The Brothers Karamazov
imagine: what you’ll think of me when you read this. I’m always
laughing and being naughty. I made you angry this morning, but I assure
you before I took up my pen, I prayed before the Image of the Mother of
God, and now I’m praying, and almost crying.
“My secret is in your hands. When you come to-morrow, I don’t know how
I shall look at you. Ah, Alexey Fyodorovitch, what if I can’t restrain
myself like a silly and laugh when I look at you as I did to-day.
You’ll think I’m a nasty girl making fun of you, and you won’t believe
my letter. And so I beg you, dear one, if you’ve any pity for me, when
you come to-morrow, don’t look me straight in the face, for if I meet
your eyes, it will be sure to make me laugh, especially as you’ll be in
that long gown. I feel cold all over when I think of it, so when you
come, don’t look at me at all for a time, look at mamma or at the
window....
“Here I’ve written you a love-letter. Oh, dear, what have I done?
Alyosha, don’t despise me, and if I’ve done something very horrid and
wounded you, forgive me. Now the secret of my reputation, ruined
perhaps for ever, is in your hands.
“I shall certainly cry to-day. Good-by till our meeting, our _awful_
meeting.—LISE.
“P.S.—Alyosha! You must, must, must come!—LISE.”
Alyosha read the note in amazement, read it through twice, thought a
little, and suddenly laughed a soft, sweet laugh. He started. That
laugh seemed to him sinful. But a minute later he laughed again just as
softly and happily. He slowly replaced the note in the envelope,
crossed himself and lay down. The agitation in his heart passed at
once. “God, have mercy upon all of them, have all these unhappy and
turbulent souls in Thy keeping, and set them in the right path. All
ways are Thine. Save them according to Thy wisdom. Thou art love. Thou
wilt send joy to all!” Alyosha murmured, crossing himself, and falling
into peaceful sleep.
PART II
Book IV. Lacerations
Chapter I.
Father Ferapont
Alyosha was roused early, before daybreak. Father Zossima woke up
feeling very weak, though he wanted to get out of bed and sit up in a
chair. His mind was quite clear; his face looked very tired, yet bright
and almost joyful. It wore an expression of gayety, kindness and
cordiality. “Maybe I shall not live through the coming day,” he said to
Alyosha. Then he desired to confess and take the sacrament at once. He
always confessed to Father Païssy. After taking the communion, the
service of extreme unction followed. The monks assembled and the cell
was gradually filled up by the inmates of the hermitage. Meantime it
was daylight. People began coming from the monastery. After the service
was over the elder desired to kiss and take leave of every one. As the
cell was so small the earlier visitors withdrew to make room for
others. Alyosha stood beside the elder, who was seated again in his
arm-chair. He talked as much as he could. Though his voice was weak, it
was fairly steady.
“I’ve been teaching you so many years, and therefore I’ve been talking
aloud so many years, that I’ve got into the habit of talking, and so
much so that it’s almost more difficult for me to hold my tongue than
to talk, even now, in spite of my weakness, dear Fathers and brothers,”
he jested, looking with emotion at the group round him.
Alyosha remembered afterwards something of what he said to them. But
though he spoke out distinctly and his voice was fairly steady, his
speech was somewhat disconnected. He spoke of many things, he seemed
anxious before the moment of death to say everything he had not said in
his life, and not simply for the sake of instructing them, but as
though thirsting to share with all men and all creation his joy and
ecstasy, and once more in his life to open his whole heart.
“Love one another, Fathers,” said Father Zossima, as far as Alyosha
could remember afterwards. “Love God’s people. Because we have come
here and shut ourselves within these walls, we are no holier than those
that are outside, but on the contrary, from the very fact of coming
here, each of us has confessed to himself that he is worse than others,
than all men on earth.... And the longer the monk lives in his
seclusion, the more keenly he must recognize that. Else he would have
had no reason to come here. When he realizes that he is not only worse
than others, but that he is responsible to all men for all and
everything, for all human sins, national and individual, only then the
aim of our seclusion is attained. For know, dear ones, that every one
of us is undoubtedly responsible for all men and everything on earth,
not merely through the general sinfulness of creation, but each one
personally for all mankind and every individual man. This knowledge is
the crown of life for the monk and for every man. For monks are not a
special sort of men, but only what all men ought to be. Only through
that knowledge, our heart grows soft with infinite, universal,
inexhaustible love. Then every one of you will have the power to win
over the whole world by love and to wash away the sins of the world
with your tears.... Each of you keep watch over your heart and confess
your sins to yourself unceasingly. Be not afraid of your sins, even
when perceiving them, if only there be penitence, but make no
conditions with God. Again I say, Be not proud. Be proud neither to the
little nor to the great. Hate not those who reject you, who insult you,
who abuse and slander you. Hate not the atheists, the teachers of evil,
the materialists—and I mean not only the good ones—for there are many
good ones among them, especially in our day—hate not even the wicked
ones. Remember them in your prayers thus: Save, O Lord, all those who
have none to pray for them, save too all those who will not pray. And
add: it is not in pride that I make this prayer, O Lord, for I am lower
than all men.... Love God’s people, let not strangers draw away the
flock, for if you slumber in your slothfulness and disdainful pride, or
worse still, in covetousness, they will come from all sides and draw
away your flock. Expound the Gospel to the people unceasingly ... be
not extortionate.... Do not love gold and silver, do not hoard them....
