Текст книги "The Brothers Karamazov"
Автор книги: Федор Достоевский
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PART III
BOOK VII: ALYOSHA
Chapter 1: The Odor of Corruption
The body of the deceased schemahieromonk Father Zosima was prepared for burial according to the established rite. [224] As is known, the bodies of monks and schemamonks are not washed. “When any monk departs to the Lord,” says the Great Prayer Book, “the uchinnenyi[that is, the monk appointed to the task] shall wipe his body with warm water, first making the sign of the cross with a guba[that is, a Greek sponge] on the forehead of the deceased, on his chest, hands, feet, and knees, and no more than that.” Father Paissy himself performed all of this over the deceased. After wiping him, he clothed him in monastic garb and wrapped him in his cloak; to do this, he slit the cloak somewhat, according to the rule, so as to wrap it crosswise. On his head he put a cowl with an eight-pointed cross. [225]The cowl was left open, and the face of the deceased was covered with a black aer. [226] In his hands was placed an icon of the Savior. Arrayed thus, towards morning he was transferred to the coffin (which had been prepared long since). They intended to leave the coffin in the cell (in the large front room, the same room in which the deceased elder received the brothers and lay visitors) for the whole day. As the deceased was a hieromonk of the highest rank, not the Psalter but the Gospel had to be read over him by hieromonks and hierodeacons. The reading was begun, immediately after the service for the dead, by Father Iosif; Father Paissy, who wished to read himself later in the day and all night, was meanwhile very busy and preoccupied, together with the superior of the hermitage, for something extraordinary, some unheard-of and “unseemly” excitement and impatient expectation, suddenly began to appear more and more among the monastery brothers and the lay visitors who came in crowds from the monastery guest houses and from town. Both the Father Superior and Father Paissy made every possible effort to calm this vain excitement. Well into daylight people began arriving from town, some even bringing their sick, children especially—just as if they had been waiting purposely for this moment, apparently in hopes of an immediate healing power, which, according to their faith, should not be slow to appear. Only now did it appear how accustomed people had become in our parts to considering the deceased elder, while he was still alive, an unquestionable and great saint. And those who came were far from being all peasants. This great expectation among the faithful, so hastily and nakedly displayed, even impatiently and all but demandingly, seemed to Father Paissy an unquestionable temptation, and though he had long anticipated it, still it in fact went beyond his expectations. Meeting the excited ones among the monks, he even began to reprimand them: “Such and so instant an expectation of something great,” he would tell them, “is levity, possible only among worldly people; it is not fitting for us.” But he was little heeded, and Father Paissy noticed it uneasily, notwithstanding that he himself (were one to recall the whole truth), though he was indignant at these too-impatient expectations and saw levity and vanity in them, still secretly, within himself, in the depths of his soul, shared almost the same expectations as the excited ones, which fact he could not but admit to himself. Nevertheless certain encounters were particularly unpleasant for him, awakening great doubts in him by some sort of foreboding. In the crowd pressing into the cell of the deceased, he noticed with disgust in his soul (for which he at once reproached himself) the presence, for example, of Rakitin, or the distant visitor, the Ob-dorsk monk, who was still staying at the monastery, both of whom Father Paissy suddenly considered for some reason suspicious—though they were not the only ones who could be pointed to in that sense. Among all the excited ones, the Obdorsk monk stood out as the busiest; he could be seen everywhere, in all places: he asked questions everywhere, listened everywhere, whispered everywhere with a sort of specially mysterious look. The expression on his face was most impatient, and as if already annoyed that the expected thing should be so long in coming. As for Rakitin, it was discovered later that he had turned up so early at the monastery on a special errand from Madame Khokhlakov. The moment she awoke and learned about the deceased, this kind but weak-willed woman, who could not be admitted to the hermitage herself, was suddenly filled with such impetuous curiosity that she at once dispatched Rakitin to the hermitage in her stead, to observe everything and report to her immediately in writing, about every half-hour, on everything that happens.She considered Rakitin a most devout and religious young man—so skillful was he in manipulating everyone and presenting himself to everyone according to the wishes of each, whenever he saw the least advantage for himself. The day was clear and bright, and there were many pilgrims crowded among the hermitage graves, which were scattered all over the grounds, though mainly clustered near the church. Going about the hermitage, Father Paissy suddenly remembered Alyosha, and that he had not seen him for a long time, perhaps not since the night before. And as soon as he remembered him, he noticed him at once, in the furthest corner of the hermitage, near the wall, sitting on the grave of a monk long since departed who was famous for his deeds. He sat with his back to the hermitage, facing the wall, as if hiding behind the tombstone. Coming close to him, Father Paissy saw that he had covered his face with both hands and was weeping, silently but bitterly, his whole body shaking with sobs. Father Paissy stood over him for a while.
