Текст книги "The Brothers Karamazov"
Автор книги: Федор Достоевский
сообщить о нарушении
Текущая страница: 68 (всего у книги 70 страниц)
“I’m so glad you’ve come, Karamazov!” he exclaimed, holding out his hand to Alyosha. “It’s terrible here. Really, it’s hard to watch. Snegiryov is not drunk, we know for certain he’s had nothing to drink today, but it’s as if he were drunk ... I’m a strong man, but this is terrible. Karamazov, if I’m not keeping you, one more question, may I, before you go in?”
“What is it, Kolya?” Alyosha stopped for a moment.
“Is your brother innocent or guilty? Was it he who killed your father, or was it the lackey? As you say, so it will be. I’ve lost four nights’ sleep over this idea.”
“The lackey killed him, my brother is innocent,” Alyosha replied.
“That’s just what I say!” the boy Smurov suddenly cried.
“Thus he will perish an innocent victim for truth!” exclaimed Kolya.”But though he perish, he is happy! I am ready to envy him!”
“What do you mean? How can you be? And why?” exclaimed the surprised Alyosha.
“Oh, if only I, too, could some day offer myself as a sacrifice for truth!” Kolya said with enthusiasm.
“But not for such a cause, not with such disgrace, not with such horror!” said Alyosha. “Of course ... I should like to die for all mankind, and as for disgrace, it makes no difference: let our names perish. I respect your brother!”
“And so do I!” another boy suddenly and quite unexpectedly called out from the crowd, the same boy who had once announced that he knew who had founded Troy, and, just as he had done then, having called it out, he blushed up to his ears like a peony.
Alyosha went into the room. In a blue coffin decorated with white lace, his hands folded and his eyes closed, lay Ilyusha. The features of his emaciated face were hardly changed at all, and, strangely, there was almost no smell from the corpse. The expression of his face was serious and, as it were, pensive. His hands, folded crosswise, were especially beautiful, as if carved from marble. Flowers had been placed in his hands, and the whole coffin was adorned inside and out with flowers, sent at daybreak from Liza Khokhlakov. But flowers had also come from Katerina Ivanovna, and, as Alyosha opened the door, the captain, with a bunch of flowers in his trembling hands, was again strewing them over his dear boy. He barely glanced at Alyosha when he came in, nor did he want to look at anyone, not even at his mad, weeping wife, his “mama,” who kept trying to stand up on her bad legs and have a closer look at her dead boy. But Ninochka had been picked up in her chair by the children and moved close to the coffin. She was sitting with her head pressed to it, and must also have been quietly weeping. Snegiryov’s face looked animated but, as it were, bewildered, and at the same time embittered. There was something half crazed in his gestures, in the words that kept bursting from him. “Dear fellow, dear old fellow!” he exclaimed every moment, looking at Ilyusha. He had had the habit, when Ilyusha was still alive, of calling him tenderly: “Dear fellow, dear old fellow!”
“Papa, give me flowers, too, take one from his hands, that white one, and give it to me!” the mad “mama” asked, sobbing. Either she liked the little white rose in Ilyusha’s hand very much, or else she wanted to take a flower from his hands as a keepsake, for she began tossing about, reaching out for the flower.
“I’m not giving anything, not to anybody!” Snegiryov exclaimed hard-heartedly. “They’re his flowers, not yours. It’s all his, nothing’s yours!”
“Papa, give mother the flower!” Ninochka suddenly raised her face, wet with tears.
“I won’t give anything, to her least of all! She didn’t love him. She took his little cannon away from him that time, and he ... gave it to her,” the captain suddenly sobbed loudly, remembering how Ilyusha had let his mother have the little cannon. The poor, mad woman simply dissolved in quiet tears, covering her face with her hands. Finally, seeing that the father would not let the coffin go from him, but that it was time to carry it out, the boys suddenly crowded around the coffin and began to lift it up.
