finished_summaries/cliffnotes/The Brothers Karamazov/section_0_part_0.txt
The Brothers Karamazov.book i.chapter i-chapter v
book i
{"name": "Book I", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201219142226/https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/b/the-brothers-karamazov/summary-and-analysis/part-1-book-i", "summary": "Karamazov: the name is well-known in Russia; it carries a taste of violence and dark Slavic passion. And there is much truth in the rumors and whispered tales told of Fyodor Karamazov. In his youth he was a loud profligate. His drinking and high living were notorious; he seemed insatiate. And marriage did not tame him. His marriage, true to form, was scandalous. But initially it was not scandalous because of its melodramatic elements -- that was to be expected; life with Karamazov could not be otherwise. Initially, Karamazov's marriage was scandalous because it was romantic: he was penniless yet he wooed and married an heiress. Adelaida Ivanovna believed in her young rebel-husband. Perhaps his spirit was bold and irrepressible, but he was the new breed of liberal Russian manhood. She believed it firmly. She tried to believe it for a long time. Then she was forced to face the ugly reality that instead of a rich-blooded idealist she had married an opportunist who was physically cruel and usually drunk. She also was forced to face another unpleasant truth: she was pregnant. She bore the baby, a son -- Dmitri, or Mitya as she often called him -- and when she could no longer endure her husband's viciousness, she abandoned both her son and husband and eloped with a young student. Karamazov, ostensibly, was staggered by her rejection and, still the overly dramatic sort, like a loud tragedian he spent many of his days driving through the country, lamenting over his wife's desertion. But even that pose grew wearisome and soon he returned to his life of debauchery. When he received the news of Adelaida's death he was in the midst of a drunken orgy. Young Dmitri was neglected and finally taken in by a cousin and when the cousin tired of him the child was given to other relatives; thus the baby grew up with a variety of families. But he was always told about his real father, that the man still lived, and that he held a rather large piece of Adelaida's property that was rightfully Dmitri's. The boy never forgot these tales of land and money and when he reached maturity, he visited his father and asked about the inheritance. He was unable, of course, to get any information from the old man but he began receiving small sums of money and, convinced that the property did exist, he revisited his father. Again the old man evaded his son's questions. But if Karamazov was able to evade Dmitri, he could not evade other matters so successfully -- the problems of his other sons, for example. For after the four-year-old Dmitri was taken away, Karamazov married a second time. This wife, Sofya Ivanovna, was remarkably beautiful and her loveliness and her innocence attracted the lustful Karamazov. He convinced her to elope with him against her guardian's wishes and quickly took advantage of her meekness. He began having loose women in the house and even carried on orgies of debauchery in her presence. During Karamazov's years of cruelty and depravity, Sofya Ivanovna gave birth to two sons, Ivan and Alyosha. But she was not well and did not feel loved despite the attentions of old Grigory, the servant who did his best to comfort her and protect her from Karamazov. In spite of his care, she soon fell ill and died. When her former guardian heard about her death, she came and took the two boys, Ivan and Alyosha, with her and upon her own death she left a thousand rubles to each boy for his education. Ivan Karamazov developed into a brilliant student who helped support himself by writing for journals. He slowly began to make a name for himself in literary circles. One of his articles, for instance, dealt with the function of the ecclesiastical courts; it attracted widespread interest and even the monastery in his native town spoke of it. Alyosha, the youngest Karamazov, developed into a devoutly religious person, his faith based on reality and untinged by mysticism or fanaticism. He was universally well liked, never criticized anyone, and seemed to love everyone. As the action of the novel begins, Alyosha returns to his father's house and meets his brothers. He and Dmitri rapidly become good friends, but he feels puzzled by Ivan's reserve and intellectuality. As for his father, Alyosha openly loves him; he has never criticized or condemned his father's way of life. Alyosha has always been generous and forgiving, thus it was that Karamazov was not surprised when Alyosha first told him that he wanted to become a monk, the disciple of the renowned elder, Zossima. In those days, incidentally, an elder was often controversial. \"An elder,\" it was said, \"was one who took your soul, your will, into his soul and his will.\" But elder, by also setting exemplary models of holiness in their own lives, often attracted large numbers of followers. The Karamazovs are reunited, and the reason for their reunion deeply concerns Alyosha. The discord between Dmitri and his father has reached such a point that one of them, apparently the father, has suggested a meeting in Father Zossima's cell, where they can discuss differences under the conciliating influence of the elder. Alyosha, who understands his brothers and his father better than most people think, greatly fears the meeting.", "analysis": "The Brothers Karamazov is often considered one of the world's most complex novels. Dostoevsky examines many different facets of life, investigates many problems of lasting importance, and is able to do so successfully in this novel because the mere size and bulk of the book allows him to proceed with deliberate slowness in introducing and developing his ideas. Attempting in these Commentaries, however, to isolate some of the main ideas and to analyze them destroys the essential unity of the novel. Part of its greatness is the manner in which Dostoevsky is able to integrate all the divergent elements into one unified whole. Each idea borders upon another and is somewhat vitiated when isolated from the remainder of the novel. In the complex spirit of the novel and in the leisurely nineteenth-century fashion of giving the intricate background of the main characters, Dostoevsky begins his book, then immediately establishes its tone. He first announces the element of mystery in the novel -- the \"gloomy and tragic death\" of Karamazov -- and then begins defining the elements of tragedy -- especially the Karamazov tragedy. The older Karamazov is depicted as base, vulgar, ill-natured, and completely degraded, and his \"tragic\" death will