The Brothers Karamazov (15 page)

Alyosha’s face again showed great emotion. The corners of his lips quivered.

“There you go again,” the elder said, smiling gently. “Let the worldly shed tears for their dead. We here are happy for a father who is departing. We rejoice with him and pray for him. So go now—it is time for me to pray. And hurry. Stay close to your brothers—not just one of them, but both.”

The elder raised his hand to bless him. Alyosha could not protest, although he longed to stay. He also wanted to ask the elder—the question almost slipped off his tongue—what he had meant by bowing to the ground before Dmitry, but he didn’t dare. He knew that Father Zosima would, if it had been possible, have explained it to him without being asked. But apparently the elder did not think it was. That bow, however, had made a staggering impression upon Alyosha, who was absolutely convinced that it had some mysterious meaning. Mysterious and perhaps also frightening.

As Alyosha left the hermitage, hurrying to get to the monastery (where he was, of course, simply to wait on table) in time for lunch, his heart suddenly contracted painfully and he stopped dead: the elder’s words announcing his own impending end came back to him. Whatever the elder predicted, especially with such precision, was bound to happen. Alyosha believed that implicitly. But what would Alyosha do without him? How could he live without ever seeing him again, without hearing him? And where would he go? The elder had ordered him not to weep, and to leave the monastery. Oh, Lord! It was long since Alyosha had felt so miserable. He started walking again, crossing the little wood between the hermitage and the monastery very quickly. Unable to bear his own thoughts, so much did they oppress him, he started to look at the ancient pines on either side of the path. He didn’t have far to go, five hundred yards or so, and at this hour of the day it was unlikely that he would meet anyone. Yet, as he rounded the first bend in the path, his eyes suddenly fell on Rakitin, who seemed to be waiting for someone.

“Are you waiting for me, by any chance?” Alyosha asked him as he came up to him.

“Yes, precisely for you,” Rakitin said with a grin. “You’re hurrying over to the Father Superior’s. I know—that meal. He hasn’t given a meal like this since he had the Bishop and General Pakhatov at his table. I won’t be there, but you’d better go and pass around the sauces. But first, tell me, Alexei, what did that gesture mean? That’s what I wanted to ask you.”

“What gesture?”

“I mean that bow before your brother Dmitry. He even banged his forehead on the floor!”

“Are you speaking of Father Zosima?”

“That’s right—Father Zosima.”

“He banged his forehead?”

“What’s the matter? Didn’t I express myself respectfully enough? Well, never mind, respectfully or not, what does it mean?”

“I don’t know what it means, Misha.”

“Just as I thought—he didn’t explain it to you. Well, there’s really nothing so very complicated about it, just his usual holy mumbo-jumbo. But it was a well-planned trick. And now all those sanctimonious people will be going around the town and the province asking one another what that gesture could possibly have meant. Well, I believe the old man has a pretty keen nose: he’s caught the scent of crime. Your house stinks of crime, Alyosha.”

“What crime? What are you talking about?”

Rakitin was obviously anxious to talk.

“The crime in your nice little family, between your dear brothers and your rich papa. So Father Zosima decided to bang his forehead on the floor, just in case. And later, if anything does happen, people will say: ‘Ah, that saintly elder prophesied it!’ Although, come to think of it, what kind of prophesying is it to bang one’s head on the floor? No, they will say, it was symbolic, allegorical, or heaven knows what! They’ll sing his praises and remember it forever: he anticipated the crime and pointed out the perpetrator of it. That’s the way it always is with God’s fools: they’re liable to cross themselves at the sight of a tavern and then hurl stones at a church. And that’s how your elder is, too: he’ll drive a righteous man out with a stick and then prostrate himself before a murderer.”

“What crime? What murderer? What’s the matter with you?”

Alyosha stopped dead. Rakitin also stopped.

“What murderer? As though you didn’t know yourself. I’d bet anything that it’s occurred to you before this. I’m curious, though, Alyosha: I know you always tell the truth, even though you never like to say what you think. So tell me then, has it ever occurred to you before or not? Answer me.”

“It has,” Alyosha said, and even Rakitin was taken aback.

“Do you mean that? Is it possible that even you have thought of it, Alyosha!” he exclaimed.

“Well, I . . . I didn’t actually think of it,” Alyosha murmured, “but just now, when you said it so strangely, it seemed to me that it had occurred to me too.”

