Текст книги "The Brothers Karamazov"
Автор книги: Федор Достоевский
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“What’s wrong now?” the elder smiled gently. “Let worldly men follow their dead with tears; here we rejoice over a departing father. We rejoice and pray for him. Leave me now. It is time to pray. Go, and hurry. Be near your brothers. Not just one, but both of them.”
The elder raised his hand in blessing. It was impossible to object, though Alyosha wanted very much to stay. He also wanted to ask, and the question was on the tip of his tongue, what this bow at his brother Dmitri’s feet prefigured—but he did not dare ask. He knew that the elder himself would have explained it, if possible, without being asked. Therefore it was not his will to do so. The bow struck Alyosha terribly; he believed blindly that there was a secret meaning in it. Secret, and perhaps also horrible. As he left the hermitage in order to get to the monastery in time for dinner with the Superior (only to serve at the table, of course), his heart suddenly contracted painfully, and he stopped in his tracks: it was as if he heard again the sound of the elder’s words foretelling his very near end. What the elder foretold, and with such exactness, would undoubtedly happen, Alyosha piously believed. But how could he be left without him, how could he not see him, not hear him? And where was he to go? He had ordered him not to weep and to leave the monastery– oh, Lord! It was long since Alyosha had felt such anguish. He hastened through the woods that separated the hermitage from the monastery, and being unable to bear his own thoughts, so greatly did they oppress him, he began looking at the ancient pines on both sides of the forest path. The way was not long, about five hundred paces at most; at that hour it should have been impossible to meet anyone, yet suddenly, at the first turning of the path, he noticed Rakitin. He was waiting for someone.
“Is it me you’re waiting for?” Alyosha asked, coming up to him.
“Precisely you,” Rakitin grinned. “You’re hurrying to the Father Superior’s. I know; there’s a dinner on. Not since he received the Bishop and General Pakhatov—remember?—has there been such a dinner. I won’t be there, but you go and serve the sauces. Tell me one thing, Alexei: what’s the meaning of this dream? [60]That’s what I wanted to ask you.”
“What dream?”
“This bowing at the feet of your brother Dmitri Fyodorovich. He even bumped his forehead on the ground.”
“You mean Father Zosima?”
“Yes, Father Zosima.”
“His forehead ... ?”
“Ah, I was irreverent! Well, let it be. So, what does this dream signify?”
“I don’t know what it means, Misha.”
“I knew he wou’dn’t explain it to you! Of course, there’s nothing very subtle about it, just the usual blessed nonsense, it seems. But the trick had its purpose. Now all the pious frauds in town will start talking and spread it over the whole province, wondering ‘what is the meaning of this dream?’ The old man is really astute, if you ask me: he smelled crime. It stinks in your family.”
“What crime?”
Rakitin evidently wanted to speak his mind.
“A crime in your nice little family. It will take place between your dear brothers and your nice, rich papa. So Father Zosima bumps his forehead on the ground, for the future, just in case. Afterwards they’ll say, Ah, it’s what the holy elder foretold, prophesied,’ though bumping your forehead on the ground isn’t much of a prophecy. No, they’ll say, it was an emblem, an allegory, the devil knows what! They’ll proclaim it, they’ll remember: ‘He foresaw the crime and marked the criminal.’ It’s always like that with holy fools: they cross themselves before a tavern and cast stones at the temple. Your elder is the same: he drives the just man out with a stick and bows at the murderer’s feet.”
“What crime? What murderer? What are you saying?” Alyosha stopped dead. Rakitin also stopped.
“What murderer? As if you didn’t know. I bet you’ve already thought of it yourself. As a matter of fact, I’m curious. Listen, Alyosha, you always tell the truth, though you always fall between two stools: tell me, did you think of it or not?”
“I did,” Alyosha answered softly. Even Rakitin felt embarrassed.
“What? You thought of it, too?” he cried.
“I ... I didn’t really think of it,” Alyosha muttered, “but when you began speaking so strangely about it just now, it seemed to me that I had thought of it myself.”
