Текст книги "The Brothers Karamazov"
Автор книги: Федор Достоевский
сообщить о нарушении
Текущая страница: 32 (всего у книги 70 страниц)
“He has a grief. He didn’t get promoted,” Rakitin said in a deep voice.
“What do you mean, promoted?”
“His elder got smelly.”
“What do you mean, ‘smelly’? You’re spewing a lot of nonsense, you just want to say something nasty. Shut up, fool. Will you let me sit on your lap, Alyosha—like this!” And all at once she sprang up suddenly and, laughing, leaped onto his knees like an affectionate cat, tenderly embracing his neck with her right arm. “I’ll cheer you up, my pious boy! No, really, will you let me sit on your lap for a little, you won’t be angry? Tell me—I’ll jump off.”
Alyosha was silent. He sat afraid to move; he heard her say: “Tell me—I’ll jump off,” but did not answer, as if he were frozen. Yet what was happening in him was not what might have been expected, or what might have been imagined, for example, by Rakitin, who was watching carnivorously from where he sat. The great grief in his soul absorbed all the feelings his heart might have conceived, and if he had been able at that moment to give himself a full accounting, he would have understood that he was now wearing the strongest armor against any seduction and temptation. Nevertheless, despite all the vague unaccountability of his state of soul and all the grief that was weighing on him, he still could not help marveling at a new and strange sensation that was awakening in his heart: this woman, this “horrible” woman, not only did not arouse in him the fear he had felt before, the fear that used to spring up in him every time he thought of a woman, if such a thought flashed through his soul, but, on the contrary, this woman, of whom he was afraid most of all, who was sitting on his knees and embracing him, now aroused in him suddenly quite a different, unexpected, and special feeling, the feeling of some remarkable, great, and most pure-hearted curiosity, and without any fear now, without a trace of his former terror—that was the main thing, and it could not but surprise him.
“Stop babbling nonsense,” Rakitin cried. “You’d better bring us champagne, you owe it to me, you know!”
“It’s true, I owe it to him. I promised him champagne, Alyosha, on top of everything else, if he brought you to me. Let’s have champagne, I’ll drink, too! Fenya, Fenya, bring us champagne, the bottle Mitya left, run quickly. Though I’m stingy, I’ll stand you a bottle—not you, Rakitka, you’re a mushroom, but he is a prince! And though my soul is full of something else now, I’ll drink with you all the same, I want to be naughty!”
“But what is this moment of yours, and what, may I ask, is this message, or is it a secret?” Rakitin put in again with curiosity, pretending as hard as he could that he did not notice the barbs that kept coming at him.
“Eh, it’s no secret, and you know it yourself,” Grushenka suddenly said worriedly, turning to look at Rakitin and leaning back a little from Alyosha, though she stayed seated on his lap with her arm around his neck. “The officer is coming, Rakitin, my officer is coming!”
“I heard he was coming, but is he so nearby?”
“He’s at Mokroye now, he’ll send me a messenger from there, he wrote me so, the letter came just today. I’m sitting here waiting for the messenger.” “Aha! But why in Mokroye?”
“It’s a long story, I’ve told you enough.”
“Take that, Mitenka—ai, ai! Does he know?”
“Know? He doesn’t know anything. If he found out, he’d kill me. But now I’m not afraid at all, I’m not afraid of his knife now. Shut up, Rakitin, don’t remind me of Dmitri Fyodorovich: he’s turned my heart to mush. And I don’t want to think about anything right now. But I can think about Alyoshechka, I’m looking at Alyoshechka ... Smile at me, darling, cheer up, smile at my foolishness, at my joy ... He smiled, he smiled! What a tender look! You know, Alyosha, I keep thinking you must be angry with me because of two days ago, because of the young lady. I was a bitch, that’s what ... Only it’s still good that it happened that way. It was bad, and it was good,” Grushenka suddenly smiled meaningly, and a cruel little line suddenly flashed in her smile. “Mitya says she shouted: ‘She should be flogged! ‘ I must really have offended her. She invited me, wanted to win me over, to seduce me with her chocolate ... No,it’s good that it happened that way,”she smiled again.”But I’m still afraid you’re angry ...”
