VII. The Controversion

But Balaam’s ass had suddenly spoken. The subject happened to be a strange one: that morning Grigory, picking up goods at the shop of the merchant Lukyanov, had heard from him about a certain Russian soldier who, somewhere far away on the frontier, among the Asiatics, had been taken prisoner by them and, being forced by them under threat of an agonizing and immediate death to renounce Christianity and go over to Islam, had not agreed to betray his faith and had accepted torment, let them flay the skin off him, and died glorifying and praising Christ—of which feat an account had been printed in the very newspaper that had arrived that day. It was this that Grigory had begun to talk about at the table. Fyodor Pavlovich had always liked, every time after a meal, over dessert, to laugh and talk, even if only with Grigory. This time he was in a light and pleasantly expansive mood. Sipping his cognac and having listened to the news, he remarked that such a soldier ought to be made a saint at once and his flayed skin sent off to some monastery: “Then the people would come pouring in, and the money.” Grigory frowned, seeing that Fyodor Pavlovich was not in the least moved but was beginning, as was his constant habit, to blaspheme. And suddenly Smerdyakov, who was standing by the door, smirked. Smerdyakov had very often before been permitted to stand by the table, toward the end of dinner, that is. And ever since Ivan Fyodorovich’s arrival in our town he had started appearing at dinner almost every time.

“What’s the matter with you?” asked Fyodor Pavlovich, noticing the smirk in an instant and understanding, of course, that it referred to Grigory.

“It’s about this, sir,” Smerdyakov suddenly began loudly and unexpectedly, “that if this praiseworthy soldier’s feat was very great, sir, then, all the same, in my opinion, there would have been no sin either if he had renounced, in this contingency, the name of Christ, for example, and his own baptism, so as to save his life thereby for good deeds, with which, in the course of years, to redeem his faintheartedness.”

“How do you mean, no sin? You’re lying; for that they’ll send you straight to hell and roast you there like mutton,” Fyodor Pavlovich chimed in.

And it was just then that Alyosha came in. Fyodor Pavlovich, as we have seen, was terribly glad to see Alyosha.

“On your subject, on your subject!” he giggled joyfully, sitting Alyosha down to listen.

“As regards the mutton, that is not so, sir, and nothing will happen there for that, sir, and there oughtn’t to be anything of the kind, if in all justice,” Smerdyakov remarked solidly.

“How do you mean, in all justice?” Fyodor Pavlovich cried still more merrily, nudging Alyosha with his knee.

“A scoundrel, that’s what he is!” broke suddenly from Grigory. He looked Smerdyakov wrathfully straight in the eye.

“As regards the scoundrel, wait a while, sir, Grigory Vasilyevich,” Smerdyakov parried calmly and with restraint, “and better judge for yourself that once I have been taken prisoner by the tormentors of the Christian race and they demand of me that I curse the name of God and renounce my holy baptism, then I am fully authorized in it by my own reason, for there will be no sin in it at all.”

“But you’ve already said that; don’t embroider it, prove it!” Fyodor Pavlovich shouted.

“Broth-boy!” Grigory whispered contemptuously.

“As regards the broth-boy, wait a while too, sir, and without swearing judge for yourself, Grigory Vasilyevich. For as soon as I say to the tormentors: ‘No, I’m no Christian, and my true God I curse,’ then straightaway, by the highest judgment of God, I immediately and specially become anathema, accursed, and am excommunicated from the holy church exactly like a heathenish foreigner, so much so that at that very instant, sir—not just as soon as I utter it, but as soon as I merely think of uttering it, so that not even a quarter of a second goes by, sir, before I am excommunicated—is that so or not, Grigory Vasilyevich?”

He was addressing Grigory with visible pleasure, though in essence he was answering only Fyodor Pavlovich’s questions, and understanding this very well, but deliberately pretending that it was Grigory, as it were, who was asking him these questions.

“Ivan!” Fyodor Pavlovich suddenly cried. “Bend down to me, right to my ear. He’s staged all this for you; he wants you to praise him. Go on, praise him.”

