Текст книги "The Brothers Karamazov"
Автор книги: Федор Достоевский
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It appears that Alyosha was strongly impressed by the arrival of his two brothers, whom until then he had not known at all. He became friends more quickly and intimately with his half-brother, Dmitri Fyodorovich—though he arrived later—than with his other brother, Ivan Fyodorovich. He was terribly interested in getting to know his brother Ivan, but though the latter had already spent two months in our town, and they met fairly often, they still somehow were not close: Alyosha was reticent himself, and seemed as if he were waiting for something, as if he were ashamed of something; and his brother Ivan, though Alyosha noticed how he looked long and curiously at him at first, soon seemed even to have stopped thinking about him. Alyosha noticed this with some puzzlement. He attributed his brother’s indifference to the disparity in their ages and especially in their education. But he also thought that, perhaps, such scant curiosity and interest in him on Ivan’s part might be caused by something completely unknown to him. For some reason he kept thinking that Ivan was preoccupied with something, something inward and important, that he was striving towards some goal, possibly a very difficult one, so that he simply could not be bothered with him, and that that was the only reason why he looked at Alyosha so absently. Alyosha also kept wondering whether the learned atheist did not feel some sort of contempt for him, the silly little novice. He knew perfectly well that his brother was an atheist. This contempt, if there were any, could not offend him, but still he was waiting with some sort of anxious puzzlement, which he himself did not understand, waiting for his brother to move closer to him. His brother Dmitri Fyodorovich spoke of their brother Ivan with the deepest respect; he talked about him with a special sort of feeling. It was from him that Alyosha learned all the details of the important affair that had recently joined the two older brothers with such a wonderful and close bond. Dmitri’s rapturous words about his brother Ivan were all the more significant in Alyosha’s eyes since, compared with Ivan, Dmitri was an almost entirely uneducated man, and the two placed side by side would seem to present so striking a contrast, in personality as well as in character, that it would perhaps be impossible to imagine two men more unlike each other.
It was at that time that the meeting, or one might better say the family gath-ering, of all the members of this discordant family, which had such an extraordinary influence on Alyosha, took place in the elder’s cell. The pretext for the gathering, in reality, was false. Precisely at that time, the disagreements between Dmitri Fyodorovich and his father, Fyodor Pavlovich, over the inheritance and the property accounts had, it seemed, reached an impossible point. Their relations sharpened and became unbearable. Fyodor Pavlovich was apparently the first to suggest, apparently as a joke, that they all get together in the elder Zosima’s cell, and, without resorting to his direct mediation, still come to some decent agreement, since the dignity and personality of the elder might be somehow influential and conciliatory. Dmitri Fyodorovich, who had never been at the elder’s and had never even seen him, thought, of course, that they wanted to frighten him with the elder, as it were, but since he secretly reproached himself for a number of especially harsh outbursts recently in his arguments with his father, he decided to accept the challenge. Incidentally, he did not live in his father’s house, like Ivan Fyodorovich, but by himself at the other end of town. It happened that Pyotr Alexandrovich Miusov, who was living among us at the time, especially seized upon this idea of Fyodor Pavlovich’s. A liberal of the forties and fifties, a freethinker and an atheist, Miusov, perhaps out of boredom, or perhaps for some lighthearted sport, enthusiastically took part in the affair. He suddenly wanted to have a look at the monastery and the “saint.” Since his old feud with the monastery was still going on, and the lawsuit over the boundaries of their land and some rights for cutting wood in the forest and fishing in the river and so on was still being dragged out, he hastened to take advantage of this meeting under the pretext of an intention to settle everything with the Father Superior and end all their controversies amicably. A visitor with such good intentions would, of course, be received in the monastery more attentively and deferentially than one who was merely curious. All these considerations could result in establishing in the monastery a certain inside influence over the ailing elder, who lately almost never left his cell and refused, because of his illness, to receive even ordinary visitors. In the end, the elder agreed to see them, and the day was fixed. “Who made me a divider over them?” [22]he merely remarked to Alyosha with a smile.