“You see? (And how clearly you expressed it! ) You see? Today, looking at your papa and your brother Mitenka, you thought about a crime. So I’m not mistaken, then?”
“But wait, wait,” Alyosha interrupted uneasily, “where did you get all that ... ? And why does it concern you so much in the first place?”
“Two different questions, but natural ones. I shall answer them separately. Where did I get it? I’d have gotten nothing if today I hadn’t suddenly understood Dmitri Fyodorovich, your brother, fully for what he is, all at once and suddenly, fully for what he is. By one particular trait I grasped him all at once. Such honest but passionate people have a line that must not be crossed. Otherwise—otherwise he’ll even put a knife in his own papa. And the papa, a drunken and unbridled libertine, never knew any measure in anything– both of them unable to hold back, and both of them, plop,into the ditch...”
“No, Misha, no, if that’s all it is, then you’ve reassured me. It won’t come to that.”
“And why are you shaking all over? I’ll tell you one thing: granted he’s an honest man, Mitenka, I mean (he’s stupid but honest), still he’s a sensualist. That is his definition, and his whole inner essence. It’s his father who gave him his base sensuality. I’m really surprised at you, Alyosha: how can you be a virgin? You’re a Karamazov, too! In your family sensuality is carried to the point of fever. So these three sensualists are now eyeing each other with knives in their boots. The three of them are at loggerheads, and maybe you’re the fourth.”
“You are mistaken about that woman. Dmitri ... despises her,” Alyosha said, somehow shuddering.
“You mean Grushenka? No, brother, he doesn’t despise her. If he’s publicly traded his fiancée for her, he doesn’t despise her. It’s ... it’s something, brother, that you won’t understand yet. It’s that a man falls in love with some beautiful thing, with a woman’s body, or even with just one part of a woman’s body (a sensualist will understand that), and is ready to give his own children for it, to sell his father and mother, Russia and his native land, and though he’s honest, he’ll go and steal; though he’s meek, he’ll kill; though he’s faithful, he’ll betray. The singer of women’s little feet, Pushkin, sang little feet in verse; [61] others don’t sing, but they can’t look at little feet without knots in the stomach. But it’s not just little feet ... Here, brother, contempt is no use, even if he does despise Grushenka. He may despise her, but he still can’t tear himself away from her.”
“I understand that,” Alyosha suddenly blurted out.
“Really? No doubt you do, if you blurt it out like that, at the first mention,” Rakitin said gleefully. “It escaped you, you just blurted it out inadvertently– which makes the confession all the more valuable. So for you it’s already a familiar theme, you’ve already thought about it—sensuality, I mean. Ah, you virgin! You, Alyoshka, are the quiet type, you’re a saint, I admit; you’re the quiet type, but the devil knows what hasn’t gone through your head, the devil knows what you don’t know already! A virgin, and you’ve already dug so deep—I’ve been observing you for a long time. You are a Karamazov yourself, a full-fledged Karamazov—so race and selection do mean something. You’re a sensualist after your father, and after your mother—a holy fool. Why are you trembling? Am I right? You know, Grushenka said to me: ‘Bring him over (meaning you), and I’ll pull his little cassock off She really asked me: bring him over! bring him over! And I wondered: what interests her so much in you? You know, she’s an unusual woman, too!”
“Give her my regards, and tell her I won’t come,” Alyosha grinned crookedly. “Finish what you were saying, Mikhail, then I’ll tell you what I think.”
