 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Brothers Karamazov. By Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky. Translated by Konstantin Skarnet. Part 1. The History of a Family. Chapter 1. Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov. Alexei Fyodorovich Karamazov was the third son of Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov, a landowner well known in our district in his own day, and still remembered among us, owing to his gloomy and tragic death, which happened 13 years ago, in which I shall describe in its proper place. For the present, I will only say that this landowner, for so we used to call him, although he hardly spent a day of his life on his own estate, was a strange type, yet one pretty frequently to be met with, a type abject and vicious and at the same time senseless. But he was one of those senseless persons who were very well capable of looking after their worldly affairs, and apparently after nothing else. Fyodor Pavlovich, for instance, began with next to nothing. His estate was of the smallest, he ran to dine at other men's tables, and fastened on them as a toady, yet at his death it appeared that he had a hundred thousand rubles in hard cash. At the same time he was all his life one of the most senseless, fantastical fellows in the whole district. I repeat, it was not stupidity. The majority of these fantastical fellows are shrewd and intelligent enough, but just senselessness and a peculiar national form of it. He was married twice and had three sons, the eldest Dimitri by his first wife, and two, Ivan and Alexei by his second. Fyodor Pavlovich's first wife, Adelaida Ivanovna, belonged to a fairly rich and distinguished noble family, also landowners in our district, the Musels. How it came to pass than an heiress, who is also a beauty, and moreover one of those vigorous, intelligent girls so common in this generation, but sometimes also to be found in the last, could have married such a worthless, puny weakling, as we all called him. I won't attempt to explain. I knew a young lady of the last romantic generation, who after some years of an enigmatic passion for a gentleman, whom she might quite easily have married at any moment, invented insupportable obstacles to their union, and ended by throwing herself, one stormy night, into a rather deep and rapid river from a high bank, almost a precipice, and so perished, entirely to satisfy her own caprice, and to be like Shakespeare's Ophelia. Indeed, if this precipice, a chosen and favorite spot of hers, had been less picturesque, if there had been a prosaic flat bank in its place, most likely the suicide would never have taken place. This is a fact, and probably there have not been a few similar instances in the last two or three generations. Adelaida Ivanovna Musels' action was similarly, no doubt, an echo of other people's ideas, and was due to the irritation caused by lack of mental freedom. She wanted, perhaps, to show her feminine independence, to override class distinctions and the despotism of her family, and a pliable imagination persuaded her, we must suppose, for a brief moment, that Feodor Pavlovich, in spite of his parasitic position, was one of the bold and ironical spirits of that progressive epoch, though he was, in fact, an ill-natured buffoon and nothing more. What gave the marriage pickancy was that it was preceded by an elopement, and this greatly captivated Adelaida Ivanovna's fancy. Feodor Pavlovich's position at the time made him especially eager for any such enterprise, for he was passionately anxious to make a career in one way or another. To attach himself to a good family and obtain a dowry was an alluring prospect, as for mutual love, it did not exist, apparently, either in the bride or in him, in spite of Adelaida Ivanovna's beauty. This was perhaps a unique case of the kind in the life of Feodor Pavlovich, who was always of a voluptuous temper, and ready to run after any petticoat on the slightest encouragement. She seems to have been the only woman who made no particular appeal to his senses. Immediately after the elopement, Adelaida Ivanovna discerned in a flash that she had no feeling for her husband but contempt. The marriage accordingly showed itself in its true colours with extraordinary rapidity. Although the family accepted the event pretty quickly, and apportioned the runaway bride, her dowry, the husband and wife began to lead a most disorderly life, and there were everlasting scenes between them. It was said that the young wife showed incomparably more generosity and dignity than Feodor Pavlovich, who, as is known, got hold of all her money up to twenty-five thousand roubles as soon as she'd received it, so that those thousands were lost to her forever. The little village, and the rather fine townhouse which formed part of her dowry, he did his utmost for a long time to transfer to his name by means of some deed of conveyance. He would probably have succeeded, merely from her moral fatigue and desire to get rid of him, and from the contempt and loathing he aroused by her persistent and shameless importunity, but fortunately Adelaida Ivanovna's family intervened and circumvented his greediness. It is known for a fact that frequent fights took place between the husband and wife, but rumour had it that Feodor Pavlovich did not beat his wife, but was beaten by her, for she was a hot-tempered, bold, dark-brown, impatient woman, possessed of remarkable physical strength. Finally she left the house and ran away from Feodor Pavlovich with a destitute divinity student, leaving Mitya, a child of three years old, in her husband's hands. Immediately Feodor Pavlovich introduced a regular harem into the house and abandoned himself to orgies of drunkenness. In the intervals he used to drive all over the province, complaining tearfully to each and all of Adelaida Ivanovna's having left him, going into details too disgraceful for a husband to mention in regard to his own married life. What seemed to gratify him, and flatter his self-love most, was to play the ridiculous part of the injured husband, and to parade his woes with embellishments. One would think that you got a promotion, Feodor Pavlovich, you seem so pleased in spite of your sorrow, scoffers said to him. Many even added that he was glad of a new comic part in which to play the buffoon, and that it was simply to make it funnier, that he pretended to be unaware of his ludicrous position. But who knows, it may have been simplicity. At least he succeeded in getting on the track of his runaway wife. The poor woman turned out to be in Petersburg, where she had gone with her divinity student, and where she had thrown herself into a life of complete emancipation. Feodor Pavlovich at once began bustling about making preparations to go to Petersburg, with what object he could not himself have said. He would perhaps have really gone, but having determined to do so, he felt at once entitled to fortify himself for the journey by another bout of reckless drinking. And just at that time his wife's family received the news of her death in Petersburg. She had died quite suddenly in a garret, according to one story, of typhus, whereas another version had it of starvation. Feodor Pavlovich was drunk when he heard of his wife's death, and the story is that he ran out into the street and began shouting with joy, raising his hands to heaven. Lord, now let us thou thy servant depart in peace. But others say he wept without restraint like a little child, so much so that people were sorry for him, in spite of the repulsion he inspired. It is quite possible that both versions were true, that he rejoiced at his release, and at the same time wept for her who released him. As a general rule, people, even the wicked, are much more naive and simple-hearted than we suppose, and we ourselves are too. This ends Chapter 1. This is a LibriVox public domain recording of the brother's Karamazov. Chapter 2. He gets rid of his eldest son. You can easily imagine what a father such a man could be, and how he would bring up his children. His behaviour as a father was exactly what might be expected. He completely abandoned the child of his marriage with Adelaide Ivanovna, not from malice, nor because of his matrimonial grievances, but simply because he forgot him. While he was wearing everyone with his tears and complaints, and turning his house into a sink of debauchery, a faithful servant of the family, Grigori, took the three-year-old Mitya into his care. If he hadn't looked after him, there would have been no one even to change the baby's little shirt. It happened moreover that the child's relations on his mother's side forgot him too at first. His grandfather was no longer living. His widow, Mitya's grandmother, had moved to Moscow, and was seriously ill, while his daughters were married, so that Mitya remained for almost a whole year in old Grigori's charge, and lived with him in the servant's cottage. But if his father had remembered him, he could not indeed have been altogether unaware of his existence. He would have sent him back to the cottage, as the child would only have been in the way of his debaucheries. But a cousin of Mitya's mother, Piotr Alexandrovich Musov, happened to return from Paris. He lived for many years afterwards abroad, but was at that time quite a young man, and distinguished among the Musovs as a man of enlightened ideas and of European culture, who had been in the capitals and abroad. Towards the end of his life he became a liberal of the type common in the forties and fifties. In the course of his career he had come into contact with many of the most liberal men of his epoch, both in Russia and abroad. He had known Prudhon and Baknunin personally, and in his declining years was very fond of prescribing the three days of the Paris Revolution of February 1848, hinting that he himself had almost taken part in the fighting on the barricades. This was one of the most grateful recollections of his youth. He had an independent property of about a thousand souls to reckon in the old style. His splendid estate lay on the outskirts of our little town and bordered on the lands of our famous monastery, with which Piotr Alexandrovich began an endless lawsuit almost as soon as he came into the estate concerning the rights of fishing in the river or woodcutting in the forest. I don't know exactly which. He regarded it as his duty as a citizen and a man of culture to open an attack upon the clericals. Hearing all about Adelaide Ivanovna, whom he of course remembered, and in whom he had at one time been interested, and learning of the existence of Mitya, he intervened in spite of all his youthful indignation and contempt for Fyodor Pavlovich. He made the latter's acquaintance for the first time and told him directly that he wished to undertake the child's education. He used long afterwards to tell as a characteristic touch that when he began to speak of Mitya, Fyodor Pavlovich looked for some time as though he did not understand what child he was talking about, and even as though he was surprised to hear that he had a little son in the house. The story may have been exaggerated, yet it must have been something like the truth. Fyodor Pavlovich was all his life fond of acting, of suddenly playing an unexpected part, sometimes without any motive for doing so, and even to his own direct disadvantage, as for instance in the present case. This habit, however, is characteristic of a very great number of people, some of them very clever ones, not like Fyodor Pavlovich. Fyodor Alexandrovich carried the business through vigorously, and was appointed with Fyodor Pavlovich, joint guardian of the child, who had a small property, a house and land left him by his mother. Mitya did in fact pass into this cousin's keeping, but as the latter had no family of his own, and after securing the revenues of his estates was in haste to return at once to Paris, he left the boy in charge of one of his cousins, a