“Displeased again! And I hoped you might even be charmed by such a literary rendition: that ‘Hosannah’ in heaven really didn’t come out too badly, did it? And then that sarcastic tone, à la Heine,^[325] eh? Don’t you agree?”

“No, never have I been such a lackey! How could my soul produce such a lackey as you?”

“My friend, I know a most charming and dear young Russian gentleman: a thinker and a great lover of literature and other fine things, the author of a promising poem entitled ‘The Grand Inquisitor’... It was him only that I had in mind.”

“I forbid you to speak of ‘The Grand Inquisitor,’” Ivan exclaimed, blushing all over with shame.

“Well, and what about the ‘Geological Cataclysm’? Remember that? What a poem!”

“Shut up, or I’ll kill you!”

“Kill me? No, excuse me, but I will have my say. I came in order to treat myself to that pleasure. Oh, I love the dreams of my friends—fervent, young, trembling with the thirst for life! ‘There are new people now,’ you decided last spring, as you were preparing to come here, ‘they propose to destroy everything and begin with anthropophagy. Fools, they never asked me! In my opinion, there is no need to destroy anything, one need only destroy the idea of God in mankind, that’s where the business should start! One should begin with that, with that—oh, blind men, of no understanding! Once mankind has renounced God, one and all (and I believe that this period, analogous to the geological periods, will come), then the entire old world view will fall of itself, without anthropophagy, and, above all, the entire former morality, and everything will be new. People will come together in order to take from life all that it can give, but, of course, for happiness and joy in this world only. Man will be exalted with the spirit of divine, titanic pride, and the man-god will appear. Man, his will and his science no longer limited, conquering nature every hour, will thereby every hour experience such lofty delight as will replace for him all his former hopes of heavenly delight. Each will know himself utterly mortal, without resurrection, and will accept death proudly and calmly, like a god. Out of pride he will understand that he should not murmur against the momentariness of life, and he will love his brother then without any reward. Love will satisfy only the moment of life, but the very awareness of its momentariness will increase its fire, inasmuch as previously it was diffused in hopes of an eternal love beyond the grave’ ... well, and so on and so on, in the same vein. Lovely!”

Ivan was sitting with his hands over his ears, looking down, but his whole body started trembling. The voice went on:

“‘The question now,’ my young thinker reflected, ‘is whether or not it is possible for such a period ever to come. If it does come, then everything will be resolved and mankind will finally be settled. But since, in view of man’s inveterate stupidity, it may not be settled for another thousand years, anyone who already knows the truth is permitted to settle things for himself, absolutely as he wishes, on the new principles. In this sense, “everything is permitted” to him. Moreover, since God and immortality do not exist in any case, even if this period should never come, the new man is allowed to become a man-god, though it be he alone in the whole world, and of course, in this new rank, to jump lightheartedly over any former moral obstacle of the former slave-man, if need be. There is no law for God! Where God stands—there is the place of God! Where I stand, there at once will be the foremost place ... “everything is permitted,” and that’s that! ‘ It’s all very nice; only if one wants to swindle, why, I wonder, should one also need the sanction of truth? But such is the modern little Russian man: without such a sanction, he doesn’t even dare to swindle, so much does he love the truth...”

The visitor spoke, obviously carried away by his own eloquence, raising his voice more and more, and glancing sidelong at his host; but he did not manage to finish: Ivan suddenly snatched a glass from the table and flung it at the orator.

“Ah, mais c’est bête enfin!”^[326] thelatter exclaimed, jumping up from the sofa and shaking the spatters of tea off himself. “He remembered Luther’s inkstand!^[327] He considers me a dream and he throws glasses at a dream! Just like a woman! I knew you were only pretending to stop your ears and were really listening...” Suddenly there came a firm, insistent knocking on the window from outside. Ivan Fyodorovich jumped up from the sofa.

“Listen, you’d better open,” the visitor cried, “it’s your brother Alyosha with the most unexpected and interesting news, I guarantee it!”

“Shut up, deceiver, I knew it was Alyosha without you, I had a presentiment of him, and of course he hasn’t come for no reason, of course he has ‘news’!” Ivan exclaimed frenziedly.

“But open, open to him. There’s a blizzard out there, and he’s your brother. Monsieur sait-il le temps qu’il fait? C’est à ne pas mettre un chien dehors ... “^[328]

The knocking continued. Ivan wanted to rush to the window; but something seemed suddenly to bind his legs and arms. He was straining as hard as he could to break his bonds, but in vain. The knocking on the window grew stronger and louder. At last the bonds broke and Ivan Fyodorovich jumped up from the sofa. He looked around wildly. The two candles were almost burnt down, the glass he had just thrown at his visitor stood before him on the table, and there was no one on the opposite sofa. The knocking on the window continued insistently, but not at all as loudly as he had just imagined in his dream, on the contrary, it was quite restrained.

“That was no dream! No, I swear it was no dream, it all just happened!” Ivan Fyodorovich cried, rushed to the window, and opened it.

“Alyosha, I told you not to come!” he cried fiercely to his brother. “Make it short: what do you want? Make it short, do you hear?”

“Smerdyakov hanged himself an hour ago,” Alyosha answered from outside.

“Come to the porch, I’ll open at once,” Ivan said, and he went to open the door for Alyosha.

Chapter 10: “He Said That!”

Once inside, Alyosha told Ivan Fyodorovich that a little more than an hour ago Maria Kondratievna came running to his place and announced that Smerdyakov had taken his own life. “So I went into his room to clear away the samovar, and he was hanging from a nail in the wall.” To Alyosha’s question of whether she had reported it to the proper authorities, she replied that she had not reported to anyone, but “rushed straight to you first, and was running all the way.” She looked crazy, Alyosha went on, and was shaking all over like a leaf. When Alyosha ran back with her to the cottage, he found Smerdyakov still hanging. There was a note on the table: “I exterminate my life by my own will and liking, so as not to blame anybody.” Alyosha left the note on the table and went straight to the police commissioner, to whom he reported everything, “and from there straight to you,” Alyosha concluded, looking intently into Ivan’s face. All the while he was talking, he had not taken his eyes off him, as if very much struck by something in the expression of his face.

“Brother,” he cried suddenly, “you must be terribly ill! You look and it’s as if you don’t understand what I’m saying.”

“It’s good that you’ve come,” Ivan said, thoughtfully, as it were, seeming not to have heard Alyosha’s exclamation. “I knew he had hanged himself.”

“From whom?”

“I don’t know from whom. But I knew. Did I know? Yes, he told me. He was just telling me.”

Ivan stood in the middle of the room and spoke still with the same thoughtfulness, looking at the ground.