The Brothers Karamazov

BOOK II: AN INAPPROPRIATE GATHERING

Chapter 1: They Arrive at the Monastery

The day was beautiful, warm and clear. It was the end of August. The meeting with the elder had been appointed for immediately after the late liturgy, about half past eleven. Our monastery visitors did not, however, appear at the liturgy, but arrived just as the show was over. They drove up in two carriages: in the first, a jaunty barouche drawn by a pair of expensive horses, sat Pyotr Alexandrovich Miusov with a distant relative of his, a very young man, about twenty years old, Pyotr Fomich Kalganov. This young man was preparing to enter university, whereas Miusov, with whom he was for some reason meanwhile living, was tempting him to go abroad with him, to Zurich or Jena, to enter university and pursue his studies there. The young man was still undecided. He was thoughtful and, as it were, distracted. He had a nice face, was strongly built and rather tall. His gaze sometimes acquired a strange fixity: like all very distracted people, he would sometimes look directly at you, and for a long time, without seeing you at all. He was taciturn and somewhat awkward, but occasionally—only, by the way, when he was alone with someone—he would suddenly become terribly talkative, impulsive, giggly, laughing sometimes for no reason at all. But as quickly and suddenly as his animation was born, it would also quickly and suddenly die out. He was always well and even elegantly dressed; he already possessed some independent means and had expectations of much more. He was friendly with Alyosha.

In a very ancient, rattling, but roomy hired carriage, with a pair of old pinkish gray horses that lagged far behind Miusov’s carriage, Fyodor Pavlovich also drove up with his boy Ivan Fyodorovich. Dmitri Fyodorovich had been informed of the time and length of the visit the day before, but he was late. The visitors left their carriages at the guest house outside the walls and entered the gates of the monastery on foot. With the exception of Fyodor Pavlovich, none of the other three seemed ever to have seen any monastery before; as for Miusov, he probably had not even been to church for some thirty years. He looked around with a sort of curiosity that was not without a certain assumed familiarity. But his observant mind was presented with nothing inside the monastery walls except a church and some outbuildings, which were in any case quite ordinary. The last worshippers were leaving the church, taking off their hats and crossing themselves. Among the common people were a few from higher society, two or three ladies, one very old general; they were all staying at the guest house. Beggars immediately surrounded our visitors, but no one gave them anything. Only Petrusha Kalganov took a ten-kopeck piece from his purse and, embarrassed for some reason, hastily shoved it at one woman, saying quickly: “To be shared equally.” None of his companions said anything to him, so there was no point in his being embarrassed; which, when he noticed it, made him even more embarrassed.

It was odd, however; they should, in fact, have been met, perhaps even with some sort of honor: one of them had recently donated a thousand roubles, and another was the richest landowner and, so to speak, the best-educated man, on whom everyone there somewhat depended as far as catching fish in the river was concerned, subject to what turn the trial might take. And yet none of the official persons came to meet them. Miusov gazed distractedly at the tombstones near the church, and was on the point of remarking that these tombs must have cost the relatives a pretty penny for the right to bury their dead in such a “holy” place, but he said nothing: mere liberal irony was transforming itself in him almost into wrath.

“But, devil take it, isn’t there someone we can ask in all this muddle? Something must be done, we’re wasting time,” he said suddenly, speaking, as it were, to himself.

Suddenly an elderly, balding gentleman in a loose summer coat, and with sweet little eyes, came up to them. Tipping his hat and speaking in a honeyed lisp, he introduced himself as the Tula landowner, Maximov. He entered at once into our wayfarers’ difficulty.

“The elder Zosima lives in the hermitage ... shut up in the hermitage . . about four hundred paces from the monastery ... through the woods . . through the woods ...”

“I myself know, sir, that it is through the woods,” Fyodor Pavlovich replied. “But we do not quite remember the way, it’s a long time since we were here.”

“Out the gate here, and straight through the woods, through the woods, follow me. If I may ... I myself ... I, too, am ... This way, this way...”

They went out the gate and through the woods. The landowner Maximov, a man of about sixty, was not so much walking but, more precisely, almost running alongside, staring at them all with contorted, almost impossible curiosity. His eyes had a pop-eyed look.

“You see, we have come to this elder on a private matter,” Miusov remarked sternly. “We have, so to speak, been granted an audience with this ‘said person,’ and therefore, though we thank you for showing us the way, we cannot invite you to go in with us.”

“I’ve been, I’ve been already ... Un chevalier parfait!“^[23] And the landowner loosed a snap of his fingers into the air.

“Who is a chevalier?” asked Miusov.

“The elder, the splendid elder, the elder ... The honor and glory of the monastery. Zosima. Such an elder...!”

But his disjointed talk was cut short by a little monk in a cowl, very pale and haggard, who overtook them. Fyodor Pavlovich and Miusov stopped. The monk, with an extremely courteous, deep bow, announced:

“The Father Superior humbly invites you, gentlemen, to dine with him after your visit to the hermitage. In his rooms, at one o’clock, not later. And you, too,” he turned to Maximov.

“That I shall certainly do!” cried Fyodor Pavlovich, terribly pleased at the invitation. “Certainly! And you know, we’ve all given our word to behave properly here ... And you, Pyotr Alexandrovich, will you go?”

“Why not? Did I not come here precisely to observe all their customs? Only one thing bothers me, and that is being in your company, Fyodor Pavlovich ...”

“Yes, Dmitri Fyodorovich doesn’t exist yet.”

“And it would be excellent if he failed to come at all. Do you think I like it, all this mess, and in your company, too? So we shall come to dinner, thank the Father Superior,” he turned to the little monk.

“No, it is my duty now to conduct you to the elder,” the monk replied.

“In that case, I shall go meanwhile to the Father Superior, straight to the Father Superior,” chirped the landowner Maximov.

“The Father Superior is busy at the moment. However, as you please ... ,” the monk said hesitantly.

“A most obnoxious old fellow,” Miusov remarked aloud, as the landowner Maximov ran back to the monastery.

“He looks like von Sohn,”^[24] Fyodor Pavlovich declared suddenly.

“Is that all you can think of ... ? Why should he look like von Sohn? Have you ever seen von Sohn?”

“I’ve seen his photograph. It’s not his features, but something inexplicable. He’s the spit and image of von Sohn. I can always tell just by the physiognomy.”

“Well, maybe so; you’re an expert in such things. But see here, Fyodor Pavlovich, you yourself were just pleased to mention that we’ve given our word to behave properly, remember? I’m telling you—control yourself. If you start any buffoonery, I have no intention of being put on the same level with you here. You see what sort of man he is,” he turned to the monk. “I’m afraid to appear among decent people with him.”

A thin, silent little smile, not without cunning of a sort, appeared on the pale, bloodless lips of the monk, but he made no reply, and it was all too clear that he remained silent from a sense of his own dignity. Miusov scowled even more.

“Oh, the devil take the lot of them, it’s just a front, cultivated for centuries, and underneath nothing but charlatanism and nonsense!” flashed through his head.

“Here’s the hermitage, we’ve arrived!” cried Fyodor Pavlovich. “The fence and gates are shut.”

And he started crossing himself energetically before the saints painted above and on the sides of the gates.

“When in Rome, do as the Romans do,” he remarked.^[25] “Here in the hermitage there are altogether twenty-five saints saving their souls, looking at each other and eating cabbage. And not one woman ever goes through these gates, that’s what’s so remarkable. And it’s really true. Only didn’t I hear that the elder receives ladies?” he suddenly addressed the monk.

“There are some peasants of the female sex here even now, over there, lying near the porch, waiting. And for higher ladies two small rooms were built on the porch, but outside the wall—you can see the windows—and the elder `omes to them by an inner passage, when he feels well enough, so it is still outside the wall. Right now there is a lady, a landowner from Kharkov, Madame Khokhlakov, waiting there with her paralyzed daughter. Probably he has promised to come out to them, although lately he’s been so weak that he’s hardly shown himself even to the common people.”

“So, after all, a little hole has been made from the hermitage to the ladies. Not that I’m implying anything, holy father, I’m just ... You know, on Mount Athos—have you heard?—not only are the visits of women not allowed, but no women at all, no female creatures of any kind—no hens, no hen-turkeys, no heifers ...”

“Fyodor Pavlovich, I shall turn back and leave you here, and without me they will throw you out, I forewarn you!”

“How am I bothering you, Pyotr Alexandrovich? Just look,” he cried suddenly, stepping inside the wall of the hermitage, “what a vale of roses they live in!”

Indeed, though there were no roses, there were many rare and beautiful autumn flowers, wherever there was room for them. They were obviously tended by an experienced hand. There were flowerbeds within the church fences and between the graves. The little house where the elder had his cell, wooden, one-storied, with a front porch, was also surrounded with flowers.

“Was it like this in the time of the previous elder, Varsonofy? They say he didn’t like such niceties, they say he used to jump up and beat even ladies with a stick,” Fyodor Pavlovich remarked as he went up the steps.

“The elder Varsonofy indeed sometimes seemed like a holy fool, but much of what is told about him is nonsense. And he never beat anyone with a stick,” replied the little monk. “Now, gentlemen, if you will wait a moment, I will announce you.”

“Fyodor Pavlovich, for the last time I give you my conditions, do you hear? Behave yourself, or I will pay you back for it,” Miusov had time to mutter once again.

“I don’t see why you’re so greatly agitated,” Fyodor Pavlovich said mockingly. “Are you afraid of your little sins? They say he can tell what’s on a man’s mind by the look in his eyes. And, anyway, do you value their opinion so highly—you, such a Parisian, such a progressive-minded gentleman? You even surprise me, you really do!”

But Miusov did not have time to reply to this sarcasm. They were invited to come in. He walked in feeling somewhat irritated.

“That’s it, I know what will happen, I’m irritated, I’ll start arguing ... lose my temper ... demean myself and my ideas,” flashed through his head.

Chapter 2: The Old Buffoon

They came into the room almost at the same moment as the elder, who emerged from his bedroom just as they appeared. Two hieromonks^[26] of the hermitage were already in the cell awaiting the elder, one of them the Father Librarian, and the other Father Paissy, a sick man, though not old, but, it was said, a very learned one. Besides them, there stood in the corner (and remained standing there all the while) a young fellow who looked to be about twenty-two and was dressed in an ordinary frock coat, a seminarian and future theologian, who for some reason enjoyed the patronage of the monastery and the brothers. He was rather tall and had a fresh face, with wide cheekbones and intelligent, attentive, narrow brown eyes. His face expressed complete deference, but decently, with no apparent fawning. He did not even bow to greet the guests as they entered, not being their equal, but, on the contrary, a subordinate and dependent person.

The elder Zosima came out accompanied by a novice and Alyosha. The hieromonks rose and greeted him with a very deep bow, touching the ground with their fingers, and, having received his blessing, kissed his hand. When he had blessed them, the elder returned the same deep bow to each of them, touching the ground with his fingers, and asked a blessing of each of them for himself. The whole ceremony was performed very seriously, not at all like some everyday ritual, but almost with a certain feeling. To Miusov, however, it all seemed done with deliberate suggestion. He stood in front of all his fellow visitors. He ought—and he had even pondered it the previous evening— despite all his ideas, just out of simple courtesy (since it was customary there), to come up and receive the elder’s blessing, at least receive his blessing, even if he did not kiss his hand. But now, seeing all this bowing and kissing of the hieromonks, he instantly changed his mind: gravely and with dignity he made a rather deep bow, by worldly standards, and went over to a chair. Fyodor Pavlovich did exactly the same, this time, like an ape, mimicking Miusov perfectly. Ivan Fyodorovich bowed with great dignity and propriety, but he, too, kept his hands at his sides, while Kalganov was so nonplussed that he did not bow at all. The elder let fall the hand he had raised for the blessing and, bowing to them once more, invited them all to sit down. The blood rushed to Alyosha’s cheeks; he was ashamed. His forebodings were beginning to come true.

The elder sat down on a very old-fashioned, leather-covered mahogany settee, and placed his guests, except for the two hieromonks, along the opposite wall, all four in a row, on four mahogany chairs with badly worn black leather upholstery. The hieromonks sat at either end of the room, one by the door, the other by the window. The seminarian, Alyosha, and the novice remained standing. The whole cell was hardly very big and looked rather dull. The objects and furniture were crude and poor, and only what was necessary. Two potted plants stood on the windowsill, and there were many icons in the corner—including a huge one of the Mother of God painted, probably, long before the schism.^[27] An icon lamp flickered before it. Next to it were two more icons in shiny casings, and next to them some little figurines of cherubs, porcelain eggs, an ivory Catholic crucifix with the Mater Dolorosa embracing it, and several imported engravings from great Italian artists of the past centuries. Next to these fine and expensive prints were displayed several sheets of the commonest Russian lithographs of saints, martyrs, hierarchs, and so on, such as are sold for a few kopecks at any fair. There were several lithographic portraits of Russian bishops, past and present, but these were on other walls. Miusov glanced at all this “officialism,” then fixed the elder intently with his gaze. He esteemed this gaze—a weakness forgivable in him, in any case, considering that he was already fifty years old, the age at which an intelligent and worldly man of means always becomes more respectful of himself, sometimes even against his own will.

He disliked the elder from the first moment. Indeed, there was something in the elder’s face that many other people besides Miusov might have disliked. He was a short, bent little man, with very weak legs, who was just sixty-five, but, owing to his illness, appeared much older, by at least ten years. His whole face, which, by the way, was quite withered, was strewn with little wrinkles, especially numerous around his eyes. His eyes themselves were small, pale, quick and bright like two bright points. A few white hairs remained only on his temples, his pointed beard was tiny and sparse, and his often smiling lips were as thin as two threads. His nose was not so much long as sharp, like a little bird’s beak.

“To all appearances a malicious and pettily arrogant little soul,” flashed through Miusov’s head. In general he felt very displeased with himself.

The chiming of the clock helped to start conversation. A cheap little wall clock with weights rapidly struck twelve.

“It’s precisely the time,” cried Fyodor Pavlovich, “and my son Dmitri Fyodorovich still isn’t here! I apologize for him, sacred elder!” (Alyosha cringed all over at this “sacred elder. “) “I myself am always very punctual, to the minute, remembering that punctuality is the courtesy of kings.”^[28]

“Not that you’re a king,” muttered Miusov, unable to restrain himself in time.

“That’s quite true, I’m not a king. And just imagine, Pyotr Alexandrovich, I even knew it myself, by God! You see, I’m always saying something out of place! Your reverence,” he exclaimed with a sort of instant pathos, “you see before you a buffoon! Verily, a buffoon! Thus I introduce myself! It’s an old habit, alas! And if I sometimes tell lies inappropriately, I do it even on purpose, on purpose to be pleasant and make people laugh. One ought to be pleasant, isn’t that so? I came to a little town seven years ago, I had a little business there, and went around with some of their merchants. So we called on the police commissioner, the ispravnik, because we wanted to see him about something and invite him to have dinner with us. Out comes the ispravnik, a tall man, fat, blond, and gloomy—the most dangerous type in such cases— it’s the liver, the liver. I spoke directly with him, you know, with the familiarity of a man of the world: ‘Mr. Ispravnik,’ I said to him, ‘be, so to speak, our Napravnik!’^[29]

‘What do you mean, your Napravnik?’ I can see from the first split second that it’s not coming off, that he’s standing there seriously, but I keep on: ‘I wanted,’ I say, ‘to make a joke, for our general amusement. Mr. Napravnik is our famous Russian Kapellmeister, and we, for the harmony of our enterprise, also precisely need a sort of Kapellmeister, as it were . . .’ I explained it all and compared it quite reasonably, didn’t I? I beg your pardon,’ he says, ‘I am an ispravnik, and I will not allow you to use my title for your puns. ‘ He turned around and was about to walk away. I started after him, calling out: ‘Yes, yes, you are an ispravnik, not Napravnik.’ ‘No,’ he says, ‘have it your way. I am Napravnik.’ And just imagine, our deal fell through! And that’s how I am, it’s always like that with me. I’m forever damaging myself with my own courtesy! Once, this was many years ago now, I said to an influential person, ‘Your wife, sir, is a ticklish woman,’ referring to her honor, her moral qualities, so to speak. And he suddenly retorted, ‘Did you tickle her?’ I couldn’t help myself; why not a little pleasant banter, I thought? ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘I did tickle her, sir.’ Well, at that he gave me quite a tickling...! But it was a long time ago, so I’m not even ashamed to tell about it. I’m always damaging myself like that!”

