V. The Grand Inquisitor

“Why, even here one can’t do without a preface, a literary preface, that is, pah!” laughed Ivan. “And what sort of author am I! You see, my action takes place in the sixteenth century, and back then—you must know this from your schooldays, by the way—back then it was just the custom in poetic works to bring the powers on high down to earth. I won’t even speak of Dante. In France the law clerks, and the monks in the monasteries as well, put on whole performances in which they brought the Madonna, angels, saints, Christ, and God himself onto the stage. In those days it was all very simple-hearted. In Victor Hugo’s Notre-Dame de Paris, in honor of the birth of the French dauphin, in Paris, under Louis XI, an edifying performance is given free to the people in the great hall of the Hôtel de Ville, under the title Le bon jugement de la très sainte et gracieuse Vierge Marie (The Good Judgment of the Most Holy and Gracious Virgin Mary), in which she appears in person and pronounces her bon jugement. In Moscow too, in the old days before Peter, almost the same sort of dramatic performances, especially from the Old Testament, were given from time to time; but besides dramatic performances there circulated all over the world at that time many tales and ‘verses’ in which the saints, the angels, and all the powers of heaven took part as required. In our monasteries too they busied themselves with translating, copying, and even composing such poems, and at what a time—under the Tatars. There is, for instance, one little monastery poem (from the Greek, of course), ‘The Mother of God’s Journey Through the Torments,’ with scenes and a boldness not inferior to Dante’s. The Mother of God visits hell, and the archangel Michael guides her ‘through the torments.’ She sees the sinners and their torments. Among other things there is a most entertaining class of sinners there, in a burning lake: those of them who sink into that lake so deep that they can never swim up again, ‘these God already forgets’—an expression of extraordinary depth and force. And so the Mother of God, stricken and weeping, falls down before the throne of God and begs mercy for all in hell, for all whom she has seen there, without distinction. Her conversation with God is colossally interesting. She implores, she will not go away, and when God points out to her the nail-pierced hands and feet of her son and asks: how can I forgive his tormentors—then she commands all the saints and all the martyrs, all the angels and the archangels, to fall on their faces together with her and beg mercy for everyone, making no distinctions. It ends with her winning from God a respite from the torments every year from Good Friday to Trinity Day, and the sinners in hell at once thank the Lord and cry out to him: ‘You are just, O Lord, to judge so.’ Well, my little poem would have been of the same sort if it had appeared at that time. In my poem he appears on the stage; true, he says nothing in the poem, he only appears and passes by. Fifteen centuries have already gone by since he gave the promise to come in his kingdom, fifteen centuries since his prophet wrote: ‘Behold, I am coming soon.’ ‘Of that day and that hour not even the Son knows, but only my heavenly Father,’ as he himself declared while still on earth. But mankind awaits him with the same faith as before and the same tender emotion. Oh, with even greater faith, for fifteen centuries have now gone by since heaven stopped giving pledges to man:

“Trust in what the heart may tell you,
There are no pledges from the heavens.

“And nothing but faith in what the heart has told! True, there were many miracles then as well. There were saints who worked miraculous cures; to certain righteous men, according to their lives, the Queen of Heaven herself came down. But the devil does not slumber, and in mankind doubt had already begun about the truth of these miracles. Just then, in the north, in Germany, a terrible new heresy appeared. A great star, ‘burning like a lamp’ (that is, the church), ‘fell upon the springs of the waters, and they became bitter.’ These heresies began blasphemously to deny miracles. But those who remained faithful believe all the more ardently. The tears of mankind rise up to him as before, they wait for him, love him, hope in him, thirst to suffer and die for him as before. And for so many centuries mankind had prayed with faith and with fire, ‘O Lord God, appear to us,’ for so many centuries had it called out to him, that he, in his immeasurable compassion, desired to come down to those who prayed. He had come down before this too, he had visited certain righteous men, martyrs, and holy hermits while they were still on earth, as is written in their ‘lives.’ Among us, Tyutchev,¹ who believed deeply in the truth of his words, proclaimed that

“Bowed beneath the burden of the cross,
All of you, my native land,
In the form of a slave the King of Heaven
Has walked through, blessing as he went.

“That it certainly was so, I can tell you that. And so he desired to appear, if only for a moment, to the people—to the tormented, suffering, foully sinful people, who yet love him like little children. My action is set in Spain, in Seville, in the Inquisition’s most terrible days, when to the glory of God bonfires blazed daily in the land and

“In magnificent autos-da-fé
They burned the wicked heretics.