“I don’t want him buried in the churchyard!” Snegiryov suddenly cried out. “I’ll bury him by the stone, by our stone! Ilyusha told me to! I won’t let you take him!”
Previously, too, over the past three days, he had been saying that he would bury him by the stone; but Alyosha, Krasotkin, the landlady, her sister, all the boys intervened.
“What an idea, to bury him by some heathenish stone, like some hanged man,” the old landlady said sternly. “The ground in the churchyard has the cross on it. They’ll pray for him there. You can hear singing from the church there, and the deacon is so clean-spoken and literal when he reads, it will all reach him every time, as if they were reading right over his grave.”
The captain finally waved his hands as if to say: “Take him wherever you like!” The children picked up the coffin, but as they carried it past his mother, they stopped in front of her for a moment and set it down, so that she could say her farewells to Ilyusha. But, suddenly looking so closely at that dear little face, which for the past three days she had only seen from a distance, she began suddenly shaking all over, wagging her gray head back and forth hysterically above the coffin.
“Mama, cross him, bless him, kiss him,” Ninochka cried to her. But she kept wagging her head like an automaton, and then, silently, her face twisted with burning grief, she suddenly began beating her breast with her fist. They moved on with the coffin. Ninochka pressed her lips to her dead brother’s mouth for the last time as they carried it past her. Alyosha turned to the landlady as he was leaving the house and tried to ask her to look after those who were staying behind, but she would not even let him finish:
“I know, I know, I’ll stay with them, we’re Christians, too.” The old woman wept as she said it.
It was not a far carry to the church, no more than about three hundred paces. The day had become clear, calm; it was frosty, but not very. The church bells were still ringing. Snegiryov, fussing and bewildered, ran after the coffin in his old, short, almost summer coat, bare-headed, with his old wide-brimmed felt hat in his hand. He was in some sort of insoluble anxiety, now reaching out suddenly to support the head of the coffin, which only interfered with the bearers, then running alongside to see if he could find a place for himself. A flower fell on the snow, and he simply rushed to pick it up, as if God knows what might come from the loss of this flower.
“The crust, we forgot the crust of bread,” he exclaimed suddenly, terribly alarmed. But the boys reminded him at once that he had taken the crust earlier, and that it was in his pocket. He at once snatched it out of his pocket and, having made sure, calmed down.
“Ilyushechka told me, Ilyushechka,” he exclaimed at once to Alyosha, “he was lying there one night, and I was sitting by him, and he suddenly told me: ‘Papa, when they put the dirt on my grave, crumble a crust of bread on it so the sparrows will come, and I’ll hear that they’ve come and be glad that I’m not lying alone.’”
“That’s a very good thing,” said Alyosha, “you must do it more often.”
“Every day, every day!” the captain babbled, brightening all over, as it were.
At last they arrived at the church and set the coffin down in the middle of it. The boys all placed themselves around it and stood solemnly like that through the whole service. It was a very old church and rather poor, many of the icons were without settings, but one somehow prays better in such churches. During the liturgy Snegiryov seemed to calm down somewhat, though at times the same unconscious and, as it were, bewildered anxiety would break out in him: he would go up to the coffin to straighten the covering or the fillet, [362]and when a candle fell from the candle stand, he suddenly rushed to put it back and spent a terribly long time fussing with it. Then he calmed down again and stood quietly at the head of the coffin looking dumbly anxious and, as it were, perplexed. After the Epistle he suddenly whispered to Alyosha, who was standing beside him, that the reading had not been done right,but he did not explain what he meant. During the Cherubic Hymn he began to sing along, but stopped before the end and, kneeling down, touched his forehead to the stone floor of the church and remained lying like that for quite a long time. At last they began the funeral service; candles were distributed. The demented father began fussing about again, but the deeply moving, tremendous singing over the coffin awakened and shook his soul. He suddenly somehow shrank into himself and began weeping in quick, short