‘There, my secret is in your hands now; when you come to see us tomorrow, I don’t know how I’ll be able to look you in the eye. Oh, Aleksei Fyodorovich, what if I can’t control myself again and start laughing like a silly fool, as I did when I looked at you today? You’ll probably take me for a wicked tease and won’t take my letter seriously. And therefore I beg you, my dear Alyosha, if you have any compassion for me, when you come tomorrow don’t look me straight in the eyes, because if I catch your eye I might suddenly burst out laughing, and what with you in your long cassock… Even now I go cold all over when I think about it, so when you come, don’t look at me at all for a time, look at my mother, or at the window…
‘There, I’ve written you a love-letter, my God, what have I done! Alyosha, don’t despise me, and if I’ve done something wicked and have hurt you, forgive me. The secret that could ruin my reputation for ever is in your hands.
‘I will certainly cry today. Au revoir. I simply dread the thought of meeting you. Lise.
‘PS. Alyosha, you must, you must come, you must come whatever happens! Lise.’
Alyosha read the letter with surprise, he read it twice, thought to himself a little, and then suddenly began to laugh softly and contentedly. He shuddered; his laughter struck him as sinful. But a second later he was laughing again just as softly and joyfully. He slowly returned the letter to its envelope, crossed himself, and lay down. The turmoil in his soul had passed. ‘Lord have mercy on them all,’ he murmured, ‘the unhappy and the tempestuous ones, protect them and give them Your guidance. You know the true path and will lead them all to salvation. You, who are love, will bring joy to them all!’ Alyosha crossed himself as he drifted off into a tranquil sleep.
PART TWO
BOOK FOUR
Crises
1
FATHER THERAPON*
ALYOSHA awoke early, before sunrise. The starets was already up; he was feeling very weak, but nevertheless had decided to move from his bed to his chair. He was in full possession of his faculties. Though he looked very tired, the expression on his face was bright, almost joyful, and the look in his eyes was cheerful, kindly, and welcoming. ‘Perhaps I shall not live to see the end of this day,’ he said to Alyosha; then he expressed a desire to make his confession and take Holy Communion immediately. His confessor was always Father Païsy. Following these two sacraments, Extreme Unction was administered. The hieromonks gathered in the cell, which then gradually began to fill with other monks. It was now past daybreak. Monks from the monastery also began to arrive. After the service was over, the starets expressed a desire to bid farewell to all, and he kissed everyone. Because of the cramped conditions in the cell, those who had come first left to make room for the others. Alyosha stood next to the starets, who by now had returned to his chair. Then he began to speak and to preach as best he could in a voice which, though weak, was still quite firm. ‘I’ve been teaching you for so many years, and consequently have spoken out loud so much, that speaking—and in speaking, my dear brethren, teaching you—has almost become a habit with me, so much so that even now, weak as I am, to remain silent would be more difficult than to speak,’ he joked, looking benignly at those who were crowding around him. Alyosha was later to recall some of the things the starets said on that occasion. But though he spoke clearly and his voice was firm enough, his discourse was quite disjointed. He spoke about many things, evidently wishing before the moment of death to say everything once more, all that there was to say, all that he had left unsaid during his life, and this not merely for the sake of preaching, but as though yearning to share his happiness and exultation with all and sundry, and to pour out his heart once more before he died…
‘Love one another, my brothers,’ the starets exhorted (as far as Alyosha could recall later). ‘Love God’s people. Just because we have shut ourselves within these walls, it does not make us any holier than the laity; on the contrary, anyone who has come here has by that very act acknowledged to himself that he is worse than any lay person and all that is on this earth… And the longer a monk lives within the walls of his monastery, the more deeply he will realize this. If this were not the case, there would be no need for him to come here at all. When, however, he realizes that not only is he worse than any layman, but that he is guilty before all, for everything and before everyone, for the sins of all men, individually as well as collectively, only then will the goal of our seclusion be attained. For know you this, my dearly beloved brethren: each one of us is unquestionably answerable for all men and all things on earth, not only by virtue of the collective guilt of the world, but also individually, for all men and everyone on earth. This realization is the crowning glory not only of the monastic way of life, but of every human being on earth. For monks are just like other people, except that they are as all men on earth ought