re, and then another, and then I'll stop. No,
stay, you interrupted me. At Mokroe I was talking to an old man, and he
told me: 'There's nothing we like so much as sentencing girls to be
thrashed, and we always give the lads the job of thrashing them. And the
girl he has thrashed to-day, the young man will ask in marriage to-morrow.
So it quite suits the girls, too,' he said. There's a set of de Sades for
you! But it's clever, anyway. Shall we go over and have a look at it, eh?
Alyosha, are you blushing? Don't be bashful, child. I'm sorry I didn't
stay to dinner at the Superior's and tell the monks about the girls at
Mokroe. Alyosha, don't be angry that I offended your Superior this
morning. I lost my temper. If there is a God, if He exists, then, of
course, I'm to blame, and I shall have to answer for it. But if there
isn't a God at all, what do they deserve, your fathers? It's not enough to
cut their heads off, for they keep back progress. Would you believe it,
Ivan, that that lacerates my sentiments? No, you don't believe it as I see
from your eyes. You believe what people say, that I'm nothing but a
buffoon. Alyosha, do you believe that I'm nothing but a buffoon?"

"No, I don't believe it."

"And I believe you don't, and that you speak the truth. You look sincere
and you speak sincerely. But not Ivan. Ivan's supercilious.... I'd make an
end of your monks, though, all the same. I'd take all that mystic stuff
and suppress it, once for all, all over Russia, so as to bring all the
fools to reason. And the gold and the silver that would flow into the
mint!"

"But why suppress it?" asked Ivan.

"That Truth may prevail. That's why."

"Well, if Truth were to prevail, you know, you'd be the first to be robbed
and suppressed."

"Ah! I dare say you're right. Ah, I'm an ass!" burst out Fyodor
Pavlovitch, striking himself lightly on the forehead. "Well, your
monastery may stand then, Alyosha, if that's how it is. And we clever
people will sit snug and enjoy our brandy. You know, Ivan, it must have
been so ordained by the Almighty Himself. Ivan, speak, is there a God or
not? Stay, speak the truth, speak seriously. Why are you laughing again?"

"I'm laughing that you should have made a clever remark just now about
Smerdyakov's belief in the existence of two saints who could move
mountains."

"Why, am I like him now, then?"

"Very much."

"Well, that shows I'm a Russian, too, and I have a Russian characteristic.
And you