There were such men then.So our general, settled on his property of two thousand souls, lives in pomp, and domineers over his poor neighbours as though they were dependents and buffoons.He has kennels of hundreds of hounds and nearly a hundred dog-boys- all mounted, and in uniform.One day a serf-boy, a little child of eight, threw a stone in play and hurt the paw of the general's favourite hound.
'Why is my favourite dog lame?' He is told that the boy threw a stone that hurt the dog's paw.'So you did it.' The general looked the child up and down.'Take him.' He was taken- taken from his mother and kept shut up all night.Early that morning the general comes out on horseback, with the hounds, his dependents, dog-boys, and huntsmen, all mounted around him in full hunting parade.The servants are summoned for their edification, and in front of them all stands the mother of the child.The child is brought from the lock-up.It's a gloomy, cold, foggy, autumn day, a capital day for hunting.The general orders the child to be undressed; the child is stripped naked.
He shivers, numb with terror, not daring to cry....'Make him run,'
commands the general.'Run! run!' shout the dog-boys.The boy runs....
'At him!' yells the general, and he sets the whole pack of hounds on the child.The hounds catch him, and tear him to pieces before his mother's eyes!...I believe the general was afterwards declared incapable of administering his estates.Well- what did he deserve?
To be shot? To be shot for the satisfaction of our moral feelings?
Speak, Alyosha!
"To be shot," murmured Alyosha, lifting his eyes to Ivan with a pale, twisted smile.
"Bravo!" cried Ivan delighted."If even you say so...You're a pretty monk! So there is a little devil sitting in your heart, Alyosha Karamazov!""What I said was absurd, but-"
"That's just the point, that 'but'!" cried Ivan."Let me tell you, novice, that the absurd is only too necessary on earth.The world stands on absurdities, and perhaps nothing would have come to pass in it without them.We know what we know!""What do you know?"
"I understand nothing," Ivan went on, as though in delirium."Idon't want to understand anything now.I want to stick to the fact.
I made up my mind long ago not to understand.If I try to understand anything, I shall be false to the fact, and I have determined to stick to the fact.""Why are you trying me?" Alyosha cried, with sudden distress.
"Will you say what you mean at last?"
"Of course, I will; that's what I've been leading up to.You are dear to me, I don't want to let you go, and I won't give you up to your Zossima."Ivan for a minute was silent, his face became all at once very sad.
"Listen! I took the case of children only to make my case clearer.
Of the other tears of humanity with which the earth is soaked from its crust to its centre, I will say nothing.I have narrowed my subject on purpose.I am a bug, and I recognise in all humility that I cannot understand why the world is arranged as it is.Men are themselves to blame, I suppose; they were given paradise, they wanted *******, and stole fire from heaven, though they knew they would become unhappy, so there is no need to pity them.With my pitiful, earthly, Euclidian understanding, all I know is that there is suffering and that there are none guilty; that cause follows effect, simply and directly;that everything flows and finds its level- but that's only Euclidian nonsense, I know that, and I can't consent to live by it! What comfort is it to me that there are none guilty and that cause follows effect simply and directly, and that I know it?- I must have justice, or Iwill destroy myself.And not justice in some remote infinite time and space, but here on earth, and that I could see myself.I have believed in it.I want to see it, and if I am dead by then, let me rise again, for if it all happens without me, it will be too unfair.
Surely I haven't suffered simply that I, my crimes and my sufferings, may manure the soil of the future harmony for somebody else.I want to see with my own eyes the hind lie down with the lion and the victim rise up and embrace his murderer.I want to be there when everyone suddenly understands what it has all been for.All the religions of the world are built on this longing, and I am a believer.
But then there are the children, and what am I to do about them?