“What is there to finish? It’s all clear. It’s all the same old tune, brother. If there’s a sensualist even in you, then what about your brother Ivan, your full brother? He’s a Karamazov, too. The whole question of you Karamazovs comes down to this: you’re sensualists, money-grubbers, and holy fools! Right now your brother Ivan is publishing little theological articles as a joke, for some unknown, stupid reason, since he himself is an atheist and admits the baseness of it—that’s your brother Ivan. Besides which, he’s stealing his dear brother Mitya’s fiancée, and it looks like he’ll reach that goal. And how? With Mitenka’s own consent, because Mitenka himself is giving her up to him, just to get rid of her, so that he can run to Grushenka. All the while being a noble and disinterested man—make note of that. Such people are the most fatal of all! The devil alone can sort you all out after that: he admits his own baseness even while he throws himself into it! But there’s more: now dear old papa crosses Mitenka’s path. He’s lost his mind over Grushenka, starts drooling the moment he sees her. Why do you think he caused such a scandal in the cell just now? Only because of her, because Miusov dared to call her a loose creature. He’s worse than a lovesick tomcat. Before, she only served him on salary in his shady tavern business, but now he suddenly sees and realizes, he goes wild, he pesters her with his propositions—not honorable ones, of course. So the papa and his boy will run into each other on that path. And Grushenka takes neither the one nor the other; so far she’s still hedging and teasing them both, trying to decide which of them will be more profitable, because while she might be able to grab a lot of money from the papa, still he won’t marry her, and maybe in the end he’ll get piggish and shut his purse. In which case, Mitenka, too, has his value; he has no money, but he’s capable of marrying her. Oh, yes, sir, he’s capable of marrying her! Of dropping his fiancée, an incomparable beauty, Katerina Ivanovna, rich, an aristocrat and a colonel’s daughter, and marrying Grushenka, formerly the kept woman of an old shopkeeper, a profligate peasant, the town mayor Samsonov. Out of all that some criminal conflict may indeed come. And that is what your brother Ivan is waiting for. He’ll be in clover. He’ll acquire Katerina Ivanovna, whom he’s pining for, and also grab her dowry of sixty thousand roubles. For a poor, bare little fellow like him, that’s rather tempting to start with. And note: not only will he not offend Mitya, he’ll even be doing him an undying service. Because I know for certain that Mitenka himself, just last week, when he got drunk with some gypsy women, shouted out loud in the tavern that he was not worthy of his fiancée Katenka, but that Ivan, his brother, he was worthy of her. And in the end, Katerina Ivanovna herself will not, of course, reject such a charmer as Ivan Fyodorovich; even now she’s already hesitating between the two of them. And how is it that Ivan has seduced you all, that you’re all so in awe of him? He’s laughing at you: he’s sitting there in clover, relishing at your expense!”
“How do you know all that? What makes you speak so certainly?” Alyosha suddenly asked curtly, frowning.
“Why are you asking now, and why are you afraid of my answer beforehand? It means you admit that I’m right.”
“You dislike Ivan. Ivan will not be tempted by money.”
“Is that so? And what of Katerina Ivanovna’s beauty? It’s not just a matter of money, though sixty thousand is tempting enough.”
“Ivan aims higher than that. Ivan won’t be tempted by thousands either. Ivan is not seeking money, or ease. Perhaps he is seeking suffering.”
“What sort of dream is that? Oh, you ... gentry!”
“Ah, Misha, his is a stormy soul. His mind is held captive. There is a great and unresolved thought in him. He’s one of those who don’t need millions, but need to resolve their thought.”
“Literary theft, Alyoshka. You’re paraphrasing your elder. Look what a riddle Ivan has set you!” Rakitin shouted with obvious spite. He even lost countenance, and his lips twisted. “And the riddle is a stupid one, there’s nothing to solve. Use your head and you’ll understand. His article is ridiculous and absurd. And did you hear his stupid theory just now: ‘If there is no immortality of the soul, then there is no virtue, and therefore everything is permitted.’ (And remember, by the way, how your brother Mitenka shouted, ‘I’ll remember!’) A tempting theory for scoundrels ... I’m being abusive, which is foolish .. . not for scoundrels, but for boasting schoolboys with ‘unresolved depths of thought.’ He’s just a show-off, and all it amounts to is: ‘On the one hand one can’t help admitting ... , on the other hand one can’t help confessing...!’ [62] His whole theory is squalid. Mankind will find strength in itself to live for virtue, even without believing in the immortality of the soul! Find it in the love of liberty, equality, fraternity...”
