The Brothers Karamazov, Fyodor Dostoyevsky [children's books read aloud TXT] 📗

>fish patties; then boiled fish served in a special way; then salmon

cutlets, ice pudding and compote, and finally, blanc-mange. Rakitin

found out about all these good things, for he could not resist peeping

into the kitchen, where he already had a footing. He had a footing

everywhere, and got information about everything. He was of an

uneasy and envious temper. He was well aware of his own considerable

abilities, and nervously exaggerated them in his self-conceit. He knew

he would play a prominent part of some sort, but Alyosha, who was

attached to him, was distressed to see that his friend Rakitin was

dishonourable, and quite unconscious of being so himself, considering,

on the contrary, that because he would not steal money left on the

table he was a man of the highest integrity. Neither Alyosha nor

anyone else could have influenced him in that.

 

Rakitin, of course, was a person of too little consequence to be

invited to the dinner, to which Father Iosif, Father Paissy, and one

other monk were the only inmates of the monastery invited. They were

already waiting when Miusov, Kalganov, and Ivan arrived. The other

guest, Maximov, stood a little aside, waiting also. The Father

Superior stepped into the middle of the room to receive his guests. He

was a tall, thin, but still vigorous old man, with black hair streaked

with grey, and a long, grave, ascetic face. He bowed to his guests

in silence. But this time they approached to receive his blessing.

Miusov even tried to kiss his hand, but the Father Superior drew it

back in time to avoid the salute. But Ivan and Kalganov went through

the ceremony in the most simplehearted and complete manner, kissing

his hand as peasants do.

 

“We must apologise most humbly, your reverence,” began Miusov,

simpering affably, and speaking in a dignified and respectful tone.

“Pardon us for having come alone without the gentleman you invited,

Fyodor Pavlovitch. He felt obliged to decline the honour of your

hospitality, and not without reason. In the reverend Father

Zossima’s cell he was carried away by the unhappy dissension with

his son, and let fall words which were quite out of keeping… in

fact, quite unseemly… as”- he glanced at the monks- “your

reverence is, no doubt, already aware. And therefore, recognising that

he had been to blame, he felt sincere regret and shame, and begged me,

and his son Ivan Fyodorovitch, to convey to you his apologies and

regrets. In brief, he hopes and desires to make amends later. He

asks your blessing, and begs you to forget what has taken place.”

 

As he uttered the last word of his tirade, Miusov completely

recovered his self-complacency, and all traces of his former

irritation disappeared. He fully and sincerely loved humanity again.

 

The Father Superior listened to him with dignity, and, with a

slight bend of the head, replied:

 

“I sincerely deplore his absence. Perhaps at our table he might

have learnt to like us, and we him. Pray be seated, gentlemen.”

 

He stood before the holy image, and began to say grace, aloud. All

bent their heads reverently, and Maximov clasped his hands before him,

with peculiar fervour.

 

It was at this moment that Fyodor Pavlovitch played his last

prank. It must be noted that he really had meant to go home, and

really had felt the impossibility of going to dine with the Father

Superior as though nothing had happened, after his disgraceful

behaviour in the elder’s cell. Not that he was so very much ashamed of

himself-quite the contrary perhaps. But still he felt it would be

unseemly to go to dinner. Yet his creaking carriage had hardly been

brought to the steps of the hotel, and he had hardly got into it, when

he suddenly stopped short. He remembered his own words at the elder’s:

“I always feel when I meet people that I am lower than all, and that

they all take me for a buffoon; so I say let me play the buffoon,

for you are, every one of you, stupider and lower than I.” He longed

to revenge himself on everyone for his own unseemliness. He suddenly

recalled how he had once in the past been asked, “Why do you hate so

and so, so much?” And he had answered them, with his shameless

impudence, “I’ll tell you. He has done me no harm. But I played him

a dirty trick, and ever since I have hated him.”

 

Remembering that now, he smiled quietly and malignantly,

hesitating for a moment. His eyes gleamed, and his lips positively

quivered.

 

“Well, since I have begun, I may as well go on,” he decided. His

predominant sensation at that moment might be expressed in the

following words, “Well, there is no rehabilitating myself now. So

let me shame them for all I am worth. I will show them I don’t care

what they think-that’s all!”

 

He told the coachman to wait, while with rapid steps he returned

to the monastery and straight to the Father Superior’s. He had no

clear idea what he would do, but he knew that he could not control

himself, and that a touch might drive him to the utmost limits of

obscenity, but only to obscenity, to nothing criminal, nothing for

which he could be legally punished. In the last resort, he could

always restrain himself, and had marvelled indeed at himself, on

that score, sometimes. He appeared in the Father Superior’s

dining-room, at the moment when the prayer was over, and all were

moving to the table. Standing in the doorway, he scanned the

company, and laughing his prolonged, impudent, malicious chuckle,

looked them all boldly in the face. “They thought I had gone, and here

I am again,” he cried to the whole room.

