The Karamazov Brothers

by Fyodor Dostoevsky

  (c) Recollections from Starets Zosima’s youth, before he became a monk. The duel

  I spent a long time, nearly eight years, in the cadet corps in St Petersburg, and the different kind of education I received there dulled many of my childhood impressions, although I forgot nothing. In exchange, I adopted so many new habits and even opinions that I was transformed into an almost wild being, uncouth and cruel. Along with French, I also acquired a superficial politeness and a veneer of social graces, and we all, myself included, regarded the soldiers who served under us in the corps as complete animals—I perhaps more than anyone else, because of all of us I was the most impressionable. After graduating as officers we were ready to shed our blood in defence of our regimental honour, and as for true honour, hardly any one of us knew what that was, and even if anyone had discovered what it was he himself would have been the first to ridicule it. Drunkenness, rowdiness, and bravado were almost something to be proud of. I can’t say that we were wicked; all those young people were good, but they behaved badly, and I was the worst of all. The worst of it was that I came into some money and was therefore able to indulge all my desires without restraint, with the full ardour of youth, six sails to the wind. But the surprising thing was that although I also read books at that time, with much enjoyment even, the one book I hardly ever opened was the Bible, but I never discarded it either, and I carried it with me everywhere; without being aware of it, I was really keeping that book ‘for the day and the hour, for the month and the year’.* After serving thus for about four years, I finally found myself in the town of K, where our regiment was stationed at the time. Social life in the town was hectic, varied and extravagant, cheerful and hospitable, and being by nature of a cheerful disposition I was made welcome everywhere; added to which, it was known that I was not poor, which counts for a great deal in society. Thus it was that an incident occurred which was to form the basis of everything. I began to pay court to a young and beautiful girl, intelligent and worthy, of honourable character, the daughter of respectable parents. They were people of considerable standing, who could boast of wealth, influence, and power, and they received me in their house with kindness and warmth. It seemed to me that the girl was favourably disposed towards me, and my heart glowed at the prospect. I came to the conclusion later that perhaps I wasn’t all that much in love with her, that I merely looked up to her because of her kind and noble character, which was as it should be. However, self-indulgence prevented me from asking for her hand at the time; it seemed rash and even perverse to say goodbye at such a tender age to the temptations of a debauched and free and easy bachelor life, especially as I was not without money. I did drop a few hints, though. Anyway, for the time being I put off taking any decisive step. And then, all of a sudden, we happened to be posted to another part of the country for two months. To my surprise, when I came back two months later I found the girl already married to a wealthy neighbouring landowner, a man of great charm, a little older than myself, but still young, with connections in the capital, better placed socially than myself, and, on top of everything, educated—education being something that I totally lacked. I was so astounded by this unexpected development that my mind went blank with anger. The most maddening part about it was that, as I found out at the time, this young landowner had been her fiancé for ages and I myself had met him many times at their house, but, blinded by my personal sense of superiority, I had noticed nothing. By and large, that was what offended me most deeply: how was it that nearly everybody else knew, and I was the only one who knew nothing at all? I was overcome with uncontrollable rage. Blushing furiously, I began to recall one by one how I had been on the point of declaring my love for her on numerous occasions and, since she had not stopped me, given me no warning, I naturally deduced that she had been laughing at me. Later, of course, I realized that she hadn’t been laughing at me at all, quite the contrary, for she herself had jokingly interrupted such conversations and changed the subject— at the time, however, I was quite unable to grasp this and began to seethe with vengeful rage. I remember with astonishment that this anger and desire for revenge was extremely tiresome and objectionable to me personally, because, being affable by nature, I could not