“You’re doing it now, too,” Miusov muttered in disgust.

The elder silently looked from one to the other.

“Really! Imagine, I knew it all along, Pyotr Alexandrovich, and, you know I even had a feeling that I was doing it just as I started speaking, and you know, I even had a feeling that you would be the first to point it out to me. In those seconds when I see that my joke isn’t going over, my cheeks, reverend lather, begin to stick to my lower gums; it feels almost like a cramp; I’ve had it since my young days, when I was a sponger on the gentry and made my living by sponging. I’m a natural-born buffoon, I am, reverend father, just like a holy fool; I won’t deny that there’s maybe an unclean spirit living in me, too not a very high caliber one, by the way, otherwise he would have chosen grander quarters, only not you, Pyotr Alexandrovich, your quarters are none too grand either. But to make up for it, I believe, I believe in God. It’s only lately that I’ve begun to have doubts, but to make up for it I’m sitting and waiting to hear lofty words. I am, reverend father, like the philosopher Diderot.^[30] Do you know, most holy father, how Diderot the philosopher came to see Metropolitan Platon^[31] in the time of the empress Catherine? He walks in and says right off: ‘There is no God.’ To which the great hierarch raises his finger and answers: ‘The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God.’^[32] Right then and there our man fell at his feet: ‘I believe,’ he cries, ‘I will accept baptism!’ And so they baptized him at once. Princess Dashkova^[33] was his godmother, and his godfather was Potiomkin . . .”^[34] “Fyodor Pavlovich, this is unbearable! You know yourself that you are lying, that your silly story isn’t true. Why are you clowning?” Miusov said in a trembling voice, losing all control of himself.

“All my life I’ve had a feeling that it wasn’t true!” Fyodor Pavlovich cried excitedly. “No, let me tell you the whole truth, gentlemen. Great elder! Forgive me, but that last part, about Diderot’s baptism, I invented myself just a moment ago, while I was telling it to you. It never occurred to me before. I made it up for its piquancy. That’s why I’m clowning, Pyotr Alexandrovich, to make myself more endearing. Though sometimes I don’t know myself why I do it. As for Diderot, I heard this ‘the fool hath said’ maybe twenty times from local landowners when I was still young and lived with them; by the way, I also heard it, Pyotr Alexandrovich, from your aunt, Mavra Fominishna. They all still believe that the godless Diderot came to Metropolitan Platon to argue about God...”

Miusov rose, not only losing patience, but even somehow forgetting himself. He was furious, and realized that this made him ridiculous. Indeed, something altogether impossible was taking place in the cell. For perhaps forty or fifty years, from the time of the former elders, visitors had been coming to this cell, but always with the deepest reverence, not otherwise. Almost all who were admitted entered the cell with the awareness that they were being shown great favor. Many fell to their knees and would not rise for as long as the visit lasted. Even many “higher” persons, even many of the most learned ones, moreover even some of the freethinkers who came out of curiosity, or for some other reason, when entering the cell with others or having obtained a private audience, considered it their foremost duty—to a man— to show the deepest respect and tactfulness throughout the audience, the more so as there was no question of money involved, but only of love and mercy on one side, and on the other of repentance and the desire to resolve some difficult question of the soul or a difficult moment in the life of the heart. So that suddenly this buffoonery displayed by Fyodor Pavlovich, with no respect for the place he was in, produced in the onlookers, at least in some of them, both astonishment and bewilderment. The hieromonks, who incidentally showed no change at all in their physiognomies, were watching with grave attention for what the elder would say, but they seemed as if they were about to stand up, like Miusov. Alyosha was on the verge of tears and stood looking downcast. What seemed strangest of all to him was that his brother, Ivan Fyodorovich, on whom alone he had relied and who alone had enough influence on their father to have been able to stop him, was now sitting quite motionless in his chair, looking down and waiting, apparently with some kind of inquisitive curiosity, to see how it would all end, as if he himself were a complete stranger there. Alyosha could not even look at Rakitin (the seminarian), whom he knew and was almost close with. Alyosha knew his thoughts (though he alone in the whole monastery knew them).

“Forgive me ... ,” Miusov began, addressing the elder, “it may seem to you that I, too, am a participant in this unworthy farce. My mistake was in trusting that even such a man as Fyodor Pavlovich would be willing to recognize his duties when visiting such a venerable person ... I did not think that I would have to apologize just for the fact of coming with him...”

Pyotr Alexandrovich broke off and, completely embarrassed, was about to leave the room.

“Do not upset yourself, I beg you,” the elder suddenly rose on his feeble legs, took Pyotr Alexandrovich by both hands, and sat him down again on the chair. “Do not worry, I beg you. I ask you particularly to be my guest.” And with a bow, he turned and sat down again on his settee.

“Great elder, speak and tell me whether I offend you with my liveliness or not?” Fyodor Pavlovich suddenly cried, gripping the arms of his chair as if he were about to leap out of it, depending on the answer.

“I earnestly beg you, too, not to worry and not to be uncomfortable,” the elder said to him imposingly. “Be at ease, and feel completely at home. And above all do not be so ashamed of yourself, for that is the cause of everything.”

“Completely at home? You mean in my natural state? Oh, that is much, too much—but I’m touched, and I accept! You know, blessed father, you shouldn’t challenge me to be in my natural state, you shouldn’t risk it ... I myself will not go so far as to be in my natural state. I’m warning you in order to protect you. Well, and the rest is wrapped in the mists of uncertainty; though there are some who would like to paint me in broad strokes. I’m referring to you, Pyotr Alexandrovich; and you, most holy being, here is what I have for you: I pour out my rapture!” He rose slightly and, lifting up his hands, said; “ ‘Blessed is the womb that bare thee and the paps which thou hast sucked”—the paps especially! That remark you just made: ‘Not to be so ashamed of myself, for that is the cause of everything’—it’s as if you pierced me right through and read inside me. That is exactly how it all seems to me, when I walk into a room, that I’m lower than anyone else, and that everyone takes me for a buffoon, so ‘Why not, indeed, play the buffoon, I’m not afraid of your opinions, because you’re all, to a man, lower than me! ‘ That’s why I’m a buffoon, I’m a buffoon out of shame, great elder, out of shame. I act up just because I’m insecure. If only I were sure, when I came in, that everyone would take me at once for the most pleasant and intelligent of men—oh, Lord! what a good man I’d be! Teacher!” he suddenly threw himself on his knees, “what should I do to inherit eternal life?”^[35]It was hard even now to tell whether he was joking or was indeed greatly moved.

The elder looked up at him and said with a smile:

“You’ve known for a long time what you should do; you have sense enough: do not give yourself up to drunkenness and verbal incontinence, do not give yourself up to sensuality, and especially to the adoration of money, and close your taverns; if you cannot close all of them then at least two or three. And above all, above everything else—do not lie.”

“About Diderot, you mean?”

“No, not exactly about Diderot. Above all, do not lie to yourself. A man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point where he does not discern any truth either in himself or anywhere around him, and thus falls into disrespect towards himself and others. Not respecting anyone, he ceases to love, and having no love, he gives himself up to passions and coarse pleasures, in order to occupy and amuse himself, and in his vices reaches complete bestiality, and it all comes from lying continually to others and to himself. A man who lies to himself is often the first to take offense. It sometimes feels very good to take offense, doesn’t it? And surely he knows that no one has offended him, and that he himself has invented the offense and told lies just for the beauty of it, that he has exaggerated for the sake of effect, that he has picked on a word and made a mountain out of a pea—he knows all of that, and still he is the first to take offense, he likes feeling offended, it gives him great pleasure, and thus he reaches the point of real hostility ... Do get up from your knees and sit down, I beg you, these posturings are false, too...”

“Blessed man! Let me kiss your hand,” Fyodor Pavlovich rushed up to the elder and quickly gave him a smack on his thin hand. “Precisely, precisely, it feels good to be offended. You put it so well, I’ve never heard it before. Precisely, precisely, all my life I’ve been getting offended for the pleasure of it, for the aesthetics of it, because it’s not only a pleasure, sometimes it’s beautiful to be offended—you forgot that, great elder: beautiful! I’ll make a note of that! And I’ve lied, I’ve lied decidedly all my life, every day and every hour. Verily, I am a lie and the father of a lie! Or maybe not the father of a lie, I always get my texts mixed up; let’s say the son of a lie,^[36] that will do just as well! Only ... my angel ... sometimes Diderot is all right! Diderot won’t do any harm, it’s some little word that does the harm. Great elder, by the way, I almost forgot, though I did intend, as long as two years ago, to inquire here, to stop by on purpose and insistently make inquiries and to ask—only please tell Pyotr Alexandrovich not to interrupt. This I ask you: is it true, great father, that somewhere in the Lives of the Saints there is a story about some holy wonder-worker who was martyred for his faith, and when they finally cut his head off, he got up, took his head, ‘kissed it belovingly,’ and walked on for a long time carrying it in his hands and ‘kissing it belovingly’?^[37] Is this true or not, honored fathers?”

“No, it is not true,” said the elder.

“There is nothing like that anywhere in the Lives of the Saints. Which saint did you say the story was about?” asked the Father Librarian.

“I don’t know which. I don’t know, I have no idea. I was led to believe, I was told. I heard it, and do you know who I heard it from? This same Pyotr Alexandrovich Miusov who just got so angry about Diderot, he told me.”

“I never told you that, I never even speak to you at all.”

“True, you didn’t tell it to me; but you told it in company when I was present; it was three years ago. I mention it because you, Pyotr Alexandrovich, shook my faith with this funny story. You didn’t know it, you had no idea, but I went home with my faith shaken, and since then I’ve been shaking more and more. Yes, Pyotr Alexandrovich, you were the cause of a great fall! Diderot nothing, sir!”

Fyodor Pavlovich was flushed with pathos, though by now it was quite clear to everyone that he was acting again. Even so, Miusov was painfully hurt.

“What nonsense, it’s all nonsense,” he muttered. “I may actually have told it once ... but not to you. It was told to me. I heard it in Paris, from a Frenchman. That it is supposedly read from the Lives of the Saints in our liturgy.^[38] He was a very learned man, he made a special study of statistics about Russia . . lived in Russia for a long time ... I myself have not read the Lives of the Saints ... and do not intend to read them ... It was just table talk . . .! We were having dinner then ...”

“So you were having dinner then, and I just lost my faith!” Fyodor Pavlovich went on teasing him.

“What do I care about your faith!” Miusov almost shouted, but suddenly checked himself and said with contempt: “You literally befoul everything you touch.”

The elder suddenly rose from his seat:

“Excuse me, gentlemen, if I leave you now for just a few minutes,” he said, addressing all of his visitors, “but there are people awaiting me who came belore you. And you, all the same, do not lie,” he added, turning to Fyodor Pavlovich with a cheerful face.

He started to leave the cell. Alyosha and the novice rushed after him to help him down the stairs. Alyosha was breathless, he was glad to get away, but he was also glad that the elder was cheerful and not offended. The elder turned towards the porch in order to bless those who were awaiting him. But Fyodor Pavlovich managed to stop him at the door of the cell.

“Most blessed man!” he cried out with feeling, “let me kiss your dear hand once more. No, still you’re a man one can talk to, a man one can get along with. Do you think I always lie like this and play the buffoon? I want you to know that all the while I’ve been acting on purpose in order to test you. I’ve been getting the feel of you, seeing whether one can get along with you. Whether there’s room for my humility next to your pride. I present you with a certificate of honor: one can get along with you! And now, I am silent, from here on I’ll be silent. I’ll sit on my chair and be silent. Now it’s your turn to speak, Pyotr Alexandrovich, you are the most important man left—for the next ten minutes.”

Chapter 3: Women of Faith

Below, crowding near the wooden porch built onto the outside wall, there were only women this time, about twenty of them. They had been informed that the elder would come out at last, and had gathered in anticipation. The Khokhlakov ladies, who were also waiting for the elder, but in quarters set aside for gentlewomen, had come out to the porch as well. There were two of them, mother and daughter. Madame Khokhlakov, the mother, a wealthy woman, always tastefully dressed, was still fairly young and quite attractive, slightly pale, with very lively and almost completely black eyes. She was not more than thirty-three years old and had been a widow for about five years. Her fourteen-year-old daughter suffered from paralysis of the legs. The poor girl had been unable to walk for about half a year already, and was wheeled around in a long, comfortable chair. Hers was a lovely little face, a bit thin from illness, but cheerful. Something mischievous shone in her big, dark eyes with their long lashes. Her mother had been intending to take her abroad since spring, but was detained through the summer by the management of her estate. They had already spent about a week in our town, more for business than on pilgrimage, but had already visited the elder once, three days before. Now they suddenly came again, though they knew that the elder was almost unable to receive anyone at all, and, pleading insistently, begged once again for “the happiness of beholding the great healer.” While awaiting the elder’s appearance, the mama sat on a seat next to her daughter’s chair, and two steps away from her stood an old monk, not from our monastery, but a visitor from a little-known cloister in the far north. He, too, wanted to receive the elder’s blessing. But when the elder appeared on the porch, he first went directly to the people. The crowd started pressing towards the three steps that connected the low porch with the field. The elder stood on the top step, put on his stole, and began to bless the women who crowded towards him. A “shrieker” was pulled up to him by both hands. She no sooner saw the elder than she suddenly began somehow absurdly screeching, hiccuping, and shaking all over as if in convulsions. The elder, having covered her head with the stole, read a short prayer over her, and she at once became quiet and calmed down. I do not know how it is now, but in my childhood I often used to see and hear these “shriekers” in villages and monasteries. Taken to the Sunday liturgy, they would screech or bark like dogs so that the whole church could hear, but when the chalice was brought out, and they were led up to the chalice, the “demonic possession” would immediately cease and the sick ones would always calm down for a time. As a child, I was greatly struck and astonished by this. And it was then that I heard from some landowners and especially from my town teachers, in answer to my questions, that it was all a pretense in order to avoid work, and that it could always be eradicated by the proper severity, which they confirmed by telling various stories. But later on I was surprised to learn from medical experts that there is no pretense in it, that it is a terrible woman’s disease that seems to occur predominantly in our Russia, that it is a testimony to the hard lot of our peasant women, caused by exhausting work too soon after difficult, improper birth-giving without any medical help, and, besides that, by desperate grief, beatings, and so on, which the nature of many women, after all, as the general examples show, cannot endure. This strange and instant healing of the frenzied and struggling woman the moment she was brought to the chalice, which used to be explained to me as shamming and, moreover, almost as a trick arranged by the “clericals” themselves—this healing occurred, probably, also in a very natural way: both the women who brought her to the chalice and, above all, the sick woman herself, fully believed, as an unquestionable truth, that the unclean spirit that possessed the sick woman could not possibly endure if she, the sick woman, were brought to the chalice and made to bow before it. And therefore, in a nervous and certainly also mentally ill woman, there always occurred (and had to occur), at the moment of her bowing before the chalice, an inevitable shock, as it were, to her whole body, a shock provoked by expectation of the inevitable miracle of healing and by the most complete faith that it would occur. And it would occur, even if only for a moment. That is just what happened now, as soon as the elder covered the woman with his stole.

Many of the women who pressed towards him were shedding tears of tenderness and rapture, called up by the effect of the moment; others strained to kiss at least the hem of his clothes, and some were murmuring to themselves. He gave blessings to everyone and spoke with several. The “shrieker” he knew already; she came not from far away but from a village only four miles from the monastery, and had been brought to him before.

“But she comes from far away!” He pointed to a woman who was not at all old yet but very thin and haggard, with a face not tanned but, as it were, blackened. She was kneeling and stared at the elder with a fixed gaze. There was something frenzied, as it were, in her eyes.

“From far away, dear father, far away, two hundred miles from here. Far away, father, far away,” the woman spoke in a singsong voice, rocking her head gently from side to side with her cheek resting in her hand. She spoke as though she were lamenting. There is among the people a silent, long-suffering grief; it withdraws into itself and is silent. But there is also a grief that is strained; a moment comes when it breaks through with tears, and from that moment on it pours itself out in lamentations. Especially with women. But it is no easier to bear than the silent grief. Lamentations ease the heart only by straining and exacerbating it more and more. Such grief does not even want consolation; it is nourished by the sense of its unquenchableness. Lamentations are simply the need to constantly irritate the wound.

“You must be tradespeople,” the elder continued, studying her with curiosity.