Rakitin became flushed and could hardly contain himself. But suddenly, as if remembering something, he stopped.
“Well, enough,” he smiled even more twistedly than before. “Why are you laughing? Do you think it’s all just platitudes?”
“No, I didn’t even think of thinking they were platitudes. You’re intelligent, but ... forget it, it was just a foolish grin. I understand why you get so flushed, Misha. From your excitement I guessed that you yourself are not indifferent to Katerina Ivanovna. I’ve long suspected it, brother, and that is why you don’t like my brother Ivan. Are you jealous of him?”
“And of her money, too? Go on, say it!”
“No, I won’t say anything about money. I’m not going to insult you.”
“I’ll believe it only because it’s you who say it, but still, the devil take you and your brother Ivan! Will no one understand that it’s quite possible to dislike him even without Katerina Ivanovna? Why should I like him, damn it? He deigns to abuse me. Don’t I have the right to abuse him?”
“I’ve never heard him say anything about you, good or bad. He never speaks of you at all.”
“But I have heard that the day before yesterday, at Katerina Ivanovna’s, he was trouncing me right and left—that’s how interested he is in your humble servant! And after that, brother, I don’t know who is jealous of whom! He was so good as to opine that if, perchance, I do not pursue the career of archimandrite in the very near future and have myself tonsured, [63]then I will most certainly go to Petersburg and join some thick journal, most certainly in the criticism section; I will write for a dozen years and in the end take over the journal. And I will go on publishing it, most certainly with a liberal and atheistic slant, with a socialistic tinge, with even a little gloss of socialism, but with my ears open, that is, essentially, running with the hare and hunting with the hounds, and pulling the wool over the fools’ eyes. The aim of my career, according to your kind brother’s interpretation, will be not to allow that tinge of socialism to prevent me from laying aside the subscription money in my bank account and investing it occasionally under the guidance of some little Yid, until I’ve built myself a big town house in Petersburg, to which I can transfer my editorial office, while renting out the rest of the floors to tenants. He has even chosen the place for this house: by the New Stone Bridge over the Neva, which they say is being planned in Petersburg to connect the Liteiny Prospect with the Vyborg side...”
“Ah, Misha, maybe it will all be just as he says, to the last word!” Alyosha suddenly cried out, unable to resist and laughing gaily.
“So you, too, are venturing into sarcasm, Alexei Fyodorovich.”
“No, no, I’m joking, forgive me. I have something quite different on my mind. However, excuse me, but who could have informed you of all those details, or where could you have heard them? Surely you could not have been present at Katerina Ivanovna’s when he was talking about you?”
“I wasn’t, but Dmitri Fyodorovich was, and I heard it all with my own ears from the same Dmitri Fyodorovich; that is, if you like, he wasn’t telling it to me, but I was eavesdropping, unwillingly of course, because I was sitting at Grushenka’s, in her bedroom, and couldn’t leave all the while Dmitri Fyodorovich was in the next room.”
“Ah, yes, I forgot, she’s your relative...”
“My relative? Grushenka, my relative?” Rakitin suddenly cried out, blushing all over. “You must be crazy! Sick in the head!”
“What? Isn’t she your relative? I heard she was...”
“Where could you have heard that? No, you gentleman Karamazovs pose as some sort of great and ancient nobility, when your father played the fool at other men’s tables and got fed in the kitchen out of charity. Granted I’m only a priest’s son and a worm next to you noblemen, but still don’t go offending me so gaily and easily. I, too, have my honor, Alexei Fyodorovich. I could not be the relative of Grushenka, a loose woman, kindly understand that, sir!”
Rakitin was extremely irritated.
“Forgive me, for God’s sake, I had no idea, and besides, why is she a loose woman? Is she ... that sort?” Alyosha suddenly blushed. “I repeat, I heard she was your relative. You visit her often, and told me yourself that you have no amorous relations with her ... It never occurred to me that you of all people despised her so much! Does she really deserve it?”