“So then—and I like the way you put it—you see perfectly well what I mean. Today, when you looked at your papa and at your big brother Mitya, the idea of a crime occurred to you, didn’t it? I wasn’t just imagining things, was I?”

“Wait, wait,” Alyosha interrupted him anxiously. “What makes you see it that way? . . . And why does it preoccupy you so much?”

“You’ve asked me two separate questions, but natural ones; I’ll answer them one at a time. Why do I see it that way? Well, I wouldn’t have seen anything at all if, today, I hadn’t suddenly understood your brother Dmitry completely. I can see right through him now. I understood the whole man through one particular trait in his character. There is a certain line that no one is allowed to cross in dealing with a man like that, who is scrupulously honest, but sensuous and passionate. Otherwise, a man like him could easily slash his dear papa’s throat. Especially when his dear papa is a drunken and unscrupulous lecher who never knows just how far he can go. They’ll neither of them be able to control themselves and the next thing you know, they’ll both land in the ditch . . .”

“No, Misha, if that’s all there is to it, I feel rather reassured. It’ll never reach that point.”

“Then why are you shaking? You know what? Even if your brother Mitya is an honest man—which he is, stupid and honest—he is also sensuous and passionate. That’s the definition of his character, his very essence. He inherited his animal sensuality from his father. As a matter of fact, what puzzles me no end is how you, Alyosha, have managed to remain virgin to this day—you, a Karamazov! Why, sensuality runs through your family like a feverish obsession . . . Here, these three sensualists are stalking one another now, each one of them with a knife hidden in the leg of his boot. The three of them have met head-on, and you may be the fourth . . .”

“You mean about that woman? You’re wrong, Dmitry despises her . . .” Alyosha said, his whole body shuddering strangely.

“Despise Grushenka? No, my friend, Dmitry doesn’t despise her. How can he, when he obviously prefers her to the woman he’s promised to marry? This is something you can’t understand yet, my friend. A man, you know, may fall in love with physical beauty, with a woman’s body, maybe even with just a bit of that body. Any sensualist can understand that. And then, for her sake, he’ll willingly give up his children, betray his father and mother and his native country; he may be honest, but he’ll steal; he may be gentle, but he’ll kill; he may be faithful, but he’ll deceive. Pushkin was a bard of women’s legs. He celebrated women’s legs in his poems. Others do not devote poems to them, but they can’t look at them without inner commotion . . . But in this case it’s not just the legs. In this case scorn wouldn’t help; even if Dmitry did despise Grushenka, he still couldn’t tear himself away from her.”

“I understand that very well,” Alyosha blurted out quite unexpectedly.

“Really? Well, maybe you do understand it, at that—the way you blurted that out,” Rakitin said, with malicious enjoyment. “You didn’t mean to say that. It just slipped out. And that makes the admission so much the more valuable. It goes to show the subject is already familiar to you, that you’ve given it some thought—sensuality, that is. Ah, you virgin boy! You’re a quiet one, Alyosha—a regular little saint, it’s true, but a quiet one, and who knows all the things you know and think about! You’re virgin, but what depths you’ve already explored. I’ve been observing you for a long time. You’re a Karamazov, as much a Karamazov as the rest; your breed and natural selection must count for something. You’re a sensualist like your father and one of God’s fools like your mother. Why are you trembling? Isn’t it true what I say? Shall I tell you what Grushenka asked me to do? ‘Bring him here,’ she said, meaning you. ‘I’ll pull that cassock off his back.’ You should have heard her insist: ‘Bring him here, bring him, see that he comes!’ I really wonder why she should be so curious about you. She’s no ordinary woman herself.”

“Give her my regards and tell her that I won’t come,” Alyosha said with a twisted smile. “And now finish what you wanted to tell me, Mikhail, then I’ll tell you what I think of it all.”

“I’ve really nothing more to say—it all seems pretty clear now. The rest falls into place by itself. If even a boy like you is a sensualist underneath, that leaves very little doubt about Ivan, who was born of the same mother and is a Karamazov too. That’s your family’s problem: you are all sensualists, money-grubbers, and God’s fools. For the time being, Ivan writes theological articles, although he is an atheist and admits that he does not seriously mean what he says in them, and he does it all for some strange, idiotic reasons. On top of that, Ivan is trying to take his brother Mitya’s fiancée away from him, and he seems to be succeeding. As a matter of fact, he’s doing it with Dmitry’s consent, since Dmitry is only too eager to disentangle himself from her so that he can rush off to Grushenka. And through it all, Dmitry remains highly honorable and disinterested; I want you to note that, because men like him are the most dangerous of all. Who the hell can explain you Karamazovs! How can a man realize that he has acted despicably, admit it, and then continue acting in the same way?