“We’re townspeople, father, townspeople, we’re peasants but we live in town. I’ve come to see you, father. We heard about you, dear father, we heard about you. I buried my baby son, and went on a pilgrimage. I’ve been in three monasteries, and then they told me: ‘Go to them, too, Nastasia’—meaning to you, my dear, to you. So I came; yesterday I was at vespers, and today I’ve come to you.”

“What are you weeping for?”

“I pity my little son, dear father, he was three years old, just three months short of three years old.^[39]I grieve for my little son, father, for my little son. He was the last little son left to us, we had four, Nikitushka and I, but our children didn’t stay with us, they didn’t stay. When I buried the first three, I wasn’t too sorry about them, but this last one I buried and I can’t forget him. As if he’s just standing right in front of me and won’t go away. My soul is wasted over him. I look at his clothes, at his little shirt or his little boots, and start howling. I lay out all that he left behind, all his things, and look at them and howl. Then I say to Nikitushka, that’s my husband, let me go on a pilgrimage, master. He’s a coachman, we’re not poor, father, not poor, we run our own business, everything belongs to us, the horses and the carriages. But who needs all that now? Without me, he’s taken to drinking, my Nikitushka, I’m sure he has, even before I left he’d give in to it, the minute I turned my back. And now I don’t even think about him. It’s three months since I left home. I’ve forgotten, I’ve forgotten everything, and I don’t want to remember, what can I do with him now? I’m through with him, through, I’m through with everybody. And I don’t even want to see my house now, and my things, I don’t want to see anything at all!”

“Listen, mother,” said the elder. “Once, long ago, a great saint saw a mother in church, weeping just as you are over her child, her only child, whom the Lord had also called to him. ‘Do you not know,’ the saint said to her, ‘how bold these infants are before the throne of God? No one is bolder in the Kingdom of Heaven: Lord, you granted us life, they say to God, and just as we beheld it, you took it back from us. And they beg and plead so boldly that the Lord immediately puts them in the ranks of the angels. And therefore,’ said the saint, you, too, woman, rejoice and do not weep. Your infant, too, now abides with the Lord in the host of his angels.’ That is what a saint said to a weeping woman in ancient times. He was a great saint and would not have told her a lie. Therefore you, too, mother, know that your infant, too, surely now stands before the throne of the Lord, rejoicing and being glad, and praying to God for you. Weep, then, but also rejoice.”

The woman listened to him, resting her cheek in her hand, her eyes cast down. She sighed deeply.

“The same way my Nikitushka was comforting me, word for word, like you, he’d say: ‘Foolish woman,’ he’d say, ‘why do you cry so? Our little son is surely with the Lord God now, singing with the angels.’ He’d say it to me, and he’d be crying himself, I could see, he’d be crying just like me. ‘I know, Nikitushka,’ I’d say, ‘where else can he be if not with the Lord God, only he isn’t here, with us, Nikitushka, he isn’t sitting here with us like before! ‘ If only I could just have one more look at him, if I could see him one more time, I wouldn’t even go up to him, I wouldn’t speak, I’d hide in a corner, only to see him for one little minute, to hear him the way he used to play in the backyard and come in and shout in his little voice: ‘Mama, where are you?’ Only to hear how he walks across the room, just once, just one time, pat-pat-pat with his little feet, so quick, so quick, the way I remember he used to run up to me, shouting and laughing, if only I could hear his little feet pattering and know it was him! But he’s gone, dear father, he’s gone and I’ll never hear him again! His little belt is here, but he’s gone, and I’ll never see him, I’ll never hear him again...!”

She took her boy’s little gold-braided belt from her bosom and, at the sight of it, began shaking with sobs, covering her eyes with her hands, through which streamed the tears that suddenly gushed from her eyes.

“This,” said the elder, “is Rachel of old ‘weeping for her children, and she would not be comforted, because they are not.’^[40] This is the lot that befalls you, mothers, on earth. And do not be comforted, you should not be comforted, do not be comforted, but weep. Only each time you weep, do not fail to remember that your little son is one of God’s angels, that he looks down at you from there and sees you, and rejoices in your tears and points them out to the Lord God. And you will be filled with this great mother’s weeping for a long time, but in the end it will turn into quiet joy for you, and your bitter tears will become tears of quiet tenderness and the heart’s purification, which saves from sin. And I will remember your little child in my prayers for the repose of the dead. What was his name?”

“Alexei, dear father.”

“A lovely name! After Alexei, the man of God?”^[41]

“Of God, dear father, of God. Alexei, the man of God.”

“A great saint! I’ll remember, mother, I’ll remember, and I’ll remember your sorrow in my prayers, and I’ll remember your husband, too. Only it is a sin for you to desert him. Go to your husband and take care of him. Your little boy will look down and see that you’ve abandoned his father, and will weep for both of you: why, then, do you trouble his blessedness? He’s alive, surely he’s alive, for the soul lives forever, and though he’s not at home, he is invisibly near you. How, then, can he come to his home if you say you now hate your home? To whom will he go if he does not find you, his father and mother, together? You see him now in your dreams and are tormented, but at home he will send you quiet dreams. Go to your husband, mother, go this very day.”

“I will go, my dear, according to your word, I will go. You’ve touched my heart. Nikitushka, my Nikitushka, you are waiting for me, my dear, waiting for me!” The woman began to murmur, but the elder had already turned to a very old little old lady, dressed not as a pilgrim but in town fashion. One could see by her eyes that she had come for some purpose and had something on her mind. She introduced herself as the widow of a noncommissioned officer, not from far away but from our own town. Her dear son Vasenka had served somewhere in the army commissariat and then gone to Siberia, to Irkutsk. He wrote twice from there, but it had already been a year now since he stopped writing. She made inquiries about him, but to tell the truth she did not even know where to inquire.

“Just the other day, Stepanida Ilyinishna Bedryagin, she’s a merchant’s wife, a wealthy woman, said to me: ‘I tell you what, Prokhorovna, go to church and put your son on a list to be remembered among the dead. His soul,’ she says, ‘will get troubled, and he’ll write to you. It’s just the thing to do,’ Stepanida Ilyinishna says, ‘it’s been tested many times.’ Only I’m not so sure ... Dear father, is it right or wrong? Would it be a good thing to do?”

“Do not even think of it. It is shameful even to ask. How is it possible to commemorate a living soul as one of the dead, and his own mother at that! It is a great sin, it is like sorcery, it can be forgiven only because of your ignorance. You had better pray to the Queen of Heaven, our swift intercessor and helper, for his health, and that you be forgiven for your wrong thoughts. And I will tell you something else, Prokhorovna: either he himself, your boy, will soon come back to you, or he will surely send you a letter. I promise you that. Go, and from now on be at peace. Your boy is alive, I tell you.”

“Dear father, may God reward you, our benefactor, pray for all of us and for oursins...”

But the elder had already noticed in the crowd two burning eyes seeking his, the eyes of a wasted, consumptive-looking, though still young, peasant woman. She stared silently, her eyes pleaded for something, but she seemed afraid to approach.

“What is it, my dear?”

“Absolve my soul, dear father,” the woman said softly and unhurriedly, and she knelt and prostrated at his feet.

“I have sinned, dear father, I am afraid of my sin.”

The elder sat on the bottom step, and the woman approached him, still on her knees.

“I’m three years a widow,” she began in a half-whisper, with a sort of shudder. “My married life was hard, he was old, he beat me badly. Once he was sick in bed; I was looking at him and I thought: what if he recovers, gets up on his feet again, what then? And then the thought came to me...”

“Wait,” said the elder, and he put his ear right to her lips. The woman continued in a soft whisper, almost inaudibly. She soon finished.

“It’s the third year?” the elder asked.

“The third year. At first I didn’t think about it, and now I’ve begun to be ill, grief has caught hold of me.”

“Have you come from far away?”

“Over three hundred miles from here.” “Did you tell it at confession?”

“I did. Twice I confessed it.”

“Were you allowed to receive communion?”

“I was. I’m afraid, afraid to die.”

“Do not be afraid of anything, never be afraid, and do not grieve. Just let repentance not slacken in you, and God will forgive everything. There is not and cannot be in the whole world such a sin that the Lord will not forgive one who truly repents of it. A man even cannot commit so great a sin as would exhaust God’s boundless love. How could there be a sin that exceeds God’s love? Only take care that you repent without ceasing, and chase away fear altogether. Believe that God loves you so as you cannot conceive of it; even with your sin and in your sin he loves you. And there is more joy in heaven over one repentant sinner than over ten righteous men^[42]—that was said long ago. Go, then, and do not be afraid. Do not be upset with people, do not take offense at their wrongs. Forgive the dead man in your heart for all the harm he did you; be reconciled with him truly. If you are repentant, it means that you love. And if you love, you already belong to God ... With love everything is bought, everything is saved. If even I, a sinful man, just like you, was moved to tenderness and felt pity for you, how much more will God be. Love is such a priceless treasure that you can buy the whole world with it, and redeem not only your own but other people’s sins. Go, and do not be afraid.”

He blessed her three times, took a little icon from around his neck, and put it on her. She bowed deeply to him without speaking. He stood up and looked cheerfully at a healthy woman with a little baby in her arms.

“I’m from Vyshegorye, dear father.”

“Why, you’ve worn yourself out walking four miles with a baby! What do you want?”

“I came to have a look at you. I was here before, don’t you remember? Your memory isn’t so good if you’ve forgotten me! Our people said you were sick, and I thought, well, I’ll go and see him myself. So, now I see you, and you don’t look sick at all! God be with you, really, you’ll live another twenty years! With all the people you’ve got praying for you, how could you be sick!”

“Thank you for everything, my dear.” ‘

“By the way, I have a little favor to ask you; here’s sixty kopecks; give them, dear father, to some woman who’s poorer than I am. As I was coming here, I thought: better give them through him, he’ll know who to give them to.”

“Thank you, my dear, thank you, kind woman. I love you. I’ll be sure to do it. Is that a little girl in your arms?”

“A little girl, father. Lizaveta.” “The Lord bless you both, you and your baby Lizaveta. You’ve gladdened my heart, mother. Farewell, my dears, farewell, my dearest ones.” He blessed them all and bowed deeply to them.

Chapter 4: A Lady of Little Faith

The visiting lady landowner, looking upon the whole scene of the conversation with the people and their blessing, shed quiet tears and wiped them away with her handkerchief. She was a sentimental society lady whose inclinations were in many respects genuinely good. When the elder finally came up to her, she met him in raptures.

“I experienced so much, so much, looking on at this moving scene ... ,” she was too excited to finish. “Oh, I understand that the people love you, I myself love the people, I want to love them, and how can one not love them, our beautiful Russian people, so simple in their majesty!”

“How is your daughter’s health? Did you want to talk with me again?” “Oh, I begged insistently, I pleaded, I was ready to go down on my knees and stay kneeling even for three days under your window until you let me in. We have come to you, great healer, to express all our rapturous gratitude. You have surely healed my Liza, healed her completely. And how? By praying over her on Thursday, by laying your hands on her. We have hastened here to kiss those hands, to pour out our feelings and our reverence!”

“What do you mean—healed? Isn’t she still lying in her chair?” “But her night fevers have completely disappeared, for two days now, since Thursday,” the lady nervously hurried on. “Besides, her legs have grown stronger. This morning she woke up healthy, she slept through the night, look at her color, at her bright eyes. She used to cry all the time, and now she’s laughing, gay, joyful. Today she insisted on being helped to her feet, and she stood for a whole minute by herself, without any support. She wants to make a wager with me that in two weeks she’ll be dancing the quadrille. I summoned the local doctor, Herzenstube, and he shrugged and said: amazing, baffling. And you want us not to trouble you, not to fly here and thank you? Thank him, Lise,^[43] thank him!” Lise’s pretty, laughing little face suddenly became serious for a moment. She rose from her chair as much as she could, and, looking at the elder, clasped her hands before him, but she couldn’t help herself and suddenly burst out laughing . . .

“It’s at him, at him!” she pointed to Alyosha, childishly annoyed with herself because she could not keep from laughing. If anyone had looked at Alyosha, who was standing a step behind the elder, he would have noticed a quick blush momentarily coloring his cheeks. His eyes flashed and he looked down.

“She has a message for you, Alexei Fyodorovich ... How are you?” the mama continued, suddenly addressing Alyosha and holding out to him an exquisitely gloved hand. The elder turned and suddenly looked at Alyosha attentively. The latter approached Liza and, grinning somehow strangely and awkwardly, held out his hand. Lise put on an important face.

“Katerina Ivanovna sends you this by me.” She handed him a small letter. “She especially asks that you come to her soon, soon, and not to disappoint her but to be sure to come.”

“She asks me to come? Me ... to her ... but why?” Alyosha muttered, deeply astonished. His face suddenly became quite worried.

“Oh, it’s all about Dmitri Fyodorovich and ... all these recent events,” her mama explained briefly. “Katerina Ivanovna has now come to a decision ... but for that she must see you ... why, of course, I don’t know, but she asked that you come as soon as possible. And you will do it, surely you will, even Christian feeling must tell you to do it.”

“I’ve met her only once,” Alyosha continued, still puzzled.

“Oh, she is such a lofty, such an unattainable creature...! Only think of her sufferings ... Consider what she’s endured, what she’s enduring now, consider what lies ahead of her ... it’s all terrible, terrible!”

“Very well, I’ll go,” Alyosha decided, glancing through the short and mysterious note, which, apart from an urgent request to come, contained no explanations.

“Ah, how nice and splendid it will be of you,” Lise cried with sudden animation. “And I just said to mother: he won’t go for anything, he is saving his soul. You’re so wonderful, so wonderful! I always did think you were wonderful, and it’s so nice to say it to you now!”

“Lise!” her mama said imposingly, though she immediately smiled.

“You’ve forgotten us, too, Alexei Fyodorovich, you don’t care to visit us at all: and yet twice Lise has told me that she feels good only with you.” Alyosha raised his downcast eyes, suddenly blushed again, and suddenly grinned again, not knowing why himself. The elder, however, was no longer watching him. He had gotten into conversation with the visiting monk, who, as we have already said, was waiting by Lise’s chair for him to come out. He was apparently one of those monks of the humblest sort, that is, from the common people, with a short, unshakable world view, but a believer and, in his own way, a tenacious one. He introduced himself as coming from somewhere in the far north, from Obdorsk, from St. Sylvester’s, a poor monastery with only nine monks. The elder gave him his blessing and invited him to visit his cell when he liked.

“How are you so bold as to do such deeds?” the monk suddenly asked, pointing solemnly and imposingly at Lise. He was alluding to her “healing.”

“It is, of course, too early to speak of that. Improvement is not yet a complete healing, and might also occur for other reasons. Still, if there was anything, it came about by no one else’s power save the divine will. Everything is from God. Visit me, father,” he added, addressing the monk, “while I’m still able: I’m ill, and I know that my days are numbered.”

“Oh, no, no, God will not take you from us, you will live a long, long time yet,” the mama exclaimed. “What’s this about being ill? You look so healthy, so cheerful, so happy.”

“I feel remarkably better today, but by now I know that it is only for a moment. I’ve come to understand my illness perfectly. But since I seem so cheerful to you, nothing could ever gladden me more than your saying so. For people are created for happiness, and he who is completely happy can at once be deemed worthy of saying to himself: ‘I have fulfilled God’s commandment on this earth.’ All the righteous, all the saints, all the holy martyrs were happy.”

“Oh, how you speak! What brave and lofty words!” the mama exclaimed. “You speak, and it seems to pierce one right through. And yet happiness, happiness—where is it? Who can call himself happy? Oh, since you were already so kind as to allow us to see you once more today, let me tell you everything that I held back last time, that I did not dare to say, everything that I suffer with, and have for so long, so long! I am suffering, forgive me, I am suffering!” And in a sort of hot rush of emotion, she pressed her hands together before him.

“From what precisely?”

“I suffer from ... lack of faith...”

“Lack of faith in God?”

“Oh, no, no, I dare not even think of that, but the life after death—it’s such a riddle! And no one, but no one will solve it! Listen, you are a healer, a connoisseur of human souls; of course, I dare not expect you to believe me completely, but I assure you, I give you my greatest word that I am not speaking lightly now, that this thought about a future life after death troubles me to the point of suffering, terror, and fright ... And I don’t know who to turn to, all my life I’ve never dared ... And now I’m so bold as to turn to you ... Oh, God, what will you think of me now!” And she clasped her hands.

