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

face became not merely gloomy,

but menacing. He scowled, he clenched his teeth, and his fixed stare

became still more rigid, more concentrated, more terrible, when

suddenly, with incredible rapidity, his wrathful, savage face changed,

his tightly compressed lips parted, and Dmitri Fyodorovitch broke into

uncontrolled, spontaneous laughter. He literally shook with

laughter. For a long time he could not speak.

 

“So she wouldn’t kiss her hand! So she didn’t kiss it; so she

ran away!” he kept exclaiming with hysterical delight; insolent

delight it might had been called, if it had not been so spontaneous.

“So the other one called her tigress! And a tigress she is! So she

ought to be flogged on a scaffold? Yes, yes, so she ought. That’s just

what I think; she ought to have been long ago. It’s like this,

brother, let her be punished, but I must get better first. I

understand the queen of impudence. That’s her all over! You saw her

all over in that hand-kissing, the she-devil! She’s magnificent in her

own line! So she ran home? I’ll go-ah- I’ll run to her! Alyosha,

don’t blame me, I agree that hanging is too good for her.”

 

“But Katerina Ivanovna!” exclaimed Alyosha sorrowfully.

 

“I see her, too! I see right through her, as I’ve never done

before! It’s a regular discovery of the four continents of the

world, that is, of the five! What a thing to do! That’s just like

Katya, who was not afraid to face a coarse, unmannerly officer and

risk a deadly insult on a generous impulse to save her father! But the

pride, the recklessness, the defiance of fate, the unbounded defiance!

You say that aunt tried to stop her? That aunt, you know, is

overbearing, herself. She’s the sister of the general’s widow in

Moscow, and even more stuck-up than she. But her husband was caught

stealing government money. He lost everything, his estate and all, and

the proud wife had to lower her colours, and hasn’t raised them since.

So she tried to prevent Katya, but she wouldn’t listen to her! She

thinks she can overcome everything, that everything will give way to

her. She thought she could bewitch Grushenka if she liked, and she

believed it herself: she plays a part to herself, and whose fault is

it? Do you think she kissed Grushenka’s hand first, on purpose, with a

motive? No, she really was fascinated by Grushenka, that’s to say, not

by Grushenka, but by her own dream, her own delusion-because it was

her dream, her delusion! Alyosha, darling, how did you escape from

them, those women? Did you pick up your cassock and run? Ha ha ha!”

 

“Brother, you don’t seem to have noticed how you’ve insulted

Katerina Ivanovna by telling Grushenka about that day. And she flung

it in her face just now that she had gone to gentlemen in secret to

sell her beauty! Brother, what could be worse than that insult?”

 

What worried Alyosha more than anything was that, incredible as it

seemed, his brother appeared pleased at Katerina Ivanovna’s

humiliation.

 

“Bah!” Dmitri frowned fiercely, and struck his forehead with his

hand. He only now realised it, though Alyosha had just told him of the

insult, and Katerina Ivanovna’s cry: “Your brother is a scoundrel”

 

“Yes, perhaps, I really did tell Grushenka about that ‘fatal day,’

as Katya calls it. Yes, I did tell her, I remember! It was that time

at Mokroe. I was drunk, the Gypsies were singing… But I was sobbing.

I was sobbing then, kneeling and praying to Katya’s image, and

Grushenka understood it. She understood it all then. I remember, she

cried herself…. Damn it all! But it’s bound to be so now…. Then

she cried, but now ‘the dagger in the heart’! That’s how women are.”

 

He looked down and sank into thought.

 

“Yes, I am a scoundrel, a thorough scoundrel” he said suddenly, in

a gloomy voice. “It doesn’t matter whether I cried or not, I’m a

scoundrel! Tell her I accept the name, if that’s any comfort. Come,

that’s enough. Goodbye. It’s no use talking! It’s not amusing. You go

your way and I mine. And I don’t want to see you again except as a

last resource. Goodbye, Alexey!”

 

He warmly pressed Alyosha’s hand, and still looking down,

without raising his head, as though tearing himself away, turned

rapidly towards the town.

 

Alyosha looked after him, unable to believe he would go away so

abruptly.

 

“Stay, Alexey, one more confession to you alone” cried Dmitri,

suddenly turning back. “Look at me. Look at me well. You see here,

here-there’s terrible disgrace in store for me.” (As he said

“here,” Dmitri struck his chest with his fist with a strange air, as

though the dishonour lay precisely on his chest, in some spot, in a

pocket, perhaps, or hanging round his neck.) “You know me now, a

scoundrel, an avowed scoundrel, but let me tell you that I’ve never

done anything before and never shall again, anything that can

compare in baseness with the dishonour which I bear now at this very

minute on my breast, here, here, which will come to pass, though I’m

perfectly free to stop it. I can stop it or carry it through, note

that. Well, let me tell you, I shall carry it through. I shan’t stop

it. I told you everything just now, but I didn’t tell you this,

because even I had not brass enough for it. I can still pull up; if

I do, I can give back the full half of my lost honour to-morrow. But I

shan’t pull up. I shall carry out my base plan, and you can bear

witness that I told so beforehand. Darkness and destruction! No need

to explain. You’ll find out in due time. The filthy back-alley and the

she-devil. Goodbye. Don’t pray for me, I’m not worth it. And

there’s no need, no need at all…. I don’t need it! Away!”