“Really,” Rakitin suddenly put in again with serious surprise, “she’s really afraid of you, Alyosha, chicken that you are.”
“To you he’s a chicken, Rakitin, that’s what ... because you have no conscience, that’s what! You see, I love him with my soul, that’s what! Do you believe me, Alyosha, that I love you with all my soul?”
“Ah, shameless! She’s confessing her love for you, Alexei!”
“Why not? I do love him.”
“And the officer? And the golden message from Mokroye?” “That’s one thing, and this is another. “ “Just like a woman!”
“Don’t make me angry, Rakitka,” Grushenka caught him up hotly. “That is one thing, and this is another. I love Alyosha differently. It’s true I had sly thoughts about you, Alyosha. I’m a low woman, I’m a violent woman, yet there are moments, Alyosha, when I look upon you as my conscience. I keep thinking: ‘How a man like him must despise a bad woman like me.’ I thought the same thing two days ago, as I was running home from the young lady’s. I noticed you long ago, Alyosha, and Mitya knows, I told him. And Mitya understands. Will you believe, Alyosha, really I look at you sometimes and feel ashamed, ashamed of myself ... And I don’t know, I don’t remember how it was that I started thinking about you, or when it was ...”
Fenya came in and placed a tray on the table, with an uncorked bottle of champagne and three full glasses on it.
“Here’s the champagne!” Rakitin cried. “You’re excited, Agrafena Alexandrovna, and beside yourself. You’ll drink a glass and start dancing. Ehh, even this they couldn’t get right,” he added, examining the champagne. “The old woman poured it in the kitchen, and they brought the bottle without the cork, and it’s warm. Well, let’s have it anyway.”
He went up to the table, took a glass, drank it in one gulp, and poured himself another.
“One doesn’t bump into champagne too often,” he said, licking his chops. “Hey, Alyosha, take a glass, prove yourself. What are we going to drink to? To the gates of paradise? Grusha, take a glass, drink with us to the gates of paradise.”
“What gates of paradise?”
She took her glass. Alyosha took his, sipped at it, and set the glass down again.
“No, I’d better not,” he smiled quietly.
“But you boasted . . .!” Rakitin cried.
“Then I won’t drink either,” Grushenka cut in, “I don’t want to anyway. Drink the whole bottle yourself, Rakitka. If Alyosha drinks, I’ll drink, too.”
“What sentimental slop!” Rakitin taunted. “And sitting on his lap all the while! Granted he has his grief, but what have you got? He rebelled against his God, he was going to gobble sausage...”
“Why so?”
“His elder died today, the elder Zosima, the saint.”
“The elder Zosima died!” Grushenka exclaimed. “Oh, Lord, I didn’t know!” She crossed herself piously. “Lord, but what am I doing now, sitting on his lap!” She suddenly gave a start as if in fright, jumped off his knees at once, and sat down on the sofa. Alyosha gave her a long, surprised look, and something seemed to light up in his face.
“Rakitin,” he suddenly said loudly and firmly, “don’t taunt me with having rebelled against my God. I don’t want to hold any anger against you, and therefore you be kinder, too. I’ve lost such a treasure as you never had, and you cannot judge me now. You’d do better to look here, at her: did you see how she spared me? I came here looking for a wicked soul—I was drawn to that, because I was low and wicked myself, but I found a true sister, I found a treasure—a loving soul ... She spared me just now ... I’m speaking of you, Agrafena Alexandrovna. You restored my soul just now.”
Alyosha was breathless and his lips began to tremble. He stopped.
“Really saved you, did she!” Rakitin laughed spitefully. “Yet she was going to eat you up, do you know that?”
