When Alyosha returns to Madame Hohlakov’s to report his failure with the captain, he learns that Katerina has developed a fever following her hysterical outburst and is now upstairs, unconscious. To Lise, Alyosha explains the nature of his mission and his failure and analyzes the captain’s character for her. As he talks, Lise becomes very impressed with such deep insight and such warmth and love of humanity. She confesses that she indeed meant what she wrote in the letter. The revelation is startling, and she and Alyosha discuss their feelings for each other and begin to make plans for marriage. For his part, Alyosha admits that he has told a white lie concerning the letter. He did not return it, not because he did not have it but because he valued it too much.
Meanwhile, Madame Hohlakov, who has eavesdropped on the conversation, stops Alyosha as he is leaving and expresses deep disapproval of the match. Alyosha assures her that the marriage is yet far in the future, that Lise is much too young to marry presently.
Alyosha, then, puzzling over Dmitri’s actions of the previous night, decides to try to find his brother. It is more important, he believes, to “have saved something” of Dmitri’s honor than to flee back to the monastery. The summerhouse seems a likely place to find his brother; this is where he often watches for Grushenka and dreams of her. As Alyosha waits, he overhears Smerdyakov singing and playing the guitar for the housekeeper’s daughter. Alyosha interrupts, with apologies, and asks Smerdyakov if he has seen Dmitri. The cook is able to help Alyosha and says that Ivan has made an appointment to meet Dmitri at the Metropolis restaurant. Alyosha rushes there but Dmitri is not to be found. Instead, Ivan is dining alone. Ivan beckons to his brother, and Alyosha accepts his brother’s invitation to talk. Ivan admits, first off, that he is eager to know Alyosha better; he has come to respect and admire the boy. Ivan also admits that he has an intense longing for life even though he constantly encounters only disorder and injustice. Alyosha, however, is more concerned about Dmitri and what will happen to him and what will happen to Fyodor if Ivan leaves the family. To this, Ivan insists that he is absolutely not his brother’s keeper, nor his father’s keeper, and confesses finally that he is dining at the restaurant for only one reason: he cannot bear the presence of his loathsome father.
That settled, Ivan begins to tell Alyosha of his views on “the existence of God and immortality.” He says that he does not reject God but cannot accept Him. If God does exist and if He indeed created the world, the human mind should be able to fathom the deed and understand the purpose of creation. Ivan cannot and therefore rejects the world God created. If, he adds, this means that he must reject God, then that is another problem. Alyosha queries more closely, asking Ivan to be more specific as to why he cannot accept the world. Ivan answers by saying that he can love man at a distance but that he is unable to love his next-door neighbor. For him, “Christ-like love for men is a miracle impossible on earth.” That which makes it especially difficult to accept the world, as it is, is the vast suffering and brutality in the world. If God exists, says Ivan, how can this horror be accounted for? He singles out the suffering of children as prime evidence of the world’s indifferent cruelty. Children have had no time to sin, but they suffer. Why? Certainly not because of sin, supposedly the cause of suffering. He then recites several horrible examples of atrocities inflicted upon children by other human beings. Because such injustice is allowed to happen, Ivan simply cannot accept the mythical “harmony of God” or accept a universe in which one who is tortured embraces his torturer. Such “harmony,” says Ivan, “is not worth the tears of one tortured child.” He concludes that if truth must be bought at the price of the suffering of children, then such truth is not worth the price. He tells Alyosha: “It’s not God that I don’t accept, Alyosha, only I most respectfully return Him the ticket.”
Alyosha is horrified and tells Ivan that these thoughts constitute rebellion. Ivan offers Alyosha a further example: suppose, he says, one could create a perfect world for man but it could survive only by torturing to death “one tiny creature.” Would Alyosha be the architect of such a world? As an answer, Ivan is reminded that there is One who can forgive everything “because He gave His innocent blood for all and everything.” Ivan assures his brother that he has not forgotten “the One without sin” and recites a prose poem that he wrote several years ago. He calls his poem “The Grand Inquisitor.”