to be. It is only through this realization that our hearts will be moved to boundless, universal, all-consuming love. Thus will each one of us be able to redeem the world and with his tears wash away its sins… Each should attend to his own heart, each should ceaselessly render account unto himself. As long as you are repentant, do not be alarmed at your own sin even in the full knowledge of it, and do not attempt to strike bargains with God. Again I say unto you—be humble. Be humble with the weak, be humble with the mighty. Bear no ill will against those who reject, defame, malign, and slander you. Bear no ill will against atheists, false prophets, materialists, even the evil ones, for there are many good ones among them too, especially in our time. Remember them in your prayer: save, O Lord, all those who have no one to pray for them, save also those who do not want to pray to You. And add forthwith: it is not out of pride that I beseech you, for I myself am the vilest of the vile… Love God’s people, do not let strangers take possession of your flock, for if you are indolent and full of false pride—or, worse still, avaricious—they will come from all the corners of the earth and lure your flock away. Explain the Gospels to the people ceaselessly… Do not practise usury… Do not worship gold and silver, or hoard it… Be true to your faith and hold up the banner. Raise it on high…’
The starets, it must be said, spoke less coherently than Alyosha recorded later. Sometimes he would stop speaking altogether, as though pausing to gather his strength, gasping for breath but appearing to be in a state of exultation. His listeners were deeply moved, although many wondered at his words, for they saw no light in them… Subsequently, everyone recalled these words. When Alyosha happened to leave the cell briefly, he was astounded at the general excitement and sense of expectation among the monks crowding both inside and outside the cell. Some waited almost fearfully, others solemnly. Everyone expected something significant to happen immediately the starets died. To some extent this was an idle expectation, although even the most solemn of the clergy were not immune to it. Father Païsy looked the most solemn of all. Alyosha left the cell only because he had been mysteriously summoned by a monk at the behest of Rakitin, who had arrived from the town with a strange letter for Alyosha from Mrs Khokhlakova. The latter informed Alyosha of a very curious piece of news, which turned out to be extremely pertinent. It related to the fact that, amongst the God-fearing peasant women who had come the previous day to pay their respects to the starets and seek his blessing, had been an old townswoman by the name of Prokhorovna, the widow of a non-commissioned officer. She had asked the starets if, in the prayers for the dead at her church, she could include her son Vasya, who had gone to a distant part of Siberia, to Irkutsk, on business, and whom she had not heard from for a year. The starets had responded severely to her request, forbidding such a practice and likening it to sorcery. But then, having pardoned her for her ignorance, he had offered, ‘as though reading from a book of prophecy’ (as Mrs Khokhlakova wrote in her letter), the following consolation, namely that her son Vasya was undoubtedly alive, and that he would either return or write to her soon, and that she should go home and wait. ‘And would you believe it?’ Mrs Khokhlakova continued excitedly, ‘The prophecy’
s been fulfilled, word for word, and there’s more to it!’ No sooner had the old woman returned home than she was handed a letter that had arrived earlier from Siberia. But that was not the end of the story: in this letter, written from Yekaterinburg on his return journey, Vasya informed his mother that he was travelling back to Russia in the company of a certain official, and that he ‘looked forward to embracing his mother in about three weeks’. Mrs Khokhlakova fervently begged Alyosha to pass on immediately the news of this new ‘miracle of prophecy’ to the abbot and to the whole of the community. ‘Everybody must know about this!’ she stressed at the end of her letter. The letter had been dashed off in great haste, every line reflecting the writer’s agitation. But there was nothing for Alyosha to inform the brethren about, because everyone already knew all about it; Rakitin, having sent the monk to fetch Alyosha, had instructed the former respectfully to inform his eminence, Father Païsy, that he, Rakitin, had a matter of such urgency to communicate to him that it could not be delayed for a moment, and that he humbly begged his pardon for his impertinence. Since the monk had passed Rakitin’s request to Father Païsy before he communicated it to Alyosha, all that the latter could do on returning to his cell and reading the letter was simply to hand it to Father Païsy as documentary confirmation. And even that stern and mistrustful man, on reading the report of the ‘miracle’ with furrowed brow, could not wholly restrain his feelings. His eyes flashed and his lips curled in a smile of grave premonition.
