This is no world for ugly men. Oh no.

Was it you who taught me that, or did I always know it? In our little brotherhood, I was always the least handsome, the least well liked. You, Mitya, were the most popular, the most shining. Less sensible than Vanya, less meek than Alyosha. Lovelier than all the world. And what kind of world is it? It is a world that loves the brash and bold, the good-looking. It is your world, the world where your hope, your salvation lives. You are one of its privileged citizens. It will forgive you your trespasses-- up to a point, at least.

I remember us as boys together. I was the small one, the slow one, body unhealthy, unwholesome. I remember running after you, gasping, shouting for you to wait for me to catch up. You never did. Still, you were the one I looked up to most. When at last I joined you, sweating and all but breathless on the verge of collapse, you laughed and said I was too slow. Cruel, perhaps, but it was an unthinking, animal cruelty that complemented your beauty. Pitch-black hair and eyes and snow-white limbs. My hair was only mud-colored, like my eyes, and my skin was darker, a sign of my mother, the parent I did not share with you. I never knew my mother, but I hated her for making us only half-brothers instead of whole ones. I wanted to be like you.

Once we came with our father to this country, you didn't like to speak in Russian anymore. Although you were usually last in our studies, you were the first to gain mastery over English. You said it was backwards to speak the old language, that we lived in America now; those other days were over. The past should be forgotten, as it no longer existed. "Why think about things that don't exist, Pavlusha? It's stupid."

From you I learned hero worship. Everything you said and did seemed true, by virtue of your animal nature, your harsh honesty, your handsomeness. All the girls loved you. They gave you pink flowers which you tucked behind your ears. You played on the soccer team, and you kicked the ball, the perfect curve of your leg. The ball hit the back of the net, a jerk of white netting over the green grass. The crowd screamed. The cheering voices sounded ancient, raised in prayer to a terrible pagan god. You broke every rule, and those adults who were responsible for you scarcely dared to slap your wrist. Your wrists were too beautiful to slap, and it wouldn't have mattered anyway. You wouldn't have understood punishment, what it meant, how it was supposed to change your behavior. You scoffed at limitations.

After our father died, they took you and I away from our brothers and put us in the orphanage. You became the place's resident demon, their mascot, the one all the stories were about. That time you escaped over the wall and stayed out all night drinking stolen wine, no one truly cared. It was expected of someone like you. Our caretakers let their disapproval show in their eyes, but you didn't bother to notice. The orphanage was scarcely the strict, unrelenting prison that orphanages in movies seem to be.

And me? I tagged along with you when I could, obeying mutely when, as happened more often than not, you told me to go away. Your friends didn't like me. I went away alone. I had no friends of my own there. I could not have been more unlike you. I was not suited to your adventures, no fit companion for you. Yet I tried, and I hoped. I am the one running behind you, Mitya, trying to keep up, but I cannot. My lungs are shrinking. I can't breathe.

When we were old enough, we left the orphanage. We went to live with our brothers again. We were finally considered adults by the world, although I didn't feel any different being older. I remember, Mitya, that one night, your warmth settling into bed beside me, dragging the stink of alcohol beneath the sheets with you. You were nineteen. I must have been eighteen. Awakened suddenly from sleep and confused, I stirred and opened my mouth to ask you what you were doing. Sensing movement in the darkness, you hissed, "Quiet!" I always did what you said. "I'm sleeping here tonight. Okay?"

Silence was my answer. I couldn't say a word. My heart was beating with the knowledge of you beside me. I was suddenly afraid. I had been so lately awakened, it was like a dream, and there was something nightmarish in your aspect, delirium in your voice. You never were a nice drunk. You were a drunk with bloody knuckles and gritted teeth, fire in your eyes. I felt I could see that fire then, even in the darkness. Your fire. "Pasha." Your voice was harsh in a whisper. It stank of liquor. "You awake?"

"I'm awake." Your body was touching mine. My breath was too shallow, too quick. I couldn't disguise my reaction to that contact. Your skin against mine. It was the depth of summer, the fans whirring all through the night, and I was wearing almost nothing.

You laughed, just as you laughed in childhood when I came hobbling after you, panting and weak. The strong laugh like that. "You're funny, Pasha. I want to-- Can I ask you something?"

"All right." I had no idea what you'd ask me. You were fonder of telling than asking.

"Are you a fag?"

Yes, that's what you asked. In your cruel, honest voice. For the first time in my life, I wanted to hit you. Years of idolizing you, idolatry with an undercurrent of bitter envy, were condensed into one murderous moment of unadulterated hatred. I should have hit you. It wouldn't have hurt you; it would have only made you laugh more, and harder, but it would have been a better answer than the one I gave. Something-- possibly the fact that I was used to doing what you said-- made me tell you the truth. "Yes." The word was a sob.

You laughed again. That laugh-- it's not like any other. Why is it that no two people laugh the same? Why is laughter like snowflakes? "Good," you said, and rolled on top of me.

I was not prepared for the violence of your passion. I had never even been kissed before. How could I have known what to expect? Like Leda with the swan, I was helpless, mute, pinioned beneath you. I couldn't scream for our brothers. They would have come running; the walls were thin enough, but the truth is, I didn't want them to come running. In spite of the horror of the moment, your drunken brutality, I wanted you. How else could I have you, except in a in a moment of brute, insensate lust? You never would have touched me in the light of day, when you were sober. I did not call Alyosha and Vanya's names, because I wanted you. More than that, I did not want them to see us together, you on top of me. I did not want to see their eyes. Looking at me, those perfect eyes with their fine vision. They would see us together, and in that first moment, in spite of themselves, in spite of me struggling against you and shouting for them, they would blame me for what was happening. Because I am the twisted one, and the twisted one must be at fault. I could not have borne that sight, the blame. You cannot call it rape, because I did not call for help.

Mitya, I do not mind that night so much as I mind the following morning. You awoke beside me. I, for my part, did not awaken, because after what had happened, I was unable to sleep and lay awake beside you through the night. I was unable to sleep for many nights after that, and it is to that night that I attribute my current devotion to sleeping pills. You awakened, and you looked at me. You did not acknowledge what had happened, the bloody sheets you lay tangled in. You looked at me, and in your eyes I saw the disgust the strong have for the weak, the hale for the lame. It was something like pity, but not even that kind. "What am I doing here?" you asked. "Did you bring me here? I don't remember a thing about last night."

You liar. There's never been such a poor liar. Animals in the wild cannot lie, and neither can you. If you couldn't remember, wouldn't you want to know why you were covered in blood, why I was covered in bruises? Fuck you, Mitya. You taught me that those who worship heroes will forever be disillusioned, for there are no heroes, not one anywhere. "Go away," I said.

"Pasha, did I--"

"Get out of here!" I threw something at you. I don't remember what it was, the first thing I grabbed: a book or perhaps a lamp. You left me then, but I could still see your eyes. I can see them now.

The past is not gone, Mitya. It does not disappear. You are wrong. The past lives in the present and colors every moment of it. It will not ever go away. I close my eyes, I dream of blindness, but the past does not ever disappear, and I can see it although my eyes are closed. But perhaps if I stay here, still and quiet and unseeing, not even a ghost, a shadow of a shadow, nothing else will ever happen to me. I want to live on in limbo. I do not want to take in any more sights. I have seen enough.

Let me close my eyes.