sobs, stifling his voice at first, but towards the end sobbing loudly. When it came time to take leave of the dead and cover the coffin, he threw his arms around it as if to keep them from covering Ilyushechka, and began quickly, greedily, repeatedly kissing his dead boy on the mouth. They finally talked with him and were about to lead him down the steps when he suddenly reached out swiftly and snatched several flowers from the coffin. He looked at them and it was as if some new idea dawned on him, so that he seemed to forget the main thing for a moment. Gradually he fell into reverie, as it were, and did not resist when they lifted the coffin and carried it to the grave. It was just outside, in the churchyard, right next to the church, an expensive one; Katerina Ivanovna had paid for it. After the usual ritual, the gravediggers lowered the coffin. Snegiryov, with his flowers in his hand, leaned so far over the open grave that the boys caught hold of his coat in alarm and began pulling him back. But he no longer seemed to understand very well what was happening. When they began filling in the grave, he suddenly began pointing anxiously at the falling earth and even tried to say something, but no one could make it out, and he suddenly fell silent himself. Then he was reminded that he had to crumble the crust of bread, and he became terribly excited, pulled out the crust, and began crumbling it, scattering the pieces over the grave: “Fly down, birds, fly down, little sparrows!” he muttered anxiously. One of the boys tried to suggest to him that it must be awkward to crumble the bread with flowers in his hand, and that he should let someone else hold them for a time. But he would not give them up, even suddenly became afraid for his flowers, as if they wanted to take them from him altogether, and, after looking at the grave, as if making sure that everything had now been done and the crust had been crumbled, he suddenly, unexpectedly, and even quite calmly, turned and slowly walked home. Soon, however, his pace quickened, he was hurrying, almost running. The boys and Alyosha did not lag behind.
“Flowers for mama, flowers for mama! Mama has been hurt!” he suddenly started exclaiming. Someone shouted to him to put his hat on because it was cold, but hearing that, he flung his hat on the snow as if in anger and began repeating: “I don’t want any hat, I don’t want any hat!” The boy Smurov picked it up and carried it after him. All the boys were crying, Kolya and the boy who discovered Troy most of all, and though Smurov, with the captain’s hat in his hand, was also crying terribly, he still managed, while almost running, to snatch up a piece of brick lying red on the snow-covered path and fling it at a flock of sparrows flying quickly by. He missed, of course, and went on running, crying. Halfway home, Snegiryov suddenly stopped, stood for half a minute as if struck by something, and suddenly, turning back to the church, started running towards the abandoned little grave. But the boys immediately caught up with him and seized him from all sides. Then, as if strengthless, as if he had been struck down, he fell on the snow, struggling, screaming, sobbing, and began crying out: “Ilyushechka, dear fellow, dear old fellow!” Alyosha and Kolya set about lifting him up, pleading with him, persuading him.
“Enough, captain, a brave man must endure,” Kolya mumbled.
“And you’ll ruin the flowers,” Alyosha added, “and ‘mama’ is waiting for them, she’s sitting there crying because you didn’t give her any flowers from Ilyushechka this morning. Ilyusha’s bed is still there...”
“Yes, yes, to mama!” Snegiryov suddenly remembered again. “They’ll put thebed away, they’ll put it away!” he added, as if fearing that they might indeed put it away, and he jumped up and ran for home again. But it was not far now, and they all came running up together. Snegiryov threw the door open and shouted to his wife, with whom he had quarreled so hardheartedly that morning.
“Mama, dear, Ilyushechka has sent you flowers, oh, poor crippled feet!” he cried, handing her the little bunch of flowers, frozen and broken from when he had just been struggling in the snow. But at that same moment he noticed Ilyusha’s little boots standing side by side in the corner, in front of Ilyusha’s bed, where the landlady had just neatly put them—old, stiff, scuffed, and patched little boots. Seeing them, he threw up his hands and simply rushed to them, fell on his knees, snatched up one boot, and, pressing his lips to it, began greedily kissing it, crying out: “Ilyushechka, dear fellow, dear old fellow, where are your little feet?”
