The Brothers Karamazov (54 page)

He should read to them about Abraham and Sarah, about Isaac and Rebecca, about Jacob going to Laban, wrestling with the Lord in his dream, and saying, “This is a frightening place,” and these stories will impress the devout minds of the simple people. He could read, especially to the children, the story of how Joseph’s brothers sold him into bondage, their own brother, the tender boy who dreamt prophetic dreams and was a great seer, and they later told their father that Joseph had been devoured by a wild beast and showed him the boy’s bloodstained clothes. He could read to them how the brothers later went to buy grain in Egypt, where, by that time, Joseph had become a powerful man at the court; and, unrecognized by them, he tormented and accused them, and kept his youngest brother Benjamin as a hostage, although all the time he loved them—“I love you and, loving you, I torment you”—but had never forgotten how one day, somewhere in the parched plain, by a well, they had sold him to some passing merchants and he had wept, wringing his hands and begging his brothers not to make him a slave in a foreign land . . . And then, seeing them after many, many years, he again loved them beyond measure, although he tormented them and made them suffer as he loved them. And finally he himself could stand it no longer and threw himself on his couch and wept; then wiping away his tears, he went out to them and joyfully announced: “Look at me, I am your brother Joseph!” Then let the priest read to the children about the joy of the old patriarch Jacob when he learns that his beloved son is alive, about his leaving his native land for Egypt and later dying there and announcing before his death the great prophecy that he had concealed throughout his life in his gentle, timid heart—the prophecy that, from his stock, from the Hebrews, would come the great hope of the world, who would bring it peace and salvation.

Fathers and teachers, forgive me and bear with me for telling you now, like a little child, about things long familiar to you, things, indeed, that you could tell me a hundred times better and more skillfully. I have talked of these things for sheer joy, and I beg you to forgive my tears, for I dearly love that book. Let the priest, who is here to spread the word of God, weep too, and he will find that the hearts of those who listen to him will respond and be touched. All he needs is a small seed, a tiny seed; once he has dropped it into the heart of a simple man, it will never die; it will live there as long as he lives; it will be hidden there like a bright spark, like a great reminder amidst the darkness that surrounds the man in the stench of his sins. And there is no need for many explanations and much teaching—he will understand everything by himself. Or do you think that a simple, uneducated man is unable to understand? Just try reading him the moving story of the fair Esther and the haughty Vashti or the marvelous legend about the prophet Jonah in the belly of the whale. And you must not forget the parables of our Lord, taken mostly from St. Luke (which I used), then the conversion of Saul from the Acts of the Apostles (absolutely without fail), and, finally, the 
Lives of the Saints:
 for instance, the life of Alexei, the man of God, and the life of Mary of Egypt, the greatest of the great, the blessed martyr who saw God, and the bearer of Christ. The priest will reach people’s hearts with these simple tales. It will only take him one hour a week, and that he can do despite his low stipend. He will find out that our people are generous, that they will be grateful to him and reward him a hundredfold. They will respond to the priest’s zeal and the moving words they hear from him. They will be eager to help him in his field and in his house, and they will respect him more than they did before—that is how his stipend will be increased. It is so simple that one might hesitate to say it for fear that people might laugh, although it is the absolute truth! He who does not believe in God will not believe in God’s people either. But he who has come to believe in God’s people will have his eyes opened to the glory of God, even if he was unable to see it before. Only the masses of simple, humble people and their growing spiritual power will be able to convert the atheists, who have been uprooted from our native soil. And what good is the Word of Christ without an example? A nation is lost without the Word of God, for every human soul thirsts for His Word and for the good and the beautiful.

Almost forty years ago, when I was still young, Father Anfim and I wandered all over Russia, collecting alms for our monastery. Once we spent the night with some fishermen on the bank of a large river. A handsome peasant lad of eighteen joined us. He was on his way to a place where the next day he was to join a team of men to tow a merchant’s barge. I was struck by the brightness and warmth in that boy’s eyes. It was a clear, still, warm night in July. A cool mist was rising from the broad river. The birds had quieted down and now and then a fish would splash in the water. Everything was hushed and beautiful, praying to God as it were. Only the two of us, the boy and I, were not asleep, and we talked about the beauty of this world of God’s and of the great mystery in it. Every blade of grass, every bug, every ant, every golden bee, knowing so amazingly what to do, without intelligence, reveals the existence of God’s mystery and continuously demonstrates it to us. I saw that the boy was glowing with fervor and he told me that he loved the forest and the forest birds; he used to be a bird catcher; he could recognize and imitate the calls of all the birds and knew how to make them come to him. “I know nothing better than the forest,” he told me, “although I think everything is good.”

