“But what does that matter to you and me?” Ivan laughed. “We still have time for our talk, for what brought us together here. Why do you look surprised? Tell me, what did we meet here for? To talk about loving Katerina Ivanovna, or about the old man and Dmitri? About going abroad? About the fatal situation in Russia? About the emperor Napoleon? Was it really for that?”
“No, not that.”
“So you know yourself what for. Some people need one thing, but we green youths need another, we need first of all to resolve the everlasting questions, that is what concerns us. All of young Russia is talking now only about the eternal questions. Precisely now, just when all the old men have suddenly gotten into practical questions. Why have you been looking at me so expectantly for these three months? In order to ask me: And how believest thou, if thou believest anything at all?’[129] That is what your three months of looking come down to, is it not, Alexei Fyodorovich?”
“Maybe so,” Alyosha smiled. “You’re not laughing at me now, brother?”
“Me, laughing? I wouldn’t want to upset my little brother who has been looking at me for three months with so much expectation. Look me in the eye, Alyosha: I’m exactly the same little boy as you are, except that I’m not a novice. How have Russian boys handled things up to now? Some of them, that is. Take, for instance, some stinking local tavern. They meet there and settle down in a corner. They’ve never seen each other before in their whole lives, and when they walk out of the tavern, they won’t see each other again for forty years. Well, then, what are they going to argue about, seizing this moment in the tavern? About none other than the universal questions: is there a God, is there immortality? And those who do not believe in God, well, they will talk about socialism and anarchism, about transforming the whole of mankind according to a new order, but it’s the same damned thing, the questions are all the same, only from the other end. And many, many of the most original Russian boys do nothing but talk about the eternal questions, now, in our time. Isn’t it so?”
“Yes, for real Russians the questions of the existence of God and immortality, or, as you just said, the same questions from the other end, are of course first and foremost, and they should be,” Alyosha spoke, looking intently at his brother with the same quiet and searching smile.
“You see, Alyosha, sometimes it’s not at all smart to be a Russian, but still it’s even impossible to imagine anything more foolish than what Russian boys are doing now. Though I’m terribly fond of one Russian boy named Alyoshka.”
“Nicely rounded off,” Alyosha laughed suddenly.
“Now, tell me where to begin, give the order yourself—with God? The existence of God? Or what?”
“Begin with whatever you like, even ‘from the other end.’ You did proclaim yesterday at father’s that there is no God,” Alyosha looked searchingly at his brother.
“I said that on purpose yesterday, at dinner with the old man, just to tease you, and I saw how your eyes glowed. But now I don’t mind at all discussing things with you, and I say it very seriously. I want to get close to you, Alyosha, because I have no friends. I want to try. Well, imagine that perhaps I, too, accept God,” Ivan laughed, “that comes as a surprise to you, eh?”
“Yes, of course, unless you’re joking again.”