be revealed to be tragic only because his sons are implicated in the death -- not because Karamazov himself arouses tragic emotion. In fact, in the trial scene later in the book, it is pointed out that the murder is not a parricide in the truest sense because Fyodor Karamazov never functioned as a proper father. To support this idea, Dostoevsky begins at the very outset of the novel to show the blackness and vulgarity of the man who is to be murdered. To emphasize the monster within Karamazov, Dostoevsky illustrates the lack of paternal instincts. Karamazov did not discard his children from hatred or malice; he simply forgot about their existence. Furthermore, he was pleased each time that strangers came and took the children and therefore released him from responsibility; this allowed him to devote all his energy to his various orgies. One of Dostoevsky's ideas, prominent throughout the novel, then, concerns the place of the child in society. This theme receives its first expression in the chapter dealing with Fyodor Karamazov's treatment of his children. In Chapter 2, Dostoevsky tells us that Dmitri \"was the only one of Fyodor Pavlovitch's three sons who grew up in the belief that he had property and that he would be independent on coming of age.\" This idea is established early in the novel because it becomes the source of the antagonism existing between father and son. Dostoevsky carefully avoids making a direct statement about the full extent to which the father has cheated his son, but by the manner in which he arranges his descriptions of the father, we can assume that Fyodor has indeed cheated Dmitri out of a major portion of the inheritance. It is also noteworthy that, of the three sons, Dmitri is the only one whom the father intensely dislikes. This is easily explained: the other two sons make no financial demands upon the father; only Dmitri insists upon having his inheritance. Following his thorough characterization of the older Karamazov, Dostoevsky devotes the next several chapters to the offspring -- the brothers Karamazov, as different from one another as can be imagined. Dmitri, throughout the novel, develops into the extreme sensualist, the emotional son. He did not complete his education; instead, he worked his way up through the military ranks to become an officer. He lacked discipline, however, and soon became involved in a duel and was demoted. Later he gained promotion again. But his deeds and emotions are fluid and fluctuating. He has, for instance, an instinctive dislike for his father but forms an immediate friendship with his brother Alyosha. He is the fiery-hearted, fierce, and emotional person who is easily swayed by his feelings. Ivan, on the other hand, is the cold intellectual. At an early age, he developed his propensity for study and his unusual aptitude for learning. He is the very proud son, always conscious that his early training was at someone else's expense. He began, therefore, as soon as possible, to write reviews in order to support himself, and before arriving in his native town, he has published a widely read, widely discussed article about the ecclesiastical courts. This article is the subject of a conversation in the next book between the monks and Ivan. In contrast to his two brothers, Alyosha has none of Ivan's pride, nor is he as fiery as Dmitri. He is \"simply an early lover of humanity,\" one who always tries to see the best side of everyone. He possesses an implicit trust in all people and, in all his relationships, he never judges others. Beneath his modest exterior, however, is a penetrating and understanding mind that detects many subtleties and distinctions. Alyosha is of course deeply religious but he is not the fanatical sort who bases his faith upon miracles. He is the complete realist who arrived at his beliefs concerning immortality and God through reasoning. While presenting the characteristics of the three Karamazov sons, Dostoevsky introduces another principal theme -- the conflict between faith and disbelief. Alyosha and Ivan represent the two opposite poles of acceptance, and it is only natural that they do not become intimate friends at first. Alyosha, however, is perceptive enough to understand Ivan's problem. He knows that \"Ivan was absorbed in something -- something inward and important that he was striving toward, some goal, perhaps very hard to attain and that was why he had no thought for him.\" Looking forward, we realize that Ivan will forever struggle with the idea of belief and immortality and that this struggle will form one of the most dramatic sections of the novel. In contrast, Dmitri will slowly become a person of faith. He and Alyosha, consequently, become intimate friends from the very beginning. In all his writing, Dostoevsky was interested in the psychology of actions. He was particularly interested in the nature of contradictory actions. Many of his characters therefore perform actions that do not seem consistent with their personalities. Dostoevsky often investigates this idea in an attempt to understand why a person who acts in a certain manner will often perform an action that seemingly contradicts his nature. In the character of the father, for example, he shows Fyodor visiting the grave of his first wife and being so touched by her memory that he gives a thousand rubles to the monastery for requiems. For a man usually so miserly with money and not professing a belief in God, this action is strange and contradictory. Dostoevsky comments that \"strange impulses of sudden feeling and sudden thought are common in such types.\" Later he also writes that Fyodor \"was wicked and sentimental,\" and, even though the question of contradictory actions is never solved by Dostoevsky, it does occupy portions of the novel, and the reader should be aware of the investigation. The introduction of Zossima concludes the first book, the brief introduction being a transitional device. Zossima, one should be aware, will hold center stage in the following section. His role is important because he is antithetical to all but one of the vigorous Karamazov clan. He is a passive sort, yet he influences the decisive actions of Alyosha and thus influences the course of the novel. Dostoevsky attempts, in the character of the elder, to present the almost perfect person, and his characterization is convincing. So convincing, in fact, is it to Alyosha that his beliefs are shaken at Zossima's death. He has convinced himself that after the elder's death, Zossima would bring extraordinary glory to the monastery. Death is rarely that simple. The fact that Zossima decomposes so rapidly weighs heavily on Alyosha, and he is therefore tempted to question the validity of God's justice."}
PART I Book I. The History Of A Family Chapter I. Fyodor Pavlovitch Karamazov