“That’s true,” I said, “everything is good and beautiful because everything is truth. Take, for instance, the horse,” I said to him, “it is a great animal and it is so close to man; or take the ox, that sad and dreamy beast that feeds man and works for him. Look at these animals—what meekness, what devotion to man, who often beats them mercilessly, what gentleness and trustfulness there is in them—and that is so beautiful! It is so moving to think that these creatures are free of sin, because all but man are sinless and Christ was with them even before He came to us.”

“Do you mean,” the boy asked, “that Christ is with them too?”

“How could it be otherwise,” I said, “since the Word is for all creation, and every creature and every little leaf obeys the Word, singing the praises of God, weeping to Christ and, all unaware, accomplishing it all by the mystery of its sinless existence. Take, for instance, the fierce, formidable, frightening bear, roaming through the forest. He is not in the least responsible for what he is . . .” And I went on to tell him about the bear which once came to the hut of a great saint who was seeking salvation in the forest. The saint, feeling great tenderness for the beast, came out fearlessly, gave it a loaf of bread, and said: “There, go along now, and may Christ be with you.” And the fierce bear went off obediently and meekly without hurting the saint.

The boy was deeply moved by the story, because the beast had not hurt the saint and because Christ was with him, too. “Ah,” he said, “how wonderful it is, how everything of God’s is good and beautiful!” And he sat there deep in quiet, sweet thoughts. I saw then that he understood. Then, by my side, he slipped into an easy, sinless sleep. May God bless the young! Before I went to sleep myself, I prayed for him. O Lord, send peace and light to Your people!

C. Reminiscences of Elder Zosima’s Worldly Youth. The Duel

I spent a long time, almost eight years, at the Petersburg Cadet Corps School, and my new environment stifled many of my childhood impressions, although I forgot nothing. I picked up enough new habits and even new opinions there to turn me into a cruel, absurd, almost wild creature. While I acquired a varnish of good manners and some French, I also learned to look upon the soldiers who waited on us at the school as cattle. And I, inclined as I was to carry everything to an extreme, treated them perhaps worse than anybody. By the time we graduated from the school and received our officers’ commissions, we were prepared, at a moment’s notice, to shed our blood for the honor of our regiment, although hardly one of us had any idea of the true meaning of the word “honor,” and if any of us had known, he would have been the first to ridicule it. Drunkenness, debauchery, and rowdyism were almost matters for pride. And although I cannot say that we were evil—nice young men that we were—we certainly behaved badly, and I worst of all. The main trouble was that I came into some money and started spending it in the pursuit of pleasure with the total recklessness and abandon of youth. Strangely enough, though, at the same time, I read books, and quite avidly at that. The only book I never opened then was my Bible, from which I had never parted and which always accompanied me in all my travels; I was keeping it, without realizing it myself, “for an hour and a day, a month and a year.”

After I had lived four years of this life in the army, my regiment was moved to K. The social life in that town was varied and gay; there were many rich people and we were invited to their homes and entertained. I was welcomed everywhere, being of a gay disposition and also having a reputation as being rather well off, which does count for something in social relations.

And then something happened that was to change the course of my life. I became interested in a pretty young girl. She was intelligent, well bred, bright, and generous, and her parents were highly respected in town. They occupied a rather prominent social position, were wealthy, and had good connections. They received me warmly and well. Then somehow I got the impression that their daughter had romantic feelings for me and at once my imagination was fired. Later, however, I realized that it was no passionate love that I felt for her. I simply admired her intelligence and the nobility of her character, which no one could help admiring. Besides, selfishness prevented me from asking for her hand, because I could not face giving up the freedom and joys of my debauched bachelor life when I was still so young and had money to spend. And so I decided at least to postpone for the time being the final step, although I did drop a few hints about my feelings for her.

Then I was suddenly sent on duty to another district and when I returned two months later, I learned to my surprise that during my absence the girl had married a wealthy local landowner. He was somewhat older than I, but still young, and he had connections in Petersburg high society, which I did not have. He was also very kind and, what is more, a man of high culture, such as I myself did not have at all.

