The Brothers Karamazov by Dostoyevsky
PART I

Fyodor PART I
PART II
PART III
PART IV

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[1]                                         PART I
[2]         
[3]                                         Book I
[4]                                The History of a Family
[5]         
[6]                                       Chapter 1
[7]                              Fyodor Pavlovitch Karamazov
[8]         
[9]             ALEXEY Fyodorovitch Karamazov was the third son of Fyodor
[10]        Pavlovitch Karamazov, a landowner well known in our district in his
[11]        own day, and still remembered among us owing to his gloomy and
[12]        tragic death, which happened thirteen years ago, and which I shall
[13]        describe in its proper place. For the present I will only say that
[14]        this "landowner"- for so we used to call him, although he hardly spent
[15]        a day of his life on his own estate- was a strange type, yet one
[16]        pretty frequently to be met with, a type abject and vicious and at the
[17]        same time senseless. But he was one of those senseless persons who are
[18]        very well capable of looking after their worldly affairs, and,
[19]        apparently, after nothing else. Fyodor Pavlovitch, for instance, began
[20]        with next to nothing; his estate was of the smallest; he ran to dine
[21]        at other men's tables, and fastened on them as a toady, yet at his
[22]        death it appeared that he had a hundred thousand roubles in hard cash.
[23]        At the same time, he was all his life one of the most senseless,
[24]        fantastical fellows in the whole district. I repeat, it was not
[25]        stupidity- the majority of these fantastical fellows are shrewd and
[26]        intelligent enough- but just senselessness, and a peculiar national
[27]        form of it.
[28]            He was married twice, and had three sons, the eldest, Dmitri, by
[29]        his first wife, and two, Ivan and Alexey, by his second. Fyodor
[30]        Pavlovitch's first wife, Adelaida Ivanovna, belonged to a fairly
[31]        rich and distinguished noble family, also landowners in our
[32]        district, the Miusovs. How it came to pass that an heiress, who was
[33]        also a beauty, and moreover one of those vigorous intelligent girls,
[34]        so common in this generation, but sometimes also to be found in the
[35]        last, could have married such a worthless, puny weakling, as we all
[36]        called him, I won't attempt to explain. I knew a young lady of the
[37]        last "romantic" generation who after some years of an enigmatic
[38]        passion for a gentleman, whom she might quite easily have married at
[39]        any moment, invented insuperable obstacles to their union, and ended
[40]        by throwing herself one stormy night into a rather deep and rapid
[41]        river from a high bank, almost a precipice, and so perished,
[42]        entirely to satisfy her own caprice, and to be like Shakespeare's
[43]        Ophelia. Indeed, if this precipice, a chosen and favourite spot of
[44]        hers, had been less picturesque, if there had been a prosaic flat bank
[45]        in its place, most likely the suicide would never have taken place.
[46]        This is a fact, and probably there have been not a few similar
[47]        instances in the last two or three generations. Adelaida Ivanovna
[48]        Miusov's action was similarly, no doubt, an echo of other people's
[49]        ideas, and was due to the irritation caused by lack of mental freedom.
[50]        She wanted, perhaps, to show her feminine independence, to override
[51]        class distinctions and the despotism of her family. And a pliable
[52]        imagination persuaded her, we must suppose, for a brief moment, that
[53]        Fyodor Pavlovitch, in spite of his parasitic position, was one of
[54]        the bold and ironical spirits of that progressive epoch, though he
[55]        was, in fact, an ill-natured buffoon and nothing more. What gave the
[56]        marriage piquancy was that it was preceded by an elopement, and this
[57]        greatly captivated Adelaida Ivanovna's fancy. Fyodor Pavlovitch's
[58]        position at the time made him specially eager for any such enterprise,
[59]        for he was passionately anxious to make a career in one way or
[60]        another. To attach himself to a good family and obtain a dowry was
[61]        an alluring prospect. As for mutual love it did not exist
[62]        apparently, either in the bride or in him, in spite of Adelaida
[63]        Ivanovna's beauty. This was, perhaps, a unique case of the kind in the
[64]        life of Fyodor Pavlovitch, who was always of a voluptuous temper,
[65]        and ready to run after any petticoat on the slightest encouragement.
[66]        She seems to have been the only woman who made no particular appeal to
[67]        his senses.
[68]            Immediatley after the elopement Adelaida Ivanovna discerned in a
[69]        flash that she had no feeling for her husband but contempt. The
[70]        marriage accordingly showed itself in its true colours with
[71]        extraordinary rapidity. Although the family accepted the event
[72]        pretty quickly and apportioned the runaway bride her dowry, the
[73]        husband and wife began to lead a most disorderly life, and there
[74]        were everlasting scenes between them. It was said that the young
[75]        wife showed incomparably more generosity and dignity than Fyodor
[76]        Pavlovitch, who, as is now known, got hold of all her money up to
[77]        twenty five thousand roubles as soon as she received it, so that those
[78]        thousands were lost to her forever. The little village and the
[79]        rather fine town house which formed part of her dowry he did his
[80]        utmost for a long time to transfer to his name, by means of some
[81]        deed of conveyance. He would probably have succeeded, merely from
[82]        her moral fatigue and desire to get rid of him, and from the
[83]        contempt and loathing he aroused by his persistent and shameless
[84]        importunity. But, fortunately, Adelaida Ivanovna's family intervened
[85]        and circumvented his greediness. It is known for a fact that
[86]        frequent fights took place between the husband and wife, but rumour
[87]        had it that Fyodor Pavlovitch did not beat his wife but was beaten
[88]        by her, for she was a hot-tempered, bold, dark-browed, impatient
[89]        woman, possessed of remarkable physical strength. Finally, she left
[90]        the house and ran away from Fyodor Pavlovitch with a destitute
[91]        divinity student, leaving Mitya, a child of three years old, in her
[92]        husband's hands. Immediately Fyodor Pavlovitch introduced a regular
[93]        harem into the house, and abandoned himself to orgies of
[94]        drunkenness. In the intervals he used to drive all over the
[95]        province, complaining tearfully to each and all of Adelaida Ivanovna's
[96]        having left him, going into details too disgraceful for a husband to
[97]        mention in regard to his own married life. What seemed to gratify
[98]        him and flatter his self-love most was to play the ridiculous part
[99]        of the injured husband, and to parade his woes with embellishments.
[100]           "One would think that you'd got a promotion, Fyodor Pavlovitch,
[101]       you seem so pleased in spite of your sorrow," scoffers said to him.
[102]       Many even added that he was glad of a new comic part in which to
[103]       play the buffoon, and that it was simply to make it funnier that he
[104]       pretended to be unaware of his ludicrous position. But, who knows,
[105]       it may have been simplicity. At last he succeeded in getting on the
[106]       track of his runaway wife. The poor woman turned out to be in
[107]       Petersburg, where she had gone with her divinity student, and where
[108]       she had thrown herself into a life of complete emancipation. Fyodor
[109]       Pavlovitch at once began bustling about, making preparations to go
[110]       to Petersburg, with what object he could not himself have said. He
[111]       would perhaps have really gone; but having determined to do so he felt
[112]       at once entitled to fortify himself for the journey by another bout of
[113]       reckless drinking. And just at that time his wife's family received
[114]       the news of her death in Petersburg. She had died quite suddenly in
[115]       a garret, according to one story, of typhus, or as another version had
[116]       it, of starvation. Fyodor Pavlovitch was drunk when he heard of his
[117]       wife's death, and the story is that he ran out into the street and
[118]       began shouting with joy, raising his hands to Heaven: "Lord, now
[119]       lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace," but others say he wept
[120]       without restraint like a little child, so much so that people were
[121]       sorry for him, in spite of the repulsion he inspired. It is quite
[122]       possible that both versions were true, that he rejoiced at his
[123]       release, and at the same time wept for her who released him. As a
[124]       general rule, people, even the wicked, are much more naive and
[125]       simple-hearted than we suppose. And we ourselves are, too.
[126]                                     Chapter 2
[127]                           He Gets Rid of His Eldest Son
[128]       
[129]           YOU can easily imagine what a father such a man could be and how
[130]       he would bring up his children. His behaviour as a father was
[131]       exactly what might be expected. He completely abandoned the child of
[132]       his marriage with Adelaida Ivanovna, not from malice, nor because of
[133]       his matrimonial grievances, but simply because he forgot him. While he
[134]       was wearying everyone with his tears and complaints, and turning his
[135]       house into a sink of debauchery, a faithful servant of the family,
[136]       Grigory, took the three-year old Mitya into his care. If he hadn't
[137]       looked after him there would have been no one even to change the
[138]       baby's little shirt.
[139]           It happened moreover that the child's relations on his mother's
[140]       side forgot him too at first. His grandfather was no longer living,
[141]       his widow, Mitya's grandmother, had moved to Moscow, and was seriously
[142]       ill, while his daughters were married, so that Mitya remained for
[143]       almost a whole year in old Grigory's charge and lived with him in
[144]       the servant's cottage. But if his father had remembered him (he
[145]       could not, indeed, have been altogether unaware of his existence) he
[146]       would have sent him back to the cottage, as the child would only
[147]       have been in the way of his debaucheries. But a cousin of Mitya's
[148]       mother, Pyotr Alexandrovitch Miusov, happened to return from Paris. He
[149]       lived for many years afterwards abroad, but was at that time quite a
[150]       young .man, and distinguished among the Miusovs as a man of
[151]       enlightened ideas and of European culture, who had been in the
[152]       capitals and abroad. Towards the end of his life he became a Liberal
[153]       of the type common in the forties and fifties. In the course of his
[154]       career he had come into contact with many of the most Liberal men of
[155]       his epoch, both in Russia and abroad. He had known Proudhon and
[156]       Bakunin personally, and in his declining years was very fond of
[157]       describing the three days of the Paris Revolution of February, 1848,
[158]       hinting that he himself had almost taken part in the fighting on the
[159]       barricades. This was one of the most grateful recollections of his
[160]       youth. He had an independent property of about a thousand souls, to
[161]       reckon in the old style. His splendid estate lay on the outskirts of
[162]       our little town and bordered on the lands of our famous monastery,
[163]       with which Pyotr Alexandrovitch began an endless lawsuit, almost as
[164]       soon as he came into the estate, concerning the rights of fishing in
[165]       the river or wood-cutting in the forest, I don't know exactly which.
[166]       He regarded it as his duty as a citizen and a man of culture to open
[167]       an attack upon the "clericals." Hearing all about Adelaida Ivanovna,
[168]       whom he, of course, remembered, and in whom he had at one time been
[169]       interested, and learning of the existence of Mitya, he intervened,
[170]       in spite of all his youthful indignation and contempt for Fyodor
[171]       Pavlovitch. He made the latter's acquaintance for the first time,
[172]       and told him directly that he wished to undertake the child's
[173]       education. He used long afterwards to tell as a characteristic
[174]       touch, that when he began to speak of Mitya, Fyodor Pavlovitch
[175]       looked for some time as though he did not understand what child he was
[176]       talking about, and even as though he was surprised to hear that he had
[177]       a little son in the house. The story may have been exaggerated, yet it
[178]       must have been something like the truth.
[179]           Fyodor Pavlovitch was all his life fond of acting, of suddenly
[180]       playing an unexpected part, sometimes without any motive for doing so,
[181]       and even to his own direct disadvantage, as, for instance, in the
[182]       present case. This habit, however, is characteristic of a very great
[183]       number of people, some of them very clever ones, not like Fyodor
[184]       Pavlovitch. Pyotr Alexandrovitch carried the business through
[185]       vigorously, and was appointed, with Fyodor Pavlovitch, joint
[186]       guardian of the child, who had a small property, a house and land,
[187]       left him by his mother. Mitya did, in fact, pass into this cousin's
[188]       keeping, but as the latter had no family of his own, and after
[189]       securing the revenues of his estates was in haste to return at once to
[190]       Paris, he left the boy in charge of one of his cousins, a lady
[191]       living in Moscow. It came to pass that, settling permanently in
[192]       Paris he, too, forgot the child, especially when the Revolution of
[193]       February broke out, making an impression on his mind that he
[194]       remembered all the rest of his life. The Moscow lady died, and Mitya
[195]       passed into the care of one of her married daughters. I believe he
[196]       changed his home a fourth time later on. I won't enlarge upon that
[197]       now, as I shall have much to tell later of Fyodor Pavlovitch's
[198]       firstborn, and must confine myself now to the most essential facts
[199]       about him, without which I could not begin my story.