lady living in Moscow. It came to pass that, settling permanently in Paris, he too forgot the child, especially when the revolution of February broke out, making an impression on his mind that he remembered all the rest of his life. The Moscow lady died, and Mitya passed into the care of one of her married daughters. I believe he changed his home a fourth time later on. I won't enlarge upon that now, as I shall have much to tell later of Fyodor Pavlovich's first born, and must confine myself now to the most essential facts about him, without which I could not begin my story. In the first place, this Mitya, or rather Dimitri Fyodorovich, was the only one of Fyodor Pavlovich's three sons who grew up in the belief that he had property, and that he would be independent on coming of age. He spent an irregular boyhood in youth. He did not finish his studies at the gymnasium. He got into a military school, then went to the caucuses, was promoted, fought a duel, and was degraded to the ranks. Earned promotion again, led a wild life, and spent a good deal of money. He did not begin to receive any income from Fyodor Pavlovich until he came of age, and until then got into debt. He saw and knew his father Fyodor Pavlovich for the first time on coming of age, when he visited our neighborhood on purpose, to settle with him about his property. He seems not to have liked his father. He did not stay long with him, and made haste to get away, having only succeeded at obtaining a sum of money, and entering into an agreement for future payments from the estate, of the revenues and value of which he was unable, a fact worthy of note, upon this occasion to get a statement from his father. Fyodor Pavlovich remarked for the first time then, this too should be noted, that Mitya had a vague and exaggerated idea of his property. Fyodor Pavlovich was very well satisfied with this, and it fell in with his own designs. He gathered only that the young man was frivolous, unruly, of violent passions, impatient and dissipated, and that if he could only obtain ready money he would be satisfied, although only, of course, for a time. So Fyodor Pavlovich began to take advantage of this fact, sending him from time to time small doles, installments, in the end, when four years later Mitya, losing patience, came a second time to our little town to settle up once and for all with his father. It turned out to his amazement that he had nothing, that it was difficult to get an account even, that he had received the whole value of his property in sums of money from Fyodor Pavlovich, and was perhaps even in debt to him, that by various agreements into which he had, of his own desire, entered at various previous states, he had no right to expect anything more, and so on, and so on. The young man was overwhelmed, suspected deceit and cheating, and was almost beside himself. And indeed this circumstance led to the catastrophe, the account to which forms the subject of my first introductory story, or rather the external side of it, but before I pass to that story I must say a little of Fyodor Pavlovich's other two sons, and of their origin. This ends Chapter 2. This is a LibriVox public domain recording of the brother's Karmasov. Chapter 3. The Second Marriage and the Second Family Very shortly after getting his four-year-old Mitya off his hands, Fyodor Pavlovich married a second time. His second marriage lasted eight years. He took this wife, Sofia Ivanovna, also a very young girl from another province, where he had gone upon some small piece of business in company with a Jew. Though Fyodor Pavlovich was a drunkard and a vicious debauche, he never neglected investing his capital, and managed his business affairs very successfully, though no doubt not overscrupulously. Sofia Ivanovna was the daughter of an obscure deacon, and was left from childhood an orphan without relations. She grew up in the house of a general's widow, a wealthy old lady of good position, who was at once her benefactress and tormentor. I don't know the details, but I have only heard that the orphan girl, a meek and gentle creature, was once cut down from a halter in which she was hanging from a nail in the loft. So terrible were her sufferings from the caprice and everlasting nagging of this old woman, who was apparently not bad-hearted, but had become an insufferable tyrant through idleness. Fyodor Pavlovich made her an offer. Inquiries were made about him, and he was refused. But again, as in his first marriage, he proposed an allotment to the orphan girl. There is very little doubt that she would not on any account have married him if she had known a little more about him in time. But she lived in another province, besides what could a little girl of sixteen know about it, except that she would be better at the bottom of a river than remaining with her benefactress. So the poor child exchanged a benefactress for a benefactor. Fyodor Pavlovich did not get a penny this time, for the general's widow was furious. She gave them nothing and cursed them both, but he had not reckoned on endowery. What allured him was the remarkable beauty of the innocent girl. Above all, her innocent appearance, which had a peculiar attraction for a vicious profligate, who had hitherto admired only the coarser types of feminine beauty. Those innocent eyes slit my soul up like a razor, he used to say afterwards, with his loathsome snigger. In a man so depraved this might of course mean no more than sensual attraction. As he had received no dowry with his wife, and had so to speak taken her from the halter, he did not stand on ceremony with her. Making her feel that she had wronged him, he took advantage of her phenomenal meekness and submissiveness to trample on the elementary decencies of marriage. He gathered loose women into his house, and carried on orgies of debauchery in his wife's presence. To show what a past things had come to, I may mention that Grigori, the gloomy, stupid, obstinate, argumentative servant who had always hated his first mistress, Adelaide Ivanovna, took the side of his new mistress. He championed her cause, abusing Fyodor Pavlovich in a manner little befitting a servant, and on one occasion broke up the rebels and drove all the disorderly women out of the house. In the end this unhappy young woman, kept in terror from her childhood, fell into that kind of nervous disease which is most frequently found in peasant women who are said to be possessed by devils. At times after terrible fits of hysterics she even lost her reason. Yet she bore Fyodor Pavlovich two sons, Ivan and Alexei, the eldest in the first year of marriage, and the second three years later. When she died little Alexei was in his fourth year, and strange as it seems, I know that he remembered his mother all his life like a dream, of course. At her death almost exactly the same thing happened to the two little boys as to their elder brother Mitya. They were completely forgotten and abandoned by their father. They were looked after by the same Grigori and lived in his cottage, where they were found by the tyrannical old lady who had brought up their mother. She was still alive and had not all those eight years forgotten the insult done her. All that time she was obtaining exact information as to her Sophia's manner of life, and hearing of her illness and hideous surroundings, she declared aloud two or three times to her retainers. It serves her right. God has punished her for her ingratitude. Exactly three months after Sophia Ivanovna's death the general's widow suddenly appeared in our town and went straight to Fyodor Pavlovich's house. She spent only half an hour in the town, but she did a great deal. It was evening Fyodor Pavlovich, whom she had not seen for those eight years, came into her drunk. The story is that instantly upon seeing him, without any sort of explanation, she gave him two good resounding slaps on the face, seized him by a tuft of hair, and shook him three times up and down. Then without a word she went straight to the cottage to the two boys. Seeing at the first glance that they were unwashed and in dirty linen she promptly gave Grigory too a box on the ear, and announcing that she would carry off both the children she wrapped them just as they were in a rug, put them in the carriage, and drove off to her own town. Grigory accepted the blow like a devoted slave without a word, and when he escorted the old lady to her carriage he made her a low bow and pronounced impressively that God would repay her for the orphans. You were a blockhead all the same, the lady shouted to him as she drove away. Fyodor Pavlovich, thinking it over, decided that it was a good thing, and did not refuse the general widows, his formal consent, and any proposition in regard to his children's education. As for the slap she had given him, he drove all over the town telling the story. It happened that the old lady died soon after this, but she left the boys in her will a thousand roubles each, for their instruction, and so that all be spent on them exclusively, with the condition that it be so portioned out as to last till they are twenty-one, for it is more than adequate provision for such children. If other people think fit to throw away their money, let them. I have not read the will myself, but I heard there was something queer of that sort, very whimsically expressed. The principal heir, Yefim Petrovich Polanov, the marshal of nobility of the province, turned out, however, to be an honest man. Writing to Fyodor Pavlovich, and discerning at once that he could extract nothing from him for his children's education, though the latter never directly refused, but only procrastinated, as he always did in such cases, and was indeed at times effusively sentimental. Yefim Petrovich took a personal interest in the orphans. He became especially fond of the younger, Alexei, who lived for a long while as one of his family. I beg the reader to note this from the beginning. And to Yefim Petrovich, a man of a generosity and humanity rarely to be met with, the young people were more indebted for their education and bringing up than to anyone. He kept the two thousand rubles left to them by the general's widow intact, so that by the time they came of age their portions had been doubled by the accumulation of interest. He educated them both at his own expense, and certainly spent far more than a thousand rubles upon each of them. I won't enter into a detailed account of their boyhood and youth, but will only mention a few of the most important events. Of the elder, Ivan, I will only say that he grew into a somewhat morose and reserved, though far from timid boy. At ten years old he had realized that they were living not in their own home, but on other people's charity, and that their father was a man of whom it was disgraceful to speak. This boy began very early, almost in his infancy, so they say at least, to show a brilliant and unusual aptitude for learning. I don't know precisely why, but he left the family of Yefim Petrovich when he was hardly thirteen, entering a Moscow gymnasium, and boarding with an experienced and celebrated teacher, an old friend of Yefim Petrovich. Ivan used to declare afterwards that this was all due to the ardor for good works of Yefim Petrovich, who was captivated by the idea that the boy's genius should be trained by a teacher of genius. But neither Yefim Petrovich nor this teacher was living when the young man finished at the gymnasium and entered the university. As Yefim Petrovich had made no provision for the payment of the tyrannical old lady's legacy, which had grown from one thousand to two, it was delayed, owing to formalities inevitable in Russia, and the young man was in great straits for the first two years of the university, as he was forced to keep himself all the time he was studying. It must be noted that he did not even attempt to communicate with his father, perhaps from pride, from contempt for him, or perhaps from his cool common sense, which