finished_summaries/cliffnotes/The Brothers Karamazov/section_5_part_0.txt
The Brothers Karamazov.book iv.chapter i-chapter vii
book iv
{"name": "Book IV", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201219142226/https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/b/the-brothers-karamazov/summary-and-analysis/part-2-book-iv", "summary": "Nearing death, Father Zossima rallies a bit and gathers his friends and disciples around him. He speaks to them of the necessity of loving one another and all men and urges them to remember that each human being shares responsibility for the sins of all others. Alyosha leaves the cell, aware of the tense sorrow that hovers over the monastery. All members of the holy community, he is sure, anticipate some sort of miracle, one occurring immediately after the elder's death. There are, in fact, already rumors of Father Zossima's being responsible for a recent miracle. Not quite all, however, share Alyosha's idealization of Zossima. Living in the monastery is another very old monk, Father Ferapont, \"antagonistic to Father Zossima and the whole institution of elders.\" Ferapont believes in a religion based on severe fasting and on fear of Satan, a belief totally opposite to the doctrine of love advocated by Father Zossima. Ferapont sees the devil at work in all things and frequently has visions of lurking devils waiting to ensnare innocent souls. He is admired by only a few people because of such severity, but he does have a coterie of staunch followers. After Father Zossima has retired to his cell, he calls for Alyosha and reminds the boy that he hopes Alyosha will return to the town in order to fulfill his responsibilities to his father and to his brothers. Alyosha acquiesces. On his return, Alyosha finds his father alone. The old man insists that he plans to live a long time but that he needs much money to attract young \"wenches\" to come to him in his later years, when he has lost much of his vigor. He vehemently proclaims that above all other things, he will remain a sensualist until he is forced to bed down with death. Alyosha listens and then leaves his father's house. Outside he encounters a group of schoolboys throwing rocks at an outcast young lad, a frail young child about nine years old. Despite his frailty, the boy returns the violence and flings back sharp rocks at the squadron of young hoodlums. Then suddenly he breaks and runs. Alyosha dashes after the boy, eager to discover what lies under such antagonism. But when he catches him, the youngster is sullen and defiant. He hits Alyosha with a rock and lunges at him, biting his hand. He escapes once more and leaves Alyosha perplexed as to the meaning of such corrosive bitterness. Alyosha's next stop is at the home of Madame Hohlakov. There he is surprised to learn that Ivan is also a visitor, upstairs at the moment with Katerina. Dmitri's presence might have been in order, but certainly Ivan's is unexpected to the young Karamazov. He asks for some cloth to bandage his hand, and when Madame Hohlakov goes in search of medication, he is immediately set upon by Lise. She implores him to return her letter; it was a bad joke, she says. But Alyosha refuses to part with the letter. He believed its contents, he says, but he cannot return it; he does not have it with him. Alyosha then leaves Lise and goes to talk with Ivan and Katerina. Katerina repeats to Alyosha what she has just told Ivan -- that she will never abandon Dmitri, even if he marries Grushenka. Furthermore, she intends to help and protect him even though he does not appreciate it. Ivan agrees with her, though he admits that in another woman such behavior would be considered neurotic. Alyosha can no longer retain himself. He tries to convince them that they love each other; they are only torturing themselves by their theorizings. Ivan admits that he does love Katerina but says that she needs someone like Dmitri because of her excessive self-esteem. Then he says that he is leaving the next day for Moscow and excuses himself. After Ivan leaves, Katerina tells Alyosha of a poor captain, a Mr. Snegiryov, who was once brutally beaten by Dmitri while the captain's young son stood by and begged for mercy. She has never forgotten the incident and asks Alyosha to take 200 rubles to the captain as a token of her deep sympathy. Alyosha says that he will do as she asks and leaves. The captain in question lives in a ramshackle old house with a mentally deranged wife, two daughters , and his young son, Ilusha. Coincidentally, Ilusha turns out to be the outcast who earlier bit Alyosha's hand. Before Alyosha can explain why he has come, the boy cries out that the young Karamazov has come to complain about the hand-biting. And it is then that Alyosha understands why the boy attacked him so savagely: he was defending his father's honor against a Karamazov. The captain takes Alyosha outside and tells him the story of his encounter with Dmitri and how terribly the episode affected his young son. He further emphasizes the family's poverty, and Alyosha -- overjoyed that he can relieve the old man's poverty -- explains that he has come to give him 200 rubles. The captain is delighted by such unexpected good luck and speaks of the many things he can now do for his sick and hungry family. But suddenly he changes his mind. With a proud gesture, he throws the money to the ground, saying that if he accepts the sum he can never gain his son's love and respect. Alyosha retrieves the money and starts back to Katerina to report his failure.", "analysis": "At the end of Book III, Alyosha wonders why Father Zossima has asked him to leave the monastery. Book IV is Dostoevsky's explanation. From chapter to chapter, Alyosha moves among the characters as they grapple with their assorted problems. He fast becomes the living embodiment of the elder's teachings. Each chapter illustrates Alyosha's influences. In Chapter 2 he travels to his father's house and listens to the frustrations that plague the old man. Then he goes to Madame Hohlakov's and tries to pacify young Lise by calmly accepting her hysterical outcries. While there he makes an effort to bring Ivan and Katerina together as lovers. Next, he goes to the cottage of the destitute Captain Snegiryov. Obviously Dostoevsky intends us to see that Alyosha is meant for a life of activity, not for the quiet passivity of the monastery. The message of Father Zossima is of particular importance in this book. Earlier he emphasized the value of love and admonished his adherents to love one another, to love all of God's people. Now he reminds his followers that simply because they have assumed a monastic life does not imply that they are more blessed than other people. In fact, \"from the very fact of coming here, each of us has confessed to himself that he is worse than others.\" He also reminds his listeners that each man is responsible for every other man and that \"he is responsible to all men for all and everything, for all human sins, national and individual.\" This speech alone contains all the reasons for Alyosha's leaving the monastery. A life of seclusion does not test one's strength if he is to be a representative of Zossima's theories. The elder's ideas can be tested only in the midst of busy society. Father Zossima's ideas concerning the responsibility of one man for another take on added weight in the conversations that Alyosha has with Ivan. Ivan refuses to take responsibility for Dmitri's sins and tells Alyosha that he is not his brother's keeper. Later, Zossima's concept of responsibility triggers Alyosha into considering his own responsibility for Karamazov's murder. At the end of Zossima's talk, rumors spread of a forthcoming miracle, one that will coincide with the elder's death. Alyosha is intrigued by the rumors, especially since he believes Zossima to be saint-like, but he is sorely tested when his beloved elder's body rapidly decomposes. As Alyosha begins his journey through the complex world of society, he goes first to his father's house and listens to all kinds of vulgar and disgusting stories. His father tells him that he will need much money in later years to tempt young \"wenches\" to sleep with him and suggests that Ivan is trying to marry Katerina so that Dmitri will have to marry Grushenka; thus old Karamazov will be prevented from remarrying and leaving his fortune to a new wife -- in other words, to Grushenka. All these wild accusations color more darkly Dostoevsky's portrait of Karamazov as a repulsive and bestial type. Throughout the confession, Alyosha is able to retain his peaceful mien and never compromises his inner nature of dignity and love. In the scene with young Ilusha, Alyosha still remains a perfectly self-contained individual. He does not even use violence when Ilusha bites him so viciously. It is a bitter entrance into the world -- stoned and bitten only because one is a Karamazov; none of this, of course, would have happened if Alyosha had remained in seclusion at the monastery. But Alyosha has made his choice according to Zossima's wishes and according to the dictates of the elder who told him that he must marry and become one with the world. He, therefore, tells the young invalid Lise that when she comes of age they will marry. As for another marriage -- one between Ivan and Katerina -- the solution is not quite so simple. They are apparently in love with each other, but both are so arrogant that they cannot come to an understanding. Part of the difficulty lies in Katerina's fantastic personality. She feels the need to suffer or to be humiliated by Dmitri, and her statement that she will never abandon Dmitri, even if he marries Grushenka, indicates the fanatical degree to which she plans to carry her suffering and martyrdom. Ivan sums up her peculiar nature well when he says that she needs Dmitri \"so as to contemplate continually your heroic fidelity and to reproach him for infidelity.\" For the present, then, Katerina's declaration results in an impasse; her views of the two brothers will not be resolved until the trial, and even then real objectivity will be impossible. Nevertheless, it is true that she feels the need to be humiliated by Dmitri. Proof of this lies in her deep sympathy with Captain Snegiryov, a man whom Dmitri has humiliated. She asks Alyosha to take him 200 rubles \"as a token of sympathy,\" but her sympathy is of far greater than token value. Alyosha fast becomes involved in social intrigues. But one should be aware that there is no rancor or bitterness in his new role. Alyosha has no resentment, even following the Ilusha incident. Quite the contrary, he has great compassion for a young boy who will try to defend his father's honor. Book IV then places the neophyte Alyosha in a variety of new situations, and the boy's skill in dealing with them suggests the future potential that Father Zossima sensed in him. Looking ahead, however, one might note that success is not total. Further along, it will become apparent that Alyosha often fails with adults. It is with children that he most succeeds; with the younger generation his qualities of quiet love and devotion find the most fertile sympathy. This, of course, is part of Dostoevsky's vision -- children represent the future of all hope and salvation. In this novel Alyosha entrusts Zossima's ideal of love and honor to the new generation."}
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 Paissy. 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 Paissy'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 Paissy, 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 Paissy 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 Paissy 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 Paissy, 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 wooden cell
which had been built long ago for another great ascetic, Father Iona, who
had lived to be a hundred and five, and of whose saintly doings many
curious stories were still extant in the monastery and the neighborhood.

Father Ferapont had succeeded in getting himself installed in this same
solitary cell seven years previously. It was simply a peasant's hut,
though it looked like a chapel, for it contained an extraordinary number
of ikons with lamps perpetually burning before them--which men brought to
the monastery as offerings to God. Father Ferapont had been appointed to
look after them and keep the lamps burning. It was said (and indeed it was
true) that he ate only two pounds of bread in three days. The beekeeper,
who lived close by the apiary, used to bring him the bread every three
days, and even to this man who waited upon him, Father Ferapont rarely
uttered a word. The four pounds of bread, together with the sacrament
bread, regularly sent him on Sundays after the late mass by the Father
Superior, made up his weekly rations. The water in his jug was changed
every day. He rarely appeared at mass. Visitors who came to do him homage
saw him sometimes kneeling all day long at prayer without looking round.
If he addressed them, he was brief, abrupt, strange, and almost always
rude. On very rare occasions, however, he would talk to visitors, but for
the most part he would utter some one strange saying which was a complete
riddle, and no entreaties would induce him to pronounce a word in
explanation. He was not a priest, but a simple monk. There was a strange
belief, chiefly however among the most ignorant, that Father Ferapont had
communication with heavenly spirits and would only converse with them, and
so was silent with men.

The monk from Obdorsk, having been directed to the apiary by the
beekeeper, who was also a very silent and surly monk, went to the corner
where Father Ferapont's cell stood. "Maybe he will speak as you are a
stranger and maybe you'll get nothing out of him," the beekeeper had
warned him. The monk, as he related afterwards, approached in the utmost
apprehension. It was rather late in the evening. Father Ferapont was
sitting at the door of his cell on a low bench. A huge old elm was lightly
rustling overhead. There was an evening freshness in the air. The monk
from Obdorsk bowed down before the saint and asked his blessing.

"Do you want me to bow down to you, monk?" said Father Ferapont. "Get up!"

The monk got up.

"Blessing, be blessed! Sit beside me. Where have you come from?"

What most struck the poor monk was the fact that in spite of his strict
fasting and great age, Father Ferapont still looked a vigorous old man. He
was tall, held himself erect, and had a thin, but fresh and healthy face.
There was no doubt he still had considerable strength. He was of athletic
build. In spite of his great age he was not even quite gray, and still had
very thick hair and a full beard, both of which had once been black. His
eyes were gray, large and luminous, but strikingly prominent. He spoke
with a broad accent. He was dressed in a peasant's long reddish coat of
coarse convict cloth (as it used to be called) and had a stout rope round
his waist. His throat and chest were bare. Beneath his coat, his shirt of
the coarsest linen showed almost black with dirt, not having been changed
for months. They said that he wore irons weighing thirty pounds under his
coat. His stockingless feet were thrust in old slippers almost dropping to
pieces.

"From the little Obdorsk monastery, from St. Sylvester," the monk answered
humbly, whilst his keen and inquisitive, but rather frightened little eyes
kept watch on the hermit.

"I have been at your Sylvester's. I used to stay there. Is Sylvester
well?"

The monk hesitated.

"You are a senseless lot! How do you keep the fasts?"

"Our dietary is according to the ancient conventual rules. During Lent
there are no meals provided for Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. For Tuesday
and Thursday we have white bread, stewed fruit with honey, wild berries,
or salt cabbage and wholemeal stirabout. On Saturday white cabbage soup,
noodles with peas, kasha, all with hemp oil. On weekdays we have dried
fish and kasha with the cabbage soup. From Monday till Saturday evening,
six whole days in Holy Week, nothing is cooked, and we have only bread and
water, and that sparingly; if possible not taking food every day, just the
same as is ordered for first week in Lent. On Good Friday nothing is
eaten. In the same way on the Saturday we have to fast till three o'clock,
and then take a little bread and water and drink a single cup of wine. On
Holy Thursday we drink wine and have something cooked without oil or not
cooked at all, inasmuch as the Laodicean council lays down for Holy
Thursday: 'It is unseemly by remitting the fast on the Holy Thursday to
dishonor the whole of Lent!' This is how we keep the fast. But what is
that compared with you, holy Father," added the monk, growing more
confident, "for all the year round, even at Easter, you take nothing but
bread and water, and what we should eat in two days lasts you full seven.
It's truly marvelous--your great abstinence."

"And mushrooms?" asked Father Ferapont, suddenly.

"Mushrooms?" repeated the surprised monk.

"Yes. I can give up their bread, not needing it at all, and go away into
the forest and live there on the mushrooms or the berries, but they can't
give up their bread here, wherefore they are in bondage to the devil.
Nowadays the unclean deny that there is need of such fasting. Haughty and
unclean is their judgment."

"Och, true," sighed the monk.

"And have you seen devils among them?" asked Ferapont.

"Among them? Among whom?" asked the monk, timidly.

"I went to the Father Superior on Trinity Sunday last year, I haven't been
since. I saw a devil sitting on one man's chest hiding under his cassock,
only his horns poked out; another had one peeping out of his pocket with
such sharp eyes, he was afraid of me; another settled in the unclean belly
of one, another was hanging round a man's neck, and so he was carrying him
about without seeing him."