When he heard about this meeting, Alyosha was very disturbed. If any of these quarrelers and litigants could take such a council seriously, it was undoubtedly only his brother Dmitri. The rest would come with frivolous purposes, perhaps offensive to the elder—this Alyosha knew. His brother Ivan and Miusov would come out of curiosity, perhaps of the crudest sort, and his father, perhaps, for some buffoonery or theatrics. Oh, although Alyosha said nothing, he already knew his father through and through. I repeat, this boy was not at all as naive as everyone thought he was. He waited for the appointed day with a heavy heart. No doubt he was concerned within himself, in his heart, that somehow all these family disagreements should end. Nevertheless, his greatest concern was for the elder: he trembled for him, for his glory; he feared any insult to him, especially Miusov’s refined, polite jibes and the haughty innuendos of the learned Ivan, as he pictured it all to himself. He even wanted to risk warning the elder, to tell him something about these persons who were soon to arrive, but he thought better of it and kept silent. He only sent word to his brother Dmitri, through an acquaintance, on the eve of the appointed day, that he loved him and expected him to keep his promise. Dmitri thought for a moment, because he could not recall what he had promised, and replied in a letter that he would do his best to restrain himself “in the face of vileness,” and that although he deeply respected the elder and their brother Ivan, he was convinced that the whole thing was either some sort of trap, or an unworthy farce. “Nevertheless, I would sooner bite off my own tongue than fail to show respect for the saintly man you esteem so highly,” Dmitri concluded his note. Alyosha was not greatly encouraged by it.
BOOK II: AN INAPPROPRIATE GATHERING
Chapter 1: They Arrive at the Monastery
The day was beautiful, warm and clear. It was the end of August. The meeting with the elder had been appointed for immediately after the late liturgy, about half past eleven. Our monastery visitors did not, however, appear at the liturgy, but arrived just as the show was over. They drove up in two carriages: in the first, a jaunty barouche drawn by a pair of expensive horses, sat Pyotr Alexandrovich Miusov with a distant relative of his, a very young man, about twenty years old, Pyotr Fomich Kalganov. This young man was preparing to enter university, whereas Miusov, with whom he was for some reason meanwhile living, was tempting him to go abroad with him, to Zurich or Jena, to enter university and pursue his studies there. The young man was still undecided. He was thoughtful and, as it were, distracted. He had a nice face, was strongly built and rather tall. His gaze sometimes acquired a strange fixity: like all very distracted people, he would sometimes look directly at you, and for a long time, without seeing you at all. He was taciturn and somewhat awkward, but occasionally—only, by the way, when he was alone with someone—he would suddenly become terribly talkative, impulsive, giggly, laughing sometimes for no reason at all. But as quickly and suddenly as his animation was born, it would also quickly and suddenly die out. He was always well and even elegantly dressed; he already possessed some independent means and had expectations of much more. He was friendly with Alyosha.
In a very ancient, rattling, but roomy hired carriage, with a pair of old pinkish gray horses that lagged far behind Miusov’s carriage, Fyodor Pavlovich also drove up with his boy Ivan Fyodorovich. Dmitri Fyodorovich had been informed of the time and length of the visit the day before, but he was late. The visitors left their carriages at the guest house outside the walls and entered the gates of the monastery on foot. With the exception of Fyodor Pavlovich, none of the other three seemed ever to have seen any monastery before; as for Miusov, he probably had not even been to church for some thirty years. He looked around with a sort of curiosity that was not without a certain assumed familiarity. But his observant mind was presented with nothing inside the monastery walls except a church and some outbuildings, which were in any case quite ordinary. The last worshippers were leaving the church, taking off their hats and crossing themselves. Among the common people were a few from higher society, two or three ladies, one very old general; they were all staying at the guest house. Beggars immediately surrounded our visitors, but no one gave them anything. Only Petrusha Kalganov took a ten-kopeck piece from his purse and, embarrassed for some reason, hastily shoved it at one woman, saying quickly: “To be shared equally.” None of his companions said anything to him, so there was no point in his being embarrassed; which, when he noticed it, made him even more embarrassed.
It was odd, however; they should, in fact, have been met, perhaps even with some sort of honor: one of them had recently donated a thousand roubles, and another was the richest landowner and, so to speak, the best-educated man, on whom everyone there somewhat depended as far as catching fish in the river was concerned, subject to what turn the trial might take. And yet none of the official persons came to meet them. Miusov gazed distractedly at the tombstones near the church, and was on the point of remarking that these tombs must have cost the relatives a pretty penny for the right to bury their dead in such a “holy” place, but he said nothing: mere liberal irony was transforming itself in him almost into wrath.
“But, devil take it, isn’t there someone we can ask in all this muddle? Something must be done, we’re wasting time,” he said suddenly, speaking, as it were, to himself.