“Oh, this, of course, was not that descent in which, as he promised, he will come at the end of time in all the glory of heaven, the descent that will be sudden, ‘as the lightning that shines from the east to the west.’ No, he desired, if only for a moment, to visit his children, and precisely there where the bonfires of the heretics had just begun to crackle. In his boundless mercy he passes once more among people in that same human form in which he walked among people for three years fifteen centuries ago. He comes down to the ‘hot squares’ of the southern city, the very city in which only the day before, in a ‘magnificent auto-da-fé,’ with the king present, and the court, the knights, the cardinals, and the loveliest ladies of the court, before the numerous population of all Seville, very nearly a whole hundred heretics had been burned at one time by the cardinal, the Grand Inquisitor, ad majorem gloriam Dei (to the greater glory of God). He appeared quietly, unnoticed, and yet everyone—strange as it is—recognizes him. That could have been one of the best places in the poem, I mean, why exactly they recognize him. The people are drawn to him with an invincible force, surround him, throng around him, follow him. He passes silently among them with a quiet smile of boundless compassion. In his heart burns the sun of love, rays of Light, of Enlightenment, and of Power stream from his eyes and, pouring out over the people, shake their hearts with answering love. He stretches out his hands to them, blesses them, and from touching him, even only his garments, a healing power goes forth. Now an old man, blind from childhood, cries out from the crowd: ‘Lord, heal me, that I too may see you,’ and lo, it is as if scales fell from his eyes, and the blind man sees him. The people weep and kiss the ground he walks on. Children throw flowers before him, sing and cry out to him: ‘Hosanna!’ ‘It is he, it is he himself,’ everyone repeats, ‘it must be he, it can be no one but he.’ He stops on the porch of the Seville cathedral at the very moment when a child’s little open white coffin is being carried into the church amid weeping: in it is a girl of seven, the only daughter of a distinguished citizen. The dead child lies all in flowers. ‘He will raise up your child,’ people in the crowd cry to the weeping mother. The cathedral priest, who has come out to meet the coffin, looks on in perplexity and knits his brows. But now the wail of the dead child’s mother rings out. She throws herself at his feet: ‘If it is you, then raise up my child!’ she cries, stretching out her hands to him. The procession halts, the little coffin is lowered onto the porch at his feet. He looks with compassion, and his lips softly pronounce once more: ‘Talitha cumi’—‘and the maiden arose.’ The girl rises up in the coffin, sits up, and looks around, smiling, with astonished, wide-open little eyes. In her hands is a bouquet of white roses with which she had lain in the coffin. Among the people there is confusion, shouts, sobbing, and then, at that very moment, the cardinal, the Grand Inquisitor himself, suddenly passes by the cathedral across the square. He is an old man of nearly ninety, tall and erect, with a withered face and sunken eyes, but from them a gleam still shines like a fiery spark. Oh, he is not in his magnificent cardinal’s vestments, in which he paraded before the people yesterday when the enemies of the Roman faith were being burned—no, at this moment he is only in his old, coarse monk’s robe. Behind him at a certain distance follow his grim assistants and slaves and the ‘holy’ guard. He stops in front of the crowd and watches from a distance. He has seen everything, he saw them set the coffin down at his feet, saw the maiden rise, and his face darkened. He knits his thick gray brows, and his eyes flash with an ominous fire. He stretches out his finger and orders the guards to take him. And so great is his power, and so well trained, submissive, and tremblingly obedient to him are the people by now, that the crowd immediately parts before the guards, and they, amid the deathly silence that has suddenly fallen, lay their hands on him and lead him away. The crowd instantly, all as one man, bows its head to the ground before the old Inquisitor; silently he gives the people his blessing and walks on. The guard brings the prisoner to a narrow and gloomy vaulted prison in the ancient building of the Holy Tribunal and locks him in it. The day passes, the dark, hot, and ‘breathless’ Seville night comes on. The air ‘is fragrant with laurel and lemon.’ In the deep darkness the iron door of the prison suddenly opens, and the old man himself, the Grand Inquisitor, slowly comes into the prison with a lamp in his hand. He is alone, the door is locked behind him at once. He stops at the entrance and for a long time, a minute or two, gazes into his face. At last he quietly comes up, sets the lamp on the table, and says to him: ‘Is it you? You?’ But, receiving no answer, he quickly adds: ‘Do not answer, be silent. And what could you say? I know too well what you would say. And you have no right to add anything to what you have already said before. Why, then, have you come to hinder us? For you have come to hinder us, and you know it yourself. But do you know what will happen tomorrow? I do not know who you are, and I do not want to know: whether it is you or only his likeness; but tomorrow I shall condemn you and burn you at the stake as the most wicked of heretics, and the very people who today kissed your feet will tomorrow, at a single wave of my hand, rush to rake up the coals for your bonfire, do you know that? Yes, perhaps you do know it,’ he added in deep reflection, not taking his eyes off his prisoner for an instant.”

“I don’t quite understand, Ivan, what this is?” smiled Alyosha, who had been listening in silence all the while. “Is it simply boundless fantasy, or some mistake of the old man’s, some impossible qui pro quo (one taken for another)?”

“Take it as the latter, if you like,” laughed Ivan, “if modern realism has spoiled you so that you can’t bear anything fantastic—if you want a qui pro quo, then let it be so. It’s true,” he laughed again, “the old man is ninety, and he could long ago have gone mad over his idea. And the prisoner could have struck him by his appearance. It could, finally, have been simply delirium, the vision of a ninety-year-old man before death, and heated besides by yesterday’s auto-da-fé of a hundred burned heretics. But isn’t it all the same to you and me whether it’s a qui pro quo or boundless fantasy? The only thing that matters here is that the old man has to speak his mind, that at last, after all his ninety years, he speaks his mind and says aloud what he has kept silent about for all of ninety years.”

“And the prisoner is silent too? He looks at him and doesn’t say a word?”