"You--can see spirits?" the monk inquired.

"I tell you I can see, I can see through them. When I was coming out from
the Superior's I saw one hiding from me behind the door, and a big one, a
yard and a half or more high, with a thick long gray tail, and the tip of
his tail was in the crack of the door and I was quick and slammed the
door, pinching his tail in it. He squealed and began to struggle, and I
made the sign of the cross over him three times. And he died on the spot
like a crushed spider. He must have rotted there in the corner and be
stinking, but they don't see, they don't smell it. It's a year since I
have been there. I reveal it to you, as you are a stranger."

"Your words are terrible! But, holy and blessed Father," said the monk,
growing bolder and bolder, "is it true, as they noise abroad even to
distant lands about you, that you are in continual communication with the
Holy Ghost?"

"He does fly down at times."

"How does he fly down? In what form?"

"As a bird."

"The Holy Ghost in the form of a dove?"

"There's the Holy Ghost and there's the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit can
appear as other birds--sometimes as a swallow, sometimes a goldfinch and
sometimes as a blue-tit."

"How do you know him from an ordinary tit?"

"He speaks."

"How does he speak, in what language?"

"Human language."

"And what does he tell you?"

"Why, to-day he told me that a fool would visit me and would ask me
unseemly questions. You want to know too much, monk."

"Terrible are your words, most holy and blessed Father," the monk shook
his head. But there was a doubtful look in his frightened little eyes.

"Do you see this tree?" asked Father Ferapont, after a pause.

"I do, blessed Father."

"You think it's an elm, but for me it has another shape."

"What sort of shape?" inquired the monk, after a pause of vain
expectation.

"It happens at night. You see those two branches? In the night it is
Christ holding out His arms to me and seeking me with those arms, I see it
clearly and tremble. It's terrible, terrible!"

"What is there terrible if it's Christ Himself?"

"Why, He'll snatch me up and carry me away."

"Alive?"

"In the spirit and glory of Elijah, haven't you heard? He will take me in
His arms and bear me away."

Though the monk returned to the cell he was sharing with one of the
brothers, in considerable perplexity of mind, he still cherished at heart
a greater reverence for Father Ferapont than for Father Zossima. He was
strongly in favor of fasting, and it was not strange that one who kept so
rigid a fast as Father Ferapont should "see marvels." His words seemed
certainly queer, but God only could tell what was hidden in those words,
and were not worse words and acts commonly seen in those who have
sacrificed their intellects for the glory of God? The pinching of the
devil's tail he was ready and eager to believe, and not only in the
figurative sense. Besides he had, before visiting the monastery, a strong
prejudice against the institution of "elders," which he only knew of by
hearsay and believed to be a pernicious innovation. Before he had been
long at the monastery, he had detected the secret murmurings of some
shallow brothers who disliked the institution. He was, besides, a
meddlesome, inquisitive man, who poked his nose into everything. This was
why the news of the fresh "miracle" performed by Father Zossima reduced
him to extreme perplexity. Alyosha remembered afterwards how their
inquisitive guest from Obdorsk had been continually flitting to and fro
from one group to another, listening and asking questions among the monks
that were crowding within and without the elder's cell. But he did not pay
much attention to him at the time, and only recollected it afterwards.

He had no thought to spare for it indeed, for when Father Zossima, feeling
tired again, had gone back to bed, he thought of Alyosha as he was closing
his eyes, and sent for him. Alyosha ran at once. There was no one else in
the cell but Father Paissy, Father Iosif, and the novice Porfiry. The
elder, opening his weary eyes and looking intently at Alyosha, asked him
suddenly:

"Are your people expecting you, my son?"

Alyosha hesitated.

"Haven't they need of you? Didn't you promise some one yesterday to see
them to-day?"

"I did promise--to my father--my brothers--others too."

"You see, you must go. Don't grieve. Be sure I shall not die without your
being by to hear my last word. To you I will say that word, my son, it
will be my last gift to you. To you, dear son, because you love me. But
now go to keep your promise."

Alyosha immediately obeyed, though it was hard to go. But the promise that
he should hear his last word on earth, that it should be the last gift to
him, Alyosha, sent a thrill of rapture through his soul. He made haste
that he might finish what he had to do in the town and return quickly.
Father Paissy, too, uttered some words of exhortation which moved and
surprised him greatly. He spoke as they left the cell together.

"Remember, young man, unceasingly," Father Paissy began, without preface,
"that the science of this world, which has become a great power, has,
especially in the last century, analyzed everything divine handed down to
us in the holy books. After this cruel analysis the learned of this world
have nothing left of all that was sacred of old. But they have only
analyzed the parts and overlooked the whole, and indeed their blindness is
marvelous. Yet the whole still stands steadfast before their eyes, and the
gates of hell shall not prevail against it. Has it not lasted nineteen
centuries, is it not still a living, a moving power in the individual soul
and in the masses of people? It is still as strong and living even in the
souls of atheists, who have destroyed everything! For even those who have
renounced Christianity and attack it, in their inmost being still follow
the Christian ideal, for hitherto neither their subtlety nor the ardor of
their hearts has been able to create a higher ideal of man and of virtue
than the ideal given by Christ of old. When it has been attempted, the
result has been only grotesque. Remember this especially, young man, since
you are being sent into the world by your departing elder. Maybe,
remembering this great day, you will not forget my words, uttered from the
heart for your guidance, seeing you are young, and the temptations of the
world are great and beyond your strength to endure. Well, now go, my
orphan."

With these words Father Paissy blessed him. As Alyosha left the monastery
and thought them over, he suddenly realized that he had met a new and
unexpected friend, a warmly loving teacher, in this austere monk who had
hitherto treated him sternly. It was as though Father Zossima had
bequeathed him to him at his death, and "perhaps that's just what had
passed between them," Alyosha thought suddenly. The philosophic
reflections he had just heard so unexpectedly testified to the warmth of
Father Paissy's heart. He was in haste to arm the boy's mind for conflict
with temptation and to guard the young soul left in his charge with the
strongest defense he could imagine.




Chapter II. At His Father's


First of all, Alyosha went to his father. On the way he remembered that
his father had insisted the day before that he should come without his
brother Ivan seeing him. "Why so?" Alyosha wondered suddenly. "Even if my
father has something to say to me alone, why should I go in unseen? Most
likely in his excitement yesterday he meant to say something different,"
he decided. Yet he was very glad when Marfa Ignatyevna, who opened the
garden gate to him (Grigory, it appeared, was ill in bed in the lodge),
told him in answer to his question that Ivan Fyodorovitch had gone out two
hours ago.

"And my father?"

"He is up, taking his coffee," Marfa answered somewhat dryly.

Alyosha went in. The old man was sitting alone at the table wearing
slippers and a little old overcoat. He was amusing himself by looking
through some accounts, rather inattentively however. He was quite alone in
the house, for Smerdyakov too had gone out marketing. Though he had got up
early and was trying to put a bold face on it, he looked tired and weak.
His forehead, upon which huge purple bruises had come out during the
night, was bandaged with a red handkerchief; his nose too had swollen
terribly in the night, and some smaller bruises covered it in patches,
giving his whole face a peculiarly spiteful and irritable look. The old
man was aware of this, and turned a hostile glance on Alyosha as he came
in.

"The coffee is cold," he cried harshly; "I won't offer you any. I've
ordered nothing but a Lenten fish soup to-day, and I don't invite any one
to share it. Why have you come?"

"To find out how you are," said Alyosha.

"Yes. Besides, I told you to come yesterday. It's all of no consequence.
You need not have troubled. But I knew you'd come poking in directly."

He said this with almost hostile feeling. At the same time he got up and
looked anxiously in the looking-glass (perhaps for the fortieth time that
morning) at his nose. He began, too, binding his red handkerchief more
becomingly on his forehead.

"Red's better. It's just like the hospital in a white one," he observed
sententiously. "Well, how are things over there? How is your elder?"

"He is very bad; he may die to-day," answered Alyosha. But his father had
not listened, and had forgotten his own question at once.

"Ivan's gone out," he said suddenly. "He is doing his utmost to carry off
Mitya's betrothed. That's what he is staying here for," he added
maliciously, and, twisting his mouth, looked at Alyosha.

"Surely he did not tell you so?" asked Alyosha.

"Yes, he did, long ago. Would you believe it, he told me three weeks ago?
You don't suppose he too came to murder me, do you? He must have had some
object in coming."

"What do you mean? Why do you say such things?" said Alyosha, troubled.

"He doesn't ask for money, it's true, but yet he won't get a farthing from
me. I intend living as long as possible, you may as well know, my dear
Alexey Fyodorovitch, and so I need every farthing, and the longer I live,
the more I shall need it," he continued, pacing from one corner of the
room to the other, keeping his hands in the pockets of his loose greasy
overcoat made of yellow cotton material. "I can still pass for a man at
five and fifty, but I want to pass for one for another twenty years. As I
get older, you know, I shan't be a pretty object. The wenches won't come
to me of their own accord, so I shall want my money. So I am saving up
more and more, simply for myself, my dear son Alexey Fyodorovitch. You may
as well know. For I mean to go on in my sins to the end, let me tell you.
For sin is sweet; all abuse it, but all men live in it, only others do it
on the sly, and I openly. And so all the other sinners fall upon me for
being so simple. And your paradise, Alexey Fyodorovitch, is not to my
taste, let me tell you that; and it's not the proper place for a
gentleman, your paradise, even if it exists. I believe that I fall asleep
and don't wake up again, and that's all. You can pray for my soul if you
like. And if you don't want to, don't, damn you! That's my philosophy.
Ivan talked well here yesterday, though we were all drunk. Ivan is a
conceited coxcomb, but he has no particular learning ... nor education
either. He sits silent and smiles at one without speaking--that's what
pulls him through."

Alyosha listened to him in silence.

"Why won't he talk to me? If he does speak, he gives himself airs. Your
Ivan is a scoundrel! And I'll marry Grushenka in a minute if I want to.
For if you've money, Alexey Fyodorovitch, you have only to want a thing
and you can have it. That's what Ivan is afraid of, he is on the watch to
prevent me getting married and that's why he is egging on Mitya to marry
Grushenka himself. He hopes to keep me from Grushenka by that (as though I
should leave him my money if I don't marry her!). Besides if Mitya marries
Grushenka, Ivan will carry off his rich betrothed, that's what he's
reckoning on! He is a scoundrel, your Ivan!"

"How cross you are! It's because of yesterday; you had better lie down,"
said Alyosha.

"There! you say that," the old man observed suddenly, as though it had
struck him for the first time, "and I am not angry with you. But if Ivan
said it, I should be angry with him. It is only with you I have good
moments, else you know I am an ill-natured man."

"You are not ill-natured, but distorted," said Alyosha with a smile.

"Listen. I meant this morning to get that ruffian Mitya locked up and I
don't know now what I shall decide about it. Of course in these
fashionable days fathers and mothers are looked upon as a prejudice, but
even now the law does not allow you to drag your old father about by the
hair, to kick him in the face in his own house, and brag of murdering him
outright--all in the presence of witnesses. If I liked, I could crush him
and could have him locked up at once for what he did yesterday."

"Then you don't mean to take proceedings?"

"Ivan has dissuaded me. I shouldn't care about Ivan, but there's another
thing."

And bending down to Alyosha, he went on in a confidential half-whisper.

"If I send the ruffian to prison, she'll hear of it and run to see him at
once. But if she hears that he has beaten me, a weak old man, within an
inch of my life, she may give him up and come to me.... For that's her
way, everything by contraries. I know her through and through! Won't you
have a drop of brandy? Take some cold coffee and I'll pour a quarter of a
glass of brandy into it, it's delicious, my boy."

"No, thank you. I'll take that roll with me if I may," said Alyosha, and
taking a halfpenny French roll he put it in the pocket of his cassock.
"And you'd better not have brandy, either," he suggested apprehensively,
looking into the old man's face.

"You are quite right, it irritates my nerves instead of soothing them.
Only one little glass. I'll get it out of the cupboard."

He unlocked the cupboard, poured out a glass, drank it, then locked the
cupboard and put the key back in his pocket.

"That's enough. One glass won't kill me."

"You see you are in a better humor now," said Alyosha, smiling.

"Um! I love you even without the brandy, but with scoundrels I am a
scoundrel. Ivan is not going to Tchermashnya--why is that? He wants to spy
how much I give Grushenka if she comes. They are all scoundrels! But I
don't recognize Ivan, I don't know him at all. Where does he come from? He
is not one of us in soul. As though I'd leave him anything! I shan't leave
a will at all, you may as well know. And I'll crush Mitya like a beetle. I
squash black-beetles at night with my slipper; they squelch when you tread
on them. And your Mitya will squelch too. _Your_ Mitya, for you love him.
Yes, you love him and I am not afraid of your loving him. But if Ivan
loved him I should be afraid for myself at his loving him. But Ivan loves
nobody. Ivan is not one of us. People like Ivan are not our sort, my boy.
They are like a cloud of dust. When the wind blows, the dust will be
gone.... I had a silly idea in my head when I told you to come to-day; I
wanted to find out from you about Mitya. If I were to hand him over a
thousand or maybe two now, would the beggarly wretch agree to take himself
off altogether for five years or, better still, thirty-five, and without
Grushenka, and give her up once for all, eh?"

"I--I'll ask him," muttered Alyosha. "If you would give him three thousand,
perhaps he--"

"That's nonsense! You needn't ask him now, no need! I've changed my mind.
It was a nonsensical idea of mine. I won't give him anything, not a penny,
I want my money myself," cried the old man, waving his hand. "I'll crush
him like a beetle without it. Don't say anything to him or else he will
begin hoping. There's nothing for you to do here, you needn't stay. Is
that betrothed of his, Katerina Ivanovna, whom he has kept so carefully
hidden from me all this time, going to marry him or not? You went to see
her yesterday, I believe?"

"Nothing will induce her to abandon him."

"There you see how dearly these fine young ladies love a rake and a
scoundrel. They are poor creatures I tell you, those pale young ladies,
very different from--Ah, if I had his youth and the looks I had then (for I
was better-looking than he at eight and twenty) I'd have been a conquering
hero just as he is. He is a low cad! But he shan't have Grushenka, anyway,
he shan't! I'll crush him!"

His anger had returned with the last words.

"You can go. There's nothing for you to do here to-day," he snapped
harshly.

Alyosha went up to say good-by to him, and kissed him on the shoulder.

"What's that for?" The old man was a little surprised. "We shall see each
other again, or do you think we shan't?"