told him that such a father he would get no real assistance from. However that may have been, the young man was by no means despondent, and succeeded in getting work, at first giving six penny lessons, and afterwards getting paragraphs on street incidences into the newspaper under the signature of eyewitness. These paragraphs, it was said, were so interesting and picket that they were soon taken. This alone showed the young man's practical and intellectual superiority over the masses of needy and unfortunate students of both sexes who hang about the offices of the newspapers and journals, unable to think of anything better than everlasting entreaties for copying and translations from the French. Having once got into touch with the editors, Ivan Fyodorovich always kept up his connection with them, and in his latter years at the university he published brilliant reviews of books upon various special subjects, so that he became well known in literary circles. But only in his last year he suddenly succeeded in attracting the attention of a far wider circle of readers, so that a great many people noticed and remembered him. It was rather a curious incident. When he had just left the university and was preparing to go abroad upon his 2000 rubles, Ivan Fyodorovich published in one of the more important journals a strange article which attracted general notice on a subject of which he might have been supposed to know nothing, as he was a student of natural science. The article dealt with a subject which was being debated everywhere at the time, the position of the ecclesiastical courts. After discussing several opinions on the subject, he went on to explain his own view. What was most striking about the article was its tone and its unexpected conclusion. Many of the church party regarded him unquestionably as on their side. And yet not only the secularists, but even atheists joined them in the here applause. Finally some sagacious persons opined that the article was nothing but an impudent satirical burlesque. I mentioned this incident particularly because this article penetrated into the famous monastery in our neighborhood, where the inmates, being particularly interested in question of the ecclesiastical courts, were completely bewildered by it. Learning the author's name, they were interested in his being a native of the town and the son of that Fyodor Pavlovich, and just then it was that the author himself made his appearance among us. Why Ivan Fyodorovich had come amongst us, I remember asking myself at the time with a certain uneasiness. This fateful visit, which was the first step leading to so many consequences, I never fully explained to myself. It seems strange on the face of it that a young man so learned, so proud, and apparently so cautious, should suddenly visit such an infamous house, and a father who had ignored him all his life. Hardly knew him, never thought of him, it would not under any circumstances have given him money, though he was always afraid that his sons Ivan and Alexei would also come to ask him for it. And here the young man was staying in the house of such a father, had been living with him for two months, and they were on the best possible terms. This last fact was a special cause of wonder to many others as well as to me. Piotr Alexandrovich Musov, of whom we have spoken already, the cousin of Fyodor Pavlovich's first wife, happened to be in the neighborhood again on a visit to his estate. He had come from Paris, which was his permanent home. I remember that he was more surprised than anyone when he made the acquaintance of the young man, who interested him extremely, and with whom he sometimes argued and not without inner pang, compared himself in acquirements. He is proud, he used to say. He will never be in want of pence. He has got money enough to go abroad now. What does he want here? Everyone can see that he hasn't come for money, for his father would never give him any. He has no taste for drink and dissipation, and yet his father can't do without him. They get on so well together. That was the truth. The young man had an unmistakable influence over his father, who positively appeared to be behaving more decently, and even seemed at times ready to obey his son, though often extremely and even spitefully perverse. It was only later that we learned that Ivan had come partly at the request of, and in the interests of, his elder brother Dimitri, whom he saw for the first time on this very visit, though he had before leaving Moscow been in correspondence with him about an important matter of more concerned to Dimitri than to himself. What that business was, the reader will learn fully in due time. Yet even when I did know of the special circumstance, I still felt Ivan Fyodorovich to be an enigmatic figure, and thought his visit rather mysterious. I may add that Ivan appeared at the time in the light of a mediator between his father and his elder brother Dimitri, who was an open quarrel with his father and even planning to bring an action against him. The family, I repeat, was now united for the first time, and some of its members met for the first time in their lives. The younger brother Alexei had been a year already among us, having been the first of the three to arrive. It is of that brother Alexei I find it most difficult to speak in this introduction. Yet I must give some preliminary account of him, if only to explain one queer fact, which is that I have to introduce my hero to the reader wearing the cossack of a novice. Yes, he had been for the last year in our monastery, and seemed willing to be closer there for the rest of his life. This ends Chapter 3. Book 1, Chapter 4 of The Brothers Karamazov. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Ernst Patinama. The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky, translated by Konstantz Garnet. Book 1, Chapter 4, The Third Son, Alyosha. He was only 20. His brother Ivan was in his 24th year at the time, while their elder brother Dmitry was 27. First of all, I must explain that this young man, Alyosha, was not a fanatic, and in my opinion at least, was not even a mystic. I may as well give my full opinion from the beginning. He was simply an early lover of humanity, and that he adopted the monastic life was simply because at that time it struck him, so to say, as the ideal escape for his soul, struggling from the darkness of worldly wickedness to the light of love. And the reason this life struck him in this way was that he found in it, at that time, as he thought, an extraordinary being, our celebrated elder, Zosima, to whom he became attached with all the warm first love of his ardent heart. But I do not dispute that he was very strange, even at that time, and had been so indeed from his cradle. I have mentioned already, by the way, that though he lost his mother in his fourth year, he remembered her all his life, her face, her caresses, as though she stood living before me. Such memories may persist, as everyone knows, from an even earlier age, even from two years old, but scarcely standing out through a whole lifetime, like spots of light out of darkness, like a corner torn out of a huge picture which has all faded and disappeared except that fragment. That is how it was with him. He remembered one still summer evening, an open window, the slanting rays of the setting sun, that he recalled most vividly of all. In a corner of the room, the holy image, before it, a lighted lamp, and on her knees, before the image, his mother, sobbing hysterically with cries and moans, snatching him up in both arms, squeezing him close till it hurt, and praying for him to the mother of God, holding him out in both arms to the image, as though to put him under the mother's protection, and suddenly a nurse runs in and snatches him from her in terror. That was the picture, and Al-Yasha remembered his mother's face at that minute. He used to say that it was frenzied but beautiful as he remembered, but he rarely cared to speak of this memory to anyone. In his childhood and youth, he was by no means expansive and talked little indeed, but not from shyness or a sullen unsociability, quite a contrary, from something different, from a sort of inner preoccupation, entirely personal and unconcerned with other people, but so important to him that he seemed, as it were, to forget others on account of it. But he was fond of people. He seemed throughout his life to put implicit trust in people, yet no one ever looked on him as a simpleton or naive person. There was something about him which made one feel at once, and it was so all his life afterwards, that he did not care to be a judge of others, that he would never take it upon himself to criticise and would never condemn anyone for anything. He seemed indeed to accept everything without the least condemnation, the often grieving bitterly, and this was so much so that no one could surprise or frighten him even in his earliest youth. Coming at 20 to his father's house, which was a very sink of filthy debauchery, he, chaste and pure as he was, simply withdrew in silence when to look on was unbearable, but without a slightest sign of contempt or condemnation. His father, who had once been in a dependent position, and so was sensitive and ready to take offence, met him at first with distrust and sulleness. He does not say much, he used to say, and thinks the more, but soon, within a fortnight indeed, he took to embracing him and kissing him terribly often with drunk and tears, with such a sentimentality, yet he evidently felt a real and deep affection for him, such as he had never been capable of feeling for anyone before. Everyone indeed loved this young man, whatever he went, and it was so from his earliest childhood. When he entered the household of his patron and benefactor, Yefim Petrovich Polienov, he gained the hearts of all the family, so that he looked on him quite as their own child. Yet he entered the house at such a tender age, that he could not have acted from design nor artfulness in winning affection. So that the gift of making himself loved directly and unconsciously was inherent in him, in his very nature, so to speak. It was the same at school, though he seemed to be just one of those children who are distrusted, sometimes ridiculed and even disliked by their school fellows. He was dreamy, for instance, and rather solitary. From his earliest childhood, he was fond of creeping into a corner to read, and yet he was a general favorite all the while he was at school. He was rarely playful or merry, but anyone could see at the first glance that this was not from any sulleness. On the contrary, he was bright and good-tempered. He never tried to show off among his school fellows. Perhaps because of this, he was never afraid of anyone, yet the boys immediately understood that he was not proud of his fearlessness and seemed to be unaware that he was bold and courageous. He never resented an insult. It would happen that an hour after the offence he would address the offender or answer some question with a stressful and candid expression as though nothing had happened between them. And it was not that he seemed to have forgotten or intentionally forgiven the affront, but simply that he did not regard it as an affront, and this completely conquered and captivated the boys. He had one characteristic which made all his school fellows, from the bottom class to the top, want to mock at him, not from Alice, but because it amused him. This characteristic was a wild fanatical modesty and chastity. He could not bear to hear certain words and certain conversations about women. There are certain words and conversations unhappily impossible to eradicate in schools. Boys, pure in mind and heart, almost children, are fond of talking in school among themselves and even allowed of things, pictures and images of which even soldiers would sometimes hesitate to speak. More than that, much that soldiers have no knowledge or conception of is familiar to