 

And he suddenly retreated, this time finally. Alyosha went towards

the monastery.

 

“What? I shall never see him again! What is he saying?” he

wondered wildly. “Why, I shall certainly see him to-morrow. I shall

look him up. I shall make a point of it. What does he mean?”

 

He went round the monastery, and crossed the pine-wood to the

hermitage. The door was opened to him, though no one was admitted at

that hour. There was a tremor in his heart as he went into Father

Zossima’s cell.

 

“Why, why, had he gone forth? Why had he sent him into the

world? Here was peace. Here was holiness. But there was confusion,

there was darkness in which one lost one’s way and went astray at

once….”

 

In the cell he found the novice Porfiry and Father Paissy, who

came every hour to inquire after Father Zossima. Alyosha learnt with

alarm that he was getting worse and worse. Even his usual discourse

with the brothers could not take place that day. As a rule every

evening after service the monks flocked into Father Zossima’s cell,

and all confessed aloud their sins of the day, their sinful thoughts

and temptations; even their disputes, if there had been any. Some

confessed kneeling. The elder absolved, reconciled, exhorted,

imposed penance, blessed, and dismissed them. It was against this

general “confession” that the opponents of “elders” protested,

maintaining that it was a profanation of the sacrament of

confession, almost a sacrilege, though this was quite a different

thing. They even represented to the diocesan authorities that such

confessions attained no good object, but actually to a large extent

led to sin and temptation. Many of the brothers disliked going to

the elder, and went against their own will because everyone went,

and for fear they should be accused of pride and rebellious ideas.

People said that some of the monks agreed beforehand, saying, “I’ll

confess I lost my temper with you this morning, and you confirm it,”

simply in order to have something to say. Alyosha knew that this

actually happened sometimes. He knew, too, that there were among the

monks some who deep resented the fact that letters from relations were

habitually taken to the elder, to be opened and read by him before

those to whom they were addressed.

 

It was assumed, of course, that all this was done freely, and in

good faith, by way of voluntary submission and salutary guidance. But,

in fact, there was sometimes no little insincerity, and much that

was false and strained in this practice. Yet the older and more

experienced of the monks adhered to their opinion, arguing that “for

those who have come within these walls sincerely seeking salvation,

such obedience and sacrifice will certainly be salutary and of great

benefit; those, on the other hand, who find it irksome, and repine,

are no true monks, and have made a mistake in entering the

monastery-their proper place is in the world. Even in the temple

one cannot be safe from sin and the devil. So it was no good taking it

too much into account.”

 

“He is weaker, a drowsiness has come over him,” Father Paissy

whispered to Alyosha, as he blessed him. “It’s difficult to rouse him.

And he must not be roused. He waked up for five minutes, sent his

blessing to the brothers, and begged their prayers for him at night.

He intends to take the sacrament again in the morning. He remembered

you, Alexey. He asked whether you had gone away, and was told that you

were in the town. ‘I blessed him for that work,’ he said, ‘his place

is there, not here, for awhile.’ Those were his words about you. He

remembered you lovingly, with anxiety; do you understand how he

honoured you? But how is it that he has decided that you shall spend

some time in the world? He must have foreseen something in your

destiny! Understand, Alexey, that if you return to the world, it

must be to do the duty laid upon you by your elder, and not for

frivolous vanity and worldly pleasures.”

 

Father Paissy went out. Alyosha had no doubt that Father Zossima

was dying, though he might live another day or two. Alyosha firmly and

ardently resolved that in spite of his promises to his father, the

Hohlakovs, and Katerina Ivanovna, he would not leave the monastery

next day, but would remain with his elder to the end. His heart glowed

with love, and he reproached himself bitterly for having been able for

one instant to forget him whom he had left in the monastery on his

death bed, and whom he honoured above everyone in the world. He went

into Father Zossima’s bedroom, knelt down, and bowed to the ground

before the elder, who slept quietly without stirring, with regular,

hardly audible breathing and a peaceful face.

 

Alyosha returned to the other room, where Father Zossima

received his guests in the morning. Taking off his boots, he lay

down on the hard, narrow, leathern sofa, which he had long used as a

bed, bringing nothing but a pillow. The mattress, about which his

father had shouted to him that morning, he had long forgotten to lie

on. He took off his cassock, which he used as a covering. But before

going to bed, he fell on his knees and prayed a long time. In his

fervent prayer he did not beseech God to lighten his darkness but only

thirsted for the joyous emotion, which always visited his soul after

the praise and adoration, of which his evening prayer usually

consisted. That joy always brought him light untroubled sleep. As he

was praying, he suddenly felt in his pocket the little pink note the

servant had handed him as he left Katerina Ivanovna’s. He was

disturbed, but finished his prayer. Then,