[200]           In the first place, this Mitya, or rather Dmitri Fyodorovitch, was
[201]       the only one of Fyodor Pavlovitch's three sons who grew up in the
[202]       belief that he had property, and that he would be independent on
[203]       coming of age. He spent an irregular boyhood and youth. He did not
[204]       finish his studies at the gymnasium, he got into a military school,
[205]       then went to the Caucasus, was promoted, fought a duel, and was
[206]       degraded to the ranks, earned promotion again, led a wild life, and
[207]       spent a good deal of money. He did not begin to receive any income
[208]       from Fyodor Pavlovitch until he came of age, and until then got into
[209]       debt. He saw and knew his father, Fyodor Pavlovitch, for the first
[210]       time on coming of age, when he visited our neighbourhood on purpose to
[211]       settle with him about his property. He seems not to have liked his
[212]       father. He did not stay long with him, and made haste to get away,
[213]       having only succeeded in obtaining a sum of money, and entering into
[214]       an agreement for future payments from the estate, of the revenues
[215]       and value of which he was unable (a fact worthy of note), upon this
[216]       occasion, to get a statement from his father. Fyodor Pavlovitch
[217]       remarked for the first time then (this, too, should be noted) that
[218]       Mitya had a vague and exaggerated idea of his property. Fyodor
[219]       Pavlovitch was very well satisfied with this, as it fell in with his
[220]       own designs. He gathered only that the young man was frivolous,
[221]       unruly, of violent passions, impatient, and dissipated, and that if he
[222]       could only obtain ready money he would be satisfied, although only, of
[223]       course, a short time. So Fyodor Pavlovitch began to take advantage
[224]       of this fact, sending him from time to time small doles,
[225]       instalments. In the end, when four years later, Mitya, losing
[226]       patience, came a second time to our little town to settle up once
[227]       for all with his father, it turned out to his amazement that he had
[228]       nothing, that it was difficult to get an account even, that he had
[229]       received the whole value of his property in sums of money from
[230]       Fyodor Pavlovitch, and was perhaps even in debt to him, that by
[231]       various agreements into which he had, of his own desire, entered at
[232]       various previous dates, he had no right to expect anything more, and
[233]       so on, and so on. The young man was overwhelmed, suspected deceit
[234]       and cheating, and was almost beside himself. And, indeed, this
[235]       circumstance led to the catastrophe, the account of which forms the
[236]       subject of my first introductory story, or rather the external side of
[237]       it. But before I pass to that story I must say a little of Fyodor
[238]       Pavlovitch's other two sons, and of their origin.
[239]                                     Chapter 3
[240]                     The Second Marriage and the Second Family
[241]       
[242]           VERY shortly after getting his four-year-old Mitya off his hands
[243]       Fyodor Pavlovitch married a second time. His second marriage lasted
[244]       eight years. He took this second wife, Sofya Ivanovna, also a very
[245]       young girl, from another province, where he had gone upon some small
[246]       piece of business in company with a Jew. Though Fyodor Pavlovitch
[247]       was a drunkard and a vicious debauchee he never neglected investing
[248]       his capital, and managed his business affairs very successfully,
[249]       though, no doubt, not over-scrupulously. Sofya Ivanovna was the
[250]       daughter of an obscure deacon, and was left from childhood an orphan
[251]       without relations. She grew up in the house of a general's widow, a
[252]       wealthy old lady of good position, who was at once her benefactress
[253]       and tormentor. I do not know the details, but I have only heard that
[254]       the orphan girl, a meek and gentle creature, was once cut down from
[255]       a halter in which she was hanging from a nail in the loft, so terrible
[256]       were her sufferings from the caprice and everlasting nagging of this
[257]       old woman, who was apparently not bad-hearted but had become an
[258]       insufferable tyrant through idleness.
[259]           Fyodor Pavlovitch made her an offer; inquiries were made about him
[260]       and he was refused. But again, as in his first marriage, he proposed
[261]       an elopement to the orphan girl. There is very little doubt that she
[262]       would not on any account have married him if she had known a little
[263]       more about him in time. But she lived in another province; besides,
[264]       what could a little girl of sixteen know about it, except that she
[265]       would be better at the bottom of the river than remaining with her
[266]       benefactress. So the poor child exchanged a benefactress for a
[267]       benefactor. Fyodor Pavlovitch did not get a penny this time, for the
[268]       general's widow was furious. She gave them nothing and cursed them
[269]       both. But he had not reckoned on a dowry; what allured him was the
[270]       remarkable beauty of the innocent girl, above all her innocent
[271]       appearance, which had a peculiar attraction for a vicious
[272]       profligate, who had hitherto admired only the coarser types of
[273]       feminine beauty.
[274]           "Those innocent eyes slit my soul up like a razor," he used to say
[275]       afterwards, with his loathsome snigger. In a man so depraved this
[276]       might, of course, mean no more than sensual attraction. As he had
[277]       received no dowry with his wife, and had, so to speak, taken her "from
[278]       the halter," he did not stand on ceremony with her. Making her feel
[279]       that she had "wronged" him, he took advantage of her phenomenal
[280]       meekness and submissiveness to trample on the elementary decencies
[281]       of marriage. He gathered loose women into his house, and carried on
[282]       orgies of debauchery in his wife's presence. To show what a pass
[283]       things had come to, I may mention that Grigory, the gloomy, stupid,
[284]       obstinate, argumentative servant, who had always hated his first
[285]       mistress, Adelaida Ivanovna, took the side of his new mistress. He
[286]       championed her cause, abusing Fyodor Pavlovitch in a manner little
[287]       befitting a servant, and on one occasion broke up the revels and drove
[288]       all the disorderly women out of the house. In the end this unhappy
[289]       young woman, kept in terror from her childhood, fell into that kind of
[290]       nervous disease which is most frequently found in peasant women who
[291]       are said to be "possessed by devils." At times after terrible fits
[292]       of hysterics she even lost her reason. Yet she bore Fyodor
[293]       Pavlovitch two sons, Ivan and Alexey, the eldest in the first year
[294]       of marriage and the second three years later. When she died, little
[295]       Alexey was in his fourth year, and, strange as it seems, I know that
[296]       he remembered his mother all his life, like a dream, of course. At her
[297]       death almost exactly the same thing happened to the two little boys as
[298]       to their elder brother, Mitya. They were completely forgotten and
[299]       abandoned by their father. They were looked after by the same
[300]       Grigory and lived in his cottage, where they were found by the
[301]       tyrannical old lady who had brought up their mother. She was still
[302]       alive, and had not, all those eight years, forgotten the insult done
[303]       her. All that time she was obtaining exact information as to her
[304]       Sofya's manner of life, and hearing of her illness and hideous
[305]       surroundings she declared aloud two or three times to her retainers:
[306]           "It serves her right. God has punished her for her ingratitude."
[307]           Exactly three months after Sofya Ivanovna's death the general's
[308]       widow suddenly appeared in our town, and went straight to Fyodor
[309]       Pavlovitch's house. She spent only half an hour in the town but she
[310]       did a great deal. It was evening. Fyodor Pavlovitch, whom she had
[311]       not seen for those eight years, came in to her drunk. The story is
[312]       that instantly upon seeing him, without any sort of explanation, she
[313]       gave him two good, resounding slaps on the face, seized him by a
[314]       tuft of hair, and shook him three times up and down. Then, without a
[315]       word, she went straight to the cottage to the two boys. Seeing, at the
[316]       first glance, that they were unwashed and in dirty linen, she promptly
[317]       gave Grigory, too, a box on the ear, and announcing that she would
[318]       carry off both the children she wrapped them just as they were in a
[319]       rug, put them in the carriage, and drove off to her own town.
[320]       Grigory accepted the blow like a devoted slave, without a word, and
[321]       when he escorted the old lady to her carriage he made her a low bow
[322]       and pronounced impressively that, "God would repay her for orphans."
[323]       "You are a blockhead all the same," the old lady shouted to him as she
[324]       drove away.
[325]           Fyodor Pavlovitch, thinking it over, decided that it was a good
[326]       thing, and did not refuse the general's widow his formal consent to
[327]       any proposition in regard to his children's education. As for the
[328]       slaps she had given him, he drove all over the town telling the story.
[329]           It happened that the old lady died soon after this, but she left
[330]       the boys in her will a thousand roubles each "for their instruction,
[331]       and so that all be spent on them exclusively, with the condition
[332]       that it be so portioned out as to last till they are twenty-one, for
[333]       it is more than adequate provision for such children. If other
[334]       people think fit to throw away their money, let them." I have not read
[335]       the will myself, but I heard there was something queer of the sort,
[336]       very whimsically expressed. The principal heir, Yefim Petrovitch
[337]       Polenov, the Marshal of Nobility of the province, turned out, however,
[338]       to be an honest man. Writing to Fyodor Pavlovitch, and discerning at
[339]       once that he could extract nothing from him for his children's
[340]       education (though the latter never directly refused but only
[341]       procrastinated as he always did in such cases, and was, indeed, at
[342]       times effusively sentimental), Yefim Petrovitch took a personal
[343]       interest in the orphans. He became especially fond of the younger,
[344]       Alexey, who lived for a long while as one of his family. I beg the
[345]       reader to note this from the beginning. And to Yefim Petrovitch, a man
[346]       of a generosity and humanity rarely to be met with, the young people
[347]       were more indebted for their education and bringing up than to anyone.
[348]       He kept the two thousand roubles left to them by the general's widow
[349]       intact, so that by the time they came of age their portions had been
[350]       doubled by the accumulation of interest. He educated them both at
[351]       his own expense, and certainly spent far more than a thousand
[352]       roubles upon each of them. I won't enter into a detailed account of
[353]       their boyhood and youth, but will only mention a few of the most
[354]       important events. Of the elder, Ivan, I will only say that he grew
[355]       into a somewhat morose and reserved, though far from timid boy. At ten
[356]       years old he had realised that they were living not in their own
[357]       home but on other people's charity, and that their father was a man of
[358]       whom it was disgraceful to speak. This boy began very early, almost in
[359]       his infancy (so they say at least), to show a brilliant and unusual
[360]       aptitude for learning. I don't know precisely why, but he left the
[361]       family of Yefim Petrovitch when he was hardly thirteen, entering a
[362]       Moscow gymnasium and boarding with an experienced and celebrated
[363]       teacher, an old friend of Yefim Petrovitch. Ivan used to declare
[364]       afterwards that this was all due to the "ardour for good works" of
[365]       Yefim Petrovitch, who was captivated by the idea that the boy's genius
[366]       should be trained by a teacher of genius. But neither Yefim Petrovitch
[367]       nor this teacher was living when the young man finished at the
[368]       gymnasium and entered the university. As Yefim Petrovitch had made
[369]       no provision for the payment of the tyrannical old lady's legacy,
[370]       which had grown from one thousand to two, it was delayed, owing to
[371]       formalities inevitable in Russia, and the young man was in great
[372]       straits for the first two years at the university, as he was forced to
[373]       keep himself all the time he was studying. It must be noted that he
[374]       did not even attempt to communicate with his father, perhaps from
[375]       pride, from contempt for him, or perhaps from his cool common sense,
[376]       which told him that from such a father he would get no real
[377]       assistance. However that may have been, the young man was by no
[378]       means despondent and succeeded in getting work, at first giving
[379]       sixpenny lessons and afterwards getting paragraphs on street incidents
[380]       into the newspapers under the signature of "Eye-Witness." These
[381]       paragraphs, it was said, were so interesting and piquant that they
[382]       were soon taken. This alone showed the young man's practical and
[383]       intellectual superiority over the masses of needy and unfortunate
[384]       students of both sexes who hang about the offices of the newspapers
[385]       and journals, unable to think of anything better than everlasting
[386]       entreaties for copying and translations from the French. Having once
[387]       got into touch with the editors Ivan Fyodorovitch always kept up his
[388]       connection with them, and in his latter years at the university he
[389]       published brilliant reviews of books upon various special subjects, so
[390]       that he became well known in literary circles. But only in his last
[391]       year he suddenly succeeded in attracting the attention of a far
[392]       wider circle of readers, so that a great many people noticed and
[393]       remembered him. It was rather a curious incident. When he had just
[394]       left the university and was preparing to go abroad upon his two
[395]       thousand roubles, Ivan Fyodorovitch published in one of the more
[396]       important journals a strange article, which attracted general
[397]       notice, on a subject of which he might have been supposed to know
[398]       nothing, as he was a student of natural science. The article dealt
[399]       with a subject which was being debated everywhere at the time- the
[400]       position of the ecclesiastical courts. After discussing several
[401]       opinions on the subject he went on to explain his own view. What was
[402]       most striking about the article was its tone, and its unexpected
[403]       conclusion. Many of the Church party regarded him unquestioningly as
[404]       on their side. And yet not only the secularists but even atheists
[405]       joined them in their applause. Finally some sagacious persons opined
[406]       that the article was nothing but an impudent satirical burlesque. I
[407]       mention this incident particularly because this article penetrated
[408]       into the famous monastery in our neighbourhood, where the inmates,
[409]       being particularly interested in question of the ecclesiastical
[410]       courts, were completely bewildered by it. Learning the author's
[411]       name, they were interested in his being a native of the town and the
[412]       son of "that Fyodor Pavlovitch." And just then it was that the
[413]       author himself made his appearance among us.
[414]           Why Ivan Fyodorovitch had come amongst us I remember asking myself
[415]       at the time with a certain uneasiness. This fateful visit, which was
[416]       the first step leading to so many consequences, I never fully
[417]       explained to myself. It seemed strange on the face of it that a
[418]       young man so learned, so proud, and apparently so cautious, should
[419]       suddenly visit such an infamous house and a father who had ignored him
[420]       all his life, hardly knew him, never thought of him, and would not
[421]       under any circumstances have given him money, though he was always
[422]       afraid that his sons Ivan and Alexey would also come to ask him for
[423]       it. And here the young man was staying in the house of such a
[424]       father, had been living with him for two months, and they were on
[425]       the best possible terms. This last fact was a special cause of
[426]       wonder to many others as well as to me. Pyotr Alexandrovitch Miusov,
[427]       of whom we have spoken already, the cousin of Fyodor Pavlovitch's
[428]       first wife, happened to be in the neighbourhood again on a visit to
[429]       his estate. He had come from Paris, which was his permanent home. I
[430]       remember that he was more surprised than anyone when he made the
[431]       acquaintance of the young man, who interested him extremely, and
[432]       with whom he sometimes argued and not without inner pang compared
[433]       himself in acquirements.
