10 0 The Brothers Karamazov
the grating. ‘Why, my daughter, have you fallen again al-
ready?’ cries the priest: ‘O Sancta Maria, what do I hear! Not
the same man this time, how long is this going on? Aren’t
you ashamed!’ ‘Ah, mon pere,’ answers the sinner with tears
of penitence, ‘Ca lui fait tant de plaisir, et a moi si peu de pe-
ine!’* Fancy, such an answer! I drew back. It was the cry of
nature, better than innocence itself, if you like. I absolved
her sin on the spot and was turning to go, but I was forced
to turn back. I heard the priest at the grating making an
appointment with her for the evening — though he was an
old man hard as flint, he fell in an instant! It was nature,
the truth of nature asserted its rights! What, you are turn-
ing up your nose again? Angry again? I don’t know how to
please you-.’
- Ah, my father, this gives him so much pleasure, and me
so little pain!
‘Leave me alone, you are beating on my brain like a haunt-
ing nightmare,’ Ivan moaned miserably, helpless before his
apparition. ‘I am bored with you, agonisingly and insuffer-
ably. I would give anything to be able to shake you off!’
‘I repeat, moderate your expectations, don’t demand of
me ‘everything great and noble,’ and you’ll see how well we
shall get on,’ said the gentleman impressively. ‘You are really
angry with me for not having appeared to you in a red glow,
with thunder and lightning, with scorched wings, but have
shown myself in such a modest form. You are wounded, in
the first place, in your asthetic feelings, and, secondly, in
your pride. How could such a vulgar devil visit such a great
man as you! Yes, there is that romantic strain in you, that