Ivan Fyodorovich listened quite seriously to his papa’s rapturous communication.

“Wait, Smerdyakov, be quiet for a while,” Fyodor Pavlovich cried again. “Ivan, bend down to me, right to my ear again.”

Ivan Fyodorovich bent down again with the most serious air.

“I love you just as much as Alyoshka. Don’t think I don’t love you. A little cognac?”

“Let me have some. ‘You’ve loaded yourself up pretty well yourself, though.’” Ivan Fyodorovich looked intently at his father. But Smerdyakov he was watching with extreme curiosity.

“You’re anathema, accursed, even now,” Grigory suddenly burst out, “and how dare you reason after that, you scoundrel, if…”

“Don’t swear, Grigory, don’t swear!” Fyodor Pavlovich interrupted.

“You wait, Grigory Vasilyevich, if only for the very shortest time, sir, and listen further, because I have not finished everything. Because at the very time when I become immediately accursed by God, sir, at that very, that very highest moment, sir, I have already become, as it were, the same as a heathenish foreigner, and my baptism is taken off me and counts for nothing—is that so, at least, sir?”

“Conclude, brother, quickly, conclude,” Fyodor Pavlovich urged, taking a sip from his glass with relish.

“And if I am no longer a Christian, then it follows that I did not lie to the tormentors when they asked: ‘Am I a Christian or not a Christian,’ for I had already been divested of my Christianity by God himself, by reason of my intention alone, and before I had even had time to say a word to the tormentors. And if I have already been stripped of my rank, then in what manner and by what justice will they call me to account in the other world as a Christian for having renounced Christ, when for my mere thought alone, even before the renunciation, I had already been divested of my baptism? If I am no longer a Christian, then it means I cannot renounce Christ either, for then I will have nothing to renounce. Who will call a filthy Tatar to account, Grigory Vasilyevich, even in heaven, because he wasn’t born a Christian, and who will punish him for that, reasoning that you don’t flay two hides off one ox? And even God Almighty himself, if he does call the Tatar to account when he dies, will do it, I suppose, with some very smallest punishment (since it is impossible not to punish him at all), considering that he is not to blame, after all, if he came into the world a heathen from heathen parents. The Lord God can’t forcibly take a Tatar and say of him that he too was a Christian, can he? Why, that would mean that the Lord Almighty would be telling an outright untruth. And can the Lord Almighty of heaven and earth utter a lie, even in only one single word, sir?”

Grigory was dumbfounded and stared at the orator with bulging eyes. Although he did not understand well what was being said, he had suddenly understood something of all this drivel, and he stood still with the look of a man who has suddenly banged his forehead against a wall. Fyodor Pavlovich finished his glass and went off into shrill laughter.

“Alyoshka, Alyoshka, how about that! Ah, you casuist! He’s been with the Jesuits somewhere, Ivan. Ah, you stinking Jesuit, who taught you this? But you’re lying, casuist, you’re lying, lying, and lying. Don’t cry, Grigory, we’ll smash him to dust and ashes this very minute. You tell me this, you ass: granted you’re right before the tormentors, but still, within yourself, you did renounce your faith, and you say yourself that in that same hour you were anathema, accursed, and once you’re anathema, they won’t pat you on the head in hell for that anathema. What do you think about that, my fine Jesuit?”

“There is no doubtation, sir, that within myself I renounced it, but all the same there was no special sin here either, sir, and if there was a little sin, then a very ordinary one, sir.”

“How do you mean, a very ordinary one, sir!”

“You’re lying, you ac-c-cursed one,” Grigory hissed.

