speaker 1: damn them, and the devil take them all. But these
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Speaker 1: little ones I am making your suffer. Alyosha, you are
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Speaker 1: not yourself. I'll leave off if you like. Never mind,
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Speaker 1: I want to suffer too, muttered Alyosha. One picture, only
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Speaker 1: one more, because it's so curious, so characteristic, and I
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Speaker 1: have only just read it in some collection of Russian antiquities.
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Speaker 1: I've forgotten the name. I must look it up. It
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Speaker 1: was in the darkest days of serfdom, at the beginning
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Speaker 1: of the century, and long live the Liberator of the people.
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Speaker 1: There was in those days a general of aristocratic connections,
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Speaker 1: the owner of great estates. One of those men, a
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Speaker 1: somewhat exceptional I believe even then, who retiring from the
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Speaker 1: service into a life of leisure, are convinced that they've
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Speaker 1: earned absolute power over the lives of their subjects. There
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Speaker 1: were such men then. So our general settled on his
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Speaker 1: property of two thousand souls, lives in pomp and domineers
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Speaker 1: over his poor neighbors, as though there were dependants and buffoons.
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Speaker 1: He has kennels of hundreds of hands, and nearly a
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Speaker 1: hundred dog boys, all mounted and in uniform. One day
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Speaker 1: a serf boy, a little child of eight, threw a
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Speaker 1: stone in play and hurt the paw of the General's
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Speaker 1: favorite hand. Why is my favorite dog lame? He is
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Speaker 1: told that the boy through a stone that hurt the
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Speaker 1: dog's paw. So you did it. The General looked the
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Speaker 1: child up and down. Take him. He was taken, taken
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Speaker 1: from his mother and kept shut up all night. Early
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Speaker 1: that morning, the General comes out on horseback with the hounds,
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Speaker 1: his dependants, dog boys and huntsmen or mounted around him
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Speaker 1: in full hunting parade. The servants are summoned for their edification,
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Speaker 1: and in front of them all stands the mother of
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Speaker 1: the child. The child is brought from the locker. It's
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Speaker 1: a gloomy, cold, foggy autumn day, a capital day for hunting.
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Speaker 1: The General orders the child to be undressed. The child
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Speaker 1: is stripped naked. He shivers, numb with terror, not daring
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Speaker 1: to cry. Make him run, commands the general run, run,
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Speaker 1: shout the dog boys. The boy runs at him, yells
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Speaker 1: the general, and he sets the whole pack of hounds
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Speaker 1: on the child. The hands catch him and turn him
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Speaker 1: to pieces before his mother's eyes. I believe the general
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Speaker 1: was afterwards declared incapable of administering his estates. Well, what
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Speaker 1: did he deserve to be shot? To be shot for
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Speaker 1: the satisfaction of our moral feelings? Speak Alyosha? To be
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Speaker 1: shot murmured Alyosha, lifting his eyes to Ivan with a pale,
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Speaker 1: twisted smile. Bravo, cried Ivan, delighted if even you say, sir,
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Speaker 1: here are a pretty monk. So there is a little
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Speaker 1: devil sitting in your heart. Alyosha karamotz up. What I
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Speaker 1: said was absurd, But that's just the point that bunt,
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Speaker 1: cried Yvan. Let me tell you, novice, that the absurd
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Speaker 1: is only too necessary on Earth. The world stands on obserdities,
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Speaker 1: and perhaps nothing would have come to pass in it
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Speaker 1: without them. We know what we know? What do you know?
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Speaker 1: I understand nothing, Ivan went on, as though in delirium.
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Speaker 1: I don't want to understand anything now. I want to
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Speaker 1: stick to the fact. I made up my mind long
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Speaker 1: ago not to understand. If I try to understand anything,
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Speaker 1: I shall be false to the fact. And I have
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Speaker 1: determined to stick to the fact. Why are you trying me,
28:01
Speaker 1: how Lyosha cried with sudden distress. Will you say what
28:05
Speaker 1: you mean at last? Of course I will. That's what
28:09
Speaker 1: I've been leading up to. You are dear to me.
28:12
Speaker 1: I don't want to let you go, and I won't
28:14
Speaker 1: keep you up to your zassima. Ivan for a minute
28:18
Speaker 1: was silent. His face became all at once very sad. Listen,
28:25
Speaker 1: I took the case of children only to make my
28:28
Speaker 1: case clearer of the other tears of humanity with which
28:32
Speaker 1: the earth is soaked from its crust to its center.
28:36
Speaker 1: I will say nothing. I have narrowed my subject on purpose.
28:41
Speaker 1: I am a bug, and I recognize in all humility
28:45
Speaker 1: that I cannot understand why the world is arranged as
28:49
Speaker 1: it is. Men are themselves to blame. I suppose they
28:55
Speaker 1: were given paradise, they wanted freedom, and stole far from heaven,
29:01
Speaker 1: though they knew they would become unhappy. So there is
29:05
Speaker 1: no need to pity them with my pitiful, earthly Euclidian understanding.
