The Brothers Karamazov - Fyodor Dostoyevsky (reading an ebook TXT) 📗

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“Very well, I will come,” Alyosha decided, after rapidly

scanning the brief, enigmatic note, which consisted of an urgent

entreaty that he would come, without any sort of explanation.

 

“Oh, how sweet and generous that would be of you” cried Lise

with sudden animation. “I told mamma you’d be sure not to go. I said

you were saving your soul. How splendid you are I’ve always thought

you were splendid. How glad I am to tell you so!”

 

“Lise!” said her mother impressively, though she smiled after

she had said it.

 

“You have quite forgotten us, Alexey Fyodorovitch,” she said; “you

never come to see us. Yet Lise has told me twice that she is never

happy except with you.”

 

Alyosha raised his downcast eyes and again flushed, and again

smiled without knowing why. But the elder was no longer watching

him. He had begun talking to a monk who, as mentioned before, had been

awaiting his entrance by Lise’s chair. He was evidently a monk of

the humblest, that is of the peasant, class, of a narrow outlook,

but a true believer, and, in his own way, a stubborn one. He announced

that he had come from the far north, from Obdorsk, from Saint

Sylvester, and was a member of a poor monastery, consisting of only

ten monks. The elder gave him his blessing and invited him to come

to his cell whenever he liked.

 

“How can you presume to do such deeds?” the monk asked suddenly,

pointing solemnly and significantly at Lise. He was referring to her

“healing.”

 

“It’s too early, of course, to speak of that. Relief is not

complete cure, and may proceed from different causes. But if there has

been any healing, it is by no power but God’s will. It’s all from God.

Visit me, Father,” he added to the monk. “It’s not often I can see

visitors. I am ill, and I know that my days are numbered.”

 

“Oh, no, no! God will not take you from us. You will live a

long, long time yet,” cried the lady. “And in what way are you ill?

You look so well, so gay and happy.”

 

“I am extraordinarily better to-day. But I know that it’s only for

a moment. I understand my disease now thoroughly. If I seem so happy

to you, you could never say anything that would please me so much. For

men are made for happiness, and anyone who is completely happy has a

right to say to himself, ‘I am doing God’s will on earth.’ All the

righteous, all the saints, all the holy martyrs were happy.”

 

“Oh, how you speak! What bold and lofty words” cried the lady.

“You seem to pierce with your words. And yet-happiness, happiness-where is it? Who can say of himself that he is happy? Oh, since you

have been so good as to let us see you once more to-day, let me tell

you what I could not utter last time, what I dared not say, all I am

suffering and have been for so long! I am suffering! Forgive me! I

am suffering!”

 

And in a rush of fervent feeling she clasped her hands before him.

 

“From what specially?”

 

“I suffer… from lack of faith.”

 

“Lack of faith in God?”

 

“Oh, no, no! I dare not even think of that. But the future life-it is such an enigma And no one, no one can solve it. Listen! You

are a healer, you are deeply versed in the human soul, and of course I

dare not expect you to believe me entirely, but I assure you on my

word of honour that I am not speaking lightly now. The thought of

the life beyond the grave distracts me to anguish, to terror. And I

don’t know to whom to appeal, and have not dared to all my life. And

now I am so bold as to ask you. Oh, God! What will you think of me

now?”

 

She clasped her hands.

 

“Don’t distress yourself about my opinion of you,” said the elder.

“I quite believe in the sincerity of your suffering.”

 

“Oh, how thankful I am to you! You see, I shut my eyes and ask

myself if everyone has faith, where did it come from? And then they do

say that it all comes from terror at the menacing phenomena of nature,

and that none of it’s real. And I say to myself, ‘What if I’ve been

believing all my life, and when I come to die there’s nothing but

the burdocks growing on my grave?’ as I read in some author. It’s

awful! How-how can I get back my faith? But I only believed when I

was a little child, mechanically, without thinking of anything. How,

how is one to prove it? have come now to lay my soul before you and to

ask you about it. If I let this chance slip, no one all my life will

answer me. How can I prove it? How can I convince myself? Oh, how

unhappy I am! I stand and look about me and see that scarcely anyone

else cares; no one troubles his head about it, and I’m the only one

who can’t stand it. It’s deadly-deadly!”

 

“No doubt. But there’s no proving it, though you can be

convinced of it.”

 

“By the experience of active love. Strive to love your neighbour

actively and indefatigably. In as far as you advance in love you

will grow surer of the reality of God and of the immortality of your

soul. If you attain to perfect self-forgetfulness in the love of

your neighbour, then you will believe without doubt, and no doubt

can possibly enter your soul. This has been tried. This is certain.”