“Don’t worry about my opinion,” the elder answered. “I believe completely in the genuineness of your anguish.”

“Oh, how grateful I am to you! You see, I close my eyes and think: if everyone has faith, where does it come from? And then they say that it all came originally from fear of the awesome phenomena of nature, and that there is nothing to it at all. What? I think, all my life I’ve believed, then I die, and suddenly there’s nothing, and only ‘burdock will grow on my grave,’^[44] as I read in one writer? It’s terrible! What, what will give me back my faith? Though I believed only when I was a little child, mechanically, without thinking about anything ... How, how can it be proved? I’ve come now to throw myself at your feet and ask you about it. If I miss this chance, too, then surely no one will answer me for the rest of my life. How can it be proved, how can one be convinced? Oh, miserable me! I look around and see that for everyone else, almost everyone, it’s all the same, no one worries about it anymore, and I’m the only one who can’t bear it. It’s devastating, devastating!”

“No doubt it is devastating. One cannot prove anything here, but it is possible to be convinced.”

“How? By what?”

“By the experience of active love. Try to love your neighbors actively and tirelessly. The more you succeed in loving, the more you’ll be convinced of the existence of God and the immortality of your soul. And if you reach complete selflessness in the love of your neighbor, then undoubtedly you will believe, and no doubt will even be able to enter your soul. This has been tested. It is certain.”

“Active love? That’s another question, and what a question, what a question! You see, I love mankind so much that—would you believe it?—I sometimes dream of giving up all, all I have, of leaving Lise and going to become a sister of mercy. I close my eyes, I think and dream, and in such moments I feel an invincible strength in myself. No wounds, no festering sores could frighten me. I would bind them and cleanse them with my own hands, I would nurse the suffering, I am ready to kiss those sores ...”

“It’s already a great deal and very well for you that you dream of that in your mind and not of something else. Once in a while, by chance, you may really do some good deed.”

“Yes, but could I survive such a life for long?” the lady went on heatedly, almost frantically, as it were. “That’s the main question, that’s my most tormenting question of all. I close my eyes and ask myself: could you stand it for long on such a path? And if the sick man whose sores you are cleansing does not respond immediately with gratitude but, on the contrary, begins tormenting you with his whims, not appreciating and not noticing your philanthropic ministry, if he begins to shout at you, to make rude demands, even to complain to some sort of superiors (as often happens with people who are in pain)—what then? Will you go on loving, or not? And, imagine, the answer already came to me with a shudder: if there’s anything that would immediately cool my ‘active’ love for mankind, that one thing is ingratitude. In short, I work for pay and demand my pay at once, that is, praise and a return of love lor my love. Otherwise I’m unable to love anyone!”

She was in a fit of the most sincere self-castigation, and, having finished, looked with defiant determination at the elder.

“I heard exactly the same thing, a long time ago to be sure, from a doctor,” the elder remarked. “He was then an old man, and unquestionably intelligent. He spoke just as frankly as you, humorously, but with a sorrowful humor. ‘I love mankind,’ he said, ‘but I am amazed at myself: the more I love mankind in general, the less I love people in particular, that is, individually, as separate persons. In my dreams,’ he said, ‘I often went so far as to think passionately of serving mankind, and, it may be, would really have gone to the cross for people if it were somehow suddenly necessary, and yet I am incapable of living in the same room with anyone even for two days, this I know from experience. As soon as someone is there, close to me, his personality oppresses my self-esteem and restricts my freedom. In twenty-four hours I can begin to hate even the best of men: one because he takes too long eating his dinner, another because he has a cold and keeps blowing his nose. I become the enemy of people the moment they touch me,’ he said. ‘On the other hand, it has always happened that the more I hate people individually, the more ardent becomes my love for humanity as a whole.’”

“But what is to be done, then? What is to be done in such a case? Should one fall into despair?”

“No, for it is enough that you are distressed by it. Do what you can, and it will be reckoned unto you. You have already done much if you can understand yourself so deeply and so sincerely! But if you spoke with me so sincerely just now in order to be praised, as I have praised you, for your truthfulness, then of course you will get nowhere with your efforts at active love; it will all remain merely a dream, and your whole life will flit by like a phantom. Then, naturally, you will forget about the future life, and in the end will somehow calm down by yourself.”

“You have crushed me! Only now, this very moment, as you were speaking, did I realize that indeed I was waiting only for you to praise my sincerity, when I told you that I couldn’t bear ingratitude. You’ve brought me back to myself, you’ve caught me out and explained me to myself!”

“Is it true what you say? Well, now, after such a confession from you, I believe that you are sincere and good at heart. If you do not attain happiness, always remember that you are on a good path, and try not to leave it. Above all, avoid lies, all lies, especially the lie to yourself. Keep watch on your own lie and examine it every hour, every minute. And avoid contempt, both of others and of yourself: what seems bad to you in yourself is purified by the very fact that you have noticed it in yourself. And avoid fear, though fear is simply the consequence of every lie. Never be frightened at your own faintheartedness in attaining love, and meanwhile do not even be very frightened by your own bad acts. I am sorry that I cannot say anything more comforting, for active love is a harsh and fearful thing compared with love in dreams. Love in dreams thirsts for immediate action, quickly performed, and with everyone watching. Indeed, it will go as far as the giving even of one’s life, provided it does not take long but is soon over, as on stage, and everyone is looking on and praising. Whereas active love is labor and perseverance, and for some people, perhaps, a whole science. But I predict that even in that very moment when you see with horror that despite all your efforts, you not only have not come nearer your goal but seem to have gotten farther from it, at that very moment—I predict this to you—you will suddenly reach your goal and will clearly behold over you the wonder-working power of the Lord, who all the while has been loving you, and all the while has been mysteriously guiding you. Forgive me for not being able to stay with you longer, but I am expected. Good-bye.”

The lady was weeping.

“Lise, Lise, but bless her, bless her!” she suddenly fluttered herself up.

“But does she deserve to be loved? I saw how she was being naughty all this time,” the elder said jokingly. “Why have you been laughing at Alexei all this time?”

Lise had, indeed, been busy teasing Alyosha all the time. She had noticed long ago, from their first visit, that Alyosha was shy of her and tried not to look at her, and she found this terribly amusing. She waited purposely to catch his eye: Alyosha, unable to endure her persistent stare, would glance at her from time to time, unwillingly, drawn by an irresistible force, and at once she would grin a triumphant grin right in his face. Alyosha would become embarrassed, and even more annoyed. Finally he turned away from her altogether and hid behind the elder’s back. After a few minutes, drawn by the same irresistible force, he turned to see if he was still being looked at or not, and saw Lise, almost hanging out of her chair, peering at him sideways, waiting with all her might for him to look at her. Having caught his eye, she burst into such laughter that even the elder could not help saying:

“Naughty girl, why are you shaming him like that?”

Lise suddenly and quite unexpectedly blushed, her eyes flashed, her face became terribly serious, and with hot indignation she suddenly protested rapidly, nervously:

“And why has he forgotten everything? He carried me in his arms when I was little, we played together. Why, he used to come and teach me to read, do you know that? Two years ago, when we parted, he said he would never forget that we were friends forever, forever and ever! And now all of a sudden he’s afraid of me. I’m not going to bite him, am I? Why doesn’t he want to come near me? Why doesn’t he say anything? Why won’t he come to see us? It’s not that you won’t let him: we know he goes everywhere. It’s improper for me to invite him, he should be the first to think of it, if he hasn’t forgotten. No, sir, now he’s saving his soul! Why did you put those long skirts on him ... If he runs, he’ll trip and fall...”

And suddenly, unable to restrain herself, she covered her face with her hand and burst, terribly, uncontrollably, into her prolonged, nervous, shaking, and inaudible laughter. The elder listened to her with a smile and blessed her tenderly. As she kissed his hand, she suddenly pressed it to her eyes and started crying:

“Don’t be angry with me, I’m a fool, I’m worthless ... and maybe Alyosha is right, very right, in not wanting to come and see such a silly girl.”

“I’ll be sure to send him,” the elder decided.

Chapter 5: So Be It! So Be It!

The elder’s absence from his cell lasted for about twenty-five minutes. It was already past twelve-thirty, yet Dmitri Fyodorovich, for whose sake everyone had gathered, was still nowhere to be seen. But it was almost as if he had been forgotten, and when the elder stepped into the cell again, he found his guests engaged in a most lively general conversation. Ivan Fyodorovich and the two hieromonks were the main participants. Miusov, too, was trying—very eagerly, it appeared—to get into the conversation, but again he had no luck; he was obviously in the background, and they scarcely even responded to him, which new circumstance only added to his growing irritation. The thing was that he had engaged in some intellectual fencing with Ivan Fyodorovich before, and could not calmly endure this seeming negligence from him: “Up to now, at least, I have stood very high with all that is progressive in Europe, but this new generation is decidedly ignoring us,” he thought to himself. Fyodor Pavlovich, who had given his word to sit in his chair and be silent, was indeed silent for a while, but he watched his neighbor, Pyotr Alexandrovich, with a mocking little smile, obviously taking pleasure in his irritation. He had been meaning for a long time to pay back some old scores and now did not want to let his chance slip. Finally, unable to restrain himself, he leaned over his neighbor’s shoulder and began taunting him again in a half-whisper.

“And why, instead of going away just now, after my ‘kissing it belovingly,’ have you consented to remain in such unseemly company? It’s because you felt yourself humiliated and insulted, and stayed in order to display your intelligence and get your own back. You won’t leave now until you’ve displayed your intelligence for them.”

“What, again? On the contrary, I’ll leave at once.”

“You’ll be the last, the last of all to go!” Fyodor Pavlovich picked at him once more. This was almost the very moment of the elder’s return.

The discussion died briefly, but the elder, having sat down in his former place, looked around at them all as if cordially inviting them to continue. Alyosha, who had learned almost every expression of his face, saw clearly that he was terribly tired and was forcing himself. In the recent days of his illness, he had occasionally fainted from exhaustion. Almost the same pallor as before he fainted was now spreading over his face, his lips became white. But he obviously did not want to dismiss the gathering; he seemed, besides, to have some purpose of his own—but what was it? Alyosha watched him intently.

“We are talking about a most curious article by the gentleman,” said the hieromonk Iosif, the librarian, addressing the elder and pointing to Ivan Fyodorovich. “There is much that is new in it, but it seems the argument is two-edged. It is a magazine article on the subject of ecclesiastical courts and the scope of their rights, written in reply to a churchman who wrote an entire book on the subject . . .”^[45]

“Unfortunately, I have not read your article, but I have heard about it,” the elder replied, looking intently and keenly at Ivan Fyodorovich.

“He stands on a most curious point,” the Father Librarian went on. “Apparently, on the question of ecclesiastical courts, he completely rejects the separation of Church and state.”

“That is curious, but in what sense?” the elder asked Ivan Fyodorovich. The latter answered at last, not with polite condescension, as Alyosha had feared the day before, but modestly and reservedly, with apparent consideration and, evidently, without the least ulterior motive.

“I start from the proposition that this mixing of elements, that is, of the essences of Church and state taken separately, will of course go on eternally, despite the fact that it is impossible, and that it will never be brought not only to a normal but even to any degree of compatible relationship, because there is a lie at the very basis of the matter. Compromise between the state and the Church on such questions as courts, for example, is, in my opinion, in its perfect and pure essence, impossible. The churchman with whom I argued maintains that the Church occupies a precise and definite place within the state. I objected that, on the contrary, the Church should contain in itself the whole state and not merely occupy a certain corner of it, and that if for some reason that is impossible now, then in the essence of things it undoubtedly should be posited as the direct and chief aim of the whole further development of Christian society.”

“Very true!” Father Paissy, the silent and learned hieromonk, said firmly and nervously.

“Sheer Ultramontanism!”^[46] Miusov exclaimed, crossing and recrossing his legs in impatience.

“Ah, but we don’t even have any mountains!” exclaimed Father Iosif, and turning to the elder, he continued: “Incidentally, he replies to the following basic and essential’ propositions of his opponent, who, mind you, is a churchman. First, that ‘no social organization can or should arrogate to itself the power to dispose of the civil and political rights of its members.’ Second, that criminal and civil jurisdiction should not belong to the Church and are

incompatible with its nature both as divine institution and as an organization of men for religious purposes.’ And finally, third, that ‘the Church is a kingdom not of this world . . .’”

“A most unworthy play on words for a churchman!” Father Paissy, unable to restrain himself, interrupted again. “I have read this book to which you ob-jected,” he addressed Ivan Fyodorovich, “and was astonished by this churchman saying ‘the Church is a kingdom not of this world.’^[47] If it is not of this world, it follows that it cannot exist on earth at all. In the Holy Gospel, the words ‘not of this world’ are used in a different sense. To play with such words Is impossible. Our Lord Jesus Christ came precisely to establish the Church on earth. The Kingdom of Heaven, of course, is not of this world but in heaven, but it is entered in no other way than through the Church that is founded and established on earth. And therefore to make worldly puns in this sense is impossible and unworthy. The Church is indeed a kingdom and appointed to reign, and in the end must undoubtedly be revealed as a kingdom over all the earth—for which we have a covenant. . .”

He suddenly fell silent, as if checking himself. Ivan Fyodorovich, having listened to him respectfully and attentively, went on with great composure, but, as before, eagerly and openheartedly, addressing the elder.

“The whole point of my article is that in ancient times, during its first three centuries, Christianity was revealed on earth only by the Church, and was only the Church. But when the pagan Roman state desired to become Christian, it inevitably so happened that, having become Christian, it merely included the Church in itself, but itself continued to be, as before, a pagan state in a great many of its functions. Essentially, this is undoubtedly what had to happen. But Rome as a state retained too much of pagan civilization and wisdom—for example, the very aims and basic principles of the state. Whereas Christ’s Church, having entered the state, no doubt could give up none of its own basic principles, of that rock on which it stood, and could pursue none but its own aims, once firmly established and shown to it by the Lord himself, among which was the transforming of the whole world, and therefore of the whole ancient pagan state, into the Church. Thus (that is, for future purposes) , it is not the Church that should seek a definite place for itself in the state, like ‘any social organization’ or ‘organization of men for religious purposes’ (as the author I was objecting to refers to the Church), but, on the contrary, every earthly state must eventually be wholly transformed into the Church and become nothing else but the Church, rejecting whichever of its aims are incompatible with those of the Church. And all of this will in no way demean it, will take away neither its honor nor its glory as a great state, nor the glory of its rulers, but will only turn it from a false, still pagan and erroneous path, onto the right and true path that alone leads to eternal goals. That is why the author of the book on The Principles of the Ecclesiastical Court would have judged correctly if, while seeking and presenting these principles, he had looked upon them as a temporary compromise, still necessary in our sinful and unfulfilled times, and nothing more. But as soon as the inventor of these principles makes so bold as to declare the principles he is presenting, some of which Father Iosif has just enumerated, to be immovable, elemental, and eternal, he goes directly against the Church and its holy, eternal, and immovable destiny. That is the whole of my article, a full summary of it.”

“In short,” Father Paissy said again, stressing each word, “according to certain theories, which have become only too clear in our nineteenth century, the Church ought to be transforming itself into the state, from a lower to a higher species, as it were, so as to disappear into it eventually, making way for science, the spirit of the age, and civilization. And if it does not want that and offers resistance, then as a result it is allotted only a certain corner, as it were, in the state, and even that under control—as is happening in our time everywhere in modern European lands. Yet according to the Russian understanding and hope, it is not the Church that needs to be transformed into the state, as from a lower to a higher type, but, on the contrary, the state should end by being accounted worthy of becoming only the Church alone, and nothing else but that. And so be it, so be it!”

“Well, sir, I confess that you have now reassured me somewhat,” Miusov grinned, recrossing his legs again. “So far as I understand it, this, then, would be the realization of some ideal, an infinitely remote one, at the Second Coming. That is as you please. A beautiful Utopian dream of the disappearance of wars, diplomats, banks, and so on. Something even resembling socialism. And here I was thinking you meant it all seriously, and that the Church might now, for instance, be judging criminals and sentencing them to flogging, hard labor, perhaps even capital punishment.”

“But if even now there were only ecclesiastical courts, even now the Church would not sentence criminals to hard labor or capital punishment. Crime and the whole way of looking at it would then undoubtedly have to change, little by little, of course, not all at once, not immediately, but still quite soon ... ,” Ivan Fyodorovich said calmly and without batting an eye.

“Are you serious?” Miusov looked at him intently.