Suddenly an elderly, balding gentleman in a loose summer coat, and with sweet little eyes, came up to them. Tipping his hat and speaking in a honeyed lisp, he introduced himself as the Tula landowner, Maximov. He entered at once into our wayfarers’ difficulty.
“The elder Zosima lives in the hermitage ... shut up in the hermitage . . about four hundred paces from the monastery ... through the woods . . through the woods ...”
“I myself know, sir, that it is through the woods,” Fyodor Pavlovich replied. “But we do not quite remember the way, it’s a long time since we were here.”
“Out the gate here, and straight through the woods, through the woods, follow me. If I may ... I myself ... I, too, am ... This way, this way...”
They went out the gate and through the woods. The landowner Maximov, a man of about sixty, was not so much walking but, more precisely, almost running alongside, staring at them all with contorted, almost impossible curiosity. His eyes had a pop-eyed look.
“You see, we have come to this elder on a private matter,” Miusov remarked sternly. “We have, so to speak, been granted an audience with this ‘said person,’ and therefore, though we thank you for showing us the way, we cannot invite you to go in with us.”
“I’ve been, I’ve been already ... Un chevalier parfait!“ [23]And the landowner loosed a snap of his fingers into the air.
“Who is a chevalier?” asked Miusov.
“The elder, the splendid elder, the elder ... The honor and glory of the monastery. Zosima. Such an elder...!”
But his disjointed talk was cut short by a little monk in a cowl, very pale and haggard, who overtook them. Fyodor Pavlovich and Miusov stopped. The monk, with an extremely courteous, deep bow, announced:
“The Father Superior humbly invites you, gentlemen, to dine with him after your visit to the hermitage. In his rooms, at one o’clock, not later. And you, too,” he turned to Maximov.
“That I shall certainly do!” cried Fyodor Pavlovich, terribly pleased at the invitation. “Certainly! And you know, we’ve all given our word to behave properly here ... And you, Pyotr Alexandrovich, will you go?”
“Why not? Did I not come here precisely to observe all their customs? Only one thing bothers me, and that is being in your company, Fyodor Pavlovich ...”
“Yes, Dmitri Fyodorovich doesn’t exist yet.”
“And it would be excellent if he failed to come at all. Do you think I like it, all this mess, and in your company, too? So we shall come to dinner, thank the Father Superior,” he turned to the little monk.
“No, it is my duty now to conduct you to the elder,” the monk replied.
“In that case, I shall go meanwhile to the Father Superior, straight to the Father Superior,” chirped the landowner Maximov.
“The Father Superior is busy at the moment. However, as you please ... ,” the monk said hesitantly.
“A most obnoxious old fellow,” Miusov remarked aloud, as the landowner Maximov ran back to the monastery.
“He looks like von Sohn,” [24]Fyodor Pavlovich declared suddenly.
“Is that all you can think of ... ? Why should he look like von Sohn? Have you ever seen von Sohn?”
“I’ve seen his photograph. It’s not his features, but something inexplicable. He’s the spit and image of von Sohn. I can always tell just by the physiognomy.”
“Well, maybe so; you’re an expert in such things. But see here, Fyodor Pavlovich, you yourself were just pleased to mention that we’ve given our word to behave properly, remember? I’m telling you—control yourself. If you start any buffoonery, I have no intention of being put on the same level with you here. You see what sort of man he is,” he turned to the monk. “I’m afraid to appear among decent people with him.”
A thin, silent little smile, not without cunning of a sort, appeared on the pale, bloodless lips of the monk, but he made no reply, and it was all too clear that he remained silent from a sense of his own dignity. Miusov scowled even more.
“Oh, the devil take the lot of them, it’s just a front, cultivated for centuries, and underneath nothing but charlatanism and nonsense!” flashed through his head.
“Here’s the hermitage, we’ve arrived!” cried Fyodor Pavlovich. “The fence and gates are shut.”
And he started crossing himself energetically before the saints painted above and on the sides of the gates.
“When in Rome, do as the Romans do,” he remarked. [25]“Here in the hermitage there are altogether twenty-five saints saving their souls, looking at each other and eating cabbage. And not one woman ever goes through these gates, that’s what’s so remarkable. And it’s really true. Only didn’t I hear that the elder receives ladies?” he suddenly addressed the monk.
