Текст книги "The Brothers Karamazov"
Автор книги: Федор Достоевский
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“So be it! So be it!” Father Paissy confirmed with reverence and severity.
“Strange, most strange,” Miusov pronounced, not so much fervently as with, so to speak, a sort of repressed indignation.
“What seems so strange to you?” Father Iosif cautiously inquired.
“But, really, what are you talking about?” Miusov exclaimed, as if suddenly bursting out. “The state is abolished on earth, and the Church is raised to the level of the state! It’s not even Ultramontanism, it’s arch-Ultramontanism! Even Pope Gregory the Seventh never dreamed of such a thing!” [50]
“You have been pleased to understand it in a completely opposite sense,” Father Paissy spoke sternly. “It is not the Church that turns into the state, you see. That is Rome and its dream. That is the third temptation of the devil! [51]But, on the contrary, the state turns into the Church, it rises up to the Church and becomes the Church over all the earth, which is the complete opposite of Ultramontanism and of Rome, and of your interpretation, and is simply the great destiny of Orthodoxy on earth. This star will show forth from the East.”
Miusov was imposingly silent. His whole figure expressed remarkable self-respect. A haughtily condescending smile appeared on his lips. Alyosha followed it all with a pounding heart. The whole conversation stirred him deeply. He happened to glance at Rakitin, who stood motionless in his former place by the door, listening and watching attentively, though with downcast eyes. But by the lively color in his cheeks, Alyosha guessed that Rakitin, too, was stirred, probably no less than he was. Alyosha knew what stirred him.
“Allow me to relate a little anecdote, gentlemen,” Miusov suddenly said imposingly and with a sort of especially grand air. “In Paris, several years ago now, soon after the December revolution, [52] I happened once, while visiting an acquaintance, then a very, very important and official person, to meet there a most curious gentleman. This individual was not exactly an undercover agent, but something like the supervisor of an entire team of political agents—rather an influential position in its way. Seizing the chance, out of great curiosity, I struck up a conversation with him; and since he was there not as an acquaintance but as a subordinate official, who had come with a certain kind of report, he, seeing for his part how I was received by his superior, deigned to show me some frankness—well, of course, to a certain extent; that is, he was more polite than frank, precisely as a Frenchman can be polite, the more so because he viewed me as a foreigner. But I well understood him. The topic was socialist revolutionaries, who then, by the way, were being persecuted. Omitting the main essence of the conversation, I shall quote only one most curious remark that this person suddenly let drop: ‘We are not, in fact, afraid of all these socialists, anarchists, atheists, and revolutionaries,’ he said. ‘We keep an eye on them, and their movements are known to us. But there are some special people among them, although not many: these are believers in God and Christians, and at the same time socialists. They are the ones we are most afraid of; they are terrible people! A socialist Christian is more dangerous than a socialist atheist.’ His words struck me even then, but now, here, gentlemen, I somehow suddenly recalled them ...”
“That is, you apply them to us and see us as socialists?” Father Paissy asked directly, without beating around the bush. But before Pyotr Alexandrovich was able to think of a reply, the door opened and in came the long-awaited Dmitri Fyodorovich. Indeed, he was, as it were, no longer expected, and his sudden appearance at first even caused some surprise.
Chapter 6: Why Is Such a Man Alive!
Dmitri Fyodorovich, a young man of twenty-eight, of medium height and agreeable looks, appeared, however, much older than his years. He was muscular and one could tell that he possessed considerable physical strength; nonetheless something sickly, as it were, showed in his face. His face was lean, his cheeks hollow, their color tinged with a sort of unhealthy sallowness. His rather large, dark, prominent eyes had an apparently firm and determined, yet somehow vague, look. Even when he was excited and talking irritably, his look, as it were, did not obey his inner mood but expressed something else, sometimes not at all corresponding to the present moment. “It’s hard to know what he’s thinking about,” those who spoke with him would occasionally say. Others, seeing something pensive and gloomy in his eyes, would suddenly be struck by his unexpected laughter, betraying gay and playful thoughts precisely at the moment when he looked so gloomy. Though his somewhat sickly look at that time could well be understood: everyone knew or had heard about the extremely troubled and “riotous” life he had given himself up to precisely of late, just as they knew about the remarkable irritation he reached in quarrels with his father over the controversial money. Already there were several anecdotes about it going around town. It is true that he was irritable by nature, “abrupt and erratic of mind,” as our justice of the peace, Semyon Ivanovich Kachalnikov, characteristically described him at one of our gatherings. He entered, impeccably and smartly dressed, his frock coat buttoned, wearing black gloves and carrying his top hat. As a recently retired military man, he wore a moustache and still shaved his beard. His dark brown hair was cut short and combed somehow forward on his temples. He had a long, resolute military stride. He stopped for a moment on the threshold and, glancing around at everyone, went directly to the elder, guessing him to be the host. He made a low bow to him and asked for his blessing. The elder rose a little in his chair and blessed him; Dmitri Fyodorovich respectfully kissed his hand and with remarkable excitement, almost irritation, said:
“Be so generous as to forgive me for having kept you waiting so long. But the servant Smerdyakov, sent by papa, in reply to my insistent question about the time, told me twice in the most definite tone that the appointment was at one. Now I suddenly find out ...”
