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Other great pieces of literature at the Christian Classics Ethereal Library:
The Brothers Karamazov and Crime and Punishment
by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, my two all-time favorite novels
"Since its publication, it has been acclaimed all over the world by intellectuals as one of the supreme achievements in literature."
https://app.box.com/s/xx0llgjz176r2dcg32bz
It was at this point that Alyosha came in, and Fyodor
Pavlovitch, as we have seen, was highly delighted at his appearance.
The Complete Book online
BUT Balaam's ass had suddenly spoken. The subject was a strange
one. Grigory had gone in the morning to make purchases, and had
heard from the shopkeeper Lukyanov the story of a Russian soldier
which had appeared in the newspaper of that day. This soldier had been
taken prisoner in some remote part of Asia, and was threatened with an
immediate agonising death if he did not renounce Christianity and
follow Islam. He refused to deny his faith, and was tortured, flayed
alive, and died, praising and glorifying Christ. Grigory had related
the story at table. Fyodor Pavlovitch always liked, over the dessert
after dinner, to laugh and talk, if only with Grigory. This
afternoon he was in a particularly good-humoured and expansive mood.
Sipping his brandy and listening to the story, he observed that they
ought to make a saint of a soldier like that, and to take his skin
to some monastery. "That would make the people flock, and bring the
money in."
Grigory frowned, seeing that Fyodor Pavlovitch was by no means
touched, but, as usual, was beginning to scoff. At that moment
Smerdyakov, who was standing by the door, smiled. Smerdyakov often
waited at table towards the end of dinner, and since Ivan's arrival in
our town he had done so every day.
"What are you grinning at?" asked Fyodor Pavlovitch, catching
the smile instantly, and knowing that it referred to Grigory.
"Well, my opinion is," Smerdyakov began suddenly and
unexpectedly in a loud voice, "that if that laudable soldier's exploit
was so very great there would have been, to my thinking, no sin in
it if he had on such an emergency renounced, so to speak, the name
of Christ and his own christening, to save by that same his life,
for good deeds, by which, in the course of years to expiate his
cowardice."
"How could it not be a sin? You're talking nonsense. For that
you'll go straight to hell and be roasted there like mutton," put in
Fyodor Pavlovitch.
"We're on your subject, your subject," he chuckled gleefully,
making Alyosha sit down to listen.
"As for mutton, that's not so, and there'll be nothing there for
this, and there shouldn't be either, if it's according to justice,"
Smerdyakov maintained stoutly.
"How do you mean 'according to justice'?" Fyodor Pavlovitch
cried still more gaily, nudging Alyosha with his knee.
"He's a rascal, that's what he is!" burst from Grigory. He
looked Smerdyakov wrathfully in the face.
"As for being a rascal, wait a little, Grigory Vassilyevitch,"
answered Smerdyakov with perfect composure. "You'd better consider
yourself that, once I am taken prisoner by the enemies of the
Christian race, and they demand from me to curse the name of God and
to renounce my holy christening, I am fully entitled to act by my
own reason, since there would be no sin in it."
"But you've said that before. Don't waste words. Prove it,"
cried Fyodor Pavlovitch.
"Soup-maker!" muttered Grigory contemptuously.
"As for being a soup-maker, wait a bit, too, and consider for
yourself, Grigory Vassilyevitch, without abusing me. For as soon as
I say to those enemies, 'No, I'm not a Christian, and I curse my
true God,' then at once, by God's high judgment, I become
immediately and specially anathema accursed, and am cut off from the
Holy Church, exactly as though I were a heathen, so that at that
very instant, not only when I say it aloud, but when I think of saying
it, before a quarter of a second has passed, I am cut off. Is that
so or not, Grigory Vassilyevitch?"
He addressed Grigory with obvious satisfaction, though he was
really answering Fyodor Pavlovitch's questions, and was well aware
of it, and intentionally pretending that Grigory had asked the
questions.
"Ivan," cried Fyodor Pavlovitch suddenly, "stoop down for me to
whisper. He's got this all up for your benefit. He wants you to praise
him. Praise him."
Ivan listened with perfect seriousness to his father's excited
whisper.
"Stay, Smerdyakov, be quiet a minute," cried Fyodor Pavlovitch
once more. "Ivan, your ear again."
Ivan bent down again with a perfectly grave face.
"I love you as I do Alyosha. Don't think I don't love you. Some
brandy?"
"Yes.- But you're rather drunk yourself," thought Ivan, looking
steadily at his father.
He was watching Smerdyakov with great curiosity.
"You're anathema accursed, as it is, Grigory suddenly burst out,
"and how dare you argue, you rascal, after that, if- "
"Don't scold him, Grigory, don't scold him," Fyodor Pavlovitch cut
him short.
"You should wait, Grigory Vassilyevitch, if only a short time, and
listen, for I haven't finished all I had to say. For at the very
moment I become accursed, at that same highest moment, I become
exactly like a heathen, and my christening is taken off me and becomes
of no avail. Isn't that so?"
"Make haste and finish, my boy," Fyodor Pavlovitch urged him,
sipping from his wineglass with relish.
"And if I've ceased to be a Christian, then I told no lie to the
enemy when they asked whether I was a Christian or not a Christian,
seeing I had already been relieved by God Himself of my Christianity
by reason of the thought alone, before I had time to utter a word to
the enemy. And if I have already been discharged, in what manner and
with what sort of justice can I be held responsible as a Christian
in the other world for having denied Christ, when, through the very
thought alone, before denying Him I had been relieved from my
christening? If I'm no longer a Christian, then I can't renounce
Christ, for I've nothing then to renounce. Who will hold an unclean
Tatar responsible, Grigory Vassilyevitch, even in heaven, for not
having been born a Christian? And who would punish him for that,
considering that you can't take two skins off one ox? For God Almighty
Himself, even if He did make the Tatar responsible, when he dies would
give him the smallest possible punishment, I imagine (since he must be
punished), judging that he is not to blame if he has come into the
world an unclean heathen, from heathen parents. The Lord God can't
surely take a Tatar and say he was a Christian? That would mean that
the Almighty would tell a real untruth. And can the Lord of Heaven and
earth tell a lie, even in one word?"