“There are some peasants of the female sex here even now, over there, lying near the porch, waiting. And for higher ladies two small rooms were built on the porch, but outside the wall—you can see the windows—and the elder `omes to them by an inner passage, when he feels well enough, so it is still outside the wall. Right now there is a lady, a landowner from Kharkov, Madame Khokhlakov, waiting there with her paralyzed daughter. Probably he has promised to come out to them, although lately he’s been so weak that he’s hardly shown himself even to the common people.”
“So, after all, a little hole has been made from the hermitage to the ladies. Not that I’m implying anything, holy father, I’m just ... You know, on Mount Athos—have you heard?—not only are the visits of women not allowed, but no women at all, no female creatures of any kind—no hens, no hen-turkeys, no heifers ...”
“Fyodor Pavlovich, I shall turn back and leave you here, and without me they will throw you out, I forewarn you!”
“How am I bothering you, Pyotr Alexandrovich? Just look,” he cried suddenly, stepping inside the wall of the hermitage, “what a vale of roses they live in!”
Indeed, though there were no roses, there were many rare and beautiful autumn flowers, wherever there was room for them. They were obviously tended by an experienced hand. There were flowerbeds within the church fences and between the graves. The little house where the elder had his cell, wooden, one-storied, with a front porch, was also surrounded with flowers.
“Was it like this in the time of the previous elder, Varsonofy? They say he didn’t like such niceties, they say he used to jump up and beat even ladies with a stick,” Fyodor Pavlovich remarked as he went up the steps.
“The elder Varsonofy indeed sometimes seemed like a holy fool, but much of what is told about him is nonsense. And he never beat anyone with a stick,” replied the little monk. “Now, gentlemen, if you will wait a moment, I will announce you.”
“Fyodor Pavlovich, for the last time I give you my conditions, do you hear? Behave yourself, or I will pay you back for it,” Miusov had time to mutter once again.
“I don’t see why you’re so greatly agitated,” Fyodor Pavlovich said mockingly. “Are you afraid of your little sins? They say he can tell what’s on a man’s mind by the look in his eyes. And, anyway, do you value their opinion so highly—you, such a Parisian, such a progressive-minded gentleman? You even surprise me, you really do!”
But Miusov did not have time to reply to this sarcasm. They were invited to come in. He walked in feeling somewhat irritated.
“That’s it, I know what will happen, I’m irritated, I’ll start arguing ... lose my temper ... demean myself and my ideas,” flashed through his head.
Chapter 2: The Old Buffoon
They came into the room almost at the same moment as the elder, who emerged from his bedroom just as they appeared. Two hieromonks [26]of the hermitage were already in the cell awaiting the elder, one of them the Father Librarian, and the other Father Paissy, a sick man, though not old, but, it was said, a very learned one. Besides them, there stood in the corner (and remained standing there all the while) a young fellow who looked to be about twenty-two and was dressed in an ordinary frock coat, a seminarian and future theologian, who for some reason enjoyed the patronage of the monastery and the brothers. He was rather tall and had a fresh face, with wide cheekbones and intelligent, attentive, narrow brown eyes. His face expressed complete deference, but decently, with no apparent fawning. He did not even bow to greet the guests as they entered, not being their equal, but, on the contrary, a subordinate and dependent person.
The elder Zosima came out accompanied by a novice and Alyosha. The hieromonks rose and greeted him with a very deep bow, touching the ground with their fingers, and, having received his blessing, kissed his hand. When he had blessed them, the elder returned the same deep bow to each of them, touching the ground with his fingers, and asked a blessing of each of them for himself. The whole ceremony was performed very seriously, not at all like some everyday ritual, but almost with a certain feeling. To Miusov, however, it all seemed done with deliberate suggestion. He stood in front of all his fellow visitors. He ought—and he had even pondered it the previous evening– despite all his ideas, just out of simple courtesy (since it was customary there), to come up and receive the elder’s blessing, at least receive his blessing, even if he did not kiss his hand. But now, seeing all this bowing and kissing of the hieromonks, he instantly changed his mind: gravely and with dignity he made a rather deep bow, by worldly standards, and went over to a chair. Fyodor Pavlovich did exactly the same, this time, like an ape, mimicking Miusov perfectly. Ivan Fyodorovich bowed with great dignity and propriety, but he, too, kept his hands at his sides, while Kalganov was so nonplussed that he did not bow at all. The elder let fall the hand he had raised for the blessing and, bowing to them once more, invited them all to sit down. The blood rushed to Alyosha’s cheeks; he was ashamed. His forebodings were beginning to come true.
