‘I’ve not seen him since yesterday; I couldn’t find him at all today,’ Alyosha said.
‘Hurry up and find him, try again tomorrow, and hurry, leave everything, don’t waste any time. Perhaps you’ll still be able to prevent something terrible happening. I bowed down yesterday in recognition of the great suffering that he is to endure.’
Suddenly he fell silent and appeared to be lost in thought. What he had said was strange. Father Yosif, who had witnessed the starets bowing down, exchanged glances with Father Païsy. Alyosha was unable to contain himself any longer.
‘Father and teacher,’ he said with extraordinary agitation, ‘I don’t understand what you’re saying… What suffering is he going to endure?’
‘Don’t be puzzled. I sensed something terrible yesterday… it was as though the look in his eyes had revealed his whole destiny. He looked like that just for an instant… so that my soul shuddered momentarily at what the man was laying in store for himself. I have seen that kind of expression on people’s faces once or twice before in my life… as though it revealed the whole of their destiny, and their destiny, alas, came to pass. I sent you to him, Aleksei, because I thought that the sight of a brother’s face would help him. But everything comes from the Lord, and so too our destinies. “Verily, verily, I say unto you, except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.” Remember this. And besides, Aleksei, you should know, many’s the time I’ve blessed you in my mind because of your face,’ said the starets with a gentle smile. ‘I think of you thus: you will leave these walls and will live in the world as a monk. You’ll have many enemies, but even your very enemies will love you. Life will bring you much misfortune, but therein will be your very happiness, you will rejoice in life and convince others to rejoice in it too, which is the most important thing of all. That is your nature. My teachers and fathers,’ he said with a benign smile, turning to his visitors, ‘never till this day have I spoken about why the face of this youth is so dear to my soul—not even to him. Now I shall explain: for me, his face was like a reminder and a prophecy. At the dawn of my days, when I was still a child, I had an elder brother who died in his youth, before my very eyes, only seventeen years of age. And later, as I went through life, I gradually realized that in my destiny this brother was like a sign and a portent from above, for if he had not come into my life, if he had never been born, I don’t think I would ever have become a monk and entered upon this precious path. He belonged to my childhood days, and now, at the end of my journey, I have as it were encountered before my very eyes a reincarnation of him. It is wonderful, my fathers and teachers, how without being much like him facially well, perhaps a little, Aleksei appeared to me to be so like him spiritually that many’s the time I have thought of him as if he were actually that same young man, my brother, come to me mysteriously at the end of my journey to make me think back and delve into the past, so that even I was surprised at the strangeness of my own thoughts. Did you hear that, Porfiry?’ he turned to the novice who was attending him. ‘I have often seen in your face something akin to resentment that I loved Aleksei more than you. Now you know why this has been so, but I love you too, I want you to know that, and I have often been saddened at the thought that you were resentful. I do though, beloved visitors, want to tell you about that youth, my brother, for in all my life there has been nothing more precious, more prophetic, and touching. My heart has mellowed, and at this moment I look back over my whole life as though I were reliving it…’
Here I ought to point out that this final conversation of the starets with his visitors on the last day of his life has been only partially recorded. Aleksei Fyodorovich Karamazov wrote it down from memory some time after the starets’s death. But whether it was only that conversation, or whether he added to it from his notes of previous conversations with his teacher, that I can no longer decide; besides, the whole of the starets’s story runs on in the notes without interruption, as though he had described the whole of his life to his friends as one continuous tale, whereas according to later accounts what undoubtedly happened was somewhat different in fact, for the discussion that night was of a general nature, and although the visitors seldom interrupted their host, they themselves nevertheless had something to say for themselves, perhaps even interspersing his account with stories of their own; moreover, no such continuous flow of the story could have been maintained, because the starets was often out of breath, lost his voice, and would even lie down on his bed to rest, although he did not fall asleep, nor did his visitors leave their seats. Once or twice the conversation was interrupted by Father Païsy reading from the Gospels. What is also remarkable is that none of them thought that he would actually die that night, the more so since on this, the last night of his life, after sleeping soundly during the day he appeared suddenly to have gained a new strength which sustained him throughout the whole of this long conversation with his friends. This was his last tender communion with his friends and it lifted his spirits enormously, but only for a short while, for suddenly his life was ended… but of this, later. As for now, I wish it to be known that I have preferred not to elaborate on all the details of the conversation, but have confined myself to the starets’s story as recorded in Aleksei Fyodorovich Karamazov’s manuscript. That way it will be shorter and not so tedious, although of course, I repeat, Alyosha took many things from previous conversations and interwove them.
