The Brothers Karamazov
patched, rusty-looking, stiff boots he flung up his hands and rushed
to them, fell on his knees, snatched up one boot and, pressing his lips
to it, began kissing it greedily, crying, “Ilusha, old man, dear old
man, where are your little feet?”
“Where have you taken him away? Where have you taken him?” the lunatic
cried in a heartrending voice. Nina, too, broke into sobs. Kolya ran
out of the room, the boys followed him. At last Alyosha too went out.
“Let them weep,” he said to Kolya, “it’s no use trying to comfort them
just now. Let us wait a minute and then go back.”
“No, it’s no use, it’s awful,” Kolya assented. “Do you know,
Karamazov,” he dropped his voice so that no one could hear them, “I
feel dreadfully sad, and if it were only possible to bring him back,
I’d give anything in the world to do it.”
“Ah, so would I,” said Alyosha.
“What do you think, Karamazov? Had we better come back here to-night?
He’ll be drunk, you know.”
“Perhaps he will. Let us come together, you and I, that will be enough,
to spend an hour with them, with the mother and Nina. If we all come
together we shall remind them of everything again,” Alyosha suggested.
“The landlady is laying the table for them now—there’ll be a funeral
dinner or something, the priest is coming; shall we go back to it,
Karamazov?”
“Of course,” said Alyosha.
“It’s all so strange, Karamazov, such sorrow and then pancakes after
it, it all seems so unnatural in our religion.”
“They are going to have salmon, too,” the boy who had discovered about
Troy observed in a loud voice.
“I beg you most earnestly, Kartashov, not to interrupt again with your
idiotic remarks, especially when one is not talking to you and doesn’t
care to know whether you exist or not!” Kolya snapped out irritably.
The boy flushed crimson but did not dare to reply.
Meantime they were strolling slowly along the path and suddenly Smurov
exclaimed:
“There’s Ilusha’s stone, under which they wanted to bury him.”
They all stood still by the big stone. Alyosha looked and the whole
picture of what Snegiryov had described to him that day, how Ilusha,
weeping and hugging his father, had cried, “Father, father, how he
insulted you,” rose at once before his imagination.
A sudden impulse seemed to come into his soul. With a serious and
earnest expression he looked from one to another of the bright,
pleasant faces of Ilusha’s schoolfellows, and suddenly said to them:
“Boys, I should like to say one word to you, here at this place.”
The boys stood round him and at once bent attentive and expectant eyes
upon him.
“Boys, we shall soon part. I shall be for some time with my two
brothers, of whom one is going to Siberia and the other is lying at
death’s door. But soon I shall leave this town, perhaps for a long
time, so we shall part. Let us make a compact here, at Ilusha’s stone,
that we will never forget Ilusha and one another. And whatever happens
to us later in life, if we don’t meet for twenty years afterwards, let
us always remember how we buried the poor boy at whom we once threw
stones, do you remember, by the bridge? and afterwards we all grew so
fond of him. He was a fine boy, a kind-hearted, brave boy, he felt for
his father’s honor and resented the cruel insult to him and stood up
for him. And so in the first place, we will remember him, boys, all our
lives. And even if we are occupied with most important things, if we
attain to honor or fall into great misfortune—still let us remember how
good it was once here, when we were all together, united by a good and
kind feeling which made us, for the time we were loving that poor boy,
better perhaps than we are. My little doves—let me call you so, for you
are very like them, those pretty blue birds, at this minute as I look
at your good dear faces. My dear children, perhaps you won’t understand
what I am saying to you, because I often speak very unintelligibly, but
you’ll remember it all the same and will agree with my words some time.
You must know that there is nothing higher and stronger and more
wholesome and good for life in the future than some good memory,
especially a memory of childhood, of home. People talk to you a great
deal about your education, but some good, sacred memory, preserved from
childhood, is perhaps the best education. If a man carries many such
memories with him into life, he is safe to the end of his days, and if
one has only one good memory left in one’s heart, even that may
sometime be the means of saving us. Perhaps we may even grow wicked
later on, may be unable to refrain from a bad action, may laugh at
men’s tears and at those people who say as Kolya did just now, ‘I want
to suffer for all men,’ and may even jeer spitefully at such people.