quite young children of our intellectual and higher classes. There is no moral depravity, no real corrupt inner cynicism in it, but there is the appearance of it, and it is often looked upon among them as something refined, subtle, daring and worthy of imitation. Seeing that Alyosha Karamazov put his fingers in his ears when they talked of that, they used sometimes to crowd around him, pull his hands away and shout nastiness into both ears, while he struggled, slipped to the floor, tried to hide himself without uttering one word of abuse and during their insults in silence. But at last they left him alone and gave up taunting him with being a regular girl and what's more, they looked upon it with compassion as a weakness. He was always one of the best in the class, but was never first. At the time of Yefim Petrovich's death, Alyosha had two more years to complete at a provincial gymnasium. The inconsolable widow went almost immediately after his death for a long visit to Italy with her whole family, which consisted only of women and girls. Alyosha went to live in the house of two distant relations of Yefim Petrovich, ladies whom he had never seen before. On what term she lived with them he did not know himself. It was very characteristic of him indeed that he never cared at whose expense he was living. In that respect he was a striking contrast to his elder brother Ivan, who struggled with poverty for his first two years in university, maintained himself by his own efforts and had from childhood been bitterly conscious of living at the expense of his benefactor. But this strange trait in Alyosha's character must not, I think, criticised too severely, for at the slightest acquaintance with him, anyone would have perceived that Alyosha was one of those youths, almost of the type of religious enthusiast who, if they were suddenly to come into possession of a large fortune, would not hesitate to give it away for the asking, either for good works or perhaps to a clever rogue. In general he seemed scarcely to know the value of money, not, of course, in a literal sense. When he was given pocket money, which he never asked for, he was either terribly careless of it so that it was gone in a moment or he kept it for weeks together, not knowing what to do with it. In later years Piotr Aleksandrovich Musov, a man very sensitive on the score of money and bourgeois honesty, pronounced the following judgment after getting to know Alyosha. Here is perhaps the one man in the world whom you might leave alone without a penny in the centre of an unknown town of a million inhabitants and he would not come to harm, he would not die of cold and hunger, for he would be fed and sheltered at once. And if he were not, he would find a shelter for himself and it would cost him no effort or humiliation and to shelter him would be no burden, but, on the contrary, would probably be looked on as a pleasure. He did not finish his studies at a gymnasium. A year before the end of the course he suddenly announced to the ladies that he was going to see his father about a plan which had occurred to him. They were sorry and unwilling to let him go. The journey was not an expensive one and the ladies would not let him pawn his watch, a parting present from his benefactor's family. They invited him liberally with money and even fitted him out with new clothes and linen. But he returned half the money they gave him saying that he intended to go third class. On his arrival in the town he made no answer to his father's first enquiry why he had come before completing his studies and seemed, so they say, unusually thoughtful. It soon became apparent that he was looking for his mother's tomb. He practically acknowledged at the time that that was the only object of his visit but it can hardly have been the whole reason of it. It is more probable that he himself did not understand and could not explain what had suddenly arisen in his soul and drawn him irresistibly into a new, unknown but inevitable path. Fjordor Pavlovic could not show him where his second wife was buried for he had never visited her grave since he had thrown earth upon a coffin and in the course of years had entirely forgotten where she was buried. Fjordor Pavlovic, by the way, had for some time previously not been living in our town. Three or four years after his wife's death he had gone to the south of Russia and finally turned up in Odessa where he spent several years. He made the acquaintance at first, in his own words, of a lot of low Jews, duesses and dukins and ended by being received by Jews high and low alike. It may be presumed that at this period he developed a peculiar faculty for making and hoarding money. He finally returned to our town only three years before Alyosha's arrival. His former acquaintances found him looking terribly aged although he was by no means an old man. He behaved not exactly with more dignity but with more effrontery. The former buffoon showed an insolent propensity for making buffoons of others. His depravity with women was not as it used to be but even more revolting. In a short time he opened a great number of new taverns in the district. It was evident that he had perhaps a hundred thousand rubles or not much less. Many of the inhabitants of the town and district were soon in his debt and, of course, had given good security. Of late too he looked somehow bloated and seemed more irresponsible, more uneven, had sunk into a sort of incoherence used to begin one thing and go on with another as though he were letting himself go all together. He was more and more frequently drunk and if it had not been for the same servant Grigori who by that time had aged considerably too and used to look after him, sometimes almost like a tutor, Kjodor Pavlovic might have got into terrible scrapes. Alyosha's arrival seemed to affect even his moral side as though something had awakened in this prematurely old man which had long been dead in his soul. Do you know, he used often to say, looking at Alyosha, that you are like her, a crazy woman. That was what he used to call his dead wife, Alyosha's mother. Grigori it was who pointed out the crazy woman's grave to Alyosha. He took him to our town cemetery and showed him in a remote corner a cast-iron tombstone, cheap but decently kept, on which were inscribed the name and age of the deceased and the date of her death and below a four-lined verse such as are commonly used on old-fashioned middle-class tombs. To Alyosha's amazement this tomb turned out to be Grigori's doing. He had put it up on the poor crazy woman's grave at his own expense after Fyodor Pavlovich, whom he had often pastored about the grave, had gone to Odessa, abandoning the grave and all his memories. Alyosha showed no particular emotion at the sight of his mother's grave. He only listened to Grigori's minute and solemn account of the erection of the tomb. He stood with bowed head and walked away without uttering a word. It was perhaps a year before he visited the cemetery again. But this little episode was not without an influence upon Fyodor Pavlovich and a very original one. He suddenly took a thousand rubles to our monastery to pay for requiems for the soul of his wife, but not for the second Alyosha's mother, the crazy woman, but for the first, and Lida Ivanovna. He used to thrash him. In the evening of the same day he got drunk and abused the monks to Alyosha. He himself was far from being religious. He had probably never put a penny candle before the image of a saint. Strange impulses of sudden feeling and sudden thought are common in such types. I have mentioned already that he looked bloated. His countenance, at this time, bore traces of something that testified unmistakably to the life he had led. Besides, the long fleshy bags under his little, almost insolent, suspicious and ironical eyes. Besides, the multitude of deep wrinkles in his little fat face, the Adam's apple hung below his sharp chin like a great fleshy goiter, which gave him a peculiar repulsive sensual appearance. Add to that a long rapacious mouth with full lips between which could be seen little stumps of black decayed teeth. He slobbered every time he began to speak. He was fond indeed of making fun of his own face, though, I believe, he was well satisfied with it. He used particularly to point to his nose, which was not very large but very delicate and conspicuously aquiline. A regular Roman nose, he used to say, with my goiter I have quite the countenance of an ancient Roman patrician of the decadent period. He seemed proud of it. Not long after visiting his mother's grave, Alyosha suddenly announced that he wanted to end a demonestry and that the monks were willing to receive him as a novice. He explained that this was his strong desire and that he was solemnly asking his consent as his father. The old man knew that the elder Zosima, who was living in a monastery hermitage, had made a special impression upon his gentle boy. That is the most honest monk among them, of course, he observed, after listening in thoughtful silence to Alyosha and seeming scared his surprise at his request. So that's where you want to be, my gentle boy. He was half drunk and suddenly he grinned his slow, half-drunken grin, which was not without a certain cunning and tipsy slinus. Hmm, I had a presentiment that you would end in something like this. Would you believe it? You were making straight for it. Well, to be sure you have your own two thousand. That's a dowry for you and I'll never desert you, my angel, and I'll pay what's wanted for you there, if they ask for it. But of course, if they don't ask, why should we worry them? What do you say? You know, you spent money like a canary to graze a week. Hmm, do you know that near one monastery there's a place outside the town where every baby knows there are none but the monk's wives living, as they are called. Thirty women, I believe. I have been there myself. You know, it's interesting in its way, of course, as a variety. The worst of it is it's awfully Russian. There are no French women there. Of course, they could get them fast enough. They have plenty of money. If they get to hear of it, they'll come along. Well, there's nothing of that sort here. No monk's wives and two hundred monks. They're honest. They keep the fasts. I admit it. Hmm, so you want to be a monk? And do you know I'm sorry to lose you, Yosha. Would you believe it? I've really grown fond of you. Well, it's a good opportunity. You'll pray for us sinners. We are sinned too much here. I've always been thinking who would pray for me and whether there's anyone in the world to do it. My dear boy, I'm awfully stupid about that. You wouldn't believe it, awfully. You see, however stupid I am about it, I keep thinking. I keep thinking from time to time, of course, not all the while. It's impossible, I think, for the devils to forget to drag me down to hell with their hooks when I die. Then I wonder, hooks, where would they get them? What of iron hooks? Where do they forge them? Have they a foundry there of some sort? The monks and the monastery probably believe there's a ceiling in hell, for instance. Now, I'm ready to believe in hell, but without a ceiling. It makes it more refined, more enlightened, more Lutheran, that is. And after all, what does it matter whether it has a ceiling or hasn't? But do you know there's a damnable question involved in it? If there's no ceiling, there can be no hooks. And if there are no hooks, it all breaks down, which is unlikely again. For then, there would be none to drag me down to hell. And if they don't drag me down, what justice is there in the world? Il faudrait les inventer, those hooks, on purpose for me alone, for if you only knew Al-Yoshua or the blackguard I am, translator's note, it would be necessary to invent them. But there are no hooks there, said Al-Yoshua, looking gently and seriously at his father. Yes, yes, only the shadows of hooks. I know, I know, that's how a Frenchman described hell. J'ai