“I may have my own reasons for visiting her; let that be enough for you. As for our relations, your good brother or even your own papa himself is more likely to foist her on you than on me. Well, here we are. Better march off to the kitchen. Hah, what’s this, what’s happening? Are we late? They couldn’t have finished dinner so soon! Or is it some more Karamazov mischief? That must be it. There goes your father, with Ivan Fyodorovich after him. They’ve bolted from the Father Superior’s. Look, Father Isidore is shouting something at them from the porch. And your father is shouting, too, and waving his arms—he must be swearing. Hah, and Miusov, too, has left in his carriage, there he goes. And the landowner Maximov is running—we’ve had a scandal! It means there wasn’t any dinner! Maybe they thrashed the Superior? Or got thrashed themselves? That would be a good one . . .!”
Rakitin’s exclamations were not without point. There had indeed been a scandal, unheard-of and unexpected. It all happened “by inspiration.”
Chapter 8: Scandal
Miusov and Ivan Fyodorovich were already entering the Superior’s rooms when a sort of delicate process quickly transpired in Pyotr Alexandrovich, a genuinely decent and delicate man: he felt ashamed of his anger. He felt within himself that, essentially, his contempt for the worthless Fyodor Pavlovich should have been such as to have kept him from losing his composure in the elder’s cell and getting as lost as he had done himself. “It was not at all the monks’ fault, in any case,” he suddenly decided on the Superior’s porch, “and if there are decent people here as well (this Father Nikolai, the Superior, seems to be of the gentry, too), then why not be nice, amiable, and courteous with them ... ? I shan’t argue, I shall even yes them in everything, I shall seduce them with amiability, and ... and ... finally prove to them that I am not of the same society as that Aesop, that buffoon, that Pierrot, and was taken in just as they all were...”
The controversial wood-cutting in the forest and the fishing (where it all went on he himself did not know) he determined to relinquish to them finally, once and for all, that very day, and to stop his court actions against the monastery, the more so since it was all worth very little anyway.
All these good intentions were further strengthened when they entered the Father Superior’s dining room. There was no dining room, incidentally, because the entire apartment in fact consisted of two rooms, though indeed far more spacious and comfortable than the elder’s. But the furnishings of the rooms were not more distinguished by any special comfort: leather-covered mahogany, in the old fashion of the twenties; the floors were not even painted; yet everything was bright and clean, there were many costly plants in the windows; but the main luxury at the moment was, naturally, the luxuriously laid table—once again, relatively speaking, by the way: a clean table cloth, sparkling dishes, perfectly baked bread of three kinds, two bottles of wine, two bottles of excellent monastery mead, and a big glass jug of monastery kvass, famous throughout the neighborhood. There was no vodka at all. Rakitin recounted afterwards that the dinner this time consisted of five courses: a sturgeon soup with little fish pies; then boiled fish prepared in some particular and perfect way; then salmon cakes, ice cream and fruit compote, and finally a little custard resembling blancmange. Rakitin sniffed it all out, unable to restrain himself, peeking for that purpose into the Superior’s kitchen, where he also had his connections. He had connections everywhere and made spies everywhere. He had a restless and covetous heart. He was fully aware of his considerable abilities, but in his conceit he nervously exaggerated them. He knew for certain that he would become a figure of some sort, but Alyosha, who was very attached to him, was tormented that his friend Rakitin was dishonest and was decidedly unaware of it; that, on the contrary, knowing he wouldn’t steal money from the table, he ultimately considered himself a man of the highest integrity. Here neither Alyosha nor anyone else could do anything.