“Enough, dear son, enough, my friend,” he said at last with deep feeling. “What is it? You should rejoice and not weep. Don’t you know that this is the greatest of his days? Where is he now, at this moment—only think of that!”
Alyosha glanced up at him, uncovering his face, which was swollen with tears like a little child’s, but turned away at once without saying a word and again hid his face in his hands.
“Ah, perhaps it’s just as well,” Father Paissy said thoughtfully, “perhaps you should weep, Christ has sent you these tears.” And he added, to himself now, “Your tender tears are a relief for your soul and will serve to gladden your dear heart.” And he moved away from Alyosha, thinking of him with love. He hastened to go, incidentally, because he felt that, looking at him, he might start weeping himself. Meanwhile time went on, the monastic services and services for the dead continued in due order. Father Paissy again replaced Father Iosif by the coffin, and again took over the reading of the Gospel from him. But it was not yet three o’clock in the afternoon when something occurred that I have already mentioned at the end of the previous book, something so little expected by any of us, and so contrary to the general hope, that, I repeat, a detailed and frivolous account of this occurrence has been remembered with great vividness in our town and all the neighborhood even to the present day. Here again I will add, speaking for myself personally, that I find it almost loathsome to recall this frivolous and tempting occurrence, essentially quite insignificant and natural, and I would, of course, omit all mention of it from my story, if it had not influenced in the strongest and most definite way the soul and heart of the main, though future,hero of my story, Alyosha, causing, as it were, a crisis and upheaval in his soul, which shook his mind but also ultimately strengthened it for the whole of his life, and towards a definite purpose.
And so, back to the story. When, still before dawn, the body of the elder, prepared for burial, was placed in the coffin and carried out to the front room, the former reception room, a question arose among those attending the coffin: should they open the windows in the room? But this question, uttered cursorily and casually by someone, went unanswered and almost unnoticed—unless it was noticed, and even then privately, by some of those present, only in the sense that to expect corruption and the odor of corruption from the body of such a deceased was a perfect absurdity, even deserving of pity (if not laughter) with regard to the thoughtlessness and little faith of the one who had uttered the question. For quite the opposite was expected. Then, shortly after noon, something began that was first noticed by those coming in and going out only silently and within themselves, and even with an apparent fear of communicating the thought that was beginning to form in them, but which by three o’clock in the afternoon had manifested itself so clearly and undeniably that news of it spread instantly all over the hermitage and among all the pilgrims visiting the hermitage, at once penetrated the monastery as well and threw all the monks into consternation, and, finally, in a very short time, reached town and stirred up everyone there, both believers and unbelievers. The unbelievers rejoiced; as for the believers, some of them rejoiced even more than the unbelievers, for “people love the fall of the righteous man and his disgrace,” as the deceased elder himself had pronounced in one of his homilies. The thing was that little by little, but more and more noticeably, an odor of corruption had begun to issue from the coffin, which by three o’clock in the afternoon was all too clearly evident and kept gradually increasing. Not for a long time had there been, nor was it possible to recall in the entire past life of our monastery, such temptation, so coarsely unbridled, and even impossible under any other circumstances, as was displayed immediately after this occurrence even among the monks themselves. Recalling that whole day in detail later on, and even after many years, some of our sensible monks were still amazed and horrified at how this temptation could then have reached such proportions. For before then it had also happened that monks of very righteous life, whose righteousness was in all men’s eyes, God-fearing elders, had died, and even so, from their humble coffins, too, there had come an odor of corruption, appearing quite naturally as in all dead men, yet this did not produce any temptation, or even the least excitement. Of course there were some among the deceased of old whose memory was still kept alive in our monastery, and whose remains, according to tradition, had shown no corruption, which fact influenced the brothers