[434]           "He is proud," he used to say, "he will never be in want of pence;
[435]       he has got money enough to go abroad now. What does he want here?
[436]       Everyone can see that he hasn't come for money, for his father would
[437]       never give him any. He has no taste for drink and dissipation, and yet
[438]       his father can't do without him. They get on so well together!"
[439]           That was the truth; the young man had an unmistakable influence
[440]       over his father, who positively appeared to be behaving more
[441]       decently and even seemed at times ready to obey his son, though
[442]       often extremely and even spitefully perverse.
[443]           It was only later that we learned that Ivan had come partly at the
[444]       request of, and in the interests of, his elder brother, Dmitri, whom
[445]       he saw for the first time on this very visit, though he had before
[446]       leaving Moscow been in correspondence with him about an important
[447]       matter of more concern to Dmitri than himself. What that business
[448]       was the reader will learn fully in due time. Yet even when I did
[449]       know of this special circumstance I still felt Ivan Fyodorovitch to be
[450]       an enigmatic figure, and thought his visit rather mysterious.
[451]           I may add that Ivan appeared at the time in the light of a
[452]       mediator between his father and his elder brother Dmitri, who was in
[453]       open quarrel with his father and even planning to bring an action
[454]       against him.
[455]           The family, I repeat, was now united for the first time, and
[456]       some of its members met for the first time in their lives. The younger
[457]       brother, Alexey, had been a year already among us, having been the
[458]       first of the three to arrive. It is of that brother Alexey I find it
[459]       most difficult to speak in this introduction. Yet I must give some
[460]       preliminary account of him, if only to explain one queer fact, which
[461]       is that I have to introduce my hero to the reader wearing the
[462]       cassock of a novice. Yes, he had been for the last year in our
[463]       monastery, and seemed willing to be cloistered there for the rest of
[464]       his life.
[465]                                     Chapter 4
[466]                               The Third Son, Alyosha
[467]       
[468]           HE was only twenty, his brother Ivan was in his twenty-fourth year
[469]       at the time, while their elder brother Dmitri was twenty-seven.
[470]       First of all, I must explain that this young man, Alyosha, was not a
[471]       fanatic, and, in my opinion at least, was not even a mystic. I may
[472]       as well give my full opinion from the beginning. He was simply an
[473]       early lover of humanity, and that he adopted the monastic life was
[474]       simply because at that time it struck him, so to say, as the ideal
[475]       escape for his soul struggling from the darkness of worldly wickedness
[476]       to the light of love. And the reason this life struck him in this
[477]       way was that he found in it at that time, as he thought an
[478]       extrordinary being, our celebrated elder, Zossima, to whom he became
[479]       attached with all the warm first love of his ardent heart. But I do
[480]       not dispute that he was very strange even at that time, and had been
[481]       so indeed from his cradle. I have mentioned already, by the way,
[482]       that though he lost his mother in his fourth year he remembered her
[483]       all his life her face, her caresses, "as though she stood living
[484]       before me." Such memories may persist, as everyone knows, from an even
[485]       earlier age, even from two years old, but scarcely standing out
[486]       through a whole lifetime like spots of light out of darkness, like a
[487]       corner torn out of a huge picture, which has all faded and disappeared
[488]       except that fragment. That is how it was with him. He remembered one
[489]       still summer evening, an open window, the slanting rays of the setting
[490]       sun (that he recalled most vividly of all); in a corner of the room
[491]       the holy image, before it a lighted lamp, and on her knees before
[492]       the image his mother, sobbing hysterically with cries and moans,
[493]       snatching him up in both arms, squeezing him close till it hurt, and
[494]       praying for him to the Mother of God, holding him out in both arms
[495]       to the image as though to put him under the Mother's protection... and
[496]       suddenly a nurse runs in and snatches him from her in terror. That was
[497]       the picture! And Alyosha remembered his mother's face at that
[498]       minute. He used to say that it was frenzied but beautiful as he
[499]       remembered. But he rarely cared to speak of this memory to anyone.
[500]       In his childhood and youth he was by no means expansive, and talked
[501]       little indeed, but not from shyness or a sullen unsociability; quite
[502]       the contrary, from something different, from a sort of inner
[503]       preoccupation entirely personal and unconcerned with other people, but
[504]       so important to him that he seemed, as it were, to forget others on
[505]       account of it. But he was fond of people: he seemed throughout his
[506]       life to put implicit trust in people: yet no one ever looked on him as
[507]       a simpleton or naive person. There was something about him which
[508]       made one feel at once (and it was so all his life afterwards) that
[509]       he did not care to be a judge of others that he would never take it
[510]       upon himself to criticise and would never condemn anyone for anything.
[511]       He seemed, indeed, to accept everything without the least condemnation
[512]       though often grieving bitterly: and this was so much so that no one
[513]       could surprise or frighten him even in his earliest youth. Coming at
[514]       twenty to his father's house, which was a very sink of filthy
[515]       debauchery, he, chaste and pure as he was, simply withdrew in
[516]       silence when to look on was unbearable, but without the slightest sign
[517]       of contempt or condemnation. His father, who had once been in a
[518]       dependent position, and so was sensitive and ready to take offence,
[519]       met him at first with distrust and sullenness. "He does not say much,"
[520]       he used to say, "and thinks the more." But soon, within a fortnight
[521]       indeed, he took to embracing him and kissing him terribly often,
[522]       with drunken tears, with sottish sentimentality, yet he evidently felt
[523]       a real and deep affection for him, such as he had never been capable
[524]       of feeling for anyone before.
[525]           Everyone, indeed, loved this young man wherever he went, and it
[526]       was so from his earliest childhood. When he entered the household of
[527]       his patron and benefactor, Yefim Petrovitch Polenov, he gained the
[528]       hearts of all the family, so that they looked on him quite as their
[529]       own child. Yet he entered the house at such a tender age that he could
[530]       not have acted from design nor artfulness in winning affection. So
[531]       that the gift of making himself loved directly and unconsciously was
[532]       inherent in him, in his very nature, so to speak. It was the same at
[533]       school, though he seemed to be just one of those children who are
[534]       distrusted, sometimes ridiculed, and even disliked by their
[535]       schoolfellows. He was dreamy, for instance, and rather solitary.
[536]       From his earliest childhood he was fond of creeping into a corner to
[537]       read, and yet he was a general favourite all the while he was at
[538]       school. He was rarely playful or merry, but anyone could see at the
[539]       first glance that this was not from any sullenness. On the contrary he
[540]       was bright and good-tempered. He never tried to show off among his
[541]       schoolfellows. Perhaps because of this, he was never afraid of anyone,
[542]       yet the boys immediately understood that he was not proud of his
[543]       fearlessness and seemed to be unaware that he was bold and courageous.
[544]       He never resented an insult. It would happen that an hour after the
[545]       offence he would address the offender or answer some question with
[546]       as trustful and candid an expression as though nothing had happened
[547]       between them. And it was not that he seemed to have forgotten or
[548]       intentionally forgiven the affront, but simply that he did not
[549]       regard it as an affront, and this completely conquered and
[550]       captivated the boys. He had one characteristic which made all his
[551]       schoolfellows from the bottom class to the top want to mock at him,
[552]       not from malice but because it amused them. This characteristic was
[553]       a wild fanatical modesty and chastity. He could not bear to hear
[554]       certain words and certain conversations about women. There are
[555]       "certain" words and conversations unhappily impossible to eradicate in
[556]       schools. Boys pure in mind and heart, almost children, are fond of
[557]       talking in school among themselves, and even aloud, of things,
[558]       pictures, and images of which even soldiers would sometimes hesitate
[559]       to speak. More than that, much that soldiers have no knowledge or
[560]       conception of is familiar to quite young children of our
[561]       intellectual and higher classes. There is no moral depravity, no
[562]       real corrupt inner cynicism in it, but there is the appearance of
[563]       it, and it is often looked upon among them as something refined,
[564]       subtle, daring, and worthy of imitation. Seeing that Alyosha Karamazov
[565]       put his fingers in his ears when they talked of "that," they used
[566]       sometimes to crowd round him, pull his hands away, and shout nastiness
[567]       into both ears, while he struggled, slipped to the floor, tried to
[568]       hide himself without uttering one word of abuse, enduring their
[569]       insults in silence. But at last they left him alone and gave up
[570]       taunting him with being a "regular girl," and what's more they
[571]       looked upon it with compassion as a weakness. He was always one of the
[572]       best in the class but was never first.
[573]           At the time of Yefim Petrovitch's death Alyosha had two more years
[574]       to complete at the provincial gymnasium. The inconsolable widow went
[575]       almost immediately after his death for a long visit to Italy with
[576]       her whole family, which consisted only of women and girls. Alyosha
[577]       went to live in the house of two distant relations of Yefim
[578]       Petrovitch, ladies whom he had never seen before. On what terms she
[579]       lived with them he did not know himself. It was very characteristic of
[580]       him, indeed, that he never cared at whose expense he was living. In
[581]       that respect he was a striking contrast to his elder brother Ivan, who
[582]       struggled with poverty for his first two years in the university,
[583]       maintained himself by his own efforts, and had from childhood been
[584]       bitterly conscious of living at the expense of his benefactor. But
[585]       this strange trait in Alyosha's character must not, I think,
[586]       criticised too severely, for at the slightest acquaintance with him
[587]       anyone would have perceived that Alyosha was one of those youths,
[588]       almost of the type of religious enthusiast, who, if they were suddenly
[589]       to come into possession of a large fortune, would not hesitate to give
[590]       it away for the asking, either for good works or perhaps to a clever
[591]       rogue. In general he seemed scarcely to know the value of money,
[592]       not, of course, in a literal sense. When he was given pocket-money,
[593]       which he never asked for, he was either terribly careless of it so
[594]       that it was gone in a moment, or he kept it for weeks together, not
[595]       knowing what to do with it.
[596]           In later years Pyotr Alexandrovitch Miusov, a man very sensitive
[597]       on the score of money and bourgeois honesty, pronounced the
[598]       following judgment, after getting to know Alyosha:
[599]           "Here is perhaps the one man in the world whom you might leave
[600]       alone without a penny, in the centre of an unknown town of a million
[601]       inhabitants, and he would not come to harm, he would not die of cold
[602]       and hunger, for he would be fed and sheltered at once; and if he
[603]       were not, he would find a shelter for himself, and it would cost him
[604]       no effort or humiliation. And to shelter him would be no burden,
[605]       but, on the contrary, would probably be looked on as a pleasure."
[606]           He did not finish his studies at the gymnasium. A year before
[607]       the end of the course he suddenly announced to the ladies that he
[608]       was going to see his father about a plan which had occurred to him.
[609]       They were sorry and unwilling to let him go. The journey was not an
[610]       expensive one, and the ladies would not let him pawn his watch, a
[611]       parting present from his benefactor's family. They provided him
[612]       liberally with money and even fitted him out with new clothes and
[613]       linen. But he returned half the money they gave him, saying that he
[614]       intended to go third class. On his arrival in the town he made no
[615]       answer to his father's first inquiry why he had come before completing
[616]       his studies, and seemed, so they say, unusually thoughtful. It soon
[617]       became apparent that he was looking for his mother's tomb. He
[618]       practically acknowledged at the time that that was the only object
[619]       of his visit. But it can hardly have been the whole reason of it. It
[620]       is more probable that he himself did not understand and could not
[621]       explain what had suddenly arisen in his soul, and drawn him
[622]       irresistibly into a new, unknown, but inevitable path. Fyodor
[623]       Pavlovitch could not show him where his second wife was buried, for he
[624]       had never visited her grave since he had thrown earth upon her coffin,
[625]       and in the course of years had entirely forgotten where she was
[626]       buried.
[627]           Fyodor Pavlovitch, by the way, had for some time previously not
[628]       been living in our town. Three or four years after his wife's death he
[629]       had gone to the south of Russia and finally turned up in Odessa, where
[630]       he spent several years. He made the acquaintance at first, in his
[631]       own words, "of a lot of low Jews, Jewesses, and Jewkins," and ended by
[632]       being received by "Jews high and low alike." It may be presumed that
[633]       at this period he developed a peculiar faculty for making and hoarding
[634]       money. He finally returned to our town only three years before
[635]       Alyosha's arrival. His former acquaintances found him looking terribly
[636]       aged, although he was by no means an old man. He behaved not exactly
[637]       with more dignity but with more effrontery. The former buffoon
[638]       showed an insolent propensity for making buffoons of others. His
[639]       depravity with women was not as it used to be, but even more
[640]       revolting. In a short time he opened a great number of new taverns
[641]       in the district. It was evident that he had perhaps a hundred thousand
[642]       roubles or not much less. Many of the inhabitants of the town and
[643]       district were soon in his debt, and, of course, had given good
[644]       security. Of late, too, he looked somehow bloated and seemed more
[645]       irresponsible, more uneven, had sunk into a sort of incoherence,
[646]       used to begin one thing and go on with another, as though he were
[647]       letting himself go altogether. He was more and more frequently
[648]       drunk. And, if it had not been for the same servant Grigory, who by
[649]       that time had aged considerably too, and used to look after him
[650]       sometimes almost like a tutor, Fyodor Pavlovitch might have got into
[651]       terrible scrapes. Alyosha's arrival seemed to affect even his moral
[652]       side, as though something had awakened in this prematurely old man
[653]       which had long been dead in his soul.
