VIII. Over the Cognac

The argument was over, but, strange to say, Fyodor Pavlovich, who had become so merry, suddenly frowned at the end. He frowned and tossed off a glass of cognac, and this was already a quite superfluous glass.

“Now clear out, you Jesuits,” he shouted at the servants. “Off with you, Smerdyakov. I’ll send you the promised gold piece today, but off with you now. Stop crying, Grigory, off to Marfa with you, she’ll console you and tuck you in. The rascals don’t let a man sit in peace after dinner,” he suddenly snapped in vexation, when the servants had at once withdrawn at his order. “Smerdyakov pushes in here every time at dinner now; it’s you he’s so curious about; what have you done to make him so fond of you?” he added to Ivan Fyodorovich.

“Nothing whatever,” Ivan answered. “He has taken it into his head to respect me; he’s a lackey and a boor. Vanguard meat, though, when the time comes.”

“Vanguard?”

“There will be others, better ones, but there will be ones like this too. First there will be ones like this, and after them better ones.”

“And when will the time come?”

“The rocket will go up, and perhaps it won’t burn all the way. The people don’t much like listening to these broth-boys yet.”

“That’s just it, brother: a Balaam’s ass like that thinks and thinks, and devil knows what he’ll think his way to there by himself.”

“He’ll store up thoughts,” Ivan grinned.

“You see, I know he can’t stand me either, just as he can’t stand anyone, and you just the same, though it seems to you that he ‘has taken it into his head to respect you.’ Alyoshka all the more; he despises Alyoshka. But he won’t steal, that’s the thing; he’s not a gossip, he keeps quiet, he won’t carry dirt out of the house, he bakes fish pies splendidly, and on top of all that, the devil take him, to tell the truth, so is he worth talking about?”

“Of course he isn’t.”

“And as for what he may think up there by himself, the Russian peasant, generally speaking, ought to be flogged. I’ve always maintained that. Our peasant is a swindler, he isn’t worth pitying, and it’s a good thing they still thrash him now and then even now. The Russian land is strong by the birch. Destroy the forests, and the Russian land will perish. I stand for intelligent people. We’ve stopped thrashing the peasants, out of great intelligence, but they go on flogging each other. And a good thing too. With what measure you mete, it shall be meted, or however it goes… In a word, it shall be meted. And Russia is a swinishness. My friend, if you only knew how I hate Russia… I mean, not Russia, but all these vices… and yet perhaps Russia too. Tout cela c’est de la cochonnerie (it’s all swinishness). Do you know what I love? I love wit.”

“You’ve had another glass. That should be enough for you.”

“Wait, I’ll have one more and one more again, and then I’ll stop. No, wait, you interrupted me. Passing through Mokroye, I ask an old man, and he says to me: ‘We do mighty love,’ he says, ‘to flog the girls by village sentence more than anything, and we always give the lads the flogging to do. And afterward the same girl the lad flogged today he takes for his bride tomorrow, so that the girls themselves, he says, take kindly to it here.’ What Marquis de Sades, eh? But say what you like, it’s witty. We ought to drive over and have a look ourselves, eh? Alyoshka, are you blushing? Don’t be ashamed, child. It’s a pity I didn’t sit down to dinner at the abbot’s earlier and tell the monks about the Mokroye girls. Alyoshka, don’t be angry that I offended your abbot earlier. I get spiteful, brother. After all, if there is a God, if he exists—well, then of course I’m guilty and I’ll answer for it, but if there isn’t one at all, then do we need them still, these Fathers of yours? Why, then it isn’t enough just to cut their heads off, because they hold back progress. Would you believe it, Ivan, that this torments me in my feelings? No, you don’t believe it, because I can see it in your eyes. You believe people who say I’m nothing but a buffoon. Alyosha, do you believe that I’m not nothing but a buffoon?”

“I believe that you’re not nothing but a buffoon.”