"Not at all, I didn't mean anything."

"Nor did I, I did not mean anything," said the old man, looking at him.
"Listen, listen," he shouted after him, "make haste and come again and
I'll have a fish soup for you, a fine one, not like to-day. Be sure to
come! Come to-morrow, do you hear, to-morrow!"

And as soon as Alyosha had gone out of the door, he went to the cupboard
again and poured out another half-glass.

"I won't have more!" he muttered, clearing his throat, and again he locked
the cupboard and put the key in his pocket. Then he went into his bedroom,
lay down on the bed, exhausted, and in one minute he was asleep.




Chapter III. A Meeting With The Schoolboys


"Thank goodness he did not ask me about Grushenka," thought Alyosha, as he
left his father's house and turned towards Madame Hohlakov's, "or I might
have to tell him of my meeting with Grushenka yesterday."

Alyosha felt painfully that since yesterday both combatants had renewed
their energies, and that their hearts had grown hard again. "Father is
spiteful and angry, he's made some plan and will stick to it. And what of
Dmitri? He too will be harder than yesterday, he too must be spiteful and
angry, and he too, no doubt, has made some plan. Oh, I must succeed in
finding him to-day, whatever happens."

But Alyosha had not long to meditate. An incident occurred on the road,
which, though apparently of little consequence, made a great impression on
him. Just after he had crossed the square and turned the corner coming out
into Mihailovsky Street, which is divided by a small ditch from the High
Street (our whole town is intersected by ditches), he saw a group of
schoolboys between the ages of nine and twelve, at the bridge. They were
going home from school, some with their bags on their shoulders, others
with leather satchels slung across them, some in short jackets, others in
little overcoats. Some even had those high boots with creases round the
ankles, such as little boys spoilt by rich fathers love to wear. The whole
group was talking eagerly about something, apparently holding a council.
Alyosha had never from his Moscow days been able to pass children without
taking notice of them, and although he was particularly fond of children
of three or thereabout, he liked schoolboys of ten and eleven too. And so,
anxious as he was to-day, he wanted at once to turn aside to talk to them.
He looked into their excited rosy faces, and noticed at once that all the
boys had stones in their hands. Behind the ditch some thirty paces away,
there was another schoolboy standing by a fence. He too had a satchel at
his side. He was about ten years old, pale, delicate-looking and with
sparkling black eyes. He kept an attentive and anxious watch on the other
six, obviously his schoolfellows with whom he had just come out of school,
but with whom he had evidently had a feud.

Alyosha went up and, addressing a fair, curly-headed, rosy boy in a black
jacket, observed:

"When I used to wear a satchel like yours, I always used to carry it on my
left side, so as to have my right hand free, but you've got yours on your
right side. So it will be awkward for you to get at it."

Alyosha had no art or premeditation in beginning with this practical
remark. But it is the only way for a grown-up person to get at once into
confidential relations with a child, or still more with a group of
children. One must begin in a serious, businesslike way so as to be on a
perfectly equal footing. Alyosha understood it by instinct.

"But he is left-handed," another, a fine healthy-looking boy of eleven,
answered promptly. All the others stared at Alyosha.

"He even throws stones with his left hand," observed a third.

At that instant a stone flew into the group, but only just grazed the
left-handed boy, though it was well and vigorously thrown by the boy
standing the other side of the ditch.

"Give it him, hit him back, Smurov," they all shouted. But Smurov, the
left-handed boy, needed no telling, and at once revenged himself; he threw
a stone, but it missed the boy and hit the ground. The boy the other side
of the ditch, the pocket of whose coat was visibly bulging with stones,
flung another stone at the group; this time it flew straight at Alyosha
and hit him painfully on the shoulder.

"He aimed it at you, he meant it for you. You are Karamazov, Karamazov!"
the boys shouted, laughing. "Come, all throw at him at once!" and six
stones flew at the boy. One struck the boy on the head and he fell down,
but at once leapt up and began ferociously returning their fire. Both
sides threw stones incessantly. Many of the group had their pockets full
too.

"What are you about! Aren't you ashamed? Six against one! Why, you'll kill
him," cried Alyosha.

He ran forward and met the flying stones to screen the solitary boy. Three
or four ceased throwing for a minute.

"He began first!" cried a boy in a red shirt in an angry childish voice.
"He is a beast, he stabbed Krassotkin in class the other day with a
penknife. It bled. Krassotkin wouldn't tell tales, but he must be
thrashed."

"But what for? I suppose you tease him."

"There, he sent a stone in your back again, he knows you," cried the
children. "It's you he is throwing at now, not us. Come, all of you, at
him again, don't miss, Smurov!" and again a fire of stones, and a very
vicious one, began. The boy the other side of the ditch was hit in the
chest; he screamed, began to cry and ran away uphill towards Mihailovsky
Street. They all shouted: "Aha, he is funking, he is running away. Wisp of
tow!"

"You don't know what a beast he is, Karamazov, killing is too good for
him," said the boy in the jacket, with flashing eyes. He seemed to be the
eldest.

"What's wrong with him?" asked Alyosha, "is he a tell-tale or what?"

The boys looked at one another as though derisively.

"Are you going that way, to Mihailovsky?" the same boy went on. "Catch him
up.... You see he's stopped again, he is waiting and looking at you."

"He is looking at you," the other boys chimed in.

"You ask him, does he like a disheveled wisp of tow. Do you hear, ask him
that!"

There was a general burst of laughter. Alyosha looked at them, and they at
him.

"Don't go near him, he'll hurt you," cried Smurov in a warning voice.

"I shan't ask him about the wisp of tow, for I expect you tease him with
that question somehow. But I'll find out from him why you hate him so."

"Find out then, find out," cried the boys, laughing.

Alyosha crossed the bridge and walked uphill by the fence, straight
towards the boy.

"You'd better look out," the boys called after him; "he won't be afraid of
you. He will stab you in a minute, on the sly, as he did Krassotkin."

The boy waited for him without budging. Coming up to him, Alyosha saw
facing him a child of about nine years old. He was an undersized weakly
boy with a thin pale face, with large dark eyes that gazed at him
vindictively. He was dressed in a rather shabby old overcoat, which he had
monstrously outgrown. His bare arms stuck out beyond his sleeves. There
was a large patch on the right knee of his trousers, and in his right boot
just at the toe there was a big hole in the leather, carefully blackened
with ink. Both the pockets of his great-coat were weighed down with
stones. Alyosha stopped two steps in front of him, looking inquiringly at
him. The boy, seeing at once from Alyosha's eyes that he wouldn't beat
him, became less defiant, and addressed him first.

"I am alone, and there are six of them. I'll beat them all, alone!" he
said suddenly, with flashing eyes.

"I think one of the stones must have hurt you badly," observed Alyosha.

"But I hit Smurov on the head!" cried the boy.

"They told me that you know me, and that you threw a stone at me on
purpose," said Alyosha.

The boy looked darkly at him.

"I don't know you. Do you know me?" Alyosha continued.

"Let me alone!" the boy cried irritably; but he did not move, as though he
were expecting something, and again there was a vindictive light in his
eyes.

"Very well, I am going," said Alyosha; "only I don't know you and I don't
tease you. They told me how they tease you, but I don't want to tease you.
Good-by!"

"Monk in silk trousers!" cried the boy, following Alyosha with the same
vindictive and defiant expression, and he threw himself into an attitude
of defense, feeling sure that now Alyosha would fall upon him; but Alyosha
turned, looked at him, and walked away. He had not gone three steps before
the biggest stone the boy had in his pocket hit him a painful blow in the
back.

"So you'll hit a man from behind! They tell the truth, then, when they say
that you attack on the sly," said Alyosha, turning round again. This time
the boy threw a stone savagely right into Alyosha's face; but Alyosha just
had time to guard himself, and the stone struck him on the elbow.

"Aren't you ashamed? What have I done to you?" he cried.

The boy waited in silent defiance, certain that now Alyosha would attack
him. Seeing that even now he would not, his rage was like a little wild
beast's; he flew at Alyosha himself, and before Alyosha had time to move,
the spiteful child had seized his left hand with both of his and bit his
middle finger. He fixed his teeth in it and it was ten seconds before he
let go. Alyosha cried out with pain and pulled his finger away with all
his might. The child let go at last and retreated to his former distance.
Alyosha's finger had been badly bitten to the bone, close to the nail; it
began to bleed. Alyosha took out his handkerchief and bound it tightly
round his injured hand. He was a full minute bandaging it. The boy stood
waiting all the time. At last Alyosha raised his gentle eyes and looked at
him.

"Very well," he said, "you see how badly you've bitten me. That's enough,
isn't it? Now tell me, what have I done to you?"

The boy stared in amazement.

"Though I don't know you and it's the first time I've seen you," Alyosha
went on with the same serenity, "yet I must have done something to you--you
wouldn't have hurt me like this for nothing. So what have I done? How have
I wronged you, tell me?"

Instead of answering, the boy broke into a loud tearful wail and ran away.
Alyosha walked slowly after him towards Mihailovsky Street, and for a long
time he saw the child running in the distance as fast as ever, not turning
his head, and no doubt still keeping up his tearful wail. He made up his
mind to find him out as soon as he had time, and to solve this mystery.
Just now he had not the time.




Chapter IV. At The Hohlakovs'


Alyosha soon reached Madame Hohlakov's house, a handsome stone house of
two stories, one of the finest in our town. Though Madame Hohlakov spent
most of her time in another province where she had an estate, or in
Moscow, where she had a house of her own, yet she had a house in our town
too, inherited from her forefathers. The estate in our district was the
largest of her three estates, yet she had been very little in our province
before this time. She ran out to Alyosha in the hall.

"Did you get my letter about the new miracle?" She spoke rapidly and
nervously.

"Yes."

"Did you show it to every one? He restored the son to his mother!"

"He is dying to-day," said Alyosha.

"I have heard, I know, oh, how I long to talk to you, to you or some one,
about all this. No, to you, to you! And how sorry I am I can't see him!
The whole town is in excitement, they are all suspense. But now--do you
know Katerina Ivanovna is here now?"

"Ah, that's lucky," cried Alyosha. "Then I shall see her here. She told me
yesterday to be sure to come and see her to-day."

"I know, I know all. I've heard exactly what happened yesterday--and the
atrocious behavior of that--creature. _C'est tragique_, and if I'd been in
her place I don't know what I should have done. And your brother Dmitri
Fyodorovitch, what do you think of him?--my goodness! Alexey Fyodorovitch,
I am forgetting, only fancy; your brother is in there with her, not that
dreadful brother who was so shocking yesterday, but the other, Ivan
Fyodorovitch, he is sitting with her talking; they are having a serious
conversation. If you could only imagine what's passing between them
now--it's awful, I tell you it's lacerating, it's like some incredible tale
of horror. They are ruining their lives for no reason any one can see.
They both recognize it and revel in it. I've been watching for you! I've
been thirsting for you! It's too much for me, that's the worst of it. I'll
tell you all about it presently, but now I must speak of something else,
the most important thing--I had quite forgotten what's most important. Tell
me, why has Lise been in hysterics? As soon as she heard you were here,
she began to be hysterical!"

"_Maman_, it's you who are hysterical now, not I," Lise's voice caroled
through a tiny crack of the door at the side. Her voice sounded as though
she wanted to laugh, but was doing her utmost to control it. Alyosha at
once noticed the crack, and no doubt Lise was peeping through it, but that
he could not see.

"And no wonder, Lise, no wonder ... your caprices will make me hysterical
too. But she is so ill, Alexey Fyodorovitch, she has been so ill all
night, feverish and moaning! I could hardly wait for the morning and for
Herzenstube to come. He says that he can make nothing of it, that we must
wait. Herzenstube always comes and says that he can make nothing of it. As
soon as you approached the house, she screamed, fell into hysterics, and
insisted on being wheeled back into this room here."

"Mamma, I didn't know he had come. It wasn't on his account I wanted to be
wheeled into this room."

"That's not true, Lise, Yulia ran to tell you that Alexey Fyodorovitch was
coming. She was on the look-out for you."

"My darling mamma, it's not at all clever of you. But if you want to make
up for it and say something very clever, dear mamma, you'd better tell our
honored visitor, Alexey Fyodorovitch, that he has shown his want of wit by
venturing to us after what happened yesterday and although every one is
laughing at him."

"Lise, you go too far. I declare I shall have to be severe. Who laughs at
him? I am so glad he has come, I need him, I can't do without him. Oh,
Alexey Fyodorovitch, I am exceedingly unhappy!"

"But what's the matter with you, mamma, darling?"

"Ah, your caprices, Lise, your fidgetiness, your illness, that awful night
of fever, that awful everlasting Herzenstube, everlasting, everlasting,
that's the worst of it! Everything, in fact, everything.... Even that
miracle, too! Oh, how it has upset me, how it has shattered me, that
miracle, dear Alexey Fyodorovitch! And that tragedy in the drawing-room,
it's more than I can bear, I warn you. I can't bear it. A comedy, perhaps,
not a tragedy. Tell me, will Father Zossima live till to-morrow, will he?
Oh, my God! What is happening to me? Every minute I close my eyes and see
that it's all nonsense, all nonsense."

"I should be very grateful," Alyosha interrupted suddenly, "if you could
give me a clean rag to bind up my finger with. I have hurt it, and it's
very painful."

Alyosha unbound his bitten finger. The handkerchief was soaked with blood.
Madame Hohlakov screamed and shut her eyes.

"Good heavens, what a wound, how awful!"

But as soon as Lise saw Alyosha's finger through the crack, she flung the
door wide open.

"Come, come here," she cried, imperiously. "No nonsense now! Good heavens,
why did you stand there saying nothing about it all this time? He might
have bled to death, mamma! How did you do it? Water, water! You must wash
it first of all, simply hold it in cold water to stop the pain, and keep
it there, keep it there.... Make haste, mamma, some water in a slop-basin.
But do make haste," she finished nervously. She was quite frightened at
the sight of Alyosha's wound.

"Shouldn't we send for Herzenstube?" cried Madame Hohlakov.

"Mamma, you'll be the death of me. Your Herzenstube will come and say that
he can make nothing of it! Water, water! Mamma, for goodness' sake go
yourself and hurry Yulia, she is such a slowcoach and never can come
quickly! Make haste, mamma, or I shall die."

"Why, it's nothing much," cried Alyosha, frightened at this alarm.

Yulia ran in with water and Alyosha put his finger in it.

"Some lint, mamma, for mercy's sake, bring some lint and that muddy
caustic lotion for wounds, what's it called? We've got some. You know
where the bottle is, mamma; it's in your bedroom in the right-hand
cupboard, there's a big bottle of it there with the lint."

