At that moment a Turk points a pistol four inches from the baby's face.The baby laughs with glee, holds out its little hands to the pistol, and he pulls the trigger in the baby's face and blows out its brains.Artistic, wasn't it? By the way, Turks are particularly fond of sweet things, they say.""Brother, what are you driving at?" asked Alyosha.
"I think if the devil doesn't exist, but man has created him, he has created him in his own image and likeness.""Just as he did God, then?" observed Alyosha.
"'It's wonderful how you can turn words,' as Polonius says in Hamlet," laughed Ivan."You turn my words against me.Well, I am glad.
Yours must be a fine God, if man created Him in his image and likeness.You asked just now what I was driving at.You see, I am fond of collecting certain facts, and, would you believe, I even copy anecdotes of a certain sort from newspapers and books, and I've already got a fine collection.The Turks, of course, have gone into it, but they are foreigners.I have specimens from home that are even better than the Turks.You know we prefer beating- rods and scourges- that's our national institution.Nailing ears is unthinkable for us, for we are, after all, Europeans.But the rod and the scourge we have always with us and they cannot be taken from us.
Abroad now they scarcely do any beating.Manners are more humane, or laws have been passed, so that they don't dare to flog men now.But they make up for it in another way just as national as ours.And so national that it would be practically impossible among us, though Ibelieve we are being inoculated with it, since the religious movement began in our aristocracy.I have a charming pamphlet, translated from the French, describing how, quite recently, five years ago, a murderer, Richard, was executed- a young man, I believe, of three and twenty, who repented and was converted to the Christian faith at the very scaffold.This Richard was an illegitimate child who was given as a child of six by his parents to some shepherds on the Swiss mountains.They brought him up to work for them.He grew up like a little wild beast among them.The shepherds taught him nothing, and scarcely fed or clothed him, but sent him out at seven to herd the flock in cold and wet, and no one hesitated or scrupled to treat him so.Quite the contrary, they thought they had every right, for Richard had been given to them as a chattel, and they did not even see the necessity of feeding him.Richard himself describes how in those years, like the Prodigal Son in the Gospel, he longed to eat of the mash given to the pigs, which were fattened for sale.But they wouldn't even give that, and beat him when he stole from the pigs.And that was how he spent all his childhood and his youth, till he grew up and was strong enough to go away and be a thief.The savage began to earn his living as a day labourer in Geneva.He drank what he earned, he lived like a brute, and finished by killing and robbing an old man.He was caught, tried, and condemned to death.They are not sentimentalists there.And in prison he was immediately surrounded by pastors, members of Christian brotherhoods, philanthropic ladies, and the like.They taught him to read and write in prison, and expounded the Gospel to him.They exhorted him, worked upon him, drummed at him incessantly, till at last he solemnly confessed his crime.He was converted.He wrote to the court himself that he was a monster, but that in the end God had vouchsafed him light and shown grace.All Geneva was in excitement about him- all philanthropic and religious Geneva.All the aristocratic and well-bred society of the town rushed to the prison, kissed Richard and embraced him; 'You are our brother, you have found grace.' And Richard does nothing but weep with emotion, 'Yes, I've found grace! All my youth and childhood I was glad of pigs' food, but now even I have found grace.Iam dying in the Lord.' 'Yes, Richard, die in the Lord; you have shed blood and must die.Though it's not your fault that you knew not the Lord, when you coveted the pigs' food and were beaten for stealing it (which was very wrong of you, for stealing is forbidden); but you've shed blood and you must die.'And on the last day, Richard, perfectly limp, did nothing but cry and repeat every minute: 'This is my happiest day.I am going to the Lord.' 'Yes,' cry the pastors and the judges and philanthropic ladies.'This is the happiest day of your life, for you are going to the Lord!' They all walk or drive to the scaffold in procession behind the prison van.At the scaffold they call to Richard: 'Die, brother, die in the Lord, for even thou hast found grace!' And so, covered with his brothers' kisses, Richard is dragged on to the scaffold, and led to the guillotine.