The elder sat down on a very old-fashioned, leather-covered mahogany settee, and placed his guests, except for the two hieromonks, along the opposite wall, all four in a row, on four mahogany chairs with badly worn black leather upholstery. The hieromonks sat at either end of the room, one by the door, the other by the window. The seminarian, Alyosha, and the novice remained standing. The whole cell was hardly very big and looked rather dull. The objects and furniture were crude and poor, and only what was necessary. Two potted plants stood on the windowsill, and there were many icons in the corner—including a huge one of the Mother of God painted, probably, long before the schism. [27]An icon lamp flickered before it. Next to it were two more icons in shiny casings, and next to them some little figurines of cherubs, porcelain eggs, an ivory Catholic crucifix with the Mater Dolorosa embracing it, and several imported engravings from great Italian artists of the past centuries. Next to these fine and expensive prints were displayed several sheets of the commonest Russian lithographs of saints, martyrs, hierarchs, and so on, such as are sold for a few kopecks at any fair. There were several lithographic portraits of Russian bishops, past and present, but these were on other walls. Miusov glanced at all this “officialism,” then fixed the elder intently with his gaze. He esteemed this gaze—a weakness forgivable in him, in any case, considering that he was already fifty years old, the age at which an intelligent and worldly man of means always becomes more respectful of himself, sometimes even against his own will.
He disliked the elder from the first moment. Indeed, there was something in the elder’s face that many other people besides Miusov might have disliked. He was a short, bent little man, with very weak legs, who was just sixty-five, but, owing to his illness, appeared much older, by at least ten years. His whole face, which, by the way, was quite withered, was strewn with little wrinkles, especially numerous around his eyes. His eyes themselves were small, pale, quick and bright like two bright points. A few white hairs remained only on his temples, his pointed beard was tiny and sparse, and his often smiling lips were as thin as two threads. His nose was not so much long as sharp, like a little bird’s beak.
“To all appearances a malicious and pettily arrogant little soul,” flashed through Miusov’s head. In general he felt very displeased with himself.
The chiming of the clock helped to start conversation. A cheap little wall clock with weights rapidly struck twelve.
“It’s precisely the time,” cried Fyodor Pavlovich, “and my son Dmitri Fyodorovich still isn’t here! I apologize for him, sacred elder!” (Alyosha cringed all over at this “sacred elder. “) “I myself am always very punctual, to the minute, remembering that punctuality is the courtesy of kings.” [28]
“Not that you’re a king,” muttered Miusov, unable to restrain himself in time.
“That’s quite true, I’m not a king. And just imagine, Pyotr Alexandrovich, I even knew it myself, by God! You see, I’m always saying something out of place! Your reverence,” he exclaimed with a sort of instant pathos, “you see before you a buffoon! Verily, a buffoon! Thus I introduce myself! It’s an old habit, alas! And if I sometimes tell lies inappropriately, I do it even on purpose, on purpose to be pleasant and make people laugh. One ought to be pleasant, isn’t that so? I came to a little town seven years ago, I had a little business there, and went around with some of their merchants. So we called on the police commissioner, the ispravnik, because we wanted to see him about something and invite him to have dinner with us. Out comes the ispravnik,a tall man, fat, blond, and gloomy—the most dangerous type in such cases– it’s the liver, the liver. I spoke directly with him, you know, with the familiarity of a man of the world: ‘Mr. Ispravnik,’ I said to him, ‘be, so to speak, our Napravnik!’ [29]
‘What do you mean, your Napravnik?’ I can see from the first split second that it’s not coming off, that he’s standing there seriously, but I keep on: ‘I wanted,’ I say, ‘to make a joke, for our general amusement. Mr. Napravnik is our famous Russian Kapellmeister,and we, for the harmony of our enterprise, also precisely need a sort of Kapellmeister, as it were . . .’ I explained it all and compared it quite reasonably, didn’t I? I beg your pardon,’ he says, ‘I am an ispravnik, and I will not allow you to use my title for your puns. ‘ He turned around and was about to walk away. I started after him, calling out: ‘Yes, yes, you are an ispravnik, not Napravnik.’ ‘No,’ he says, ‘have it your way. I am Napravnik.’ And just imagine, our deal fell through! And that’s how I am, it’s always like that with me. I’m forever damaging myself with my own courtesy! Once, this was many years ago now, I said to an influential person, ‘Your wife, sir, is a ticklish woman,’ referring to her honor, her moral qualities, so to speak. And he suddenly retorted, ‘Did you tickle her?’ I couldn’t help myself; why not a little pleasant banter, I thought? ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘I did tickle her, sir.’ Well, at that he gave me quite a tickling...! But it was a long time ago, so I’m not even ashamed to tell about it. I’m always damaging myself like that!”