“Stop, Rakitka!” Grushenka suddenly jumped up. “Be still, both of you. I’ll tell you everything now: you be still, Alyosha, because I feel ashamed of hearing such words from you, because I’m wicked, not good—that’s how I am. And you, Rakitka, be still because you’re lying. I did have such a low thought, of eating him up, but now you’re lying, it’s quite different now ... and I don’t want to hear any more from you, Rakitka!” Grushenka spoke all this with unusual excitement.
“Look at them—both senseless!” Rakitin hissed, staring at them both in amazement. “It’s crazy, I feel like I’m in a madhouse. They’ve both gone soft, they’ll start crying in a minute!”
“I will start crying, I will start crying!” Grushenka kept repeating. “He called me his sister, I’ll never forget it! Just know one thing, Rakitka, I may be wicked, but still I gave an onion.”
“An onion? Ah, the devil, they really have gone crazy!”
Rakitin was surprised at their exaltation, which offended and annoyed him, though he should have realized that everything had just come together for them both in such a way that their souls were shaken, which does not happen very often in life. But Rakitin, who could be quite sensitive in understanding everything that concerned himself, was quite crude in understanding the feelings and sensations of his neighbors—partly because of his youthful inexperience, and partly because of his great egoism.
“You see, Alyoshechka,” Grushenka turned to him, laughing nervously, “I’m boasting to Rakitka that I gave an onion, but I’m not boasting to you, I’ll tell you about it for a different reason. It’s just a fable, but a good fable, I heard it when I was still a child, from my Matryona who cooks for me now. It goes like this: Once upon a time there was a woman, and she was wicked as wicked could be, and she died. And not one good deed was left behind her. The devils took her and threw her into the lake of fire. And her guardian angel stood thinking: what good deed of hers can I remember to tell God? Then he remembered and said to God: once she pulled up an onion and gave it to a beggar woman. And God answered: now take that same onion, hold it out to her in the lake, let her take hold of it, and pull, and if you pull her out of the lake, she can go to paradise, but if the onion breaks, she can stay where she is. The angel ran to the woman and held out the onion to her: here, woman, he said, take hold of it and I’ll pull. And he began pulling carefully, and had almost pulled her all the way out, when other sinners in the lake saw her being pulled out and all began holding on to her so as to be pulled out with her. But the woman was wicked as wicked could be, and she began to kick them with her feet: ‘It’s me who’s getting pulled out, not you; it’s my onion, not yours.’ No sooner did she say it than the onion broke. And the woman fell back into the lake and is burning there to this day. And the angel wept and went away. [230] That’s the fable, Alyosha, I know it by heart, because I myself am that wicked woman. I boasted to Rakitin that I gave an onion, but I’ll say it differently to you: in my whole life I’ve given just onelittle onion, that’s how much good I’ve done. And don’t praise me after that, Alyosha, don’t think I’m good, I’m wicked, wicked as can be, and if you praise me you’ll make me ashamed. Ah, let me confess everything: listen, Alyosha, I wanted so much to lure you here and pestered Rakitin so much that I even promised him twenty-five roubles if he’d bring you to me. No, wait, Rakitka!” She went briskly to the table, opened a drawer, got out a purse, and from the purse took a twenty-five-rouble bill.
“What nonsense! What nonsense!” exclaimed Rakitin, taken aback.
“I owe it to you, Rakitka, take it, you won’t refuse, you asked for it yourself,” and she flung the bill at him.
“Why refuse?” Rakitin said in a deep voice, visibly ashamed, but disguising his embarrassment with swagger. “It will truly come in handy; fools exist for the intelligent man’s profit.”
“And now keep still, Rakitka, what I’m going to say now is not for your ears. Sit there in the corner and keep still, you don’t love us, so keep still.”
“What’s there to love you for?” Rakitin snarled, no longer concealing his spite. He put the twenty-five roubles in his pocket, and was decidedly ashamed before Alyosha. He had planned on being paid later, so that Alyosha would not know, but now shame made him angry. Up to that moment he had found it more politic not to contradict Grushenka too much, despite all her barbs, since she obviously had some sort of power over him. But now he, too, got angry:
“One loves for some reason, and what has either of you done for me?”
