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it to myself. Do you know, Alyosha,’ Ivan added in an in-
tensely earnest and confidential tone, ‘I should be awfully
glad to think that it was he and not I.’
‘He has worn you out,’ said Alyosha, looking compas-
sionately at his brother.
‘He’s been teasing me. And you know he does it so clever-
ly, so cleverly. ‘Conscience! What is conscience? I make it up
for myself. Why am I tormented by it? From habit. From the
universal habit of mankind for the seven thousand years.
So let us give it up, and we shall be gods.’ It was he said that,
it was he said that!’
‘And not you, not you?’ Alyosha could not help crying,
looking frankly at his brother. ‘Never mind him, anyway;
have done with him and forget him. And let him take with
him all that you curse now, and never come back!’
‘Yes, but he is spiteful. He laughed at me. He was impu-
dent, Alyosha,’ Ivan said, with a shudder of offence. ‘But he
was unfair to me, unfair to me about lots of things. He told
lies about me to my face. ‘Oh, you are going to perform an
act of heroic virtue: to confess you murdered your father,
that the valet murdered him at your instigation.’’
‘Brother,’ Alyosha interposed, ‘restrain yourself. It was
not you murdered him. It’s not true!’
‘That’s what he says, he, and he knows it. ‘You are going
to perform an act of heroic virtue, and you don’t believe in
virtue; that’s what tortures you and makes you angry, that’s
why you are so vindictive.’ He said that to me about me and
he knows what he says.’
‘It’s you say that, not he,’ exclaimed Alyosha mournfully,

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