[654]           "Do you know," he used often to say, looking at Alyosha, "that you
[655]       are like her, 'the crazy woman'"- that was what he used to call his
[656]       dead wife, Alyosha's mother. Grigory it was who pointed out the "crazy
[657]       woman's" grave to Alyosha. He took him to our town cemetery and showed
[658]       him in a remote corner a cast-iron tombstone, cheap but decently kept,
[659]       on which were inscribed the name and age of the deceased and the
[660]       date of her death, and below a four-lined verse, such as are
[661]       commonly used on old-fashioned middle-class tombs. To Alyosha's
[662]       amazement this tomb turned out to be Grigory's doing. He had put it up
[663]       on the poor "crazy woman's" grave at his own expense, after Fyodor
[664]       Pavlovitch, whom he had often pestered about the grave, had gone to
[665]       Odessa, abandoning the grave and all his memories. Alyosha showed no
[666]       particular emotion at the sight of his mother's grave. He only
[667]       listened to Grigory's minute and solemn account of the erection of the
[668]       tomb; he stood with bowed head and walked away without uttering a
[669]       word. It was perhaps a year before he visited the cemetery again.
[670]       But this little episode was not without an influence upon Fyodor
[671]       Pavlovitch- and a very original one. He suddenly took a thousand
[672]       roubles to our monastery to pay for requiems for the soul of his wife;
[673]       but not for the second, Alyosha's mother, the "crazy woman," but for
[674]       the first, Adelaida Ivanovna, who used to thrash him. In the evening
[675]       of the same day he got drunk and abused the monks to Alyosha. He
[676]       himself was far from being religious; he had probably never put a
[677]       penny candle before the image of a saint. Strange impulses of sudden
[678]       feeling and sudden thought are common in such types.
[679]           I have mentioned already that he looked bloated. His countenance
[680]       at this time bore traces of something that testified unmistakably to
[681]       the life he had led. Besides the long fleshy bags under his little,
[682]       always insolent, suspicious, and ironical eyes; besides the
[683]       multitude of deep wrinkles in his little fat face, the Adam's apple
[684]       hung below his sharp chin like a great, fleshy goitre, which gave
[685]       him a peculiar, repulsive, sensual appearance; add to that a long
[686]       rapacious mouth with full lips, between which could be seen little
[687]       stumps of black decayed teeth. He slobbered every time he began to
[688]       speak. He was fond indeed of making fun of his own face, though, I
[689]       believe, he was well satisfied with it. He used particularly to
[690]       point to his nose, which was not very large, but very delicate and
[691]       conspicuously aquiline. "A regular Roman nose," he used to say,
[692]       "with my goitre I've quite the countenance of an ancient Roman
[693]       patrician of the decadent period." He seemed proud of it.
[694]           Not long after visiting his mother's grave Alyosha suddenly
[695]       announced that he wanted to enter the monastery, and that the monks
[696]       were willing to receive him as a novice. He explained that this was
[697]       his strong desire, and that he was solemnly asking his consent as
[698]       his father. The old man knew that the elder Zossima, who was living in
[699]       the monastery hermitage, had made a special impression upon his
[700]       "gentle boy."
[701]           "That is the most honest monk among them, of course," he observed,
[702]       after listening in thoughtful silence to Alyosha, and seeming scarcely
[703]       surprised at his request. "H'm!... So that's where you want to be,
[704]       my gentle boy?"
[705]           He was half drunk, and suddenly he grinned his slow half-drunken
[706]       grin, which was not without a certain cunning and tipsy slyness.
[707]       "H'm!... I had a presentiment that you would end in something like
[708]       this. Would you believe it? You were making straight for it. Well,
[709]       to be sure you have your own two thousand. That's a dowry for you. And
[710]       I'll never desert you, my angel. And I'll pay what's wanted for you
[711]       there, if they ask for it. But, of course, if they don't ask, why
[712]       should we worry them? What do you say? You know, you spend money
[713]       like a canary, two grains a week. H'm!... Do you know that near one
[714]       monastery there's a place outside the town where every baby knows
[715]       there are none but 'the monks' wives' living, as they are called.
[716]       Thirty women, I believe. I have been there myself. You know, it's
[717]       interesting in its way, of course, as a variety. The worst of it is
[718]       it's awfully Russian. There are no French women there. Of course, they
[719]       could get them fast enough, they have plenty of money. If they get
[720]       to hear of it they'll come along. Well, there's nothing of that sort
[721]       here, no 'monks' wives,' and two hundred monks. They're honest. They
[722]       keep the fasts. I admit it.... H'm.... So you want to be a monk? And
[723]       do you know I'm sorry to lose you, Alyosha; would you believe it, I've
[724]       really grown fond of you? Well, it's a good opportunity. You'll pray
[725]       for us sinners; we have sinned too much here. I've always been
[726]       thinking who would pray for me, and whether there's anyone in the
[727]       world to do it. My dear boy, I'm awfully stupid about that. You
[728]       wouldn't believe it. Awfully. You see, however stupid I am about it, I
[729]       keep thinking, I keep thinking- from time to time, of course, not
[730]       all the while. It's impossible, I think, for the devils to forget to
[731]       drag me down to hell with their hooks when I die. Then I wonder-
[732]       hooks? Where would they get them? What of? Iron hooks? Where do they
[733]       forge them? Have they a foundry there of some sort? The monks in the
[734]       monastery probably believe that there's a ceiling in hell, for
[735]       instance. Now I'm ready to believe in hell, but without a ceiling.
[736]       It makes it more refined, more enlightened, more Lutheran that is.
[737]       And, after all, what does it matter whether it has a ceiling or
[738]       hasn't? But, do you know, there's a damnable question involved in
[739]       it? If there's no ceiling there can be no hooks, and if there are no
[740]       hooks it all breaks down, which is unlikely again, for then there
[741]       would be none to drag me down to hell, and if they don't drag me
[742]       down what justice is there in the world? Il faudrait les inventer,*
[743]       those hooks, on purpose for me alone, for, if you only knew,
[744]       Alyosha, what a black-guard I am."
[745]       
[746]           * It would be neccessary to invent them.
[747]       
[748]           "But there are no hooks there," said Alyosha, looking gently and
[749]       seriously at his father.
[750]           "Yes, yes, only the shadows of hooks. I know, I know. That's how a
[751]       Frenchman described hell: 'J'ai vu l'ombre d'un cocher qui avec
[752]       l'ombre d'une brosse frottait l'ombre d'une carrosse.'* How do you
[753]       know there are no hooks, darling? When you've lived with the monks
[754]       you'll sing a different tune. But go and get at the truth there, and
[755]       then come and tell me. Anyway it's easier going to the other world
[756]       if one knows what there is there. Besides, it will be more seemly
[757]       for you with the monks than here with me, with a drunken old man and
[758]       young harlots... though you're like an angel, nothing touches you. And
[759]       I dare say nothing will touch you there. That's why I let you go,
[760]       because I hope for that. You've got all your wits about you. You
[761]       will burn and you will burn out; you will be healed and come back
[762]       again. And I will wait for you. I feel that you're the only creature
[763]       in the world who has not condemned me. My dear boy, I feel it, you
[764]       know. I can't help feeling it."
[765]       
[766]           * I've seen the shadow of a coachman rubbing the shadow of a coach
[767]       with the shadow of a brush.
[768]       
[769]           And he even began blubbering. He was sentimental. He was wicked
[770]       and sentimental.
[771]                                     Chapter 5
[772]                                       Elders
[773]       
[774]           SOME of my readers may imagine that my young man was a sickly,
[775]       ecstatic, poorly developed creature, a pale, consumptive dreamer. On
[776]       the contrary, Alyosha was at this time a well-grown, red-cheeked,
[777]       clear-eyed lad of nineteen, radiant with health. He was very handsome,
[778]       too, graceful, moderately tall, with hair of a dark brown, with a
[779]       regular, rather long, oval-shaped face, and wide-set dark grey,
[780]       shining eyes; he was very thoughtful, and apparently very serene. I
[781]       shall be told, perhaps, that red cheeks are not incompatible with
[782]       fanaticism and mysticism; but I fancy that Alyosha was more of a
[783]       realist than anyone. Oh! no doubt, in the monastery he fully
[784]       believed in miracles, but, to my thinking, miracles are never a
[785]       stumbling-block to the realist. It is not miracles that dispose
[786]       realists to belief. The genuine realist, if he is an unbeliever,
[787]       will always find strength and ability to disbelieve in the miraculous,
[788]       and if he is confronted with a miracle as an irrefutable fact he would
[789]       rather disbelieve his own senses than admit the fact. Even if he
[790]       admits it, he admits it as a fact of nature till then unrecognised
[791]       by him. Faith does not, in the realist, spring from the miracle but
[792]       the miracle from faith. If the realist once believes, then he is bound
[793]       by his very realism to admit the miraculous also. The Apostle Thomas
[794]       said that he would not believe till he saw, but when he did see he
[795]       said, "My Lord and my God!" Was it the miracle forced him to
[796]       believe? Most likely not, but he believed solely because he desired to
[797]       believe and possibly he fully believed in his secret heart even when
[798]       he said, "I do not believe till I see."
[799]           I shall be told, perhaps, that Alyosha was stupid, undeveloped,
[800]       had not finished his studies, and so on. That he did not finish his
[801]       studies is true, but to say that he was stupid or dull would be a
[802]       great injustice. I'll simply repeat what I have said above. He entered
[803]       upon this path only because, at that time, it alone struck his
[804]       imagination and presented itself to him as offering an ideal means
[805]       of escape for his soul from darkness to light. Add to that that he was
[806]       to some extent a youth of our last epoch- that is, honest in nature,
[807]       desiring the truth, seeking for it and believing in it, and seeking to
[808]       serve it at once with all the strength of his soul, seeking for
[809]       immediate action, and ready to sacrifice everything, life itself,
[810]       for it. Though these young men unhappily fail to understand that the
[811]       sacrifice of life is, in many cases, the easiest of all sacrifices,
[812]       and that to sacrifice, for instance, five or six years of their
[813]       seething youth to hard and tedious study, if only to multiply
[814]       tenfold their powers of serving the truth and the cause they have
[815]       set before them as their goal such a sacrifice is utterly beyond the
[816]       strength of many of them. The path Alyosha chose was a path going in
[817]       the opposite direction, but he chose it with the same thirst for swift
[818]       achievement. As soon as he reflected seriously he was convinced of the
[819]       existence of God and immortality, and at once he instinctively said to
[820]       himself: "I want to live for immortality, and I will accept no
[821]       compromise." In the same way, if he had decided that God and
[822]       immortality did not exist, he would at once have become an atheist and
[823]       a socialist. For socialism is not merely the labour question, it is
[824]       before all things the atheistic question, the question of the form
[825]       taken by atheism to-day, the question of the tower of Babel built
[826]       without God, not to mount to heaven from earth but to set up heaven on
[827]       earth. Alyosha would have found it strange and impossible to go on
[828]       living as before. It is written: "Give all that thou hast to the
[829]       poor and follow Me, if thou wouldst be perfect."
[830]           Alyosha said to himself: "I can't give two roubles instead of
[831]       'all,' and only go to mass instead of 'following Him.'" Perhaps his
[832]       memories of childhood brought back our monastery, to which his
[833]       mother may have taken him to mass. Perhaps the slanting sunlight and
[834]       the holy image to which his poor "crazy" mother had held him up
[835]       still acted upon his imagination. Brooding on these things he may have
[836]       come to us perhaps only to see whether here he could sacrifice all
[837]       or only "two roubles," and in the monastery he met this elder. I
[838]       must digress to explain what an "elder" is in Russian monasteries, and
[839]       I am sorry that I do not feel very competent to do so. I will try,
[840]       however, to give a superficial account of it in a few words.
[841]       Authorities on the subject assert that the institution of "elders"
[842]       is of recent date, not more than a hundred years old in our
[843]       monasteries, though in the orthodox East, especially in Sinai and
[844]       Athos, it has existed over a thousand years. It is maintained that
[845]       it existed in ancient times in Russia also, but through the calamities
[846]       which overtook Russia- the Tartars, civil war, the interruption of
[847]       relations with the East after the destruction of Constantinople-
[848]       this institution fell into oblivion. It was revived among us towards
[849]       the end of last century by one of the great "ascetics," as they called
[850]       him, Paissy Velitchkovsky, and his disciples. But to this day it
[851]       exists in few monasteries only, and has sometimes been almost
[852]       persecuted as an innovation in Russia. It flourished especially in the
[853]       celebrated Kozelski Optin Monastery. When and how it was introduced
[854]       into our monastery I cannot say. There had already been three such
[855]       elders and Zossima was the last of them. But he was almost dying of
[856]       weakness and disease, and they had no one to take his place. The
[857]       question for our monastery was an important one, for it had not been
[858]       distinguished by anything in particular till then: they had neither
[859]       relics of saints, nor wonder- working ikons, nor glorious
[860]       traditions, nor historical exploits. It had flourished and been
[861]       glorious all over Russia through its elders, to see and hear whom
[862]       pilgrims had flocked for thousands of miles from all parts.