“You should love for no reason, like Alyosha.”
“How does he love you? What has he shown you, that you’re making such a fuss about it?”
Grushenka stood in the middle of the room; she spoke heatedly, and hysterical notes could be heard in her voice.
“Keep still, Rakitka, you don’t understand anything about us! And don’t you dare speak familiarly with me again, I forbid it. You’re too bold, that’s what! Sit in the corner like my lackey and keep still. And now, Alyosha, I will tell the whole, pure truth to you alone, so that you can see what a creature I am! I tell it to you, not to Rakitka. I wanted to ruin you, I was quite determined, that is the great truth: I wanted it so much that I bribed Rakitka with money to bring you. And why did I want it so much? You knew nothing, Alyosha, you used to turn away from me, you’d walk by me with your eyes on the ground, but I looked at you a hundred times before, I began asking everyone about you. Your face stayed in my heart: ‘He despises me,’ I thought, ‘he doesn’t even want to look at me.’ And finally such a feeling took hold of me that I was surprised at myself: why should I be afraid of a boy like him? I’ll eat him up and laugh. I was so angry! Believe me, no one here dares to say or think they can come to Agrafena Alexandrovna for that bad thing; I have only the old man here, I’m bought and sold to him, Satan married us, but there’s no one else. Yet looking at you, I was determined: I’ll eat him up. Eat him up and laugh. See what a wicked bitch I am, and you called me your sister! Now the man who wronged me has come, I’m sitting here waiting for his message. Do you know what this man has been to me? It’s five years since Kuzma brought me here—I used to sit hiding from people, so that people wouldn’t see or hear me, a silly slip of a girl, sitting and crying, not sleeping all night, thinking: ‘Where is he now, the man who wronged me? He must be laughing at me with some other woman, and what won’t I do to him, if only I ever see him, if only I meet him: I’ll make him pay! How I’ll make him pay! ‘ At night, in the dark, I sobbed into the pillow and kept thinking it all over, I tore my heart on purpose, to ease it with spite: ‘How I’ll make him pay, oh, how I will!’ I would sometimes even scream in the darkness. Then I would suddenly remember that I was not going to do anything to him, but that he was laughing at me now, or maybe had quite forgotten me, just didn’t remember, and then I would throw myself from my bed onto the floor, flooding myself with helpless tears, and shake and shake till dawn. In the morning I would get up worse than a dog, ready to tear the whole world apart. And then you know what: I began saving money, became merciless, grew fat—and do you think I got any smarter? Not a bit. No one sees it, no one in the whole universe knows it, but when the dark of night falls, I sometimes lie just as I used to, as a young girl, five years ago, gnashing my teeth and crying all night, thinking: ‘I’ll show him, oh, yes, I’ll show him!’ Do you hear what I’m saying? Now try to understand me: a month ago I suddenly received this letter: he’s coming, his wife died, he wants to see me. It took my breath away. Lord, I suddenly thought: what if he comes and whistles for me, calls me, and I just crawl to him like a little dog, guilty and beaten! I thought of it and couldn’t believe myself: ‘Am I so base? Will I just run to him?’ And I’ve been so angry with myself all this month that it’s even worse than five years ago. Now you see how violent, how wild I am, Alyosha, I’ve spoken out the whole truth to you! I’ve been toying with Mitya so as not to run to the other one. Keep still, Rakitin, it’s not for you to judge me, I’m not telling it to you. Before you came I was lying here waiting, thinking, deciding my whole fate, and you will never know what was in my heart. No, Alyosha, tell your young lady not to be angry for two days ago. . .! No one in the whole world knows how I feel now, or can know ... Because maybe I’ll take a knife with me today, I haven’t decided yet ...” And having uttered this “pathetic” phrase, Grushenka suddenly could not help herself; she broke off, covered her face with her hands, threw herself onto the sofa, into the pillows, and sobbed like a little child. Alyosha stood up and went over to Rakitin.