Rakitin, as an insignificant person, could not have been invited to dinner, but Father Iosif and Father Paissy, along with another hieromonk, were invited. They were already waiting in the Superior’s dining room when Pyotr Alexandrovich, Kalganov, and Ivan Fyodorovich entered. The landowner Maximov was also waiting to one side. The Father Superior stepped forward into the middle of the room to meet his guests. He was a tall, lean, but still vigorous old man, dark-haired with much gray, and with a long, pious, and important face. He bowed silently to his guests, and this time they came up to receive the blessing. Miusov even risked trying to kiss his hand, but the Superior somehow snatched it away just in time, and the kiss did not take place. But Ivan Fyodorovich and Kalganov this time got the full blessing, that is, with the most simple-hearted and ordinary smack on the hand.
“We really must beg your forgiveness, your noble reverence,” [64]Pyotr Alexandrovich began, grinning affably, but still in a solemn and respectful tone, “for arriving by ourselves, without our fellow guest, Fyodor Pavlovich, whom you also invited. He felt obliged to miss your dinner, and not without reason. In the reverend Father Zosima’s cell, being carried away by his unfortunate family quarrel with his son, he spoke certain quite inappropriate words ... quite indecent, that is ... of which it appears”—he glanced at the hieromonks—”your noble reverence has already been informed. And therefore, aware that he was at fault and sincerely repentant, he felt ashamed, and, unable to overcome it, asked us, myself and his son, Ivan Fyodorovich, to declare before you his sincere regret, remorse, and repentance ... In a word, he hopes and wishes to make up for it all later, and for now, asking your blessing, he begs you to forget what has happened...”
Miusov fell silent. Having spoken the final words of his tirade, he was left feeling thoroughly pleased with himself, so much so that not even a trace of his recent irritation remained in his soul. He again fully and sincerely loved mankind. The Superior, having listened to him with a solemn air, inclined his head slightly and spoke in reply:
“I most sincerely regret our guest’s absence. Perhaps over our dinner he would have come to love us, and we him. Gentlemen, welcome to my table.”
He stood facing the icon and began to pray aloud. They all bowed their heads respectfully, and the landowner Maximov even edged somehow especially forward, with his palms pressed together in special reverence.
And at that moment Fyodor Pavlovich cut his last caper. It should be noted that he indeed intended to leave and indeed felt the impossibility, after his shameful behavior in the elder’s cell, of going to dinner at the Superior’s as if nothing had happened. It was not that he was so very much ashamed and blamed himself; perhaps even quite the contrary; but still he felt that to stay for dinner would really be improper. But when his rattling carriage drew up to the porch of the inn, and he was already getting into it, he suddenly stopped. He remembered his own words at the elder’s: “It always seems to me, when I go somewhere, that I am lower than everyone else and that they all take me for a buffoon—so let me indeed play the buffoon, because all of you, to a man, are lower and stupider than I am.” He wanted to revenge himself on all of them for his own nasty tricks. At the same moment he suddenly remembered being asked once before, at some point: “Why do you hate so-and-so so much?” And he had replied then, in a fit of buffoonish impudence: “I’ll tell you why: he never did anything to me, it’s true, but I once played a most shameless nasty trick on him, and the moment I did it, I immediately hated him for it.” Remembering it now, he sniggered softly and maliciously, in a moment’s hesitation. His eyes gleamed, and his lips even trembled. “Since I’ve started it, I may as well finish it,” he decided suddenly. His innermost feeling at that moment might be expressed in the following words: “There is no way to rehabilitate myself now, so why don’t I just spit all over them without any shame; tell them, ‘You’ll never make me ashamed, and that’s that!’” He ordered the coachman to wait, and with quick steps went back to the monastery, straight to the Superior’s. He did not quite know what he was going to do, but he knew that he was no longer in control of himself—a little push, and in no time he would reach the utmost limits of some abomination—only an abomination, by the way, never anything criminal, never an escapade punishable by law. In that respect he always managed to restrain himself, and even amazed himself in some cases. He appeared in the Superior’s dining room precisely at the moment when the prayer was over and everyone was moving to the table. He stopped on the threshold, looked around at the gathering, and laughed his long, insolent, wicked little laugh, staring them all valiantly in the face.
“They thought I was gone, and here I am!” he shouted for all to hear.