Alexey Fyodorovitch Karamazov was the third son of Fyodor Pavlovitch
Karamazov, a land owner well known in our district in his own day, and
still remembered among us owing to his gloomy and tragic death, which
happened thirteen years ago, and which I shall describe in its proper
place. For the present I will only say that this "landowner"--for so we
used to call him, although he hardly spent a day of his life on his own
estate--was a strange type, yet one pretty frequently to be met with, a
type abject and vicious and at the same time senseless. But he was one of
those senseless persons who are very well capable of looking after their
worldly affairs, and, apparently, after nothing else. Fyodor Pavlovitch,
for instance, began with next to nothing; his estate was of the smallest;
he ran to dine at other men's tables, and fastened on them as a toady, yet
at his death it appeared that he had a hundred thousand roubles in hard
cash. At the same time, he was all his life one of the most senseless,
fantastical fellows in the whole district. I repeat, it was not
stupidity--the majority of these fantastical fellows are shrewd and
intelligent enough--but just senselessness, and a peculiar national form of
it.

He was married twice, and had three sons, the eldest, Dmitri, by his first
wife, and two, Ivan and Alexey, by his second. Fyodor Pavlovitch's first
wife, Adelaida Ivanovna, belonged to a fairly rich and distinguished noble
family, also landowners in our district, the Miuesovs. How it came to pass
that an heiress, who was also a beauty, and moreover one of those
vigorous, intelligent girls, so common in this generation, but sometimes
also to be found in the last, could have married such a worthless, puny
weakling, as we all called him, I won't attempt to explain. I knew a young
lady of the last "romantic" generation who after some years of an
enigmatic passion for a gentleman, whom she might quite easily have
married at any moment, invented insuperable obstacles to their union, and
ended by throwing herself one stormy night into a rather deep and rapid
river from a high bank, almost a precipice, and so perished, entirely to
satisfy her own caprice, and to be like Shakespeare's Ophelia. Indeed, if
this precipice, a chosen and favorite spot of hers, had been less
picturesque, if there had been a prosaic flat bank in its place, most
likely the suicide would never have taken place. This is a fact, and
probably there have been not a few similar instances in the last two or
three generations. Adelaida Ivanovna Miuesov's action was similarly, no
doubt, an echo of other people's ideas, and was due to the irritation
caused by lack of mental freedom. She wanted, perhaps, to show her
feminine independence, to override class distinctions and the despotism of
her family. And a pliable imagination persuaded her, we must suppose, for
a brief moment, that Fyodor Pavlovitch, in spite of his parasitic
position, was one of the bold and ironical spirits of that progressive
epoch, though he was, in fact, an ill-natured buffoon and nothing more.
What gave the marriage piquancy was that it was preceded by an elopement,
and this greatly captivated Adelaida Ivanovna's fancy. Fyodor Pavlovitch's
position at the time made him specially eager for any such enterprise, for
he was passionately anxious to make a career in one way or another. To
attach himself to a good family and obtain a dowry was an alluring
prospect. As for mutual love it did not exist apparently, either in the
bride or in him, in spite of Adelaida Ivanovna's beauty. This was,
perhaps, a unique case of the kind in the life of Fyodor Pavlovitch, who
was always of a voluptuous temper, and ready to run after any petticoat on
the slightest encouragement. She seems to have been the only woman who
made no particular appeal to his senses.

Immediately after the elopement Adelaida Ivanovna discerned in a flash
that she had no feeling for her husband but contempt. The marriage
accordingly showed itself in its true colors with extraordinary rapidity.
Although the family accepted the event pretty quickly and apportioned the
runaway bride her dowry, the husband and wife began to lead a most
disorderly life, and there were everlasting scenes between them. It was
said that the young wife showed incomparably more generosity and dignity
than Fyodor Pavlovitch, who, as is now known, got hold of all her money up
to twenty-five thousand roubles as soon as she received it, so that those
thousands were lost to her for ever. The little village and the rather
fine town house which formed part of her dowry he did his utmost for a
long time to transfer to his name, by means of some deed of conveyance. He
would probably have succeeded, merely from her moral fatigue and desire to
get rid of him, and from the contempt and loathing he aroused by his
persistent and shameless importunity. But, fortunately, Adelaida
Ivanovna's family intervened and circumvented his greediness. It is known
for a fact that frequent fights took place between the husband and wife,
but rumor had it that Fyodor Pavlovitch did not beat his wife but was
beaten by her, for she was a hot-tempered, bold, dark-browed, impatient
woman, possessed of remarkable physical strength. Finally, she left the
house and ran away from Fyodor Pavlovitch with a destitute divinity
student, leaving Mitya, a child of three years old, in her husband's
hands. Immediately Fyodor Pavlovitch introduced a regular harem into the
house, and abandoned himself to orgies of drunkenness. In the intervals he
used to drive all over the province, complaining tearfully to each and all
of Adelaida Ivanovna's having left him, going into details too disgraceful
for a husband to mention in regard to his own married life. What seemed to
gratify him and flatter his self-love most was to play the ridiculous part
of the injured husband, and to parade his woes with embellishments.