"I'll bring everything in a minute, Lise, only don't scream and don't
fuss. You see how bravely Alexey Fyodorovitch bears it. Where did you get
such a dreadful wound, Alexey Fyodorovitch?"

Madame Hohlakov hastened away. This was all Lise was waiting for.

"First of all, answer the question, where did you get hurt like this?" she
asked Alyosha, quickly. "And then I'll talk to you about something quite
different. Well?"

Instinctively feeling that the time of her mother's absence was precious
for her, Alyosha hastened to tell her of his enigmatic meeting with the
schoolboys in the fewest words possible. Lise clasped her hands at his
story.

"How can you, and in that dress too, associate with schoolboys?" she cried
angrily, as though she had a right to control him. "You are nothing but a
boy yourself if you can do that, a perfect boy! But you must find out for
me about that horrid boy and tell me all about it, for there's some
mystery in it. Now for the second thing, but first a question: does the
pain prevent you talking about utterly unimportant things, but talking
sensibly?"

"Of course not, and I don't feel much pain now."

"That's because your finger is in the water. It must be changed directly,
for it will get warm in a minute. Yulia, bring some ice from the cellar
and another basin of water. Now she is gone, I can speak; will you give me
the letter I sent you yesterday, dear Alexey Fyodorovitch--be quick, for
mamma will be back in a minute and I don't want--"

"I haven't got the letter."

"That's not true, you have. I knew you would say that. You've got it in
that pocket. I've been regretting that joke all night. Give me back the
letter at once, give it me."

"I've left it at home."

"But you can't consider me as a child, a little girl, after that silly
joke! I beg your pardon for that silliness, but you must bring me the
letter, if you really haven't got it--bring it to-day, you must, you must."

"To-day I can't possibly, for I am going back to the monastery and I
shan't come and see you for the next two days--three or four perhaps--for
Father Zossima--"

"Four days, what nonsense! Listen. Did you laugh at me very much?"

"I didn't laugh at all."

"Why not?"

"Because I believed all you said."

"You are insulting me!"

"Not at all. As soon as I read it, I thought that all that would come to
pass, for as soon as Father Zossima dies, I am to leave the monastery.
Then I shall go back and finish my studies, and when you reach the legal
age we will be married. I shall love you. Though I haven't had time to
think about it, I believe I couldn't find a better wife than you, and
Father Zossima tells me I must marry."

"But I am a cripple, wheeled about in a chair," laughed Lise, flushing
crimson.

"I'll wheel you about myself, but I'm sure you'll get well by then."

"But you are mad," said Lise, nervously, "to make all this nonsense out of
a joke! Here's mamma, very _a propos_, perhaps. Mamma, how slow you always
are, how can you be so long! And here's Yulia with the ice!"

"Oh, Lise, don't scream, above all things don't scream. That scream drives
me ... How can I help it when you put the lint in another place? I've been
hunting and hunting--I do believe you did it on purpose."

"But I couldn't tell that he would come with a bad finger, or else perhaps
I might have done it on purpose. My darling mamma, you begin to say really
witty things."

"Never mind my being witty, but I must say you show nice feeling for
Alexey Fyodorovitch's sufferings! Oh, my dear Alexey Fyodorovitch, what's
killing me is no one thing in particular, not Herzenstube, but everything
together, that's what is too much for me."

"That's enough, mamma, enough about Herzenstube," Lise laughed gayly.
"Make haste with the lint and the lotion, mamma. That's simply Goulard's
water, Alexey Fyodorovitch, I remember the name now, but it's a splendid
lotion. Would you believe it, mamma, on the way here he had a fight with
the boys in the street, and it was a boy bit his finger, isn't he a child,
a child himself? Is he fit to be married after that? For only fancy, he
wants to be married, mamma. Just think of him married, wouldn't it be
funny, wouldn't it be awful?"

And Lise kept laughing her thin hysterical giggle, looking slyly at
Alyosha.

"But why married, Lise? What makes you talk of such a thing? It's quite
out of place--and perhaps the boy was rabid."

"Why, mamma! As though there were rabid boys!"

"Why not, Lise, as though I had said something stupid! Your boy might have
been bitten by a mad dog and he would become mad and bite any one near
him. How well she has bandaged it, Alexey Fyodorovitch! I couldn't have
done it. Do you still feel the pain?"

"It's nothing much now."

"You don't feel afraid of water?" asked Lise.

"Come, that's enough, Lise, perhaps I really was rather too quick talking
of the boy being rabid, and you pounced upon it at once Katerina Ivanovna
has only just heard that you are here, Alexey Fyodorovitch, she simply
rushed at me, she's dying to see you, dying!"

"Ach, mamma, go to them yourself. He can't go just now, he is in too much
pain."

"Not at all, I can go quite well," said Alyosha.

"What! You are going away? Is that what you say?"

"Well, when I've seen them, I'll come back here and we can talk as much as
you like. But I should like to see Katerina Ivanovna at once, for I am
very anxious to be back at the monastery as soon as I can."

"Mamma, take him away quickly. Alexey Fyodorovitch, don't trouble to come
and see me afterwards, but go straight back to your monastery and a good
riddance. I want to sleep, I didn't sleep all night."

"Ah, Lise, you are only making fun, but how I wish you would sleep!" cried
Madame Hohlakov.

"I don't know what I've done.... I'll stay another three minutes, five if
you like," muttered Alyosha.

"Even five! Do take him away quickly, mamma, he is a monster."

"Lise, you are crazy. Let us go, Alexey Fyodorovitch, she is too
capricious to-day. I am afraid to cross her. Oh, the trouble one has with
nervous girls! Perhaps she really will be able to sleep after seeing you.
How quickly you have made her sleepy, and how fortunate it is!"

"Ah, mamma, how sweetly you talk! I must kiss you for it, mamma."

"And I kiss you too, Lise. Listen, Alexey Fyodorovitch," Madame Hohlakov
began mysteriously and importantly, speaking in a rapid whisper. "I don't
want to suggest anything, I don't want to lift the veil, you will see for
yourself what's going on. It's appalling. It's the most fantastic farce.
She loves your brother, Ivan, and she is doing her utmost to persuade
herself she loves your brother, Dmitri. It's appalling! I'll go in with
you, and if they don't turn me out, I'll stay to the end."




Chapter V. A Laceration In The Drawing-Room


But in the drawing-room the conversation was already over. Katerina
Ivanovna was greatly excited, though she looked resolute. At the moment
Alyosha and Madame Hohlakov entered, Ivan Fyodorovitch stood up to take
leave. His face was rather pale, and Alyosha looked at him anxiously. For
this moment was to solve a doubt, a harassing enigma which had for some
time haunted Alyosha. During the preceding month it had been several times
suggested to him that his brother Ivan was in love with Katerina Ivanovna,
and, what was more, that he meant "to carry her off" from Dmitri. Until
quite lately the idea seemed to Alyosha monstrous, though it worried him
extremely. He loved both his brothers, and dreaded such rivalry between
them. Meantime, Dmitri had said outright on the previous day that he was
glad that Ivan was his rival, and that it was a great assistance to him,
Dmitri. In what way did it assist him? To marry Grushenka? But that
Alyosha considered the worst thing possible. Besides all this, Alyosha had
till the evening before implicitly believed that Katerina Ivanovna had a
steadfast and passionate love for Dmitri; but he had only believed it till
the evening before. He had fancied, too, that she was incapable of loving
a man like Ivan, and that she did love Dmitri, and loved him just as he
was, in spite of all the strangeness of such a passion.

But during yesterday's scene with Grushenka another idea had struck him.
The word "lacerating," which Madame Hohlakov had just uttered, almost made
him start, because half waking up towards daybreak that night he had cried
out "Laceration, laceration," probably applying it to his dream. He had
been dreaming all night of the previous day's scene at Katerina
Ivanovna's. Now Alyosha was impressed by Madame Hohlakov's blunt and
persistent assertion that Katerina Ivanovna was in love with Ivan, and
only deceived herself through some sort of pose, from "self-laceration,"
and tortured herself by her pretended love for Dmitri from some fancied
duty of gratitude. "Yes," he thought, "perhaps the whole truth lies in
those words." But in that case what was Ivan's position? Alyosha felt
instinctively that a character like Katerina Ivanovna's must dominate, and
she could only dominate some one like Dmitri, and never a man like Ivan.
For Dmitri might at last submit to her domination "to his own happiness"
(which was what Alyosha would have desired), but Ivan--no, Ivan could not
submit to her, and such submission would not give him happiness. Alyosha
could not help believing that of Ivan. And now all these doubts and
reflections flitted through his mind as he entered the drawing-room.
Another idea, too, forced itself upon him: "What if she loved neither of
them--neither Ivan nor Dmitri?"

It must be noted that Alyosha felt as it were ashamed of his own thoughts
and blamed himself when they kept recurring to him during the last month.
"What do I know about love and women and how can I decide such questions?"
he thought reproachfully, after such doubts and surmises. And yet it was
impossible not to think about it. He felt instinctively that this rivalry
was of immense importance in his brothers' lives and that a great deal
depended upon it.

"One reptile will devour the other," Ivan had pronounced the day before,
speaking in anger of his father and Dmitri. So Ivan looked upon Dmitri as
a reptile, and perhaps had long done so. Was it perhaps since he had known
Katerina Ivanovna? That phrase had, of course, escaped Ivan unawares
yesterday, but that only made it more important. If he felt like that,
what chance was there of peace? Were there not, on the contrary, new
grounds for hatred and hostility in their family? And with which of them
was Alyosha to sympathize? And what was he to wish for each of them? He
loved them both, but what could he desire for each in the midst of these
conflicting interests? He might go quite astray in this maze, and
Alyosha's heart could not endure uncertainty, because his love was always
of an active character. He was incapable of passive love. If he loved any
one, he set to work at once to help him. And to do so he must know what he
was aiming at; he must know for certain what was best for each, and having
ascertained this it was natural for him to help them both. But instead of
a definite aim, he found nothing but uncertainty and perplexity on all
sides. "It was lacerating," as was said just now. But what could he
understand even in this "laceration"? He did not understand the first word
in this perplexing maze.

Seeing Alyosha, Katerina Ivanovna said quickly and joyfully to Ivan, who
had already got up to go, "A minute! Stay another minute! I want to hear
the opinion of this person here whom I trust absolutely. Don't go away,"
she added, addressing Madame Hohlakov. She made Alyosha sit down beside
her, and Madame Hohlakov sat opposite, by Ivan.

"You are all my friends here, all I have in the world, my dear friends,"
she began warmly, in a voice which quivered with genuine tears of
suffering, and Alyosha's heart warmed to her at once. "You, Alexey
Fyodorovitch, were witness yesterday of that abominable scene, and saw
what I did. You did not see it, Ivan Fyodorovitch, he did. What he thought
of me yesterday I don't know. I only know one thing, that if it were
repeated to-day, this minute, I should express the same feelings again as
yesterday--the same feelings, the same words, the same actions. You
remember my actions, Alexey Fyodorovitch; you checked me in one of them"
... (as she said that, she flushed and her eyes shone). "I must tell you
that I can't get over it. Listen, Alexey Fyodorovitch. I don't even know
whether I still love _him_. I feel _pity_ for him, and that is a poor sign
of love. If I loved him, if I still loved him, perhaps I shouldn't be
sorry for him now, but should hate him."

Her voice quivered, and tears glittered on her eyelashes. Alyosha
shuddered inwardly. "That girl is truthful and sincere," he thought, "and
she does not love Dmitri any more."

"That's true, that's true," cried Madame Hohlakov.

"Wait, dear. I haven't told you the chief, the final decision I came to
during the night. I feel that perhaps my decision is a terrible one--for
me, but I foresee that nothing will induce me to change it--nothing. It
will be so all my life. My dear, kind, ever-faithful and generous adviser,
the one friend I have in the world, Ivan Fyodorovitch, with his deep
insight into the heart, approves and commends my decision. He knows it."

"Yes, I approve of it," Ivan assented, in a subdued but firm voice.

"But I should like Alyosha, too (Ah! Alexey Fyodorovitch, forgive my
calling you simply Alyosha), I should like Alexey Fyodorovitch, too, to
tell me before my two friends whether I am right. I feel instinctively
that you, Alyosha, my dear brother (for you are a dear brother to me),"
she said again ecstatically, taking his cold hand in her hot one, "I
foresee that your decision, your approval, will bring me peace, in spite
of all my sufferings, for, after your words, I shall be calm and submit--I
feel that."

"I don't know what you are asking me," said Alyosha, flushing. "I only
know that I love you and at this moment wish for your happiness more than
my own!... But I know nothing about such affairs," something impelled him
to add hurriedly.

"In such affairs, Alexey Fyodorovitch, in such affairs, the chief thing is
honor and duty and something higher--I don't know what--but higher perhaps
even than duty. I am conscious of this irresistible feeling in my heart,
and it compels me irresistibly. But it may all be put in two words. I've
already decided, even if he marries that--creature," she began solemnly,
"whom I never, never can forgive, _even then I will not abandon him_.
Henceforward I will never, never abandon him!" she cried, breaking into a
sort of pale, hysterical ecstasy. "Not that I would run after him
continually, get in his way and worry him. Oh, no! I will go away to
another town--where you like--but I will watch over him all my life--I will
watch over him all my life unceasingly. When he becomes unhappy with that
woman, and that is bound to happen quite soon, let him come to me and he
will find a friend, a sister.... Only a sister, of course, and so for
ever; but he will learn at least that that sister is really his sister,
who loves him and has sacrificed all her life to him. I will gain my
point. I will insist on his knowing me and confiding entirely in me,
without reserve," she cried, in a sort of frenzy. "I will be a god to whom
he can pray--and that, at least, he owes me for his treachery and for what
I suffered yesterday through him. And let him see that all my life I will
be true to him and the promise I gave him, in spite of his being untrue
and betraying me. I will--I will become nothing but a means for his
happiness, or--how shall I say?--an instrument, a machine for his happiness,
and that for my whole life, my whole life, and that he may see that all
his life! That's my decision. Ivan Fyodorovitch fully approves me."

She was breathless. She had perhaps intended to express her idea with more
dignity, art and naturalness, but her speech was too hurried and crude. It
was full of youthful impulsiveness, it betrayed that she was still
smarting from yesterday's insult, and that her pride craved satisfaction.
She felt this herself. Her face suddenly darkened, an unpleasant look came
into her eyes. Alyosha at once saw it and felt a pang of sympathy. His
brother Ivan made it worse by adding:

"I've only expressed my own view," he said. "From any one else, this would
have been affected and overstrained, but from you--no. Any other woman
would have been wrong, but you are right. I don't know how to explain it,
but I see that you are absolutely genuine and, therefore, you are right."