vu l'ombre d'un crochet qu'avec l'ombre d'une brosse, frotté l'ombre d'une carrosse. Translator's note, I've seen the shadow of a coachman rubbing the shadow of a coach with the shadow of a brush. How do you know there are no hooks, darling? When you've lifted the monks, you'll sing a different tune. But go, and get out the truth there, and then come and tell me. Anyway, it's easier going to the other world if one knows what there is there. Besides, it will be more seemly for you with the monks than here with me, or the drunken old man and young harlots. Though you're like an angel, nothing touches you. And I dare say nothing will touch you there. That's why I let you go, because I hope for that. You've got all your wits about you. You will burn, and you will burn out. You will be healed and come back again. And I will wait for you. I feel that you're the only creature in the world who has not condemned me. My dear boy, I feel it, you know. I can't help feeling it. And he even began blubbering. He was sentimental. He was wicked and sentimental. End of Chapter 4 Recording by Ernst Patinama. I'm Sodam the Netherlands. This is a LibriVox public domain recording of the brothers Karamazov. Chapter 5 Elders Some of my readers may imagine that my young man was a sickly, aesthetic, poorly developed creature. Pale, consumptive dreamer. On the contrary, Ayusha was at this time a well-grown, red-cheeked, clear-eyed lad of nineteen, radiant with health. He was very handsome too, graceful, moderately tall, with hair of a dark brown, with a regular, rather long, oval-shaped face, and wide-set dark gray shining eyes. He was very thoughtful, and apparently very serene. I shall be told, perhaps, that red cheeks are not incompatible with fanaticism and mysticism. But I fancy that Ayusha was more of a realist than anyone. Oh, no doubt, in the monastery he fully believed in miracles. But to my thinking, miracles are never a stumbling block to the realist. It is not miracles that dispose realists to believe. The genuine realist, if he is an unbeliever, will always find strength and ability to disbelieve in the miraculous. And if he is confronted with a miracle, as an irrefutable fact, he would rather disbelieve his own senses than admit that fact. Even if he admits it, he admits it as a fact of nature, till he unrecognized by him. Faith does not, in the realist spring from the miracle, but the miracle from faith. If the realist once believes, then he is bound by his very realism to admit the miraculous also. The Apostle Thomas said that he would not believe till he saw, but when he did see he said, My Lord and my God. Was it the miracle forced him to believe? Most likely not, but he believed solely because he desired to believe, and possibly he fully believed in his secret heart, even when he said, I do not believe till I see. I shall be told, perhaps, that Al-Yasha was stupid, undeveloped, had not finished his studies, and so on, that he did not finish his studies as true, but to say that he was stupid or dull would be a great injustice. I'll simply repeat what I have said above. He entered upon this path only because, at that time, it alone struck his imagination and presented itself to him as offering an ideal means of escape for his soul from darkness to light. Add to that that he was to some extent a youth of our last epoch, that is, honest in nature, desiring the truth, seeking for it and believing in it, and seeking to serve it at once with all the strength of his soul, seeking for immediate action, and ready to sacrifice everything, life itself for it. Though these young men unhappily fail to understand that the sacrifice of life is, in many cases the easiest of all sacrifices, and that's a sacrifice, for instance, five or six years of their seething youth to hard and tedious study, if only to multiply tenfold their powers of serving the truth and the cause they have set before them as their goal. Such a sacrifice is utterly beyond the strength of many of them. The path that Alyosha chose was a path going in the opposite direction, but he chose it with the same thirst for swift achievement. As soon as he reflected seriously, he was convinced of the existence of God and immortality, and at once he instinctively said to himself, I want to live for immortality, and I will accept no compromise. In the same way, if he had decided that God and immortality did not exist, he would at once have become an atheist and a socialist. For socialism is not merely the labor question, it is before all things the atheistic question, the question of the form taken by atheism today, the question of the Tower of Babel, built without God, not to mount to heaven from earth, but to set up heaven on earth. Alyosha would have found it strange and impossible to go on living as before. It is written, give all that thou hast to the poor and follow me if thou wouldst be perfect. Alyosha said to himself, I can't give two rubles instead of all, and only to go to mass instead of following him. Perhaps his memories of childhood brought back our monastery, to which his mother may have taken him to mass. Perhaps that slanting sunlight and the holy image to which his poor, crazy mother had held him up to still acted upon his imagination. Brooding on these things he may have come to us perhaps only to see whether he could sacrifice all or only two rubles, and in the monastery he met this elder. I must digress to explain what an elder is in Russian monasteries, and I am sorry that I do not feel very competent to do so. I will try, however, to give a superficial account of it in a few words. Authorities on the subject assert that the institution of elders is of recent date, not more than a hundred years old in our monasteries, though in the Orthodox East, especially in Sinai and Athos, it has existed over a thousand years. It is maintained that it existed in ancient times in Russia also, but through the calamities which overtook Russia, the Tartars, Civil War, the interruption of relations with the East after the destruction of Constantinople, this institution fell into oblivion. It was revived among us towards the end of the last century by one of the great aesthetics, as they called him, Pasey Velikovsky and his disciples. But to this day it exists in few monasteries only, and has sometimes been almost persecuted as an innovation in Russia. It flourished especially in the celebrated Kozeltsky-Obsyn Monastery, when and how it was introduced into our monastery I cannot say. There had already been three such elders, and Zostima was the last of them, but he was almost dying of weakness and disease, and they had no one to take his place. The question for our monastery was an important one, for it had not been distinguished by anything in particular till then. They had neither relics of saints, nor wonder-working icons, nor glorious traditions, nor historical exploits. It had flourished and had been glorious all over Russia through its elders to see and hear whom pilgrims had flocked for thousands of miles from all parts. What was such an elder? An elder was one who took your soul, your will into his soul and his will. When you choose an elder, you renounce your own will and yield it to him in complete submission, complete self-abnegation. This novitiate, this terrible school of abnegation, is undertaken voluntarily in the hope of self-conquest or self-mastery, in order after a life of obedience to attain perfect freedom, that is, from self, to escape the lot of those who have lived their whole life without finding their true selves in themselves. This institution of elders is not founded on theory, but was established in the East from the practice of a thousand years. The obligations due to an elder are not the ordinary obedience, which has always existed in our Russian monasteries. The obligation involves confession to the elder by all who have submitted themselves to him and to the insoluble bond between him and them. The story is told, for instance, that in the early days of Christianity one such novice, failing to fulfill some command laid upon him by his elder, left his monastery in Syria and went to Egypt. There, after great exploits, he was found worthy, at least, to suffer torture and a martyr's death for his faith. When the church, regarding him as a saint, was burying him, suddenly at the deacons' exhortation, depart Aliyeh unvaptised. The coffin containing the martyr's body left its place and was cast forth from the church, and this took place three times. And only at last they learned that this holy man had broken his vow of obedience and left his elder, and therefore could not be forgiven without the elder's absolution in spite of his great deeds. Only after this could the funeral take place. This, of course, is only an old legend, but here is a recent instant. Amunq was suddenly commanded by his elder to quit Athos, which he loved as a sacred place and a haven of refuge, and to go first to Jerusalem to do homage to the holy places and then to go north to Siberia. There is the place for thee and not here. The monk, overwhelmed with sorrow, went to the ecumenical patriarch at Constantinople and besought him to release him from his obedience. But the patriarch replied that not only was he unable to release him, but there was not, and could not be on earth a power which could release him, except the elder who had himself laid that duty upon him. In this way the elders are endowed in certain cases with unbounded and inexplicable authority. That is why in many of our monasteries the institution was at first resisted almost to persecution. Meantime the elders immediately began to be highly esteemed among the people. Masses of the ignorant people, as well as of the distinguished flocked, for instance, to the elders of our monastery to confess their doubts, their sins and their sufferings, and to ask for counsel and admonition. Seeing this the opponents of the elders declared that the sacrament of confession was being arbitrarily and frivolously degraded, though the continual opening of the heart to the elder by the monk, or the layman, had nothing of the character of the sacrament. In the end, however, the institution of elders has been retained and is becoming established in Russian monasteries. It is true, perhaps, that this instrument, which had stood the test of thousand years for the moral regeneration of a man from slavery to freedom and to moral perfectibility may be a two-edged weapon and it may lead some not to humility and complete self-control, but to the most satanic pride, that is, to bondage and not to freedom. The elder Zosima was sixty-five. He came of a family of landowners and had been in the army in his early youth and served in the caucuses as an officer. He had no doubt impressed Alyosha by some peculiar quality of his soul. Alyosha lived in the cell of the elder, who was very fond of him and let him wait upon him. It must be noted that Alyosha was bound by no obligation and could go where he pleased and be absent for whole days. Though he wore the monastic dress, it was voluntarily not to be different from the others. No doubt he liked to do so. Possibly his youthful imagination was deeply stirred by the power and fame of his elder. It was said that so many people had for years passed come to confess their sins to Father Zosima and to entreat him for words of advice and healing, that he had acquired the keenest intuition and could tell from an unknown face what a newcomer wanted and what was the suffering on his conscience. He sometimes astounded and almost alarmed his visitors by his knowledge of their secrets before they had spoken a word. Alyosha noticed that many, almost all, went into the elder for the first time with apprehension and uneasiness, but came out with bright and happy faces. Alyosha was particularly struck by the fact that Father Zosima was not at all stern. On the contrary, he was almost always gay. The monks used to say that he was more drawn to those who were