"One would think that you'd got a promotion, Fyodor Pavlovitch, you seem
so pleased in spite of your sorrow," scoffers said to him. Many even added
that he was glad of a new comic part in which to play the buffoon, and
that it was simply to make it funnier that he pretended to be unaware of
his ludicrous position. But, who knows, it may have been simplicity. At
last he succeeded in getting on the track of his runaway wife. The poor
woman turned out to be in Petersburg, where she had gone with her divinity
student, and where she had thrown herself into a life of complete
emancipation. Fyodor Pavlovitch at once began bustling about, making
preparations to go to Petersburg, with what object he could not himself
have said. He would perhaps have really gone; but having determined to do
so he felt at once entitled to fortify himself for the journey by another
bout of reckless drinking. And just at that time his wife's family
received the news of her death in Petersburg. She had died quite suddenly
in a garret, according to one story, of typhus, or as another version had
it, of starvation. Fyodor Pavlovitch was drunk when he heard of his wife's
death, and the story is that he ran out into the street and began shouting
with joy, raising his hands to Heaven: "Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant
depart in peace," but others say he wept without restraint like a little
child, so much so that people were sorry for him, in spite of the
repulsion he inspired. It is quite possible that both versions were true,
that he rejoiced at his release, and at the same time wept for her who
released him. As a general rule, people, even the wicked, are much more
naive and simple-hearted than we suppose. And we ourselves are, too.




Chapter II. He Gets Rid Of His Eldest Son


You can easily imagine what a father such a man could be and how he would
bring up his children. His behavior as a father was exactly what might be
expected. He completely abandoned the child of his marriage with Adelaida
Ivanovna, not from malice, nor because of his matrimonial grievances, but
simply because he forgot him. While he was wearying every one with his
tears and complaints, and turning his house into a sink of debauchery, a
faithful servant of the family, Grigory, took the three-year-old Mitya
into his care. If he hadn't looked after him there would have been no one
even to change the baby's little shirt.

It happened moreover that the child's relations on his mother's side
forgot him too at first. His grandfather was no longer living, his widow,
Mitya's grandmother, had moved to Moscow, and was seriously ill, while his
daughters were married, so that Mitya remained for almost a whole year in
old Grigory's charge and lived with him in the servant's cottage. But if
his father had remembered him (he could not, indeed, have been altogether
unaware of his existence) he would have sent him back to the cottage, as
the child would only have been in the way of his debaucheries. But a
cousin of Mitya's mother, Pyotr Alexandrovitch Miuesov, happened to return
from Paris. He lived for many years afterwards abroad, but was at that
time quite a young man, and distinguished among the Miuesovs as a man of
enlightened ideas and of European culture, who had been in the capitals
and abroad. Towards the end of his life he became a Liberal of the type
common in the forties and fifties. In the course of his career he had come
into contact with many of the most Liberal men of his epoch, both in
Russia and abroad. He had known Proudhon and Bakunin personally, and in
his declining years was very fond of describing the three days of the
Paris Revolution of February 1848, hinting that he himself had almost
taken part in the fighting on the barricades. This was one of the most
grateful recollections of his youth. He had an independent property of
about a thousand souls, to reckon in the old style. His splendid estate
lay on the outskirts of our little town and bordered on the lands of our
famous monastery, with which Pyotr Alexandrovitch began an endless
lawsuit, almost as soon as he came into the estate, concerning the rights
of fishing in the river or wood-cutting in the forest, I don't know
exactly which. He regarded it as his duty as a citizen and a man of
culture to open an attack upon the "clericals." Hearing all about Adelaida
Ivanovna, whom he, of course, remembered, and in whom he had at one time
been interested, and learning of the existence of Mitya, he intervened, in
spite of all his youthful indignation and contempt for Fyodor Pavlovitch.
He made the latter's acquaintance for the first time, and told him
directly that he wished to undertake the child's education. He used long
afterwards to tell as a characteristic touch, that when he began to speak
of Mitya, Fyodor Pavlovitch looked for some time as though he did not
understand what child he was talking about, and even as though he was
surprised to hear that he had a little son in the house. The story may
have been exaggerated, yet it must have been something like the truth.

Fyodor Pavlovitch was all his life fond of acting, of suddenly playing an
unexpected part, sometimes without any motive for doing so, and even to
his own direct disadvantage, as, for instance, in the present case. This
habit, however, is characteristic of a very great number of people, some
of them very clever ones, not like Fyodor Pavlovitch. Pyotr Alexandrovitch
carried the business through vigorously, and was appointed, with Fyodor
Pavlovitch, joint guardian of the child, who had a small property, a house
and land, left him by his mother. Mitya did, in fact, pass into this
cousin's keeping, but as the latter had no family of his own, and after
securing the revenues of his estates was in haste to return at once to
Paris, he left the boy in charge of one of his cousins, a lady living in
Moscow. It came to pass that, settling permanently in Paris he, too,
forgot the child, especially when the Revolution of February broke out,
making an impression on his mind that he remembered all the rest of his
life. The Moscow lady died, and Mitya passed into the care of one of her
married daughters. I believe he changed his home a fourth time later on. I
won't enlarge upon that now, as I shall have much to tell later of Fyodor
Pavlovitch's firstborn, and must confine myself now to the most essential
facts about him, without which I could not begin my story.