But however bad we may become—which God forbid—yet, when we recall how
we buried Ilusha, how we loved him in his last days, and how we have
been talking like friends all together, at this stone, the cruelest and
most mocking of us—if we do become so—will not dare to laugh inwardly
at having been kind and good at this moment! What’s more, perhaps, that
one memory may keep him from great evil and he will reflect and say,
‘Yes, I was good and brave and honest then!’ Let him laugh to himself,
that’s no matter, a man often laughs at what’s good and kind. That’s
only from thoughtlessness. But I assure you, boys, that as he laughs he
will say at once in his heart, ‘No, I do wrong to laugh, for that’s not
a thing to laugh at.’”
“That will be so, I understand you, Karamazov!” cried Kolya, with
flashing eyes.
The boys were excited and they, too, wanted to say something, but they
restrained themselves, looking with intentness and emotion at the
speaker.
“I say this in case we become bad,” Alyosha went on, “but there’s no
reason why we should become bad, is there, boys? Let us be, first and
above all, kind, then honest and then let us never forget each other! I
say that again. I give you my word for my part that I’ll never forget
one of you. Every face looking at me now I shall remember even for
thirty years. Just now Kolya said to Kartashov that we did not care to
know whether he exists or not. But I cannot forget that Kartashov
exists and that he is not blushing now as he did when he discovered the
founders of Troy, but is looking at me with his jolly, kind, dear
little eyes. Boys, my dear boys, let us all be generous and brave like
Ilusha, clever, brave and generous like Kolya (though he will be ever
so much cleverer when he is grown up), and let us all be as modest, as
clever and sweet as Kartashov. But why am I talking about those two?
You are all dear to me, boys, from this day forth, I have a place in my
heart for you all, and I beg you to keep a place in your hearts for me!
Well, and who has united us in this kind, good feeling which we shall
remember and intend to remember all our lives? Who, if not Ilusha, the
good boy, the dear boy, precious to us for ever! Let us never forget
him. May his memory live for ever in our hearts from this time forth!”
“Yes, yes, for ever, for ever!” the boys cried in their ringing voices,
with softened faces.
“Let us remember his face and his clothes and his poor little boots,
his coffin and his unhappy, sinful father, and how boldly he stood up
for him alone against the whole school.”
“We will remember, we will remember,” cried the boys. “He was brave, he
was good!”
“Ah, how I loved him!” exclaimed Kolya.
“Ah, children, ah, dear friends, don’t be afraid of life! How good life
is when one does something good and just!”
“Yes, yes,” the boys repeated enthusiastically.
“Karamazov, we love you!” a voice, probably Kartashov’s, cried
impulsively.
“We love you, we love you!” they all caught it up. There were tears in
the eyes of many of them.
“Hurrah for Karamazov!” Kolya shouted ecstatically.
“And may the dead boy’s memory live for ever!” Alyosha added again with
feeling.
“For ever!” the boys chimed in again.
“Karamazov,” cried Kolya, “can it be true what’s taught us in religion,
that we shall all rise again from the dead and shall live and see each
other again, all, Ilusha too?”
“Certainly we shall all rise again, certainly we shall see each other
and shall tell each other with joy and gladness all that has happened!”
Alyosha answered, half laughing, half enthusiastic.
“Ah, how splendid it will be!” broke from Kolya.
“Well, now we will finish talking and go to his funeral dinner. Don’t
be put out at our eating pancakes—it’s a very old custom and there’s
something nice in that!” laughed Alyosha. “Well, let us go! And now we
go hand in hand.”
“And always so, all our lives hand in hand! Hurrah for Karamazov!”
Kolya cried once more rapturously, and once more the boys took up his
exclamation: “Hurrah for Karamazov!”
THE END
FOOTNOTES
[1] In Russian, “silen.”
[2] A proverbial expression in Russia.
[3] Grushenka.
[4] i.e. setter dog.
[5] Probably the public event was the Decabrist plot against the Tsar,
of December 1825, in which the most distinguished men in Russia were
concerned.—TRANSLATOR’S NOTE.
[6] When a monk’s body is carried out from the cell to the church and
from the church to the graveyard, the canticle “What earthly joy...”
is sung. If the deceased was a priest as well as a monk the canticle
“Our Helper and Defender” is sung instead.
[7] i.e. a chime of bells.
[8] Literally: “Did you get off with a long nose made at you?”—a
proverbial expression in Russia for failure.
[9] Gogol is meant.