“Tantamount, it may be tantamount, but consider for yourself, Grigory Vasilievich, that if it is tantamount, it makes things easier. Because if I then believed in very truth, as one ought to believe, then it would really be sinful if I did not endure torments for my faith but converted to the unclean Mohammedan faith. But then it wouldn’t even come to torments, sir, for if at that moment I were to say unto that mountain: ‘Move and crush my tormentor,’ it would move and in that same moment crush him like a cockroach, and I would go off as if nothing had happened, praising and glorifying God. But if precisely at that moment I tried all that, and deliberately cried unto that mountain: ‘Crush my tormentors’—and it didn’t crush them, then how, tell me, should I not doubt then, in such a terrible hour of great mortal fear? I’d know even without that that I wasn’t going to reach the fullness of the Kingdom of Heaven (because the mountain didn’t move at my word, so they must not trust much in my faith there, and no very great reward awaits me in the other world), so why, on top of that, should I let myself be flayed to no purpose? Because even if my back were already half flayed, that mountain still wouldn’t move at my word or cry. In such moments, you can not only get overcome by doubt, you can even lose your mind itself from fear, so it would be quite impossible to reason. And so, why should I come out looking so specially to blame, if, seeing no profit or reward either here or there, I at least keep my skin on? And therefore, trusting greatly in the mercy of God, I live in hopes that I’ll be completely forgiven, sir.”
Chapter 8:
The dispute was over, but, strangely, Fyodor Pavlovich, who had been laughing so much, in the end suddenly frowned. He frowned and tossed off a glass of cognac, which was quite superfluous.
“Clear out, Jesuits, out!” he shouted at the servants. “Go, Smerdyakov. That gold piece I promised, I’ll send you today, but go now. Don’t cry, Gri-gory, go to Marfa, she’ll comfort you, she’ll put you to bed.
“Nothing whatever,” the latter replied. “He has taken to respecting me; he’s a lackey and a boor. Prime cannon fodder, however, when the time comes.”
“Prime?”
“There will be others and better ones, but there will be his kind as well. First his kind, and then the better ones.”
“And when will the time come?”
“The rocket will go off, but it may fizzle out. So far the people do not much like listening to these broth-makers.”
“That’s just it, my friend, a Balaam’s ass like him thinks and thinks, and the devil knows what he’s going to think up for himself.”
“He’s storing up his thoughts,” Ivan smirked.
“You see, I for one know that he can’t stand me, or anybody else, including you, though you imagine he’s ‘taken to respecting you.’ Still less Alyoshka, he despises Alyoshka. Yet he doesn’t steal, that’s the thing, he’s not a gossip, he keeps his mouth shut, he won’t wash our dirty linen in public, he makes great cabbage pies, and furthermore to hell with him, really, is he worth talking about?”
“Of course not.”
“As to what he’s going to think up for himself, generally speaking, the Russian peasant should be whipped. I have always maintained that. Our peasants are cheats, they’re not worth our pity, and it’s good that they’re still sometimes given a birching. The strength of the Russian land is in its birches. If the forests were destroyed, it would be the end of the Russian land. I stand with the men of intelligence. In our great intelligence, we’ve stopped flogging our peasants, but they go on whipping themselves. And right they are. For as you measure, so it will be measured, or however it goes . . .[101] In short, it will be measured. And Russia is all swinishness. My friend, if only you knew how I hate Russia ... that is, not Russia, but all this vice ... and maybe Russia, too.
“You’ve had another glass. That’s enough, now.”