"But that's only for the moment. And what does this moment stand for?
Nothing but yesterday's insult." Madame Hohlakov obviously had not
intended to interfere, but she could not refrain from this very just
comment.

"Quite so, quite so," cried Ivan, with peculiar eagerness, obviously
annoyed at being interrupted, "in any one else this moment would be only
due to yesterday's impression and would be only a moment. But with
Katerina Ivanovna's character, that moment will last all her life. What
for any one else would be only a promise is for her an everlasting
burdensome, grim perhaps, but unflagging duty. And she will be sustained
by the feeling of this duty being fulfilled. Your life, Katerina Ivanovna,
will henceforth be spent in painful brooding over your own feelings, your
own heroism, and your own suffering; but in the end that suffering will be
softened and will pass into sweet contemplation of the fulfillment of a
bold and proud design. Yes, proud it certainly is, and desperate in any
case, but a triumph for you. And the consciousness of it will at last be a
source of complete satisfaction and will make you resigned to everything
else."

This was unmistakably said with some malice and obviously with intention;
even perhaps with no desire to conceal that he spoke ironically and with
intention.

"Oh, dear, how mistaken it all is!" Madame Hohlakov cried again.

"Alexey Fyodorovitch, you speak. I want dreadfully to know what you will
say!" cried Katerina Ivanovna, and burst into tears. Alyosha got up from
the sofa.

"It's nothing, nothing!" she went on through her tears. "I'm upset, I
didn't sleep last night. But by the side of two such friends as you and
your brother I still feel strong--for I know--you two will never desert me."

"Unluckily I am obliged to return to Moscow--perhaps to-morrow--and to leave
you for a long time--And, unluckily, it's unavoidable," Ivan said suddenly.

"To-morrow--to Moscow!" her face was suddenly contorted; "but--but, dear me,
how fortunate!" she cried in a voice suddenly changed. In one instant
there was no trace left of her tears. She underwent an instantaneous
transformation, which amazed Alyosha. Instead of a poor, insulted girl,
weeping in a sort of "laceration," he saw a woman completely self-
possessed and even exceedingly pleased, as though something agreeable had
just happened.

"Oh, not fortunate that I am losing you, of course not," she corrected
herself suddenly, with a charming society smile. "Such a friend as you are
could not suppose that. I am only too unhappy at losing you." She rushed
impulsively at Ivan, and seizing both his hands, pressed them warmly. "But
what is fortunate is that you will be able in Moscow to see auntie and
Agafya and to tell them all the horror of my present position. You can
speak with complete openness to Agafya, but spare dear auntie. You will
know how to do that. You can't think how wretched I was yesterday and this
morning, wondering how I could write them that dreadful letter--for one can
never tell such things in a letter.... Now it will be easy for me to
write, for you will see them and explain everything. Oh, how glad I am!
But I am only glad of that, believe me. Of course, no one can take your
place.... I will run at once to write the letter," she finished suddenly,
and took a step as though to go out of the room.

"And what about Alyosha and his opinion, which you were so desperately
anxious to hear?" cried Madame Hohlakov. There was a sarcastic, angry note
in her voice.

"I had not forgotten that," cried Katerina Ivanovna, coming to a sudden
standstill, "and why are you so antagonistic at such a moment?" she added,
with warm and bitter reproachfulness. "What I said, I repeat. I must have
his opinion. More than that, I must have his decision! As he says, so it
shall be. You see how anxious I am for your words, Alexey Fyodorovitch....
But what's the matter?"

"I couldn't have believed it. I can't understand it!" Alyosha cried
suddenly in distress.

"What? What?"

"He is going to Moscow, and you cry out that you are glad. You said that
on purpose! And you begin explaining that you are not glad of that but
sorry to be--losing a friend. But that was acting, too--you were playing a
part--as in a theater!"

"In a theater? What? What do you mean?" exclaimed Katerina Ivanovna,
profoundly astonished, flushing crimson, and frowning.

"Though you assure him you are sorry to lose a friend in him, you persist
in telling him to his face that it's fortunate he is going," said Alyosha
breathlessly. He was standing at the table and did not sit down.

"What are you talking about? I don't understand."

"I don't understand myself.... I seemed to see in a flash ... I know I am
not saying it properly, but I'll say it all the same," Alyosha went on in
the same shaking and broken voice. "What I see is that perhaps you don't
love Dmitri at all ... and never have, from the beginning.... And Dmitri,
too, has never loved you ... and only esteems you.... I really don't know
how I dare to say all this, but somebody must tell the truth ... for
nobody here will tell the truth."

"What truth?" cried Katerina Ivanovna, and there was an hysterical ring in
her voice.

"I'll tell you," Alyosha went on with desperate haste, as though he were
jumping from the top of a house. "Call Dmitri; I will fetch him--and let
him come here and take your hand and take Ivan's and join your hands. For
you're torturing Ivan, simply because you love him--and torturing him,
because you love Dmitri through 'self-laceration'--with an unreal
love--because you've persuaded yourself."

Alyosha broke off and was silent.

"You ... you ... you are a little religious idiot--that's what you are!"
Katerina Ivanovna snapped. Her face was white and her lips were moving
with anger.

Ivan suddenly laughed and got up. His hat was in his hand.

"You are mistaken, my good Alyosha," he said, with an expression Alyosha
had never seen in his face before--an expression of youthful sincerity and
strong, irresistibly frank feeling. "Katerina Ivanovna has never cared for
me! She has known all the time that I cared for her--though I never said a
word of my love to her--she knew, but she didn't care for me. I have never
been her friend either, not for one moment; she is too proud to need my
friendship. She kept me at her side as a means of revenge. She revenged
with me and on me all the insults which she has been continually receiving
from Dmitri ever since their first meeting. For even that first meeting
has rankled in her heart as an insult--that's what her heart is like! She
has talked to me of nothing but her love for him. I am going now; but,
believe me, Katerina Ivanovna, you really love him. And the more he
insults you, the more you love him--that's your 'laceration.' You love him
just as he is; you love him for insulting you. If he reformed, you'd give
him up at once and cease to love him. But you need him so as to
contemplate continually your heroic fidelity and to reproach him for
infidelity. And it all comes from your pride. Oh, there's a great deal of
humiliation and self-abasement about it, but it all comes from pride.... I
am too young and I've loved you too much. I know that I ought not to say
this, that it would be more dignified on my part simply to leave you, and
it would be less offensive for you. But I am going far away, and shall
never come back.... It is for ever. I don't want to sit beside a
'laceration.'... But I don't know how to speak now. I've said
everything.... Good-by, Katerina Ivanovna; you can't be angry with me, for
I am a hundred times more severely punished than you, if only by the fact
that I shall never see you again. Good-by! I don't want your hand. You
have tortured me too deliberately for me to be able to forgive you at this
moment. I shall forgive you later, but now I don't want your hand. 'Den
Dank, Dame, begehr ich nicht,' " he added, with a forced smile, showing,
however, that he could read Schiller, and read him till he knew him by
heart--which Alyosha would never have believed. He went out of the room
without saying good-by even to his hostess, Madame Hohlakov. Alyosha
clasped his hands.

"Ivan!" he cried desperately after him. "Come back, Ivan! No, nothing will
induce him to come back now!" he cried again, regretfully realizing it;
"but it's my fault, my fault. I began it! Ivan spoke angrily, wrongly.
Unjustly and angrily. He must come back here, come back," Alyosha kept
exclaiming frantically.

Katerina Ivanovna went suddenly into the next room.

"You have done no harm. You behaved beautifully, like an angel," Madame
Hohlakov whispered rapidly and ecstatically to Alyosha. "I will do my
utmost to prevent Ivan Fyodorovitch from going."

Her face beamed with delight, to the great distress of Alyosha, but
Katerina Ivanovna suddenly returned. She had two hundred-rouble notes in
her hand.

"I have a great favor to ask of you, Alexey Fyodorovitch," she began,
addressing Alyosha with an apparently calm and even voice, as though
nothing had happened. "A week--yes, I think it was a week ago--Dmitri
Fyodorovitch was guilty of a hasty and unjust action--a very ugly action.
There is a low tavern here, and in it he met that discharged officer, that
captain, whom your father used to employ in some business. Dmitri
Fyodorovitch somehow lost his temper with this captain, seized him by the
beard and dragged him out into the street and for some distance along it,
in that insulting fashion. And I am told that his son, a boy, quite a
child, who is at the school here, saw it and ran beside them crying and
begging for his father, appealing to every one to defend him, while every
one laughed. You must forgive me, Alexey Fyodorovitch, I cannot think
without indignation of that disgraceful action of _his_ ... one of those
actions of which only Dmitri Fyodorovitch would be capable in his anger
... and in his passions! I can't describe it even.... I can't find my
words. I've made inquiries about his victim, and find he is quite a poor
man. His name is Snegiryov. He did something wrong in the army and was
discharged. I can't tell you what. And now he has sunk into terrible
destitution, with his family--an unhappy family of sick children, and, I
believe, an insane wife. He has been living here a long time; he used to
work as a copying clerk, but now he is getting nothing. I thought if you
... that is I thought ... I don't know. I am so confused. You see, I
wanted to ask you, my dear Alexey Fyodorovitch, to go to him, to find some
excuse to go to them--I mean to that captain--oh, goodness, how badly I
explain it!--and delicately, carefully, as only you know how to" (Alyosha
blushed), "manage to give him this assistance, these two hundred roubles.
He will be sure to take it.... I mean, persuade him to take it.... Or,
rather, what do I mean? You see it's not by way of compensation to prevent
him from taking proceedings (for I believe he meant to), but simply a
token of sympathy, of a desire to assist him from me, Dmitri
Fyodorovitch's betrothed, not from himself.... But you know.... I would go
myself, but you'll know how to do it ever so much better. He lives in Lake
Street, in the house of a woman called Kalmikov.... For God's sake, Alexey
Fyodorovitch, do it for me, and now ... now I am rather ... tired. Good-
by!"

She turned and disappeared behind the portiere so quickly that Alyosha had
not time to utter a word, though he wanted to speak. He longed to beg her
pardon, to blame himself, to say something, for his heart was full and he
could not bear to go out of the room without it. But Madame Hohlakov took
him by the hand and drew him along with her. In the hall she stopped him
again as before.

"She is proud, she is struggling with herself; but kind, charming,
generous," she exclaimed, in a half-whisper. "Oh, how I love her,
especially sometimes, and how glad I am again of everything! Dear Alexey
Fyodorovitch, you didn't know, but I must tell you, that we all, all--both
her aunts, I and all of us, Lise, even--have been hoping and praying for
nothing for the last month but that she may give up your favorite Dmitri,
who takes no notice of her and does not care for her, and may marry Ivan
Fyodorovitch--such an excellent and cultivated young man, who loves her
more than anything in the world. We are in a regular plot to bring it
about, and I am even staying on here perhaps on that account."

"But she has been crying--she has been wounded again," cried Alyosha.

"Never trust a woman's tears, Alexey Fyodorovitch. I am never for the
women in such cases. I am always on the side of the men."

"Mamma, you are spoiling him," Lise's little voice cried from behind the
door.

"No, it was all my fault. I am horribly to blame," Alyosha repeated
unconsoled, hiding his face in his hands in an agony of remorse for his
indiscretion.

"Quite the contrary; you behaved like an angel, like an angel. I am ready
to say so a thousand times over."

"Mamma, how has he behaved like an angel?" Lise's voice was heard again.

"I somehow fancied all at once," Alyosha went on as though he had not
heard Lise, "that she loved Ivan, and so I said that stupid thing.... What
will happen now?"

"To whom, to whom?" cried Lise. "Mamma, you really want to be the death of
me. I ask you and you don't answer."

At the moment the maid ran in.

"Katerina Ivanovna is ill.... She is crying, struggling ... hysterics."

"What is the matter?" cried Lise, in a tone of real anxiety. "Mamma, I
shall be having hysterics, and not she!"

"Lise, for mercy's sake, don't scream, don't persecute me. At your age one
can't know everything that grown-up people know. I'll come and tell you
everything you ought to know. Oh, mercy on us! I am coming, I am
coming.... Hysterics is a good sign, Alexey Fyodorovitch; it's an
excellent thing that she is hysterical. That's just as it ought to be. In
such cases I am always against the woman, against all these feminine tears
and hysterics. Run and say, Yulia, that I'll fly to her. As for Ivan
Fyodorovitch's going away like that, it's her own fault. But he won't go
away. Lise, for mercy's sake, don't scream! Oh, yes; you are not
screaming. It's I am screaming. Forgive your mamma; but I am delighted,
delighted, delighted! Did you notice, Alexey Fyodorovitch, how young, how
young Ivan Fyodorovitch was just now when he went out, when he said all
that and went out? I thought he was so learned, such a _savant_, and all
of a sudden he behaved so warmly, openly, and youthfully, with such
youthful inexperience, and it was all so fine, like you.... And the way he
repeated that German verse, it was just like you! But I must fly, I must
fly! Alexey Fyodorovitch, make haste to carry out her commission, and then
make haste back. Lise, do you want anything now? For mercy's sake, don't
keep Alexey Fyodorovitch a minute. He will come back to you at once."

Madame Hohlakov at last ran off. Before leaving, Alyosha would have opened
the door to see Lise.

"On no account," cried Lise. "On no account now. Speak through the door.
How have you come to be an angel? That's the only thing I want to know."

"For an awful piece of stupidity, Lise! Good-by!"

"Don't dare to go away like that!" Lise was beginning.

"Lise, I have a real sorrow! I'll be back directly, but I have a great,
great sorrow!"

And he ran out of the room.




Chapter VI. A Laceration In The Cottage


He certainly was really grieved in a way he had seldom been before. He had
rushed in like a fool, and meddled in what? In a love-affair. "But what do
I know about it? What can I tell about such things?" he repeated to
himself for the hundredth time, flushing crimson. "Oh, being ashamed would
be nothing; shame is only the punishment I deserve. The trouble is I shall
certainly have caused more unhappiness.... And Father Zossima sent me to
reconcile and bring them together. Is this the way to bring them
together?" Then he suddenly remembered how he had tried to join their
hands, and he felt fearfully ashamed again. "Though I acted quite
sincerely, I must be more sensible in the future," he concluded suddenly,
and did not even smile at his conclusion.