“Misha,” he said, “don’t be angry. You’re offended with her, but don’t be angry. Did you hear her just now? One cannot ask so much of a human soul, one should be more merciful ...”
Alyosha said this from an unrestrainable impulse of his heart. He had to speak out and he turned to Rakitin. If there had been no Rakitin, he would have begun exclaiming to himself. But Rakitin looked at him with a sneer, and Alyosha suddenly stopped.
“They just loaded you with your elder, and now you’ve fired your elder off at me, Alyoshenka, little man of God,” [231]Rakitin said with a hateful smile.
“Don’t laugh, Rakitin, don’t sneer, don’t speak of the deceased: he is higher than anyone who has ever lived!” Alyosha cried with tears in his voice. “I stood up to speak to you not as a judge but as the lowliest of the accused. Who am I compared with her? I came here seeking my own ruin, saying: ‘Who cares, who cares?’ because of my faintheartedness; but she, after five years of torment, as soon as someone comes and speaks a sincere word to her, forgives everything, forgets everything, and weeps! The man who wronged her has come back, he is calling her, and she forgives him everything, and hastens to him with joy, and she won’t take a knife, she won’t! No, I am not like that. I don’t know whether you are like that, Misha, but I am not like that! I learned this lesson today, just now ... She is higher in love than we are ... Have you ever heard her speak before of what she just told now? No, you have not; if you had, you would have understood everything long ago ... and the other woman, who was offended two days ago, she, too, must forgive! And she will forgive if she knows ... and she will know ... This soul is not reconciled yet, it must be spared ... maybe there is a treasure in this soul ...”
Alyosha fell silent, because his breath failed him. Rakitin, despite all his anger, watched in amazement. He had never expected such a tirade from the quiet Alyosha.
“Quite a lawyer we’ve got here! Have you fallen in love with her or something? You win, Agrafena Alexandrovna, our ascetic is really in love with you!” he shouted with an insolent laugh.
Grushenka raised her head from the pillow and looked at Alyosha; a tender smile shone on her face, somehow suddenly swollen with tears.
“Let him be, Alyosha, my cherub, you see how he is, he’s not worth talking to. Mikhail Osipovich,” she turned to Rakitin, “I was about to ask your forgiveness for having been rude to you, but now I don’t want to. Alyosha, come here and sit down,” she beckoned to him with a joyful smile, “sit down, so, and tell me,” she took his hand, smiling, and peered into his face, “you tell me: do I love this man or not? The one who wronged me, do I love him or not? I was lying here in the dark before you came, and kept asking my heart: do I love this man or not? Deliver me, Alyosha, the time has come; it shall be as you decide. Should I forgive him or not?”
“But you’ve already forgiven him,” Alyosha said, smiling.
“Yes, I’ve forgiven him,” Grushenka said meaningly. “What a base heart! To my base heart!” She suddenly snatched a glass from the table, drank it in one gulp, held it up, and smashed it as hard as she could on the floor. The glass shattered and tinkled. A certain cruel line flashed in her smile.
“Or maybe I haven’t forgiven him yet,” she said somehow menacingly, dropping her eyes to the ground, as though she were alone, talking to herself. “Maybe my heart is only getting ready to forgive him. I still have to struggle with my heart. You see, Alyosha, I’ve grown terribly fond of my tears over these five years ... Maybe I’ve come to love only my wrong, and not him at all!”
“I’d hate to be in his skin!” Rakitin hissed.
“And you won’t be, Rakitka, you’ll never be in his skin. You’ll make shoes for me, Rakitka, that’s what I’ll have you do, and you’ll never get a woman like me ... Maybe he won’t either...”
“No? Then why all this finery?” Rakitin taunted her slyly.