“But that’s how it must be in any case,” Ivan laughed again. “The old man himself remarks to him that he has no right to add anything to what has been said before. If you like, that is the most fundamental trait of Roman Catholicism, in my opinion at least: ‘Everything, you see, has been handed over by you to the Pope, and so everything now belongs to the Pope, and you may as well not come at all now, at least don’t hinder us before the time.’ They not only talk in that sense, they write it too, the Jesuits at least. I have read it myself in their theologians. ‘Have you the right to reveal to us even one of the mysteries of that world from which you have come?’ my old man asks him, and he answers him himself, for him: ‘No, you have not, so that you may not add to what has been said before, and so as not to take away from people the freedom you stood up for so when you were on earth. Everything you might reveal anew would encroach on people’s freedom of faith, for it would come as a miracle, and their freedom of faith was dearer to you than anything even then, fifteen hundred years ago. Was it not you who said so often then, “I want to make you free”? But now you have seen these “free” people,’ the old man suddenly adds with a pensive smile. ‘Yes, this business has cost us dearly,’ he goes on, looking at him sternly, ‘but we have finished this business at last in your name. For fifteen centuries we have been tormented by this freedom, but now it is finished, and finished firmly. You do not believe it is finished firmly? You look at me meekly and do not deign even to be indignant with me? But know that now, and precisely now, these people are more certain than ever that they are completely free, and yet they themselves have brought us their freedom and laid it humbly at our feet. But it was we who did this, and was this what you wanted, this sort of freedom?’”

“Again I don’t understand,” Alyosha interrupted. “Is he being ironic, is he laughing?”

“Not in the least. He counts it precisely as a merit for himself and his people that at last they have overcome freedom and have done so in order to make people happy. ‘For only now’ (he is speaking of the Inquisition, of course) ‘has it become possible to think for the first time of people’s happiness. Man was made a rebel; can rebels be happy? You were warned,’ he says to him, ‘you had no lack of warnings and indications, but you did not heed the warnings, you rejected the only way by which people could be made happy, but, fortunately, on departing you handed the work over to us. You promised, you established it by your word, you gave us the right to bind and to loose, and of course you cannot even think of taking that right from us now. Why, then, have you come to hinder us?’”

“And what does it mean, ‘had no lack of warnings and indications’?” asked Alyosha.

“Why, that is just the main thing the old man has to speak out about.”

“The terrible and intelligent spirit, the spirit of self-annihilation and nonbeing,” the old man goes on, “the great spirit spoke with you in the wilderness, and it has been handed down to us in the books that he supposedly ‘tempted’ you. Is that so? And could anything truer be said than what he proclaimed to you in the three questions, and what you rejected, and what the books call ‘temptations’? And yet if ever a real, thundering miracle was performed on earth, it was on that day, the day of those three temptations. It was precisely in the appearance of those three questions that the miracle lay. If it were possible to imagine, just as a trial and an example, that those three questions of the terrible spirit had been lost from the books without a trace, and that they had to be restored, thought up and composed anew, to be put back into the books, and to that end all the wise men of the earth were gathered together—rulers, high priests, scholars, philosophers, poets—and given the task: think up, compose three questions, but such as would not only correspond to the scale of the event, but would express besides, in three words, in three human phrases only, the whole future history of the world and of mankind—do you think that all the wisdom of the earth, united together, could think up anything even remotely like in force and depth to those three questions that were actually put to you then by the mighty and intelligent spirit in the wilderness? From those questions alone, simply from the miracle of their appearance, one can understand that one is dealing not with a human, transient mind, but with an everlasting and absolute one. For in those three questions all of mankind’s later history is, as it were, gathered up into a single whole and predicted, and three images are revealed in which all the insoluble historical contradictions of human nature over the whole earth will converge. At that time it could not yet be so evident, for the future was unknown, but now, fifteen centuries later, we see that everything in those three questions was so accurately guessed and predicted, and has been so fully borne out, that nothing more can be added to them or taken away.