 

“In active love? There’s another question and such a question! You

see, I so love humanity that-would you believe it?- I often dream

of forsaking all that I have, leaving Lise, and becoming a sister of

mercy. I close my eyes and think and dream, and at that moment I

feel full of strength to overcome all obstacles. No wounds, no

festering sores could at that moment frighten me. I would bind them up

and wash them with my own hands. I would nurse the afflicted. I

would be ready to kiss such wounds.”

 

“It is much, and well that your mind is full of such dreams and

not others. Some time, unawares, you may do a good deed in reality.”

 

“Yes. But could I endure such a life for long?” the lady went on

fervently, almost frantically. “That’s the chief question-that’s my

most agonising question. I shut my eyes and ask myself, ‘Would you

persevere long on that path? And if the patient whose wounds you are

washing did not meet you with gratitude, but worried you with his

whims, without valuing or remarking your charitable services, began

abusing you and rudely commanding you, and complaining to the superior

authorities of you (which often happens when people are in great

suffering)- what then? Would you persevere in your love, or not?’

And do you know, I came with horror to the conclusion that, if

anything could dissipate my love to humanity, it would be ingratitude.

In short, I am a hired servant, I expect my payment at once-that

is, praise, and the repayment of love with love. Otherwise I am

incapable of loving anyone.’”

 

She was in a very paroxysm of self-castigation, and, concluding,

she looked with defiant resolution at the elder.

 

“It’s just the same story as a doctor once told me,” observed

the elder. “He was a man getting on in years, and undoubtedly

clever. He spoke as frankly as you, though in jest, in bitter jest. ‘I

love humanity,’ he said, ‘but I wonder at myself. The more I love

humanity in general, the less I love man in particular. In my dreams,’

he said, ‘I have often come to making enthusiastic schemes for the

service of humanity, and perhaps I might actually have faced

crucifixion if it had been suddenly necessary; and yet I am

incapable of living in the same room with anyone for two days

together, as I know by experience. As soon as anyone is near me, his

personality disturbs my self-complacency and restricts my freedom.

In twenty-four hours I begin to hate the best of men: one because he’s

too long over his dinner; another because he has a cold and keeps on

blowing his nose. I become hostile to people the moment they come

close to me. But it has always happened that the more I detest men

individually the more ardent becomes my love for humanity.’

 

“But what’s to be done? What can one do in such a case? Must one

despair?”

 

“No. It is enough that you are distressed at it. Do what you

can, and it will be reckoned unto you. Much is done already in you

since you can so deeply and sincerely know yourself. If you have

been talking to me so sincerely, simply to gain approbation for your

frankness, as you did from me just now, then, of course, you will

not attain to anything in the achievement of real love; it will all

get no further than dreams, and your whole life will slip away like

a phantom. In that case you will naturally cease to think of the

future life too, and will of yourself grow calmer after a fashion in

the end.”

 

“You have crushed me! Only now, as you speak, I understand that

I was really only seeking your approbation for my sincerity when I

told you I could not endure ingratitude. You have revealed me to

myself. You have seen through me and explained me to myself

 

“Are you speaking the truth? Well, now, after such a confession, I

believe that you are sincere and good at heart. If you do not attain

happiness, always remember that you are on the right road, and try not

to leave it. Above all, avoid falsehood, every kind of falsehood,

especially falseness to yourself. Watch over your own deceitfulness

and look into it every hour, every minute. Avoid being scornful,

both to others and to yourself. What seems to you bad within you

will grow purer from the very fact of your observing it in yourself.

Avoid fear, too, though fear is only the consequence of every sort

of falsehood. Never be frightened at your own faint-heartedness in

attaining love. Don’t be frightened overmuch even at your evil

actions. I am sorry I can say nothing more consoling to you, for

love in action is a harsh and dreadful thing compared with love in

dreams. Love in dreams is greedy for immediate action, rapidly

performed and in the sight of all. Men will even give their lives if

only the ordeal does not last long but is soon over, with all

looking on and applauding as though on the stage. But active love is

labour and fortitude, and for some people too, perhaps, a complete

science. But I predict that just when you see with horror that in

spite of all your efforts you are getting farther from your goal

instead of nearer to it-at that very moment I predict that you will

reach it and behold clearly the miraculous power of the Lord who has

been all the time loving and mysteriously guiding you. Forgive me

for not being able to stay longer with you. They are waiting for me.

Goodbye.”

 

The lady was weeping.

 

“Lise, Lise! Bless her-bless her!” she cried, starting up

suddenly.

 

“She does not deserve to be loved. I have seen her naughtiness all

along,” the elder said jestingly. “Why have you been laughing at

Alexey?”

 

Lise had in fact been occupied in mocking