“Don’t worry,” the elder interrupted, “it’s nothing, you’re just a bit late, it doesn’t matter...”
“I am extremely grateful, and could expect no less from your goodness.” Having snapped out these words, Dmitri Fyodorovich bowed once again, then, suddenly turning to his “papa,” made the same deep and respectful bow to him as well. It was obvious that he had considered this bow beforehand and conceived it sincerely, believing it his duty to express thereby his respect and goodwill. Fyodor Pavlovich, though taken unawares, found the proper reply at once: in response to Dmitri Fyodorovich’s bow, he jumped up from his chair and responded to his son with exactly as deep a bow. His face suddenly became solemn and imposing, which gave him, however, a decidedly wicked look. Then, silently, giving a general bow to all those present in the room, Dmitri Fyodorovich, with his big and resolute strides, went over to the window, sat down on the only remaining chair, not far from Father Paissy, and, leaning forward with his whole body, at once prepared to listen to the continuation of the conversation he had interrupted.
Dmitri Fyodorovich’s appearance had taken no more than a couple of minutes, and the conversation could not fail to start up again. But this time Pyotr Alexandrovich did not deem it necessary to reply to Father Paissy’s persistent and almost irritated question.
“Allow me to dismiss the subject,” he said with a certain worldly nonchalance. “Besides, it’s a complex one. Ivan Fyodorovich, here, is grinning at us: he must have saved something curious for this occasion as well. Ask him.”
“Nothing special, except for a small remark,” Ivan Fyodorovich answered at once, “that European liberalism in general, and even our Russian liberal dilettantism, has long and frequently confused the final results of socialism with those of Christianity. This wild conclusion is, of course, typical. Incidentally, it turns out that socialism is confused with Christianity not only by liberals and dilettantes, but along with them, in many cases, by gendarmes as well—I mean foreign ones, of course. Your Parisian anecdote, Pyotr Alexandrovich, is quite typical.”
“Generally, again, I ask your permission to drop the subject,” Pyotr Alexandrovich repeated, “and instead let me tell you another anecdote, gentlemen, about Ivan Fyodorovich himself, a most typical and interesting one. No more than five days ago, at a local gathering, predominantly of ladies, he solemnly announced in the discussion that there is decidedly nothing in the whole world that would make men love their fellow men; that there exists no law of nature that man should love mankind, and that if there is and has been any love on earth up to now, it has come not from natural law but solely from people’s belief in their immortality. Ivan Fyodorovich added parenthetically that that is what all natural law consists of, so that were mankind’s belief in its immortality to be destroyed, not only love but also any living power to continue the life of the world would at once dry up in it. Not only that, but then nothing would be immoral any longer, everything would be permitted, even anthropophagy. And even that is not all: he ended with the assertion that for every separate person, like ourselves for instance, who believes neither in God nor in his own immortality, the moral law of nature ought to change immediately into the exact opposite of the former religious law, and that egoism, even to the point of evildoing, should not only be permitted to man but should be acknowledged as the necessary, the most reasonable, and all but the noblest result of his situation. From this paradox, gentlemen, you may deduce what else our dear eccentric and paradoxalist Ivan Fyodorovich may be pleased to proclaim, and perhaps still intends to proclaim.”
“Allow me,” Dmitri Fyodorovich suddenly cried unexpectedly, “to be sure I’ve heard correctly: ‘Evildoing should not only be permitted but even should be acknowledged as the most necessary and most intelligent solution for the situation of every godless person’! Is that it, or not?”