“Where did you take him? Where did you take him?” the mad woman screamed in a rending voice. And then Ninochka also started sobbing. Kolya ran out of the room, the boys started going out after him. Finally Alyosha also went out after them. “Let them cry it through,” he said to Kolya, “of course there’s no use trying to comfort them now. Let’s wait a minute and then go back.”
“No, there’s no use, it’s terrible,” Kolya agreed. “You know, Karamazov,” he suddenly lowered his voice so that no one could hear, “I feel very sad, and if only it were possible to resurrect him, I’d give everything in the world!”
“Ah, so would I,” said Alyosha.
“What do you think, Karamazov, should we come here tonight? He’s sure to get drunk.”
“Yes, he may get drunk. Just you and I will come, and that will be enough, to sit with them for an hour, with his mother and Ninochka; if we all come at once, we’ll remind them of everything again,” Alyosha advised.
“The landlady is setting the table for them now—for this memorial dinner or whatever, the priest will be there; shall we stay for that, Karamazov?”
“Certainly,” said Alyosha.
“It’s all so strange, Karamazov, such grief, and then pancakes all of a sudden—how unnatural it all is in our religion!”
“They’re going to have salmon, too,” the boy who discovered Troy remarked suddenly in a loud voice.
“I ask you seriously, Kartashov, not to interrupt anymore with your foolishness, especially when no one is talking to you or even cares to know of your existence,” Kolya snapped irritably in his direction. The boy flushed deeply, but did not dare make any reply. Meanwhile they were all walking slowly along the path, and Smurov suddenly exclaimed: “Here’s Ilyusha’s stone, the one they wanted to bury him under!” They all silently stopped at the big stone. Alyosha looked and the whole picture of what Snegiryov had once told him about Ilyushechka, crying and embracing his father, exclaiming: “Papa, papa, how he humiliated you!” rose at once in his memory. Something shook, as it were, in his soul. With a serious and important look he gazed around at all those dear, bright faces of the schoolboys, Ilyusha’s comrades, and suddenly said to them:
“Gentlemen, I should like to have a word with you, here, on this very spot.” The boys gathered around him and turned to him at once with attentive, expectant eyes.
“Gentlemen, we shall be parting soon. Right now I shall be with my two brothers for a while, one of whom is going into exile, and the other is lying near death. But soon I shall leave this town, perhaps for a very long time. And so we shall part, gentlemen. Let us agree here, by Ilyusha’s stone, that we will never forget—first, Ilyushechka, and second, one another. And whatever may happen to us later in life, even if we do not meet for twenty years afterwards, let us always remember how we buried the poor boy, whom we once threw stones at—remember, there by the little bridge?—and whom afterwards we all came to love so much. He was a nice boy, a kind and brave boy, he felt honor and his father’s bitter offense made him rise up. And so, first of all, let us remember him, gentlemen, all our lives. And even though we may be involved with the most important affairs, achieve distinction or fall into some great misfortune—all the same, let us never forget how good we once felt here, all together, united by such good and kind feelings as made us, too, for the time that we loved the poor boy, perhaps better than we actually are. My little doves—let me call you that—little doves, because you are very much like those pretty gray blue birds, now, at this moment, as I look at your kind, dear faces—my dear children, perhaps you will not understand what I am going to say to you, because I often speak very incomprehensibly, but still you will remember and some day agree with my words. You must know that there is nothing higher, or stronger, or sounder, or more useful afterwards in life, than some good memory, especially a memory from childhood, from the parental home. You hear a lot said about your education, yet some such beautiful, sacred memory, preserved from childhood, is perhaps the best education. If a man stores up many such memories to take into life, then he is saved for his whole life. And even if only one good memory remains with us in our hearts, that alone may serve some day for our salvation. Perhaps we will even become wicked later on, will even be unable to resist a bad action, will laugh at people’s tears and at those who say, as Kolya exclaimed today: ‘I want to suffer for all people’—perhaps we will scoff wickedly at such people. And yet, no matter how wicked we may be—and God preserve us from it—as soon as we remember how we buried Ilyusha, how we loved him in his last days, and how we’ve been talking just now, so much as friends, so together, by this stone, the most cruel and jeering man among us, if we should become so, will still not dare laugh within himself at how kind and good he was at this present moment! Moreover, perhaps just this memory alone will keep him from great evil, and he will think better of it and say: ‘Yes, I was kind, brave, and honest then.’ Let him laugh to himself, it’s no matter, a man often laughs at what is kind and good; it just comes from thoughtlessness; but I assure you, gentlemen, that as soon as he laughs, he will say at once in his heart: ‘No, it’s a bad thing for me to laugh, because one should not laugh at that! ‘“
“It will certainly be so, Karamazov, I understand you, Karamazov!” Kolya exclaimed, his eyes flashing. The boys were stirred and also wanted to exclaim something, but restrained themselves, looking tenderly and attentively at the orator.