“Judge for yourself, then, who was right: you, or the one who questioned you then? Remember the first question; not word for word, but its meaning was this: ‘You want to go into the world, and you are going empty-handed, with some promise of freedom which they, in their simplicity and their innate unruliness, cannot even comprehend, which they fear and dread—for nothing has ever been more unbearable for man and for human society than freedom! But do you see these stones in this bare, scorching desert? Turn them into bread, and mankind will run after you like a flock, grateful and obedient, though forever trembling that you will withdraw your hand and your bread will cease for them.’ But you did not want to deprive man of freedom, and you rejected the offer, for what sort of freedom is it, you reasoned, if obedience is bought with loaves? You replied that man does not live by bread alone, but do you know that in the name of this very earthly bread the spirit of the earth will rise up against you, and will do battle with you, and will defeat you, and all will follow him, crying out: ‘Who is like this beast? He has given us fire from heaven!’ Do you know that centuries will pass, and mankind will proclaim through the mouth of its wisdom and its science that there is no crime, and therefore no sin either, but only the hungry. ‘Feed them, and then ask virtue of them!’—that is what they will write on the banner they will raise against you, and with which your temple will be destroyed. In place of your temple a new building will be raised, the terrible Tower of Babel will be raised again, and though this one will not be finished either, any more than the first, still you could have spared people this new tower and cut their sufferings short by a thousand years, for it is to us, after all, that they will come, after tormenting themselves for a thousand years with their tower! They will seek us out then, once again under the earth, in the catacombs, where we shall be hiding (for we shall be persecuted and tortured again); they will find us and cry out to us: ‘Feed us, for those who promised us fire from heaven have not given it.’ And then it is we who shall finish their tower, for he who feeds them will finish it, and only we shall feed them, in your name, and we shall lie that it is in your name. Oh, never, never will they feed themselves without us! As long as they stay free, no science will give them bread, but it will end with their bringing their freedom to our feet and saying to us: ‘Better that you enslave us, but feed us.’ They will understand at last of themselves that freedom and earthly bread enough for everyone are unthinkable together, for never, never will they manage to share among themselves! They will be convinced, too, that they can never be free, because they are feeble, depraved, worthless, and rebellious. You promised them heavenly bread, but, I say again, can it be compared, in the eyes of the weak, forever depraved, and forever ignoble human race, with earthly bread? And if thousands and tens of thousands follow you for the sake of the bread of heaven, what will become of the millions and the tens of thousands of millions of creatures who will not have the strength to forgo the bread of earth for the bread of heaven? Or are only the tens of thousands of the great and strong dear to you, while the remaining millions, numerous as the sand of the sea, the weak who yet love you, must serve only as material for the great and strong? No, the weak are dear to us too. They are depraved and rebels, but in the end it is they who will become obedient. They will marvel at us and will look on us as gods, because we, standing at their head, have consented to endure freedom and to rule over them—so terrible will it become for them in the end to be free! But we shall say that we are obedient to you and rule in your name. We shall deceive them again, for we shall not let you come to us anymore. In this deception our suffering will lie, for we shall have to lie. That is what the first question in the wilderness meant, and that is what you rejected in the name of freedom, which you set above everything. And yet in that question lay the great secret of this world. Had you accepted the ‘loaves,’ you would have answered the universal and everlasting anguish of man, of each individual being and of all mankind together, namely: ‘Before whom shall I bow down?’ There is no care more ceaseless or more tormenting for man, once he is left free, than to find as quickly as possible someone to bow down before. But man seeks to bow down before what is already beyond dispute, so beyond dispute that all people at once would agree to a universal bowing down before it. For the care of these pitiful creatures is not only to find something before which I or another may bow down, but to find something such that everyone will believe in it and bow down before it, and that it must be all together. It is this need for community in bowing down that has been the chief torment of every man individually and of mankind as a whole since the beginning of the ages. For the sake of universal bowing down they have destroyed one another with the sword. They have made gods and called out to one another: ‘Abandon your gods and come and worship ours, or else death to you and to your gods!’ And so it will be until the end of the world, even when the gods too have vanished from the world: they will fall down before idols just the same. You knew, you could not but know, this fundamental secret of human nature, but you rejected the one absolute banner that was offered you, by which you could have made everyone bow down before you beyond dispute—the banner of earthly bread; and you rejected it in the name of freedom and the bread of heaven. Look, then, at what you did next. And all again in the name of freedom! I tell you that man has no care more tormenting than to find someone to whom he can hand over as quickly as possible that gift of freedom with which the unhappy creature is born. But only he takes possession of people’s freedom who sets their conscience at ease. With bread you were given a banner beyond dispute: give bread, and man will bow down, for nothing is more indisputable than bread; but if at the same time someone other than you takes possession of his conscience—oh, then he will even throw down your bread and follow the one who seduces his conscience. In that you were right. For the secret of human existence lies not in merely living, but in what one lives for. Without a firm notion of what he is to live for, man will not consent to live and will sooner destroy himself than remain on earth, though there be loaves all around him. That is so, but what came of it? Instead of taking possession of people’s freedom, you increased it still more for them! Or did you forget that peace, and even death, is dearer to man than free choice in the knowledge of good and evil? There is nothing more seductive for man than the freedom of his conscience, but nothing more tormenting either. And so, instead of firm foundations for setting the human conscience at ease once and for all—you took everything that is extraordinary, enigmatic, and indefinite, you took everything that was beyond people’s strength, and so you acted as though you did not love them at all—and who did this? He who came to give his life for them! Instead of taking possession of human freedom, you multiplied it and burdened the spiritual kingdom of man with its torments forever. You desired man’s free love, that he should follow you freely, enticed and captivated by you. In place of the firm ancient law—man was henceforth to decide for himself, with a free heart, what is good and what is evil, having only your image before him as his guide—but did you not think that he would at last reject and dispute even your image and your truth, if he were