more sinful, and the greater the sinner, the more he loved them. There were no doubt up to the end of his life among the monks, some who hated and envied him, but they were few in number and they were silent, though among them were some of great dignity in the monastery. One, for instance, of the older monks, distinguished for his strict keeping of fasts and vows of silence, but the majority were on Father Zosima's side and very many of them loved him with all their hearts, warmly and sincerely. Some were almost fanatically devoted to him and declared, though not quite allowed, that he was a saint, that there could be no doubt of it, and seeing that his end was near, they anticipated miracles and great glory to the monastery in the immediate future from his relics. Alayusha had unquestioning faith in the miraculous power of the elder, just as he had unquestioning faith in the story of the coffin that flew out of the church. He saw many who came with sick children or relatives and besought the elder to lay hands on them and to pray over them, returned shortly after some the next day and falling in tears at the elder's feet, thank him for healing their sick. Whether they had really been healed or were simply better in the natural course of the disease, was a question which did not exist for Alayusha, but he fully believed in the spiritual power of his teacher and rejoiced in his fame, in his glory, as though it were his own triumph. His heart throbbed and he beamed, as it were, all over when the elder came out to the gates of the hermitage into the waiting crowd of pilgrims of the humbler class who had flocked from all parts of Russia on purpose to see the elder and obtain his blessing. They fell down before him, wept, kissed his feet, kissed the earth on which he stood and wailed while the women held up their children to him and brought him the sick possessed with devils. The elder spoke to them, read a brief prayer over them, blessed them and dismissed them. Of late he had become so weak through attacks of illness that he was sometimes unable to leave his cell and the pilgrims waited for him to come out for several days. Alayusha did not wonder why they loved him so, why they fell down before him and wept with emotion, merely at seeing his face. Oh, he understood that for the humble soul of the Russian peasant worn out by grief and toil and still more by the everlasting injustice and everlasting sin, his own and the world's, it was the greatest need and comfort to find someone or something holy to fall down before in worship. Among us there is sin, injustice and temptation, but yet somewhere on earth there is someone holy and exalted. He has the truth. He knows the truth. So it is not dead upon the earth. So it will come one day to us too and rule over all the earth according to the promise. Alayusha knew that this was just how the people felt and even reasoned. He understood it, but that the elder Zosimo was the saint and custodian of God's truth. Of that he had no more doubt than the weeping peasants and the sick women who held out their children to the elder. The conviction that after his death the elder would bring extraordinary glory to the monastery was even stronger in Alayusha than in anyone there and of late a kind of deep flame of inner ecstasy burnt more and more strongly in his heart. He was not at all troubled at this elder standing as a solitary example before him. No matter, he is holy. He carries in his heart the secret of renewal for all. That power which will at last establish truth on the earth and all men will be holy and love one another and there will be no more rich nor poor nor exalted nor humbled but all will be as children of God and the true kingdom of Christ will come. That was the dream in Alayusha's heart. The arrival of his two brothers whom he had not known till then seemed to make a great impression on Alayusha. He more quickly made friends with his half brother Dmitri though he arrived later than with his own brother Ivan. He was extremely interested in his brother Ivan but when the latter had been two months in the town though they had met fairly often they were still not intimate. Alayusha was naturally silent and he seemed to be expecting something ashamed about something while his brother Ivan though Alayusha noticed at first that he looked long and curiously at him seemed soon to have left off thinking of him. Alayusha noticed it with some embarrassment. He ascribed his brothers indifference at first to the disparity of their age and education but he also wondered whether the absence of curiosity and sympathy in Ivan was of no other cause entirely unknown to him. He kept fancying that Ivan was absorbed in something something inward and important that he was striving towards some goal perhaps very hard to attain and that that was why he had no thought for him. Alayusha wondered too whether there was not some contempt on the part of the learned atheist for him a foolish novice. He knew for certain that his brother was an atheist. He could not take offence at this contempt if it existed yet with an uneasy embarrassment that he did not himself understand. He waited for his brother to come nearer to him. Dimitri used to speak of Ivan with the deepest respect and with a peculiar earnestness. From him Alayusha learned all the details of the important affair which had of late formed such a close and remarkable bond between the two elder brothers. Dimitri's enthusiastic references to Ivan were the more striking in Alayusha's eyes since Dimitri was compared to Ivan almost uneducated and his brothers were such a contrast and personality and character that it would be difficult to find two men more unlike. It was at this time that the meeting or rather gathering of the members of this inharmonious family took place in the cell of the elder who had such an extraordinary influence on Alayusha. The pretext for this gathering was a false one. It was at this time that the discord between Dimitri and his father seemed at its acutus stage and their relations had become insufferably strained. Fyodor Pavlovich seems to have been the first to suggest, apparently in joke, that they should all meet in Father Zosim's cell and that without appealing to his direct intervention they might more decently come to an understanding under the conciliating influence of the elder's presence. Dimitri who had never seen the elder naturally suppose that his father was trying to intimidate him but as he secretly blamed himself for his outburst of temper with his father on several recent occasions he attempted the challenge. It must be noted that he was not like Ivan staying with his father but living apart at the other end of the town. It happened that Pyotr Alexandrovich Musov who was staying in the district at the time caught eagerly at the idea a liberal of the 40s and 50s a free thinker and atheist he may have been led on by boredom or the hope of frivolous diversion he was suddenly seized with the desire to see the monastery and the holy man as his lawsuit with the monastery still dragged on he made it the pretext for seeing the superior in order to attempt to settle it amicably a visitor coming with such laudable intentions might be received with more attention and consideration than if he came from simple curiosity. Influences from within the monastery were brought to bear on the elder who of late had scarcely left his cell and had been forced by illness to deny even his ordinary visitors in the end he consented to see them and the day was fixed who has made me a judge over them was all he said smilingly to Alyosha Alyosha was much perturbed when he heard of the proposed visit of all the wrangling quarrelsome party Demetri was the only one whom he could regard the interview seriously all the others would come from frivolous motives perhaps insulting to the elder Alyosha was well aware of that Ivan and Musov would come from curiosity perhaps of the coarsest kind while his father might be contemplating some piece of buffoonery though he said nothing Alyosha thoroughly understood his father the boy I repeat was far from being so simple as everyone thought him he awaited the day with a heavy heart no doubt he was always pondering in his mind how the family discord could be ended but his chief anxiety concerned the elder he trembled for him for his glory and dreaded any affront to him especially the refined courteous irony of Musov and the supercilious he even wanted to venture on warning the elder telling him something about them but on second thoughts said nothing he only sent word the day before through a friend to his brother Demetri that he loved him and expected him to keep his promise Demetri wondered for he could not remember what he had promised but he answered by letter that he would do his utmost not to let himself be provoked by vileness but that although he had a deep respect for the elder for him were an unworthy farce nevertheless I would rather bite out my tongue than be lacking in respect to the sainted man whom you revere so highly he wrote in conclusion although Alyosha was not greatly cheered by the letter this ends chapter 5 book 2 chapter 1 of the brother's car Musov this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information visit LibriVox.org the brother's car Musov by Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky translated by Konstantz Garnet book 2 an unfortunate gathering chapter 1 they arrive at the monastery it was a warm bright day at the end of August the interview with the elder had been fixed for half past 11 immediately after late mass they depart in the service but arrived just as it was over first an elegant open carriage drawn by two valuable horses drove up with Musov in a distant relative of his a young man of 20 called Piotr Fomovich Kalganov this young man was preparing to enter the university Musov with whom he was staying for the time was trying to persuade him to go abroad to the University of Zurich or Gena he was nice looking strongly built and rather tall there was a strange fixity in his gaze at times like all very absent minded people he would sometimes stare at a person without seeing him he was silent and rather awkward but sometimes when he was alone with anyone he became talkative and effusive and would laugh at anything or nothing but his animation vanished as quickly as it appeared he was always well and even elaborately dressed much more he was a friend of Alyosha's in an ancient jolting but roomy hired carriage with a pair of old pinkish grey horses a long way behind Musov's carriage came Fyodor Pavlovich with his son Ivan Dimitri was late though he had been informed of the time the evening before the visitors left their carriage at the hotel outside the precincts and went to the gates of the monastery on foot except Fyodor Pavlovich who had probably not even been to church for 30 years he looked about him with curiosity together with assumed ease but except the church and the domestic buildings though these two were ordinary enough he found nothing of interest in the interior of the monastery the last of the worshippers were coming out of the church bare headed and crossing themselves among the humbler people were a few of higher rank two or three ladies and a very old general they were all staying at the hotel once surrounded by beggars but none of them gave them anything except young Kalganov who took a 10 kopeck piece out of his purse and nervous and embarrassed God knows why hurriedly gave it to an old woman saying divided equally none of his companions made any remark upon it so that he had no reason to be embarrassed but perceiving this he was even more overcome it was strange that their arrival did not seem expected and that they were not received with special honour though one of them was a very wealthy and highly cultured landowner upon whom all in the monastery were in a sense dependent as a decision of the lawsuit might at any moment put their fishing rights in his