“I am speaking about the worst case, if we become bad,” Alyosha went on, “but why should we become bad, gentlemen, isn’t that true? Let us first of all and before all be kind, then honest, and then—let us never forget one another. I say it again. I give you my word, gentlemen, that for my part I will never forget any one of you; each face that is looking at me now, at this moment, I will remember, be it even after thirty years. Kolya said to Kartashov just now that we supposedly ‘do not care to know of his existence.’ But how can I forget that Kartashov exists and that he is no longer blushing now, as when he discovered Troy, but is looking at me with his nice, kind, happy eyes? Gentlemen, my dear gentlemen, let us all be as generous and brave as Ilyushechka, as intelligent, brave, and generous as Kolya (who will be much more intelligent when he grows up a little), and let us be as bashful, but smart and nice, as Kartashov. But why am I talking about these two? You are all dear to me, gentlemen, from now on I shall keep you all in my heart, and I ask you to keep me in your hearts, too! Well, and who has united us in this good, kind feeling, which we will remember and intend to remember always, all our lives, who, if not Ilyushechka, that good boy, that kind boy, that boy dear to us unto ages of ages! Let us never forget him, and may his memory be eternal and good in our hearts now and unto ages of ages!” [363]
“Yes, yes, eternal, eternal,” all the boys cried in their ringing voices, with deep feeling in their faces.
“Let us remember his face, and his clothes, and his poor boots, and his little coffin, and his unfortunate, sinful father, and how he bravely rose up against the whole class for him!”
“We will, we will remember!” the boys cried again, “he was brave, he was kind!”
“Ah, how I loved him!” exclaimed Kolya. “Ah, children, ah, dear friends, do not be afraid of life! How good life is when you do something good and rightful!”
“Yes, yes,” the boys repeated ecstatically.
“Karamazov, we love you!” a voice, which seemed to be Kartashov’s, exclaimed irrepressibly.
“We love you, we love you,” everyone joined in. Many had tears shining in their eyes.
“Hurrah for Karamazov!” Kolya proclaimed ecstatically.
“And memory eternal for the dead boy!” Alyosha added again, with feeling.
“Memory eternal!” the boys again joined in.
“Karamazov!” cried Kolya, “can it really be true as religion says, that we shall all rise from the dead, and come to life, and see one another again, and everyone, and Ilyushechka?”
“Certainly we shall rise, certainly we shall see and gladly, joyfully tell one another all that has been,” Alyosha replied, half laughing, half in ecstasy.
“Ah, how good that will be!” burst from Kolya.
“Well, and now let’s end our speeches and go to his memorial dinner. Don’t be disturbed that we’ll be eating pancakes. It’s an ancient, eternal thing, and there’s good in that, too,” laughed Alyosha. “Well, let’s go! And we go like this now, hand in hand.”
“And eternally so, all our lives hand in hand! Hurrah for Karamazov!” Kolya cried once more ecstatically, and once more all the boys joined in his exclamation.
