The Brothers Karamazov
to himself. The man who lies to himself can be more eas-
ily offended than anyone. You know it is sometimes very
pleasant to take offence, isn’t it? A man may know that no-
body has insulted him, but that he has invented the insult
for himself, has lied and exaggerated to make it picturesque,
has caught at a word and made a mountain out of a mole-
hill — he knows that himself, yet he will be the first to take
offence, and will revel in his resentment till he feels great
pleasure in it, and so pass to genuine vindictiveness. But
get up, sit down, I beg you. All this, too, is deceitful postur-
ing...’
‘Blessed man! Give me your hand to kiss.’
Fyodor Pavlovitch skipped up, and imprinted a rapid
kiss on the elder’s thin hand. ‘It is, it is pleasant to take of-
fence. You said that so well, as I never heard it before. Yes, I
have been all my life taking offence, to please myself, taking
offence on aesthetic grounds, for it is not so much pleas-
ant as distinguished sometimes to be insulted — that you
had forgotten, great elder, it is distinguished! I shall make
a note of that. But I have been lying, lying positively my
whole life long, every day and hour of it. Of a truth, I am a
lie, and the father of lies. Though I believe I am not the fa-
ther of lies. I am getting mixed in my texts. Say, the son of
lies, and that will be enough. Only... my angel... may some-
times talk about Diderot! Diderot will do no harm, though
sometimes a word will do harm. Great elder, by the way, I
was forgetting, though I had been meaning for the last two
years to come here on purpose to ask and to find out some-
thing. Only do tell Pyotr Alexandrovitch not to interrupt