2
FROM THE LIFE OF THE SCHEMAHIEROMONK* FATHER ZOSIMA, RESTING IN THE LORD, IN HIS OWN WORDS, AS RECORDED BY ALEKSEI FYODOROVICH KARAMAZOV
Biographical information
(a) Starets Zosima’s elder brother
MY beloved fathers and teachers, I was born in a distant northern province in the town of V, the son of a nobleman, but of modest, even insignificant lineage. He died when I was only two years of age, and I do not remember him at all. He left my mother a medium-sized wooden house and some capital, not very much, but sufficient to keep her and the children from want. There were two of us, my elder brother Markel and myself, Zinovy. Markel was about eight years older than me, very fiery and quick-tempered, but kind and never sarcastic, strangely quiet, especially when at home with me, his mother, and the servants. He studied well at school but did not mix with the other boys, though neither did he quarrel with them; that at any rate is how our mother remembered him. Six months before his death, when he had already turned seventeen, he began to visit a certain political exile in our town, a very solitary man who had been banished from Moscow on account of his unconventional views. This exile was no mean scholar and had formerly been a well-known philosopher at the university. For some reason he grew to like Markel and invited him to his home. The youth spent evening after evening with him, and this went on throughout the winter until, at his own request, the exile was transferred to a government post in St Petersburg, where he had patrons. Lent began, but Markel would not fast, he kept mocking and ridiculing the fast: ‘This is all such nonsense,’ he said, ‘and there isn’t any God either,’ which horrified our mother and the servants, and also myself, the youngest in the family, for even though I was only nine years of age I was extremely frightened on hearing these words. We had four servants, all serfs, bought in the name of a landowner with whom we were acquainted. I still remember my mother selling one of them, the cook Afimya, an elderly woman with a limp, for sixty roubles in cash, and taking on an enfranchised servant. In the sixth week of Lent my brother, who had always had a weak constitution and was sickly, chesty, and consumptive, suddenly took a turn for the worse; although quite tall and with a very comely face, he was thin and weak. He must have caught a chill or something, for the doctor arrived and soon whispered to my mother that it was a case of galloping consumption and that he wouldn’t last out the spring. My mother began to cry and suggested to my brother (casually, so as not to frighten him) that he should observe the fast and receive the Holy Sacrament, for he was still up and about then. On hearing this he flew into
a rage and poured all manner of scorn on the Church, but then he started to think: he had realized at once that he was dangerously ill, and that that was why mother had wanted him to fast and to receive the Sacrament while he still had the strength. To be sure, he himself had known for a long time that he was ill, and even the year before he had once somewhat nonchalantly remarked to mother and me at table: ‘I wasn’t meant to live in this world amongst you, I probably shan’t last the year,’ which proved prophetic. Some three days passed, and Passiontide began. Starting on Tuesday morning, my brother began to fast. ‘To tell you the truth,’ he said to mother, ‘I’m doing it for you, to cheer you up and to put your mind at rest.’ She began to cry from joy and grief: ‘His end must surely be near, if such a change has come over him.’ But soon he was no longer able to get to church; he took to his bed, and made his confession and received Holy Communion at home. The days were beginning to get lighter and brighter, and spring was in the air, for Easter was late. I remember how he’d cough all through the night and sleep badly, but when morning came he’d always get dressed and try to sit up in a soft chair. I can remember it exactly, his sitting there, quiet, meek, smiling, and, though he was sick, his face shining with happiness and joy. He was completely changed spiritually—such was the wonderful metamorphosis he had suddenly undergone! Our old nanny would enter his room: ‘Let me light the night-lamp by the icon, my precious.’ Formerly he’d never let her, and would even blow out the light. ‘Go on, nanny, light it, it was horrid of me to stop you doing so before. You pray to God as you light the lamp, and I pray out of joy for you. That means we’re both praying to the same God.’ These words seemed strange to us, and mother would go off to her own room, have a good cry, and then come back into his room, wiping her eyes and trying to look cheerful. ‘Darling mother, don’t cry,’ he used to say, ‘I’ll live a long time yet and share much joy with you, and life, you know, life is so full of joy and happiness.’ ‘Oh, my precious, what joy can there be for you when you are burning with fever all night and coughing your heart out.’ ‘Mother,’ he’d say, ‘don’t cry, life is paradise, and we’re all in paradise, though we don’t want to acknowledge it; but if only we acknowledged it, there’d be paradise on earth tomorrow.’ And we all wondered at his words, for he spoke so strangely and with such certitude; our hearts were full of tenderness, and we wept. Our neighbours used to come to see us. ‘My dear kind friends,’ he’d say to them, ‘what have I done to deserve your love, why should you love someone like me, and how is it I didn’t recognize, didn’t appreciate that love before?’ To the servants who attended to his needs, he would say over and over again: ‘My dear kind souls, why should you attend to me, do I really deserve to be waited upon? If God were to have mercy on me and allow me to live, I would serve you myself, for we must all serve one another.’ Mother would shake her head when she heard this. ‘My darling boy, it’s your illness making you talk like that.’ ‘Mother,’ he’d say, ‘joy of my heart, it is not possible for there to be no masters and no servants, but let me be a servant to my servants, just as they are to me. And there is something else I will tell you, mother: each one of us is guilty of the other’s sin, and I most of all.’ Hearing this, mother could not help smiling, she would just smile and weep. ‘And why should you be more guilty than anyone else? There are murderers and thieves out there, and what sins could you possibly have committed to blame yourself more than anyone else?’ ‘Mother dear, my sweet, my lovely,’ he’d say (he had begun to use such words of endearment, such unexpected words), ‘my sweetly beloved, joy of my heart, I tell you this: truly, each one of us is guilty of the sins of all other men. I don’t know how to explain this to you, but I feel the truth of it so deeply that it torments me. How could we have lived together, quarrelled with one another, and not realized this?’ He used to speak thus when he woke from his sleep, and with each day he became more and more tender-hearted, full of joy, and brimming over with love. Occasionally Eisenschmidt, the old German doctor, would arrive: ‘Well, doctor,’ he would joke, ‘am I going to live another day in this world?’ ‘Not just a day, you’ll live many days’, the doctor would reply, ‘and months and years.’ ‘Years and months, well now!’ he’d exclaim. ‘Why count the days, when one day is sufficient for man to experience all the happiness there is? My dearly beloved, why do we quarrel, why do we show off to one another, why do we bear grudges? Let us go straight into the garden, let us stroll and enjoy ourselves, let us love and exalt one another, let us kiss and rejoice in our life.’ ‘He’s not long for this world, that son of yours,’ the doctor said to mother as she was seeing him to the door. ‘His illness is affecting his mind.’ The windows of his room looked out on to the garden. Ours was a shady garden with ancient trees, which had come into bud with the spring, and the early birds flew up to their branches, chirping and singing at his window. And as he looked at them, and admired them he suddenly began to ask their forgiveness too. ‘Little birds of God, little birds of joy, forgive me, you too, because I have sinned against you as well.’ This was something none of us could understand at the time, but he would continue, weeping for joy: ‘Yes,’ he’d say, ‘I was surrounded by such divine glory—birds, trees, meadows, skies, I alone lived an abject life, I alone desecrated everything and did not even notice the beauty and the glory.’ ‘You take too many sins upon yourself,’ mother would say, weeping. ‘My darling mother, my joy, I am crying from happiness, not from grief; I want to declare my guilt before them, but I cannot explain to you how to love them, for I do not even know myself. Although I have sinned against everyone, I too shall be forgiven, and that’s paradise. Am I not in paradise now?’
And there was much more that cannot be recalled or recorded. I remember once I went to his room alone, when there was no one else there. It was a bright evening, the sun was setting, and the whole room was lit by a slanting shaft of light. He beckoned me to him and, seeing this, I approached him, whereupon he placed both hands on my shoulders and gazed into my face tenderly and lovingly; for about a minute he said nothing, just looked at me: ‘Well,’ he said, ‘off you go now, go and play and live for me!’ I left his room and went out to play. And later in life I recalled many times, in tears, how he had urged me to live on his behalf. He spoke many more such amazing and wonderful words, which, however, were incomprehensible to us at the time. He died in the third week after Easter, fully conscious, and although he had stopped speaking he did not change right up to his last hour: he kept looking around joyfully, his eyes full of gaiety as they sought out each of us, smiling and beckoning us towards him. Even in the town his death was much talked about. None of this affected me too much at the time, even though I did cry profusely when he was buried. I was young, still a child, but it was all indelibly imprinted on my heart, and the feeling stayed with me. It was all bound to come to the surface some time and manifest itself. And that, in fact, is what happened.