oppressed by so terrible a burden as freedom of choice? They will cry out at last that the truth is not in you, for it was impossible to leave them in more confusion and torment than you did, leaving them so many cares and insoluble problems. Thus you yourself laid the foundation for the destruction of your own kingdom, and you must blame no one else for it. And yet was this what was offered you? There are three powers, only three powers on earth, that can conquer and captivate forever the conscience of these feeble rebels, for their happiness—these powers are miracle, mystery, and authority. You rejected the first, the second, and the third, and yourself set the example for doing so. When the terrible and most wise spirit set you on the pinnacle of the temple and said to you: ‘If you would know whether you are the Son of God, then cast yourself down, for it is written of him that the angels will catch him up and bear him, and he will not fall or be dashed to pieces, and then you will know whether you are the Son of God, and will prove then how great is your faith in your Father,’ you heard him out, rejected the offer, did not give in, and did not throw yourself down. Oh, of course, you acted proudly and magnificently there, like God, but people, this weak, rebellious race—are they gods? Oh, you understood then that by taking only one step, by making only one movement to throw yourself down, you would at once have tempted the Lord and lost all faith in him, and would have been dashed to pieces against the earth you had come to save, and the intelligent spirit who tempted you would have rejoiced. But, I repeat, are there many like you? And could you really have supposed for even a moment that people too would be equal to such a temptation? Is human nature so made that it can reject the miracle and, at such terrible moments of life, moments of its most terrible, fundamental, and tormenting spiritual questions, remain with only the free decision of the heart? Oh, you knew that your deed would be preserved in the books, would reach the depths of the ages and the farthest ends of the earth, and you hoped that, following you, man too would remain with God, without needing a miracle. But you did not know that as soon as man rejects the miracle, he will at once reject God as well, for man seeks not so much God as miracles. And since man is not strong enough to remain without the miracle, he will create new miracles for himself, his own now, and will bow down to a sorcerer’s miracle, to old wives’ sorcery, though he be a hundred times a rebel, a heretic, and an atheist. You did not come down from the cross when they shouted to you, mocking and taunting you: ‘Come down from the cross, and we will believe that it is you.’ You did not come down because, once again, you did not want to enslave man by a miracle, and you thirsted for faith that was free, not miraculous. You thirsted for free love, not for the servile raptures of a slave before a might that has terrified him once and for all. But here too you judged people too highly, for of course they are slaves, though they were created rebels. Look around and judge: fifteen centuries have passed; go and look at them: whom have you raised up to yourself? I swear, man is created weaker and baser than you thought him! Can he, can he do what you did? Respecting him so much, you acted as though you had ceased to have compassion for him, because you demanded too much of him—and who did this? He who loved him more than himself! Had you respected him less, you would have demanded less of him, and that would have been closer to love, for his burden would have been lighter. He is weak and base. What does it matter that he now rebels everywhere against our authority and is proud of rebelling? It is a child’s pride, a schoolboy’s. These are little children who have rioted in the classroom and driven out the teacher. But the children’s rapture will come to an end too; it will cost them dearly. They will overthrow the temples and drench the earth with blood. But at last the foolish children will realize that though they are rebels, they are feeble rebels, who cannot endure their own rebellion. Pouring out their foolish tears, they will confess at last that he who created them rebels no doubt meant to mock them. They will say this in despair, and what they say will be blasphemy, which will make them more unhappy still, for human nature cannot bear blasphemy and in the end always takes revenge for it itself. And so, restlessness, confusion, and unhappiness—such is people’s lot today, after you endured so much for their freedom! Your great prophet says in a vision and an allegory that he saw all who had a share in the first resurrection, and that from every tribe there were twelve thousand of them. But if there were so many of them, they too were not, as it were, people, but gods. They endured your cross, they endured scores of years in the hungry and barren wilderness, feeding on locusts and roots—and of course you can point with pride to these children of freedom, of free love, of their free and magnificent sacrifice in your name. But remember that there were only a few thousand of them, and those gods, and what of the rest? And how are the other weak people to blame for not being able to endure what the mighty endured? How is the weak soul to blame for not having the strength to receive such terrible gifts? Can it be that you truly came only to the elect and for the elect? But if so, then there is a mystery here, and we cannot understand it. And if it is a mystery, then we too had the right to preach a mystery and to teach them that it is not the free decision of their hearts that matters, nor love, but the mystery, which they must obey blindly, even against their conscience. And so we did. We corrected your deed and founded it on miracle, mystery, and authority. And people rejoiced that they were once again led like a flock, and that the gift so terrible, which had brought them so much torment, was at last lifted from their hearts. Were we right in teaching and doing so, tell me? Did we not love mankind, when we so humbly recognized its powerlessness, lovingly lightened its burden, and permitted its feeble nature even sin, so long as it was by our leave? Why, then, have you come to hinder us now? And why do you look at me in silence, so penetratingly, with your meek eyes? Be angry; I do not want your love, because I myself do not love you. And what should I hide from you? Do I not know with whom I am speaking? What I have to say to you is all known to you already, I read it in your eyes. And is it for me to hide our secret from you? Perhaps it is precisely from my lips that you want to hear it; listen, then: we are not with you, but with him, that is our secret! We have long been not with you but with him, eight centuries now. Exactly eight centuries ago we took from him what you rejected with indignation, that last gift which he offered you when he showed you all the kingdoms of the earth: from him we took Rome and Caesar’s sword and proclaimed ourselves alone the kings of the earth, the only kings, though to this day we have not yet managed to bring our work to its full completion. But who is to blame for that? Oh, this work is still only at its beginning, but it has begun. Its completion is still a long way off, and the earth has much yet to suffer, but we shall attain it and shall be Caesars, and then we shall take thought for the universal happiness of people. And yet even then you could have taken Caesar’s sword. Why did you reject that last gift? Had you accepted that third counsel of the mighty spirit, you would have supplied everything that man seeks on earth, that is: someone to bow down before, someone to entrust his conscience to, and a way for all at last to unite into an indisputable, common, and harmonious anthill, for