“If everything became the Church, then the Church would excommunicate the criminal and the disobedient and not cut off their heads,” Ivan Fyodorovich continued. “Where, I ask you, would the excommunicated man go? He would then have to go away not only from men, as now, but also from Christ. For by his crime he would have rebelled not only against men but also against Christ’s Church. That is so now, too, of course, strictly speaking, but it is not avowed, and the criminal of today all too often bargains with his conscience: ‘I stole,’ he says, ‘but I have not gone against the Church, I am not an enemy of Christ.’ Time and again that is what the criminal of today says to himself. Well, but when the Church takes the place of the state, it will be very difficult for him to say that, unless he means to reject the Church all over the earth, to say: ‘All are mistaken, all are in error, all are a false Church, and I alone, a murderer and thief, am the true Christian Church.’ It is very difficult to say this to oneself; it requires formidable conditions, circumstances that do not often occur. Now, on the other hand, take the Church’s own view of crime: should it not change from the present, almost pagan view, and from the mechanical cutting off of the infected member, as is done now for the preservation of society, and transform, fully now and not falsely, into the idea of the regeneration of man anew, of his restoration and salvation ... ?”

“But what are you talking about? Again I cease to understand,” Miusov interrupted. “Some kind of dream again. Something shapeless, and impossible to understand as well. Excommunication? What excommunication? I suspect you’re simply amusing yourself, Ivan Fyodorovich.”

“But, you know, in reality it is so even now,” the elder suddenly spoke and everyone turned to him at once. “If it were not for Christ’s Church, indeed there would be no restraint on the criminal in his evildoing, and no punishment for it later, real punishment, that is, not a mechanical one such as has just been mentioned, which only chafes the heart in most cases, but a real punishment, the only real, the only frightening and appeasing punishment, which lies in the acknowledgement of one’s own conscience.”

“How is that, may I ask?” Miusov inquired with the liveliest curiosity.

“Here is how it is,” the elder began. “All this exile to hard labor, and formerly with floggings, does not reform anyone, and above all does not even frighten almost any criminal, and the number of crimes not only does not diminish but increases all the more. Surely you will admit that. And it turns out that society, thus, is not protected at all, for although the harmful member is mechanically cut off and sent far away out of sight, another criminal appears at once to take his place, perhaps even two others. If anything protects society even in our time, and even reforms the criminal himself and transforms him into a different person, again it is Christ’s law alone, which manifests itself in the acknowledgement of one’s own conscience. Only if he acknowledges his guilt as a son of Christ’s society—that is, of the Church—will he acknowledge his guilt before society itself—that is, before the Church. Thus, the modern criminal is capable of acknowledging his guilt before the Church alone, and not before the state. If it were so that judgment belonged to society as the Church, then it would know whom to bring back from excommunication and reunite with itself. But now the Church, having no active jurisdiction but merely the possibility of moral condemnation alone, withholds from actively punishing the criminal of its own accord. It does not excommunicate him, but simply does not leave him without paternal guidance. Moreover, it even tries to preserve full Christian communion with the criminal, admitting him to church services, to the holy gifts,^[48] giving him alms, and treating him more as a captive than as a wrongdoer. And what would become of the criminal, oh, Lord, if Christian society, too—that is, the Church—rejected him in the same way that civil law rejects him and cuts him off? What would become of him if the Church, too, punished him with excommunication each time immediately after the law of the state has punished him? Surely there could be no greater despair, at least for a Russian criminal, for Russian criminals still have faith. Though who knows: perhaps a terrible thing would happen then—the loss of faith, perhaps, would occur in the desperate heart of the criminal, and what then? But the Church, like a mother, tender and loving, withholds from active punishment, for even without her punishment, the wrongdoer is already too painfully punished by the state court, and at least someone should pity him. And it withholds above all because the judgment of the Church is the only judgment that contains the truth, and for that reason it cannot, essentially and morally, be combined with any other judgment, even in a temporary compromise. Here it is not possible to strike any bargains. The foreign criminal, they say, rarely repents, for even the modern theories themselves confirm in him the idea that his crime is not a crime but only a rebellion against an unjustly oppressive force. Society cuts him off from itself quite mechanically by the force that triumphs over him, and accompanies that excommunication with hatred (so, at least, they say about themselves in Europe)—with hatred and complete indifference and forgetfulness of his subsequent fate as their brother. Thus, all of this goes on without the least compassion of the Church, for in many cases there already are no more churches at all, and what remains are just churchmen and splendid church buildings, while the churches themselves have long been striving to pass from the lower species, the Church, to a higher species, the state, in order to disappear into it completely. So it seems to be, at least, in Lutheran lands. And in Rome it is already a thousand years since the state was proclaimed in place of the Church. And therefore the criminal is not conscious of himself as a member of the Church, and, excommunicated, he sits in despair. And if he returns to society, it is not seldom with such hatred that society itself, as it were, now excommunicates him. What will be the end of it, you may judge for yourselves. In many cases, it would appear to be the same with us; but the point is precisely that, besides the established courts, we have, in addition, the Church as well, which never loses communion with the criminal, as a dear and still beloved son, and above that there is preserved, even if only in thought, the judgment of the Church, not active now but still living for the future, if only as a dream, and unquestionably acknowledged by the criminal himself, by the instinct of his soul. What has just been said here is also true, that if, indeed, the judgment of the Church came, and in its full force—that is, if the whole of society turned into the Church alone—then not only would the judgment of the Church influence the reformation of the criminal as it can never influence it now, but perhaps crimes themselves would indeed diminish at an incredible rate. And the Church, too, no doubt, would understand the future criminal and the future crime in many cases quite differently from now, and would be able to bring the excommunicated back, to deter the plotter, to regenerate the fallen. It is true,” the elder smiled, “that now Christian society itself is not yet ready, and stands only on seven righteous men; but as they are never wanting, it abides firmly all the same, awaiting its complete transfiguration from society as still an almost pagan organization, into one universal and sovereign Church. And so be it, so be it, if only at the end of time, for this alone is destined to be fulfilled! And there is no need to trouble oneself with times and seasons, for the mystery of times and seasons is in the wisdom of God, in his foresight, and in his love.^[49] And that which by human reckoning may still be rather remote, by divine predestination may already be standing on the eve of its appearance, at the door. And so be that, too! So be it!”

“So be it! So be it!” Father Paissy confirmed with reverence and severity.

“Strange, most strange,” Miusov pronounced, not so much fervently as with, so to speak, a sort of repressed indignation.

“What seems so strange to you?” Father Iosif cautiously inquired.

“But, really, what are you talking about?” Miusov exclaimed, as if suddenly bursting out. “The state is abolished on earth, and the Church is raised to the level of the state! It’s not even Ultramontanism, it’s arch-Ultramontanism! Even Pope Gregory the Seventh never dreamed of such a thing!”^[50]

“You have been pleased to understand it in a completely opposite sense,” Father Paissy spoke sternly. “It is not the Church that turns into the state, you see. That is Rome and its dream. That is the third temptation of the devil!^[51] But, on the contrary, the state turns into the Church, it rises up to the Church and becomes the Church over all the earth, which is the complete opposite of Ultramontanism and of Rome, and of your interpretation, and is simply the great destiny of Orthodoxy on earth. This star will show forth from the East.”

Miusov was imposingly silent. His whole figure expressed remarkable self-respect. A haughtily condescending smile appeared on his lips. Alyosha followed it all with a pounding heart. The whole conversation stirred him deeply. He happened to glance at Rakitin, who stood motionless in his former place by the door, listening and watching attentively, though with downcast eyes. But by the lively color in his cheeks, Alyosha guessed that Rakitin, too, was stirred, probably no less than he was. Alyosha knew what stirred him.

“Allow me to relate a little anecdote, gentlemen,” Miusov suddenly said imposingly and with a sort of especially grand air. “In Paris, several years ago now, soon after the December revolution,^[52]I happened once, while visiting an acquaintance, then a very, very important and official person, to meet there a most curious gentleman. This individual was not exactly an undercover agent, but something like the supervisor of an entire team of political agents—rather an influential position in its way. Seizing the chance, out of great curiosity, I struck up a conversation with him; and since he was there not as an acquaintance but as a subordinate official, who had come with a certain kind of report, he, seeing for his part how I was received by his superior, deigned to show me some frankness—well, of course, to a certain extent; that is, he was more polite than frank, precisely as a Frenchman can be polite, the more so because he viewed me as a foreigner. But I well understood him. The topic was socialist revolutionaries, who then, by the way, were being persecuted. Omitting the main essence of the conversation, I shall quote only one most curious remark that this person suddenly let drop: ‘We are not, in fact, afraid of all these socialists, anarchists, atheists, and revolutionaries,’ he said. ‘We keep an eye on them, and their movements are known to us. But there are some special people among them, although not many: these are believers in God and Christians, and at the same time socialists. They are the ones we are most afraid of; they are terrible people! A socialist Christian is more dangerous than a socialist atheist.’ His words struck me even then, but now, here, gentlemen, I somehow suddenly recalled them ...”

“That is, you apply them to us and see us as socialists?” Father Paissy asked directly, without beating around the bush. But before Pyotr Alexandrovich was able to think of a reply, the door opened and in came the long-awaited Dmitri Fyodorovich. Indeed, he was, as it were, no longer expected, and his sudden appearance at first even caused some surprise.

Chapter 6: Why Is Such a Man Alive!

Dmitri Fyodorovich, a young man of twenty-eight, of medium height and agreeable looks, appeared, however, much older than his years. He was muscular and one could tell that he possessed considerable physical strength; nonetheless something sickly, as it were, showed in his face. His face was lean, his cheeks hollow, their color tinged with a sort of unhealthy sallowness. His rather large, dark, prominent eyes had an apparently firm and determined, yet somehow vague, look. Even when he was excited and talking irritably, his look, as it were, did not obey his inner mood but expressed something else, sometimes not at all corresponding to the present moment. “It’s hard to know what he’s thinking about,” those who spoke with him would occasionally say. Others, seeing something pensive and gloomy in his eyes, would suddenly be struck by his unexpected laughter, betraying gay and playful thoughts precisely at the moment when he looked so gloomy. Though his somewhat sickly look at that time could well be understood: everyone knew or had heard about the extremely troubled and “riotous” life he had given himself up to precisely of late, just as they knew about the remarkable irritation he reached in quarrels with his father over the controversial money. Already there were several anecdotes about it going around town. It is true that he was irritable by nature, “abrupt and erratic of mind,” as our justice of the peace, Semyon Ivanovich Kachalnikov, characteristically described him at one of our gatherings. He entered, impeccably and smartly dressed, his frock coat buttoned, wearing black gloves and carrying his top hat. As a recently retired military man, he wore a moustache and still shaved his beard. His dark brown hair was cut short and combed somehow forward on his temples. He had a long, resolute military stride. He stopped for a moment on the threshold and, glancing around at everyone, went directly to the elder, guessing him to be the host. He made a low bow to him and asked for his blessing. The elder rose a little in his chair and blessed him; Dmitri Fyodorovich respectfully kissed his hand and with remarkable excitement, almost irritation, said:

“Be so generous as to forgive me for having kept you waiting so long. But the servant Smerdyakov, sent by papa, in reply to my insistent question about the time, told me twice in the most definite tone that the appointment was at one. Now I suddenly find out ...”

“Don’t worry,” the elder interrupted, “it’s nothing, you’re just a bit late, it doesn’t matter...”

“I am extremely grateful, and could expect no less from your goodness.” Having snapped out these words, Dmitri Fyodorovich bowed once again, then, suddenly turning to his “papa,” made the same deep and respectful bow to him as well. It was obvious that he had considered this bow beforehand and conceived it sincerely, believing it his duty to express thereby his respect and goodwill. Fyodor Pavlovich, though taken unawares, found the proper reply at once: in response to Dmitri Fyodorovich’s bow, he jumped up from his chair and responded to his son with exactly as deep a bow. His face suddenly became solemn and imposing, which gave him, however, a decidedly wicked look. Then, silently, giving a general bow to all those present in the room, Dmitri Fyodorovich, with his big and resolute strides, went over to the window, sat down on the only remaining chair, not far from Father Paissy, and, leaning forward with his whole body, at once prepared to listen to the continuation of the conversation he had interrupted.

Dmitri Fyodorovich’s appearance had taken no more than a couple of minutes, and the conversation could not fail to start up again. But this time Pyotr Alexandrovich did not deem it necessary to reply to Father Paissy’s persistent and almost irritated question.

“Allow me to dismiss the subject,” he said with a certain worldly nonchalance. “Besides, it’s a complex one. Ivan Fyodorovich, here, is grinning at us: he must have saved something curious for this occasion as well. Ask him.”

“Nothing special, except for a small remark,” Ivan Fyodorovich answered at once, “that European liberalism in general, and even our Russian liberal dilettantism, has long and frequently confused the final results of socialism with those of Christianity. This wild conclusion is, of course, typical. Incidentally, it turns out that socialism is confused with Christianity not only by liberals and dilettantes, but along with them, in many cases, by gendarmes as well—I mean foreign ones, of course. Your Parisian anecdote, Pyotr Alexandrovich, is quite typical.”

“Generally, again, I ask your permission to drop the subject,” Pyotr Alexandrovich repeated, “and instead let me tell you another anecdote, gentlemen, about Ivan Fyodorovich himself, a most typical and interesting one. No more than five days ago, at a local gathering, predominantly of ladies, he solemnly announced in the discussion that there is decidedly nothing in the whole world that would make men love their fellow men; that there exists no law of nature that man should love mankind, and that if there is and has been any love on earth up to now, it has come not from natural law but solely from people’s belief in their immortality. Ivan Fyodorovich added parenthetically that that is what all natural law consists of, so that were mankind’s belief in its immortality to be destroyed, not only love but also any living power to continue the life of the world would at once dry up in it. Not only that, but then nothing would be immoral any longer, everything would be permitted, even anthropophagy. And even that is not all: he ended with the assertion that for every separate person, like ourselves for instance, who believes neither in God nor in his own immortality, the moral law of nature ought to change immediately into the exact opposite of the former religious law, and that egoism, even to the point of evildoing, should not only be permitted to man but should be acknowledged as the necessary, the most reasonable, and all but the noblest result of his situation. From this paradox, gentlemen, you may deduce what else our dear eccentric and paradoxalist Ivan Fyodorovich may be pleased to proclaim, and perhaps still intends to proclaim.”

“Allow me,” Dmitri Fyodorovich suddenly cried unexpectedly, “to be sure I’ve heard correctly: ‘Evildoing should not only be permitted but even should be acknowledged as the most necessary and most intelligent solution for the situation of every godless person’! Is that it, or not?”

“Exactly that,” said Father Paissy. “I’ll remember.”

Having said which, Dmitri Fyodorovich fell silent as unexpectedly as he had unexpectedly flown into the conversation. They all looked at him with curiosity.

“Can it be that you really hold this conviction about the consequences of the exhaustion of men’s faith in the immortality of their souls?” the elder suddenly asked Ivan Fyodorovich.

“Yes, it was my contention. There is no virtue if there is no immortality.”

“You are blessed if you believe so, or else most unhappy!”

“Why unhappy?” Ivan Fyodorovich smiled.

“Because in all likelihood you yourself do not believe either in the immortality of your soul or even in what you have written about the Church and the Church question.”

“Maybe you’re right . . .! But still, I wasn’t quite joking either . . .” Ivan Fyodorovich suddenly and strangely confessed—by the way, with a quick blush.

“You weren’t quite joking, that is true. This idea is not yet resolved in your heart and torments it. But a martyr, too, sometimes likes to toy with his despair, also from despair, as it were. For the time being you, too, are toying, out of despair, with your magazine articles and drawing-room discussions, without believing in your own dialectics and smirking at them with your heart aching inside you ... The question is not resolved in you, and there lies your great grief, for it urgently demands resolution...”

“But can it be resolved in myself? Resolved in a positive way?” Ivan Fyodorovich continued asking strangely, still looking at the elder with a certain inexplicable smile.

“Even if it cannot be resolved in a positive way, it will never be resolved in the negative way either—you yourself know this property of your heart, and therein lies the whole of its torment. But thank the Creator that he has given you a lofty heart, capable of being tormented by such a torment, ‘to set your mind on things that are above, for our true homeland is in heaven.^[53] May God grant that your heart’s decision overtake you still on earth, and may God bless your path!”