[863]           What was such an elder? An elder was one who took your soul,
[864]       your will, into his soul and his will. When you choose an elder, you
[865]       renounce your own will and yield it to him in complete submission,
[866]       complete self-abnegation. This novitiate, this terrible school of
[867]       abnegation, is undertaken voluntarily, in the hope of self-conquest,
[868]       of self-mastery, in order, after a life of obedience, to attain
[869]       perfect freedom, that is, from self; to escape the lot of those who
[870]       have lived their whole life without finding their true selves in
[871]       themselves. This institution of elders is not founded on theory, but
[872]       was established in the East from the practice of a thousand years. The
[873]       obligations due to an elder are not the ordinary "obedience" which has
[874]       always existed in our Russian monasteries. The obligation involves
[875]       confession to the elder by all who have submitted themselves to him,
[876]       and to the indissoluble bond between him and them.
[877]           The story is told, for instance, that in the early days of
[878]       Christianity one such novice, failing to fulfil some command laid upon
[879]       him by his elder, left his monastery in Syria and went to Egypt.
[880]       There, after great exploits, he was found worthy at last to suffer
[881]       torture and a martyr's death for the faith. When the Church, regarding
[882]       him as a saint, was burying him, suddenly, at the deacon's
[883]       exhortation, "Depart all ye unbaptised," the coffin containing the
[884]       martyr's body left its place and was cast forth from the church, and
[885]       this took place three times. And only at last they learnt that this
[886]       holy man had broken his vow of obedience and left his elder, and,
[887]       therefore, could not be forgiven without the elder's absolution in
[888]       spite of his great deeds. Only after this could the funeral take
[889]       place. This, of course, is only an old legend. But here is a recent
[890]       instance.
[891]           A monk was suddenly commanded by his elder to quit Athos, which he
[892]       loved as a sacred place and a haven of refuge, and to go first to
[893]       Jerusalem to do homage to the Holy Places and then to go to the
[894]       north to Siberia: "There is the place for thee and not here." The
[895]       monk, overwhelmed with sorrow, went to the Oecumenical Patriarch at
[896]       Constantinople and besought him to release him from his obedience. But
[897]       the Patriarch replied that not only was he unable to release him,
[898]       but there was not and could not be on earth a power which could
[899]       release him except the elder who had himself laid that duty upon
[900]       him. In this way the elders are endowed in certain cases with
[901]       unbounded and inexplicable authority. That is why in many of our
[902]       monasteries the institution was at first resisted almost to
[903]       persecution. Meantime the elders immediately began to be highly
[904]       esteemed among the people. Masses of the ignorant people as well as of
[905]       distinction flocked, for instance, to the elders of our monastery to
[906]       confess their doubts, their sins, and their sufferings, and ask for
[907]       counsel and admonition. Seeing this, the opponents of the elders
[908]       declared that the sacrament of confession was being arbitrarily and
[909]       frivolously degraded, though the continual opening of the heart to the
[910]       elder by the monk or the layman had nothing of the character of the
[911]       sacrament. In the end, however, the institution of elders has been
[912]       retained and is becoming established in Russian monasteries. It is
[913]       true, perhaps, that this instrument which had stood the test of a
[914]       thousand years for the moral regeneration of a man from slavery to
[915]       freedom and to moral perfectibility may be a two-edged weapon and it
[916]       may lead some not to humility and complete self-control but to the
[917]       most Satanic pride, that is, to bondage and not to freedom.
[918]           The elder Zossima was sixty-five. He came of a family of
[919]       landowners, had been in the army in early youth, and served in the
[920]       Caucasus as an officer. He had, no doubt, impressed Alyosha by some
[921]       peculiar quality of his soul. Alyosha lived in the cell of the
[922]       elder, who was very fond of him and let him wait upon him. It must
[923]       be noted that Alyosha was bound by no obligation and could go where he
[924]       pleased and be absent for whole days. Though he wore the monastic
[925]       dress it was voluntarily, not to be different from others. No doubt he
[926]       liked to do so. Possibly his youthful imagination was deeply stirred
[927]       by the power and fame of his elder. It was said that so many people
[928]       had for years past come to confess their sins to Father Zossima and to
[929]       entreat him for words of advice and healing, that he had acquired
[930]       the keenest intuition and could tell from an unknown face what a
[931]       new-comer wanted, and what was the suffering on his conscience. He
[932]       sometimes astounded and almost alarmed his visitors by his knowledge
[933]       of their secrets before they had spoken a word.
[934]           Alyosha noticed that many, almost all, went in to the elder for
[935]       the first time with apprehension and uneasiness, but came out with
[936]       bright and happy faces. Alyosha was particularly struck by the fact
[937]       that Father Zossima was not at all stern. On the contrary, he was
[938]       always almost gay. The monks used to say that he was more drawn to
[939]       those who were more sinful, and the greater the sinner the more he
[940]       loved him. There were, no doubt, up to the end of his life, among
[941]       the monks some who hated and envied him, but they were few in number
[942]       and they were silent, though among them were some of great dignity
[943]       in the monastery, one, for instance, of the older monks
[944]       distinguished for his strict keeping of fasts and vows of silence. But
[945]       the majority were on Father Zossima's side and very many of them loved
[946]       him with all their hearts, warmly and sincerely. Some were almost
[947]       fanatically devoted to him, and declared, though not quite aloud, that
[948]       he was a saint, that there could be no doubt of it, and, seeing that
[949]       his end was near, they anticipated miracles and great glory to the
[950]       monastery in the immediate future from his relics. Alyosha had
[951]       unquestioning faith in the miraculous power of the elder, just as he
[952]       had unquestioning faith in the story of the coffin that flew out of
[953]       the church. He saw many who came with sick children or relatives and
[954]       besought the elder to lay hands on them and to pray over them,
[955]       return shortly after- some the next day- and, falling in tears at
[956]       the elder's feet, thank him for healing their sick.
[957]           Whether they had really been healed or were simply better in the
[958]       natural course of the disease was a question which did not exist for
[959]       Alyosha, for he fully believed in the spiritual power of his teacher
[960]       and rejoiced in his fame, in his glory, as though it were his own
[961]       triumph. His heart throbbed, and he beamed, as it were, all over
[962]       when the elder came out to the gates of the hermitage into the waiting
[963]       crowd of pilgrims of the humbler class who had flocked from all
[964]       parts of Russia on purpose to see the elder and obtain his blessing.
[965]       They fell down before him, wept, kissed his feet, kissed the earth
[966]       on which he stood, and wailed, while the women held up their
[967]       children to him and brought him the sick "possessed with devils."
[968]       The elder spoke to them, read a brief prayer over them, blessed
[969]       them, and dismissed them. Of late he had become so weak through
[970]       attacks of illness that he was sometimes unable to leave his cell, and
[971]       the pilgrims waited for him to come out for several days. Alyosha
[972]       did not wonder why they loved him so, why they fell down before him
[973]       and wept with emotion merely at seeing his face. Oh! he understood
[974]       that for the humble soul of the Russian peasant, worn out by grief and
[975]       toil, and still more by the everlasting injustice and everlasting sin,
[976]       his own and the world's, it was the greatest need and comfort to
[977]       find someone or something holy to fall down before and worship.
[978]           "Among us there is sin, injustice, and temptation, but yet,
[979]       somewhere on earth there is someone holy and exalted. He has the
[980]       truth; he knows the truth; so it is not dead upon the earth; so it
[981]       will come one day to us, too, and rule over all the earth according to
[982]       the promise."
[983]           Alyosha knew that this was just how the people felt and even
[984]       reasoned. He understood it, but that the elder Zossima was this
[985]       saint and custodian of God's truth- of that he had no more doubt
[986]       than the weeping peasants and the sick women who held out their
[987]       children to the elder. The conviction that after his death the elder
[988]       would bring extraordinary glory to the monastery was even stronger
[989]       in Alyosha than in anyone there, and, of late, a kind of deep flame of
[990]       inner ecstasy burnt more and more strongly in his heart. He was not at
[991]       all troubled at this elder's standing as a solitary example before
[992]       him.
[993]           "No matter. He is holy. He carries in his heart the secret of
[994]       renewal for all: that power which will, at last, establish truth on
[995]       the earth, and all men will be holy and love one another, and there
[996]       will be no more rich nor poor, no exalted nor humbled, but all will be
[997]       as the children of God, and the true Kingdom of Christ will come."
[998]       That was the dream in Alyosha's heart.
[999]           The arrival of his two brothers, whom he had not known till
[1000]      then, seemed to make a great impression on Alyosha. He more quickly
[1001]      made friends with his half-brother Dmitri (though he arrived later)
[1002]      than with his own brother Ivan. He was extremely interested in his
[1003]      brother Ivan, but when the latter had been two months in the town,
[1004]      though they had met fairly often, they were still not intimate.
[1005]      Alyosha was naturally silent, and he seemed to be expecting something,
[1006]      ashamed about something, while his brother Ivan, though Alyosha
[1007]      noticed at first that he looked long and curiously at him, seemed soon
[1008]      to have left off thinking of him. Alyosha noticed it with some
[1009]      embarrassment. He ascribed his brother's indifference at first to
[1010]      the disparity of their age and education. But he also wondered whether
[1011]      the absence of curiosity and sympathy in Ivan might be due to some
[1012]      other cause entirely unknown to him. He kept fancying that Ivan was
[1013]      absorbed in something- something inward and important- that he was
[1014]      striving towards some goal, perhaps very hard to attain, and that that
[1015]      was why he had no thought for him. Alyosha wondered, too, whether
[1016]      there was not some contempt on the part of the learned atheist for
[1017]      him- a foolish novice. He knew for certain that his brother was an
[1018]      atheist. He could not take offence at this contempt, if it existed;
[1019]      yet, with an uneasy embarrassment which he did not himself understand,
[1020]      he waited for his brother to come nearer to him. Dmitri used to
[1021]      speak of Ivan with the deepest respect and with a peculiar
[1022]      earnestness. From him Alyosha learnt all the details of the
[1023]      important affair which had of late formed such a close and
[1024]      remarkable bond between the two elder brothers. Dmitri's
[1025]      enthusiastic references to Ivan were the more striking in Alyosha's
[1026]      eyes since Dmitri was, compared with Ivan, almost uneducated, and
[1027]      the two brothers were such a contrast in personality and character
[1028]      that it would be difficult to find two men more unlike.
[1029]          It was at this time that the meeting, or, rather gathering of
[1030]      the members of this inharmonious family took place in the cell of
[1031]      the elder who had such an extraordinary influence on Alyosha. The
[1032]      pretext for this gathering was a false one. It was at this time that
[1033]      the discord between Dmitri and his father seemed at its acutest
[1034]      stage and their relations had become insufferably strained. Fyodor
[1035]      Pavlovitch seems to have been the first to suggest, apparently in
[1036]      joke, that they should all meet in Father Zossima's cell, and that,
[1037]      without appealing to his direct intervention, they might more decently
[1038]      come to an understanding under the conciliating influence of the
[1039]      elder's presence. Dmitri, who had never seen the elder, naturally
[1040]      supposed that his father was trying to intimidate him, but, as he
[1041]      secretly blamed himself for his outbursts of temper with his father on
[1042]      several recent occasions, he accepted the challenge. It must be
[1043]      noted that he was not, like Ivan, staying with his father, but
[1044]      living apart at the other end of the town. It happened that Pyotr
[1045]      Alexandrovitch Miusov, who was staying in the district at the time,
[1046]      caught eagerly at the idea. A Liberal of the forties and fifties, a
[1047]      freethinker and atheist, he may have been led on by boredom or the
[1048]      hope of frivolous diversion. He was suddenly seized with the desire to
[1049]      see the monastery and the holy man. As his lawsuit with the
[1050]      monastery still dragged on, he made it the pretext for seeing the
[1051]      Superior, in order to attempt to settle it amicably. A visitor
[1052]      coming with such laudable intentions might be received with more
[1053]      attention and consideration than if he came from simple curiosity.
[1054]      Influences from within the monastery were brought to bear on the
[1055]      elder, who of late had scarcely left his cell, and had been forced
[1056]      by illness to deny even his ordinary visitors. In the end he consented
[1057]      to see them, and the day was fixed.
[1058]          "Who has made me a judge over them?" was all he said, smilingly,
[1059]      to Alyosha.
[1060]          Alyosha was much perturbed when he heard of the proposed visit. Of
[1061]      all the wrangling, quarrelsome party, Dmitri was the only one who
[1062]      could regard the interview seriously. All the others would come from
[1063]      frivolous motives, perhaps insulting to the elder. Alyosha was well
[1064]      aware of that. Ivan and Miusov would come from curiosity, perhaps of
[1065]      the coarsest kind, while his father might be contemplating some
[1066]      piece of buffoonery. Though he said nothing, Alyosha thoroughly
[1067]      understood his father. The boy, I repeat, was far from being so simple
[1068]      as everyone thought him. He awaited the day with a heavy heart. No
[1069]      doubt he was always pondering in his mind how the family discord could
[1070]      be ended. But his chief anxiety concerned the elder. He trembled for
[1071]      him, for his glory, and dreaded any affront to him, especially the
[1072]      refined, courteous irony of Miusov and the supercilious
[1073]      half-utterances of the highly educated Ivan. He even wanted to venture
[1074]      on warning the elder, telling him something about them, but, on second
[1075]      thoughts, said nothing. He only sent word the day before, through a
[1076]      friend, to his brother Dmitri, that he loved him and expected him to
[1077]      keep his promise. Dmitri wondered, for he could not remember what he
[1078]      had promised, but he answered by letter that he would do his utmost
[1079]      not to let himself be provoked "by vileness," but that, although he
[1080]      had a deep respect for the elder and for his brother Ivan, he was
[1081]      convinced that the meeting was either a trap for him or an unworthy
[1082]      farce.