the need for universal union is the third and last torment of people. Mankind as a whole has always striven to organize itself on a universal scale without fail. There have been many great peoples with great histories, but the higher these peoples stood, the more unhappy they were too, for they were more keenly aware than others of the need for the universal union of people. The great conquerors, the Tamerlanes and Genghis Khans, swept like a whirlwind over the earth, striving to conquer the universe, but even they, though unconsciously, expressed the same great need of mankind for universal and general union. Had you accepted the world and Caesar’s purple, you would have founded a universal kingdom and given universal peace. For who should rule over people if not those who rule over their conscience and in whose hands are their loaves? And so we took Caesar’s sword, and, having taken it, we of course rejected you and followed him. Oh, centuries more will pass of the unruliness of free reason, of their science and of anthropophagy, for those who began building their Tower of Babel without us will finish with anthropophagy. But then the beast will come crawling to us, and will lick our feet, and will sprinkle them with bloody tears from its eyes. And we shall sit upon the beast and raise up the cup, and on it will be written: ‘Mystery!’ But then, and only then, will the kingdom of peace and happiness come for people. You are proud of your elect, but you have only the elect, while we shall give rest to all. And is even that so? How many of those elect, of the mighty who could have become elect, have grown weary at last of waiting for you, and have carried and will yet carry the powers of their spirit and the ardor of their hearts to another field, and will end by raising their free banner against you. But you yourself raised that banner. With us, though, everyone will be happy, and they will no longer rebel or destroy one another, as they do everywhere under your freedom. Oh, we shall convince them that they will become free only when they renounce their freedom for us and submit to us. And what then, shall we be right, or shall we be lying? They themselves will be convinced that we are right, for they will remember to what horrors of slavery and confusion your freedom brought them. Freedom, free reason, and science will lead them into such thickets and confront them with such marvels and unsolvable mysteries that some among them, the unruly and fierce, will destroy themselves; others, unruly but feeble, will destroy one another; and the rest, those who are left, the feeble and unhappy, will crawl to our feet and cry out to us: ‘Yes, you were right, you alone possessed his mystery, and we are coming back to you; save us from ourselves.’ Receiving loaves from us, they will of course see clearly that we take from them the very loaves they have won with their own hands, in order to give them out to them again, without any miracle; they will see that we have not turned stones into bread, but in truth they will be more glad of receiving it from our hands than of the bread itself! For they will remember all too well that before, without us, the very loaves they had won turned to stones in their hands, and that when they came back to us, the very stones turned to loaves in their hands. All too well, all too well they will appreciate what it means to submit once and for all! And until people understand this, they will be unhappy. Who did most to bring about this lack of understanding, tell me? Who broke up the flock and scattered it over unknown paths? But the flock will gather again and submit again, and this time once and for all. Then we shall give them a quiet, humble happiness, the happiness of feeble creatures, such as they were created. Oh, we shall persuade them at last not to be proud, for you raised them up and thereby taught them to be proud; we shall prove to them that they are feeble, that they are only pitiful children, but that a child’s happiness is sweeter than any other. They will grow timid and will look to us and press close to us in fear, like chicks to the hen. They will marvel at us and be in awe of us and be proud that we are so mighty and so clever that we could tame such a turbulent flock of a thousand millions. They will tremble feebly before our wrath, their minds will grow timid, their eyes will be quick to tears, like those of children and women, but just as easily, at a sign from us, they will pass over to gaiety and laughter, to bright joy and a happy children’s song. Yes, we shall make them work, but in their hours free from labor we shall arrange their life like a children’s game, with children’s songs, in chorus, with innocent dances. Oh, we shall permit them sin too, they are weak and powerless, and they will love us as children love, for letting them sin. We shall tell them that any sin will be redeemed if it is done by our leave; we let them sin because we love them, and as for the penalty for those sins, so be it, we shall take it on ourselves. And take it on ourselves we shall, and they will worship us as benefactors who have carried their sins before God. And there will be nothing they keep secret from us. Whether they may live with their wives and their mistresses, whether they may have children or not, we shall permit or forbid—all according to their obedience—and they will submit to us with gaiety and joy. The most tormenting secrets of their conscience—all, all they will bring to us, and we shall resolve everything, and they will trust our decision with joy, because it will deliver them from the great care and the terrible present torments of personal and free decision. And all will be happy, all the millions of creatures, save the hundred thousand who govern them. For only we, the keepers of the mystery, only we shall be unhappy. There will be a thousand million happy babes, and a hundred thousand sufferers who have shouldered the curse of knowing good and evil. Quietly they will die, quietly they will fade away in your name, and beyond the grave they will find only death. But we shall keep the secret, and for their own happiness we shall lure them with the reward of heaven and eternity. For even if there were anything in the other world, it would certainly not be for such as they. It is said and prophesied that you will come and conquer again, will come with your elect, with your proud and mighty ones, but we shall say that they have saved only themselves, while we have saved everyone. It is said that the harlot who sits upon the beast and holds the mystery in her hands will be put to shame, that the feeble will rebel again, will tear her purple and lay bare her ‘loathsome’ body. But then I shall stand up and point out to you the thousands of millions of happy babes who have not known sin. And we, who have taken their sins upon ourselves for their happiness, we shall stand before you and say: ‘Judge us if you can and if you dare.’ Know that I do not fear you. Know that I too was in the wilderness, that I too fed on locusts and roots, that I too blessed the freedom with which you have blessed people, and I was preparing to stand among your elect, among the mighty and strong, with a thirst to ‘make up the number.’ But I came to my senses and did not want to serve madness. I went back and joined the host of those who have corrected your deed. I went away from the proud and returned to the humble for the happiness of these humble ones. What I am telling you will come to pass, and our kingdom will be built. I repeat to you, tomorrow you will see that obedient flock which at the first wave of my hand will rush to rake up the hot coals to your bonfire, on which I shall burn you for having come to hinder us. For if anyone has ever deserved our bonfire more than all others, it is you. Tomorrow I shall burn you. Dixi (I have spoken).”