29:12
Speaker 1: All I know is that there is suffering, and that
29:16
Speaker 1: there are none guilty, that cause follows effect simply and directly,
29:23
Speaker 1: that everything flows and finds its level. But that's only
29:29
Speaker 1: Euclidian nonsense. I know that, and I can't consent to
29:33
Speaker 1: live by it. What comfort is it to me that
29:37
Speaker 1: there are none guilty, and that cause follows effect simply
29:41
Speaker 1: and directly, and that I know it. I must have justice,
29:46
Speaker 1: or I will destroy myself, and not justice. In some remote,
29:51
Speaker 1: infinite time, and space, but here on Earth, and that
29:54
Speaker 1: I could see myself. I have believed in it. I
29:59
Speaker 1: want to see, and if I am dead by then
30:02
Speaker 1: let me rise again, for if it all happens without me,
30:06
Speaker 1: it will be too unfair. Surely I haven't suffered simply
30:11
Speaker 1: that I, my crimes and my sufferings may manure the
30:15
Speaker 1: soil of the future harmony for somebody else. I want
30:19
Speaker 1: to see with my own eyes the hind lie down
30:23
Speaker 1: with the lion, and the victim rise up and embraces murderer.
30:30
Speaker 1: I want to be there when everyone suddenly understands what
30:35
Speaker 1: it has all been. For all the religions of the
30:40
Speaker 1: world are built on this longing, and I am a believer.
30:44
Speaker 1: But then there are the children. And what am I
30:47
Speaker 1: to do about them? That's a question I can't answer
30:51
Speaker 1: for the hundredth time I repeat there are numbers of questions,
30:56
Speaker 1: but I've only taken the children because in their case,
31:00
Speaker 1: what I mean is so unanswerably clear. Listen, if all
31:05
Speaker 1: must suffer to pay for the eternal harmony, much have
31:09
Speaker 1: children to do with it? Tell me, please, it's beyond
31:12
Speaker 1: all comprehension why they should suffer and why they should
31:16
Speaker 1: pay for the harmony. Why should they too furnish material
31:21
Speaker 1: to enrich the soil for the harmony of the future.
31:25
Speaker 1: I understand solidarity in sin among men. I understand solidarity
31:30
Speaker 1: and retribution too, But there can be no such solidarity
31:35
Speaker 1: with children. And if it is really true that they
31:39
Speaker 1: must share responsibility for all their father's crimes, such a
31:44
Speaker 1: truth is not of this world and is beyond my comprehension.
31:49
Speaker 1: Some jest don't will say, perhaps that the child would
31:53
Speaker 1: have grown up and have sent But you see, he
31:55
Speaker 1: didn't grow up. He was torn to pieces by the
31:58
Speaker 1: dogs at eight years old. Oh alyosha, I am not blaspheming.
32:04
Speaker 1: I understand, of course what an upheaval of the universe
32:08
Speaker 1: it will be when everything in heaven and earth blends
32:13
Speaker 1: in one hymn of praise, and everything that lives and
32:17
Speaker 1: has lived, cries aloud, Thou art just o Lord, for
32:21
Speaker 1: thy ways are revealed. When the mother embraces the fiend
32:27
Speaker 1: who through her child to the dogs, and all three
32:30
Speaker 1: cry aloud with tears, Thou art just o Lord, then
32:35
Speaker 1: of course the crown of knowledge will be reached and
32:39
Speaker 1: all will be made clear. But what pulls me up
32:43
Speaker 1: here is that I can't accept that harmony, And while
32:47
Speaker 1: I am on earth, I make haste to take my
32:50
Speaker 1: own measures. You see, Alyosha, Perhaps it really may happen
32:56
Speaker 1: that if I live to that moment, or rise again
32:58
Speaker 1: to see it, I too, perhaps may cry a lad
33:02
Speaker 1: with the rest looking at the mother embracing the child's torturer.
33:06
Speaker 1: Thou art just o Lord, But I don't want to
33:10
Speaker 1: cry a lad. Then, while there is still time, I
33:14
Speaker 1: hasten to protect myself, and so I renounce the higher
33:18
Speaker 1: harmony altogether. It's not worth the tears of that one
33:22
Speaker 1: tortured child who beat itself on the breast with its
33:26
Speaker 1: little fist and prayed in its stinking outhouse with its
33:31
Speaker 1: unexpiated tears. To dear kind God, it's not worth it,
33:36
Speaker 1: because those tears are unattungued for. They must be unattungued
33:41
Speaker 1: for or there can be no harmony. But how how
33:45
Speaker 1: are you going to a tongue for them? Is it
33:47
Speaker 1: possible by their being avenged? But what do I care
33:51
Speaker 1: for avenging them? What do I care for a hell
33:54
Speaker 1: for oppressors? What good can hell do since those children
33:59
Speaker 1: have already being tortured? And what becomes of harmony if
34:03
Speaker 1: there is hell. I want to forgive. I want to embrace.