Katerina Ivanovna's commission took him to Lake Street, and his brother
Dmitri lived close by, in a turning out of Lake Street. Alyosha decided to
go to him in any case before going to the captain, though he had a
presentiment that he would not find his brother. He suspected that he
would intentionally keep out of his way now, but he must find him anyhow.
Time was passing: the thought of his dying elder had not left Alyosha for
one minute from the time he set off from the monastery.

There was one point which interested him particularly about Katerina
Ivanovna's commission; when she had mentioned the captain's son, the
little schoolboy who had run beside his father crying, the idea had at
once struck Alyosha that this must be the schoolboy who had bitten his
finger when he, Alyosha, asked him what he had done to hurt him. Now
Alyosha felt practically certain of this, though he could not have said
why. Thinking of another subject was a relief, and he resolved to think no
more about the "mischief" he had done, and not to torture himself with
remorse, but to do what he had to do, let come what would. At that thought
he was completely comforted. Turning to the street where Dmitri lodged, he
felt hungry, and taking out of his pocket the roll he had brought from his
father's, he ate it. It made him feel stronger.

Dmitri was not at home. The people of the house, an old cabinet-maker, his
son, and his old wife, looked with positive suspicion at Alyosha. "He
hasn't slept here for the last three nights. Maybe he has gone away," the
old man said in answer to Alyosha's persistent inquiries. Alyosha saw that
he was answering in accordance with instructions. When he asked whether he
were not at Grushenka's or in hiding at Foma's (Alyosha spoke so freely on
purpose), all three looked at him in alarm. "They are fond of him, they
are doing their best for him," thought Alyosha. "That's good."

At last he found the house in Lake Street. It was a decrepit little house,
sunk on one side, with three windows looking into the street, and with a
muddy yard, in the middle of which stood a solitary cow. He crossed the
yard and found the door opening into the passage. On the left of the
passage lived the old woman of the house with her old daughter. Both
seemed to be deaf. In answer to his repeated inquiry for the captain, one
of them at last understood that he was asking for their lodgers, and
pointed to a door across the passage. The captain's lodging turned out to
be a simple cottage room. Alyosha had his hand on the iron latch to open
the door, when he was struck by the strange hush within. Yet he knew from
Katerina Ivanovna's words that the man had a family. "Either they are all
asleep or perhaps they have heard me coming and are waiting for me to open
the door. I'd better knock first," and he knocked. An answer came, but not
at once, after an interval of perhaps ten seconds.

"Who's there?" shouted some one in a loud and very angry voice.

Then Alyosha opened the door and crossed the threshold. He found himself
in a regular peasant's room. Though it was large, it was cumbered up with
domestic belongings of all sorts, and there were several people in it. On
the left was a large Russian stove. From the stove to the window on the
left was a string running across the room, and on it there were rags
hanging. There was a bedstead against the wall on each side, right and
left, covered with knitted quilts. On the one on the left was a pyramid of
four print-covered pillows, each smaller than the one beneath. On the
other there was only one very small pillow. The opposite corner was
screened off by a curtain or a sheet hung on a string. Behind this curtain
could be seen a bed made up on a bench and a chair. The rough square table
of plain wood had been moved into the middle window. The three windows,
which consisted each of four tiny greenish mildewy panes, gave little
light, and were close shut, so that the room was not very light and rather
stuffy. On the table was a frying-pan with the remains of some fried eggs,
a half-eaten piece of bread, and a small bottle with a few drops of vodka.

A woman of genteel appearance, wearing a cotton gown, was sitting on a
chair by the bed on the left. Her face was thin and yellow, and her sunken
cheeks betrayed at the first glance that she was ill. But what struck
Alyosha most was the expression in the poor woman's eyes--a look of
surprised inquiry and yet of haughty pride. And while he was talking to
her husband, her big brown eyes moved from one speaker to the other with
the same haughty and questioning expression. Beside her at the window
stood a young girl, rather plain, with scanty reddish hair, poorly but
very neatly dressed. She looked disdainfully at Alyosha as he came in.
Beside the other bed was sitting another female figure. She was a very sad
sight, a young girl of about twenty, but hunchback and crippled "with
withered legs," as Alyosha was told afterwards. Her crutches stood in the
corner close by. The strikingly beautiful and gentle eyes of this poor
girl looked with mild serenity at Alyosha. A man of forty-five was sitting
at the table, finishing the fried eggs. He was spare, small and weakly
built. He had reddish hair and a scanty light-colored beard, very much
like a wisp of tow (this comparison and the phrase "a wisp of tow" flashed
at once into Alyosha's mind for some reason, he remembered it afterwards).
It was obviously this gentleman who had shouted to him, as there was no
other man in the room. But when Alyosha went in, he leapt up from the
bench on which he was sitting, and, hastily wiping his mouth with a ragged
napkin, darted up to Alyosha.

"It's a monk come to beg for the monastery. A nice place to come to!" the
girl standing in the left corner said aloud. The man spun round instantly
towards her and answered her in an excited and breaking voice:

"No, Varvara, you are wrong. Allow me to ask," he turned again to Alyosha,
"what has brought you to--our retreat?"

Alyosha looked attentively at him. It was the first time he had seen him.
There was something angular, flurried and irritable about him. Though he
had obviously just been drinking, he was not drunk. There was
extraordinary impudence in his expression, and yet, strange to say, at the
same time there was fear. He looked like a man who had long been kept in
subjection and had submitted to it, and now had suddenly turned and was
trying to assert himself. Or, better still, like a man who wants
dreadfully to hit you but is horribly afraid you will hit him. In his
words and in the intonation of his shrill voice there was a sort of crazy
humor, at times spiteful and at times cringing, and continually shifting
from one tone to another. The question about "our retreat" he had asked as
it were quivering all over, rolling his eyes, and skipping up so close to
Alyosha that he instinctively drew back a step. He was dressed in a very
shabby dark cotton coat, patched and spotted. He wore checked trousers of
an extremely light color, long out of fashion, and of very thin material.
They were so crumpled and so short that he looked as though he had grown
out of them like a boy.

"I am Alexey Karamazov," Alyosha began in reply.

"I quite understand that, sir," the gentleman snapped out at once to
assure him that he knew who he was already. "I am Captain Snegiryov, sir,
but I am still desirous to know precisely what has led you--"

"Oh, I've come for nothing special. I wanted to have a word with you--if
only you allow me."

"In that case, here is a chair, sir; kindly be seated. That's what they
used to say in the old comedies, 'kindly be seated,' " and with a rapid
gesture he seized an empty chair (it was a rough wooden chair, not
upholstered) and set it for him almost in the middle of the room; then,
taking another similar chair for himself, he sat down facing Alyosha, so
close to him that their knees almost touched.

"Nikolay Ilyitch Snegiryov, sir, formerly a captain in the Russian
infantry, put to shame for his vices, but still a captain. Though I might
not be one now for the way I talk; for the last half of my life I've
learnt to say 'sir.' It's a word you use when you've come down in the
world."

"That's very true," smiled Alyosha. "But is it used involuntarily or on
purpose?"

"As God's above, it's involuntary, and I usen't to use it! I didn't use
the word 'sir' all my life, but as soon as I sank into low water I began
to say 'sir.' It's the work of a higher power. I see you are interested in
contemporary questions, but how can I have excited your curiosity, living
as I do in surroundings impossible for the exercise of hospitality?"

"I've come--about that business."

"About what business?" the captain interrupted impatiently.

"About your meeting with my brother Dmitri Fyodorovitch," Alyosha blurted
out awkwardly.

"What meeting, sir? You don't mean that meeting? About my 'wisp of tow,'
then?" He moved closer so that his knees positively knocked against
Alyosha. His lips were strangely compressed like a thread.

"What wisp of tow?" muttered Alyosha.

"He is come to complain of me, father!" cried a voice familiar to
Alyosha--the voice of the schoolboy--from behind the curtain. "I bit his
finger just now." The curtain was pulled, and Alyosha saw his assailant
lying on a little bed made up on the bench and the chair in the corner
under the ikons. The boy lay covered by his coat and an old wadded quilt.
He was evidently unwell, and, judging by his glittering eyes, he was in a
fever. He looked at Alyosha without fear, as though he felt he was at home
and could not be touched.

"What! Did he bite your finger?" The captain jumped up from his chair.
"Was it your finger he bit?"

"Yes. He was throwing stones with other schoolboys. There were six of them
against him alone. I went up to him, and he threw a stone at me and then
another at my head. I asked him what I had done to him. And then he rushed
at me and bit my finger badly, I don't know why."

"I'll thrash him, sir, at once--this minute!" The captain jumped up from
his seat.

"But I am not complaining at all, I am simply telling you ... I don't want
him to be thrashed. Besides, he seems to be ill."

"And do you suppose I'd thrash him? That I'd take my Ilusha and thrash him
before you for your satisfaction? Would you like it done at once, sir?"
said the captain, suddenly turning to Alyosha, as though he were going to
attack him. "I am sorry about your finger, sir; but instead of thrashing
Ilusha, would you like me to chop off my four fingers with this knife here
before your eyes to satisfy your just wrath? I should think four fingers
would be enough to satisfy your thirst for vengeance. You won't ask for
the fifth one too?" He stopped short with a catch in his throat. Every
feature in his face was twitching and working; he looked extremely
defiant. He was in a sort of frenzy.

"I think I understand it all now," said Alyosha gently and sorrowfully,
still keeping his seat. "So your boy is a good boy, he loves his father,
and he attacked me as the brother of your assailant.... Now I understand
it," he repeated thoughtfully. "But my brother Dmitri Fyodorovitch regrets
his action, I know that, and if only it is possible for him to come to
you, or better still, to meet you in that same place, he will ask your
forgiveness before every one--if you wish it."

"After pulling out my beard, you mean, he will ask my forgiveness? And he
thinks that will be a satisfactory finish, doesn't he?"

"Oh, no! On the contrary, he will do anything you like and in any way you
like."

"So if I were to ask his highness to go down on his knees before me in
that very tavern--'The Metropolis' it's called--or in the market-place, he
would do it?"

"Yes, he would even go down on his knees."

"You've pierced me to the heart, sir. Touched me to tears and pierced me
to the heart! I am only too sensible of your brother's generosity. Allow
me to introduce my family, my two daughters and my son--my litter. If I
die, who will care for them, and while I live who but they will care for a
wretch like me? That's a great thing the Lord has ordained for every man
of my sort, sir. For there must be some one able to love even a man like
me."

"Ah, that's perfectly true!" exclaimed Alyosha.

"Oh, do leave off playing the fool! Some idiot comes in, and you put us to
shame!" cried the girl by the window, suddenly turning to her father with
a disdainful and contemptuous air.

"Wait a little, Varvara!" cried her father, speaking peremptorily but
looking at her quite approvingly. "That's her character," he said,
addressing Alyosha again.


    "And in all nature there was naught
    That could find favor in his eyes--


or rather in the feminine: that could find favor in her eyes. But now let
me present you to my wife, Arina Petrovna. She is crippled, she is forty-
three; she can move, but very little. She is of humble origin. Arina
Petrovna, compose your countenance. This is Alexey Fyodorovitch Karamazov.
Get up, Alexey Fyodorovitch." He took him by the hand and with unexpected
force pulled him up. "You must stand up to be introduced to a lady. It's
not the Karamazov, mamma, who ... h'm ... etcetera, but his brother,
radiant with modest virtues. Come, Arina Petrovna, come, mamma, first your
hand to be kissed."

And he kissed his wife's hand respectfully and even tenderly. The girl at
the window turned her back indignantly on the scene; an expression of
extraordinary cordiality came over the haughtily inquiring face of the
woman.

"Good morning! Sit down, Mr. Tchernomazov," she said.

"Karamazov, mamma, Karamazov. We are of humble origin," he whispered
again.

"Well, Karamazov, or whatever it is, but I always think of
Tchernomazov.... Sit down. Why has he pulled you up? He calls me crippled,
but I am not, only my legs are swollen like barrels, and I am shriveled up
myself. Once I used to be so fat, but now it's as though I had swallowed a
needle."

"We are of humble origin," the captain muttered again.

"Oh, father, father!" the hunchback girl, who had till then been silent on
her chair, said suddenly, and she hid her eyes in her handkerchief.

"Buffoon!" blurted out the girl at the window.

"Have you heard our news?" said the mother, pointing at her daughters.
"It's like clouds coming over; the clouds pass and we have music again.
When we were with the army, we used to have many such guests. I don't mean
to make any comparisons; every one to their taste. The deacon's wife used
to come then and say, 'Alexandr Alexandrovitch is a man of the noblest
heart, but Nastasya Petrovna,' she would say, 'is of the brood of hell.'
'Well,' I said, 'that's a matter of taste; but you are a little spitfire.'
'And you want keeping in your place,' says she. 'You black sword,' said I,
'who asked you to teach me?' 'But my breath,' says she, 'is clean, and
yours is unclean.' 'You ask all the officers whether my breath is
unclean.' And ever since then I had it in my mind. Not long ago I was
sitting here as I am now, when I saw that very general come in who came
here for Easter, and I asked him: 'Your Excellency,' said I, 'can a lady's
breath be unpleasant?' 'Yes,' he answered; 'you ought to open a window-
pane or open the door, for the air is not fresh here.' And they all go on
like that! And what is my breath to them? The dead smell worse still! 'I
won't spoil the air,' said I, 'I'll order some slippers and go away.' My
darlings, don't blame your own mother! Nikolay Ilyitch, how is it I can't
please you? There's only Ilusha who comes home from school and loves me.
Yesterday he brought me an apple. Forgive your own mother--forgive a poor
lonely creature! Why has my breath become unpleasant to you?"

And the poor mad woman broke into sobs, and tears streamed down her
cheeks. The captain rushed up to her.

"Mamma, mamma, my dear, give over! You are not lonely. Every one loves
you, every one adores you." He began kissing both her hands again and
tenderly stroking her face; taking the dinner-napkin, he began wiping away
her tears. Alyosha fancied that he too had tears in his eyes. "There, you
see, you hear?" he turned with a sort of fury to Alyosha, pointing to the
poor imbecile.

"I see and hear," muttered Alyosha.

"Father, father, how can you--with him! Let him alone!" cried the boy,
sitting up in his bed and gazing at his father with glowing eyes.

"Do give over fooling, showing off your silly antics which never lead to
anything!" shouted Varvara, stamping her foot with passion.

"Your anger is quite just this time, Varvara, and I'll make haste to
satisfy you. Come, put on your cap, Alexey Fyodorovitch, and I'll put on
mine. We will go out. I have a word to say to you in earnest, but not
within these walls. This girl sitting here is my daughter Nina; I forgot
to introduce her to you. She is a heavenly angel incarnate ... who has
flown down to us mortals,... if you can understand."

