Even If We Are Wicked, It’s Still Nice To Be Here...: Albert Einstein's Favorite 'Brothers Karamazov'

Fyodor Dostoevsky: “....“Give him something, Mitya,” Grushenka kept saying; “you must make him some nice present. He’s so poor and he has to put up with so much ! . . . You know what, Mitya—I think I’ll become a nun. I’m not just saying that, I mean it—I’ll end up in a convent some day. Alyosha said something to me before I came here, something I’ll always remember. Tomorrow it’ll be the convent, but today I’ll dance! I want to have a wild time today, good people! Now what’s wrong with that? I’m sure God will forgive me. If I were God, I’d forgive everyone. ‘My dear sinners,’ I’d say to them, ‘as of today, you are all forgiven!’ Tomorrow I’ll go and ask people for forgiveness: ‘Forgive me, stupid woman that I am,’ I’ll beg them. I’m a beast, that’s what I am, and I want to pray. I gave away an onion, though. A vicious woman like me needs to pray. Mitya, let them dance; don’t interfere. Everyone in the world, without exception, is good. It’s nice to live in the world—even if we are wicked, it’s still nice to be here . . . We’re both good and bad, bad and good . . . Come over here, everybody, come over here! I want every one of you to tell me why I am so good. Because I am good, am I not, very, very good? All right then, tell me why I am so good.”

Grushenka went on and on like this, getting more and more drunk, and in the end declared that she wanted to dance all by herself. She rose from her armchair, staggering.

“Don’t give me any more wine, Mitya,” she mumbled, “don’t. Wine won’t give me peace. Everything is turning, turning, the stove is turning . . . I want to dance. I want everyone to watch me dance. I want everyone to admire how marvelously I can dance . . .”...” (Book Eight: Mitya, 'The Brothers Karamazov', 1880)   (translatorAndrew R. MacAndrew)

Untitled (Grushenka and Mitya at the Drunken Party), ca. 1938, 14 ¼” x 10”. 

Artist: Alice Neel (1900-1984) 

Courtesy David Zwirner, New York/London.