“Exactly that,” said Father Paissy. “I’ll remember.”
Having said which, Dmitri Fyodorovich fell silent as unexpectedly as he had unexpectedly flown into the conversation. They all looked at him with curiosity.
“Can it be that you really hold this conviction about the consequences of the exhaustion of men’s faith in the immortality of their souls?” the elder suddenly asked Ivan Fyodorovich.
“Yes, it was my contention. There is no virtue if there is no immortality.”
“You are blessed if you believe so, or else most unhappy!”
“Why unhappy?” Ivan Fyodorovich smiled.
“Because in all likelihood you yourself do not believe either in the immortality of your soul or even in what you have written about the Church and the Church question.”
“Maybe you’re right . . .! But still, I wasn’t quite joking either . . .” Ivan Fyodorovich suddenly and strangely confessed—by the way, with a quick blush.
“You weren’t quite joking, that is true. This idea is not yet resolved in your heart and torments it. But a martyr, too, sometimes likes to toy with his despair, also from despair, as it were. For the time being you, too, are toying, out of despair, with your magazine articles and drawing-room discussions, without believing in your own dialectics and smirking at them with your heart aching inside you ... The question is not resolved in you, and there lies your great grief, for it urgently demands resolution...”
“But can it be resolved in myself? Resolved in a positive way?” Ivan Fyodorovich continued asking strangely, still looking at the elder with a certain inexplicable smile.
“Even if it cannot be resolved in a positive way, it will never be resolved in the negative way either—you yourself know this property of your heart, and therein lies the whole of its torment. But thank the Creator that he has given you a lofty heart, capable of being tormented by such a torment, ‘to set your mind on things that are above, for our true homeland is in heaven. [53]May God grant that your heart’s decision overtake you still on earth, and may God bless your path!”
The elder raised his hand and was about to give his blessing to Ivan Fyodorovich from where he sat. But the latter suddenly rose from his chair, went over to him, received his blessing, and, having kissed his hand, returned silently to his place. He looked firm and serious. This action, as well as the whole preceding conversation with the elder, so unexpected from Ivan Fyodorovich, somehow struck everyone with its mysteriousness and even a certain solemnity, so that for a moment they all fell silent, and Alyosha looked almost frightened. But Miusov suddenly heaved his shoulders, and at the same moment Fyodor Pavlovich jumped up from his chair.
“Divine and most holy elder!” he cried, pointing at Ivan Fyodorovich, “this is my son, the flesh of my flesh, my own dear flesh! This is my most respectful Karl Moor, so to speak, and this son, the one who just came in, Dmitri Fyodorovich, against whom I am seeking justice from you, is the most disrespectful Franz Moor, both from Schiller’s Robbers, and I, I myself in that case am the regierenderGraf von Moor! [54]Judge and save us! It’s not just your prayers we need, but your prophecies!”
“Speak without foolery, and do not begin by insulting your relations,” the elder replied in a weak, exhausted voice. He was clearly getting more and more tired and was visibly losing his strength.
“An unworthy comedy, just as I anticipated on my way here!” Dmitri Fyodorovich exclaimed indignantly, also jumping up from his seat. “Forgive me, reverend father,” he turned to the elder, “I am an uneducated man and do not even know how to address you, but you have been deceived, and were too kind in letting us come together here. Papa is only looking for a scandal– who knows for what reason. He always has his reasons. But I think I see now...”
“All of them accuse me, all of them!” Fyodor Pavlovich shouted in his turn, “and Pyotr Alexandrovich, here, he accuses me, too. You did accuse me, Pyotr Alexandrovich, you did!” he suddenly turned to Miusov, though the latter had no thought of interrupting him. “They accuse me of pocketing children’s money and turning a profit on it, but, I beg your pardon, don’t we have courts of law? They’ll reckon it up for you, Dmitri Fyodorovich, according to your own receipts, letters, and contracts, how much you had, how much you’ve destroyed, and how much you’ve got left! Why does Pyotr Alexandrovich not give us his judgment? Dmitri Fyodorovich is no stranger to him. It’s because they’re all against me, and Dmitri Fyodorovich in the end owes me money, and not just a trifle but several thousand, sir, I’ve got it all on paper. The whole town is rattling and banging from his wild parties. And where he used to serve, he paid a thousand if not two thousand for the seduction of honest girls—we know about that, Dmitri Fyodorovich, sir, in all its secret details, and I can prove it, sir ... Most holy father, would you believe that he got one of the noblest of girls to fall in love with him, a girl from a good family, with a fortune, the daughter of his former superior, a brave colonel, decorated, the Anna with swords on his neck, [55]and then compromised the girl by offering her his hand, and now she’s here, now she’s an orphan, his fiancée, and he, before her very eyes, keeps visiting one of the local seductresses. But although this seductress has lived, so to speak, in civil marriage with a respected man, yet she is of independent character, an impregnable fortress to all, the same as a. lawful wife, for she is virtuous—yes, sir, holy fathers, she is virtuous! And Dmitri Fyodorovich wants to unlock this fortress with a golden key, and that’s why he’s trying to bully me even now, he wants to get some money out of me, and meanwhile he’s already thrown away thousands on this seductress, which is why he’s continually borrowing money from me, and, incidentally, from whom else, whom do you think? Shall I tell them, Mitya?”