(b) The Holy Scriptures in the life of Father Zosima
My mother and I were now all by ourselves. Our neighbours soon started to advise her. ‘Look,’ they said, ‘you’ve only one son left and you’re not poor either, you’ve got some capital, so why don’t you do what other people do and send your son to St Petersburg; if he stays here you might be stopping him from getting on in life.’ And they advised my mother to enrol me in the cadet corps in St Petersburg so that I could join the Imperial Guards later. My mother hesitated for a long time; how could she part with her remaining son? Finally, however, hoping to improve my future prospects, she did make up her mind, although not without a good many tears. She took me to St Petersburg and enrolled me, and I never saw her again because three years later she died, having spent the whole of those three years grieving and worrying about us both. Of my parental home, I have only memories of the most precious kind, for there can be no memories more precious than those of early childhood in the parental home, and this is almost always the case even if there is very little love and harmony in the family. One can retain precious
memories of even the worst families provided one’s soul is capable of seeking out what is precious. Amongst my recollections of home I include memories of the Holy Scriptures, which even as a child I studied with great enthusiasm. I had a book on the Holy Scriptures with wonderful pictures, it was called One Hundred and Four Holy Stories from The Old and New Testaments, and I even learned to read from it. And I still keep it as a treasured memento, lying there on the shelf. But even before I learned to read, I remember how a certain spiritual revelation came to me for the first time when I was just eight years of age. My mother had taken me to church on my own (I can’t remember where my brother was at the time), to the midday service on Passiontide Monday. It was a bright day, and when I recall it now I see anew the incense rising from the thurible and floating silently up, with God’s rays pouring down upon us through the narrow window in the cupola above, the incense ascending in waves to meet them and appearing to dissolve into them. I watched with emotion, and for the first time in my life the seed of the meaning of God’s word entered my soul. A youth came out into the nave of the church, holding a book so large that it seemed to me he could hardly carry it; he placed it upon the lectern, opened it, and began to read, and suddenly I understood something for the first time, for the first time in my life I understood what it was that they read in the house of God. There was a man in the land of Uz,* upright and devout, and he had considerable riches, a number of camels, sheep, and asses, and his children made merry and he loved them very much; he prayed to God for them, lest perchance they sinned whilst making merry. And there came a day when Satan ascended together with the sons of God, and presented himself before the Lord and said to the Lord that he had walked the world over and through the nether regions too. ‘And hast thou seen my servant Job?’ the Lord asked him. And the Lord boasted to Satan, pointing to His great and holy servant. And Satan smiled at the Lord’s words: ‘Surrender him to me and Thou shalt see that Thy servant will cry out and curse Thy name.’* And the Lord surrendered to Satan His righteous servant, whom He loved so much, and all at once, like a thunderbolt from the clouds, Satan smote Job’s children and his cattle, and scattered his riches, and Job rent his mantle and fell down upon the ground and cried out: ‘Naked came I out of my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return in the earth: the Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord now and forever!’* Fathers and teachers, forgive me my tears now—the whole of my childhood seems to appear before me, and my chest heaves as it did at the tender age of eight, and as then I feel surprise, confusion, and joy. And the camels captured my imagination so much, and Satan who talked to God in this manner, and God who had abandoned His servant to perdition, and His servant calling out: ‘Blessed be Thy name, even though Thou art punishing me,’ and then the soft and sweet singing in the church: ‘Let my prayer be answered,’ and again incense from the priest’s thurible, genuflection and prayer! From that time on—only yesterday I took the book down again—I have not been able to read this holiest of stories without tears. That there should be in it so much grandeur, so much mystery, so much that is inconceivable! Later I heard the words of cynics and detractors, words full of false pride: how could the Lord have abandoned His favourite servant to Satan’s pleasure, taking away his children, plaguing him with disease, and covering him with sores so that he had to use a potsherd to clean the pus from his wounds, and for what? Merely in order to boast before Satan: ‘Behold what My servant will endure for My sake!’ But the greatness of the story lies precisely in its mystery, in eternal truth being demonstrated in transient earthly terms. Eternal truth has been established in the face of earthly truth. Here the Creator, looking down upon Job, exults once again in His work, as He did at the end of each day in the first days of creation, saying: ‘That which I have created is good.’ And Job, praising the Lord, not only serves Him but will serve the whole of His creation, from generation unto generation and so on through all eternity, for he was ordained for this. Lord, what a book it is and what lessons it contains! What a book—the Holy Scriptures! And with it what miracles and what power have been given to man! It is just like a sculpture of the world, of man and of human nature, and in it everything is named and set out for all eternity. And how many mysteries are revealed and resolved? God raises Job up again, and gives him wealth; many years elapse and, behold, he has new children, different ones, and he loves them. ‘But how, oh Lord,’ one might ask, ‘could he have loved those new children, when all the others were no more, when they had been taken from him? Remembering them, could he ever have been truly happy as before, with the new children, however dear they might be to him?’ Indeed he could, indeed he could: through the great mystery of human life, old sorrow is gradually transformed into peaceful and benign joy; impetuous youth is succeeded by humble, reflective old age. I bless the daily sunrise, and my heart sings in praise of it as before, but already I love the sunset more, its long, slanting rays and with them the quiet, modest, soothing recollections, the gentle images of a long and blessed life—and, over and above all, God’s truth, healing, reconciling, and all-forgiving! My life is approaching its end, I know that, I can sense it, but I feel that with each remaining day my earthly life is drawing ever closer to the new, the infinite, the unknown one that is already lying close at hand, and in anticipation my soul leaps with ecstasy, my mind becomes lucid, and my heart weeps for joy… Friends and teachers, I have often heard, recently more frequently than ever, that our priests, particularly the rural ones, complain bitterly everywhere about their meagre subsistence and humble position; they openly assert, even in print—I have read it myself—that apparently, due to their low stipend, they are no longer able to interpret the Holy Scriptures to the people, and if heretics and Lutherans come to lure away their flock they say, ‘So be it, because our stipend is so low.’ Lord, I think, let them have more of that subsistence which is so precious to them (for their complaint is justified indeed), but verily I say unto you: if any blame has to be apportioned for this, half of it is ours! Let us suppose that they have no time, that they are right in claiming that they are weighed down all the time with work and official church duties, but surely not all the time, for even they must have at least one hour out of a whole week when they can think of God. Nor can they be working all the year round either. So, one evening a week, to begin with, let them gather the children round them—and the fathers will hear of it and they too will start coming. And there is no need to build a mansion for this either, simply invite them into your hut; don’t worry, they won’t make a mess of your hut, they’ll only be with you for an hour. Open this book and start reading to them in simple language and without conceit, but warmly and humbly, without elevating yourself above them, just enjoy reading them a well-beloved text and take pleasure in their listening to you and understanding you, pause once in a while to explain the odd word which may be beyond the grasp of simple folk, but don’t worry, they’ll understand it all, the truly believing heart will understand everything! Read to them of Abraham and Sarah,* of Isaac and Rebecca,* of how Jacob* went to Laban and, in his sleep, wrestled with the Lord* and said: ‘How dreadful is this place’,* and you will astound the pious minds of the simple folk. Read to them, and to the little ones especially, of how the brethren sold their own brother, the lovable youth, the dreamer and great prophet Joseph* into slavery, and of how they said unto his father, showing him the bloodstained clothes, that an evil beast had rent him in pieces. Read how his brethren later came to Egypt to buy corn and did not recognize him, and how Joseph, by now a great governor, tormented them, accused them of theft, and detained his brother Benjamin, and all for love of them: ‘I torment you, for I love you.’ For throughout his life he had never ceased to remember how he had been sold to merchants somewhere by a well in the scorching desert, and how, wringing his hands, he had implored his brothers not to sell him into slavery in a foreign land; and now, seeing them after so many years, he loved them again unreservedly, but, though he loved them, he punished
and tormented them. Finally, unable to bear the pain in his heart, he left them and threw himself on his couch and wept; later, he dried his eyes and returned, radiant and joyful, and announced to them: ‘Brethren, I am Joseph, your brother!’ Read further about how the old man Jacob rejoiced on learning that his beloved son was still alive, how he even abandoned the land of his birth, made his way to Egypt, and died in a foreign land, proclaiming for all eternity the greatest of messages in his testament, which had lain mysteriously in his humble, timid heart throughout his life: that from his tribe of Judah would come forth the greatest hope of the world, its peacemaker and its saviour! Fathers and teachers, forgive me, and do not take offence that I talk like a small child about something which you have known for a long time already, and which, indeed, you can teach me a hundred times more skilfully and eloquently. I am talking merely out of happiness and excitement; forgive my tears, for I do so love this book! Let him, God’s priest, also weep, and he will see how his listeners’ hearts will tremble when they hear his words. All that is needed is a small, a tiny seed: if he sows it in the heart of the common man, it will not die, but will live in his soul all his life; it will hide there in the darkness, in the stench of his sins, as a glimmer of light, a sublime reminder. And there is no need, no need to explain or to teach much, he will understand everything simply. Do you think the common man will not understand? Then try reading him the touching and moving story of the fair Esther and the haughty Vashti,* or the wondrous tale of Jonah in the belly of the whale.* Don’t forget the Lord’s parables either, particularly from the Gospel according to St Luke (that is how I did it), and then the conversion of Saul, from the Acts of the Apostles (you must tell them that one, you really must!), and finally tell them something from the Chety-Miney, be it only the story of Aleksei the man of God,* and also of the greatest of all the joyous sufferers, the mother, Mary of Egypt,* who beheld God and bore Christ—you will pierce his heart with these simple tales, and all it takes is just one hour a week, however meagre your subsistence, just one hour. And the priest will see for himself that our ordinary people are gracious and grateful and will reward him a hundredfold; remembering their priest’s zeal and his kindly words, they will willingly help him in his pastoral work and in his home too, and they will also accord him more respect than before—hence there will be an immediate improvement in his circumstances. It is so obvious that at times we are afraid to mention it lest people laugh at us, and yet it is so true! He who does not believe in God will not believe in God’s people. Yet he who believes in God’s people will behold the holiness of God, even if he has previously not believed at all. Nothing but the people and their innate spiritual power will convert our atheists who have broken away from the land of their birth. And what is Christ’s word without example? Without the word of God the people will perish, for their souls yearn for the Word and for all kinds of beautiful visions. In my youth, a long time ago, nearly forty years, Father Anfim and I wandered all over Russia collecting alms for the monastery, and once we stopped for the night with fishermen on the bank of a large navigable river, where we were joined by a fine-looking peasant youth about eighteen years of age, who was in a hurry to get to work towing a merchant’s barge the next day. I noticed in his eyes a look of warmth and openness. It was a bright July night, quiet and warm, the river was wide, mist was rising from its surface to cool us, a fish splashed gently every now and again, the birds had fallen silent, everything was still, serene, in prayer to God. Only the two of us were still awake, this youth and I, and we began to talk of the beauty of God’s creation and its great mystery. Every blade of grass, every tiny insect, ant, honeybee, all unthinking, astonishingly fulfil their purpose, thereby testifying to and continually perpetuating God’s mystery, and I sensed the gentle youth’s heart swell with emotion. He informed me that he loved the forest and its wild birds; he was a bird-catcher who recognized every sound that the birds made and could lure them all. ‘I know nothing better’, he said, ‘than to be in a forest, everything there is so good.’ ‘True,’ I replied, ‘everything is good and magnificent, because everything is truth. Take the horse,’ I said to him, ‘a great animal that stands at man’s side, or the ox that provides his food and works for him, its head bowed and submissive: just consider the faces of these animals—what humility, what devotion to man, who often beats them mercilessly, what meekness, what trust, and what beauty in those faces. It is indeed moving to know that they are completely without sin, for everything is perfect; everything except man is completely without sin, and Christ was with the animals even before He was with us.’ ‘Is it really possible’, asked the youth, ‘that Christ is with them, too?’ ‘How could it be otherwise,’ I replied, ‘since the Word is for all? All the world and all that lives on it yearns for the Word, every tiny leaf yearns for the Word, sings in praise of God, weeps for Christ without knowing it, and it does so through the mystery of its own guiltless existence. Out there,’ I said to him, ‘the fearsome bear prowls through the forest, terrible and ferocious, completely free of guilt.’ And I told him how a bear once came to a great saint who was seeking salvation in a little cabin in the forest, and the great saint felt compassion for the bear and went out to it fearlessly and gave it a piece of bread: ‘Go,’ he said, ‘Christ be with you,’ and the ferocious beast went away obediently and quietly, without doing any harm. The youth was moved by the thought that the beast went away without doing any harm, and that Christ was with it too. ‘Oh, how good it is,’ he said, ‘how good and wonderful is everything that comes from God!’ He sat there quietly, absorbed in gentle thoughts. I could see that he had understood. And as he sat next to me, he fell into a light, innocent sleep. Lord, blessed be youth! And as I was dropping off to sleep, I prayed for him myself. Lord, send peace and light to all Thy people!
The Karamazov Brothers Page 45