bear a grudge against anyone for long and had therefore, as it were, to provoke myself artificially, and in the end I became vulgar and stupid. I waited for an opportune moment and then, at an important social gathering, I suddenly contrived to insult my ‘rival’ regarding an apparently totally unconnected matter, ridiculing his opinion about a prominent event at the time*—this was back in ’26—and, what’s more, it was said that I did it rather cleverly and wittily. Then I forced him to explain himself, and was so rude in the process that he accepted my challenge in spite of the huge gulf between us, for not only was I younger than he, but I was altogether insignificant and of low rank. Later I learned for certain that he had also accepted my challenge out of some kind of feeling of jealousy towards me; he had been a little jealous of me before, when his wife was still his fiancée; if she were to find out now, he thought, that he had suffered an insult from me and had been afraid to challenge me to a duel, she might not be able to stop herself despising him and her love for him would be shaken. I soon found myself a second, a friend of mine, a Lieutenant in our regiment. Even though duelling was prohibited on pain of severe punishment, it had become fashionable amongst the military at the time—so wild are the fashions that at times tend to proliferate and become established. It was the end of June and our duel was set for the following day, at seven in the morning, outside the town—and then something truly fateful happened to me. On returning home on the eve of the duel in a savage and ugly mood, I flew into a rage at my batman Afanasy and struck him twice in the face with all my might, so that blood poured from his face. He hadn’t been in my service long, and although I had occasionally struck him before, I had never done so with such vicious cruelty. And, would you believe it, my friends, forty years have passed since then and I still remember it with shame and remorse. I lay down and slept for about three hours, and when I awoke day was breaking. Not being able to sleep any longer, I suddenly got up, went to the window, opened it—my room faced the orchard—and saw that the sun was rising, it was warm, wonderful, and the dawn chorus was starting. ‘But what’s wrong?’ I asked myself, and I was overcome by a feeling of shame and disgust. Was it because I was going to shed blood? No, apparently not, I thought. Was it because I was afraid of death, afraid of being killed? No, not at all—in fact, anything but that… And suddenly I realized what it was: it was because I had hit Afanasy the night before! And suddenly I saw it all before my eyes again, as though everything was being repeated: there he was, standing in front of me, and I was hitting him straight in the face with all my might, while he remained standing to attention, his hands at his sides, his head erect, eyes front, rocked by each blow, not even daring to raise an arm to protect himself—could a human being be reduced to this, could one man be hitting his fellow being thus! What a crime! It was as though a sharp needle had pierced my heart. I stood there as though demented, but the sun still shone, the tiny leaves shimmered with joy, and the birds, the little birds, kept singing in praise of God… I put both hands over my eyes, fell on my bed, and burst into tears. And I remembered my brother Markel and his words to the servants before his death: ‘My beloved ones, my dear ones, why should you serve me, why should you love me, and do I really deserve to be waited upon?’ ‘Well, do I deserve it?’ the thought suddenly struck me. Truly, why should I deserve that another man, created like me in the image and likeness of God, should serve me? This question struck me for the first time in my life. ‘Mother dear, joy of my heart, each of us is truly guilty of the other’s sin, only people don’t want to acknowledge it, but if they were to acknowledge it—there’d be paradise on earth immediately!’ ‘Lord!’ I thought, and wept, ‘surely that can’t be untrue? Truly, I am perhaps the guiltiest of the guilty, and the worst of men upon this earth!’ And the whole truth suddenly dawned u