[1083]          "Nevertheless I would rather bite out my tongue than be lacking in
[1084]      respect to the sainted man whom you reverence so highly," he wrote
[1085]      in conclusion. Alyosha was not greatly cheered by the letter.
[1086]                                     Book II
[1087]                             An Unfortunate Gathering
[1088]      
[1089]                                    Chapter 1
[1090]                           They Arrive at the Monastery
[1091]      
[1092]          IT was a warm, bright day the end of August. The interview with
[1093]      the elder had been fixed for half-past eleven, immediately after
[1094]      late mass. Our visitors did not take part in the service, but
[1095]      arrived just as it was over. First an elegant open carriage, drawn
[1096]      by two valuable horses, drove up with Miusov and a distant relative of
[1097]      his, a young man of twenty, called Pyotr Fomitch Kalganov. This
[1098]      young man was preparing to enter the university. Miusov with whom he
[1099]      was staying for the time, was trying to persuade him to go abroad to
[1100]      the university of Zurich or Jena. The young man was still undecided.
[1101]      He was thoughtful and absent-minded. He was nice-looking, strongly
[1102]      built, and rather tall. There was a strange fixity in his gaze at
[1103]      times. Like all very absent-minded people he would sometimes stare
[1104]      at a person without seeing him. He was silent and rather awkward,
[1105]      but sometimes, when he was alone with anyone, he became talkative
[1106]      and effusive, and would laugh at anything or nothing. But his
[1107]      animation vanished as quickly as it appeared. He was always well and
[1108]      even elaborately dressed; he had already some independent fortune
[1109]      and expectations of much more. He was a friend of Alyosha's.
[1110]          In an ancient, jolting, but roomy, hired carriage, with a pair
[1111]      of old pinkish-grey horses, a long way behind Miusov's carriage,
[1112]      came Fyodor Pavlovitch, with his son Ivan. Dmitri was late, though
[1113]      he had been informed of the time the evening before. The visitors left
[1114]      their carriage at the hotel, outside the precincts, and went to the
[1115]      gates of the monastery on foot. Except Fyodor Pavlovitch, more of
[1116]      the party had ever seen the monastery, and Miusov had probably not
[1117]      even been to church for thirty years. He looked about him with
[1118]      curiosity, together with assumed ease. But, except the church and
[1119]      the domestic buildings, though these too were ordinary enough, he
[1120]      found nothing of interest in the interior of the monastery. The last
[1121]      of the worshippers were coming out of the church bareheaded and
[1122]      crossing themselves. Among the humbler people were a few of higher
[1123]      rank- two or three ladies and a very old general. They were all
[1124]      staying at the hotel. Our visitors were at once surrounded by beggars,
[1125]      but none of them gave them anything, except young Kalganov, who took a
[1126]      ten-copeck piece out of his purse, and, nervous and embarrassed- God
[1127]      knows why!- hurriedly gave it to an old woman, saying: "Divide it
[1128]      equally." None of his companions made any remark upon it, so that he
[1129]      had no reason to be embarrassed; but, perceiving this, he was even
[1130]      more overcome.
[1131]          It was strange that their arrival did not seem expected, and
[1132]      that they were not received with special honour, though one of them
[1133]      had recently made a donation of a thousand roubles, while another
[1134]      was a very wealthy and highly cultured landowner, upon whom all in the
[1135]      monastery were in a sense dependent, as a decision of the lawsuit
[1136]      might at any moment put their fishing rights in his hands. Yet no
[1137]      official personage met them.
[1138]          Miusov looked absent-mindedly at the tombstones round the
[1139]      church, and was on the point of saying that the dead buried here
[1140]      must have paid a pretty penny for the right of lying in this "holy
[1141]      place," but refrained. His liberal irony was rapidly changing almost
[1142]      into anger.
[1143]          "Who the devil is there to ask in this imbecile place? We must
[1144]      find out, for time is passing," he observed suddenly, as though
[1145]      speaking to himself.
[1146]          All at once there came up a bald-headed, elderly man with
[1147]      ingratiating little eyes, wearing a full, summer overcoat. Lifting his
[1148]      hat, he introduced himself with a honeyed lisp as Maximov, a landowner
[1149]      of Tula. He at once entered into our visitors' difficulty.
[1150]          "Father Zossima lives in the hermitage, apart, four hundred
[1151]      paces from the monastery, the other side of the copse."
[1152]          "I know it's the other side of the copse," observed Fyodor
[1153]      Pavlovitch, "but we don't remember the way. It is a long time since
[1154]      we've been here."
[1155]          "This way, by this gate, and straight across the copse... the
[1156]      copse. Come with me, won't you? I'll show you. I have to go.... I am
[1157]      going myself. This way, this way."
[1158]          They came out of the gate and turned towards the copse. Maximov, a
[1159]      man of sixty, ran rather than walked, turning sideways to stare at
[1160]      them all, with an incredible degree of nervous curiosity. His eyes
[1161]      looked starting out of his head.
[1162]          "You see, we have come to the elder upon business of our own,"
[1163]      observed Miusov severely. "That personage has granted us an
[1164]      audience, so to speak, and so, though we thank you for showing us
[1165]      the way, we cannot ask you to accompany us."
[1166]          "I've been there. I've been already; un chevalier parfait," and
[1167]      Maximov snapped his fingers in the air.
[1168]          "Who is a chevalier?" asked Miusov.
[1169]          "The elder, the splendid elder, the elder! The honour and glory of
[1170]      the monastery, Zossima. Such an elder!"
[1171]          But his incoherent talk was cut short by a very pale,
[1172]      wan-looking monk of medium height wearing a monk's cap, who overtook
[1173]      them. Fyodor Pavlovitch and Miusov stopped.
[1174]          The monk, with an extremely courteous, profound bow, announced:
[1175]          "The Father Superior invites all of you gentlemen to dine with him
[1176]      after your visit to the hermitage. At one o'clock, not later. And
[1177]      you also," he added, addressing Maximov.
[1178]          "That I certainly will, without fail," cried Fyodor Pavlovitch,
[1179]      hugely delighted at the invitation. "And, believe me, we've all
[1180]      given our word to behave properly here.... And you, Pyotr
[1181]      Alexandrovitch, will you go, too?"
[1182]          "Yes, of course. What have I come for but to study all the customs
[1183]      here? The only obstacle to me is your company...."
[1184]          "Yes, Dmitri Fyodorovitch is non-existent as yet."
[1185]          "It would be a capital thing if he didn't turn up. Do you
[1186]      suppose I like all this business, and in your company, too? So we will
[1187]      come to dinner. Thank the Father Superior," he said to the monk.
[1188]          "No, it is my duty now to conduct you to the elder," answered
[1189]      the monk.
[1190]          "If so I'll go straight to the Father Superior- to the Father
[1191]      Superior," babbled Maximov.
[1192]          "The Father Superior is engaged just now. But as you please- " the
[1193]      monk hesitated.
[1194]          "Impertinent old man!" Miusov observed aloud, while Maximov ran
[1195]      back to the monastery.
[1196]          "He's like von Sohn," Fyodor Pavlovitch said suddenly.
[1197]          "Is that all you can think of?... In what way is he like von Sohn?
[1198]      Have you ever seen von Sohn?"
[1199]          "I've seen his portrait. It's not the features, but something
[1200]      indefinable. He's a second von Sohn. I can always tell from the
[1201]      physiognomy."
[1202]          "Ah, I dare say you are a connoisseur in that. But, look here,
[1203]      Fyodor Pavlovitch, you said just now that we had given our word to
[1204]      behave properly. Remember it. I advise you to control yourself. But,
[1205]      if you begin to play the fool I don't intend to be associated with you
[1206]      here... You see what a man he is"- he turned to the monk- "I'm
[1207]      afraid to go among decent people with him." A fine smile, not
[1208]      without a certain slyness, came on to the pale, bloodless lips of
[1209]      the monk, but he made no reply, and was evidently silent from a
[1210]      sense of his own dignity. Miusov frowned more than ever.
[1211]          "Oh, devil take them all! An outer show elaborated through
[1212]      centuries, and nothing but charlatanism and nonsense underneath,"
[1213]      flashed through Miusov's mind.
[1214]          "Here's the hermitage. We've arrived," cried Fyodor Pavlovitch.
[1215]      "The gates are shut."
[1216]          And he repeatedly made the sign of the cross to the saints painted
[1217]      above and on the sides of the gates.
[1218]          "When you go to Rome you must do as the Romans do. Here in this
[1219]      hermitage there are twenty-five saints being saved. They look at one
[1220]      another, and eat cabbages. And not one woman goes in at this gate.
[1221]      That's what is remarkable. And that really is so. But I did hear
[1222]      that the elder receives ladies," he remarked suddenly to the monk.
[1223]          "Women of the people are here too now, lying in the portico
[1224]      there waiting. But for ladies of higher rank two rooms have been built
[1225]      adjoining the portico, but outside the precincts you can see the
[1226]      windows- and the elder goes out to them by an inner passage when he is
[1227]      well enough. They are always outside the precincts. There is a
[1228]      Harkov lady, Madame Hohlakov, waiting there now with her sick
[1229]      daughter. Probably he has promised to come out to her, though of
[1230]      late he has been so weak that he has hardly shown himself even to
[1231]      the people."
[1232]          "So then there are loopholes, after all, to creep out of the
[1233]      hermitage to the ladies. Don't suppose, holy father, that I mean any
[1234]      harm. But do you know that at Athos not only the visits of women are
[1235]      not allowed, but no creature of the female sex- no hens, nor turkey
[1236]      hens, nor cows."
[1237]          "Fyodor Pavlovitch, I warn you I shall go back and leave you here.
[1238]      They'll turn you out when I'm gone."
[1239]          "But I'm not interfering with you, Pyotr Alexandrovitch. Look," he
[1240]      cried suddenly, stepping within the precincts, "what a vale of roses
[1241]      they live in!"
[1242]          Though there were no roses now, there were numbers of rare and
[1243]      beautiful autumn flowers growing wherever there was space for them,
[1244]      and evidently tended by a skilful hand; there were flower-beds round
[1245]      the church, and between the tombs; and the one-storied wooden house
[1246]      where the elder lived was also surrounded with flowers.
[1247]          "And was it like this in the time of the last elder, Varsonofy? He
[1248]      didn't care for such elegance. They say he used to jump up and
[1249]      thrash even ladies with a stick," observed Fyodor Pavlovitch, as he
[1250]      went up the steps.
[1251]          "The elder Varsonofy did sometimes seem rather strange, but a
[1252]      great deal that's told is foolishness. He never thrashed anyone,"
[1253]      answered the monk. "Now, gentlemen, if you will wait a minute I will
[1254]      announce you."
[1255]          "Fyodor Pavlovitch, for the last time, your compact, do you
[1256]      hear? Behave properly or I will pay you out!" Miusov had time to
[1257]      mutter again.
[1258]          "I can't think why you are so agitated," Fyodor Pavlovitch
[1259]      observed sarcastically. "Are you uneasy about your sins? They say he
[1260]      can tell by one's eyes what one has come about. And what a lot you
[1261]      think of their opinion! you, a Parisian, and so advanced. I'm
[1262]      surprised at you."
[1263]          But Miusov had no time to reply to this sarcasm. They were asked
[1264]      to come in. He walked in, somewhat irritated.
[1265]          "Now, I know myself, I am annoyed, I shall lose my temper and
[1266]      begin to quarrel- and lower myself and my ideas," he reflected.
[1267]                                    Chapter 2
[1268]                                 The Old Buffoon
[1269]      
[1270]          THEY entered the room almost at the same moment that the elder
[1271]      came in from his bedroom. There were already in the cell, awaiting the
[1272]      elder, two monks of the hermitage, one the Father Librarian, and the
[1273]      other Father Paissy, a very learned man, so they said, in delicate
[1274]      health, though not old. There was also a tall young man, who looked
[1275]      about two and twenty, standing in the corner throughout the interview.
[1276]      He had a broad, fresh face, and clever, observant, narrow brown
[1277]      eyes, and was wearing ordinary dress. He was a divinity student,
[1278]      living under the protection of the monastery. His expression was one
[1279]      of unquestioning, but self-respecting, reverence. Being in a
[1280]      subordinate and dependent position, and so not on an equality with the
[1281]      guests, he did not greet them with a bow.