“And I believe that you believe it and are speaking sincerely. You look sincerely and you speak sincerely. But Ivan doesn’t. Ivan is supercilious… But all the same, I’d finish off that little monastery of yours. Take all this mysticism and abolish it at one stroke all over the Russian land, so as to bring all the fools to reason once and for all. And how much silver, how much gold would go to the mint!”

“But why abolish it?” said Ivan.

“So that the truth may shine forth the sooner, that’s why.”

“But if that truth shines forth, you’ll be the very first to be robbed, and then… abolished.”

“Bah! Why, I dare say you’re right. Ah, what an ass I am,” Fyodor Pavlovich suddenly started up, striking himself lightly on the forehead. “Well, then, let your little monastery stand, Alyoshka, if that’s how it is. And we intelligent people will sit in the warm and enjoy our cognac. Do you know, Ivan, that it must surely have been arranged so on purpose by God himself? Ivan, tell me: is there a God or not? Wait: tell me for certain, tell me seriously! Why are you laughing again?”

“I’m laughing at the witty remark you made yourself earlier about Smerdyakov’s belief in the existence of two elders who can move mountains.”

“Why, is it like that now?”

“Very much.”

“Well, then, it means I’m a Russian man too, and I have a Russian trait, and you, a philosopher, can also be caught by a trait of your own of the same sort. Do you want me to catch you? Let’s bet that I’ll catch you tomorrow. But all the same, tell me: is there a God or not? Only seriously! I need seriousness now.”

“No, there is no God.”

“Alyoshka, is there a God?”

“There is a God.”

“Ivan, and is there immortality, well, some sort, well, even just a little, a teeny-weeny one?”

“There is no immortality either.”

“None at all?”

“None at all.”

“That is, an absolute zero, or something? Maybe there is something or other? After all, it can’t be nothing!”

“An absolute zero.”

“Alyoshka, is there immortality?”

“There is.”

“Both God and immortality?”

“Both God and immortality. In God is immortality too.”

“Hm. It’s more likely that Ivan is right. Lord, just to think how much faith, how much strength of every kind man has given for nothing to this dream, and for so many thousands of years now! Who is it that laughs at man like this? Ivan? For the last time, and decisively: is there a God or not? I’m asking for the last time!”

“And for the last time, no.”

“Then who is laughing at people, Ivan?”

“The devil, it must be,” Ivan Fyodorovich grinned.

“And is there a devil?”

“No, there’s no devil either.”

“A pity. Devil take it, what wouldn’t I do after that to the man who first invented God! Hanging him on a bitter aspen would be too good for him.”

“There would be no civilization at all then, if they hadn’t invented God.”

“There wouldn’t be? Without God?”

“Yes. And there would be no cognac either. But I’ll have to take the cognac away from you all the same.”

“Wait, wait, wait, my dear, just one more little glass. I’ve insulted Alyosha. You’re not angry, Alexei? My dear Alexeichik, my little Alexeichik!”

“No, I’m not angry. I know what you think. You have a better heart than head.”

“I have a better heart than head? Lord, and who is saying that? Ivan, do you love Alyoshka?”

“I do.”

“Love him.” (Fyodor Pavlovich was getting very drunk.) “Listen, Alyosha, I was rude to your elder earlier. But I was agitated. And yet there’s wit in that elder, what do you think, Ivan?”

“Perhaps there is.”

“There is, there is, il y a du Piron là-dedans (there’s some Piron in him). He’s a Jesuit, a Russian one, that is. As in a noble creature, there’s a hidden indignation seething in him that he has to pretend… put on holiness.”

“But he believes in God, doesn’t he?”

“Not a kopeck’s worth. Didn’t you know? Why, he says so to everyone himself, that is, not to everyone, but to all the intelligent people who come. He told Governor Schultz straight out: credo, but I don’t know in what.”

“Really?”