movingly and mysteriously, and remained in their memory as a gracious and wondrous thing, and the promise of a still greater future glory from their tombs, if only, by God’s will, the time for that were to come. Among these was especially preserved the memory of the elder Job, who lived to be a hundred and five, a famous ascetic, a great faster and keeper of silence, who had departed long ago, in the second decade of this century, and whose grave was pointed out with special and extreme respect to all pilgrims on their first visit, with the mysterious mention of some great expectations. (It was on this same grave that Father Paissy had found Alyosha sitting that morning.) Besides this long-since-departed elder, a similar memory was kept alive of the great schemahieromonk, the elder Father Varsonofy, who had departed comparatively recently—the one whom Father Zosima had succeeded as elder, and who, in his lifetime, was considered definitely a holy fool by all the pilgrims who visited the monastery. Tradition maintained that these two both lay in their coffins as if alive and were buried without any corruption in them, and that their faces even brightened, as it were, in the coffin. And some even recalled insistently that one could sense an unmistakable fragrance coming from their bodies. Yet, even with such impressive memories, it would still be difficult to explain the direct cause of such a frivolous, absurd, and malicious phenomenon as occurred at the coffin of the elder Zosima. For my part, personally I suppose that in this case a number of things came together simultaneously, that a number of different causes combined their influence. One of these, for instance, was the inveterate hostility to the institution of elders, as a pernicious innovation, that was deeply hidden in the minds of many monks in the monastery. Then, of course, and above all, there was envy of the dead man’s holiness, so firmly established while he lived that it was even forbidden, as it were, to question it. For, though the late elder had attracted many to himself, not so much by miracles as by love, and had built up around himself, as it were, a whole world of those who loved him, nevertheless, and still more so, by the same means he generated many who envied him, and hence became his bitter enemies, both open and secret, and not only among the monastics, but even among laymen. He never harmed anyone, for example, but then, “Why is he considered so holy?” And the gradual repetition of that one question finally generated a whole abyss of the most insatiable spite. Which is why I think that many, having noticed the odor of corruption coming from his body, and that so soon—for not even a day had passed since his death—were immensely pleased; just as among those devoted to the elder, who until then had honored him, there were at once found some who were all but insulted and personally offended by this occurrence. The gradual development of the matter went as follows.
No sooner had the corruption begun to reveal itself than one had only to look at the faces of the monks entering the cell of the deceased to see why they were coming. They would go in, stand for a while, and then leave, hastening to confirm the news to the others waiting in a crowd outside. Some of those waiting would sorrowfully nod their heads, but others did not even wish to conceal their joy, so obviously shining in their spiteful eyes. And no one reproached them any longer, no one raised a good voice, which is even a wonder, for those devoted to the deceased elder were still a majority in the monastery; yet, apparently, the Lord himself this time allowed the minority to prevail temporarily. Lay visitors, more particularly the educated sort, soon began coming to the cell to spy in the same way. Few of the simple people went in, though there were many of them crowding at the gates of the hermitage. There is no denying that precisely after three o’clock the influx of lay visitors grew considerably, and precisely as the result of the tempting news. Those who would not, perhaps, have come that day at all, and had no thought of coming, now deliberately put in an appearance, some high-ranking people among them. However, there was as yet no outward breach of good order, and Father Paissy, with a stern face, continued reading the Gospel aloud, firmly and distinctly, as if he did not notice what was happening, though he had long since noticed something unusual. But then he, too, began hearing voices, subdued at first, but gradually growing firm and confident. “Clearly God’s judgment is not as man’s,” Father Paissy suddenly heard. The first to utter it was a layman, a town functionary, an elderly man, and, as far as anyone knew, quite a pious one; but, in uttering this aloud, he merely repeated what the monks had