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

yourself the crime

of the criminal your heart is judging, take it at once, suffer for him

yourself, and let him go without reproach. And even if the law

itself makes you his judge, act in the same spirit so far as possible,

for he will go away and condemn himself more bitterly than you have

done. If, after your kiss, he goes away untouched, mocking at you,

do not let that be a stumbling-block to you. It shows his time has not

yet come, but it will come in due course. And if it come not, no

Matter; if not he, then another in his place will understand and

suffer, and judge and condemn himself, and the truth will be

fulfilled. Believe that, believe it without doubt; for in that lies

all the hope and faith of the saints.

 

Work without ceasing. If you remember in the night as you go to

sleep, “I have not done what I ought to have done,” rise up at once

and do it. If the people around you are spiteful and callous and

will not hear you, fall down before them and beg their forgiveness;

for in truth you are to blame for their not wanting to hear you. And

if you cannot speak to them in their bitterness, serve them in silence

and in humility, never losing hope. If all men abandon you and even

drive you away by force, then when you are left alone fall on the

earth and kiss it, water it with your tears and it will bring forth

fruit even though no one has seen or heard you in your solitude.

Believe to the end, even if all men went astray and you were left

the only one faithful; bring your offering even then and praise God in

your loneliness. And if two of you are gathered together-then there

is a whole world, a world of living love. Embrace each other

tenderly and praise God, for if only in you two His truth has been

fulfilled.

 

If you sin yourself and grieve even unto death for your sins or

for your sudden sin, then rejoice for others, rejoice for the

righteous man, rejoice that if you have sinned, he is righteous and

has not sinned.

 

If the evildoing of men moves you to indignation and overwhelming

distress, even to a desire for vengeance on the evildoers, shun above

all things that feeling. Go at once and seek suffering for yourself,

as though you were yourself guilty of that wrong. Accept that

suffering and bear it and your heart will find comfort, and you will

understand that you too are guilty, for you might have been a light to

the evildoers, even as the one man sinless, and you were not a

light to them. If you had been a light, you would have lightened the

path for others too, and the evildoer might perhaps have been saved

by your light from his sin. And even though your light was shining,

yet you see men were not saved by it, hold firm and doubt not the

power of the heavenly light. Believe that if they were not saved, they

will be saved hereafter. And if they are not saved hereafter, then

their sons will be saved, for your light will not die even when you

are dead. The righteous man departs, but his light remains. Men are

always saved after the death of the deliverer. Men reject their

prophets and slay them, but they love their martyrs and honour those

whom they have slain. You are working for the whole, are acting for

the future. Seek no reward, for great is your reward on this earth:

the spiritual joy which is only vouchsafed to the righteous man.

Fear not the great nor the mighty, but be wise and ever serene. Know

the measure, know the times, study that. When you are left alone,

pray. Love to throw yourself on the earth and kiss it. Kiss the

earth and love it with an unceasing, consuming love. Love all men,

love everything. Seek that rapture and ecstasy. Water the earth with

the tears of your joy and love those tears. Don’t be ashamed of that

ecstasy, prize it, for it is a gift of God and a great one; it is

not given to many but only to the elect.

 

(i) Of Hell and Hell Fire, a Mystic Reflection.

 

Fathers and teachers, I ponder, “What is hell?” I maintain that it

is the suffering of being unable to love. Once in infinite

existence, immeasurable in time and space, a spiritual creature was

given on his coming to earth the power of saying, “I am and I love.”

Once, only once, there was given him a moment of active lifting

love, and for that was earthly life given him, and with it times and

seasons. And that happy creature rejected the priceless gift, prized

it and loved it not, scorned it and remained callous. Such a one,

having left the earth, sees Abraham’s bosom and talks with Abraham

as we are told in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, and beholds

heaven and can go up to the Lord. But that is just his torment, to

rise up to the Lord without ever having loved, to be brought close

to those who have loved when he has despised their love. For he sees

clearly and says to himself, “Now I have understanding, and though I

now thirst to love, there will be nothing great, no sacrifice in my

love, for my earthly life is over, and Abraham will not come even with

a drop of living water (that is the gift of earthly active life) to

cool the fiery thirst of spiritual love which burns in me now,

though I despised it on earth; there is no more life for me and will

be no more time! Even though I would gladly give my life for others,

it can never be, for that life is passed which can be sacrificed for

love, and now there is a gulf fixed between that life and this

existence.”