Ivan stopped. He had grown heated as he talked and had spoken with passion; but when he finished, he suddenly smiled.

Alyosha, who had listened to him all the while in silence, though toward the end, in extreme agitation, he had tried many times to interrupt his brother’s speech but had evidently restrained himself, suddenly began to speak, as if he had broken loose.

“But… that’s absurd!” he cried, reddening. “Your poem is praise of Jesus, not blame… as you meant it to be. And who will believe you about freedom? Is that how, is that how it should be understood! Is that the idea of it in Orthodoxy… That is Rome, and not even all of Rome, that’s not true—it’s the worst of Catholicism, the inquisitors, the Jesuits!… And there could never be such a fantastic person as your inquisitor. What are these sins of people taken upon themselves? Who are these bearers of the mystery who have taken some sort of curse upon themselves for people’s happiness? When has anyone seen them? We know the Jesuits, bad things are said of them, but are they what they are in your poem? They’re not that at all, not that at all… They are simply the Roman army for the future universal earthly kingdom, with an emperor, the Roman pontiff, at their head… that is their ideal, but without any mysteries or lofty sadness… The simplest lust for power, for filthy earthly goods, for enslavement… like a future serfdom, with them as the landowners… that is all they have. Perhaps they don’t even believe in God. Your suffering inquisitor is nothing but a fantasy…”

“Wait, wait,” Ivan was laughing, “how heated you’ve got. A fantasy, you say, so be it! Of course it’s a fantasy. But allow me, though: do you really think that this whole Catholic movement of the last centuries is in fact nothing but a lust for power for the sake of filthy goods alone? It isn’t Father Paisy who teaches you that, is it?”

“No, no, on the contrary, Father Paisy did once say something even rather like yours… but of course not that, not that at all,” Alyosha suddenly caught himself.

“A precious piece of information, though, in spite of your ‘not that at all.’ What I’m asking you is precisely why your Jesuits and inquisitors have joined together for nothing but vile material goods. Why can there not be among them a single sufferer, tormented by great sorrow and loving mankind? You see: suppose that among all those who desire nothing but material and filthy goods there were found even one—just one like my old inquisitor, who himself ate roots in the wilderness and raged against his flesh to subdue it, in order to make himself free and perfect, but who had nevertheless loved mankind all his life, and who suddenly had his eyes opened and saw that it is no great moral bliss to attain perfection of the will only to become convinced at the same time that millions of God’s other creatures have been made merely as a mockery, that they will never be able to cope with their freedom, that pitiful rebels will never turn into giants who could finish the tower, that the great idealist did not dream his harmony for geese like these. Having understood all this, he went back and joined… the clever people. Could that really not have happened?”

“Joined whom, what clever people?” Alyosha exclaimed, almost in a passion. “They have no such intelligence, and no such mysteries and secrets… Unless it’s simply godlessness, that’s their whole secret. Your inquisitor doesn’t believe in God, that’s his whole secret!”

“And what if that is so! At last you’ve guessed it. And it really is so, that really is the whole secret, but isn’t that suffering, even for a man like him, who has spent his whole life on a great ascetic feat in the wilderness and has not been cured of his love for mankind? In the sunset of his days he becomes clearly convinced that only the counsels of the great, terrible spirit could in any way arrange the feeble rebels in some tolerable order, ‘unfinished, experimental creatures, created in mockery.’ And so, having become convinced of this, he sees that one must follow the guidance of the intelligent spirit, the terrible spirit of death and destruction, and to that end accept lies and deception and lead people consciously now to death and destruction, and deceive them besides all the way, so that they somehow won’t notice where they are being led, so that at least on the road these pitiful blind creatures may consider themselves happy. And note this: deception in the name of him in whose ideal the old man had believed so passionately all his life! Isn’t that a misfortune? And if even one such man found himself at the head of that whole army ‘thirsting for power only for the sake of filthy goods,’ wouldn’t even one such man be enough to make a tragedy? More than that: one such man standing at the head is enough for there to be found at last the real guiding idea of the whole Roman cause, with all its armies and Jesuits, the highest idea of that cause. I tell you straight out that I firmly believe this one man has never been lacking among those standing at the head of the movement. Who knows, perhaps there have been such single men even among the Roman pontiffs. Who knows, perhaps this accursed old man, who loves mankind so stubbornly and in his own way, exists even now in the form of a whole host of many such single old men, and not at all by chance, but exists as an accord, as a secret alliance, formed long ago for keeping the mystery, for keeping it from weak and unhappy people, so as to make them happy. That surely exists, and it must be so. I fancy that even the Masons have something like this same mystery at their foundation, and that this is why the Catholics hate the Masons so, because they see them as competitors, a splitting of the unity of the idea, whereas there must be one flock and one shepherd… However, in defending my idea I look like an author who couldn’t stand up to your criticism. Enough of this.”

“Perhaps you are a Mason yourself!” suddenly broke from Alyosha. “You don’t believe in God,” he added, but now with extreme sorrow. It seemed to him besides that his brother was looking at him mockingly. “How does your poem end?” he asked suddenly, looking at the ground. “Or is it finished already?”

