The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky (easy to read books for adults list .txt) 📕

come to you,” he continued. “Tell me, please, that is if you are not

annoyed by my perhaps unseemly curiosity, what were your exact

sensations, if you can recall them, at the moment when you made up

your mind to ask forgiveness at the duel. Do not think my question

frivolous; on the contrary, I have in asking the question a secret

motive of my own, which I will perhaps explain to you later on, if

it is God’s will that we should become more intimately acquainted.”

All the while he was speaking, I was looking at him straight

into the face and I felt all at once a complete trust in him and great

curiosity on my side also, for I felt that there was some strange

secret in his soul.

“You ask what were my exact sensations at the moment when I

asked my opponent’s forgiveness,” I answered; “but I had better tell

you from the beginning what I have not yet told anyone else.” And I

described all that had passed between Afanasy and me, and how I had

bowed down to the ground at his feet. “From that you can see for

yourself,” I concluded, “that at the time of the duel it was easier

for me, for I had made a beginning already at home, and when once I

had started on that road, to go farther along it was far from being

difficult, but became a source of joy and happiness.”

I liked the way he looked at me as he listened. “All that,” he

said, “is exceedingly interesting. I will come to see you again and

again.”

And from that time forth he came to see me nearly every evening.

And we should have become greater friends, if only he had ever

talked of himself. But about himself he scarcely ever said a word, yet

continually asked me about myself. In spite of that I became very fond

of him and spoke with perfect frankness to him about all my

feelings; “for,” thought I, “what need have I to know his secrets,

since I can see without that that is a good man? Moreover, though he

is such a serious man and my senior, he comes to see a youngster

like me and treats me as his equal.” And I learned a great deal that

was profitable from him, for he was a man of lofty mind.

“That life is heaven,” he said to me suddenly, “that I have long

been thinking about”; and all at once he added, “I think of nothing

else indeed.” He looked at me and smiled. “I am more convinced of it

than you are, I will tell you later why.”

I listened to him and thought that he evidently wanted to tell

me something.

“Heaven,” he went on, “lies hidden within all of us-here it

lies hidden in me now, and if I will it, it will be revealed to me

to-morrow and for all time.”

I looked at him; he was speaking with great emotion and gazing

mysteriously at me, as if he were questioning me.

“And that we are all responsible to all for all, apart from our

own sins, you were quite right in thinking that, and it is wonderful

how you could comprehend it in all its significance at once. And in

very truth, so soon as men understand that, the Kingdom of Heaven will

be for them not a dream, but a living reality.”

“And when,” I cried out to him bitterly, “when will that come to

pass? and will it ever come to pass? Is not it simply a dream of

ours?”

“What then, you don’t believe it,” he said. “You preach it and

don’t believe it yourself. Believe me, this dream, as you call it,

will come to pass without doubt; it will come, but not now, for

every process has its law. It’s a spiritual, psychological process. To

transform the world, to recreate it afresh, men must turn into another

path psychologically. Until you have become really, in actual fact,

a brother to everyone, brotherhood will not come to pass. No sort of

scientific teaching, no kind of common interest, will ever teach men

to share property and privileges with equal consideration for all.

Everyone will think his share too small and they will be always

envying, complaining and attacking one another. You ask when it will

come to pass; it will come to pass, but first we have to go though the

period of isolation.”

“What do you mean by isolation?” I asked him.

“Why, the isolation that prevails everywhere, above all in our

age-it has not fully developed, it has not reached its limit yet. For

everyone strives to keep his individuality as apart as possible,

wishes to secure the greatest possible fullness of life for himself;

but meantime all his efforts result not in attaining fullness of

life but self-destruction, for instead of self-realisation he ends

by arriving at complete solitude. All mankind in our age have split up

into units, they all keep apart, each in his own groove; each one

holds aloof, hides himself and hides what he has, from the rest, and

he ends by being repelled by others and repelling them. He heaps up

riches by himself and thinks, ‘How strong I am now and how secure,’

and in his madness he does not understand that the more he heaps up,

the more he sinks into self-destructive impotence. For he is

accustomed to rely upon himself alone and to cut himself off from

the whole; he has trained himself not to believe in the help of

others, in men and in humanity, and only trembles for fear he should

lose his money and the privileges that he has won for himself.