[1282]          Father Zossima was accompanied by a novice, and by Alyosha. The
[1283]      two monks rose and greeted him with a very deep bow, touching the
[1284]      ground with their fingers; then kissed his hand. Blessing them, the
[1285]      elder replied with as deep a reverence to them, and asked their
[1286]      blessing. The whole ceremony was performed very seriously and with
[1287]      an appearance of feeling, not like an everyday rite. But Miusov
[1288]      fancied that it was all done with intentional impressiveness. He stood
[1289]      in front of the other visitors. He ought- he had reflected upon it the
[1290]      evening before- from simple politeness, since it was the custom
[1291]      here, to have gone up to receive the elder's blessing, even if he
[1292]      did not kiss his hand. But when he saw all this bowing and kissing
[1293]      on the part of the monks he instantly changed his mind. With dignified
[1294]      gravity he made a rather deep, conventional bow, and moved away to a
[1295]      chair. Fyodor Pavlovitch did the same, mimicking Miusov like an ape.
[1296]      Ivan bowed with great dignity and courtesy, but he too kept his
[1297]      hands at his sides, while Kalganov was so confused that he did not bow
[1298]      at all. The elder let fall the hand raised to bless them, and bowing
[1299]      to them again, asked them all to sit down. The blood rushed to
[1300]      Alyosha's cheeks. He was ashamed. His forebodings were coming true.
[1301]          Father Zossima sat down on a very old-fashioned mahogany sofa,
[1302]      covered with leather, and made his visitors sit down in a row along
[1303]      the opposite wall on four mahogany chairs, covered with shabby black
[1304]      leather. The monks sat, one at the door and the other at the window.
[1305]      The divinity student, the novice, and Alyosha remained standing. The
[1306]      cell was not very large and had a faded look. It contained nothing but
[1307]      the most necessary furniture, of coarse and poor quality. There were
[1308]      two pots of flowers in the window, and a number of holy pictures in
[1309]      the corner. Before one huge ancient ikon of the virgin a lamp was
[1310]      burning. Near it were two other holy pictures in shining settings,
[1311]      and, next them, carved cherubim, china eggs, a Catholic cross of
[1312]      ivory, with a Mater Dolorosa embracing it, and several foreign
[1313]      engravings from the great Italian artists of past centuries. Next to
[1314]      these costly and artistic engravings were several of the roughest
[1315]      Russian prints of saints and martyrs, such as are sold for a few
[1316]      farthings at all the fairs. On the other walls were portraits of
[1317]      Russian bishops, past and present.
[1318]          Miusov took a cursory glance at all these "conventional"
[1319]      surroundings and bent an intent look upon the elder. He had a high
[1320]      opinion of his own insight a weakness excusable in him as he was
[1321]      fifty, an age at which a clever man of the world of established
[1322]      position can hardly help taking himself rather seriously. At the first
[1323]      moment he did not like Zossima. There was, indeed, something in the
[1324]      elder's face which many people besides Miusov might not have liked. He
[1325]      was a short, bent, little man, with very weak legs, and though he
[1326]      was only sixty-five, he looked at least ten years older. His face
[1327]      was very thin and covered with a network of fine wrinkles,
[1328]      particularly numerous about his eyes, which were small,
[1329]      light-coloured, quick, and shining like two bright points. He had a
[1330]      sprinkling of grey hair about his temples. His pointed beard was small
[1331]      and scanty, and his lips, which smiled frequently, were as thin as two
[1332]      threads. His nose was not long, but sharp, like a bird's beak.
[1333]          "To all appearances a malicious soul, full of petty pride,"
[1334]      thought Miusov. He felt altogether dissatisfied with his position.
[1335]          A cheap little clock on the wall struck twelve hurriedly, and
[1336]      served to begin the conversation.
[1337]          "Precisely to our time," cried Fyodor Pavlovitch, "but no sign
[1338]      of my son, Dmitri. I apologise for him, sacred elder!" (Alyosha
[1339]      shuddered all over at "sacred elder".) "I am always punctual myself,
[1340]      minute for minute, remembering that punctuality is the courtesy of
[1341]      kings....
[1342]          "But you are not a king, anyway," Miusov muttered, losing his
[1343]      self-restraint at once.
[1344]          "Yes; that's true. I'm not a king, and, would you believe it,
[1345]      Pyotr Alexandrovitch, I was aware of that myself. But, there! I always
[1346]      say the wrong thing. Your reverence," he cried, with sudden pathos,
[1347]      "you behold before you a buffoon in earnest! I introduce myself as
[1348]      such. It's an old habit, alas! And if I sometimes talk nonsense out of
[1349]      place it's with an object, with the object of amusing people and
[1350]      making myself agreeable. One must be agreeable, mustn't one? I was
[1351]      seven years ago in a little town where I had business, and I made
[1352]      friends with some merchants there. We went to the captain of police
[1353]      because we had to see him about something, and to ask him to dine with
[1354]      us. He was a tall, fat, fair, sulky man, the most dangerous type in
[1355]      such cases. It's their liver. I went straight up to him, and with
[1356]      the ease of a man of the world, you know, 'Mr. Ispravnik,' said I, 'be
[1357]      our Napravnik.' 'What do you mean by Napravnik?' said he. I saw, at
[1358]      the first half-second, that it had missed fire. He stood there so
[1359]      glum. 'I wanted to make a joke,' said I, 'for the general diversion,
[1360]      as Mr. Napravnik is our well-known Russian orchestra conductor and
[1361]      what we need for the harmony of our undertaking is someone of that
[1362]      sort.' And I explained my comparison very reasonably, didn't I?
[1363]      'Excuse me,' said he, 'I am an Ispravnik, and I do not allow puns to
[1364]      be made on my calling.' He turned and walked away. I followed him,
[1365]      shouting, 'Yes, yes, you are an Ispravnik, not a Napravnik.' 'No,'
[1366]      he said, 'since you called me a Napravnik I am one.' And would you
[1367]      believe it, it ruined our business! And I'm always like that, always
[1368]      like that. Always injuring myself with my politeness. Once, many years
[1369]      ago, I said to an influential person: 'Your wife is a ticklish
[1370]      lady,' in an honourable sense, of the moral qualities, so to speak.
[1371]      But he asked me, 'Why, have you tickled her?' I thought I'd be polite,
[1372]      so I couldn't help saying, 'Yes,' and he gave me a fine tickling on
[1373]      the spot. Only that happened long ago, so I'm not ashamed to tell
[1374]      the story. I'm always injuring myself like that."
[1375]          "You're doing it now," muttered Miusov, with disgust.
[1376]          Father Zossima scrutinised them both in silence.
[1377]          "Am I? Would you believe it, I was aware of that, too, Pyotr
[1378]      Alexandrovitch, and let tell you, indeed, I foresaw I should as soon
[1379]      as I began to speak. And do you know I foresaw, too, that you'd be the
[1380]      first to remark on it. The minute I see my joke isn't coming off, your
[1381]      reverence, both my cheeks feel as though they were drawn down to the
[1382]      lower jaw and there is almost a spasm in them. That's been so since
[1383]      I was young, when I had to make jokes for my living in noblemen's
[1384]      families. I am an inveterate buffoon, and have been from birth up,
[1385]      your reverence, it's as though it were a craze in me. I dare say
[1386]      it's a devil within me. But only a little one. A more serious one
[1387]      would have chosen another lodging. But not your soul, Pyotr
[1388]      Alexandrovitch; you're not a lodging worth having either. But I do
[1389]      believe- I believe in God, though I have had doubts of late. But now I
[1390]      sit and await words of wisdom. I'm like the philosopher, Diderot, your
[1391]      reverence. Did you ever hear, most Holy Father, how Diderot went to
[1392]      see the Metropolitan Platon, in the time of the Empress Catherine?
[1393]      He went in and said straight out, 'There is no God.' To which the
[1394]      great bishop lifted up his finger and answered, 'The fool has said
[1395]      in his heart there is no God and he fell down at his feet on the spot.
[1396]      'I believe,' he cried, 'and will be christened.' And so he was.
[1397]      Princess Dashkov was his godmother, and Potyomkin his godfather."
[1398]          "Fyodor Pavlovitch, this is unbearable! You know you're telling
[1399]      lies and that that stupid anecdote isn't true. Why are you playing the
[1400]      fool?" cried Miusov in a shaking voice.
[1401]          "I suspected all my life that it wasn't true," Fyodor Pavlovitch
[1402]      cried with conviction. "But I'll tell you the whole truth,
[1403]      gentlemen. Great elder! Forgive me, the last thing about Diderot's
[1404]      christening I made up just now. I never thought of it before. I made
[1405]      it up to add piquancy. I play the fool, Pyotr Alexandrovitch, to
[1406]      make myself agreeable. Though I really don't know myself, sometimes,
[1407]      what I do it for. And as for Diderot, I heard as far as 'the fool hath
[1408]      said in his heart' twenty times from the gentry about here when I
[1409]      was young. I heard your aunt, Pyotr Alexandrovitch, tell the story.
[1410]      They all believe to this day that the infidel Diderot came to
[1411]      dispute about God with the Metropolitan Platon...."
[1412]          Miusov got up, forgetting himself in his impatience. He was
[1413]      furious, and conscious of being ridiculous.
[1414]          What was taking place in the cell was really incredible. For forty
[1415]      or fifty years past, from the times of former elders, no visitors
[1416]      had entered that cell without feelings of the profoundest
[1417]      veneration. Almost everyone admitted to the cell felt that a great
[1418]      favour was being shown him. Many remained kneeling during the whole
[1419]      visit. Of those visitors, many had been men of high rank and learning,
[1420]      some even free thinkers, attracted by curiosity, but all without
[1421]      exception had shown the profoundest reverence and delicacy, for here
[1422]      there was no question of money, but only, on the one side love and
[1423]      kindness, and on the other penitence and eager desire to decide some
[1424]      spiritual problem or crisis. So that such buffoonery amazed and
[1425]      bewildered the spectators, or at least some of them. The monks, with
[1426]      unchanged countenances, waited, with earnest attention, to hear what
[1427]      the elder would say, but seemed on the point of standing up, like
[1428]      Miusov. Alyosha stood, with hanging head, on the verge of tears.
[1429]      What seemed to him strangest of all was that his brother Ivan, on whom
[1430]      alone he had rested his hopes, and who alone had such influence on his
[1431]      father that he could have stopped him, sat now quite unmoved, with
[1432]      downcast eyes, apparently waiting with interest to see how it would
[1433]      end, as though he had nothing to do with it. Alyosha did not dare to
[1434]      look at Rakitin, the divinity student, whom he knew almost intimately.
[1435]      He alone in the monastery knew Rakitin's thoughts.
[1436]          "Forgive me," began Miusov, addressing Father Zossima, "for
[1437]      perhaps I seem to be taking part in this shameful foolery. I made a
[1438]      mistake in believing that even a man like Fyodor Pavlovitch would
[1439]      understand what was due on a visit to so honoured a personage. I did
[1440]      not suppose I should have to apologise simply for having come with
[1441]      him...."
[1442]          Pyotr Alexandrovitch could say no more, and was about to leave the
[1443]      room, overwhelmed with confusion.
[1444]          "Don't distress yourself, I beg." The elder got on to his feeble
[1445]      legs, and taking Pyotr Alexandrovitch by both hands, made him sit down
[1446]      again. "I beg you not to disturb yourself. I particularly beg you to
[1447]      be my guest." And with a bow he went back and sat down again on his
[1448]      little sofa.
[1449]          "Great elder, speak! Do I annoy you by my vivacity?" Fyodor
[1450]      Pavlovitch cried suddenly, clutching the arms of his chair in both
[1451]      hands, as though ready to leap up from it if the answer were
[1452]      unfavourable.
[1453]          "I earnestly beg you, too, not to disturb yourself, and not to
[1454]      be uneasy," the elder said impressively. "Do not trouble. Make
[1455]      yourself quite at home. And, above all, do not be so ashamed of
[1456]      yourself, for that is at the root of it all."
[1457]          "Quite at home? To be my natural self? Oh, that is much too
[1458]      much, but I accept it with grateful joy. Do you know, blessed
[1459]      father, you'd better not invite me to be my natural self. Don't risk
[1460]      it.... I will not go so far as that myself. I warn you for your own
[1461]      sake. Well, the rest is still plunged in the mists of uncertainty,
[1462]      though there are people who'd be pleased to describe me for you. I
[1463]      mean that for you, Pyotr Alexandrovitch. But as for you, holy being,
[1464]      let me tell you, I am brimming over with ecstasy."
[1465]          He got up, and throwing up his hands, declaimed, "Blessed be the
[1466]      womb that bare thee, and the paps that gave thee suck- the paps
[1467]      especially. When you said just now, 'Don't be so ashamed of
[1468]      yourself, for that is at the root of it all,' you pierced right
[1469]      through me by that remark, and read me to the core. Indeed, I always
[1470]      feel when I meet people that I am lower than all, and that they all
[1471]      take me for a buffoon. So I say, 'Let me really play the buffoon. I am
[1472]      not afraid of your opinion, for you are every one of you worse than
[1473]      I am.' That is why I am a buffoon. It is from shame, great elder, from
[1474]      shame; it's simply over-sensitiveness that makes me rowdy. If I had
[1475]      only been sure that everyone would accept me as the kindest and wisest
[1476]      of men, oh, Lord, what a good man I should have been then! Teacher!"
[1477]      he fell suddenly on his knees, "what must I do to gain eternal life?"
[1478]          It was difficult even now to decide whether he was joking or
[1479]      really moved.
