| Masonic references in The Brothers Karamazov
|
| No doubt it is so, and so it must be indeed. I fancy that even among the Masons there’s something of the same mystery at the bottom, and that that’s why the Catholics so detest the Masons as their rivals breaking up the unity of the idea, while it is so essential that there should be one flock and one shepherd…. But from the way I defend my idea I might be an author impatient of your criticism. Enough of it.” “You are perhaps a Mason yourself!” broke suddenly from Alyosha. “You don’t believe in God,” he added, speaking this time very sorrowfully. Vanity! Ivan has no God. He has an idea. It’s beyond me. But he is silent. I believe he is a Freemason. I asked him, but he is silent. I wanted to drink from the springs of his soul- he was silent. But once he did drop a word.
Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov. Chapter 73, Part IV. Book XI: Ivan Chapter 4: “A Hymn and a Secret.” |