“Don’t reproach me with my finery, Rakitka, you don’t know the whole of my heart yet! If I choose, I’ll tear it off right now, I’ll tear it off this very minute!” she cried in a ringing voice. “You don’t know why I need this finery, Rakitka! Maybe I’ll go up to him and say: ‘Did you ever see me like this?’ He left a seventeen-year-old, skinny, consumptive crybaby. I’ll sit down beside him, I’ll seduce him, I’ll set him on fire: ‘Take a good look at me now, my dear sir, because that’s all you’ll get—for there’s many a slip twixt the cup and the lip! ‘ Maybe that’s why I need this finery, Rakitka,” Grushenka finished with a malicious little laugh. ‘I’m violent, Alyosha, I’m wild. I’ll tear off my finery, I’ll maim myself, my beauty, I’ll burn my face, and slash it with a knife, and go begging. If I choose, I won’t go anywhere or to anyone; if I choose, I’ll send everything back to Kuzma tomorrow, all his presents, and all his money, and go and work all my life as a charwoman . . .! You think I won’t do it, Rakitka, you think I won’t dare to do it? I will, I will do it, I can do it now, only don’t annoy me ... and I’ll get rid of that one, a fig for him, he won’t get me!”
She shouted these last words hysterically, but again could not help herself, covered her face with her hands, threw herself onto the pillow, and again shook with sobs. Rakitin stood up. “Time to go,” he said, “it’s late, they won’t let us into the monastery.”
Grushenka leaped to her feet.
“You’re not going to leave, Alyosha!” she exclaimed in sorrowful amazement. “But what are you doing to me? You stirred me all up, tormented me, and now for another night I’ll be left alone again!”
“What do you want him to do, spend the night here? He can if he wants to! I can go by myself!” Rakitin joked caustically.
“Keep still, you wicked soul,” Grushenka shouted furiously at him, “you never said anything like what he came and told me.”
“Just what did he tell you?” Rakitin grumbled irritably.
“I don’t know, I don’t know what he told me, my heart heard it, he wrung my heart ... He’s the first to pity me, and the only one, that’s what! Why didn’t you come before, you cherub,” she suddenly fell on her knees to him, as if beside herself. “All my life I’ve been waiting for such a one as you, I knew someone like that would come and forgive me. I believed that someone would love me, a dirty woman, not only for my shame...!”
“What did I do for you?” Alyosha answered with a tender smile, and he bent down to her and gently took her hands. “I just gave you an onion, one little onion, that’s all, that’s all...!”
Having said that, he himself started weeping. At the same moment there was a sudden noise at the doorway, someone came into the front hall; Grushenka jumped up, looking terribly frightened. Fenya rushed noisily into the room, shouting:
“My lady, my dear, my lady, a messenger has ridden up,” she exclaimed joyfully and breathlessly. “A carriage has come for you from Mokroye, Timofei the coachman with a troika, they’re changing horses right now ... The letter, the letter, my lady, here’s the letter!”
She was holding the letter in her hand, waving it in the air all the while she was shouting. Grushenka snatched the letter from her and brought it near the candle. It was just a note, a few lines, and she read it in a moment.
“He’s calling me!” she cried, quite pale, her face twisted in a painful smile. “He’s whistling! Crawl, little dog!”
Only for one moment did she hesitate; suddenly the blood rushed to her head and brought fire to her cheeks.
“I’m going!” she suddenly exclaimed. “Oh, my five years! Farewell, everyone! Farewell, Alyosha, my fate is decided ... Go, go, all of you, go away, I don’t want to see you...! Grushenka is flying to a new life ... Rakitka, don’t you think ill of me either. Maybe I’m going to my death! Ah, I feel drunk!”
She left them suddenly and ran to her bedroom. “Well, she can’t be bothered with us now!” Rakitin growled. “Let’s go, or there may be more of this female screaming, I’m sick of these tearful screams ...”
Alyosha mechanically allowed himself to be led out. The carriage stood in the yard, the horses were being unharnessed, people were bustling about with lanterns. A fresh troika was being led in through the open gate. But just as Alyosha and Rakitin were stepping off the porch, the window of Grushenka’s bedroom suddenly opened, and she called after Alyosha in a ringing voice:
“Alyoshechka, bow to your brother Mitenka for me, and tell him not to think ill of me, his wicked woman. And tell him, too, that I said: Grushenka has fallen to a scoundrel, and not to you, a noble man! ‘ And add this, too, that Grushenka loved him for one hour, just for one hour she loved him—and from now on he should remember that hour all his life; tell him, that is what Grushenka bids you forever.”