 

They talk of hell fire in the material sense. I don’t go into that

mystery and I shun it. But I think if there were fire in material

sense, they would be glad of it, for I imagine that in material agony,

their still greater spiritual agony would be forgotten for a moment.

Moreover, that spiritual agony cannot be taken from them, for that

suffering is not external but within them. And if it could be taken

from them, I think it would be bitterer still for the unhappy

creatures. For even if the righteous in Paradise forgave them,

beholding their torments, and called them up to heaven in their

infinite love, they would only multiply their torments, for they would

arouse in them still more keenly a flaming thirst for responsive,

active and grateful love which is now impossible. In the timidity of

my heart I imagine, however, that the very recognition of this

impossibility would serve at last to console them. For accepting the

love of the righteous together with the impossibility of repaying

it, by this submissiveness and the effect of this humility, they

will attain at last, as it were, to a certain semblance of that active

love which they scorned in life, to something like its outward

expression… I am sorry, friends and brothers, that I cannot

express this clearly. But woe to those who have slain themselves on

earth, woe to the suicides! I believe that there can be none more

miserable than they. They tell us that it is a sin to pray for them

and outwardly the Church, as it were, renounces them, but in my secret

heart I believe that we may pray even for them. Love can never be an

offence to Christ. For such as those I have prayed inwardly all my

life, I confess it, fathers and teachers, and even now I pray for them

every day.

 

Oh, there are some who remain proud and fierce even in hell, in

spite of their certain knowledge and contemplation of the absolute

truth; there are some fearful ones who have given themselves over to

Satan and his proud spirit entirely. For such, hell is voluntary and

ever consuming; they are tortured by their own choice. For they have

cursed themselves, cursing God and life. They live upon their

vindictive pride like a starving man in the desert sucking blood out

of his own body. But they are never satisfied, and they refuse

forgiveness, they curse God Who calls them. They cannot behold the

living God without hatred, and they cry out that the God of life

should be annihilated, that God should destroy Himself and His own

creation. And they will burn in the fire of their own wrath for ever

and yearn for death and annihilation. But they will not attain to

death….

 

Here Alexey Fyodorovitch Karamazov’s manuscript ends. I repeat, it

is incomplete and fragmentary. Biographical details, for instance,

cover only Father Zossima’s earliest youth. Of his teaching and

opinions we find brought together sayings evidently uttered on very

different occasions. His utterances during the last few hours have not

been kept separate from the rest, but their general character can be

gathered from what we have in Alexey Fyodorovitch’s manuscript.

 

The elder’s death came in the end quite unexpectedly. For although

those who were gathered about him that last evening realised that

his death was approaching, yet it was difficult to imagine that it

would come so suddenly. On the contrary, his friends, as I observed

already, seeing him that night apparently so cheerful and talkative,

were convinced that there was at least a temporary change for the

better in his condition. Even five minutes before his death, they said

afterwards wonderingly, it was impossible to foresee it. He seemed

suddenly to feel an acute pain in his chest, he turned pale and

pressed his hands to his heart. All rose from their seats and hastened

to him. But though suffering, he still looked at them with a smile,

sank slowly from his chair on to his knees, then bowed his face to the

ground, stretched out his arms and as though in joyful ecstasy,

praying and kissing the ground, quietly and joyfully gave up his

soul to God.

 

The news of his death spread at once through the hermitage and

reached the monastery. The nearest friends of the deceased and those

whose duty it was from their position began to lay out the corpse

according to the ancient ritual, and all the monks gathered together

in the church. And before dawn the news of the death reached the town.

By the morning all the town was talking of the event, and crowds

were flocking from the town to the monastery. But this subject will be

treated in the next book; I will only add here that before a day had

passed something happened so unexpected, so strange, upsetting, and

bewildering in its effect on the monks and the townspeople, that after

all these years, that day of general suspense is still vividly

remembered in the town.