Grigory was thunderstruck and looked at the orator, his eyes
nearly starting out of his head. Though he did not clearly
understand what was said, he had caught something in this rigmarole,
and stood, looking like a man who has just hit his head against a
wall. Fyodor Pavlovitch emptied his glass and went off into his shrill
laugh.
"Alyosha! Alyosha! What do you say to that! Ah, you casuist! He
must have been with the Jesuits, somewhere, Ivan. Oh, you stinking
Jesuit, who taught you? But you're talking nonsense, you casuist,
nonsense, nonsense, nonsense. Don't cry, Grigory, we'll reduce him
to smoke and ashes in a moment. Tell me this, O ass; you may be
right before your enemies, but you have renounced your faith all the
same in your own heart, and you say yourself that in that very hour
you became anathema accursed. And if once you're anathema they won't
pat you on the head for it in hell. What do you say to that, my fine
Jesuit?"
"There is no doubt that I have renounced it in my own heart, but
there no special sin in that. Or if there was sin, it was the most
ordinary."
"How's that the most ordinary?"
"You lie, accursed one!" hissed Grigory.
"Consider yourself, Grigory Vassilyevitch," Smerdyakov went on,
staid and unruffled, conscious of his triumph, but, as it were,
generous to the vanquished foe. "Consider yourself, Grigory
Vassilyevitch; it is said in the Scripture that if you have faith,
even as a mustard seed, and bid a mountain move into the sea, it
will move without the least delay at your bidding. Well, Grigory
Vassilyevitch, if I'm without faith and you have so great a faith that
you are continually swearing at me, you try yourself telling this
mountain, not to move into the sea for that's a long way off, but even
to our stinking little river which runs at the bottom of the garden.
You'll see for yourself that it won't budge, but will remain just
where it is however much you shout at it, and that shows, Grigory
Vassilyevitch, that you haven't faith in the proper manner, and only
abuse others about it. Again, taking into consideration that no one in
our day, not only you, but actually no one, from the highest person to
the lowest peasant, can shove mountains into the sea- except perhaps
some one man in the world, or, at most, two, and they most likely
are saving their souls in secret somewhere in the Egyptian desert,
so you wouldn't find them- if so it be, if all the rest have no faith,
will God curse all the rest? that is, the population of the whole
earth, except about two hermits in the desert, and in His well-known
mercy will He not forgive one of them? And so I'm persuaded that
though I may once have doubted I shall be forgiven if I shed tears
of repentance."
"Stay!" cried Fyodor Pavlovitch, in a transport of delight. "So
you do suppose there are two who can move mountains? Ivan, make a note
of it, write it down. There you have the Russian all over!"
"You're quite right in saying it's characteristic of the
people's faith," Ivan assented, with an approving smile.
"You agree. Then it must be so, if you agree. It's true, isn't
it Alyosha? That's the Russian faith all over, isn't it?"
"No, Smerdyakov has not the Russian faith at all," said Alyosha
firmly and gravely.
"I'm not talking about his faith. I mean those two in the
desert, only that idea. Surely that's Russian, isn't it?"
"Yes, that's purely Russian," said Alyosha smiling.
"Your words are worth a gold piece, O ass, and I'll give it to you
to-day. But as to the rest you talk nonsense, nonsense, nonsense.
Let me tell you, stupid, that we here are all of little faith, only
from carelessness, because we haven't time; things are too much for
us, and, in the second place, the Lord God has given us so little
time, only twenty-four hours in the day, so that one hasn't even
time to get sleep enough, much less to repent of one's sins. While you
have denied your faith to your enemies when you'd nothing else to
think about but to show your faith! So I consider, brother, that it
constitutes a sin."
"Constitute a sin it may, but consider yourself, Grigory
Vassilyevitch, that it only extenuates it, if it does constitute. If I
had believed then in very truth, as I ought to have believed, then
it really would have been sinful if I had not faced tortures for my
faith, and had gone over to the pagan Mohammedan faith. But, of
course, it wouldn't have come to torture then, because I should only
have had to say at that instant to the mountain, 'Move and crush the
tormentor,' and it would have moved and at the very instant have
crushed him like a black-beetle, and I should have walked away as
though nothing had happened, praising and glorifying God. But, suppose
at that very moment I had tried all that, and cried to that
mountain, 'Crush these tormentors,' and it hadn't crushed them, how
could I have helped doubting, pray, at such a time, and at such a
dread hour of mortal terror? And apart from that, I should know
already that I could not attain to the fullness of the Kingdom of
Heaven (for since the mountain had not moved at my word, they could
not think very much of my faith up aloft, and there could be no very
great reward awaiting me in the world to come). So why should I let
them flay the skin off me as well, and to no good purpose? For, even
though they had flayed my skin half off my back, even then the
mountain would not have moved at my word or at my cry. And at such a
moment not only doubt might come over one but one might lose one's
reason from fear, so that one would not be able to think at all.
And, therefore, how should I be particularly to blame if not seeing my
advantage or reward there or here, I should, at least, save my skin.
And so trusting fully in the grace of the Lord I should cherish the
hope that I might be altogether forgiven."
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