“You’re doing it now, too,” Miusov muttered in disgust.
The elder silently looked from one to the other.
“Really! Imagine, I knew it all along, Pyotr Alexandrovich, and, you know I even had a feeling that I was doing it just as I started speaking, and you know, I even had a feeling that you would be the first to point it out to me. In those seconds when I see that my joke isn’t going over, my cheeks, reverend lather, begin to stick to my lower gums; it feels almost like a cramp; I’ve had it since my young days, when I was a sponger on the gentry and made my living by sponging. I’m a natural-born buffoon, I am, reverend father, just like a holy fool; I won’t deny that there’s maybe an unclean spirit living in me, too not a very high caliber one, by the way, otherwise he would have chosen grander quarters, only not you, Pyotr Alexandrovich, your quarters are none too grand either. But to make up for it, I believe, I believe in God. It’s only lately that I’ve begun to have doubts, but to make up for it I’m sitting and waiting to hear lofty words. I am, reverend father, like the philosopher Diderot. [30]Do you know, most holy father, how Diderot the philosopher came to see Metropolitan Platon [31]in the time of the empress Catherine? He walks in and says right off: ‘There is no God.’ To which the great hierarch raises his finger and answers: ‘The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God.’ [32]Right then and there our man fell at his feet: ‘I believe,’ he cries, ‘I will accept baptism!’ And so they baptized him at once. Princess Dashkova [33]was his godmother, and his godfather was Potiomkin . . .” [34]“Fyodor Pavlovich, this is unbearable! You know yourself that you are lying, that your silly story isn’t true. Why are you clowning?” Miusov said in a trembling voice, losing all control of himself.
“All my life I’ve had a feeling that it wasn’t true!” Fyodor Pavlovich cried excitedly. “No, let me tell you the whole truth, gentlemen. Great elder! Forgive me, but that last part, about Diderot’s baptism, I invented myself just a moment ago, while I was telling it to you. It never occurred to me before. I made it up for its piquancy. That’s why I’m clowning, Pyotr Alexandrovich, to make myself more endearing. Though sometimes I don’t know myself why I do it. As for Diderot, I heard this ‘the fool hath said’ maybe twenty times from local landowners when I was still young and lived with them; by the way, I also heard it, Pyotr Alexandrovich, from your aunt, Mavra Fominishna. They all still believe that the godless Diderot came to Metropolitan Platon to argue about God...”
Miusov rose, not only losing patience, but even somehow forgetting himself. He was furious, and realized that this made him ridiculous. Indeed, something altogether impossible was taking place in the cell. For perhaps forty or fifty years, from the time of the former elders, visitors had been coming to this cell, but always with the deepest reverence, not otherwise. Almost all who were admitted entered the cell with the awareness that they were being shown great favor. Many fell to their knees and would not rise for as long as the visit lasted. Even many “higher” persons, even many of the most learned ones, moreover even some of the freethinkers who came out of curiosity, or for some other reason, when entering the cell with others or having obtained a private audience, considered it their foremost duty—to a man– to show the deepest respect and tactfulness throughout the audience, the more so as there was no question of money involved, but only of love and mercy on one side, and on the other of repentance and the desire to resolve some difficult question of the soul or a difficult moment in the life of the heart. So that suddenly this buffoonery displayed by Fyodor Pavlovich, with no respect for the place he was in, produced in the onlookers, at least in some of them, both astonishment and bewilderment. The hieromonks, who incidentally showed no change at all in their physiognomies, were watching with grave attention for what the elder would say, but they seemed as if they were about to stand up, like Miusov. Alyosha was on the verge of tears and stood looking downcast. What seemed strangest of all to him was that his brother, Ivan Fyodorovich, on whom alone he had relied and who alone had enough influence on their father to have been able to stop him, was now sitting quite motionless in his chair, looking down and waiting, apparently with some kind of inquisitive curiosity, to see how it would all end, as if he himself were a complete stranger there. Alyosha could not even look at Rakitin (the seminarian), whom he knew and was almost close with. Alyosha knew his thoughts (though he alone in the whole monastery knew them).
