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Rebellion I must make you one confession, Ivan began. I could never understand how one can love ones neighbours. Its just ones neighbours, to my mind, that one cant love, though one might love those at a distance. I once read somewhere of John the Merciful, a saint, that when a hungry, frozen beggar came to him, he took him into his bed, held him in his arms, and began breathing into his mouth, which was putrid and loathsome from some awful disease. I am convinced that he did that from self-laceration, from the self- laceration of falsity, for the sake of the charity imposed by duty, as a penance laid on him. For any one to love a man, he must be hidden, for as soon as he shows his face, love is gone. Father Zossima has talked of that more than once, observed Alyosha, he, too, said that the face of a man often hinders many people not practised in love, from loving him. But yet theres a great deal of love in mankind, and almost Christ-like love. I know that myself, Ivan. Well, I know nothing of it so far, and cant understand it, and the innumerable mass of mankind are with me there. The question is, whether thats due to mens bad qualities or whether its inherent in their nature. To my thinking, Christ-like love for men is a miracle impossible on earth. He was God. But we are not gods. Suppose I, for instance, suffer intensely. Another can never know how much I suffer, because he is another and not I. And whats more, a man is rarely ready to admit anothers suffering (as though it were a distinction). Why wont he admit it, do you think? Because I smell unpleasant, because I have a stupid face, because I once trod on his foot. Besides there is suffering and suffering; degrading, humiliating suffering such as humbles mehunger, for instance,my benefactor will perhaps allow me; but when you come to higher sufferingfor an idea, for instancehe will very rarely admit that, perhaps because my face strikes him as not at all what he fancies a man should have who suffers for an idea. And so he deprives me instantly of his favour, and not at all from badness of heart. Beggars, especially genteel beggars, ought never to show themselves, but to ask for charity through the newspapers. One can love ones neighbours in the abstract, or even at a distance, but at close quarters its almost impossible. If it were as on the stage, in the ballet, where if beggars come in, they wear silken rags and tattered lace and beg for alms dancing gracefully, then one might like looking at them. But even then we should not love them. But enough of that. I simply wanted to show you my point of view. I meant to speak of the suffering of mankind generally, but we had better confine ourselves to the sufferings of the children. That reduces the scope of my argument to a tenth of what it would be. Still wed better keep to the children, though it does weaken my case. But, in the first place, children can be loved even at close quarters, even when they are dirty, even when they are ugly (I fancy, though, children never are ugly). The second reason why I wont speak of grown-up people is that, besides being disgusting and unworthy of love, they have a compensationtheyve eaten the apple and know good and evil, and they have become like god. They go on eating it still. But the children havent eaten anything, and are so far innocent. Are you fond of children, Alyosha? I know you are, and you will understand why I prefer to speak of them. If they, too, suffer horribly on earth, they must suffer for their fathers sins, they must be punished for their fathers, who have eaten the apple; but that reasoning is of the other world and is incomprehensible for the heart of man here on earth. The innocent must not suffer for anothers sins, and especially such innocents! You may be surprised at me, Alyosha, but I am awfully fond of children, too. And observe, cruel people, the violent, the rapacious, the Karamazovs are sometimes very fond of children. Children while they are quite littleup to seven, for instanceare so remote from grown-up people; they are different creatures, as it were, of a different species. I knew a criminal in prison who had, in the course of his career as a burglar, murdered whole families, including several children. But when he was in prison, he had a strange affection for them. He spent all his time at his window, watching the children playing in the prison yard. He trained one little boy to come up to his window and made great friends with him. You dont know why I am telling you all this, Alyosha? My head aches and I am sad. You speak with a strange air, observed Alyosha uneasily, as though you were not quite yourself. By the way, a Bulgarian I met lately in Moscow, Ivan went on, seeming not to hear his brothers words, told me about the crimes committed by Turks and Circassians in all parts of Bulgaria through fear of a general rising of the Slavs. They burn villages, murder, outrage women and children, they nail their prisoners by the ears to the fences, leave them so till morning, and in the morning they hang themall |
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