She finished in a voice full of weeping. The window slammed shut.
“Hm, hm!” Rakitin grunted, laughing. “She does in your brother Mitenka and then tells him to remember all his life. What a carnivore!”
Alyosha made no reply, as if he had not heard; he walked briskly beside Rakitin, apparently in a great hurry; he walked mechanically, his mind apparently elsewhere. Rakitin was suddenly stung, as if someone had touched him on an open wound. He had been expecting something quite different when he brought Grushenka and Alyosha together; what had happened was something other than what he had wanted so much.
“He’s a Pole, this officer of hers,” he spoke again, restraining himself, “and he’s not even an officer now, he served as a customs clerk in Siberia, somewhere on the Chinese border, just some runty little Polack. They say he lost his job. Now he’s heard that Grushenka has some money, so he’s come back—that’s the whole miracle.”
Again it was as if Alyosha did not hear. Rakitin could not help himself:
“So you converted a sinful woman?” he laughed spitefully to Alyosha. “Turned a harlot onto the path of truth? Drove out the seven devils, eh? [232]So here’s where today’s expected miracles took place!”
“Stop it, Rakitin,” Alyosha replied with suffering in his soul.
“And now you ‘despise’ me for those twenty-five roubles? You think I sold a true friend. But you’re not Christ, and I’m not Judas “
“Ah, Rakitin, I assure you I’d forgotten all about that,” Alyosha exclaimed, “you’ve reminded me of it yourself...”
But now Rakitin finally got mad.
“The devil take you one and all!” he suddenly yelled. “Why the devil did I have anything to do with you! I don’t even want to know you anymore. Go by yourself, there’s your road!”
And turning abruptly into another street, he left Alyosha alone in the dark. Alyosha walked out of town, and went across the fields to the monastery.
Chapter 4: Cana of Galilee
It was very late by monastery rules when Alyosha came to the hermitage. The gatekeeper let him in by a special entrance. It had already struck nine, the hour of general rest and quiet, after such a troubled day for them all. Alyosha timidly opened the door and entered the elder’s cell, where his coffin now stood. There was no one in the cell but Father Paissy, who was alone reading the Gospel over the coffin, and the young novice Porfiry, who, worn out from the previous night’s conversation and the day’s commotion, slept a sound young sleep on the floor in the next room. Father Paissy, though he had heard Alyosha come in, did not even look up at him. Alyosha turned to the right of the door, went to the corner, knelt, and began to pray. His soul was overflowing, but somehow vaguely, and no single sensation stood out, making itself felt too much; on the contrary, one followed another in a sort of slow and calm rotation. But there was sweetness in his heart, and, strangely, Alyosha was not surprised at that. Again he saw this coffin before him, and this dead man all covered up in it, who had been so precious to him, but in his soul there was none of that weeping, gnawing, tormenting pity that had been there earlier, in the morning. Now, as he entered, he fell down before the coffin as if it were a holy thing, but joy, joy was shining in his mind and in his heart. The window of the cell was open, the air was fresh and rather cool—”the smell must have become even worse if they decided to open the window,” Alyosha thought. But even this thought about the putrid odor, which only recently had seemed to him so terrible and inglorious, did not now stir up any of his former anguish and indignation. He quietly began praying, but soon felt that he was praying almost mechanically. Fragments of thoughts flashed in his soul, catching fire like little stars and dying out at once to give way to others, yet there reigned in his soul something whole, firm, assuaging, and he was conscious of it himself. He would ardently begin a prayer, he wanted so much to give thanks and to love ... But, having begun the prayer, he would suddenly pass to something else, lapse into thought, and forget both his prayer and what had interrupted it. He tried listening to what Father Paissy was reading, but, being very worn out, he began little by little to doze off . . .