The elder raised his hand and was about to give his blessing to Ivan Fyodorovich from where he sat. But the latter suddenly rose from his chair, went over to him, received his blessing, and, having kissed his hand, returned silently to his place. He looked firm and serious. This action, as well as the whole preceding conversation with the elder, so unexpected from Ivan Fyodorovich, somehow struck everyone with its mysteriousness and even a certain solemnity, so that for a moment they all fell silent, and Alyosha looked almost frightened. But Miusov suddenly heaved his shoulders, and at the same moment Fyodor Pavlovich jumped up from his chair.

“Divine and most holy elder!” he cried, pointing at Ivan Fyodorovich, “this is my son, the flesh of my flesh, my own dear flesh! This is my most respectful Karl Moor, so to speak, and this son, the one who just came in, Dmitri Fyodorovich, against whom I am seeking justice from you, is the most disrespectful Franz Moor, both from Schiller’s Robbers, and I, I myself in that case am the regierender Graf von Moor!^[54] Judge and save us! It’s not just your prayers we need, but your prophecies!”

“Speak without foolery, and do not begin by insulting your relations,” the elder replied in a weak, exhausted voice. He was clearly getting more and more tired and was visibly losing his strength.

“An unworthy comedy, just as I anticipated on my way here!” Dmitri Fyodorovich exclaimed indignantly, also jumping up from his seat. “Forgive me, reverend father,” he turned to the elder, “I am an uneducated man and do not even know how to address you, but you have been deceived, and were too kind in letting us come together here. Papa is only looking for a scandal— who knows for what reason. He always has his reasons. But I think I see now...”

“All of them accuse me, all of them!” Fyodor Pavlovich shouted in his turn, “and Pyotr Alexandrovich, here, he accuses me, too. You did accuse me, Pyotr Alexandrovich, you did!” he suddenly turned to Miusov, though the latter had no thought of interrupting him. “They accuse me of pocketing children’s money and turning a profit on it, but, I beg your pardon, don’t we have courts of law? They’ll reckon it up for you, Dmitri Fyodorovich, according to your own receipts, letters, and contracts, how much you had, how much you’ve destroyed, and how much you’ve got left! Why does Pyotr Alexandrovich not give us his judgment? Dmitri Fyodorovich is no stranger to him. It’s because they’re all against me, and Dmitri Fyodorovich in the end owes me money, and not just a trifle but several thousand, sir, I’ve got it all on paper. The whole town is rattling and banging from his wild parties. And where he used to serve, he paid a thousand if not two thousand for the seduction of honest girls—we know about that, Dmitri Fyodorovich, sir, in all its secret details, and I can prove it, sir ... Most holy father, would you believe that he got one of the noblest of girls to fall in love with him, a girl from a good family, with a fortune, the daughter of his former superior, a brave colonel, decorated, the Anna with swords on his neck,^[55] and then compromised the girl by offering her his hand, and now she’s here, now she’s an orphan, his fiancée, and he, before her very eyes, keeps visiting one of the local seductresses. But although this seductress has lived, so to speak, in civil marriage with a respected man, yet she is of independent character, an impregnable fortress to all, the same as a. lawful wife, for she is virtuous—yes, sir, holy fathers, she is virtuous! And Dmitri Fyodorovich wants to unlock this fortress with a golden key, and that’s why he’s trying to bully me even now, he wants to get some money out of me, and meanwhile he’s already thrown away thousands on this seductress, which is why he’s continually borrowing money from me, and, incidentally, from whom else, whom do you think? Shall I tell them, Mitya?”

“Silence!” Dmitri Fyodorovich shouted. “Wait until I’m gone. Do not dare in my presence to sully the noblest of girls ... That you are even so bold as to mention her is shameful enough ... I will not allow it!”

He was gasping for breath.

“Mitya! Mitya!” Fyodor Pavlovich cried tremulously, trying to squeeze out a tear. “Don’t you care about a father’s blessing? And what if I should curse you?”

“Shameless impostor!” Dmitri Fyodorovich roared in fury.

“He says that to his father! His father! Think how he must treat others! Imagine, gentlemen: there’s a poor but honorable man living here, a retired captain, fell into misfortune and was retired from service, but not publicly, not by court-martial, he preserved his honor. He’s burdened with a large family. And three weeks ago our Dmitri Fyodorovich seized him by the beard in a tavern, dragged him by that same beard into the street, and there in the street publicly thrashed him, and all because he’s acted as my agent in a little business of mine.”

“That is all a lie! Outwardly it’s true, but inwardly it’s a lie!” Dmitri Fyodorovich was trembling all over with rage. “My dear papa! I do not justify my actions. Yes, I acknowledge publicly that I behaved like a beast with that captain, and now I’m sorry and loathe myself for my beastly rage, but this captain of yours, your agent, went to that very lady whom you yourself have described as a seductress, and began suggesting to her on your behalf that she should take over my promissory notes that are in your possession, and sue me in order to have me locked up with the help of those notes, in case I pestered you too much for an account of my property. And now you reproach me with having a weakness for this lady, when you yourself were teaching her how to ensnare me! She told me so to my face, she told me herself, and she laughed at you! And you want me locked up only because you’re jealous of me, because you yourself have begun approaching this woman with your love, and that, too, I know all about, and she laughed again—do you hear?—she laughed at you as she told me. Here, holy people, is a man for you, a father reproaching his profligate son! Gentlemen witnesses, forgive my wrath, but I anticipated that this perfidious old man had gathered you all here for a scandal. I came intending to forgive, if he held out his hand to me, to forgive and to ask forgiveness! But since he has just now insulted not only me but that most noble girl, whose very name I do not dare to utter in vain out of reverence for her, I am resolved to give away his whole game in public, though he is my father . . .!”

He could not go on. His eyes flashed, he was breathing hard. Everyone else in the cell was excited, too. They all rose anxiously from their chairs, except for the elder. The hieromonks looked stern, but waited, however, to know the elder’s will. He sat looking quite pale now, not from excitement but from sickly weakness. An imploring smile shone on his lips; every once in a while he raised his hand as if wishing to stop the two raging men; and, of course, one gesture from him would have been sufficient to end the scene; yet he himself seemed to be waiting for something, and watched intently, as if still trying to understand something, as if still not comprehending something. At last, Pyotr Alexandrovich Miusov finally felt himself humiliated and disgraced.

“We are all to blame for this scandal!” he said hotly. “But all the same, I did not anticipate, on my way here, though I knew whom I was dealing with ... This must be stopped at once! Your reverence, believe me, I did not know exactly all the details that have just been revealed here, I did not want to believe them, and have only now learned for the first time ... The father is jealous of his son over a woman of bad behavior, and himself arranges with this creature to lock the son up in prison ... And this is the company in which I’ve been forced to come here ... I have been deceived, I declare to you all that I have been deceived no less than the others ...”

“Dmitri Fyodorovich!” Fyodor Pavlovich suddenly screamed in a voice not his own, “if only you weren’t my son, I would challenge you to a duel this very moment ... with pistols, at three paces ... across a handkerchief! across a handkerchief!” he ended, stamping with both feet.^[56]

Old liars who have been play-acting all their lives have moments when they get so carried away by their posing that they indeed tremble and weep from excitement, even though at that same moment (or just a second later) they might whisper to themselves: “You’re lying, you shameless old man, you’re acting even now, despite all your ‘holy’ wrath and ‘holy’ moment of wrath.”

Dmitri Fyodorovich frowned horribly and looked at his father with inexpressible contempt.

“I thought ... I thought,” he said somehow softly and restrainedly, “that I would come to my birthplace with the angel of my soul, my fiancée, to cherish him in his old age, and all I find is a depraved sensualist and despicable comedian!” “To a duel!” the old fool screamed again, breathless and spraying saliva with each word. “And you, Pyotr Alexandrovich Miusov, let it be known to you, sir, that in all the generations of your family there is not and maybe never has been a woman loftier or more honorable—more honorable, do you hear?—than this creature, as you have just dared to call her! And you, Dmitri Fyodorovich, traded your fiancée for this very ‘creature,’ so you yourself have judged that your fiancée isn’t worthy to lick her boots—that’s the kind of creature she is!”

“Shame!” suddenly escaped from Father Iosif.

“A shame and a disgrace!” Kalganov, who had been silent all the while, suddenly cried in his adolescent voice, trembling with excitement and blushing all over.

“Why is such a man alive!” Dmitri Fyodorovich growled in a muffled voice, now nearly beside himself with fury, somehow raising his shoulders peculiarly so that he looked almost hunchbacked. “No, tell me, can he be allowed to go on dishonoring the earth with himself?” He looked around at everyone, pointing his finger at the old man. His speech was slow and deliberate.

“Do you hear, you monks, do you hear the parricide!” Fyodor Pavlovich flung at Father Iosif. “There is the answer to your ‘shame’! What shame? This ‘creature,’ this ‘woman of bad behavior’ is perhaps holier than all of you, gentlemen soul-saving hieromonks! Maybe she fell in her youth, being influenced by her environment, but she has ‘loved much,’ and even Christ forgave her who loved much . . .”^[57]

“Christ did not forgive that kind of love ... ,” escaped impatiently from the meek Father Iosif.

“No, that kind, monks, exactly that kind, that kind! You are saving your souls here on cabbage and you think you’re righteous! You eat gudgeons, one gudgeon a day, and you think you can buy God with gudgeons!”

“Impossible! Impossible!” came from all sides of the cell.

But the whole scene, which had turned so ugly, was stopped in a most unexpected manner. The elder suddenly rose from his place. Alyosha, who had almost completely lost his head from fear for him and for all of them, had just time enough to support his arm. The elder stepped towards Dmitri Fyodorovich and, having come close to him, knelt before him. Alyosha thought for a moment that he had fallen from weakness, but it was something else. Kneeling in front of Dmitri Fyodorovich, the elder bowed down at his feet with a full, distinct, conscious bow, and even touched the floor with his forehead. Alyosha was so amazed that he failed to support him as he got to his feet. A weak smile barely glimmered on his lips. “Forgive me! Forgive me, all of you!” he said, bowing on all sides to his guests.

Dmitri Fyodorovich stood dumbstruck for a few moments. Bowing at his feet—what was that? Then suddenly he cried out: “Oh, God!” and, covering his face with his hands, rushed from the room. All the other guests flocked after him, forgetting in their confusion even to say good-bye or bow to their host. Only the hieromonks again came to receive his blessing.

“What’s that—bowing at his feet? Is it some sort of emblem?” Fyodor Pavlovich, who for some reason had suddenly grown quiet, tried to start a conversation, not daring, by the way, to address anyone in particular. At that moment they were just passing beyond the walls of the hermitage.

“I cannot answer for a madhouse or for madmen,” Miusov at once replied sharply, “but I can and will rid myself of your company, Fyodor Pavlovich, and that, believe me, forever. Where is that monk ... ?”

However, “that monk”—that is, the one who had invited them to dinner with the Superior—did not keep them waiting. He met the guests immediately, just as they came down the steps from the elder’s cell, as if he had been waiting for them all the time.

“Do me a favor, reverend father, convey my deepest respects to the Father Superior, and apologize for me, Miusov, personally to his reverence, that owing to the unexpected occurrence of unforeseen circumstances it is quite impossible for me to have the honor of joining him at his table, despite my most sincere wishes,” Pyotr Alexandrovich said irritably to the monk.

“And that unforeseen circumstance is me!” Fyodor Pavlovich immediately put in. “Do you hear, father? Pyotr Alexandrovich, here, doesn’t want to be in my company, otherwise he’d be glad to go. And you will go, Pyotr Alexandrovich, be so good as to visit the Father Superior, and—bon appetit! You see, it is I who am going to decline, and not you. Home, home—I’ll eat at home. Here I just don’t feel able, Pyotr Alexandrovich, my dearest relative.”

“I am no relative of yours and never have been, you despicable man!”

“I said it on purpose to make you mad, because you disclaim our relation, though you’re still my relative no matter how you shuffle, I can prove it by the Church calendar.^[58] Stay if you like, Ivan Fyodorovich; I’ll send horses for you later. As for you, Pyotr Alexandrovich, even common decency must tell you now to go to the Father Superior, if only to apologize for the mess we made in there.”

“Are you really leaving? It’s not another lie?”

“Pyotr Alexandrovich, how could I dare stay after what happened? I got carried away, forgive me, gentlemen, I got carried away! And besides, I’m shaken! And ashamed, too! Gentlemen, one man has a heart like Alexander of Macedon and another like little Fido the lapdog. Mine is like little Fido the lapdog’s. I turned timid! How, after such an escapade, could I go to dinner and slop up monastery sauces? It’s shameful, I can’t, excuse me!”

“Devil knows if he means it!” Miusov stood in doubt, following the retreating buffoon with a puzzled look. The latter turned around and, noticing that Pyotr Alexandrovich was watching him, blew him a kiss.

“And you? Are you going to the Superior’s?” Miusov curtly asked Ivan Fyodorovich.

“Why not? Besides, I was specially invited by the Superior just yesterday.”

“Unfortunately, I do indeed feel almost compelled to go to this damned dinner,” Miusov went on with the same bitter irritation, even ignoring the fact that the little monk was listening. “At least we should ask forgiveness for what we’ve done and explain that it wasn’t us ... What do you think?”

“Yes, we should explain that it wasn’t us. Besides, papa won’t be there,” Ivan Fyodorovich remarked.

“Yes, that would be the last thing...! Damn this dinner!”

Still, they all walked on. The little monk was silent and listened. On the way through the woods, he simply remarked once that the Father Superior had been kept waiting and that they were already more than half an hour late. He got no response. Miusov looked at Ivan Fyodorovich with hatred.

“He goes off to dinner as if nothing had happened!” he thought. “A brazen face and a Karamazov conscience.”

Chapter 7: A Seminarist-Careerist

Alyosha brought his elder to the little bedroom and sat him down on the bed. It was a very small room with only the necessary furnishings; the bed was narrow, made of iron, with a piece of thick felt in place of a mattress. In the corner by the icons there was a reading stand, and on it lay a cross and the Gospel. The elder lowered himself weakly onto the bed; his eyes were glazed and he had difficulty breathing. Having sat down, he looked intently at Alyosha, as if he were pondering something.

“Go, my dear, go. Porfiry is enough for me, and you must hurry. They need you there, go to the Father Superior, serve at the table.” “Give me your blessing to stay here,” Alyosha spoke in a pleading voice.

“You are more needed there. There is no peace there. You will serve and be of use. If demons raise their heads, recite a prayer. And know, my dear son” (the elder liked to call him that), “that from now on this is not the place for you. Remember that, young man. As soon as God grants me to depart, leave the monastery. Leave it for good.”

Alyosha started.

“What’s wrong? For the time being your place is not here. I give you my blessing for a great obedience in the world.^[59] You still have much journeying before you. And you will have to marry—yes, you will. You will have to endure everything before you come back again. And there will be much work to do. But I have no doubt of you, that is why I am sending you. Christ is with you. Keep him, and he will keep you. You will behold great sorrow, and in this sorrow you will be happy. Here is a commandment for you: seek happiness in sorrow. Work, work tirelessly. Remember my words from now on, for although I shall still talk with you, not only my days but even my hours are numbered.”

Strong emotion showed again in Alyosha’s face. The corners of his mouth trembled.

“What’s wrong now?” the elder smiled gently. “Let worldly men follow their dead with tears; here we rejoice over a departing father. We rejoice and pray for him. Leave me now. It is time to pray. Go, and hurry. Be near your brothers. Not just one, but both of them.”

The elder raised his hand in blessing. It was impossible to object, though Alyosha wanted very much to stay. He also wanted to ask, and the question was on the tip of his tongue, what this bow at his brother Dmitri’s feet prefigured—but he did not dare ask. He knew that the elder himself would have explained it, if possible, without being asked. Therefore it was not his will to do so. The bow struck Alyosha terribly; he believed blindly that there was a secret meaning in it. Secret, and perhaps also horrible. As he left the hermitage in order to get to the monastery in time for dinner with the Superior (only to serve at the table, of course), his heart suddenly contracted painfully, and he stopped in his tracks: it was as if he heard again the sound of the elder’s words foretelling his very near end. What the elder foretold, and with such exactness, would undoubtedly happen, Alyosha piously believed. But how could he be left without him, how could he not see him, not hear him? And where was he to go? He had ordered him not to weep and to leave the monastery— oh, Lord! It was long since Alyosha had felt such anguish. He hastened through the woods that separated the hermitage from the monastery, and being unable to bear his own thoughts, so greatly did they oppress him, he began looking at the ancient pines on both sides of the forest path. The way was not long, about five hundred paces at most; at that hour it should have been impossible to meet anyone, yet suddenly, at the first turning of the path, he noticed Rakitin. He was waiting for someone.