In the first place, this Mitya, or rather Dmitri Fyodorovitch, was the
only one of Fyodor Pavlovitch's three sons who grew up in the belief that
he had property, and that he would be independent on coming of age. He
spent an irregular boyhood and youth. He did not finish his studies at the
gymnasium, he got into a military school, then went to the Caucasus, was
promoted, fought a duel, and was degraded to the ranks, earned promotion
again, led a wild life, and spent a good deal of money. He did not begin
to receive any income from Fyodor Pavlovitch until he came of age, and
until then got into debt. He saw and knew his father, Fyodor Pavlovitch,
for the first time on coming of age, when he visited our neighborhood on
purpose to settle with him about his property. He seems not to have liked
his father. He did not stay long with him, and made haste to get away,
having only succeeded in obtaining a sum of money, and entering into an
agreement for future payments from the estate, of the revenues and value
of which he was unable (a fact worthy of note), upon this occasion, to get
a statement from his father. Fyodor Pavlovitch remarked for the first time
then (this, too, should be noted) that Mitya had a vague and exaggerated
idea of his property. Fyodor Pavlovitch was very well satisfied with this,
as it fell in with his own designs. He gathered only that the young man
was frivolous, unruly, of violent passions, impatient, and dissipated, and
that if he could only obtain ready money he would be satisfied, although
only, of course, for a short time. So Fyodor Pavlovitch began to take
advantage of this fact, sending him from time to time small doles,
installments. In the end, when four years later, Mitya, losing patience,
came a second time to our little town to settle up once for all with his
father, it turned out to his amazement that he had nothing, that it was
difficult to get an account even, that he had received the whole value of
his property in sums of money from Fyodor Pavlovitch, and was perhaps even
in debt to him, that by various agreements into which he had, of his own
desire, entered at various previous dates, he had no right to expect
anything more, and so on, and so on. The young man was overwhelmed,
suspected deceit and cheating, and was almost beside himself. And, indeed,
this circumstance led to the catastrophe, the account of which forms the
subject of my first introductory story, or rather the external side of it.
But before I pass to that story I must say a little of Fyodor Pavlovitch's
other two sons, and of their origin.




Chapter III. The Second Marriage And The Second Family


Very shortly after getting his four-year-old Mitya off his hands Fyodor
Pavlovitch married a second time. His second marriage lasted eight years.
He took this second wife, Sofya Ivanovna, also a very young girl, from
another province, where he had gone upon some small piece of business in
company with a Jew. Though Fyodor Pavlovitch was a drunkard and a vicious
debauchee he never neglected investing his capital, and managed his
business affairs very successfully, though, no doubt, not over-
scrupulously. Sofya Ivanovna was the daughter of an obscure deacon, and
was left from childhood an orphan without relations. She grew up in the
house of a general's widow, a wealthy old lady of good position, who was
at once her benefactress and tormentor. I do not know the details, but I
have only heard that the orphan girl, a meek and gentle creature, was once
cut down from a halter in which she was hanging from a nail in the loft,
so terrible were her sufferings from the caprice and everlasting nagging
of this old woman, who was apparently not bad-hearted but had become an
insufferable tyrant through idleness.

Fyodor Pavlovitch made her an offer; inquiries were made about him and he
was refused. But again, as in his first marriage, he proposed an elopement
to the orphan girl. There is very little doubt that she would not on any
account have married him if she had known a little more about him in time.
But she lived in another province; besides, what could a little girl of
sixteen know about it, except that she would be better at the bottom of
the river than remaining with her benefactress. So the poor child
exchanged a benefactress for a benefactor. Fyodor Pavlovitch did not get a
penny this time, for the general's widow was furious. She gave them
nothing and cursed them both. But he had not reckoned on a dowry; what
allured him was the remarkable beauty of the innocent girl, above all her
innocent appearance, which had a peculiar attraction for a vicious
profligate, who had hitherto admired only the coarser types of feminine
beauty.

"Those innocent eyes slit my soul up like a razor," he used to say
afterwards, with his loathsome snigger. In a man so depraved this might,
of course, mean no more than sensual attraction. As he had received no
dowry with his wife, and had, so to speak, taken her "from the halter," he
did not stand on ceremony with her. Making her feel that she had "wronged"
him, he took advantage of her phenomenal meekness and submissiveness to
trample on the elementary decencies of marriage. He gathered loose women
into his house, and carried on orgies of debauchery in his wife's
presence. To show what a pass things had come to, I may mention that
Grigory, the gloomy, stupid, obstinate, argumentative servant, who had
always hated his first mistress, Adelaida Ivanovna, took the side of his
new mistress. He championed her cause, abusing Fyodor Pavlovitch in a
manner little befitting a servant, and on one occasion broke up the revels
and drove all the disorderly women out of the house. In the end this
unhappy young woman, kept in terror from her childhood, fell into that
kind of nervous disease which is most frequently found in peasant women
who are said to be "possessed by devils." At times after terrible fits of
hysterics she even lost her reason. Yet she bore Fyodor Pavlovitch two
sons, Ivan and Alexey, the eldest in the first year of marriage and the
second three years later. When she died, little Alexey was in his fourth
year, and, strange as it seems, I know that he remembered his mother all
his life, like a dream, of course. At her death almost exactly the same
thing happened to the two little boys as to their elder brother, Mitya.
They were completely forgotten and abandoned by their father. They were
looked after by the same Grigory and lived in his cottage, where they were
found by the tyrannical old lady who had brought up their mother. She was
still alive, and had not, all those eight years, forgotten the insult done
her. All that time she was obtaining exact information as to her Sofya's
manner of life, and hearing of her illness and hideous surroundings she
declared aloud two or three times to her retainers:

"It serves her right. God has punished her for her ingratitude."

Exactly three months after Sofya Ivanovna's death the general's widow
suddenly appeared in our town, and went straight to Fyodor Pavlovitch's
house. She spent only half an hour in the town but she did a great deal.
It was evening. Fyodor Pavlovitch, whom she had not seen for those eight
years, came in to her drunk. The story is that instantly upon seeing him,
without any sort of explanation, she gave him two good, resounding slaps
on the face, seized him by a tuft of hair, and shook him three times up
and down. Then, without a word, she went straight to the cottage to the
two boys. Seeing, at the first glance, that they were unwashed and in
dirty linen, she promptly gave Grigory, too, a box on the ear, and
announcing that she would carry off both the children she wrapped them
just as they were in a rug, put them in the carriage, and drove off to her
own town. Grigory accepted the blow like a devoted slave, without a word,
and when he escorted the old lady to her carriage he made her a low bow
and pronounced impressively that, "God would repay her for the orphans."
"You are a blockhead all the same," the old lady shouted to him as she
drove away.

Fyodor Pavlovitch, thinking it over, decided that it was a good thing, and
did not refuse the general's widow his formal consent to any proposition
in regard to his children's education. As for the slaps she had given him,
he drove all over the town telling the story.

It happened that the old lady died soon after this, but she left the boys
in her will a thousand roubles each "for their instruction, and so that
all be spent on them exclusively, with the condition that it be so
portioned out as to last till they are twenty-one, for it is more than
adequate provision for such children. If other people think fit to throw
away their money, let them." I have not read the will myself, but I heard
there was something queer of the sort, very whimsically expressed. The
principal heir, Yefim Petrovitch Polenov, the Marshal of Nobility of the
province, turned out, however, to be an honest man. Writing to Fyodor
Pavlovitch, and discerning at once that he could extract nothing from him
for his children's education (though the latter never directly refused but
only procrastinated as he always did in such cases, and was, indeed, at
times effusively sentimental), Yefim Petrovitch took a personal interest
in the orphans. He became especially fond of the younger, Alexey, who
lived for a long while as one of his family. I beg the reader to note this
from the beginning. And to Yefim Petrovitch, a man of a generosity and
humanity rarely to be met with, the young people were more indebted for
their education and bringing up than to any one. He kept the two thousand
roubles left to them by the general's widow intact, so that by the time
they came of age their portions had been doubled by the accumulation of
interest. He educated them both at his own expense, and certainly spent
far more than a thousand roubles upon each of them. I won't enter into a
detailed account of their boyhood and youth, but will only mention a few
of the most important events. Of the elder, Ivan, I will only say that he
grew into a somewhat morose and reserved, though far from timid boy. At
ten years old he had realized that they were living not in their own home
but on other people's charity, and that their father was a man of whom it
was disgraceful to speak. This boy began very early, almost in his infancy
(so they say at least), to show a brilliant and unusual aptitude for
learning. I don't know precisely why, but he left the family of Yefim
Petrovitch when he was hardly thirteen, entering a Moscow gymnasium, and
boarding with an experienced and celebrated teacher, an old friend of
Yefim Petrovitch. Ivan used to declare afterwards that this was all due to
the "ardor for good works" of Yefim Petrovitch, who was captivated by the
idea that the boy's genius should be trained by a teacher of genius. But
neither Yefim Petrovitch nor this teacher was living when the young man
finished at the gymnasium and entered the university. As Yefim Petrovitch
had made no provision for the payment of the tyrannical old lady's legacy,
which had grown from one thousand to two, it was delayed, owing to
formalities inevitable in Russia, and the young man was in great straits
for the first two years at the university, as he was forced to keep
himself all the time he was studying. It must be noted that he did not
even attempt to communicate with his father, perhaps from pride, from
contempt for him, or perhaps from his cool common sense, which told him
that from such a father he would get no real assistance. However that may
have been, the young man was by no means despondent and succeeded in
getting work, at first giving sixpenny lessons and afterwards getting
paragraphs on street incidents into the newspapers under the signature of
"Eye-Witness." These paragraphs, it was said, were so interesting and
piquant that they were soon taken. This alone showed the young man's
practical and intellectual superiority over the masses of needy and
unfortunate students of both sexes who hang about the offices of the
newspapers and journals, unable to think of anything better than
everlasting entreaties for copying and translations from the French.
Having once got into touch with the editors Ivan Fyodorovitch always kept
up his connection with them, and in his latter years at the university he
published brilliant reviews of books upon various special subjects, so
that he became well known in literary circles. But only in his last year
he suddenly succeeded in attracting the attention of a far wider circle of
readers, so that a great many people noticed and remembered him. It was
rather a curious incident. When he had just left the university and was
preparing to go abroad upon his two thousand roubles, Ivan Fyodorovitch
published in one of the more important journals a strange article, which
attracted general notice, on a subject of which he might have been
supposed to know nothing, as he was a student of natural science. The
article dealt with a subject which was being debated everywhere at the
time--the position of the ecclesiastical courts. After discussing several
opinions on the subject he went on to explain his own view. What was most
striking about the article was its tone, and its unexpected conclusion.
Many of the Church party regarded him unquestioningly as on their side.
And yet not only the secularists but even atheists joined them in their
applause. Finally some sagacious persons opined that the article was
nothing but an impudent satirical burlesque. I mention this incident
particularly because this article penetrated into the famous monastery in
our neighborhood, where the inmates, being particularly interested in the
question of the ecclesiastical courts, were completely bewildered by it.
Learning the author's name, they were interested in his being a native of
the town and the son of "that Fyodor Pavlovitch." And just then it was
that the author himself made his appearance among us.