For a moment everyone stared straight at him in silence, and then suddenly they all felt that now something revolting, absurd, and undoubtedly scandalous was about to happen. Pyotr Alexandrovich, from a most benign mood, immediately turned ferocious. All that had just died out and grown quiet in his heart instantly resurrected and rose up.
“No! This I cannot bear!”he cried, “I absolutely cannot and ... I simply cannot!”
The blood rushed to his head. He even stammered, but he could not be bothered about style and grabbed his hat.
“What is it that he cannot,” Fyodor Pavlovich cried out,” that he ‘absolutely cannot and simply cannot’? Your reverence, may I come in? Will you accept me at your table?”
“You are most cordially welcome,” the Superior replied. “Gentlemen!” he added suddenly, “allow me to ask you earnestly to lay aside your incidental quarrels and come together in love and familial harmony, with a prayer to the Lord, over our humble meal...”
“No, no, impossible,” cried Pyotr Alexandrovich, as if beside himself.
“If it’s impossible for Pyotr Alexandrovich, then it’s impossible for me—I won’t stay either. That is why I came. I will be with Pyotr Alexandrovich wherever he goes: if you leave, I leave, Pyotr Alexandrovich, and if you stay, I stay. You really stung him with that ‘familial harmony,’ Father Superior: he doesn’t consider himself my relative! Am I right, von Sohn? That’s von Sohn over there. Greetings, von Sohn!” [65]
“Are you ... is it me, sir?” muttered the amazed landowner Maximov.
“Of course it’s you,” Fyodor Pavlovich shouted. “Who else? The Father Superior couldn’t be von Sohn!”
“But I am not von Sohn either, I am Maximov.”
“No, you’re von Sohn. Your reverence, do you know about von Sohn? It was a murder case: he was killed in a house of fornication—is that what you call those places?—they killed him and robbed him and, despite his venerable age, stuffed him into a box, nailed it shut, and sent it from Petersburg to Moscow in a baggage car, with a label and everything. And as they nailed him up, the dancing harlots were singing songs to the psaltery, I mean the pianoforte. And this is that same von Sohn. He rose from the dead, didn’t you, von Sohn?”
“What’s that? How can he!” came from the group of hieromonks.
“Let’s go!” cried Pyotr Alexandrovich, turning to Kalganov.
“No, sir, allow me!” Fyodor Pavlovich interrupted shrilly, taking another step into the room. “Allow me to finish. You defamed me there in the cell, as if I’d behaved disrespectfully—namely, by shouting about gudgeons. Pyotr Alexandrovich Miusov, my relative, likes it when one speaks with plus de noblesse que desincérité, and I, conversely, like to speak with plus de sincérité que de noblesse,and—to hell with noblesse! [66]Right, von Sohn? Excuse me, Father Superior, although I’m a buffoon and play the buffoon, still I’m an honorable knight and I want to have my say. Yes, I’m an honorable knight, and in Pyotr Alexandrovich there is wounded vanity and nothing more. I came here today, perhaps, to look around and have my say. My son Alexei is saving his soul here; I’m a father, I’m concerned for his future, and I ought to be concerned. I was listening and performing and quietly observing, and now I want to give you the last act of the performance. How is it with us generally? With us, once a thing falls, it lies there. With us, if a thing once falls, it can lie there forever. I won’t have it, sirs! I want to rise! Holy fathers, you make me indignant. Confession is a great mystery before which I stand in awe and am ready to bow down, and here suddenly everyone in the cell falls on his knees and confesses out loud. Is it proper to confess out loud? The Holy Fathers instituted whispered confession, only then is there any mystery in it, and that has been so since olden times. [67]Otherwise how am I to explain to him in front of everyone that I did this and that, for instance ... well, this and that, you know what I mean! Sometimes it’s even indecent to say it. There would be a scandal! No, fathers, one might even get drawn into flagellationism with you here . . . [68]I shall write to the Synod the first chance I get, [69]and I shall take my son Alexei home ...”