“Exactly so. But I respect him. There’s something Mephistophelean in him, or, better, out of A Hero of Our Time… Arbenin, or whatever his name is… that is, you see, he’s a sensualist; he’s such a sensualist that I’d be afraid even now for my daughter or my wife if she went to him for confession. You know, when he starts telling stories… Year before last he invited us to his place for a little tea, with a little liqueur (the ladies send him liqueur), and when he launched into describing the old days, we split our sides laughing… Especially how he cured a paralyzed woman. ‘If my legs didn’t ache, I’d dance you a dance,’ he says. How about that? ‘I’ve done plenty of Athos-ing in my time,’ he says. He grabbed sixty thousand from the merchant Demidov.”

“What, he stole it?”

“The man brought it to him as to a good man: ‘Keep it for me, brother, they’re searching my place tomorrow.’ And he kept it all right. ‘You donated it to the church, didn’t you,’ he says. I say to him: you’re a scoundrel, I say. No, he says, I’m not a scoundrel, I’m broad… But then, that wasn’t him… That was someone else. I got mixed up with someone else… and didn’t notice. Well, one more little glass, and that’s enough; take the bottle away, Ivan. I was lying; why didn’t you stop me, Ivan… and tell me I was lying?”

“I knew you would stop yourself.”

“You’re lying; you did it out of spite against me, out of sheer spite. You despise me. You’ve come to me and you despise me in my own house.”

“Then I’ll leave; the cognac is getting the better of you.”

“I begged you for Christ’s sake to go to Chermashnya… for a day or two, and you won’t go.”

“I’ll go tomorrow, if you insist so much.”

“You won’t go. You want to spy on me here, that’s what you want, you wicked soul; that’s why you won’t go, isn’t it?”

The old man would not calm down. He had reached that little line of drunkenness when some drunk men, quiet until then, suddenly feel they absolutely must get angry and show themselves.

“Why are you looking at me? What sort of eyes are those? Your eyes look at me and say to me: ‘You drunken mug.’ Suspicious eyes you have, contemptuous eyes… You came here with something up your sleeve. Now Alyoshka looks at me, and his eyes shine. Alyosha doesn’t despise me. Alexei, don’t love Ivan…”

“Don’t be angry with my brother! Stop insulting him,” Alyosha suddenly said insistently.

“Well, all right, I dare say I will. Ugh, my head aches. Take the cognac away, Ivan, I’m telling you for the third time.” He fell to thinking and suddenly smiled a long, sly smile: “Don’t be angry, Ivan, with an old runt. I know you don’t love me, but still, don’t be angry. There’s nothing to love me for anyway. You’ll go to Chermashnya, and I’ll come to you there myself and bring you a present. I’ll show you a certain little girl there; I spotted her there long ago. She’s still a barefoot girl for now. Don’t be afraid of barefoot girls, don’t despise them—pearls!…”

And he kissed his own hand with a smack.