Why Ivan Fyodorovitch had come amongst us I remember asking myself at the
time with a certain uneasiness. This fateful visit, which was the first
step leading to so many consequences, I never fully explained to myself.
It seemed strange on the face of it that a young man so learned, so proud,
and apparently so cautious, should suddenly visit such an infamous house
and a father who had ignored him all his life, hardly knew him, never
thought of him, and would not under any circumstances have given him
money, though he was always afraid that his sons Ivan and Alexey would
also come to ask him for it. And here the young man was staying in the
house of such a father, had been living with him for two months, and they
were on the best possible terms. This last fact was a special cause of
wonder to many others as well as to me. Pyotr Alexandrovitch Miuesov, of
whom we have spoken already, the cousin of Fyodor Pavlovitch's first wife,
happened to be in the neighborhood again on a visit to his estate. He had
come from Paris, which was his permanent home. I remember that he was more
surprised than any one when he made the acquaintance of the young man, who
interested him extremely, and with whom he sometimes argued and not
without an inner pang compared himself in acquirements.

"He is proud," he used to say, "he will never be in want of pence; he has
got money enough to go abroad now. What does he want here? Every one can
see that he hasn't come for money, for his father would never give him
any. He has no taste for drink and dissipation, and yet his father can't
do without him. They get on so well together!"

That was the truth; the young man had an unmistakable influence over his
father, who positively appeared to be behaving more decently and even
seemed at times ready to obey his son, though often extremely and even
spitefully perverse.

It was only later that we learned that Ivan had come partly at the request
of, and in the interests of, his elder brother, Dmitri, whom he saw for
the first time on this very visit, though he had before leaving Moscow
been in correspondence with him about an important matter of more concern
to Dmitri than himself. What that business was the reader will learn fully
in due time. Yet even when I did know of this special circumstance I still
felt Ivan Fyodorovitch to be an enigmatic figure, and thought his visit
rather mysterious.

I may add that Ivan appeared at the time in the light of a mediator
between his father and his elder brother Dmitri, who was in open quarrel
with his father and even planning to bring an action against him.

The family, I repeat, was now united for the first time, and some of its
members met for the first time in their lives. The younger brother,
Alexey, had been a year already among us, having been the first of the
three to arrive. It is of that brother Alexey I find it most difficult to
speak in this introduction. Yet I must give some preliminary account of
him, if only to explain one queer fact, which is that I have to introduce
my hero to the reader wearing the cassock of a novice. Yes, he had been
for the last year in our monastery, and seemed willing to be cloistered
there for the rest of his life.




