The Brothers Karamazov, Fyodor Dostoyevsky [children's books read aloud TXT] 📗
- Author: Fyodor Dostoyevsky
- Performer: 0140449248
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commonly seen in those who have sacrificed their intellects for the
glory of God? The pinching of the devil’s tail he was ready and
eager to believe, and not only in the figurative sense. Besides he
had, before visiting the monastery, a strong prejudice against the
institution of “elders,” which he only knew of by hearsay and believed
to be a pernicious innovation. Before he had been long at the
monastery, he had detected the secret murmurings of some shallow
brothers who disliked the institution. He was, besides, a
meddlesome, inquisitive man, who poked his nose into everything.
This was why the news of the fresh “miracle” performed by Father
Zossima reduced him to extreme perplexity. Alyosha remembered
afterwards how their inquisitive guest from Obdorsk had been
continually flitting to and fro from one group to another, listening
and asking questions among the monks that were crowding within and
without the elder’s cell. But he did not pay much attention to him
at the time, and only recollected it afterwards.
He had no thought to spare for it indeed, for when Father Zossima,
feeling tired again, had gone back to bed, he thought of Alyosha as he
was closing his eyes, and sent for him. Alyosha ran at once. There was
no one else in the cell but Father Paissy, Father Iosif, and the
novice Porfiry. The elder, opening his weary eyes and looking intently
at Alyosha, asked him suddenly:
“Are your people expecting you, my son?”
Alyosha hesitated.
“Haven’t they need of you? Didn’t you promise someone yesterday to
see them to-day?”
“I did promise-to my father-my brothers-others too.”
“You see, you must go. Don’t grieve. Be sure I shall not die
without your being by to hear my last word. To you I will say that
word, my son, it will be my last gift to you. To you, dear son,
because you love me. But now go to keep your promise.”
Alyosha immediately obeyed, though it was hard to go. But the
promise that he should hear his last word on earth, that it should
be the last gift to him, Alyosha, sent a thrill of rapture through his
soul. He made haste that he might finish what he had to do in the town
and return quickly. Father Paissy, too, uttered some words of
exhortation which moved and surprised him greatly. He spoke as they
left the cell together.
“Remember, young man, unceasingly,” Father Paissy began, without
preface, “that the science of this world, which has become a great
power, has, especially in the last century, analysed everything divine
handed down to us in the holy books. After this cruel analysis the
learned of this world have nothing left of all that was sacred of old.
But they have only analysed the parts and overlooked the whole, and
indeed their blindness is marvellous. Yet the whole still stands
steadfast before their eyes, and the gates of hell shall not prevail
against it. Has it not lasted nineteen centuries, is it not still a
living, a moving power in the individual soul and in the masses of
people? It is still as strong and living even in the souls of
atheists, who have destroyed everything! For even those who have
renounced Christianity and attack it, in their inmost being still
follow the Christian ideal, for hitherto neither their subtlety nor
the ardour of their hearts has been able to create a higher ideal of
man and of virtue than the ideal given by Christ of old. When it has
been attempted, the result has been only grotesque. Remember this
especially, young man, since you are being sent into the world by your
departing elder. Maybe, remembering this great day, you will not
forget my words, uttered from the heart for your guidance, seeing
you are young, and the temptations of the world are great and beyond
your strength to endure. Well, now go, my orphan.”
With these words Father Paissy blessed him. As Alyosha left the
monastery and thought them over, he suddenly realised that he had
met a new and unexpected friend, a warmly loving teacher, in this
austere monk who had hitherto treated him sternly. It was as though
Father Zossima had bequeathed him to him at his death, and “perhaps
that’s just what had passed between them,” Alyosha thought suddenly.
The philosophic reflections he had just heard so unexpectedly
testified to the warmth of Father Paissy’s heart. He was in haste to
arm the boy’s mind for conflict with temptation and to guard the young
soul left in his charge with the strongest defence he could imagine.
At His Father’s
FIRST of all, Alyosha went to his father. On the way he remembered
that his father had insisted the day before that he should come
without his brother Ivan seeing him. “Why so?” Alyosha wondered
suddenly. “Even if my father has something to say to me alone, why
should I go in unseen? Most likely in his excitement yesterday he
meant to say something different,” he decided. Yet he was very glad
when Marfa Ignatyevna, who opened the garden gate to him (Grigory,
it appeared, was ill in bed in the lodge), told him in answer to his
question that Ivan Fyodorovitch had gone out two hours ago.
“And my father?”
“He is up, taking his coffee,” Marfa answered somewhat drily.
Alyosha went in. The old man was sitting alone at the table
wearing slippers and a little old overcoat. He was amusing himself
by looking through some accounts, rather inattentively however. He was
quite alone in the house, for Smerdyakov too had gone out marketing.
