.
Grigory had gone in the morning to make purchases, and had heard from the
shopkeeper Lukyanov the story of a Russian soldier which had appeared in
the newspaper of that day. This soldier had been taken prisoner in some
remote part of Asia, and was threatened with an immediate agonizing death
if he did not renounce Christianity and follow Islam. He refused to deny
his faith, and was tortured, flayed alive, and died, praising and
glorifying Christ. Grigory had related the story at table. Fyodor
Pavlovitch always liked, over the dessert after dinner, to laugh and talk,
if only with Grigory. This afternoon he was in a particularly good-humored
and expansive mood. Sipping his brandy and listening to the story, he
observed that they ought to make a saint of a soldier like that, and to
take his skin to some monastery. "That would make the people flock, and
bring the money in."

Grigory frowned, seeing that Fyodor Pavlovitch was by no means touched,
but, as usual, was beginning to scoff. At that moment Smerdyakov, who was
standing by the door, smiled. Smerdyakov often waited at table towards the
end of dinner, and since Ivan's arrival in our town he had done so every
day.

"What are you grinning at?" asked Fyodor Pavlovitch, catching the smile
instantly, and knowing that it referred to Grigory.

"Well, my opinion is," Smerdyakov began suddenly and unexpectedly in a
loud voice, "that if that laudable soldier's exploit was so very great
there would have been, to my thinking, no sin in it if he had on such an
emergency renounced, so to speak, the name of Christ and his own
christening, to save by that same his life, for good deeds, by which, in
the course of years to expiate his cowardice."

"How could it not be a sin? You're talking nonsense. For that you'll go
straight to hell and be roasted there like mutton," put in Fyodor
Pavlovitch.

It was at this point that Alyosha came in, and Fyodor Pavlovitch, as we
have seen, was highly delighted at his appearance.

"We're on your subject, your subject," he chuckled gleefully, making
Alyosha sit down to listen.

"As for mutton, that's not so, and there'll be nothing there for this, and
there shouldn't be either, if it's according to justice," Smerdyakov
maintained stoutly.

"How do you mean 'according to justice'?" Fyodor Pavlovitch cried still
more gayly, nudging Alyosha with his knee.

"He's a rascal, that's what he is!" burst from Grigory. He looked
Smerdyakov wrathful