Everywhere in these days men have, in their mockery, ceased to

understand that the true security is to be found in social

solidarity rather than in isolated individual effort. But this

terrible individualism must inevitably have an end, and all will

suddenly understand how unnaturally they are separated from one

another. It will be the spirit of the time, and people will marvel

that they have sat so long in darkness without seeing the light. And

then the sign of the Son of Man will be seen in the heavens…. But,

until then, we must keep the banner flying. Sometimes even if he has

to do it alone, and his conduct seems to be crazy, a man must set an

example, and so draw men’s souls out of their solitude, and spur

them to some act of brotherly love, that the great idea may not die.”

Our evenings, one after another, were spent in such stirring and

fervent talk. I gave up society and visited my neighbours much less

frequently. Besides, my vogue was somewhat over. I say this, not as

blame, for they still loved me and treated me good-humouredly, but

there’s no denying that fashion is a great power in society. I began

to regard my mysterious visitor with admiration, for besides

enjoying his intelligence, I began to perceive that he was brooding

over some plan in his heart, and was preparing himself perhaps for a

great deed. Perhaps he liked my not showing curiosity about his

secret, not seeking to discover it by direct question nor by

insinuation. But I noticed at last, that he seemed to show signs of

wanting to tell me something. This had become quite evident, indeed,

about a month after he first began to visit me.

“Do you know,” he said to me once, “that people are very

inquisitive about us in the town and wonder why I come to see you so

often. But let them wonder, for soon all will be explained.”

Sometimes an extraordinary agitation would come over him, and

almost always on such occasions he would get up and go away. Sometimes

he would fix a long piercing look upon me, and I thought, “He will say

something directly now.” But he would suddenly begin talking of

something ordinary and familiar. He often complained of headache too.

One day, quite unexpectedly indeed, after he had been talking with

great fervour a long time, I saw him suddenly turn pale, and his

face worked convulsively, while he stared persistently at me.

“What’s the matter?” I said; “do you feel ill?”- he had just

been complaining of headache.

“I… do you know… I murdered someone.”

He said this and smiled with a face as white as chalk. “Why is

it he is smiling?” The thought flashed through my mind before I

realised anything else. I too turned pale.

“What are you saying?” I cried.

“You see,” he said, with a pale smile, “how much it has cost me to

say the first word. Now I have said it, I feel I’ve taken the first

step and shall go on.”

For a long while I could not believe him, and I did not believe

him at that time, but only after he had been to see me three days

running and told me all about it. I thought he was mad, but ended by

being convinced, to my great grief and amazement. His crime was a

great and terrible one.

Fourteen years before, he had murdered the widow of a landowner, a

wealthy and handsome young woman who had a house in our town. He

fell passionately in love with her, declared his feeling and tried

to persuade her to marry him. But she had already given her heart to

another man, an officer of noble birth and high rank in the service,

who was at that time away at the front, though she was expecting him

soon to return. She refused his offer and begged him not to come and

see her. After he had ceased to visit her, he took advantage of his

knowledge of the house to enter at night through the garden by the

roof, at great risk of discovery. But, as often happens, a crime

committed with extraordinary audacity is more successful than others.

Entering the garret through the skylight, he went down the ladder,

knowing that the door at the bottom of it was sometimes, through the

negligence of the servants, left unlocked. He hoped to find it so, and

so it was. He made his way in the dark to her bedroom, where a light

was burning. As though on purpose, both her maids had gone off to a

birthday party in the same street, without asking leave. The other

servants slept in the servants’ quarters or in the kitchen on the

ground floor. His passion flamed up at the sight of her asleep, and

then vindictive, jealous anger took possession of his heart, and

like a drunken man, beside himself, he thrust a knife into her

heart, so that she did not even cry out. Then with devilish and

criminal cunning he contrived that suspicion should fall on the

servants. He was so base as to take her purse, to open her chest

with keys from under her pillow, and to take some things from it,

doing it all as it might have been done by an ignorant servant,

leaving valuable papers and taking only money. He took some of the

larger gold things, but left smaller articles that were ten times as

valuable. He took with him, too, some things for himself as

remembrances, but of that later. Having done this awful deed. he

returned by the way he had come.

Neither the next day, when the alarm was raised, nor at any time

after in his life, did anyone dream of suspecting that he was the

criminal. No one indeed knew of