long been repeating in one another’s ears. They had long ago uttered this despairing word, and the worst of it was that with almost every minute a certain triumph appeared and grew around this word. Soon, however, good order itself began to be violated, and it was as if everyone felt somehow entitled to violate it. “Why should this have happened?” some of the monks began to say, at first as if with regret. “He had a small, dry body, just skin and bones—where can the smell be coming from?” “Then it’s a deliberate sign from God,” others added hastily, and their opinion was accepted without argument and at once, for they indicated further that even though it was only natural for there to be a smell, as with any deceased sinner, still it should have come forth later, after a day at least, not with such obvious haste, but “this one has forestalled nature,” and so there was nothing else in it but God and his deliberate finger. A sign. This argument struck irrefutably. The meek father hieromonk Iosif, the librarian, a favorite of the deceased, tried to object to some of the maligners, saying that “it is not so everywhere,” and that there was no Orthodox dogma that the bodies of righteous men are necessarily incorruptible, it was only an opinion, and even in the most Orthodox countries, on Mount Athos for example, they are not so embarrassed by the odor of corruption, and it is not bodily incorruptibility that is regarded as the main sign of the glorification of the saved, but the color of their bones after their bodies have lain in the ground many years and even decayed in it, and “if the bones are found to be yellow like wax, that is the first sign that the Lord has glorified the righteous deceased; and if they are found to be not yellow but black, it means that the Lord has not deemed him worthy of his glory—that is how it is on Athos, a great place, where Orthodoxy from of old has been preserved inviolate and in shining purity,” Father Iosif concluded. But the words of the humble father flew by without leaving any impression, and even evoked a mocking rebuff: “That’s all learning and innovation, nothing worth listening to,” the monks decided among themselves. “We stick to the old ways; who cares what innovations they come up with; should we copy them all?” added others. “We’ve had as many holy fathers as they have. They sit there under the Turks and have forgotten everything. Their Orthodoxy has long been clouded, and they don’t have any bells,” the greatest scoffers put in. Father Iosif walked away sorrowfully, the more so as he had not expressed his opinion very firmly, but as if he himself had little faith. But he foresaw with perplexity that something very unseemly was beginning and that disobedience itself was rearing its head. Little by little, after Father Iosif, all other reasonable voices fell silent. And it somehow happened that everyone who loved the deceased elder and accepted the institution of elders with loving obedience suddenly became terribly frightened of something, and when they met they only glanced timidly into each other’s faces. The enemies of the institution of elders as a novelty proudly raised their heads: “Not only was there no odor from the late elder Varsonofy, but he even exuded a fragrance,” they recalled maliciously, “but of that he was deemed worthy not as an elder, but as a righteous man.” And after that, denunciations and even accusations poured down upon the newly departed elder: “He taught unrighteousness; he taught that life is great joy and not tearful humility,” some of the more muddleheaded said. “He held fashionable beliefs, he did not accept the material fire of hell,” added others, even more muddleheaded than the first. “He was not strict in fasting, allowed himself sweets, had cherry preserve with his tea, and liked it very much, ladies used to send it to him. What is a monk doing giving tea parties?” came from some of the envious. “He sat in pride,” the most malicious cruelly recalled, “he considered himself a saint; when people knelt before him, he took it as his due.” “He abused the sacrament of confession,” the most ardent opponents of the institution of elders added in a malicious whisper, and among these were some of the oldest and most strictly pious of the monks, true adepts of fasting and silence, who had kept silent while the deceased was alive but now suddenly opened their mouths, which in itself was terrible, because their words had a strong influence on the young and as yet unfirm monks. The Obdorsk visitor, the little monk from St. Sylvester’s, also listened to them attentively, sighing deeply and nodding his head: “Yes, apparently Father Ferapont judged rightly yesterday,” he kept thinking to himself, and just then Father Ferapont appeared; he emerged as if precisely to aggravate the shock.