hands yet no official personage met them Musov looked absentmindedly at the tombstones round the church and was on the point of saying that the dead buried here must have paid a pretty penny for the right of lying in this holy place but refrained his liberal irony who the devil is there to ask in this imbecile place we must find out for time is passing he observed suddenly as though speaking to himself all at once there came up a bald headed elderly man with ingratiating little eyes wearing a full summer overcoat lifting his hat he introduced himself with a honeyed lisp as Maximov a landowner of Tula he at once entered into our visitors difficulty Zosema lives in the hermitage a part 400 paces from the monastery the other side of the cops I know it's the other side of the cops observed Fyodor Pavlovich but we don't remember the way it's a long time since we've been here this way by this gate and straight across the cops the cops come with me won't you I'll show you I have to go I'm going myself this way this way I'll show you the sideways to stare at them all with an incredible degree of nervous curiosity his eyes looked starting out of his head you see we've come to the elder upon business of our own observed Musov severely that personage has granted us an audience so to speak and so though we thank you for showing us the way we cannot ask you to accompany us I've been there I've been already and Maximov snapped his fingers in the air who is the Chevalier asked Musov the elder the honour and glory of the monastery Zosima such an elder but his incoherent talk was cut short by a very pale one looking monk of medium height wearing a monk's cap who overtook them Fyodor Pavlovich and Musov stopped the monk with an extremely courteous profound bow announced the father superior invites all of you gentlemen to dine with him after your visit to the Hermitage at one o'clock Maximov that I certainly will without fail cried Fyodor Pavlovich hugely delighted at the invitation and believe me we've all given our word to behave properly here and you Piotr Alexandrovich will you go to yes of course what have I come for but to study all the customs here the only obstacle to me is your company yes Dimitri Fyodorovich is non-existent as yet it would be a capital thing if he didn't turn up do you suppose I like all this business and in your company too so we will come to dinner thank the father superior he said to the monk no it is my duty now to conduct you to the elder answer the monk if so I'll go straight to the father superior to the father superior babbled Maximov the father superior is engaged just now but as you please the monk hesitated impertinent old man Musov observed aloud he's like Vonson Fyodor Pavlovich said suddenly is that all you can think of in what way is he like Vonson have you ever seen Vonson I've seen his portrait it's not the features but something indefinable he's a second Vonson I can always tell from the physiognomy I daresay you are a connoisseur in that but look here Fyodor Pavlovich you said just now that we had given our word to behave properly remember it but if you begin to play the fool I don't intend to be associated with you here you see what a man he is he turned to the monk I'm afraid to go among decent people with him a fine smile not without a certain slinus came on to the pale bloodless lips of the monk but he made no reply and was evidently silent from a sense of his own dignity Musov found more than ever oh devil take them all an outer show elaborated through centuries and nothing but charlatanism and nonsense underneath flashed through Musov's mind here's the hermitage we've arrived cried Fyodor Pavlovich the gates are shut and he repeatedly made the sign of the cross to the saints painted above and on the sides of the gates when you go to Rome you must do as the Romans do here in this hermitage there are 25 saints being saved they look at one another and eat cabbages and not one woman goes in at this gate that's what is remarkable is that the elder receives ladies he remarks suddenly to the monk women of the people are here too now lying in the portico they're waiting but for ladies of higher rank two rooms have been built adjoining the portico but outside the precincts you can see the windows and the elder goes out to them by an inner passage when he's well enough they're always outside the precincts there's the Harkov lady Madam Holokov probably he has promised to come out to her though of late he has been so weak that he has hardly shown himself even to the people so then there are loopholes after all to creep out of the hermitage to the ladies don't suppose Holy Father that I mean any harm but you know that at Athos not only the visits of women are not allowed but no creature of the female sex no hens no turkeys, no cows Fyodor Pavlovich I warn you I shall go back and warn you out when I'm gone but I'm not interfering with you, Piotr Alexandrovich look! he cried suddenly stepping within the precincts what a veil of roses they live in though there were no roses now there were numbers of rare and beautiful autumn flowers growing wherever there was space for them and evidently tended by a skillful hand there were flower beds round the church and between the tombs and the one storied wooden house where the elder lived was also surrounded with flowers and the last elder, Varsanovich he didn't care for such elegance they say he used to jump up and thrash even ladies with a stick observed Fyodor Pavlovich as he went up the steps the elder Varsanovich did sometimes seem rather strange but a great deal that's told is foolishness he never thrashed anyone answered the monk now gentlemen, if you will wait a minute I will announce you Fyodor Pavlovich for the last time your compact, do you hear behave properly like a mother again I can't think why you're so agitated Fyodor Pavlovich observed sarcastically are you uneasy about your sins they say he can tell by one's eyes what one has come about and what a lot you think of their opinion you a Parisian and so advanced I'm surprised at you but Musov had no time to reply to this sarcasm they were asked to come in he walked in somewhat irritated now I know myself I am annoyed I shall lose my temper and begin to quarrel and lower myself and my ideas he reflected this ends chapter one book two chapter two of the brothers Karamazov this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org the brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky translated by Konstantz Garnet book two chapter two the old buffoon they entered the room almost at the same moment that the elder came in from his bedroom they were already in the cell awaiting the elder two monks of the hermitage one the father Librarian and the other father Paesi a very learned man so they said in delicate health though not old there was also a tall young man standing in the corner throughout the interview he had a broad fresh face and clever observant narrow brown eyes and was wearing ordinary dress he was a divinity student living under the protection of the monastery his expression was one of unquestioning but self-respecting reverence being in a subordinate and dependent position and so not on an equality with the guests he did not greet them with a bow father Zosema was accompanied by a novice and by Al-Yoshua the two monks rose and greeted him with a very deep bow touching the ground with their fingers then kissed his hand blessing them the elder replied with his deeper reference to them and asked their blessing the whole ceremony was performed very seriously and with an appearance of feeling not like an everyday right but Musa fancy that it was all done with intentional impressiveness he stood in front of the other visitors he ought he had reflected upon it with his brightness since it was the custom here to have gone up to receive the elder's blessing even if he did not kiss his hand but when he saw all this bowing and kissing on the part of the monks he instantly changed his mind with dignified gravity he made a rather deep conventional bow and moved away to a chair Feodor Pavlovich did the same mimicking Musa like an ape Yvon bowed with great dignity and courtesy but he too kept his hands at his sides so confused that he did not bow at all the elder let fall the hand raised to bless them and bowing to them again asked them all to sit down the blood rushed to Alyosha's cheeks he was ashamed his forebodings were coming true Father Zosema sat down on a very old fashioned mahogany sofa covered with leather and made his visitors sit down in a row along the opposite wall and four mahogany chairs the monks sat one at the door and the other at the window the divinity student the novice and Alyosha remained standing the cell was not very large and had a faded look it contained nothing but the most necessary furniture of course and poor quality there were two pots of flowers in the window and a number of holy pictures in the corner before one huge ancient icon of the virgin a lamp was burning near it were two other holy pictures in shining settings and next to them carved cherubim china eggs a catholic cross of ivory with a mother Dolorosa embracing it and several foreign engravings from the great Italian artists of past centuries next to these costly and artistic engravings were several of the roughest Russian prints of saints and martyrs such as are sold for a few far things at all the fairs on the other walls were portraits of Russian bishops past and present Musov took a cursory glance at all these conventional surroundings and bent an intent to look upon the elder he had a high opinion of his own insight a weakness excusable in him as he was fifty an age at which a clever man of the world of established position can hardly help taking himself rather seriously at the first moment he did not like Sosema there was indeed something in the elder's face which many people besides Musov might not have liked he was short with very weak legs and though he was only sixty-five he looked at least ten years older his face was very thin and covered with a network of fine wrinkles particularly numerous about his eyes which were small light colored quick and shining like two bright points he had a sprinkling of grey hair about his temples his pointed beard was small and scanty and his lips which smiled frequently were as thin as two threads sharp like a bird's beak to all appearances a malicious soul full of petty pride thought Musov he felt altogether dissatisfied with his position a cheap little clock on the wall struck twelve hurriedly and served to begin the conversation precisely to our time cried Fyodor Pavlovich but no sign of my son Dimitri I apologize for him sacred elder Alyosha shuddered all over his sacred elder I'm always punctual myself minute for minute remembering that punctuality is the courtesy of kings but you are not a king anyway Musov muttered losing his self restraint at once yes that's true I'm not a king and would you believe it Piotr Aleksandrovich I was aware of that myself but there I always say the wrong thing your reverence Ernest I introduced myself as such it's an old habit alas and if I sometimes talk nonsense out of place it's with an object with the object of amusing people and making myself agreeable one must be agreeable mustn't one I was seven years ago in a little town where I had business and I made friends with some merchants there we went to the captain of the police because we had to see him about something and to ask him to dine with us he was a tall, fat, fair, sulky man I went straight up to him and with the ease of a man of the world you know Mr. Aprovnik I said be our naprovnik what do you mean by naprovnik said he I saw it the first half second that it mist-fired he stood there so glum I wanted to make a joke said I for the general division as Mr. Naprovnik is our well-known Russian orchestra conductor and what we need for the harmony of our undertaking is someone of that sort and I explained