“Silence!” Dmitri Fyodorovich shouted. “Wait until I’m gone. Do not dare in my presence to sully the noblest of girls ... That you are even so bold as to mention her is shameful enough ... I will not allow it!”
He was gasping for breath.
“Mitya! Mitya!” Fyodor Pavlovich cried tremulously, trying to squeeze out a tear. “Don’t you care about a father’s blessing? And what if I should curse you?”
“Shameless impostor!” Dmitri Fyodorovich roared in fury.
“He says that to his father! His father! Think how he must treat others! Imagine, gentlemen: there’s a poor but honorable man living here, a retired captain, fell into misfortune and was retired from service, but not publicly, not by court-martial, he preserved his honor. He’s burdened with a large family. And three weeks ago our Dmitri Fyodorovich seized him by the beard in a tavern, dragged him by that same beard into the street, and there in the street publicly thrashed him, and all because he’s acted as my agent in a little business of mine.”
“That is all a lie! Outwardly it’s true, but inwardly it’s a lie!” Dmitri Fyodorovich was trembling all over with rage. “My dear papa! I do not justify my actions. Yes, I acknowledge publicly that I behaved like a beast with that captain, and now I’m sorry and loathe myself for my beastly rage, but this captain of yours, your agent, went to that very lady whom you yourself have described as a seductress, and began suggesting to her on your behalf that she should take over my promissory notes that are in your possession, and sue me in order to have me locked up with the help of those notes, in case I pestered you too much for an account of my property. And now you reproach me with having a weakness for this lady, when you yourself were teaching her how to ensnare me! She told me so to my face, she told me herself, and she laughed at you! And you want me locked up only because you’re jealous of me, because you yourself have begun approaching this woman with your love, and that, too, I know all about, and she laughed again—do you hear?—she laughed at you as she told me. Here, holy people, is a man for you, a father reproaching his profligate son! Gentlemen witnesses, forgive my wrath, but I anticipated that this perfidious old man had gathered you all here for a scandal. I came intending to forgive, if he held out his hand to me, to forgive and to ask forgiveness! But since he has just now insulted not only me but that most noble girl, whose very name I do not dare to utter in vain out of reverence for her, I am resolved to give away his whole game in public, though he is my father . . .!”
He could not go on. His eyes flashed, he was breathing hard. Everyone else in the cell was excited, too. They all rose anxiously from their chairs, except for the elder. The hieromonks looked stern, but waited, however, to know the elder’s will. He sat looking quite pale now, not from excitement but from sickly weakness. An imploring smile shone on his lips; every once in a while he raised his hand as if wishing to stop the two raging men; and, of course, one gesture from him would have been sufficient to end the scene; yet he himself seemed to be waiting for something, and watched intently, as if still trying to understand something, as if still not comprehending something. At last, Pyotr Alexandrovich Miusov finally felt himself humiliated and disgraced.
“We are all to blame for this scandal!” he said hotly. “But all the same, I did not anticipate, on my way here, though I knew whom I was dealing with ... This must be stopped at once! Your reverence, believe me, I did not know exactly all the details that have just been revealed here, I did not want to believe them, and have only now learned for the first time ... The father is jealous of his son over a woman of bad behavior, and himself arranges with this creature to lock the son up in prison ... And this is the company in which I’ve been forced to come here ... I have been deceived, I declare to you all that I have been deceived no less than the others ...”
