nt fancy,
or some mistake of the old man, an impossible quid pro quo?"

"Let it be the latter, if you like," laughed Ivan, "since modern
realism has so perverted your taste that you feel unable to
realize anything from the world of fancy.... Let it be a quid pro
quo, if you so choose it. Again, the Inquisitor is ninety years
old, and he might have easily gone mad with his one idee fixe of
power; or, it might have as well been a delirious vision, called
forth by dying fancy, overheated by the auto-da-fe of the hundred
heretics in that forenoon.... But what matters for the poem,
whether it was a quid pro quo or an uncontrollable fancy? The
question is, that the old man has to open his heart; that he must
give out his thought at last; and that the hour has come when he
does speak it out, and says loudly that which for ninety years he
has kept secret within his own breast."

"And his prisoner, does He never reply? Does He keep silent,
looking at him, without saying a word?"

"Of course; and it could not well be otherwise," again retorted
Ivan. "The Grand Inquisitor begins from his very first words by
telling Him that He has no right to add one syllable to that which
He had said before. To make the situation clear at once, the above
preliminary monologue is intended to convey to the reader the very
fundamental idea which underlies Roman Catholicism--as well as I
can convey it, his words mean, in short: 'Everything was given
over by Thee to the Pope, and everything now rests with him alone;
Thou hast no business to return and thus hinder us in our work.'
In this sense the Jesuits not only talk but write likewise.

"'Hast thou the right to divulge to us a single one of the
mysteries of that world whence Thou comest?' enquires of Him my
old Inquisitor, and forthwith answers for Him. 'Nay, Thou has no
such right. For, that would be adding to that which was already
said by Thee before; hence depriving people of that freedom for
which Thou hast so stoutly stood up while yet on earth....
Anything new that Thou would now proclaim would have to be
regarded as an attempt to interfere with that freedom of choice,
as it would come as a new and a miraculous revelation superseding
the old revelation of fifteen hundred years ago, when Thou didst
so repeatedly tell the people: "The truth shall make you free."
Behold then, Thy "free" people now!' adds the old man with sombre
irony. 'Yea!... it has cost us dearly.' he continues, sternly