The Brothers Karamazov
“You were not altogether joking. That’s true. The question is still
fretting your heart, and not answered. But the martyr likes sometimes
to divert himself with his despair, as it were driven to it by despair
itself. Meanwhile, in your despair, you, too, divert yourself with
magazine articles, and discussions in society, though you don’t believe
your own arguments, and with an aching heart mock at them inwardly....
That question you have not answered, and it is your great grief, for it
clamors for an answer.”
“But can it be answered by me? Answered in the affirmative?” Ivan went
on asking strangely, still looking at the elder with the same
inexplicable smile.
“If it can’t be decided in the affirmative, it will never be decided in
the negative. You know that that is the peculiarity of your heart, and
all its suffering is due to it. But thank the Creator who has given you
a lofty heart capable of such suffering; of thinking and seeking higher
things, for our dwelling is in the heavens. God grant that your heart
will attain the answer on earth, and may God bless your path.”
The elder raised his hand and would have made the sign of the cross
over Ivan from where he stood. But the latter rose from his seat, went
up to him, received his blessing, and kissing his hand went back to his
place in silence. His face looked firm and earnest. This action and all
the preceding conversation, which was so surprising from Ivan,
impressed every one by its strangeness and a certain solemnity, so that
all were silent for a moment, and there was a look almost of
apprehension in Alyosha’s face. But Miüsov suddenly shrugged his
shoulders. And at the same moment Fyodor Pavlovitch jumped up from his
seat.
“Most pious and holy elder,” he cried, pointing to Ivan, “that is my
son, flesh of my flesh, the dearest of my flesh! He is my most dutiful
Karl Moor, so to speak, while this son who has just come in, Dmitri,
against whom I am seeking justice from you, is the undutiful Franz
Moor—they are both out of Schiller’s _Robbers_, and so I am the
reigning Count von Moor! Judge and save us! We need not only your
prayers but your prophecies!”
“Speak without buffoonery, and don’t begin by insulting the members of
your family,” answered the elder, in a faint, exhausted voice. He was
obviously getting more and more fatigued, and his strength was failing.
“An unseemly farce which I foresaw when I came here!” cried Dmitri
indignantly. He too leapt up. “Forgive it, reverend Father,” he added,
addressing the elder. “I am not a cultivated man, and I don’t even know
how to address you properly, but you have been deceived and you have
been too good-natured in letting us meet here. All my father wants is a
scandal. Why he wants it only he can tell. He always has some motive.
But I believe I know why—”
“They all blame me, all of them!” cried Fyodor Pavlovitch in his turn.
“Pyotr Alexandrovitch here blames me too. You have been blaming me,
Pyotr Alexandrovitch, you have!” he turned suddenly to Miüsov, although
the latter was not dreaming of interrupting him. “They all accuse me of
having hidden the children’s money in my boots, and cheated them, but
isn’t there a court of law? There they will reckon out for you, Dmitri
Fyodorovitch, from your notes, your letters, and your agreements, how
much money you had, how much you have spent, and how much you have
left. Why does Pyotr Alexandrovitch refuse to pass judgment? Dmitri is
not a stranger to him. Because they are all against me, while Dmitri
Fyodorovitch is in debt to me, and not a little, but some thousands of
which I have documentary proof. The whole town is echoing with his
debaucheries. And where he was stationed before, he several times spent
a thousand or two for the seduction of some respectable girl; we know
all about that, Dmitri Fyodorovitch, in its most secret details. I’ll
prove it.... Would you believe it, holy Father, he has captivated the
heart of the most honorable of young ladies of good family and fortune,
daughter of a gallant colonel, formerly his superior officer, who had
received many honors and had the Anna Order on his breast. He
compromised the girl by his promise of marriage, now she is an orphan
and here; she is betrothed to him, yet before her very eyes he is
dancing attendance on a certain enchantress. And although this
enchantress has lived in, so to speak, civil marriage with a
respectable man, yet she is of an independent character, an
unapproachable fortress for everybody, just like a legal wife—for she
is virtuous, yes, holy Fathers, she is virtuous. Dmitri Fyodorovitch
wants to open this fortress with a golden key, and that’s why he is
insolent to me now, trying to get money from me, though he has wasted
thousands on this enchantress already. He’s continually borrowing money
for the purpose. From whom do you think? Shall I say, Mitya?”
“Be silent!” cried Dmitri, “wait till I’m gone. Don’t dare in my
presence to asperse the good name of an honorable girl! That you should
utter a word about her is an outrage, and I won’t permit it!”
He was breathless.
“Mitya! Mitya!” cried Fyodor Pavlovitch hysterically, squeezing out a
tear. “And is your father’s blessing nothing to you? If I curse you,
what then?”
“Shameless hypocrite!” exclaimed Dmitri furiously.
“He says that to his father! his father! What would he be with others?
Gentlemen, only fancy; there’s a poor but honorable man living here,
burdened with a numerous family, a captain who got into trouble and was
discharged from the army, but not publicly, not by court-martial, with
no slur on his honor. And three weeks ago, Dmitri seized him by the
beard in a tavern, dragged him out into the street and beat him
publicly, and all because he is an agent in a little business of mine.”
