Free eBooks at Planet eBook.com Alyosha’s heart.
The arrival of his two brothers, whom he had not known
till then, seemed to make a great impression on Alyosha.
He more quickly made friends with his half-brother Dmitri
(though he arrived later) than with his own brother Ivan.
He was extremely interested in his brother Ivan, but when
the latter had been two months in the town, though they
had met fairly often, they were still not intimate. Alyosha
was naturally silent, and he seemed to be expecting some-
thing, ashamed about something, while his brother Ivan,
though Alyosha noticed at first that he looked long and cu-
riously at him, seemed soon to have left off thinking of him.
Alyosha noticed it with some embarrassment. He ascribed
his brother’s indifference at first to the disparity of their age
and education. But he also wondered whether the absence
of curiosity and sympathy in Ivan might be due to some
other cause entirely unknown to him. He kept fancying
that Ivan was absorbed in something — something inward
and important — that he was striving towards some goal,
perhaps very hard to attain, and that that was why he had
no thought for him. Alyosha wondered, too, whether there
was not some contempt on the part of the learned atheist for
him — a foolish novice. He knew for certain that his brother
was an atheist. He could not take offence at this contempt, if
it existed; yet, with an uneasy embarrassment which he did
not himself understand, he waited for his brother to come
nearer to him. Dmitri used to speak of Ivan with the deepest
respect and with a peculiar earnestness. From him Alyo-
sha learnt all the details of the important affair which had