*
I have already mentioned that he rarely left his little wooden cell in the apiary, did not even go to church for long stretches of time, and that this was blinked at because he was supposedly a holy fool, not to be bound by the general rule. But to tell the whole truth, all this was blinked at even from a sort of necessity. For it was somehow even shameful to insist on burdening with the general rule so great an ascetic, who fasted and kept silence and prayed night and day (he even fell asleep on his knees), if he himself did not want to submit to it. “He is holier than any of us, and what he does is more difficult than following the rule,” the monks would have said in that case, “and if he does not go to church, it means he knows himself when to go, he has his own rule.” Because of the likelihood of such murmuring and temptation, Father Ferapont was left in peace. As everyone knew, Father Ferapont intensely disliked Father Zosima; and then the news reached him in his little cell that “God’s judgment is not as man’s, and that it has even forestalled nature.” We may suppose that one of the first to run and bring him the news was the Obdorsk visitor, who had been to see him the day before, and who the day before had left him in terror. I have also mentioned that Father Paissy, who stood firmly and immovably reading over the coffin, though he could not hear or see what was taking place outside the cell, had unerringly divined all its essentials in his heart, for he knew his milieu thoroughly. But he was not dismayed, and waited fearlessly for all that might still take place, with a piercing gaze looking ahead to the outcome of the disturbance, which was already present to his mental eye. Then suddenly an extraordinary noise in the front hall, which clearly violated good order, struck his ear. The door was flung open and Father Ferapont appeared on the threshold. Behind him, as one could glimpse and even plainly see from the cell, many monks who accompanied him were crowding at the foot of the porch, and many laymen along with them. This company did not enter the cell, however, and did not come up on the porch, but stopped and waited to see what Father Ferapont would say and do next, for they suspected, even with a certain fear, despite all their boldness, that he had not come for nothing. Having stopped on the threshold, Father Ferapont lifted up his arms, and from under his right arm peeped the keen and curious little eyes of the Obdorsk visitor, the only one who could not keep himself from running up the stairs after Father Ferapont, for he was greatly curious. Apart from him, all the others, on the contrary, drew further back in sudden fear the moment the door was so noisily flung open. Lifting up his hands, Father Ferapont suddenly yelled:
“Casting will I cast out!” and facing all four directions in turn, he at once began making crosses with his hand at the walls and the four corners of the cell. Those who accompanied Father Ferapont understood this action at once; for they knew that he always did the same wherever he went, and that he would not sit down or say a word before driving out the unclean spirits.
“Get thee hence, Satan! Get thee hence, Satan!” he repeated with each sign of the cross. “Casting will I cast out!” he yelled again. He was wearing his coarse habit, girded with a rope. His bare chest overgrown with gray hair appeared from under his hempen shirt. He had nothing at all on his feet. As soon as he started waving his arms, the heavy chains he wore under his habit began shaking and clanking. Father Paissy interrupted his reading, stepped forward, and stood waiting in front of him.
“Wherefore have you come, worthy father? Wherefore do you violate good order? Wherefore do you trouble the humble flock?” he said at last, looking at him sternly.
“Whyfor have I come? Whyfor do you ask? How believest thou?” [227]Father Ferapont cried in his holy folly. “I came forth to drive out your guests here, the foul devils. I want to see how many you’ve stored up without me. I want to sweep them out with a birch broom.”
“You drive out the unclean one, and it is perhaps him that you serve,” Father Paissy went on fearlessly. “And who can say of himself, ‘I am holy? Can you, father?”
“I am foul, not holy. I would not sit in an armchair, I would not desire to be , worshipped like an idol!” Father Ferapont thundered. “Now people are destroying the holy faith. The deceased, your saint here,” he turned to the crowd, pointing at the coffin with his finger, “denied devils. He gave purgatives against devils. So they’ve bred here like spiders in the corners. And on this day he got himself stunk. In this we see a great sign from God.”
Indeed, it had once happened in Father Zosima’s lifetime. One of the monks began seeing unclean spirits, at first in his dreams and then also in reality. And when, in great fear, he divulged this to the elder, the latter advised him to pray without ceasing and fast zealously. But when that did not help either, he advised him, without abandoning his fasting and prayer, to take a certain medicine. Many found this a temptation and spoke of it among themselves, shaking their heads—Father Ferapont most of all, whom some slanderers had hastened to inform at once of the “extraordinary” instructions the elder had given in this particular case.
