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Read books online » Fiction » The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky (best e book reader for android txt) 📖

Book online «The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky (best e book reader for android txt) 📖». Author Fyodor Dostoyevsky



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hidden in those words, and were not worse words and acts

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.

Chapter 2

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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