34:08
Speaker 1: I don't want more suffering. And if the sufferings of
34:11
Speaker 1: children go to swell the sum of sufferings which was
34:15
Speaker 1: necessary to pay the truth, then I protest that the
34:19
Speaker 1: truth is not worth such a price. I don't want
34:22
Speaker 1: the mother to embrace the oppressor who threw her son
34:25
Speaker 1: to the dogs. She dare not forgive him a letter
34:29
Speaker 1: forgive him for herself if she will let her forgive
34:33
Speaker 1: the torturer for the immeasurable suffering of her mother's heart,
34:38
Speaker 1: But the sufferings of her tortured child she has no
34:41
Speaker 1: right to forgive. She dare not forgive the torturer, even
34:45
Speaker 1: if the child were to forgive him. And if that
34:48
Speaker 1: is so, if they dare not forgive, what becomes of harmony?
34:53
Speaker 1: Is there in the whole world a being who would
34:56
Speaker 1: have the right to forgive and could forgive. I don't
34:58
Speaker 1: want harmony love for humanity, I don't want it. I
35:02
Speaker 1: would rather be left with the unavenged suffering. I would
35:07
Speaker 1: rather remain with my unavenged suffering and unsatisfied indignation, even
35:13
Speaker 1: if I were wrong. Besides, two higher prices asked for
35:19
Speaker 1: harmony it's beyond our means to pay so much to
35:23
Speaker 1: enter on it, and so I hasten to give back
35:26
Speaker 1: my entrance ticket. And if I am an honest man,
35:29
Speaker 1: I am bound to give it back as soon as possible,
35:33
Speaker 1: and that I am doing. It's not God that I
35:36
Speaker 1: don't accept, Alyosha. Only I most respectfully return him the ticket.
35:43
Speaker 1: That's rebellion, murmured Alyosha, looking down. Rebellion. I am sorry
35:53
Speaker 1: you call it that, said Ivan earnestly. One can hardly
35:58
Speaker 1: live in rebellion, and I want to live. Tell me yourself,
36:03
Speaker 1: I challenge you, antwir, imagine that you are creating a
36:08
Speaker 1: fabric of human destiny with the object of making men
36:12
Speaker 1: happy in the end, giving them peace and rest at last,
36:16
Speaker 1: But that it was essential and inevitable to torture to
36:19
Speaker 1: death only one tiny creature, that baby beating its breast
36:23
Speaker 1: with its fisi, for instance, and to found that edifice
36:26
Speaker 1: on its unavenged tears. Would you consent to be the
36:30
Speaker 1: architect on those conditions? Tell me and tell the truth. No,
36:35
Speaker 1: I wouldn't consent, said Alyosha softly. And can you admit
36:40
Speaker 1: the idea that men for whom you are building it
36:44
Speaker 1: would agree to accept their happiness on the foundation of
36:48
Speaker 1: the unexpiated blood of a little victim, and accepting it
36:52
Speaker 1: would remain happy forever. No, I can't admit it, brother,
36:58
Speaker 1: said Alyosha. Suddenly, with flashing eyes, you said, just now,
37:02
Speaker 1: is there a being in the whole world who would
37:05
Speaker 1: have the right to forgive and could forgive? But there
37:08
Speaker 1: is a being, and he can forgive everything, all and
37:12
Speaker 1: for all, because he gave his innocent blood for all
37:16
Speaker 1: and everything. You have forgotten him, and on him is
37:20
Speaker 1: built the edifice, And it is to him, they cry aloud,
37:25
Speaker 1: Thou art just o Lord, for thy ways are revealed,
37:30
Speaker 1: ah ah, the one without sin and his blood. No,
37:35
Speaker 1: I have not forgotten him. On the contrary, I've been
37:39
Speaker 1: wondering all the time how it was you did not
37:41
Speaker 1: bring him in before, for usually all arguments on your
37:45
Speaker 1: side put him in the foreground. Do you know, Alosha,
37:49
Speaker 1: don't laugh? I made a poem about a year ago.
37:52
Speaker 1: If you can waste another ten minutes on me, I'll
37:55
Speaker 1: tell it to you. You wrote a poem. Oh No,
37:58
Speaker 1: I didn't write it, laughed Ivan. And I've never written
38:02
Speaker 1: two lines of poetry in my life. But I made
38:06
Speaker 1: up this poem in prison. I remember that I was
38:09
Speaker 1: carried away when I made it up. You will be
38:12
Speaker 1: my first reader, that is listener. Why shouldn't author forego
38:18
Speaker 1: even one listener? Smiled Ivan. Shall I tell it to you?
38:24
Speaker 1: I am all attention, said Alyosha. My poem is called
38:29
Speaker 1: the Grand Inquisitor. It's a ridiculous thing, but I want
38:36
Speaker 1: to tell it to you. And of chapter thirty five,