“Is it me you’re waiting for?” Alyosha asked, coming up to him.

“Precisely you,” Rakitin grinned. “You’re hurrying to the Father Superior’s. I know; there’s a dinner on. Not since he received the Bishop and General Pakhatov—remember?—has there been such a dinner. I won’t be there, but you go and serve the sauces. Tell me one thing, Alexei: what’s the meaning of this dream?^[60] That’s what I wanted to ask you.”

“What dream?”

“This bowing at the feet of your brother Dmitri Fyodorovich. He even bumped his forehead on the ground.”

“You mean Father Zosima?”

“Yes, Father Zosima.”

“His forehead ... ?”

“Ah, I was irreverent! Well, let it be. So, what does this dream signify?”

“I don’t know what it means, Misha.”

“I knew he wou’dn’t explain it to you! Of course, there’s nothing very subtle about it, just the usual blessed nonsense, it seems. But the trick had its purpose. Now all the pious frauds in town will start talking and spread it over the whole province, wondering ‘what is the meaning of this dream?’ The old man is really astute, if you ask me: he smelled crime. It stinks in your family.”

“What crime?”

Rakitin evidently wanted to speak his mind.

“A crime in your nice little family. It will take place between your dear brothers and your nice, rich papa. So Father Zosima bumps his forehead on the ground, for the future, just in case. Afterwards they’ll say, Ah, it’s what the holy elder foretold, prophesied,’ though bumping your forehead on the ground isn’t much of a prophecy. No, they’ll say, it was an emblem, an allegory, the devil knows what! They’ll proclaim it, they’ll remember: ‘He foresaw the crime and marked the criminal.’ It’s always like that with holy fools: they cross themselves before a tavern and cast stones at the temple. Your elder is the same: he drives the just man out with a stick and bows at the murderer’s feet.”

“What crime? What murderer? What are you saying?” Alyosha stopped dead. Rakitin also stopped.

“What murderer? As if you didn’t know. I bet you’ve already thought of it yourself. As a matter of fact, I’m curious. Listen, Alyosha, you always tell the truth, though you always fall between two stools: tell me, did you think of it or not?”

“I did,” Alyosha answered softly. Even Rakitin felt embarrassed.

“What? You thought of it, too?” he cried.

“I ... I didn’t really think of it,” Alyosha muttered, “but when you began speaking so strangely about it just now, it seemed to me that I had thought of it myself.”

“You see? (And how clearly you expressed it! ) You see? Today, looking at your papa and your brother Mitenka, you thought about a crime. So I’m not mistaken, then?”

“But wait, wait,” Alyosha interrupted uneasily, “where did you get all that ... ? And why does it concern you so much in the first place?”

“Two different questions, but natural ones. I shall answer them separately. Where did I get it? I’d have gotten nothing if today I hadn’t suddenly understood Dmitri Fyodorovich, your brother, fully for what he is, all at once and suddenly, fully for what he is. By one particular trait I grasped him all at once. Such honest but passionate people have a line that must not be crossed. Otherwise—otherwise he’ll even put a knife in his own papa. And the papa, a drunken and unbridled libertine, never knew any measure in anything— both of them unable to hold back, and both of them, plop, into the ditch...”

“No, Misha, no, if that’s all it is, then you’ve reassured me. It won’t come to that.”

“And why are you shaking all over? I’ll tell you one thing: granted he’s an honest man, Mitenka, I mean (he’s stupid but honest), still he’s a sensualist. That is his definition, and his whole inner essence. It’s his father who gave him his base sensuality. I’m really surprised at you, Alyosha: how can you be a virgin? You’re a Karamazov, too! In your family sensuality is carried to the point of fever. So these three sensualists are now eyeing each other with knives in their boots. The three of them are at loggerheads, and maybe you’re the fourth.”

“You are mistaken about that woman. Dmitri ... despises her,” Alyosha said, somehow shuddering.

“You mean Grushenka? No, brother, he doesn’t despise her. If he’s publicly traded his fiancée for her, he doesn’t despise her. It’s ... it’s something, brother, that you won’t understand yet. It’s that a man falls in love with some beautiful thing, with a woman’s body, or even with just one part of a woman’s body (a sensualist will understand that), and is ready to give his own children for it, to sell his father and mother, Russia and his native land, and though he’s honest, he’ll go and steal; though he’s meek, he’ll kill; though he’s faithful, he’ll betray. The singer of women’s little feet, Pushkin, sang little feet in verse;^[61]others don’t sing, but they can’t look at little feet without knots in the stomach. But it’s not just little feet ... Here, brother, contempt is no use, even if he does despise Grushenka. He may despise her, but he still can’t tear himself away from her.”

“I understand that,” Alyosha suddenly blurted out.

“Really? No doubt you do, if you blurt it out like that, at the first mention,” Rakitin said gleefully. “It escaped you, you just blurted it out inadvertently— which makes the confession all the more valuable. So for you it’s already a familiar theme, you’ve already thought about it—sensuality, I mean. Ah, you virgin! You, Alyoshka, are the quiet type, you’re a saint, I admit; you’re the quiet type, but the devil knows what hasn’t gone through your head, the devil knows what you don’t know already! A virgin, and you’ve already dug so deep—I’ve been observing you for a long time. You are a Karamazov yourself, a full-fledged Karamazov—so race and selection do mean something. You’re a sensualist after your father, and after your mother—a holy fool. Why are you trembling? Am I right? You know, Grushenka said to me: ‘Bring him over (meaning you), and I’ll pull his little cassock off She really asked me: bring him over! bring him over! And I wondered: what interests her so much in you? You know, she’s an unusual woman, too!”

“Give her my regards, and tell her I won’t come,” Alyosha grinned crookedly. “Finish what you were saying, Mikhail, then I’ll tell you what I think.”

“What is there to finish? It’s all clear. It’s all the same old tune, brother. If there’s a sensualist even in you, then what about your brother Ivan, your full brother? He’s a Karamazov, too. The whole question of you Karamazovs comes down to this: you’re sensualists, money-grubbers, and holy fools! Right now your brother Ivan is publishing little theological articles as a joke, for some unknown, stupid reason, since he himself is an atheist and admits the baseness of it—that’s your brother Ivan. Besides which, he’s stealing his dear brother Mitya’s fiancée, and it looks like he’ll reach that goal. And how? With Mitenka’s own consent, because Mitenka himself is giving her up to him, just to get rid of her, so that he can run to Grushenka. All the while being a noble and disinterested man—make note of that. Such people are the most fatal of all! The devil alone can sort you all out after that: he admits his own baseness even while he throws himself into it! But there’s more: now dear old papa crosses Mitenka’s path. He’s lost his mind over Grushenka, starts drooling the moment he sees her. Why do you think he caused such a scandal in the cell just now? Only because of her, because Miusov dared to call her a loose creature. He’s worse than a lovesick tomcat. Before, she only served him on salary in his shady tavern business, but now he suddenly sees and realizes, he goes wild, he pesters her with his propositions—not honorable ones, of course. So the papa and his boy will run into each other on that path. And Grushenka takes neither the one nor the other; so far she’s still hedging and teasing them both, trying to decide which of them will be more profitable, because while she might be able to grab a lot of money from the papa, still he won’t marry her, and maybe in the end he’ll get piggish and shut his purse. In which case, Mitenka, too, has his value; he has no money, but he’s capable of marrying her. Oh, yes, sir, he’s capable of marrying her! Of dropping his fiancée, an incomparable beauty, Katerina Ivanovna, rich, an aristocrat and a colonel’s daughter, and marrying Grushenka, formerly the kept woman of an old shopkeeper, a profligate peasant, the town mayor Samsonov. Out of all that some criminal conflict may indeed come. And that is what your brother Ivan is waiting for. He’ll be in clover. He’ll acquire Katerina Ivanovna, whom he’s pining for, and also grab her dowry of sixty thousand roubles. For a poor, bare little fellow like him, that’s rather tempting to start with. And note: not only will he not offend Mitya, he’ll even be doing him an undying service. Because I know for certain that Mitenka himself, just last week, when he got drunk with some gypsy women, shouted out loud in the tavern that he was not worthy of his fiancée Katenka, but that Ivan, his brother, he was worthy of her. And in the end, Katerina Ivanovna herself will not, of course, reject such a charmer as Ivan Fyodorovich; even now she’s already hesitating between the two of them. And how is it that Ivan has seduced you all, that you’re all so in awe of him? He’s laughing at you: he’s sitting there in clover, relishing at your expense!”

“How do you know all that? What makes you speak so certainly?” Alyosha suddenly asked curtly, frowning.

“Why are you asking now, and why are you afraid of my answer beforehand? It means you admit that I’m right.”

“You dislike Ivan. Ivan will not be tempted by money.”

“Is that so? And what of Katerina Ivanovna’s beauty? It’s not just a matter of money, though sixty thousand is tempting enough.”

“Ivan aims higher than that. Ivan won’t be tempted by thousands either. Ivan is not seeking money, or ease. Perhaps he is seeking suffering.”

“What sort of dream is that? Oh, you ... gentry!”

“Ah, Misha, his is a stormy soul. His mind is held captive. There is a great and unresolved thought in him. He’s one of those who don’t need millions, but need to resolve their thought.”

“Literary theft, Alyoshka. You’re paraphrasing your elder. Look what a riddle Ivan has set you!” Rakitin shouted with obvious spite. He even lost countenance, and his lips twisted. “And the riddle is a stupid one, there’s nothing to solve. Use your head and you’ll understand. His article is ridiculous and absurd. And did you hear his stupid theory just now: ‘If there is no immortality of the soul, then there is no virtue, and therefore everything is permitted.’ (And remember, by the way, how your brother Mitenka shouted, ‘I’ll remember!’) A tempting theory for scoundrels ... I’m being abusive, which is foolish .. . not for scoundrels, but for boasting schoolboys with ‘unresolved depths of thought.’ He’s just a show-off, and all it amounts to is: ‘On the one hand one can’t help admitting ... , on the other hand one can’t help confessing...!’^[62]His whole theory is squalid. Mankind will find strength in itself to live for virtue, even without believing in the immortality of the soul! Find it in the love of liberty, equality, fraternity...”

Rakitin became flushed and could hardly contain himself. But suddenly, as if remembering something, he stopped.

“Well, enough,” he smiled even more twistedly than before. “Why are you laughing? Do you think it’s all just platitudes?”

“No, I didn’t even think of thinking they were platitudes. You’re intelligent, but ... forget it, it was just a foolish grin. I understand why you get so flushed, Misha. From your excitement I guessed that you yourself are not indifferent to Katerina Ivanovna. I’ve long suspected it, brother, and that is why you don’t like my brother Ivan. Are you jealous of him?”

“And of her money, too? Go on, say it!”

“No, I won’t say anything about money. I’m not going to insult you.”

“I’ll believe it only because it’s you who say it, but still, the devil take you and your brother Ivan! Will no one understand that it’s quite possible to dislike him even without Katerina Ivanovna? Why should I like him, damn it? He deigns to abuse me. Don’t I have the right to abuse him?”

“I’ve never heard him say anything about you, good or bad. He never speaks of you at all.”

“But I have heard that the day before yesterday, at Katerina Ivanovna’s, he was trouncing me right and left—that’s how interested he is in your humble servant! And after that, brother, I don’t know who is jealous of whom! He was so good as to opine that if, perchance, I do not pursue the career of archimandrite in the very near future and have myself tonsured,^[63] then I will most certainly go to Petersburg and join some thick journal, most certainly in the criticism section; I will write for a dozen years and in the end take over the journal. And I will go on publishing it, most certainly with a liberal and atheistic slant, with a socialistic tinge, with even a little gloss of socialism, but with my ears open, that is, essentially, running with the hare and hunting with the hounds, and pulling the wool over the fools’ eyes. The aim of my career, according to your kind brother’s interpretation, will be not to allow that tinge of socialism to prevent me from laying aside the subscription money in my bank account and investing it occasionally under the guidance of some little Yid, until I’ve built myself a big town house in Petersburg, to which I can transfer my editorial office, while renting out the rest of the floors to tenants. He has even chosen the place for this house: by the New Stone Bridge over the Neva, which they say is being planned in Petersburg to connect the Liteiny Prospect with the Vyborg side...”

“Ah, Misha, maybe it will all be just as he says, to the last word!” Alyosha suddenly cried out, unable to resist and laughing gaily.

“So you, too, are venturing into sarcasm, Alexei Fyodorovich.”

“No, no, I’m joking, forgive me. I have something quite different on my mind. However, excuse me, but who could have informed you of all those details, or where could you have heard them? Surely you could not have been present at Katerina Ivanovna’s when he was talking about you?”

“I wasn’t, but Dmitri Fyodorovich was, and I heard it all with my own ears from the same Dmitri Fyodorovich; that is, if you like, he wasn’t telling it to me, but I was eavesdropping, unwillingly of course, because I was sitting at Grushenka’s, in her bedroom, and couldn’t leave all the while Dmitri Fyodorovich was in the next room.”

“Ah, yes, I forgot, she’s your relative...”

“My relative? Grushenka, my relative?” Rakitin suddenly cried out, blushing all over. “You must be crazy! Sick in the head!”

“What? Isn’t she your relative? I heard she was...”

“Where could you have heard that? No, you gentleman Karamazovs pose as some sort of great and ancient nobility, when your father played the fool at other men’s tables and got fed in the kitchen out of charity. Granted I’m only a priest’s son and a worm next to you noblemen, but still don’t go offending me so gaily and easily. I, too, have my honor, Alexei Fyodorovich. I could not be the relative of Grushenka, a loose woman, kindly understand that, sir!”

Rakitin was extremely irritated.

“Forgive me, for God’s sake, I had no idea, and besides, why is she a loose woman? Is she ... that sort?” Alyosha suddenly blushed. “I repeat, I heard she was your relative. You visit her often, and told me yourself that you have no amorous relations with her ... It never occurred to me that you of all people despised her so much! Does she really deserve it?”

“I may have my own reasons for visiting her; let that be enough for you. As for our relations, your good brother or even your own papa himself is more likely to foist her on you than on me. Well, here we are. Better march off to the kitchen. Hah, what’s this, what’s happening? Are we late? They couldn’t have finished dinner so soon! Or is it some more Karamazov mischief? That must be it. There goes your father, with Ivan Fyodorovich after him. They’ve bolted from the Father Superior’s. Look, Father Isidore is shouting something at them from the porch. And your father is shouting, too, and waving his arms—he must be swearing. Hah, and Miusov, too, has left in his carriage, there he goes. And the landowner Maximov is running—we’ve had a scandal! It means there wasn’t any dinner! Maybe they thrashed the Superior? Or got thrashed themselves? That would be a good one . . .!”

Rakitin’s exclamations were not without point. There had indeed been a scandal, unheard-of and unexpected. It all happened “by inspiration.”

Chapter 8: Scandal

Miusov and Ivan Fyodorovich were already entering the Superior’s rooms when a sort of delicate process quickly transpired in Pyotr Alexandrovich, a genuinely decent and delicate man: he felt ashamed of his anger. He felt within himself that, essentially, his contempt for the worthless Fyodor Pavlovich should have been such as to have kept him from losing his composure in the elder’s cell and getting as lost as he had done himself. “It was not at all the monks’ fault, in any case,” he suddenly decided on the Superior’s porch, “and if there are decent people here as well (this Father Nikolai, the Superior, seems to be of the gentry, too), then why not be nice, amiable, and courteous with them ... ? I shan’t argue, I shall even yes them in everything, I shall seduce them with amiability, and ... and ... finally prove to them that I am not of the same society as that Aesop, that buffoon, that Pierrot, and was taken in just as they all were...”

The controversial wood-cutting in the forest and the fishing (where it all went on he himself did not know) he determined to relinquish to them finally, once and for all, that very day, and to stop his court actions against the monastery, the more so since it was all worth very little anyway.