“Judge for yourself, Grigory Vasilyevich,” Smerdyakov went on, evenly and sedately, conscious of his victory, but as though being magnanimous with a defeated opponent, “judge for yourself, Grigory Vasilyevich: it is said in Scripture, after all, that if you have faith even as small as the very smallest seed, and then say to this mountain that it should move off into the sea, it will move off without the least delay, at your very first command. So then, Grigory Vasilyevich, if I am an unbeliever, and you are such a believer that you’re even swearing at me without cease, then you try yourself, sir, telling this mountain to move off, not into the sea, say (because it’s far to the sea from here, sir), but even just into our stinking little river that flows there behind our garden, and you’ll see for yourself at that same moment that nothing moves off, sir, but everything stays in its former order and intactness, however much you shout, sir. And that means that you don’t believe in the proper manner either, Grigory Vasilyevich, but only swear at others for it in every way. Again, takin’ also into account that nobody in our time, not only you, sir, but decidedly nobody, beginning with the very highest persons even down to the very last peasant, sir, can shove a mountain into the sea, except perhaps some one man on the whole earth, two at most, and even they, maybe, are working out their salvation in secret somewhere out there in the Egyptian desert, so that you won’t find them at all—then if that is so, sir, if all the rest come out unbelievers, then will the Lord really curse all these rest, that is, the population of the whole earth, sir, except for some two hermits or so, and in his mercy, which is so well known, not forgive any one of them? And therefore I too trust that, having once doubted, I will be forgiven when I shed tears of repentance.”

“Stop!” squealed Fyodor Pavlovich in an apotheosis of delight. “So you do suppose all the same that there are two such men who can move mountains? Ivan, make a notch of it, write it down: the whole Russian man has shown himself here!”

“You have remarked quite rightly that this is a trait of the people’s faith,” Ivan Fyodorovich agreed with an approving smile.

“You agree! Then it’s so, if even you agree! Alyoshka, it’s true, isn’t it? It’s an entirely Russian faith, isn’t it?”

“No, Smerdyakov’s faith is not Russian at all,” Alyosha said seriously and firmly.

“I don’t mean his faith, I mean this trait, these two hermits, just this one little trait: it’s Russian, isn’t it, Russian?”

“Yes, that trait is quite Russian,” Alyosha smiled.

“Your word is worth a gold piece, you ass, and I’ll send it to you this very day, but as for the rest, you’re still lying, lying, and lying; know, you fool, that here all of us don’t believe only out of thoughtlessness, because we have no time: in the first place, business has got the better of us, and in the second, God has given us too little time, he’s fixed only twenty-four hours to the day, so that there’s no time even to get enough sleep, let alone to repent. But you there renounced it before the tormentors, when you had nothing else to think about but faith, and when you precisely had to show your faith! So that, brother, constitutes something, I think?”

“Constitute it does constitute, but judge for yourself, Grigory Vasilyevich, that it makes it all the lighter, after all, by the very fact that it constitutes. Because if I had believed then in very truth, as one ought to believe, then it really would have been sinful if I had not accepted torment for my faith and had gone over to the filthy faith of Mohammed. But then it wouldn’t even have come to torment, sir, because I would only have had to say at that same instant to this mountain: move and crush the tormentor, and it would have moved and crushed him at that same instant like a cockroach, and I would have walked off as if nothing had happened, singing and glorifying God. But if at that very same moment I had tried all this precisely and was already shouting on purpose to this mountain: crush these tormentors—and it didn’t crush them, then how, tell me, could I not have doubted at that time, and in such a terrible hour of great mortal fear besides? As it is, I already know that I shan’t attain the kingdom of heaven in its fullness (for the mountain didn’t move at my word, so it means they don’t much believe in my faith up there, and no very great reward awaits me in the other world), so why should I, on top of that, and without any benefit at all now, let them flay the skin off me? For even if they had already flayed my skin halfway off my back, even then this mountain would not have moved at my word or my cry. And at such a moment not only might doubtation come over one, but one might even lose one’s very reason from fear, so that it will be quite impossible even to reason. And so, how will I come out especially guilty here, if, seeing no profit or reward for myself either there or here, I at least save my skin? And therefore, trusting greatly in the Lord’s mercy, I nourish the hope that I will be forgiven altogether, sir…”