“I meant to end it like this: when the inquisitor falls silent, he waits for some time for his prisoner to answer him. The prisoner’s silence weighs on him. He saw how the captive listened to him all the while intently and quietly, looking him straight in the eye and evidently not wishing to object to anything. The old man would like the other to say something to him, even something bitter, terrible. But he suddenly, in silence, approaches the old man and quietly kisses him on his bloodless, ninety-year-old lips. That is the whole answer. The old man shudders. Something stirred at the corners of his mouth; he goes to the door, opens it, and says to him: ‘Go, and do not come again… do not come at all… never, never!’ And he lets him out into ‘the dark squares of the city.’ The prisoner goes away.”

“And the old man?”

“The kiss burns in his heart, but the old man holds to his former idea.”

“And you along with him, you too?” Alyosha exclaimed sorrowfully. Ivan laughed.

“Why, this is all nonsense, Alyosha, it’s only the muddle-headed poem of a muddle-headed student who never wrote two lines of verse. Why take it so much to heart? You don’t imagine, do you, I’ll go straight off now to the Jesuits, to join the host of people correcting his deed? Oh, Lord, what do I care! I told you: if I can only last till thirty, and then—dash the cup to the floor!”

“And the sticky little leaves, and the precious graves, and the blue sky, and the woman you love! How are you going to live, what will you love them with?” Alyosha exclaimed sorrowfully. “With such a hell in your breast and in your head, is it possible? No, that is just why you are going, to join them… and if not, you will kill yourself, you won’t be able to bear it!”

“There is a force that can bear anything!” said Ivan, with a cold smirk now.

“What force?”

“The Karamazov… the force of the Karamazov baseness.”

“That means drowning in depravity, crushing your soul in corruption, yes, yes?”

“Perhaps that too… only until I’m thirty perhaps I’ll escape it, and then…”

“How will you escape it? By what means? It’s impossible with your ideas.”

“Again, in the Karamazov way.”

“You mean ‘everything is permitted’? Everything is permitted, is that it, is that it?”

Ivan frowned and suddenly turned somehow strangely pale.

“Ah, you’ve picked up the little word from yesterday that offended Miusov so… and that brother Dmitri jumped in and repeated so naively?” he grinned crookedly. “Yes, perhaps: ‘everything is permitted,’ since the word has been spoken. I don’t renounce it. And Mitenka’s version isn’t bad.”

Alyosha looked at him in silence.

“Going away, brother, I thought that in the whole world I had at least you,” Ivan suddenly said with unexpected feeling, “but now I see that there is no place for me in your heart either, my dear hermit. I won’t renounce the formula ‘everything is permitted,’ so what then, will you renounce me for it, yes, yes?”

Alyosha stood up, went over to him, and silently, gently kissed him on the lips.

“Literary theft!” cried Ivan, passing suddenly into a sort of rapture. “You’ve stolen it from my poem! Thanks all the same. Up you get, Alyosha, let’s go, it’s time for both of us.”

They went out, but stopped at the front steps of the tavern.

“Here’s the thing, Alyosha,” Ivan said in a firm voice. “If I really do have it in me to love the sticky little leaves, I shall love them only remembering you. It’s enough for me that you are here somewhere, and I won’t lose the wish to live. Is that enough for you? If you like, take it as a declaration of love. And now you go to the right, I’ll go to the left—and enough, do you hear, enough. That is, even if I didn’t leave tomorrow (it seems I’ll certainly leave) and we were somehow to meet again, then not another word to me on all these subjects. I earnestly ask you. And about brother Dmitri too, I especially ask you, don’t even bring him up with me ever again,” he suddenly added irritably. “It’s all been exhausted, all been talked over, hasn’t it? And I, for my part, will give you one promise in return: when at thirty I want to ‘dash the cup to the floor,’ then, wherever you may be, I’ll still come once more to talk things over with you… even from America, know that. I’ll come on purpose. It will be very interesting to have a look at you by that time, too: what will you be like then? You see, a rather solemn promise. And in fact we may be saying goodbye for seven years, or ten. Well, go now to your Pater Seraphicus, he’s dying, after all; if he dies without you, you may well be angry with me for having kept you. Goodbye, kiss me once more, like that, and go…”

Ivan suddenly turned and went his own way, without looking back anymore. It was like the way brother Dmitri had left Alyosha yesterday, though yesterday it had been in quite another mood. This strange little observation flashed like an arrow through Alyosha’s sad mind, sad and sorrowful at that moment. He waited a little, looking after his brother. For some reason he suddenly noticed that brother Ivan walked with a sort of sway and that his right shoulder, seen from behind, seemed lower than his left. He had never noticed this before. But suddenly he too turned and almost ran toward the monastery. It was already getting quite dark, and he felt almost frightened; something new was growing in him for which he could not have given an answer. The wind rose again as it had yesterday, and the ancient pines soughed gloomily around him as he entered the hermitage wood. He was almost running. “Pater Seraphicus—where did he get that name—from where?” flashed through Alyosha’s mind. “Ivan, poor Ivan, and when shall I see you now… Here is the hermitage, Lord! Yes, yes, it is he, it is Pater Seraphicus, he will save me… from him, and forever!”

Several times later in his life he recalled with great perplexity how he could, after parting with Ivan, so utterly forget about brother Dmitri, whom that morning, only a few hours before, he had resolved to seek out without fail, not leaving until he had found him, even if it meant not returning to the monastery that night.

Notes

1. 1. Fyodor Tyutchev (1803–1873), Russian poet; the four lines that follow close his poem “These Poor Villages” (1855).