"There he is shaking all over, as though he is in convulsions!" Varvara
went on indignantly.

"And she there stamping her foot at me and calling me a fool just now, she
is a heavenly angel incarnate too, and she has good reason to call me so.
Come along, Alexey Fyodorovitch, we must make an end."

And, snatching Alyosha's hand, he drew him out of the room into the
street.




Chapter VII. And In The Open Air


"The air is fresh, but in my apartment it is not so in any sense of the
word. Let us walk slowly, sir. I should be glad of your kind interest."

"I too have something important to say to you," observed Alyosha, "only I
don't know how to begin."

"To be sure you must have business with me. You would never have looked in
upon me without some object. Unless you come simply to complain of the
boy, and that's hardly likely. And, by the way, about the boy: I could not
explain to you in there, but here I will describe that scene to you. My
tow was thicker a week ago--I mean my beard. That's the nickname they give
to my beard, the schoolboys most of all. Well, your brother Dmitri
Fyodorovitch was pulling me by my beard, I'd done nothing, he was in a
towering rage and happened to come upon me. He dragged me out of the
tavern into the market-place; at that moment the boys were coming out of
school, and with them Ilusha. As soon as he saw me in such a state he
rushed up to me. 'Father,' he cried, 'father!' He caught hold of me,
hugged me, tried to pull me away, crying to my assailant, 'Let go, let go,
it's my father, forgive him!'--yes, he actually cried 'forgive him.' He
clutched at that hand, that very hand, in his little hands and kissed
it.... I remember his little face at that moment, I haven't forgotten it
and I never shall!"

"I swear," cried Alyosha, "that my brother will express his most deep and
sincere regret, even if he has to go down on his knees in that same
market-place.... I'll make him or he is no brother of mine!"

"Aha, then it's only a suggestion! And it does not come from him but
simply from the generosity of your own warm heart. You should have said
so. No, in that case allow me to tell you of your brother's highly
chivalrous soldierly generosity, for he did give expression to it at the
time. He left off dragging me by my beard and released me: 'You are an
officer,' he said, 'and I am an officer, if you can find a decent man to
be your second send me your challenge. I will give satisfaction, though
you are a scoundrel.' That's what he said. A chivalrous spirit indeed! I
retired with Ilusha, and that scene is a family record imprinted for ever
on Ilusha's soul. No, it's not for us to claim the privileges of noblemen.
Judge for yourself. You've just been in our mansion, what did you see
there? Three ladies, one a cripple and weak-minded, another a cripple and
hunchback and the third not crippled but far too clever. She is a student,
dying to get back to Petersburg, to work for the emancipation of the
Russian woman on the banks of the Neva. I won't speak of Ilusha, he is
only nine. I am alone in the world, and if I die, what will become of all
of them? I simply ask you that. And if I challenge him and he kills me on
the spot, what then? What will become of them? And worse still, if he
doesn't kill me but only cripples me: I couldn't work, but I should still
be a mouth to feed. Who would feed it and who would feed them all? Must I
take Ilusha from school and send him to beg in the streets? That's what it
means for me to challenge him to a duel. It's silly talk and nothing
else."

"He will beg your forgiveness, he will bow down at your feet in the middle
of the market-place," cried Alyosha again, with glowing eyes.

"I did think of prosecuting him," the captain went on, "but look in our
code, could I get much compensation for a personal injury? And then
Agrafena Alexandrovna(3) sent for me and shouted at me: 'Don't dare to
dream of it! If you proceed against him, I'll publish it to all the world
that he beat you for your dishonesty, and then you will be prosecuted.' I
call God to witness whose was the dishonesty and by whose commands I
acted, wasn't it by her own and Fyodor Pavlovitch's? 'And what's more,'
she went on, 'I'll dismiss you for good and you'll never earn another
penny from me. I'll speak to my merchant too' (that's what she calls her
old man) 'and he will dismiss you!' And if he dismisses me, what can I
earn then from any one? Those two are all I have to look to, for your
Fyodor Pavlovitch has not only given over employing me, for another
reason, but he means to make use of papers I've signed to go to law
against me. And so I kept quiet, and you have seen our retreat. But now
let me ask you: did Ilusha hurt your finger much? I didn't like to go into
it in our mansion before him."

"Yes, very much, and he was in a great fury. He was avenging you on me as
a Karamazov, I see that now. But if only you had seen how he was throwing
stones at his school-fellows! It's very dangerous. They might kill him.
They are children and stupid. A stone may be thrown and break somebody's
head."

"That's just what has happened. He has been bruised by a stone to-day. Not
on the head but on the chest, just above the heart. He came home crying
and groaning and now he is ill."

"And you know he attacks them first. He is bitter against them on your
account. They say he stabbed a boy called Krassotkin with a pen-knife not
long ago."

"I've heard about that too, it's dangerous. Krassotkin is an official
here, we may hear more about it."

"I would advise you," Alyosha went on warmly, "not to send him to school
at all for a time till he is calmer ... and his anger is passed."

"Anger!" the captain repeated, "that's just what it is. He is a little
creature, but it's a mighty anger. You don't know all, sir. Let me tell
you more. Since that incident all the boys have been teasing him about the
'wisp of tow.' Schoolboys are a merciless race, individually they are
angels, but together, especially in schools, they are often merciless.
Their teasing has stirred up a gallant spirit in Ilusha. An ordinary boy,
a weak son, would have submitted, have felt ashamed of his father, sir,
but he stood up for his father against them all. For his father and for
truth and justice. For what he suffered when he kissed your brother's hand
and cried to him 'Forgive father, forgive him,'--that only God knows--and I,
his father. For our children--not your children, but ours--the children of
the poor gentlemen looked down upon by every one--know what justice means,
sir, even at nine years old. How should the rich know? They don't explore
such depths once in their lives. But at that moment in the square when he
kissed his hand, at that moment my Ilusha had grasped all that justice
means. That truth entered into him and crushed him for ever, sir," the
captain said hotly again with a sort of frenzy, and he struck his right
fist against his left palm as though he wanted to show how "the truth"
crushed Ilusha. "That very day, sir, he fell ill with fever and was
delirious all night. All that day he hardly said a word to me, but I
noticed he kept watching me from the corner, though he turned to the
window and pretended to be learning his lessons. But I could see his mind
was not on his lessons. Next day I got drunk to forget my troubles, sinful
man as I am, and I don't remember much. Mamma began crying, too--I am very
fond of mamma--well, I spent my last penny drowning my troubles. Don't
despise me for that, sir, in Russia men who drink are the best. The best
men amongst us are the greatest drunkards. I lay down and I don't remember
about Ilusha, though all that day the boys had been jeering at him at
school. 'Wisp of tow,' they shouted, 'your father was pulled out of the
tavern by his wisp of tow, you ran by and begged forgiveness.' "

"On the third day when he came back from school, I saw he looked pale and
wretched. 'What is it?' I asked. He wouldn't answer. Well, there's no
talking in our mansion without mamma and the girls taking part in it.
What's more, the girls had heard about it the very first day. Varvara had
begun snarling. 'You fools and buffoons, can you ever do anything
rational?' 'Quite so,' I said, 'can we ever do anything rational?' For the
time I turned it off like that. So in the evening I took the boy out for a
walk, for you must know we go for a walk every evening, always the same
way, along which we are going now--from our gate to that great stone which
lies alone in the road under the hurdle, which marks the beginning of the
town pasture. A beautiful and lonely spot, sir. Ilusha and I walked along
hand in hand as usual. He has a little hand, his fingers are thin and
cold--he suffers with his chest, you know. 'Father,' said he, 'father!'
'Well?' said I. I saw his eyes flashing. 'Father, how he treated you
then!' 'It can't be helped, Ilusha,' I said. 'Don't forgive him, father,
don't forgive him! At school they say that he has paid you ten roubles for
it.' 'No, Ilusha,' said I, 'I would not take money from him for anything.'
Then he began trembling all over, took my hand in both his and kissed it
again. 'Father,' he said, 'father, challenge him to a duel, at school they
say you are a coward and won't challenge him, and that you'll accept ten
roubles from him.' 'I can't challenge him to a duel, Ilusha,' I answered.
And I told briefly what I've just told you. He listened. 'Father,' he
said, 'anyway don't forgive it. When I grow up I'll call him out myself
and kill him.' His eyes shone and glowed. And of course I am his father,
and I had to put in a word: 'It's a sin to kill,' I said, 'even in a
duel.' 'Father,' he said, 'when I grow up, I'll knock him down, knock the
sword out of his hand, I'll fall on him, wave my sword over him and say:
"I could kill you, but I forgive you, so there!" ' You see what the
workings of his little mind have been during these two days; he must have
been planning that vengeance all day, and raving about it at night.

"But he began to come home from school badly beaten, I found out about it
the day before yesterday, and you are right, I won't send him to that
school any more. I heard that he was standing up against all the class
alone and defying them all, that his heart was full of resentment, of
bitterness--I was alarmed about him. We went for another walk. 'Father,' he
asked, 'are the rich people stronger than any one else on earth?' 'Yes,
Ilusha,' I said, 'there are no people on earth stronger than the rich.'
'Father,' he said, 'I will get rich, I will become an officer and conquer
everybody. The Tsar will reward me, I will come back here and then no one
will dare--' Then he was silent and his lips still kept trembling.
'Father,' he said, 'what a horrid town this is.' 'Yes, Ilusha,' I said,
'it isn't a very nice town.' 'Father, let us move into another town, a
nice one,' he said, 'where people don't know about us.' 'We will move, we
will, Ilusha,' said I, 'only I must save up for it.' I was glad to be able
to turn his mind from painful thoughts, and we began to dream of how we
would move to another town, how we would buy a horse and cart. 'We will
put mamma and your sisters inside, we will cover them up and we'll walk,
you shall have a lift now and then, and I'll walk beside, for we must take
care of our horse, we can't all ride. That's how we'll go.' He was
enchanted at that, most of all at the thought of having a horse and
driving him. For of course a Russian boy is born among horses. We
chattered a long while. Thank God, I thought, I have diverted his mind and
comforted him.

"That was the day before yesterday, in the evening, but last night
everything was changed. He had gone to school in the morning, he came back
depressed, terribly depressed. In the evening I took him by the hand and
we went for a walk; he would not talk. There was a wind blowing and no
sun, and a feeling of autumn; twilight was coming on. We walked along,
both of us depressed. 'Well, my boy,' said I, 'how about our setting off
on our travels?' I thought I might bring him back to our talk of the day
before. He didn't answer, but I felt his fingers trembling in my hand. Ah,
I thought, it's a bad job; there's something fresh. We had reached the
stone where we are now. I sat down on the stone. And in the air there were
lots of kites flapping and whirling. There were as many as thirty in
sight. Of course, it's just the season for the kites. 'Look, Ilusha,' said
I, 'it's time we got out our last year's kite again. I'll mend it, where
have you put it away?' My boy made no answer. He looked away and turned
sideways to me. And then a gust of wind blew up the sand. He suddenly fell
on me, threw both his little arms round my neck and held me tight. You
know, when children are silent and proud, and try to keep back their tears
when they are in great trouble and suddenly break down, their tears fall
in streams. With those warm streams of tears, he suddenly wetted my face.
He sobbed and shook as though he were in convulsions, and squeezed up
against me as I sat on the stone. 'Father,' he kept crying, 'dear father,
how he insulted you!' And I sobbed too. We sat shaking in each other's
arms. 'Ilusha,' I said to him, 'Ilusha darling.' No one saw us then. God
alone saw us, I hope He will record it to my credit. You must thank your
brother, Alexey Fyodorovitch. No, sir, I won't thrash my boy for your
satisfaction."

He had gone back to his original tone of resentful buffoonery. Alyosha
felt though that he trusted him, and that if there had been some one else
in his, Alyosha's place, the man would not have spoken so openly and would
not have told what he had just told. This encouraged Alyosha, whose heart
was trembling on the verge of tears.

"Ah, how I would like to make friends with your boy!" he cried. "If you
could arrange it--"

"Certainly, sir," muttered the captain.

"But now listen to something quite different!" Alyosha went on. "I have a
message for you. That same brother of mine, Dmitri, has insulted his
betrothed, too, a noble-hearted girl of whom you have probably heard. I
have a right to tell you of her wrong; I ought to do so, in fact, for
hearing of the insult done to you and learning all about your unfortunate
position, she commissioned me at once--just now--to bring you this help from
her--but only from her alone, not from Dmitri, who has abandoned her. Nor
from me, his brother, nor from any one else, but from her, only from her!
She entreats you to accept her help.... You have both been insulted by the
same man. She thought of you only when she had just received a similar
insult from him--similar in its cruelty, I mean. She comes like a sister to
help a brother in misfortune.... She told me to persuade you to take these
two hundred roubles from her, as from a sister, knowing that you are in
such need. No one will know of it, it can give rise to no unjust slander.
There are the two hundred roubles, and I swear you must take them
unless--unless all men are to be enemies on earth! But there are brothers
even on earth.... You have a generous heart ... you must see that, you
must," and Alyosha held out two new rainbow-colored hundred-rouble notes.

They were both standing at the time by the great stone close to the fence,
and there was no one near. The notes seemed to produce a tremendous
impression on the captain. He started, but at first only from
astonishment. Such an outcome of their conversation was the last thing he
expected. Nothing could have been farther from his dreams than help from
any one--and such a sum!

He took the notes, and for a minute he was almost unable to answer, quite
a new expression came into his face.

"That for me? So much money--two hundred roubles! Good heavens! Why, I
haven't seen so much money for the last four years! Mercy on us! And she
says she is a sister.... And is that the truth?"

"I swear that all I told you is the truth," cried Alyosha.

The captain flushed red.

"Listen, my dear, listen. If I take it, I shan't be behaving like a
scoundrel? In your eyes, Alexey Fyodorovitch, I shan't be a scoundrel? No,
Alexey Fyodorovitch, listen, listen," he hurried, touching Alyosha with
both his hands. "You are persuading me to take it, saying that it's a
sister sends it, but inwardly, in your heart won't you feel contempt for
me if I take it, eh?"

"No, no, on my salvation I swear I shan't! And no one will ever know but
me--I, you and she, and one other lady, her great friend."

"Never mind the lady! Listen, Alexey Fyodorovitch, at a moment like this
you must listen, for you can't understand what these two hundred roubles
mean to me now." The poor fellow went on rising gradually into a sort of
incoherent, almost wild enthusiasm. He was thrown off his balance and
talked extremely fast, as though afraid he would not be allowed to say all
he had to say.