 

For one moment everyone stared at him without a word; and at

once everyone felt that something revolting, grotesque, positively

scandalous, was about to happen. Miusov passed immediately from the

most benevolent frame of mind to the most savage. All the feelings

that had subsided and died down in his heart revived instantly.

 

“No! this I cannot endure!” he cried. “I absolutely cannot! and…

I certainly cannot!”

 

The blood rushed to his head. He positively stammered; but he

was beyond thinking of style, and he seized his hat.

 

“What is it he cannot?” cried Fyodor Pavlovitch, “that he

absolutely cannot and certainly cannot? Your reverence, am I to come

in or not? Will you receive me as your guest?”

 

“You are welcome with all my heart,” answered the Superior.

“Gentlemen!” he added, “I venture to beg you most earnestly to lay

aside your dissensions, and to be united in love and family harmony-with prayer to the Lord at our humble table.”

 

“No, no, it is impossible!” cried Miusov, beside himself.

 

“Well, if it is impossible for Pyotr Alexandrovitch, it is

impossible for me, and I won’t stop. That is why I came. I will keep

with Pyotr Alexandrovitch everywhere now. If you will go away, Pyotr

Alexandrovitch, I will go away too, if you remain, I will remain.

You stung him by what you said about family harmony, Father

Superior, he does not admit he is my relation. That’s right, isn’t it,

von Sohn? Here’s von Sohn. How are you, von Sohn?”

 

“Do you mean me?” muttered Maximov, puzzled.

 

“Of course I mean you,” cried Fyodor Pavlovitch. “Who else? The

Father Superior could not be von Sohn.”

 

“But I am not von Sohn either. I am Maximov.”

 

“No, you are von Sohn. Your reverence, do you know who von Sohn

was? It was a famous murder case. He was killed in a house of

harlotry-I believe that is what such places are called among you-he was killed and robbed, and in spite of his venerable age, he was

nailed up in a box and sent from Petersburg to Moscow in the luggage

van, and while they were nailing him up, the harlots sang songs and

played the harp, that is to say, the piano. So this is that very von

Solin. He has risen from the dead, hasn’t he, von Sohn?”

 

“What is happening? What’s this?” voices were heard in the group

of monks.

 

“Let us go,” cried Miusov, addressing Kalganov.

 

“No, excuse me,” Fyodor Pavlovitch broke in shrilly, taking

another step into the room. “Allow me to finish. There in the cell you

blamed me for behaving disrespectfully just because I spoke of

eating gudgeon, Pyotr Alexandrovitch. Miusov, my relation, prefers

to have plus de noblesse que de sincerite in his words, but I prefer

in mine plus de sincerite que de noblesse, and-damn the noblesse!

That’s right, isn’t it, von Sohn? Allow me, Father Superior, though

I am a buffoon and play the buffoon, yet I am the soul of honour,

and I want to speak my mind. Yes, I am the soul of honour, while in

Pyotr Alexandrovitch there is wounded vanity and nothing else. I

came here perhaps to have a look and speak my mind. My son, Alexey, is

here, being saved. I am his father; I care for his welfare, and it

is my duty to care. While I’ve been playing the fool, I have been

listening and having a look on the sly; and now I want to give you the

last act of the performance. You know how things are with us? As a

thing falls, so it lies. As a thing once has fallen, so it must lie

for ever. Not a bit of it! I want to get up again. Holy Father, I am

indignant with you. Confession is a great sacrament, before which I am

ready to bow down reverently; but there in the cell, they all kneel

down and confess aloud. Can it be right to confess aloud? It was

ordained by the holy Fathers to confess in secret: then only your

confession will be a mystery, and so it was of old. But how can I

explain to him before everyone that I did this and that… well, you

understand what-sometimes it would not be proper to talk about it-so

it is really a scandal! No, Fathers, one might be carried along with

you to the Flagellants, I dare say…. at the first opportunity I

shall write to the Synod, and I shall take my son, Alexey, home.”

 

We must note here that Fyodor Pavlovitch knew where to look for

the weak spot. There had been at one time malicious rumours which

had even reached the Archbishop (not only regarding our monastery, but

in others where the institution of elders existed) that too much

respect was paid to the elders, even to the detriment of the authority

of the Superior, that the elders abused the sacrament of confession

and so on and so on-absurd charges which had died away of

themselves everywhere. But the spirit of folly, which had caught up

Fyodor Pavlovitch and was bearing him on the current of his own nerves

into lower and lower depths of ignominy, prompted him with this old

slander. Fyodor Pavlovitch did not understand a word of it, and he

could not even put it sensibly, for on this occasion no one had been

kneeling and confessing aloud in the elder’s cell, so that he could

not have seen anything of the kind. He was only speaking from confused

memory of old slanders. But as soon as he had uttered his foolish

tirade, he felt he had been talking absurd nonsense, and at once

longed to prove to his audience, and above all to himself, that he had

not been talking nonsense. And, though he knew perfectly well that

with each word he would be adding more and more absurdity, he could

not restrain himself, and plunged forward blindly.

 

“How disgraceful!” cried Pyotr Alexandrovitch.