“It’s all a lie! Outwardly it’s the truth, but inwardly a lie!” Dmitri
was trembling with rage. “Father, I don’t justify my action. Yes, I
confess it publicly, I behaved like a brute to that captain, and I
regret it now, and I’m disgusted with myself for my brutal rage. But
this captain, this agent of yours, went to that lady whom you call an
enchantress, and suggested to her from you, that she should take
I.O.U.’s of mine which were in your possession, and should sue me for
the money so as to get me into prison by means of them, if I persisted
in claiming an account from you of my property. Now you reproach me for
having a weakness for that lady when you yourself incited her to
captivate me! She told me so to my face.... She told me the story and
laughed at you.... You wanted to put me in prison because you are
jealous of me with her, because you’d begun to force your attentions
upon her; and I know all about that, too; she laughed at you for that
as well—you hear—she laughed at you as she described it. So here you
have this man, this father who reproaches his profligate son!
Gentlemen, forgive my anger, but I foresaw that this crafty old man
would only bring you together to create a scandal. I had come to
forgive him if he held out his hand; to forgive him, and ask
forgiveness! But as he has just this minute insulted not only me, but
an honorable young lady, for whom I feel such reverence that I dare not
take her name in vain, I have made up my mind to show up his game,
though he is my father....”
He could not go on. His eyes were glittering and he breathed with
difficulty. But every one in the cell was stirred. All except Father
Zossima got up from their seats uneasily. The monks looked austere but
waited for guidance from the elder. He sat still, pale, not from
excitement but from the weakness of disease. An imploring smile lighted
up his face; from time to time he raised his hand, as though to check
the storm, and, of course, a gesture from him would have been enough to
end the scene; but he seemed to be waiting for something and watched
them intently as though trying to make out something which was not
perfectly clear to him. At last Miüsov felt completely humiliated and
disgraced.
“We are all to blame for this scandalous scene,” he said hotly. “But I
did not foresee it when I came, though I knew with whom I had to deal.
This must be stopped at once! Believe me, your reverence, I had no
precise knowledge of the details that have just come to light, I was
unwilling to believe them, and I learn for the first time.... A father
is jealous of his son’s relations with a woman of loose behavior and
intrigues with the creature to get his son into prison! This is the
company in which I have been forced to be present! I was deceived. I
declare to you all that I was as much deceived as any one.”
“Dmitri Fyodorovitch,” yelled Fyodor Pavlovitch suddenly, in an
unnatural voice, “if you were not my son I would challenge you this
instant to a duel ... with pistols, at three paces ... across a
handkerchief,” he ended, stamping with both feet.
With old liars who have been acting all their lives there are moments
when they enter so completely into their part that they tremble or shed
tears of emotion in earnest, although at that very moment, or a second
later, they are able to whisper to themselves, “You know you are lying,
you shameless old sinner! You’re acting now, in spite of your ‘holy’
wrath.”
Dmitri frowned painfully, and looked with unutterable contempt at his
father.
“I thought ... I thought,” he said, in a soft and, as it were,
controlled voice, “that I was coming to my native place with the angel
of my heart, my betrothed, to cherish his old age, and I find nothing
but a depraved profligate, a despicable clown!”
“A duel!” yelled the old wretch again, breathless and spluttering at
each syllable. “And you, Pyotr Alexandrovitch Miüsov, let me tell you
that there has never been in all your family a loftier, and more
honest—you hear—more honest woman than this ‘creature,’ as you have
dared to call her! And you, Dmitri Fyodorovitch, have abandoned your
betrothed for that ‘creature,’ so you must yourself have thought that
your betrothed couldn’t hold a candle to her. That’s the woman called a
‘creature’!”
“Shameful!” broke from Father Iosif.
“Shameful and disgraceful!” Kalganov, flushing crimson, cried in a
boyish voice, trembling with emotion. He had been silent till that
moment.
“Why is such a man alive?” Dmitri, beside himself with rage, growled in
a hollow voice, hunching up his shoulders till he looked almost
deformed. “Tell me, can he be allowed to go on defiling the earth?” He
looked round at every one and pointed at the old man. He spoke evenly
and deliberately.
“Listen, listen, monks, to the parricide!” cried Fyodor Pavlovitch,
rushing up to Father Iosif. “That’s the answer to your ‘shameful!’ What
is shameful? That ‘creature,’ that ‘woman of loose behavior’ is perhaps
holier than you are yourselves, you monks who are seeking salvation!
She fell perhaps in her youth, ruined by her environment. But she loved
much, and Christ himself forgave the woman ‘who loved much.’”
“It was not for such love Christ forgave her,” broke impatiently from
the gentle Father Iosif.
“Yes, it was for such, monks, it was! You save your souls here, eating
cabbage, and think you are the righteous. You eat a gudgeon a day, and
you think you bribe God with gudgeon.”
“This is unendurable!” was heard on all sides in the cell.
But this unseemly scene was cut short in a most unexpected way. Father
Zossima rose suddenly from his seat. Almost distracted with anxiety for
the elder and every one else, Alyosha succeeded, however, in supporting
him by the arm. Father Zossima moved towards Dmitri and reaching him
sank on his knees before him. Alyosha thought that he had fallen from
weakness, but this was not so. The elder distinctly and deliberately
bowed down at Dmitri’s feet till his forehead touched the floor.