pon me in all its significance: what was I about to do? I was going to kill a good, clever, noble man who was in no way guilty of wronging me, and thereby I would be depriving his wife of happiness for ever, causing her suffering and death. I lay there, stretched out on my bed with my face buried in the pillow, and lost all track of time. Suddenly, my friend the Lieutenant came in with the pistols. ‘Ah,’ he said, ‘I’m glad to see you’re up already, it’s time to go.’ I was confused and did not know what I was doing; however, we went out of the house to get into the calash: ‘Wait a second,’ I said to him, ‘I’ll just run back quickly, I’ve forgotten my wallet.’ And I rushed back into the building by myself, straight into Afanasy’s cubbyhole. ‘Afanasy,’ I said to him, ‘yesterday I struck you twice in the face, forgive me.’ He just shuddered, as though in fright, and stared at me—and I could see that this was not enough, not nearly enough, and suddenly, just as I was, in my full dress uniform with epaulettes, I threw myself down at his feet and touched the floor with my forehead. ‘Forgive me,’ I said. Now he was completely nonplussed. ‘Your Honour, my kind sir, whatever for… I don’t deserve it…’, and suddenly he burst into tears just as I had done a short while before, covered his face with his hands, and turned to the window, shaking all over and sobbing; I rushed out to my friend and jumped into the calash. ‘Drive on,’ I yelled. ‘Do you see the victor?’ I shouted, ‘here he is, sitting opposite you!’ Throughout the drive I was on top of the world, laughing and talking incessantly, though I can’t remember now what it was that I said. He kept looking at me: ‘Well, my friend, you’re a splendid fellow, I can see you’ll uphold the honour of the regiment.’ So we arrived at the appointed place, and they were already there, waiting for us. We were instructed to stand twelve paces apart, and my opponent was to shoot first—there I was, facing him, happy as could be, not blinking an eyelid, looking at him with love in my heart, knowing what I was about to do. He fired, the bullet merely grazed my cheek slightly and caught my ear. ‘Thank God,’ I shouted out, ‘you haven’t killed your fellow man!’ and I grabbed my pistol, turned round, and hurled it high into the trees of the forest. ‘There,’ I shouted, ‘that’s where you belong.’ I turned to my adversary: ‘Sir,’ I said to him, ‘forgive me for being a stupid young man, for offending you so deeply, and for forcing you to shoot at me. I’m ten times worse than you are, perhaps even more. Please convey this to that lady for whom you have the highest regard in the world.’ Hardly had I said this than all three of them began to protest. ‘I beg your pardon,’ said my adversary almost angrily, ‘if you didn’t want to fight, why did you cause all this trouble?’ ‘Yesterday I was foolish, but today I’m wiser,’ I replied joyfully. ‘As regards yesterday, I believe you,’ he said, ‘but it’s difficult to come to the same conclusion about today’s behaviour.’ ‘Bravo,’ I shouted, and clapped my hands, ‘I agree with you on that; it serves me right!’ ‘Are you going to fire, my dear sir, or not?’ ‘No,’ I said, ‘but if you want to, you may fire a second time, only it would be better if you didn’t.’ The seconds began to shout too, especially mine: ‘It’s a disgrace to the regiment to ask for pardon right at the firing-line… If only I’d known!’ I turned to them all, but I was no longer laughing: ‘My dear gentlemen,’ I said, ‘is it really so surprising nowadays to find a person who’ll repent of his own stupidity and admit his guilt in public?’ ‘But surely not at the firing-line!’ my second yelled again. ‘That’s the whole point,’ I replied, ‘that’s the crux of the matter, because I should have asked for forgiveness as soon as we arrived here, even before he fired, and not let him commit a serious and mortal sin, but we’ve arranged things so disgracefully in this world that it would have been almost impossible to do that, because only after I had allowed myself to be shot at at twelve paces could my words have any meaning for him, whereas if I’d done it when I arrived and before being fired at, everyone would have simply said: “He’s a coward, afraid of a pistol, there’s no point in listening to him.” Gentlemen,’ I cried suddenly from the depths of my heart, ‘look around you at God’s gifts: the bright sky, the fresh air, the tender grass, the birds, all nature is wonderful and without sin, and only we, we alone are godless and foolish and do not understand that life is a paradise, but all that is necessary is for us to want to understand this, and paradise would immediately come about in all its beauty, and we would hug one another and weep for joy…’ I wanted to continue, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t catch my breath; I felt such joy, such sweetness, my heart was so full of happiness, a happiness such as I had never known before in my life. ‘That’s all very commendable and pious,’ my adversary said to me, ‘and, I must say, you’re an unusual man.’ ‘You may laugh!’ I said, laughing at him in turn, ‘but you will praise me for it later.’ ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I’m prepared to give you credit for it even now; allow me to offer you my hand, because, it would seem, you really are genuine.’ ‘No,’ I said to him, ‘not now, later, when I am a better man and have earned your respect—if you’ll offer me your hand then, you’ll be doing a good thing.’ We returned home, my second railed at me all the way, but I just kept hugging him. All my friends got to hear of what had happened and met the same day to pass judgement upon me: ‘He’s brought disgrace on the uniform,’ they said, ‘he should resign.’ There were also those who came to my defence: ‘Let’s face it,’ they said, ‘he didn’t flinch from being shot at.’ ‘No, but he was afraid to continue, and asked for pardon at the firing-line.’ ‘But if he was afraid of being shot at,’ retorted my defenders, ‘he’d have fired his own pistol first, before asking for pardon, but instead he threw it into the trees while it was still loaded; no, there’s more to it than that, there’s something very strange here.’ I kept listening, and it was a joy to behold them. ‘My dearest friends,’ I said to them, ‘my friends and comrades, don’t concern yourselves about my resignation, because I’ve already resigned, I handed in my resignation this very morning to my commanding officer, and when it’s accepted I’ll enter a monastery straight away, that was the whole purpose of my resignation.’ The moment I said that, they all, to a man, roared with laughter. ‘You should have said so at the very outset, now everything’s clear, a monk can’t be sentenced.’ They couldn’t stop laughing, but they were not jeering at me, their laughter was affectionate and cheerful, and suddenly they all loved me, even those who had condemned me most vehemently, and then, for the rest of the month, while my resignation was being processed, they were almost ready to carry me shoulder-high. ‘Fancy you, a monk!’ they said. And everyone had a kind word for me, they tried to talk me out of it, they were even sorry for me: ‘Do you really know what you’re doing?’ ‘Yes,’ they said, ‘he’s brave all right, he allowed himself to be shot at, and could have fired his own pistol if he’d wanted to, but the night before he dreamt he should become a monk, that’s what it was.’ Almost exactly the same thing happened in local society. Formerly, though I was welcome enough, no one had paid any particular attention to me, but now they vied with one another to make my acquaintance and to invite me to their homes. They couldn’t help laughing at me, but they loved me all the same, and I should add that, though everyone discussed the duel openly at the time, the authorities did not pursue the matter because my adversary was a close relative of our general; and in fact, since it had ended without bloodshed and almost farcically, and because, to cap it all, I had tendered my resignation, the whole affair was regarded as a joke. And so, in spite of their laughter, I began to talk about it openly and without embarrassment, for after all their laughter was not malicious but good-natured. For the most part all these conversations took place at soirées, in the company of ladies, as it was the women who most loved to listen to me then, and they obliged their menfolk to do likewise. Anyone who caught my eye would laugh and say, ‘How can I possibly be guilty of the sins of all other men? How can I, for instance, be guilty of what you have done?’ ‘How can I’, I said to them, ‘expect you to understand that, when the whole world has gone down
another path, when we regard a blatant lie as a truth, and when we expect others to perpetuate that same lie? For once in my life I did something genuine,’ I said to them, ‘and what happened? I became a kind of holy fool in all your eyes, and even though you’ve taken a liking to me, you still go on making fun of me.’ ‘Well, is it any wonder we love you?’ my hostess suddenly laughed out loud; this exchange happened at a large party with lots of guests present. Then suddenly, among the ladies, there stood up the same young woman on whose account I had thrown down the gauntlet, and whom until just recently I had been wooing; I had completely failed to notice her arrival at the party. She stood up, approached me, and extended her hand: ‘Allow me’, she said, ‘to declare that I for one am not making fun of you; on the contrary, I’m grateful to you from the bottom of my heart, and confirm my admiration for what you did.’ Her husband too came up, then everyone crowded round to shake my hand, all but kissing me. I was brimming with joy. I particularly noticed among those who had gathered round me a certain gentleman, a middle-aged man with whom I was not acquainted, though I had known him by name for some time, and with whom, until that night, I had not even exchanged a single word.