1 The Brothers Karamazov
lovitch once more. ‘Ivan, your ear again.’
Ivan bent down again with a perfectly grave face.
‘I love you as I do Alyosha. Don’t think I don’t love you.
Some brandy?’
‘Yes. — But you’re rather drunk yourself,’ thought Ivan,
looking steadily at his father.
He was watching Smerdyakov with great curiosity.
‘You’re anathema accursed, as it is, Grigory suddenly
burst out, ‘and how dare you argue, you rascal, after that,
if — ‘
‘Don’t scold him, Grigory, don’t scold him,’ Fyodor Pav-
lovitch cut him short.
‘You should wait, Grigory Vassilyevitch, if only a short
time, and listen, for I haven’t finished all I had to say. For at
the very moment I become accursed, at that same highest
moment, I become exactly like a heathen, and my christen-
ing is taken off me and becomes of no avail. Isn’t that so?’
‘Make haste and finish, my boy,’ Fyodor Pavlovitch urged
him, sipping from his wineglass with relish.
‘And if I’ve ceased to be a Christian, then I told no lie to
the enemy when they asked whether I was a Christian or
not a Christian, seeing I had already been relieved by God
Himself of my Christianity by reason of the thought alone,
before I had time to utter a word to the enemy. And if I have
already been discharged, in what manner and with what sort
of justice can I be held responsible as a Christian in the oth-
er world for having denied Christ, when, through the very
thought alone, before denying Him I had been relieved from
my christening? If I’m no longer a Christian, then I can’t re-