I was so shocked by the news that I lost all sense of reality. But the most painful part of it for me was when I learned that the young landowner had been engaged to the girl for a long time, for, although I had met him at her house, I had never suspected there could be anything between the two of them, deluded as I was by what I thought were my own irresistible charms. And this is what actually hurt me most: how could it be that everyone else knew about it except me? It made me blush just to think how close I had come, on so many occasions, to blurting out a declaration of my love! And since she had never said anything to me, had never told me of her engagement, she was, I decided, mocking me. Thinking about it later, I realized that she certainly was not trying to make fun of me, for, whenever I had started to speak to her about my feelings, she had invariably warded me off with a joke and talked of something else. But at the time I was quite unable to see it that way and was filled with an overwhelming desire to avenge myself. It amazes me now when I think of it—this anger and desire for revenge quite pained and sickened me, for, being by nature rather easy-going, I could not be angry with anyone for long and so I had to kindle these feelings artificially, which made me quite unbearable and absurd.

I bided my time, until, at a large gathering, I found an opportunity to insult the man I somehow considered my rival. I picked an unrelated pretext, trying to ridicule his opinion on an important political event—this was in 1826. People said that I succeeded in making fun of him bitingly and wittily. I maneuvered him into a position in which he had to ask me for an explanation and, in the course of that explanation, I was so rude to him that he at once challenged me, despite the great difference in our social positions—not only was I younger than he, but I was a man of no consequence and of low rank. Later I found out that he responded to my provocation because he, too, somehow felt jealous of me: he had rather resented my past friendship with his wife—his fiancée at the time—and now he feared that if she learned I had insulted him and he had not challenged me to a duel, she might come to despise him and then would not love him as before.

I found a second right away—a lieutenant from my regiment. At that time, although dueling had been outlawed and was severely punished, it was very much in fashion in the army, for wild and stupid customs have a way of taking root and becoming firmly established.

It was the end of June and we were to meet outside of town at seven in the morning. At this point something fateful happened to me. On the evening before, I returned home in a nasty, ugly mood, lost my temper with my orderly Afanasy, and rammed my fist into his face twice, bloodying it. He had not been with me for very long and, although I had hit him a few times before, I had never indulged in such unrestrained brutality. And please believe me, my dear friends, although all this happened more than forty years ago, I still feel pain and shame when I think of it.

I went to bed, slept for three hours or so, and awakened to find the day already breaking. I could not go back to sleep so I got up, went to the window, and opened it. My window, which gave onto the garden, faced the rising sun. It was a warm and beautiful morning and the twittering of the birds was beginning to fill the air. But what this shameful and distasteful feeling within me was, I could not explain. Was it because I was about to shed blood? No, that didn’t seem to be what was bothering me. Was I afraid of being killed, afraid to die? No, that was certainly not it, that couldn’t be . . . And then, all of a sudden, I found it! It was because I had struck Afanasy the night before. I relived the whole scene: there he was in front of me. I swung my fist back and slammed it in his face . . . He was still facing forward; his arms stiffly at his sides, he stood to attention, not even dreaming of lifting his hand to ward off my blows, which only made his head jerk back. And this is what a man can be driven to do—to beat another man! I knew it was a crime and the realization was like a long, sharp needle piercing my heart. So I stood there like a lost soul while the sun shone, the little leaves shimmered gaily in the light, and the birds praised the Lord. I covered my face with my hands, threw myself on my bed, and wept aloud like a child. Suddenly the words of my brother Markel came back to me, the words he had spoken before his death, when he had asked the servants why they were so kind to him and waited on him, and had wondered if he deserved their services. And I asked myself: “Do I deserve to be waited on? Why should another man, made in the image of the Lord, just like me, be my servant?” It was the first time this question had arisen in my mind. And I remembered my brother Markel saying, “Mother, my own dear blood, every one of us is answerable for everyone else, but we don’t know it; if we did, we would at once have heaven on earth!” Might that not be true? I felt tears come to my eyes and I thought: “Perhaps I am really guilty before everyone; indeed, I must be guiltier and worse than anybody else in the world.” And suddenly I saw my whole situation in its true light: What was I about to do now? Wasn’t I planning to kill a kind, intelligent, and honorable man, who had never done me any harm? Would that not also bring to an end his wife’s happiness, make her miserable, and perhaps even kill her?