The Brothers Karamazov - The Original Classic Edition. Dostoyevsky Fyodor

"We are all to blame for this scandalous scene," he said hotly. "But I did not foresee it when I came, though I knew with whom I had to deal. This must be stopped at once! Believe me, your reverence, I had no precise knowledge of the details that have just come to light, I was unwilling to believe them, and I learn for the first time.... A father is jealous of his son's relations with a woman of loose behavior and intrigues with the creature to get his son into prison! This is the company in which I have been forced to be present! I was deceived. I declare to you all that I was as much deceived as any one."

       "Dmitri Fyodorovitch," yelled Fyodor Pavlovitch suddenly, in an unnatural voice, "if you were not my son I would challenge you this instant to a duel ... with pistols, at three paces ... across a handkerchief," he ended, stamping with both feet.

       With old liars who have been acting all their lives there are moments when they enter so completely into their part that they tremble or shed tears of emotion in earnest, although at that very moment, or a second later, they are able to whisper to themselves, "You know you are lying, you shameless old sinner! You're acting now, in spite of your 'holy' wrath."

       Dmitri frowned painfully, and looked with unutterable contempt at his father.

       "I thought ... I thought," he said, in a soft and, as it were, controlled voice, "that I was coming to my native place with the angel of

       my heart, my betrothed, to cherish his old age, and I find nothing but a depraved profligate, a despicable clown!"

       "A duel!" yelled the old wretch again, breathless and spluttering [pg 076] at each syllable. "And you, Pyotr Alexandrovitch Miusov, let me tell you that there has never been in all your family a loftier, and more honest--you hear--more honest woman than this 'creature,' as you have dared to call her! And you, Dmitri Fyodorovitch, have abandoned your betrothed for that 'creature,' so you must yourself have thought that your betrothed couldn't hold a candle to her. That's the woman called a 'creature'!"

       "Shameful!" broke from Father Iosif.

       "Shameful and disgraceful!" Kalganov, flushing crimson, cried in a boyish voice, trembling with emotion. He had been silent till that

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       moment.

       "Why is such a man alive?" Dmitri, beside himself with rage, growled in a hollow voice, hunching up his shoulders till he looked al-most deformed. "Tell me, can he be allowed to go on defiling the earth?" He looked round at every one and pointed at the old man. He spoke evenly and deliberately.

       "Listen, listen, monks, to the parricide!" cried Fyodor Pavlovitch, rushing up to Father Iosif. "That's the answer to your 'shameful!' What is shameful? That 'creature,' that 'woman of loose behavior' is perhaps holier than you are yourselves, you monks who are seeking salvation! She fell perhaps in her youth, ruined by her environment. But she loved much, and Christ himself forgave the woman 'who loved much.' "

       "It was not for such love Christ forgave her," broke impatiently from the gentle Father Iosif.

       "Yes, it was for such, monks, it was! You save your souls here, eating cabbage, and think you are the righteous. You eat a gudgeon a day, and you think you bribe God with gudgeon."

       "This is unendurable!" was heard on all sides in the cell.

       But this unseemly scene was cut short in a most unexpected way. Father Zossima rose suddenly from his seat. Almost distracted with anxiety for the elder and every one else, Alyosha succeeded, however, in supporting him by the arm. Father Zossima moved towards Dmitri and reaching him sank on his knees before him. Alyosha thought that he had fallen from weakness, but this was not so. The elder distinctly and deliberately bowed down at Dmitri's feet till his forehead touched the floor. Alyosha was so astounded that he [pg

       077] failed to assist him when he got up again. There was a faint smile on his lips. "Good-by! Forgive me, all of you!" he said, bowing on all sides to his guests.

       Dmitri stood for a few moments in amazement. Bowing down to him--what did it mean? Suddenly he cried aloud, "Oh, God!" hid his face in his hands, and rushed out of the room. All the guests flocked out after him, in their confusion not saying good-by, or bowing to their host. Only the monks went up to him again for a blessing.

       "What did it mean, falling at his feet like that? Was it symbolic or what?" said Fyodor Pavlovitch, suddenly quieted and trying to reopen conversation without venturing to address anybody in particular. They were all passing out of the precincts of the hermitage at the moment.

       "I can't answer for a madhouse and for madmen," Miusov answered at once ill-humoredly, "but I will spare myself your company, Fyodor Pavlovitch, and, trust me, for ever. Where's that monk?"

       "That monk," that is, the monk who had invited them to dine with the Superior, did not keep them waiting. He met them as soon as they came down the steps from the elder's cell, as though he had been waiting for them all the time.

       "Reverend Father, kindly do me a favor. Convey my deepest respect to the Father Superior, apologize for me, personally, Miusov, to his reverence, telling him that I deeply regret that owing to unforeseen circumstances I am unable to have the honor of being present at his table, greatly as I should desire to do so," Miusov said irritably to the monk.

       "And that unforeseen circumstance, of course, is myself," Fyodor Pavlovitch cut in immediately. "Do you hear, Father; this gentleman doesn't want to remain in my company or else he'd come at once. And you shall go, Pyotr Alexandrovitch, pray go to the Father Superior and good appetite to you. I will decline, and not you. Home, home, I'll eat at home, I don't feel equal to it here, Pyotr Alexandrovitch, my amiable relative."

       "I am not your relative and never have been, you contemptible man!" [pg 078]

       "I said it on purpose to madden you, because you always disclaim the relationship, though you really are a relation in spite of your

       shuffling. I'll prove it by the church calendar. As for you, Ivan, stay if you like. I'll send the horses for you later. Propriety requires

       you to go to the Father Superior, Pyotr Alexandrovitch, to apologize for the disturbance we've been making...."

       "Is it true that you are going home? Aren't you lying?"

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       "Pyotr Alexandrovitch! How could I dare after what's happened! Forgive me, gentlemen, I was carried away! And upset besides! And, indeed, I am ashamed. Gentlemen, one man has the heart of Alexander of Macedon and another the heart of the little dog Fido. Mine is that of the little dog Fido. I am ashamed! After such an escapade how can I go to dinner, to gobble up the monastery's sauces? I am ashamed, I can't. You must excuse me!"

       "The devil only knows, what if he deceives us?" thought Miusov, still hesitating, and watching the retreating buffoon with distrustful eyes. The latter turned round, and noticing that Miusov was watching him, waved him a kiss.

       "Well, are you coming to the Superior?" Miusov asked Ivan abruptly. "Why not? I was especially invited yesterday."

       "Unfortunately I feel myself compelled to go to this confounded dinner," said Miusov with the same irritability, regardless of the

       fact that the monk was listening. "We ought, at least, to apologize for the disturbance, and explain that it was not our doing. What do you think?"

       "Yes, we must explain that it wasn't our doing. Besides, father won't be there," observed Ivan. "Well, I should hope not! Confound this dinner!"

       They all walked on, however. The monk listened in silence. On the road through the copse he made one observation however--that the Father Superior had been waiting a long time, and that they were more than half an hour late. He received no answer. Miusov looked with hatred at Ivan.

       "Here he is, going to the dinner as though nothing had happened," he thought. "A brazen face, and the conscience of a Karamazov!"

       [pg 079]

       Chapter VII. A Young Man Bent On A Career

       Alyosha helped Father Zossima to his bedroom and seated him on his bed. It was a little room furnished with the bare necessities. There was a narrow iron bedstead, with a strip of felt for a mattress. In the corner, under the ikons, was a reading-desk with a cross and the Gospel