Though he had got up early and was trying to put a bold face on it, he
looked tired and weak. His forehead, upon which huge purple bruises
had come out during the night, was bandaged with a red handkerchief;
his nose too was swollen terribly in the night, and some smaller
bruises covered it in patches, giving his whole face a peculiarly
spiteful and irritable look. The old man was aware of this, and turned
a hostile glance on Alyosha as he came in.
“The coffee is cold,” he cried harshly; “I won’t offer you any.
I’ve ordered nothing but a Lenten fish soup to-day, and I don’t invite
anyone to share it. Why have you come?”
“To find out how you are,” said Alyosha.
“Yes. Besides, I told you to come yesterday. It’s all of no
consequence. You need not have troubled. But I knew you’d come
poking in directly.”
He said this with almost hostile feeling. At the same time he
got up and looked anxiously in the looking-glass (perhaps for the
fortieth time that morning) at his nose. He began, too, binding his
red handkerchief more becomingly on his forehead.
“Red’s better. It’s just like the hospital in a white one,” he
observed sententiously. “Well, how are things over there? How is
your elder?”
“He is very bad; he may die to-day,” answered Alyosha. But his
father had not listened, and had forgotten his own question at once.
“Ivan’s gone out,” he said suddenly. “He is doing his utmost to
carry off Mitya’s betrothed. That’s what he is staying here for,” he
added maliciously, and, twisting his mouth, looked at Alyosha.
“Surely he did not tell you so?” asked Alyosha.
“Yes, he did, long ago. Would you believe it, he told me three
weeks ago? You don’t suppose he too came to murder me, do you? He must
have had some object in coming.”
“What do you mean? Why do you say such things?” said Alyosha,
troubled.
“He doesn’t ask for money, it’s true, but yet he won’t get a
farthing from me. I intend living as long as possible, you may as well
know, my dear Alexey Fyodorovitch, and so I need every farthing, and
the longer I live, the more I shall need it,” he continued, pacing
from one corner of the room to the other, keeping his hands in the
pockets of his loose greasy overcoat made of yellow cotton material.
“I can still pass for a man at five and fifty, but I want to pass
for one for another twenty years. As I get older, you know, I shan’t
be a pretty object. The wenches won’t come to me of their own
accord, so I shall want my money. So I am saving up more and more,
simply for myself, my dear son Alexey Fyodorovitch. You may as well
know. For I mean to go on in my sins to the end, let me tell you.
For sin is sweet; all abuse it, but all men live in it, only others do
it on the sly, and I openly. And so all the other sinners fall upon me
for being so simple. And your paradise, Alexey Fyodorovitch, is not to
my taste, let me tell you that; and it’s not the proper place for a
gentleman, your paradise, even if it exists. I believe that I fall
asleep and don’t wake up again, and that’s all. You can pray for my
soul if you like. And if you don’t want to, don’t, damn you! That’s my
philosophy. Ivan talked well here yesterday, though we were all drunk.
Ivan is a conceited coxcomb, but he has no particular learning…
nor education either. He sits silent and smiles at one without
speaking-that’s what pulls him through.”
Alyosha listened to him in silence.
“Why won’t he talk to me? If he does speak, he gives himself airs.
Your Ivan is a scoundrel! And I’ll marry Grushenka in a minute if I
want to. For if you’ve money, Alexey Fyodorovitch, you have only to
want a thing and you can have it. That’s what Ivan is afraid of, he is
on the watch to prevent me getting married and that’s why he is egging
on Mitya to marry Grushenka himself. He hopes to keep me from
Grushenka by that (as though I should leave him my money if I don’t
marry her!). Besides if Mitya marries Grushenka, Ivan will carry off
his rich betrothed, that’s what he’s reckoning on! He is a
scoundrel, your Ivan!”
“How cross you are! It’s because of yesterday; you had better
lie down,” said Alyosha.
“There! you say that,” the old man observed suddenly, as though it
had struck him for the first time, “and I am not angry with you. But
if Ivan said it, I should be angry with him. It is only with you I
have good moments, else you know I am an ill-natured man.”
“You are not ill-natured, but distorted,” said Alyosha with a
smile.
“Listen. I meant this morning to get that ruffian Mitya locked
up and I don’t know now what I shall decide about it. Of course in
these fashionable days fathers and mothers are looked upon as a
prejudice, but even now the law does not allow you to drag your old
father about by the hair, to kick him in the face in his own house,
and brag of murdering him outright-all in the presence of
witnesses. If I liked, I could crush him and could have him locked
up at once for what he did yesterday.”
“Then you don’t mean to take proceedings?”
“Ivan has dissuaded me. I shouldn’t care about Ivan, but there’s
another thing.”
And bending down to Alyosha, he went on in a confidential
half-whisper.
“If I send the ruffian to prison, she’ll hear of it and run to see
him at once. But if she hears that he has beaten me, a weak old man,
within an inch of my life, she may
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