[1480]          Father Zossima, lifting his eyes, looked at him, and said with a
[1481]      smile:
[1482]          "You have known for a long time what you must do. You have sense
[1483]      enough: don't give way to drunkenness and incontinence of speech;
[1484]      don't give way to sensual lust; and, above all, to the love of
[1485]      money. And close your taverns. If you can't close all, at least two or
[1486]      three. And, above all- don't lie."
[1487]          "You mean about Diderot?"
[1488]          "No, not about Diderot. Above all, don't lie to yourself. The
[1489]      man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to such a
[1490]      pass that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him,
[1491]      and so loses all respect for himself and for others. And having no
[1492]      respect he ceases to love, and in order to occupy and distract himself
[1493]      without love he gives way to passions and coarse pleasures, and
[1494]      sinks to bestiality in his vices, all from continual lying to other
[1495]      men and to himself. The man who lies to himself can be more easily
[1496]      offended than anyone. You know it is sometimes very pleasant to take
[1497]      offence, isn't it? A man may know that nobody has insulted him, but
[1498]      that he has invented the insult for himself, has lied and
[1499]      exaggerated to make it picturesque, has caught at a word and made a
[1500]      mountain out of a molehill- he knows that himself, yet he will be
[1501]      the first to take offence, and will revel in his resentment till he
[1502]      feels great pleasure in it, and so pass to genuine vindictiveness. But
[1503]      get up, sit down, I beg you. All this, too, is deceitful
[1504]      posturing...."
[1505]          "Blessed man! Give me your hand to kiss."
[1506]          Fyodor Pavlovitch skipped up, and imprinted a rapid kiss on the
[1507]      elder's thin hand. "It is, it is pleasant to take offence. You said
[1508]      that so well, as I never heard it before. Yes, I have been all my life
[1509]      taking offence, to please myself, taking offence on aesthetic grounds,
[1510]      for it is not so much pleasant as distinguished sometimes to be
[1511]      insulted- that you had forgotten, great elder, it is distinguished!
[1512]      I shall make a note of that. But I have been lying, lying positively
[1513]      my whole life long, every day and hour of it. Of a truth, I am a
[1514]      lie, and the father of lies. Though I believe I am not the father of
[1515]      lies. I am getting mixed in my texts. Say, the son of lies, and that
[1516]      will be enough. Only... my angel... may sometimes talk about
[1517]      Diderot! Diderot will do no harm, though sometimes a word will do
[1518]      harm. Great elder, by the way, I was forgetting, though I had been
[1519]      meaning for the last two years to come here on purpose to ask and to
[1520]      find out something. Only do tell Pyotr Alexandrovitch not to interrupt
[1521]      me. Here is my question: Is it true, great Father, that the story is
[1522]      told somewhere in the Lives of the Saints of a holy saint martyred for
[1523]      his faith who, when his head was cut off at last, stood up, picked
[1524]      up his head, and, 'courteously kissing it,' walked a long way,
[1525]      carrying it in his hands. Is that true or not, honoured Father?"
[1526]          "No, it is untrue," said the elder.
[1527]          "There is nothing of the kind in all the lives of the saints. What
[1528]      saint do you say the story is told of?" asked the Father Librarian.
[1529]          "I do not know what saint. I do not know, and can't tell. I was
[1530]      deceived. I was told the story. I had heard it, and do you know who
[1531]      told it? Pyotr Alexandrovitch Miusov here, was so angry just now about
[1532]      Diderot. He it was who told the story."
[1533]          "I have never told it you, I never speak to you at all."
[1534]          "It is true you did not tell me, but you told it when I was
[1535]      present. It was three years ago. I mentioned it because by that
[1536]      ridiculous story you shook my faith, Pyotr Alexandrovitch. You knew
[1537]      nothing of it, but I went home with my faith shaken, and I have been
[1538]      getting more and more shaken ever since. Yes, Pyotr Alexandrovitch,
[1539]      you were the cause of a great fall. That was not a Diderot!
[1540]          Fyodor Pavlovitch got excited and pathetic, though it was
[1541]      perfectly clear to everyone by now that he was playing a part again.
[1542]      Yet Miusov was stung by his words.
[1543]          "What nonsense, and it is all nonsense," he muttered. "I may
[1544]      really have told it, some time or other... but not to you. I was
[1545]      told it myself. I heard it in Paris from a Frenchman. He told me it
[1546]      was read at our mass from the Lives of the Saints... he was a very
[1547]      learned man who had made a special study of Russian statistics and had
[1548]      lived a long time in Russia.... I have not read the Lives of the
[1549]      Saints myself, and I am not going to read them... all sorts of
[1550]      things are said at dinner- we were dining then."
[1551]          "Yes, you were dining then, and so I lost my faith!" said Fyodor
[1552]      Pavlovitch, mimicking him.
[1553]          "What do I care for your faith?" Miusov was on the point of
[1554]      shouting, but he suddenly checked himself, and said with contempt,
[1555]      "You defile everything you touch."
[1556]          The elder suddenly rose from his seat. "Excuse me, gentlemen,
[1557]      for leaving you a few minutes," he said, addressing all his guests. "I
[1558]      have visitors awaiting me who arrived before you. But don't you tell
[1559]      lies all the same," he added, turning to Fyodor Pavlovitch with a
[1560]      good-humoured face. He went out of the cell. Alyosha and the novice
[1561]      flew to escort him down the steps. Alyosha was breathless: he was glad
[1562]      to get away, but he was glad, too, that the elder was good-humoured
[1563]      and not offended. Father Zossima was going towards the portico to
[1564]      bless the people waiting for him there. But Fyodor Pavlovitch
[1565]      persisted, in stopping him at the door of the cell.
[1566]          "Blessed man!" he cried, with feeling. "Allow me to kiss your hand
[1567]      once more. Yes, with you I could still talk, I could still get on.
[1568]      Do you think I always lie and play the fool like this? Believe me, I
[1569]      have been acting like this all the time on purpose to try you. I
[1570]      have been testing you all the time to see whether I could get on
[1571]      with you. Is there room for my humility beside your pride? I am
[1572]      ready to give you a testimonial that one can get on with you! But now,
[1573]      I'll be quiet; I will keep quiet all the time. I'll sit in a chair and
[1574]      hold my tongue. Now it is for you to speak, Pyotr Alexandrovitch.
[1575]      You are the principal person left now- for ten minutes."
[1576]                                    Chapter 3
[1577]                           Peasant Women Who Have Faith
[1578]      
[1579]          NEAR the wooden portico below, built on to the outer wall of the
[1580]      precinct, there was a crowd of about twenty peasant women. They had
[1581]      been told that the elder was at last coming out, and they had gathered
[1582]      together in anticipation. Two ladies, Madame Hohlakov and her
[1583]      daughter, had also come out into the portico to wait for the elder,
[1584]      but in a separate part of it set aside for women of rank.
[1585]          Madame Hohlakov was a wealthy lady, still young and attractive,
[1586]      and always dressed with taste. She was rather pale, and had lively
[1587]      black eyes. She was not more than thirty-three, and had been five
[1588]      years a widow. Her daughter, a girl of fourteen, was partially
[1589]      paralysed. The poor child had not been able to walk for the last six
[1590]      months, and was wheeled about in a long reclining chair. She had a
[1591]      charming little face, rather thin from illness, but full of gaiety.
[1592]      There was a gleam of mischief in her big dark eyes with their long
[1593]      lashes. Her mother had been intending to take her abroad ever since
[1594]      the spring, but they had been detained all the summer by business
[1595]      connected with their estate. They had been staying a week in our town,
[1596]      where they had come more for purposes of business than devotion, but
[1597]      had visited Father Zossima once already, three days before. Though
[1598]      they knew that the elder scarcely saw anyone, they had now suddenly
[1599]      turned up again, and urgently entreated "the happiness of looking once
[1600]      again on the great healer."
[1601]          The mother was sitting on a chair by the side of her daughter's
[1602]      invalid carriage, and two paces from her stood an old monk, not one of
[1603]      our monastery, but a visitor from an obscure religious house in the
[1604]      far north. He too sought the elder's blessing.
[1605]          But Father Zossima, on entering the portico, went first straight
[1606]      to the peasants who were crowded at the foot of the three steps that
[1607]      led up into the portico. Father Zossima stood on the top step, put
[1608]      on his stole, and began blessing the women who thronged about him. One
[1609]      crazy woman was led up to him. As soon as she caught sight of the
[1610]      elder she began shrieking and writhing as though in the pains of
[1611]      childbirth. Laying the stole on her forehead, he read a short prayer
[1612]      over her, and she was at once soothed and quieted.
[1613]          I do not know how it may be now, but in my childhood I often
[1614]      happened to see and hear these "possessed" women in the villages and
[1615]      monasteries. They used to be brought to mass; they would squeal and
[1616]      bark like a dog so that they were heard all over the church. But
[1617]      when the sacrament was carried in and they were led up to it, at
[1618]      once the "possession" ceased, and the sick women were always soothed
[1619]      for a time. I was greatly impressed and amazed at this as a child; but
[1620]      then I heard from country neighbours and from my town teachers that
[1621]      the whole illness was simulated to avoid work, and that it could
[1622]      always be cured by suitable severity; various anecdotes were told to
[1623]      confirm this. But later on I learnt with astonishment from medical
[1624]      specialists that there is no pretence about it, that it is a
[1625]      terrible illness to which women are subject, especially prevalent
[1626]      among us in Russia, and that it is due to the hard lot of the
[1627]      peasant women. It is a disease, I was told, arising from exhausting
[1628]      toil too soon after hard, abnormal and unassisted labour in
[1629]      childbirth, and from the hopeless misery, from beatings, and so on,
[1630]      which some women were not able to endure like others. The strange
[1631]      and instant healing of the frantic and struggling woman as soon as she
[1632]      was led up to the holy sacrament, which had been explained to me as
[1633]      due to malingering and the trickery of the "clericals," arose probably
[1634]      in the most natural manner. Both the women who supported her and the
[1635]      invalid herself fully believed as a truth beyond question that the
[1636]      evil spirit in possession of her could not hold if the sick woman were
[1637]      brought to the sacrament and made to bow down before it. And so,
[1638]      with a nervous and psychically deranged woman, a sort of convulsion of
[1639]      the whole organism always took place, and was bound to take place,
[1640]      at the moment of bowing down to the sacrament, aroused by the
[1641]      expectation of the miracle of healing and the implicit belief that
[1642]      it would come to pass; and it did come to pass, though only for a
[1643]      moment. It was exactly the same now as soon as the elder touched the
[1644]      sick woman with the stole.
[1645]          Many of the women in the crowd were moved to tears of ecstasy by
[1646]      the effect of the moment: some strove to kiss the hem of his
[1647]      garment, others cried out in sing-song voices.
[1648]          He blessed them all and talked with some of them. The
[1649]      "possessed" woman he knew already. She came from a village only six
[1650]      versts from the monastery, and had been brought to him before.
[1651]          "But here is one from afar." He pointed to a woman by no means old
[1652]      but very thin and wasted, with a face not merely sunburnt but almost
[1653]      blackened by exposure. She was kneeling and gazing with a fixed
[1654]      stare at the elder; there was something almost frenzied in her eyes.
[1655]          "From afar off, Father, from afar off! From two hundred miles from
[1656]      here. From afar off, Father, from afar off!" the woman began in a
[1657]      sing-song voice as though she were chanting a dirge, swaying her
[1658]      head from side to side with her cheek resting in her hand.
[1659]          There is silent and long-suffering sorrow to be met with among the
[1660]      peasantry. It withdraws into itself and is still. But there is a grief
[1661]      that breaks out, and from that minute it bursts into tears and finds
[1662]      vent in wailing. This is particularly common with women. But it is
[1663]      no lighter a grief than the silent. Lamentations comfort only by
[1664]      lacerating the heart still more. Such grief does not desire
[1665]      consolation. It feeds on the sense of its hopelessness. Lamentations
[1666]      spring only from the constant craving to re-open the wound.
[1667]          "You are of the tradesman class?" said Father Zossima, looking
[1668]      curiously at her.
[1669]          "Townfolk we are, Father, townfolk. Yet we are peasants though
[1670]      we live in the town. I have come to see you, O Father! We heard of
[1671]      you, Father, we heard of you. I have buried my little son, and I
[1672]      have come on a pilgrimage. I have been in three monasteries, but
[1673]      they told me, 'Go, Nastasya, go to them'- that is to you. I have come;
[1674]      I was yesterday at the service, and to-day I have come to you."
[1675]          "What are you weeping for?"
[1676]          "It's my little son I'm grieving for, Father. he was three years
[1677]      old- three years all but three months. For my little boy, Father,
[1678]      I'm in anguish, for my little boy. He was the last one left. We had
[1679]      four, my Nikita and I, and now we've no children, our dear ones have
[1680]      all gone I buried the first three without grieving overmuch, and now I
[1681]      have buried the last I can't forget him. He seems always standing
[1682]      before me. He never leaves me. He has withered my heart. I look at his
[1683]      little clothes, his little shirt, his little boots, and I wail. I
[1684]      lay out all that is left of him, all his little things. I look at them
[1685]      and wail. I say to Nikita, my husband, 'let me go on a pilgrimage,
[1686]      master.' He is a driver. We're not poor people, Father, not poor; he
[1687]      drives our own horse. It's all our own, the horse and the carriage.
[1688]      And what good is it all