“Dmitri Fyodorovich!” Fyodor Pavlovich suddenly screamed in a voice not his own, “if only you weren’t my son, I would challenge you to a duel this very moment ... with pistols, at three paces ... across a handkerchief! across a handkerchief!” he ended, stamping with both feet. [56]
Old liars who have been play-acting all their lives have moments when they get so carried away by their posing that they indeed tremble and weep from excitement, even though at that same moment (or just a second later) they might whisper to themselves: “You’re lying, you shameless old man, you’re acting even now, despite all your ‘holy’ wrath and ‘holy’ moment of wrath.”
Dmitri Fyodorovich frowned horribly and looked at his father with inexpressible contempt.
“I thought ... I thought,” he said somehow softly and restrainedly, “that I would come to my birthplace with the angel of my soul, my fiancée, to cherish him in his old age, and all I find is a depraved sensualist and despicable comedian!” “To a duel!” the old fool screamed again, breathless and spraying saliva with each word. “And you, Pyotr Alexandrovich Miusov, let it be known to you, sir, that in all the generations of your family there is not and maybe never has been a woman loftier or more honorable—more honorable, do you hear?—than this creature, as you have just dared to call her! And you, Dmitri Fyodorovich, traded your fiancée for this very ‘creature,’ so you yourself have judged that your fiancée isn’t worthy to lick her boots—that’s the kind of creature she is!”
“Shame!” suddenly escaped from Father Iosif.
“A shame and a disgrace!” Kalganov, who had been silent all the while, suddenly cried in his adolescent voice, trembling with excitement and blushing all over.
“Why is such a man alive!” Dmitri Fyodorovich growled in a muffled voice, now nearly beside himself with fury, somehow raising his shoulders peculiarly so that he looked almost hunchbacked. “No, tell me, can he be allowed to go on dishonoring the earth with himself?” He looked around at everyone, pointing his finger at the old man. His speech was slow and deliberate.
“Do you hear, you monks, do you hear the parricide!” Fyodor Pavlovich flung at Father Iosif. “There is the answer to your ‘shame’! What shame? This ‘creature,’ this ‘woman of bad behavior’ is perhaps holier than all of you, gentlemen soul-saving hieromonks! Maybe she fell in her youth, being influenced by her environment, but she has ‘loved much,’ and even Christ forgave her who loved much . . .” [57]
“Christ did not forgive that kind of love ... ,” escaped impatiently from the meek Father Iosif.
“No, that kind, monks, exactly that kind, that kind! You are saving your souls here on cabbage and you think you’re righteous! You eat gudgeons, one gudgeon a day, and you think you can buy God with gudgeons!”
“Impossible! Impossible!” came from all sides of the cell.
But the whole scene, which had turned so ugly, was stopped in a most unexpected manner. The elder suddenly rose from his place. Alyosha, who had almost completely lost his head from fear for him and for all of them, had just time enough to support his arm. The elder stepped towards Dmitri Fyodorovich and, having come close to him, knelt before him. Alyosha thought for a moment that he had fallen from weakness, but it was something else. Kneeling in front of Dmitri Fyodorovich, the elder bowed down at his feet with a full, distinct, conscious bow, and even touched the floor with his forehead. Alyosha was so amazed that he failed to support him as he got to his feet. A weak smile barely glimmered on his lips. “Forgive me! Forgive me, all of you!” he said, bowing on all sides to his guests.
Dmitri Fyodorovich stood dumbstruck for a few moments. Bowing at his feet—what was that? Then suddenly he cried out: “Oh, God!” and, covering his face with his hands, rushed from the room. All the other guests flocked after him, forgetting in their confusion even to say good-bye or bow to their host. Only the hieromonks again came to receive his blessing.
“What’s that—bowing at his feet? Is it some sort of emblem?” Fyodor Pavlovich, who for some reason had suddenly grown quiet, tried to start a conversation, not daring, by the way, to address anyone in particular. At that moment they were just passing beyond the walls of the hermitage.
“I cannot answer for a madhouse or for madmen,” Miusov at once replied sharply, “but I can and will rid myself of your company, Fyodor Pavlovich, and that, believe me, forever. Where is that monk ... ?”
However, “that monk”—that is, the one who had invited them to dinner with the Superior—did not keep them waiting. He met the guests immediately, just as they came down the steps from the elder’s cell, as if he had been waiting for them all the time.