Have faith. Cling to the banner and raise it on high.”
But the elder spoke more disconnectedly than Alyosha reported his words
afterwards. Sometimes he broke off altogether, as though to take
breath, and recover his strength, but he was in a sort of ecstasy. They
heard him with emotion, though many wondered at his words and found
them obscure.... Afterwards all remembered those words.
When Alyosha happened for a moment to leave the cell, he was struck by
the general excitement and suspense in the monks who were crowding
about it. This anticipation showed itself in some by anxiety, in others
by devout solemnity. All were expecting that some marvel would happen
immediately after the elder’s death. Their suspense was, from one point
of view, almost frivolous, but even the most austere of the monks were
affected by it. Father Païssy’s face looked the gravest of all.
Alyosha was mysteriously summoned by a monk to see Rakitin, who had
arrived from town with a singular letter for him from Madame Hohlakov.
In it she informed Alyosha of a strange and very opportune incident. It
appeared that among the women who had come on the previous day to
receive Father Zossima’s blessing, there had been an old woman from the
town, a sergeant’s widow, called Prohorovna. She had inquired whether
she might pray for the rest of the soul of her son, Vassenka, who had
gone to Irkutsk, and had sent her no news for over a year. To which
Father Zossima had answered sternly, forbidding her to do so, and
saying that to pray for the living as though they were dead was a kind
of sorcery. He afterwards forgave her on account of her ignorance, and
added, “as though reading the book of the future” (this was Madame
Hohlakov’s expression), words of comfort: “that her son Vassya was
certainly alive and he would either come himself very shortly or send a
letter, and that she was to go home and expect him.” And “Would you
believe it?” exclaimed Madame Hohlakov enthusiastically, “the prophecy
has been fulfilled literally indeed, and more than that.” Scarcely had
the old woman reached home when they gave her a letter from Siberia
which had been awaiting her. But that was not all; in the letter
written on the road from Ekaterinenburg, Vassya informed his mother
that he was returning to Russia with an official, and that three weeks
after her receiving the letter he hoped “to embrace his mother.”
Madame Hohlakov warmly entreated Alyosha to report this new “miracle of
prediction” to the Superior and all the brotherhood. “All, all, ought
to know of it!” she concluded. The letter had been written in haste,
the excitement of the writer was apparent in every line of it. But
Alyosha had no need to tell the monks, for all knew of it already.
Rakitin had commissioned the monk who brought his message “to inform
most respectfully his reverence Father Païssy, that he, Rakitin, has a
matter to speak of with him, of such gravity that he dare not defer it
for a moment, and humbly begs forgiveness for his presumption.” As the
monk had given the message to Father Païssy before that to Alyosha, the
latter found after reading the letter, there was nothing left for him
to do but to hand it to Father Païssy in confirmation of the story.
And even that austere and cautious man, though he frowned as he read
the news of the “miracle,” could not completely restrain some inner
emotion. His eyes gleamed, and a grave and solemn smile came into his
lips.
“We shall see greater things!” broke from him.
“We shall see greater things, greater things yet!” the monks around
repeated.
But Father Païssy, frowning again, begged all of them, at least for a
time, not to speak of the matter “till it be more fully confirmed,
seeing there is so much credulity among those of this world, and indeed
this might well have chanced naturally,” he added, prudently, as it
were to satisfy his conscience, though scarcely believing his own
disavowal, a fact his listeners very clearly perceived.
Within the hour the “miracle” was of course known to the whole
monastery, and many visitors who had come for the mass. No one seemed
more impressed by it than the monk who had come the day before from St.
Sylvester, from the little monastery of Obdorsk in the far North. It
was he who had been standing near Madame Hohlakov the previous day and
had asked Father Zossima earnestly, referring to the “healing” of the
lady’s daughter, “How can you presume to do such things?”
He was now somewhat puzzled and did not know whom to believe. The
evening before he had visited Father Ferapont in his cell apart, behind
the apiary, and had been greatly impressed and overawed by the visit.
This Father Ferapont was that aged monk so devout in fasting and
observing silence who has been mentioned already, as antagonistic to
Father Zossima and the whole institution of “elders,” which he regarded
as a pernicious and frivolous innovation. He was a very formidable
opponent, although from his practice of silence he scarcely spoke a
word to any one. What made him formidable was that a number of monks
fully shared his feeling, and many of the visitors looked upon him as a
great saint and ascetic, although they had no doubt that he was crazy.
But it was just his craziness attracted them.
Father Ferapont never went to see the elder. Though he lived in the
hermitage they did not worry him to keep its regulations, and this too
because he behaved as though he were crazy. He was seventy-five or
more, and he lived in a corner beyond the apiary in an old decaying