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

Chapter 1

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 gaiety, 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 everyone. 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 armchair. 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 recognise that. Else he would

have had no reason to come here. When he realises 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.