‘We have not yet seen the end of this!’ he said with involuntary urgency.
‘Indeed not, indeed not!’ the monks responded from all sides. But Father Païsy, frowning again, enjoined everyone not to mention the matter to anyone, for the time being at least, ‘until we have further confirmation, because there’s bound to be a lot of idle gossip… And in any case,’ he added cautiously, as though to salve his conscience, ‘there could equally well be a natural explanation.’ However, he hardly seemed convinced by his own reservations, which his listeners did not fail to notice. Of course, news of the ‘miracle’ spread through the monastery, and within the hour it had also reached the ears of the many visitors who had come to the monastery to attend the liturgy. But the person who showed the most surprise at the miracle was the little monk who had come the day before from St Silvester’s, the small monastery in Obdorsk in the far north. The previous day, while standing next to Mrs Khokhlakova, he had bowed to the starets and, pointing to the lady’s daughter who had been ‘cured’, said to him indignantly: ‘How dare you do such things?’
The truth of the matter was that he now found himself somewhat perplexed, and hardly knew what to believe. The previous evening he had paid Father Therapon a visit in his cell behind the apiary, and this meeting had made an extraordinary and terrifying impression on him. Father Therapon was that same elderly monk, the great adherent of the vow of fasting and silence, whom we have already mentioned as an adversary of Starets Zosima, and especially of the cult of startsy, which he considered to be a harmful and mindless practice. As an adversary he was extremely dangerous, even though, because of his vow of silence, he hardly exchanged a word with anyone. The danger lay chiefly in the fact that a great number of the monks shared his views, and many of the visiting worshippers revered him as a man of God and a zealot, although they undoubtedly considered him to be a holy fool and an oddity. But his oddness was the very thing that appealed to people. Father Therapon never visited Starets Zosima. Though he lived in the hermitage, little attempt was made to impose its discipline upon him, again because his manner was so distinctly eccentric. He was about seventy-five years old, if not more, and lived behind the apiary in the corner of the wall in an old, ramshackle timber cabin, erected on this spot way back in the previous century for another outstanding adherent of the vow of fasting and silence, Father Jonah, who had lived to the age of a hundred and five and of whose accomplishments many very strange tales continue to circulate in the monastery and its surrounding neighbourhood to this day. On his own insistence, Father Therapon had eventually been moved about seven years previously to this small, isolated cabin, in truth a shack, but which greatly resembled a small chapel on account of the numerous votive icons and the perpetually burning lamps arrayed in front of them, for the care and maintenance of which Father Therapon had in fact ostensibly been installed there. He ate, it was said (and this was true), two pounds of bread in three days, no more; the bread was brought to him every three days by the bee-keeper, who also lived next to the apiary, but Father Therapon rarely spoke even to this bee-keeper who attended to his needs. These four pounds of bread, together with the consecrated Sabbath wafer which the recluse received regularly from the abbot after late morning service, comprised his whole weekly sustenance. As for the water in his jug, it was changed every day. He seldom attended liturgy. The followers who came to visit him saw him kneeling in prayer, sometimes for the whole day, without rising or looking up. Even if he deigned to enter into conversation with them, he was always curt, abrupt, odd, and almost invariably rude. There were, however, very rare occasions when he would engage in conversation with his visitors, though for the most part he would merely utter some incongruous word which would cause the visitor much consternation, after which, despite all pleading, he would say nothing by way of explanation. He had never been ordained to the priesthood, but was just an ordinary monk. There was a very strange rumour, circulating, it is true, only amongst the less educated people, that Father Therapon communed with heavenly spirits and conversed only with them, which was why he did not enter into conversation with ordinary mortals. The little monk from Obdorsk, having been directed to the apiary by the bee-keeper, also a very taciturn and morose monk, made for the corner where Father Therapon’s cabin stood. ‘Perhaps he’ll speak to you, seeing as you’re a stranger, but there again, you may get nothing out of him,’ the bee-keeper warned. The little monk, as he himself subsequently recounted, approached with the greatest trepidation. It was already getting quite late. On this occasion Father Therapon was sitting on a bench by the door of the cabin. Above him rustled the leaves of an enormous old elm tree. There was an evening chill in the air. The little monk from Obdorsk prostrated himself on the ground before the zealot and asked for his blessing.