“And now listen to this: there’s someone still in Mitya’s way: the old man, his own father. He’s crazy about Grushenka, too. He positively drools when he looks at her. It was because of her that he made that disgraceful scene in the elder’s cell—just because Miusov referred to her as a ‘creature’ or something. He’s like an amorous tomcat now. At first, she was only a paid employee in some of his shady dealing over his chain of taverns. Then one day when he took a good look at her, he suddenly became frantic and started pestering her with all sorts of propositions, none of them honorable, as you can well imagine. Well, they’ll clash head-on, father and son, this way. For the moment, Grushenka doesn’t allow either of them to come too close; she’s teasing them both and studying the situation to see which one will be more profitable. She could, of course, get quite a lot of money out of your father, but then he wouldn’t marry her and eventually he’s likely to turn tight-fisted and hide his purse away. And that’s where Dmitry has his value: he has no money, but he at least is quite capable of marrying her. Yes, sir, he’d marry her all right! He’d leave his Katerina, a girl of great beauty, a lady, a colonel’s daughter, for the sake of that Grushenka, the former mistress of the merchant Samsonov, that debauched peasant who is our mayor! So there’s enough there for a clash of passions and a crime. And that’s just what your brother Ivan is waiting for. It would suit him in every respect: he’d get Katerina, for whom he’s pining, and along with her a dowry of sixty thousand rubles. Not a bad start for a fellow like him without money or position. And I want you to note that he wouldn’t be hurting Mitya; indeed, Mitya would be indebted to him for as long as he lived. I know for a fact that, only a week ago, in a tavern with some gypsy girls, Mitya was drunk and was holding forth about how he wasn’t good enough for his fiancée Katerina whereas his brother Ivan was indeed worthy of her. As to Katerina herself, it’s not very likely that she would turn down a charmer like Ivan in the end, since even today she seems to be hesitating between the two of them. Speaking of Ivan, I really can’t understand how he’s won you all over, so that you all admire him so much, while he sits there comfortably, having a good laugh at your expense.”

“What makes you think that you know so much about these things? How can you be so sure of what you say?” Alyosha suddenly asked, frowning.

“Tell me why, having asked that, you’re afraid beforehand of my answer? Doesn’t that mean that you admit the truth of what I’ve said?”

“You just don’t like Ivan. Ivan wouldn’t do anything like that for money.”

“Wouldn’t he? And what about the beautiful Katerina? It’s not just for money, although I must say, sixty thousand rubles is something to think about.”

“Ivan is aiming at higher things. He wouldn’t be tempted even by thousands of rubles. He’s not looking for money or for security. What he’s looking for is perhaps . . . perhaps it’s suffering and torment that he’s after.”

“What’s this—another wild dream? Ah you . . . you gentlemen!”

“No, Misha, his is a soul in turmoil. His mind is entirely preoccupied with one thing: a great, unresolved idea. He’s one who has no use for millions; all he wants is to find an answer to the problem.”

“Now you’re guilty of literary plagiarism, Alyosha, my boy. You’re just paraphrasing your elder. He has certainly befuddled you all, that brother of yours!” Rakitin cried maliciously, his mouth twisting so that his whole face changed. “Besides, the riddle he offers is just plain stupid. In fact it’s not worth deciphering. His article is ridiculous, absurd. And I also heard his idiotio theory that if there is no immortality of the soul, there can be no virtue and therefore everything is permissible. (By the way, do you remember how your big brother Mitya cried out, ‘I’ll remember that!’?) Of course, it’s a very attractive theory for villains . . . Ah, it is stupid of me to use such strong words. I should have said, not villains, but rather schoolboys showing off, pretending they’re oppressed by profound and insoluble problems. He’s just a miserable little braggart and all he says just amounts to: ‘On the one hand, we cannot but admit and, on the other, we must confess.’ His whole theory is vile! Mankind can find enough strength within itself to live for virtue’s sake, even without believing in the immortality of the soul. In the love of freedom, of equality and the brotherhood of man, it will find it . . .”