“For me,” he suddenly came to life all over, as though sobering up for a moment, as soon as he had hit upon his favorite subject, “for me… Ah, you boys! My little children, my little piglets, for me… in all my life there has never even been an ugly woman, that’s my rule! Can you understand that? But how could you understand it: you still have milk flowing in you instead of blood; you haven’t hatched yet! By my rule, you can find in every woman something extremely, devil take it, interesting, which you won’t find in any other—only you have to know how to find it, that’s the trick! It’s a talent! For me ugly little things did not exist: the mere fact that she is a woman is already half of everything… but how could you understand that! Even old maids, even in them you sometimes find something that makes you simply marvel at the other fools, how they let her grow old and haven’t noticed it till now! A barefoot girl or an ugly little thing you must first of all surprise—that’s how you have to go about it. Didn’t you know? You have to surprise her to the point of rapture, of being pierced through, of shame that such a gentleman has fallen in love with such a dark little drab as her. It’s truly splendid that there always are and always will be boors and gentlemen in the world; then there will always be a little floor-scrubber like that, and always her master, and that’s all that’s needed for the happiness of life! Wait… listen, Alyoshka, I always used to surprise your late mother, only it came out in a different way. I would never caress her, as it used to be, and then suddenly, when the moment came—suddenly I would go all to pieces before her, crawl on my knees, kiss her little feet, and I would always, always bring her—I remember it as if it were now—to a little laugh like this, a tinkling, ringing, not loud, nervous, special little laugh. She was the only one who had it. I used to know that this was how her illness always began, that the very next day she would start shrieking like a shrieker, and that this present little laugh did not mean any rapture at all; well, but even if it was a deception, it was rapture all the same. That’s what it means to know how to find one’s own little trait in everything! Once Belyavsky—there was a handsome fellow here, a rich one, who was running after her and had taken to calling on me—suddenly up and slapped me in the face, in my own house, and in front of her. And she, such a lamb—why, I thought she would beat me for that slap, the way she went for me: ‘You’ve been beaten now,’ she says, ‘beaten, you’ve had a slap in the face from him! You were selling me to him,’ she says… ‘How dared he strike you in front of me! And don’t you dare come near me ever, ever! Run at once, challenge him to a duel…’ So I took her to the monastery then to humble her; the holy Fathers read prayers over her. But, as God is my witness, Alyosha, I never wronged my little shrieker! Only once, perhaps, still in the first year: she was praying a great deal then, especially keeping the feasts of the Mother of God, and she used to drive me away from her to my study then. I think: let me knock this mysticism out of her! ‘You see,’ I say, ‘you see, here is your icon, here it is, now I’ll take it down. Look, you consider it wonder-working, and I’m going to spit on it right now in front of you, and nothing will happen to me for it!…’ When she saw it, Lord, I think: now she’ll kill me, but she only jumped up, clasped her hands, then suddenly covered her face with her hands, trembled all over, and fell to the floor… just sank down… Alyosha, Alyosha! What’s the matter with you, what’s the matter!” The old man leaped to his feet in alarm. From the very moment he had begun talking about his mother, Alyosha’s face had little by little begun to change. He flushed, his eyes blazed, his lips quivered… The drunken old man was spluttering saliva and noticed nothing until the very moment when something very strange suddenly happened to Alyosha, namely, exactly the same thing that he had just told about “the shrieker” suddenly repeated itself in him. Alyosha suddenly jumped up from the table, exactly as his mother had in the story, clasped his hands, then covered his face with them, fell on his chair as though cut down, and suddenly began shaking all over in a hysterical fit of sudden, convulsive, and silent tears. The extraordinary resemblance to his mother especially struck the old man.

“Ivan, Ivan! Water for him, quick. It’s like her, exactly like her, like his mother then! Spray some water on him from your mouth; that’s what I did with her. It’s for his mother, for his mother…” he muttered to Ivan.

“But his mother was my mother too, I believe, wouldn’t you say?” Ivan suddenly burst out with uncontrollable, wrathful contempt. The old man flinched at his flashing glance. But here something very strange happened, for one second, it is true: it really seems that the consideration that Alyosha’s mother was also Ivan’s mother had slipped out of the old man’s mind…

“How do you mean, your mother?” he muttered, not understanding. “What are you talking about? Which mother do you mean?… Why, was she… Ah, the devil! Why, she was yours too! Ah, the devil! Well, brother, that was a blackout as never before, forgive me, and I thought, Ivan… Heh-heh-heh!” He stopped. A long, drunken, half-senseless grin spread across his face. And suddenly, at that very moment, a terrible noise and crash resounded in the entryway, frenzied shouts were heard, the door flew open, and Dmitri Fyodorovich flew into the room. The old man threw himself toward Ivan in fright:

“He’ll kill me, he’ll kill me! Don’t let him get me, don’t let him!” he kept crying out, clutching at the skirt of Ivan Fyodorovich’s frock coat.