my comparison very reasonably excuse me said he I am an aprovnik and I do not allow puns to be made on my calling he turned and walked away I followed him shouting yes yes you are an aprovnik not an aprovnik no said he since you call me an aprovnik I am one and when you believe it it ruined our business and I'm always like that I'm always like that always injuring myself with my politeness so I said to an influential person your wife is a ticklish lady in an honorable sense of the moral quality so to speak but he asked me why have you tickled her I thought I'd be polite so I couldn't help saying yes and he gave me a fine tickling on the spot only that happened long ago so I'm not ashamed to tell the story I'm always injuring myself like that you're doing it now muttered Musoff with disgust father Zosima scrutinized them both in silence am I would you believe it I was aware of that too Piotr Alexandrovich and let me tell you indeed I foresaw I should as soon as I began to speak and do you know I foresaw too that you'd be the first to remark on it the minute I see my joke isn't coming off your reverence both my cheeks feel as though they were drawn down to the lower jaw and there is almost a spasm in them that's been so since I was young when I had to make jokes from my living to noblemen's families it's as though it were a craze in me I daresay it's a devil within me but only a little one a more serious one would have chosen another lodging but not your soul Piotr Alexandrovich you're not a lodging worth having either but I do believe I believe in God though I had doubts of late but now I sit and await words of wisdom I'm like the philosopher didro your reverence did you ever hear most holy father how didro went to see the metropolitan he went in and said straight out there is no God to which the great bishop lifted up his finger and answered the fool has said in his heart there is no God and he fell down at his feet on the spot I believe he cried and will be christened and so he was Princess Doshkov was his godmother and pudalemic his father Piotr Pavlovich this is unbearable you know you're telling lies and that that stupid anecdote isn't true why are you playing the fool cried Musoff in a shaking voice I suspected all my life that it wasn't true Piotr Pavlovich cried with conviction but I tell you the whole truth gentlemen great elder forgive me the last thing about didros christening I made up just now I never thought of it before I made it up to add pick and see I play the fool Piotr Alexandrovich to make myself agreeable though I really don't know myself sometimes what I do it for and as for didro I heard as far as the fool has said in his heart 20 times from the gentry about here when I was young I heard your aunt Piotr Alexandrovich tell the story they all believed to this day that the infidel didro came to dispute about God with the metropolitan platen Musoff got up forgetting himself in his impatience he was furious and conscious of being ridiculous what was taking place in the cell was really incredible for 40 or 50 years past from the times of former elders no visitors had entered that cell without feelings of the profoundest veneration almost everyone admitted to the cell felt that a great favor was being shown him many remained kneeling during the whole visit of those visitors many had been men of high rank and learning some even free thinkers attracted by curiosity all without exception had shown the profoundest reverence and delicacy for here there was no question of money but only on the one side love and kindness and on the other penitence and eager desire to decide some spiritual problem or crisis so that such buffoonery amazed and bewildered the spectators or at least some of them the monks with unchanged countenances waited with earnest attention to hear what the elder would say but seemed on the point of standing up like Musov Alyosha stood with hanging head on the verge of tears what seemed to him strangest of all was that his brother Yvon on whom alone he had rested his hopes and who alone had such influence on his father that he could have stopped him sat now quiet unmoved with downcast eyes apparently waiting with interest to see how it would end as though he had nothing to do with it he alone in the monastery knew Rekitin's thoughts forgive me began Musov addressing father Zosima for perhaps I seemed to be taking part in this shameful foolery I made a mistake in believing that even a man like Fyodor Pavlovich would understand what was due on a visit to so honoured a personage I did not suppose I should have to apologize simply for having come with him Piotr Alexanderovich could say no more in a room overwhelmed with confusion don't distress yourself I beg the elder got on to his feeble legs and taking Piotr Alexanderovich by both hands made him sit down again I beg you not to disturb yourself I particularly beg you to be my guest and with a bow he went back and sat down again on his little sofa the elder speak do I annoy you by my vivacity Piotr Pavlovich cried suddenly clutching the arms of his chair in both hands as though ready to leap up from it if the answer were unfavourable I earnestly beg you not to disturb yourself and not to be uneasy the elder said impressively do not trouble make yourself quite at home and above all do not be so ashamed of yourself for that is at the root of it all quite at home to be my natural self oh that is much too much but I accept it with grateful joy do you know blessed father you better not invite me to be my natural self don't risk it I will not go so far as that myself I warn you for your own sake well the rest is still plunged in the midst of uncertainty though there are people who'd be pleased to describe me for you I mean that as a holy being let me tell you I am brimming over with ecstasy he got up and throwing up his hands declaimed blessed be the womb that bear thee and the paps that gave thee suck the paps especially when you said just now don't be so ashamed of yourself for that is at the root of it all you pierced right through me by that remark and read me to the core and I say let me really play the buffoon I'm not afraid of your opinion for you every one of you are worse than I am that is why am I a buffoon it is from shame great elder from shame it's simply oversensitiveness that makes me rowdy if I had only been sure that everyone would accept me as the kindest and wisest of men oh lord when a good man I should have been then teacher he fell suddenly on his knees it was a life it was difficult even now to decide whether he was joking or really moved father Zosima lifting his eyes looked at him and said with a smile you have known for a long time what you must do you have sense enough don't give way to drunkenness and incontinence of speech don't give way to sensual lust and above all to the love of money to the caverns if you can't close all at least two or three and above all don't lie you mean about dittoro? no not about dittoro above all don't lie to yourself the man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to such a past that he cannot distinguish the truth within him and so loses all respect for himself and for others and having no respect he ceases to love in an order to occupy and distract himself without love he gives way to passions and coarse pleasures and sinks to beastiality in his vices all from continual lying to other men and to himself the man who lies to himself can be more easily offended you know it is sometimes very pleasant to take offense isn't it? a man may know that nobody has insulted him but that he has invented the insult for himself has lied and exaggerated to make it picturesque has caught at a word and made a mountain out of a mole hill he knows that himself yet he will be the first to take offense and will revel in his resentment till he feels great pleasure in it and so pass to genuine vindictiveness but get up sit down I beg you all this too is deceitful posturing blessed man give me your hand to kiss Fyodor Pavlovich skipped up and imprinted a rapid kiss on the elder's thin hand it is it is pleasant to take offense you said that so well as I never heard it before all my life taking offense to please myself taking offense on aesthetic grounds for it is not so much pleasant as distinguished sometimes to be insulted that you had forgotten great elder it is distinguished I shall make a note of that but I have been lying lying positively my whole life every day and hour of it of a truth I am a lie and the father of lies though I believe I am not the father of lies I am getting mixed in my texts that will be enough only my angel I may sometimes talk about Diderot Diderot will do no harm though sometimes a word will do harm great elder by the way I was forgetting though I had been meaning for the last two years to come here on purpose to ask and to find out something only do tell Piotr Alexandrovich not to interrupt me here is my question is it true great father that the story is told somewhere in the lives of the saints of a holy saint martyred for his faith who when his head was cut off at last stood up picked up his head and courteously kissing it walked a long way carrying it in his hands is that true or not honored father no it is untrue said the elder there is nothing of the kind in all the lives of the saints what saint do you say the story is told of I don't know what saint I I do not know and can't tell I was deceived I was told the story I had heard it and do you know who told it Piotr Alexandrovich Musov here who was so angry just now about Diderot it was he who told me the story I I have never told it to you I never speak to you at all it is true you did not tell me but you told it when I was present it was three years ago because that ridiculous story you shook my faith Piotr Alexandrovich you knew nothing of it but I went home with my faith shaken and I have been getting more and more shaken ever since yes Piotr Alexandrovich you were the cause of a great fall that was not a Diderot Piotr Pavlovich got excited and pathetic though it was perfectly clear to everyone by now that he was playing a part again yet Musov was stung by his words watch nonsense and it is all nonsense he muttered I may really have told it some time or other but not to you I was told it myself I heard it in Paris from a Frenchman he told me it was read at our mass from the lives of the saints he was a very learned man who had made a special study of Russian statistics and had lived a long time in Russia I have not read the lives of the saint we were dining then yes you were dining then I lost my faith said Piotr Pavlovich mimicking him what do I care for your faith Musov was on the point of shouting but he suddenly checked himself and said with contempt you defile everything you touch the elder suddenly rose from his seat excuse me gentlemen for leaving you a few minutes he said addressing all his guests I have visitors awaiting me who arrived before you but don't you tell lies all the same he added turning to Piotr Pavlovich with a good humoured face he went out of the cell Alyosha and the novice flew to escort him down the steps Alyosha was breathless he was glad to get away but he was glad too that the elder was good humoured and not offended Father Zosima was going towards the portico to bless the people he insisted in stopping him at the door of the cell blessed man he cried with feeling allow me to kiss your hand once more yes with you I could still talk I could still get on do you think I always lie and play the fool like this believe me I have been acting like this all the time on purpose to try you I have been testing you all the time to see whether I could get on with you is there room for my humility beside your pride I am ready to give you a testimonial with you but now I will be quiet I will keep quiet all the time I will sit in a chair and hold my tongue now it is for you to speak Piotr Aleksandrovich you were the principal person left now