The Brothers Karamazovconceited coxcomb, but he has no particular learning... nor
education either. He sits silent and smiles at one without
speaking — that’s what pulls him through.’
Alyosha listened to him in silence.
‘Why won’t he talk to me? If he does speak, he gives him-
self airs. Your Ivan is a scoundrel! And I’ll marry Grushenka
in a minute if I want to. For if you’ve money, Alexey Fyodo-
rovitch, you have only to want a thing and you can have it.
That’s what Ivan is afraid of, he is on the watch to prevent
me getting married and that’s why he is egging on Mitya
to marry Grushenka himself. He hopes to keep me from
Grushenka by that (as though I should leave him my money
if I don’t marry her!). Besides if Mitya marries Grushenka,
Ivan will carry off his rich betrothed, that’s what he’s reck-
oning on! He is a scoundrel, your Ivan!’
‘How cross you are! It’s because of yesterday; you had
better lie down,’ said Alyosha.
‘There! you say that,’ the old man observed suddenly, as
though it had struck him for the first time, ‘and I am not an-
gry with you. But if Ivan said it, I should be angry with him.
It is only with you I have good moments, else you know I am
an ill-natured man.’
‘You are not ill-natured, but distorted,’ said Alyosha with
a smile.
‘Listen. I meant this morning to get that ruffian Mitya
locked up and I don’t know now what I shall decide about it.
Of course in these fashionable days fathers and mothers are
looked upon as a prejudice, but even now the law does not
allow you to drag your old father about by the hair, to kick