‘Dost thou expect me too to fall flat on my face before thee, monk?’ said Father Therapon. ‘Arise!’
The little monk got up.
‘Blessed be he who blesseth, sit thee down beside me. Whence comest thou?’
What astounded the little monk most of all was the fact that Father Therapon, despite his undeniably strict fasting and very advanced years, was still apparently a strong man, tall, erect, with a spare, fresh, and healthy-looking face. He undoubtedly still retained considerable physical strength. He had the body of an athlete. In spite of his great age, he was not even particularly grey, and still had a thick growth of hair and a beard, which had formerly been completely black. His eyes were large, grey, shining, and noticeably protruding. When he spoke, he strongly accented the letter o.* He was dressed in a long, reddish peasant’s coat made of that coarse material formerly known as prison cloth and tied round the waist with a length of thick rope. His neck and chest were bare. An almost black, extremely thick sackcloth shirt, which had not been changed for months, extended beneath his coat. On his chest, under his coat, he was said to wear thirty-pound iron chains. On his bare feet he wore a pair of old shoes which were nearly falling apart.
‘I come from our small monastery in Obdorsk, from St Sylvester’s,’ replied the little visiting monk humbly, surveying the recluse with keen, curious, though slightly apprehensive eyes.
‘I know thy Sylvester. I have sojourned there. How fareth thy Sylvester?’
The little monk hesitated.
‘You are devoid of sense, you people! How keep you your fasts?’
‘Our fare accords with the ancient traditions of the hermitage: during Lent, no provender on Mondays, Wednesdays, or Fridays. On Tuesdays and Thursdays the mo
nks take white bread, an infusion with honey, cloudberries or pickled cabbage with soaked oatmeal. On Saturdays skimmed cabbage soup, gruel, and noodle soup with peas—all with hemp-seed oil. In Passion Week, from Monday right up to Saturday night, only bread and water and uncooked vegetables for six days, and this too in moderation; on some days we take no food at all, as is ordained for the first week of Lent. No food on Good Friday, and total fasting on Holy Saturday too, till three o’clock, and then we can take a little bread with water and one cup of wine. On Maundy Thursday we eat food cooked without oil, but take wine, and for the rest—dry provender only. For in the Laodicean Council* it was thus said of Maundy Thursday: “Whosoever fails to keep the fast on the last Thursday of Lent, he has dishonoured the whole of Lent.” That is our way… But,’ said the little monk, summoning up courage, ‘what is that compared to you, hallowed father, for the whole year, even including Holy Easter, you eat nothing, save bread and water, and the bread we eat in two days lasts you a week. Verily, such remarkable abstinence is to be marvelled at.’
‘And mushrooms?’ Father Therapon suddenly asked, pronouncing it as they do in the south.
‘Mushrooms?’ the little monk repeated in astonishment.
‘Thus it is. I spurn their bread, I have no need of it, even if I go to the forest and eat mushrooms and berries, they will not forgo their bread, nay, never, thus they deliver themselves unto Satan. Now do the heretics declare it is not needful to keep the fasts. Foul and arrogant is this notion.’
‘That’s true,’ the little monk sighed.
‘Didst thou see devils amongst them?’
‘Amongst whom do you mean?’ asked the little monk shyly.
‘I betook myself to the abbot’s on Holy Whitsuntide past, and never since returned thither. Verily, did I see them. A devil sat upon the chest of one, it lurked beneath his cassock, and naught save the horns did show; and one peeped from the pocket of another one, and its eyes were busy for very fear of me; one monk there was with a devil in the unclean pit of his belly, and a devil hung around the neck of another, who knew it not.’
The Karamazov Brothers Page 27