“Get thee hence, father!” Father Paissy spoke commandingly. “It is not for men to judge, but for God. Perhaps we see here such a sign’ as neither I, nor you, nor any man is capable of understanding. Get thee hence, father, and do not trouble the flock!” he repeated insistently. “He did not keep the fasts according to his monastic rank, therefore this sign has come. That’s plain enough, it’s a sin to conceal it!” The fanatic, maddened by his zeal, got himself going and would not be still. “He loved candies, the ladies used to bring him candies in their pockets, he was a tea sipper, a glutton, filling his stomach with sweets and his mind with arrogant thoughts ... That is why he suffers this shame ...”
“Frivolous are your words, father!” Father Paissy also raised his voice. “I marvel at your fasting and ascetic life, but frivolous are your words, as if spoken by some worldly youth, callow and inconstant of mind. Therefore get thee hence, father, I command you,” Father Paissy thundered in conclusion.
“I will get hence,” said Father Ferapont, as if somewhat taken aback, but not abandoning his spite. “You learned ones! In great wisdom you exalt yourselves above my nothingness. I came here illiterate, and here forgot what I did know, the Lord himself has protected me, his little one, from your wisdom...”
Father Paissy stood over him and waited firmly. Father Ferapont was silent for a short time; then, suddenly rueful, he put his right hand to his cheek and spoke in a singsong, looking at the coffin of the deceased elder:
“Tomorrow they will sing ‘My Helper and Defender’ over him—a glorious canon—and over me when I croak just What Earthly Joy’—a little song,” he said tearfully and piteously. [228]“You are proud and puffed up! Empty is this place!” he suddenly yelled like a madman, and, waving his hand, turned quickly, and quickly went down the steps from the porch. The crowd awaiting him below hesitated: some followed him at once, but others lingered, for the cell was still open and Father Paissy, who had come out to the porch after Father Ferapont, was standing and watching. But the raging old man was not finished yet: going about twenty steps off, he suddenly turned towards the setting sun, raised both arms, and, as if he had been cut down, collapsed on the ground with a great cry:
“My Lord has conquered! Christ has conquered with the setting sun!” he cried out frenziedly, lifting up his hands to the sun, and, falling face down on the ground, he sobbed loudly like a little child, shaking all over with tears and spreading his arms on the ground. Now everyone rushed to him, there were exclamations, responsive sobs ... Some kind of frenzy seized them all.
“It is he who is holy! It is he who is righteous!”voices exclaimed, quite fearlessly now. “It is he who should be made an elder,” others added spitefully.
“He would not be made an elder ... he would refuse ... he would not serve a cursed innovation ... he would not ape their foolery,” other voices put in at once, and it was hard to imagine where it would end, but at that moment the bell rang calling them to church. They all suddenly began crossing themselves. Father Ferapont also got up, and, protecting himself with the sign of the cross, went to his cell without looking back, still uttering exclamations, but now quite incoherently. Some few drifted after him, but the majority began to disperse, hurrying to the service. Father Paissy handed over the reading to Father Iosif and went down. He could not be shaken by the frenzied cries of fanatics, but his heart was suddenly saddened and anguished by something in particular, and he felt it. He stopped and suddenly asked himself, “Why do I feel such sadness, almost to the point of dejection?” and perceived at once with surprise that this sudden sadness was evidently owing to a very small and particular cause: it happened that in the crowd milling about the entrance to the cell, among the rest of the excited ones, he had also noticed Alyosha, and he remembered that, seeing him there, he had at once felt, as it were, a pain in his heart. “Can it be that this young one means so much to my heart now?” he suddenly asked himself in surprise. At that moment Alyosha was just passing by him, as if hurrying somewhere, but not in the direction of the church. Their eyes met. Alyosha quickly turned away and dropped his eyes to the ground, and just from the look of the young man, Father Paissy could guess what a great change was taking place in him at that moment.