“Do me a favor, reverend father, convey my deepest respects to the Father Superior, and apologize for me, Miusov, personally to his reverence, that owing to the unexpected occurrence of unforeseen circumstances it is quite impossible for me to have the honor of joining him at his table, despite my most sincere wishes,” Pyotr Alexandrovich said irritably to the monk.
“And that unforeseen circumstance is me!” Fyodor Pavlovich immediately put in. “Do you hear, father? Pyotr Alexandrovich, here, doesn’t want to be in my company, otherwise he’d be glad to go. And you will go, Pyotr Alexandrovich, be so good as to visit the Father Superior, and– bon appetit!You see, it is I who am going to decline, and not you. Home, home—I’ll eat at home. Here I just don’t feel able, Pyotr Alexandrovich, my dearest relative.”
“I am no relative of yours and never have been, you despicable man!”
“I said it on purpose to make you mad, because you disclaim our relation, though you’re still my relative no matter how you shuffle, I can prove it by the Church calendar. [58]Stay if you like, Ivan Fyodorovich; I’ll send horses for you later. As for you, Pyotr Alexandrovich, even common decency must tell you now to go to the Father Superior, if only to apologize for the mess we made in there.”
“Are you really leaving? It’s not another lie?”
“Pyotr Alexandrovich, how could I dare stay after what happened? I got carried away, forgive me, gentlemen, I got carried away! And besides, I’m shaken! And ashamed, too! Gentlemen, one man has a heart like Alexander of Macedon and another like little Fido the lapdog. Mine is like little Fido the lapdog’s. I turned timid! How, after such an escapade, could I go to dinner and slop up monastery sauces? It’s shameful, I can’t, excuse me!”
“Devil knows if he means it!” Miusov stood in doubt, following the retreating buffoon with a puzzled look. The latter turned around and, noticing that Pyotr Alexandrovich was watching him, blew him a kiss.
“And you? Are you going to the Superior’s?” Miusov curtly asked Ivan Fyodorovich.
“Why not? Besides, I was specially invited by the Superior just yesterday.”
“Unfortunately, I do indeed feel almost compelled to go to this damned dinner,” Miusov went on with the same bitter irritation, even ignoring the fact that the little monk was listening. “At least we should ask forgiveness for what we’ve done and explain that it wasn’t us ... What do you think?”
“Yes, we should explain that it wasn’t us. Besides, papa won’t be there,” Ivan Fyodorovich remarked.
“Yes, that would be the last thing...! Damn this dinner!”
Still, they all walked on. The little monk was silent and listened. On the way through the woods, he simply remarked once that the Father Superior had been kept waiting and that they were already more than half an hour late. He got no response. Miusov looked at Ivan Fyodorovich with hatred.
“He goes off to dinner as if nothing had happened!” he thought. “A brazen face and a Karamazov conscience.”
Chapter 7: A Seminarist-Careerist
Alyosha brought his elder to the little bedroom and sat him down on the bed. It was a very small room with only the necessary furnishings; the bed was narrow, made of iron, with a piece of thick felt in place of a mattress. In the corner by the icons there was a reading stand, and on it lay a cross and the Gospel. The elder lowered himself weakly onto the bed; his eyes were glazed and he had difficulty breathing. Having sat down, he looked intently at Alyosha, as if he were pondering something.
“Go, my dear, go. Porfiry is enough for me, and you must hurry. They need you there, go to the Father Superior, serve at the table.” “Give me your blessing to stay here,” Alyosha spoke in a pleading voice.
“You are more needed there. There is no peace there. You will serve and be of use. If demons raise their heads, recite a prayer. And know, my dear son” (the elder liked to call him that), “that from now on this is not the place for you. Remember that, young man. As soon as God grants me to depart, leave the monastery. Leave it for good.”
Alyosha started.
“What’s wrong? For the time being your place is not here. I give you my blessing for a great obedience in the world. [59]You still have much journeying before you. And you will have to marry—yes, you will. You will have to endure everything before you come back again. And there will be much work to do. But I have no doubt of you, that is why I am sending you. Christ is with you. Keep him, and he will keep you. You will behold great sorrow, and in this sorrow you will be happy. Here is a commandment for you: seek happiness in sorrow. Work, work tirelessly. Remember my words from now on, for although I shall still talk with you, not only my days but even my hours are numbered.”
Strong emotion showed again in Alyosha’s face. The corners of his mouth trembled.