All these good intentions were further strengthened when they entered the Father Superior’s dining room. There was no dining room, incidentally, because the entire apartment in fact consisted of two rooms, though indeed far more spacious and comfortable than the elder’s. But the furnishings of the rooms were not more distinguished by any special comfort: leather-covered mahogany, in the old fashion of the twenties; the floors were not even painted; yet everything was bright and clean, there were many costly plants in the windows; but the main luxury at the moment was, naturally, the luxuriously laid table—once again, relatively speaking, by the way: a clean table cloth, sparkling dishes, perfectly baked bread of three kinds, two bottles of wine, two bottles of excellent monastery mead, and a big glass jug of monastery kvass, famous throughout the neighborhood. There was no vodka at all. Rakitin recounted afterwards that the dinner this time consisted of five courses: a sturgeon soup with little fish pies; then boiled fish prepared in some particular and perfect way; then salmon cakes, ice cream and fruit compote, and finally a little custard resembling blancmange. Rakitin sniffed it all out, unable to restrain himself, peeking for that purpose into the Superior’s kitchen, where he also had his connections. He had connections everywhere and made spies everywhere. He had a restless and covetous heart. He was fully aware of his considerable abilities, but in his conceit he nervously exaggerated them. He knew for certain that he would become a figure of some sort, but Alyosha, who was very attached to him, was tormented that his friend Rakitin was dishonest and was decidedly unaware of it; that, on the contrary, knowing he wouldn’t steal money from the table, he ultimately considered himself a man of the highest integrity. Here neither Alyosha nor anyone else could do anything.

Rakitin, as an insignificant person, could not have been invited to dinner, but Father Iosif and Father Paissy, along with another hieromonk, were invited. They were already waiting in the Superior’s dining room when Pyotr Alexandrovich, Kalganov, and Ivan Fyodorovich entered. The landowner Maximov was also waiting to one side. The Father Superior stepped forward into the middle of the room to meet his guests. He was a tall, lean, but still vigorous old man, dark-haired with much gray, and with a long, pious, and important face. He bowed silently to his guests, and this time they came up to receive the blessing. Miusov even risked trying to kiss his hand, but the Superior somehow snatched it away just in time, and the kiss did not take place. But Ivan Fyodorovich and Kalganov this time got the full blessing, that is, with the most simple-hearted and ordinary smack on the hand.

“We really must beg your forgiveness, your noble reverence,”^[64] Pyotr Alexandrovich began, grinning affably, but still in a solemn and respectful tone, “for arriving by ourselves, without our fellow guest, Fyodor Pavlovich, whom you also invited. He felt obliged to miss your dinner, and not without reason. In the reverend Father Zosima’s cell, being carried away by his unfortunate family quarrel with his son, he spoke certain quite inappropriate words ... quite indecent, that is ... of which it appears”—he glanced at the hieromonks—”your noble reverence has already been informed. And therefore, aware that he was at fault and sincerely repentant, he felt ashamed, and, unable to overcome it, asked us, myself and his son, Ivan Fyodorovich, to declare before you his sincere regret, remorse, and repentance ... In a word, he hopes and wishes to make up for it all later, and for now, asking your blessing, he begs you to forget what has happened...”

Miusov fell silent. Having spoken the final words of his tirade, he was left feeling thoroughly pleased with himself, so much so that not even a trace of his recent irritation remained in his soul. He again fully and sincerely loved mankind. The Superior, having listened to him with a solemn air, inclined his head slightly and spoke in reply:

“I most sincerely regret our guest’s absence. Perhaps over our dinner he would have come to love us, and we him. Gentlemen, welcome to my table.”

He stood facing the icon and began to pray aloud. They all bowed their heads respectfully, and the landowner Maximov even edged somehow especially forward, with his palms pressed together in special reverence.

And at that moment Fyodor Pavlovich cut his last caper. It should be noted that he indeed intended to leave and indeed felt the impossibility, after his shameful behavior in the elder’s cell, of going to dinner at the Superior’s as if nothing had happened. It was not that he was so very much ashamed and blamed himself; perhaps even quite the contrary; but still he felt that to stay for dinner would really be improper. But when his rattling carriage drew up to the porch of the inn, and he was already getting into it, he suddenly stopped. He remembered his own words at the elder’s: “It always seems to me, when I go somewhere, that I am lower than everyone else and that they all take me for a buffoon—so let me indeed play the buffoon, because all of you, to a man, are lower and stupider than I am.” He wanted to revenge himself on all of them for his own nasty tricks. At the same moment he suddenly remembered being asked once before, at some point: “Why do you hate so-and-so so much?” And he had replied then, in a fit of buffoonish impudence: “I’ll tell you why: he never did anything to me, it’s true, but I once played a most shameless nasty trick on him, and the moment I did it, I immediately hated him for it.” Remembering it now, he sniggered softly and maliciously, in a moment’s hesitation. His eyes gleamed, and his lips even trembled. “Since I’ve started it, I may as well finish it,” he decided suddenly. His innermost feeling at that moment might be expressed in the following words: “There is no way to rehabilitate myself now, so why don’t I just spit all over them without any shame; tell them, ‘You’ll never make me ashamed, and that’s that!’” He ordered the coachman to wait, and with quick steps went back to the monastery, straight to the Superior’s. He did not quite know what he was going to do, but he knew that he was no longer in control of himself—a little push, and in no time he would reach the utmost limits of some abomination—only an abomination, by the way, never anything criminal, never an escapade punishable by law. In that respect he always managed to restrain himself, and even amazed himself in some cases. He appeared in the Superior’s dining room precisely at the moment when the prayer was over and everyone was moving to the table. He stopped on the threshold, looked around at the gathering, and laughed his long, insolent, wicked little laugh, staring them all valiantly in the face.

“They thought I was gone, and here I am!” he shouted for all to hear.

For a moment everyone stared straight at him in silence, and then suddenly they all felt that now something revolting, absurd, and undoubtedly scandalous was about to happen. Pyotr Alexandrovich, from a most benign mood, immediately turned ferocious. All that had just died out and grown quiet in his heart instantly resurrected and rose up.

“No! This I cannot bear!”he cried, “I absolutely cannot and ... I simply cannot!”

The blood rushed to his head. He even stammered, but he could not be bothered about style and grabbed his hat.

“What is it that he cannot,” Fyodor Pavlovich cried out,” that he ‘absolutely cannot and simply cannot’? Your reverence, may I come in? Will you accept me at your table?”

“You are most cordially welcome,” the Superior replied. “Gentlemen!” he added suddenly, “allow me to ask you earnestly to lay aside your incidental quarrels and come together in love and familial harmony, with a prayer to the Lord, over our humble meal...”

“No, no, impossible,” cried Pyotr Alexandrovich, as if beside himself.

“If it’s impossible for Pyotr Alexandrovich, then it’s impossible for me—I won’t stay either. That is why I came. I will be with Pyotr Alexandrovich wherever he goes: if you leave, I leave, Pyotr Alexandrovich, and if you stay, I stay. You really stung him with that ‘familial harmony,’ Father Superior: he doesn’t consider himself my relative! Am I right, von Sohn? That’s von Sohn over there. Greetings, von Sohn!”^[65]

“Are you ... is it me, sir?” muttered the amazed landowner Maximov.

“Of course it’s you,” Fyodor Pavlovich shouted. “Who else? The Father Superior couldn’t be von Sohn!”

“But I am not von Sohn either, I am Maximov.”

“No, you’re von Sohn. Your reverence, do you know about von Sohn? It was a murder case: he was killed in a house of fornication—is that what you call those places?—they killed him and robbed him and, despite his venerable age, stuffed him into a box, nailed it shut, and sent it from Petersburg to Moscow in a baggage car, with a label and everything. And as they nailed him up, the dancing harlots were singing songs to the psaltery, I mean the pianoforte. And this is that same von Sohn. He rose from the dead, didn’t you, von Sohn?”

“What’s that? How can he!” came from the group of hieromonks.

“Let’s go!” cried Pyotr Alexandrovich, turning to Kalganov.

“No, sir, allow me!” Fyodor Pavlovich interrupted shrilly, taking another step into the room. “Allow me to finish. You defamed me there in the cell, as if I’d behaved disrespectfully—namely, by shouting about gudgeons. Pyotr Alexandrovich Miusov, my relative, likes it when one speaks with plus de noblesse que de sincérité, and I, conversely, like to speak with plus de sincérité que de noblesse, and—to hell with noblesse!^[66] Right, von Sohn? Excuse me, Father Superior, although I’m a buffoon and play the buffoon, still I’m an honorable knight and I want to have my say. Yes, I’m an honorable knight, and in Pyotr Alexandrovich there is wounded vanity and nothing more. I came here today, perhaps, to look around and have my say. My son Alexei is saving his soul here; I’m a father, I’m concerned for his future, and I ought to be concerned. I was listening and performing and quietly observing, and now I want to give you the last act of the performance. How is it with us generally? With us, once a thing falls, it lies there. With us, if a thing once falls, it can lie there forever. I won’t have it, sirs! I want to rise! Holy fathers, you make me indignant. Confession is a great mystery before which I stand in awe and am ready to bow down, and here suddenly everyone in the cell falls on his knees and confesses out loud. Is it proper to confess out loud? The Holy Fathers instituted whispered confession, only then is there any mystery in it, and that has been so since olden times.^[67] Otherwise how am I to explain to him in front of everyone that I did this and that, for instance ... well, this and that, you know what I mean! Sometimes it’s even indecent to say it. There would be a scandal! No, fathers, one might even get drawn into flagellationism with you here . . .^[68] I shall write to the Synod the first chance I get,^[69] and I shall take my son Alexei home ...”

Nota bene: Fyodor Pavlovich had heard the ringing of rumor’s bells. At one time there had been malicious gossip, which even reached the Bishop (and not only about our monastery but about others where the institution of elders had been established), that the elders seemed to be respected overmuch, to the detriment even of the position of Superior, and that, among other things, the elders allegedly abused the sacrament of confession, and so on and so forth. The accusations were absurd and eventually died down of themselves, both here and everywhere. But the silly devil who had snatched up Fyodor Pavlovich and carried him on his own nerves further and further into the shameful deep prompted him to this former accusation, which Fyodor Pavlovich could not even begin to understand. Nor did he manage to formulate it correctly, the more so since this time no one had knelt down in the elder’s cell and confessed aloud, so that Fyodor Pavlovich could have seen nothing of the sort and was simply repeating old rumors and gossip, which he recalled haphazardly. But, having uttered this foolishness, he suddenly felt that he had blurted out some absurd nonsense, and he wanted at once to prove to his listeners and above all to himself that what he had said was not nonsense at all. And though he knew perfectly well that with each word he would be adding more and more absurdities of the same sort to the nonsense he had already spoken, still he could not help himself and plunged headlong off the mountain.

“How vile!” cried Pyotr Alexandrovich.

“Excuse me,” the Superior said suddenly. “Of old it was said: ‘And they began to speak against me many things and evil things. And I heard it and said within myself: this is the medicine of Jesus, which he has sent me to heal my vain soul.’ And therefore we, too, humbly thank you, our precious guest.”

And he bowed deeply to Fyodor Pavlovich.

“Tut, tut, tut! Humbug and old phrases! Old phrases and old sentences! Old lies and conventional bows! We know these bows! ‘A kiss on the lips and a dagger in the heart,’ as in Schiller’s Robbers.^[70]I don’t like falseness, fathers, I want the truth! And the truth is not in gudgeons, I’ve already declared as much! Father monks, why do you fast? Why do you expect a heavenly reward for that? For such a reward, I’ll go and start fasting, too! No, holy monk, try being virtuous in life, be useful to society without shutting yourself up in a monastery on other people’s bread, and without expecting any reward up there—that’s a little more difficult. I, too, can talk sensibly, Father Superior. What have we got here?” He went up to the table. “Old port wine from Factori’s, Médoc bottled by Eliseyev Brothers!^[71] A far cry from gudgeons, eh, fathers? Look at all these bottles the fathers have set out—heh, heh, heh! And who has provided it all? The Russian peasant, the laborer, bringing you the pittance earned by his callused hands, taking it from his family, from the needs of the state! You, holy fathers, are sucking the people’s blood!”

“That is altogether unworthy on your part,” said Father Iosif. Father Paissy was stubbornly silent. Miusov rushed from the room, with Kalganov behind him.

“Well, fathers, I will follow Pyotr Alexandrovich! And I won’t come back again, even if you beg me on bended knee, I won’t come back. I sent you a thousand roubles, and now you’ve got your eyes cocked, heh, heh, heh! No, I won’t add any more. I’m taking revenge for my lost youth, for all my humiliations!” He pounded the table with his fist in a fit of sham emotion. “This little monastery has played a big part in my life! I’ve shed many a bitter tear because of it! You turned my wife, the shrieker, against me. You cursed me at all seven councils,^[72] you smeared my name over the whole district! Enough, fathers! This is the age of liberalism, the age of steamships and railways. You’ll get nothing from me—not a thousand roubles, not a hundred roubles, not even a hundred kopecks!”

Another nota bene: our monastery never meant anything special in his life, and he had never shed any bitter tears because of it. But he was so carried away by his own sham tears that for a moment he almost believed himself; he even as much as wept from self-pity; but at the same moment he felt it was time to rein himself in. In reply to his wicked lie, the Superior inclined his head and again spoke imposingly:

“It is said, again: ‘Suffer with joy the dishonor which providentially befalleth thee, and be not troubled, neither hate him who dishonoreth thee.’ So shall we do.”

“Tut, tut, tut! They will have bethought themselves and the rest of that balderdash! You bethink yourselves, fathers, and I will go. And I’m taking my son Alexei away from here forever, on my parental authority. Ivan Fyodorovich, my most respectful son, allow me to order you to follow me! Von Sohn, why should you stay here? Come home with me now. We’ll have fun. It’s just a mile away. Instead of lenten oil, I’ll serve suckling pig with kasha stuffing; we’ll have dinner, then some cognac, and liqueurs, I have a cloudberry liqueur ... Hey, von Sohn, don’t miss your chance!”

He went out shouting and waving his arms. It was at this moment that Rakitin saw him leaving and pointed him out to Alyosha.

“Alexei!” his father cried from far off when he saw him, “move back in with me today, for good, bring your pillow and mattress, don’t leave a trace behind!”

Alyosha stopped in his tracks, silently and attentively observing the scene. Fyodor Pavlovich meanwhile got into his carriage, and Ivan Fyodorovich started to get in after him, silently and glumly, without even turning to say good-bye to Alyosha. But at that point one more clownish and almost incredible scene took place, which put the finishing touch to the whole episode. The landowner Maximov suddenly appeared on the step of the carriage. He ran up, panting, afraid of being late. Alyosha and Rakitin saw him running. He was in such a hurry that in his impatience he put his foot on the step where Ivan Fyodorovich’s left foot was still standing and, clutching the side, started to jump into the carriage. “Me, too, I’m coming with you!” he cried, jumping, laughing his merry little laugh, with a blissful look on his face, ready for anything. “Take me, too!”

“Didn’t I tell you?” Fyodor Pavlovich cried in delight. “He’s von Sohn! He’s the real von Sohn, risen from the dead! But how did you get away? What did you vonsohn in there, how did you manage to get out of the dinner? It takes a brazen face! I have one, but I’m still surprised at yours! Jump, jump in quick! Let him in, Vanya, it will be fun. We’ll find room for him somewhere at our feet. Will you lie at our feet, von Sohn? Or shall we stick him in the box with the coachman ... ? Jump up in the box, von Sohn...!”

But Ivan Fyodorovich, who had sat down by then, silently and with all his force gave Maximov a sudden shove in the chest that sent him flying for two yards. It was only by chance that he did not fall.

“Drive!” Ivan Fyodorovich shouted angrily to the coachman.

“What’s got into you? What’s got into you? Why did you do that to him?” Fyodor Pavlovich heaved himself up, but the carriage was already moving. Ivan Fyodorovich did not answer.

“How do you like that?” Fyodor Pavlovich said again after two minutes of silence, looking askance at his boy. “You started this whole monastery business, you urged it, you approved it, why are you angry now?”

“Enough of this drivel. Take a little break, now at least,” Ivan Fyodorovich snapped sternly.

Fyodor Pavlovich was again silent for about two minutes.

“Be nice to have some cognac,” he remarked sententiously. But Ivan Fyodorovich did not reply.

“You’ll have a drink, too, when we get there.”

Ivan Fyodorovich still said nothing.

Fyodor Pavlovich waited for about two minutes more.

“I’ll still take Alyoshka from the monastery, despite the fact that it will be very unpleasant for you, my most respectful Karl von Moor.”

Ivan Fyodorovich shrugged contemptuously and, turning away, began staring at the road. They did not speak again until they reached home.