0 The Brothers Karamazov‘What, don’t you believe in God?’
‘Oh, I’ve nothing against God. Of course, God is only a
hypothesis, but... I admit that He is needed... for the order
of the universe and all that... and that if there were no God
He would have to be invented,’ added Kolya, beginning to
blush. He suddenly fancied that Alyosha might think he
was trying to show off his knowledge and to prove that he
was ‘grown up.’ ‘I haven’t the slightest desire to show off my
knowledge to him,’ Kolya thought indignantly. And all of a
sudden he felt horribly annoyed.
‘I must confess I can’t endure entering on such discus-
sions,’ he said with a final air. ‘It’s possible for one who
doesn’t believe in God to love mankind, don’t you think so?
Voltaire didn’t believe in God and loved mankind?’ (“I am
at it again,’ he thought to himself.)
‘Voltaire believed in God, though not very much, I think,
and I don’t think he loved mankind very much either,’ said
Alyosha quietly, gently, and quite naturally, as though he
were talking to someone of his own age, or even older. Kolya
was particularly struck by Alyosha’s apparent diffidence
about his opinion of Voltaire. He seemed to be leaving the
question for him, little Kolya, to settle.
‘Have you read Voltaire?’ Alyosha finished.
‘No, not to say read.... But I’ve read Candide in the Rus-
sian translation... in an absurd, grotesque, old translation..
(At it again! again!)’
‘And did you understand it?’
‘Oh, yes, everything.... That is... Why do you suppose I
shouldn’t understand it? There’s a lot of nastiness in it, of