"Besides its being honestly acquired from a 'sister,' so highly respected
and revered, do you know that now I can look after mamma and Nina, my
hunchback angel daughter? Doctor Herzenstube came to me in the kindness of
his heart and was examining them both for a whole hour. 'I can make
nothing of it,' said he, but he prescribed a mineral water which is kept
at a chemist's here. He said it would be sure to do her good, and he
ordered baths, too, with some medicine in them. The mineral water costs
thirty copecks, and she'd need to drink forty bottles perhaps; so I took
the prescription and laid it on the shelf under the ikons, and there it
lies. And he ordered hot baths for Nina with something dissolved in them,
morning and evening. But how can we carry out such a cure in our mansion,
without servants, without help, without a bath, and without water? Nina is
rheumatic all over, I don't think I told you that. All her right side
aches at night, she is in agony, and, would you believe it, the angel
bears it without groaning for fear of waking us. We eat what we can get,
and she'll only take the leavings, what you'd scarcely give to a dog. 'I
am not worth it, I am taking it from you, I am a burden on you,' that's
what her angel eyes try to express. We wait on her, but she doesn't like
it. 'I am a useless cripple, no good to any one.' As though she were not
worth it, when she is the saving of all of us with her angelic sweetness.
Without her, without her gentle word it would be hell among us! She
softens even Varvara. And don't judge Varvara harshly either, she is an
angel too, she, too, has suffered wrong. She came to us for the summer,
and she brought sixteen roubles she had earned by lessons and saved up, to
go back with to Petersburg in September, that is now. But we took her
money and lived on it, so now she has nothing to go back with. Though
indeed she couldn't go back, for she has to work for us like a slave. She
is like an overdriven horse with all of us on her back. She waits on us
all, mends and washes, sweeps the floor, puts mamma to bed. And mamma is
capricious and tearful and insane! And now I can get a servant with this
money, you understand, Alexey Fyodorovitch, I can get medicines for the
dear creatures, I can send my student to Petersburg, I can buy beef, I can
feed them properly. Good Lord, but it's a dream!"

Alyosha was delighted that he had brought him such happiness and that the
poor fellow had consented to be made happy.

"Stay, Alexey Fyodorovitch, stay," the captain began to talk with frenzied
rapidity, carried away by a new day-dream. "Do you know that Ilusha and I
will perhaps really carry out our dream. We will buy a horse and cart, a
black horse, he insists on its being black, and we will set off as we
pretended the other day. I have an old friend, a lawyer in K. province,
and I heard through a trustworthy man that if I were to go he'd give me a
place as clerk in his office, so, who knows, maybe he would. So I'd just
put mamma and Nina in the cart, and Ilusha could drive, and I'd walk, I'd
walk.... Why, if I only succeed in getting one debt paid that's owing me,
I should have perhaps enough for that too!"

"There would be enough!" cried Alyosha. "Katerina Ivanovna will send you
as much more as you need, and you know, I have money too, take what you
want, as you would from a brother, from a friend, you can give it back
later.... (You'll get rich, you'll get rich!) And you know you couldn't
have a better idea than to move to another province! It would be the
saving of you, especially of your boy--and you ought to go quickly, before
the winter, before the cold. You must write to us when you are there, and
we will always be brothers.... No, it's not a dream!"

Alyosha could have hugged him, he was so pleased. But glancing at him he
stopped short. The man was standing with his neck outstretched and his
lips protruding, with a pale and frenzied face. His lips were moving as
though trying to articulate something; no sound came, but still his lips
moved. It was uncanny.

"What is it?" asked Alyosha, startled.

"Alexey Fyodorovitch ... I ... you," muttered the captain, faltering,
looking at him with a strange, wild, fixed stare, and an air of desperate
resolution. At the same time there was a sort of grin on his lips. "I ...
you, sir ... wouldn't you like me to show you a little trick I know?" he
murmured, suddenly, in a firm rapid whisper, his voice no longer
faltering.

"What trick?"

"A pretty trick," whispered the captain. His mouth was twisted on the left
side, his left eye was screwed up. He still stared at Alyosha.

"What is the matter? What trick?" Alyosha cried, now thoroughly alarmed.

"Why, look," squealed the captain suddenly, and showing him the two notes
which he had been holding by one corner between his thumb and forefinger
during the conversation, he crumpled them up savagely and squeezed them
tight in his right hand. "Do you see, do you see?" he shrieked, pale and
infuriated. And suddenly flinging up his hand, he threw the crumpled notes
on the sand. "Do you see?" he shrieked again, pointing to them. "Look
there!"

And with wild fury he began trampling them under his heel, gasping and
exclaiming as he did so:

"So much for your money! So much for your money! So much for your money!
So much for your money!"

Suddenly he darted back and drew himself up before Alyosha, and his whole
figure expressed unutterable pride.

"Tell those who sent you that the wisp of tow does not sell his honor," he
cried, raising his arm in the air. Then he turned quickly and began to
run; but he had not run five steps before he turned completely round and
kissed his hand to Alyosha. He ran another five paces and then turned
round for the last time. This time his face was not contorted with
laughter, but quivering all over with tears. In a tearful, faltering,
sobbing voice he cried:

"What should I say to my boy if I took money from you for our shame?"

And then he ran on without turning. Alyosha looked after him,
inexpressibly grieved. Oh, he saw that till the very last moment the man
had not known he would crumple up and fling away the notes. He did not
turn back. Alyosha knew he would not. He would not follow him and call him
back, he knew why. When he was out of sight, Alyosha picked up the two
notes. They were very much crushed and crumpled, and had been pressed into
the sand, but were uninjured and even rustled like new ones when Alyosha
unfolded them and smoothed them out. After smoothing them out, he folded
them up, put them in his pocket and went to Katerina Ivanovna to report on
the success of her commission.






Book IV
Nearing death, Father Zossima rallies a bit and gathers his friends and disciples around him. He speaks to them of the necessity of loving one another and all men and urges them to remember that each human being shares responsibility for the sins of all others. Alyosha leaves the cell, aware of the tense sorrow that hovers over the monastery. All members of the holy community, he is sure, anticipate some sort of miracle, one occurring immediately after the elder's death. There are, in fact, already rumors of Father Zossima's being responsible for a recent miracle. Not quite all, however, share Alyosha's idealization of Zossima. Living in the monastery is another very old monk, Father Ferapont, "antagonistic to Father Zossima and the whole institution of elders." Ferapont believes in a religion based on severe fasting and on fear of Satan, a belief totally opposite to the doctrine of love advocated by Father Zossima. Ferapont sees the devil at work in all things and frequently has visions of lurking devils waiting to ensnare innocent souls. He is admired by only a few people because of such severity, but he does have a coterie of staunch followers. After Father Zossima has retired to his cell, he calls for Alyosha and reminds the boy that he hopes Alyosha will return to the town in order to fulfill his responsibilities to his father and to his brothers. Alyosha acquiesces. On his return, Alyosha finds his father alone. The old man insists that he plans to live a long time but that he needs much money to attract young "wenches" to come to him in his later years, when he has lost much of his vigor. He vehemently proclaims that above all other things, he will remain a sensualist until he is forced to bed down with death. Alyosha listens and then leaves his father's house. Outside he encounters a group of schoolboys throwing rocks at an outcast young lad, a frail young child about nine years old. Despite his frailty, the boy returns the violence and flings back sharp rocks at the squadron of young hoodlums. Then suddenly he breaks and runs. Alyosha dashes after the boy, eager to discover what lies under such antagonism. But when he catches him, the youngster is sullen and defiant. He hits Alyosha with a rock and lunges at him, biting his hand. He escapes once more and leaves Alyosha perplexed as to the meaning of such corrosive bitterness. Alyosha's next stop is at the home of Madame Hohlakov. There he is surprised to learn that Ivan is also a visitor, upstairs at the moment with Katerina. Dmitri's presence might have been in order, but certainly Ivan's is unexpected to the young Karamazov. He asks for some cloth to bandage his hand, and when Madame Hohlakov goes in search of medication, he is immediately set upon by Lise. She implores him to return her letter; it was a bad joke, she says. But Alyosha refuses to part with the letter. He believed its contents, he says, but he cannot return it; he does not have it with him. Alyosha then leaves Lise and goes to talk with Ivan and Katerina. Katerina repeats to Alyosha what she has just told Ivan -- that she will never abandon Dmitri, even if he marries Grushenka. Furthermore, she intends to help and protect him even though he does not appreciate it. Ivan agrees with her, though he admits that in another woman such behavior would be considered neurotic. Alyosha can no longer retain himself. He tries to convince them that they love each other; they are only torturing themselves by their theorizings. Ivan admits that he does love Katerina but says that she needs someone like Dmitri because of her excessive self-esteem. Then he says that he is leaving the next day for Moscow and excuses himself. After Ivan leaves, Katerina tells Alyosha of a poor captain, a Mr. Snegiryov, who was once brutally beaten by Dmitri while the captain's young son stood by and begged for mercy. She has never forgotten the incident and asks Alyosha to take 200 rubles to the captain as a token of her deep sympathy. Alyosha says that he will do as she asks and leaves. The captain in question lives in a ramshackle old house with a mentally deranged wife, two daughters , and his young son, Ilusha. Coincidentally, Ilusha turns out to be the outcast who earlier bit Alyosha's hand. Before Alyosha can explain why he has come, the boy cries out that the young Karamazov has come to complain about the hand-biting. And it is then that Alyosha understands why the boy attacked him so savagely: he was defending his father's honor against a Karamazov. The captain takes Alyosha outside and tells him the story of his encounter with Dmitri and how terribly the episode affected his young son. He further emphasizes the family's poverty, and Alyosha -- overjoyed that he can relieve the old man's poverty -- explains that he has come to give him 200 rubles. The captain is delighted by such unexpected good luck and speaks of the many things he can now do for his sick and hungry family. But suddenly he changes his mind. With a proud gesture, he throws the money to the ground, saying that if he accepts the sum he can never gain his son's love and respect. Alyosha retrieves the money and starts back to Katerina to report his failure.
At the end of Book III, Alyosha wonders why Father Zossima has asked him to leave the monastery. Book IV is Dostoevsky's explanation. From chapter to chapter, Alyosha moves among the characters as they grapple with their assorted problems. He fast becomes the living embodiment of the elder's teachings. Each chapter illustrates Alyosha's influences. In Chapter 2 he travels to his father's house and listens to the frustrations that plague the old man. Then he goes to Madame Hohlakov's and tries to pacify young Lise by calmly accepting her hysterical outcries. While there he makes an effort to bring Ivan and Katerina together as lovers. Next, he goes to the cottage of the destitute Captain Snegiryov. Obviously Dostoevsky intends us to see that Alyosha is meant for a life of activity, not for the quiet passivity of the monastery. The message of Father Zossima is of particular importance in this book. Earlier he emphasized the value of love and admonished his adherents to love one another, to love all of God's people. Now he reminds his followers that simply because they have assumed a monastic life does not imply that they are more blessed than other people. In fact, "from the very fact of coming here, each of us has confessed to himself that he is worse than others." He also reminds his listeners that each man is responsible for every other man and that "he is responsible to all men for all and everything, for all human sins, national and individual." This speech alone contains all the reasons for Alyosha's leaving the monastery. A life of seclusion does not test one's strength if he is to be a representative of Zossima's theories. The elder's ideas can be tested only in the midst of busy society. Father Zossima's ideas concerning the responsibility of one man for another take on added weight in the conversations that Alyosha has with Ivan. Ivan refuses to take responsibility for Dmitri's sins and tells Alyosha that he is not his brother's keeper. Later, Zossima's concept of responsibility triggers Alyosha into considering his own responsibility for Karamazov's murder. At the end of Zossima's talk, rumors spread of a forthcoming miracle, one that will coincide with the elder's death. Alyosha is intrigued by the rumors, especially since he believes Zossima to be saint-like, but he is sorely tested when his beloved elder's body rapidly decomposes. As Alyosha begins his journey through the complex world of society, he goes first to his father's house and listens to all kinds of vulgar and disgusting stories. His father tells him that he will need much money in later years to tempt young "wenches" to sleep with him and suggests that Ivan is trying to marry Katerina so that Dmitri will have to marry Grushenka; thus old Karamazov will be prevented from remarrying and leaving his fortune to a new wife -- in other words, to Grushenka. All these wild accusations color more darkly Dostoevsky's portrait of Karamazov as a repulsive and bestial type. Throughout the confession, Alyosha is able to retain his peaceful mien and never compromises his inner nature of dignity and love. In the scene with young Ilusha, Alyosha still remains a perfectly self-contained individual. He does not even use violence when Ilusha bites him so viciously. It is a bitter entrance into the world -- stoned and bitten only because one is a Karamazov; none of this, of course, would have happened if Alyosha had remained in seclusion at the monastery. But Alyosha has made his choice according to Zossima's wishes and according to the dictates of the elder who told him that he must marry and become one with the world. He, therefore, tells the young invalid Lise that when she comes of age they will marry. As for another marriage -- one between Ivan and Katerina -- the solution is not quite so simple. They are apparently in love with each other, but both are so arrogant that they cannot come to an understanding. Part of the difficulty lies in Katerina's fantastic personality. She feels the need to suffer or to be humiliated by Dmitri, and her statement that she will never abandon Dmitri, even if he marries Grushenka, indicates the fanatical degree to which she plans to carry her suffering and martyrdom. Ivan sums up her peculiar nature well when he says that she needs Dmitri "so as to contemplate continually your heroic fidelity and to reproach him for infidelity." For the present, then, Katerina's declaration results in an impasse; her views of the two brothers will not be resolved until the trial, and even then real objectivity will be impossible. Nevertheless, it is true that she feels the need to be humiliated by Dmitri. Proof of this lies in her deep sympathy with Captain Snegiryov, a man whom Dmitri has humiliated. She asks Alyosha to take him 200 rubles "as a token of sympathy," but her sympathy is of far greater than token value. Alyosha fast becomes involved in social intrigues. But one should be aware that there is no rancor or bitterness in his new role. Alyosha has no resentment, even following the Ilusha incident. Quite the contrary, he has great compassion for a young boy who will try to defend his father's honor. Book IV then places the neophyte Alyosha in a variety of new situations, and the boy's skill in dealing with them suggests the future potential that Father Zossima sensed in him. Looking ahead, however, one might note that success is not total. Further along, it will become apparent that Alyosha often fails with adults. It is with children that he most succeeds; with the younger generation his qualities of quiet love and devotion find the most fertile sympathy. This, of course, is part of Dostoevsky's vision -- children represent the future of all hope and salvation. In this novel Alyosha entrusts Zossima's ideal of love and honor to the new generation.