Chapter IV. The Third Son, Alyosha


He was only twenty, his brother Ivan was in his twenty-fourth year at the
time, while their elder brother Dmitri was twenty-seven. First of all, I
must explain that this young man, Alyosha, was not a fanatic, and, in my
opinion at least, was not even a mystic. I may as well give my full
opinion from the beginning. He was simply an early lover of humanity, and
that he adopted the monastic life was simply because at that time it
struck him, so to say, as the ideal escape for his soul struggling from
the darkness of worldly wickedness to the light of love. And the reason
this life struck him in this way was that he found in it at that time, as
he thought, an extraordinary being, our celebrated elder, Zossima, to whom
he became attached with all the warm first love of his ardent heart. But I
do not dispute that he was very strange even at that time, and had been so
indeed from his cradle. I have mentioned already, by the way, that though
he lost his mother in his fourth year he remembered her all his life--her
face, her caresses, "as though she stood living before me." Such memories
may persist, as every one knows, from an even earlier age, even from two
years old, but scarcely standing out through a whole lifetime like spots
of light out of darkness, like a corner torn out of a huge picture, which
has all faded and disappeared except that fragment. That is how it was
with him. He remembered one still summer evening, an open window, the
slanting rays of the setting sun (that he recalled most vividly of all);
in a corner of the room the holy image, before it a lighted lamp, and on
her knees before the image his mother, sobbing hysterically with cries and
moans, snatching him up in both arms, squeezing him close till it hurt,
and praying for him to the Mother of God, holding him out in both arms to
the image as though to put him under the Mother's protection ... and
suddenly a nurse runs in and snatches him from her in terror. That was the
picture! And Alyosha remembered his mother's face at that minute. He used
to say that it was frenzied but beautiful as he remembered. But he rarely
cared to speak of this memory to any one. In his childhood and youth he
was by no means expansive, and talked little indeed, but not from shyness
or a sullen unsociability; quite the contrary, from something different,
from a sort of inner preoccupation entirely personal and unconcerned with
other people, but so important to him that he seemed, as it were, to
forget others on account of it. But he was fond of people: he seemed
throughout his life to put implicit trust in people: yet no one ever
looked on him as a simpleton or naive person. There was something about
him which made one feel at once (and it was so all his life afterwards)
that he did not care to be a judge of others--that he would never take it
upon himself to criticize and would never condemn any one for anything. He
seemed, indeed, to accept everything without the least condemnation though
often grieving bitterly: and this was so much so that no one could
surprise or frighten him even in his earliest youth. Coming at twenty to
his father's house, which was a very sink of filthy debauchery, he, chaste
and pure as he was, simply withdrew in silence when to look on was
unbearable, but without the slightest sign of contempt or condemnation.
His father, who had once been in a dependent position, and so was
sensitive and ready to take offense, met him at first with distrust and
sullenness. "He does not say much," he used to say, "and thinks the more."
But soon, within a fortnight indeed, he took to embracing him and kissing
him terribly often, with drunken tears, with sottish sentimentality, yet
he evidently felt a real and deep affection for him, such as he had never
been capable of feeling for any one before.

Every one, indeed, loved this young man wherever he went, and it was so
from his earliest childhood. When he entered the household of his patron
and benefactor, Yefim Petrovitch Polenov, he gained the hearts of all the
family, so that they looked on him quite as their own child. Yet he
entered the house at such a tender age that he could not have acted from
design nor artfulness in winning affection. So that the gift of making
himself loved directly and unconsciously was inherent in him, in his very
nature, so to speak. It was the same at school, though he seemed to be
just one of those children who are distrusted, sometimes ridiculed, and
even disliked by their schoolfellows. He was dreamy, for instance, and
rather solitary. From his earliest childhood he was fond of creeping into
a corner to read, and yet he was a general favorite all the while he was
at school. He was rarely playful or merry, but any one could see at the
first glance that this was not from any sullenness. On the contrary he was
bright and good-tempered. He never tried to show off among his
schoolfellows. Perhaps because of this, he was never afraid of any one,
yet the boys immediately understood that he was not proud of his
fearlessness and seemed to be unaware that he was bold and courageous. He
never resented an insult. It would happen that an hour after the offense
he would address the offender or answer some question with as trustful and
candid an expression as though nothing had happened between them. And it
was not that he seemed to have forgotten or intentionally forgiven the
affront, but simply that he did not regard it as an affront, and this
completely conquered and captivated the boys. He had one characteristic
which made all his schoolfellows from the bottom class to the top want to
mock at him, not from malice but because it amused them. This
characteristic was a wild fanatical modesty and chastity. He could not
bear to hear certain words and certain conversations about women. There
are "certain" words and conversations unhappily impossible to eradicate in
schools. Boys pure in mind and heart, almost children, are fond of talking
in school among themselves, and even aloud, of things, pictures, and
images of which even soldiers would sometimes hesitate to speak. More than
that, much that soldiers have no knowledge or conception of is familiar to
quite young children of our intellectual and higher classes. There is no
moral depravity, no real corrupt inner cynicism in it, but there is the
appearance of it, and it is often looked upon among them as something
refined, subtle, daring, and worthy of imitation. Seeing that Alyosha
Karamazov put his fingers in his ears when they talked of "that," they
used sometimes to crowd round him, pull his hands away, and shout
nastiness into both ears, while he struggled, slipped to the floor, tried
to hide himself without uttering one word of abuse, enduring their insults
in silence. But at last they left him alone and gave up taunting him with
being a "regular girl," and what's more they looked upon it with
compassion as a weakness. He was always one of the best in the class but
was never first.

At the time of Yefim Petrovitch's death Alyosha had two more years to
complete at the provincial gymnasium. The inconsolable widow went almost
immediately after his death for a long visit to Italy with her whole
family, which consisted only of women and girls. Alyosha went to live in
the house of two distant relations of Yefim Petrovitch, ladies whom he had
never seen before. On what terms he lived with them he did not know
himself. It was very characteristic of him, indeed, that he never cared at
whose expense he was living. In that respect he was a striking contrast to
his elder brother Ivan, who struggled with poverty for his first two years
in the university, maintained himself by his own efforts, and had from
childhood been bitterly conscious of living at the expense of his
benefactor. But this strange trait in Alyosha's character must not, I
think, be criticized too severely, for at the slightest acquaintance with
him any one would have perceived that Alyosha was one of those youths,
almost of the type of religious enthusiast, who, if they were suddenly to
come into possession of a large fortune, would not hesitate to give it
away for the asking, either for good works or perhaps to a clever rogue.
In general he seemed scarcely to know the value of money, not, of course,
in a literal sense. When he was given pocket-money, which he never asked
for, he was either terribly careless of it so that it was gone in a
moment, or he kept it for weeks together, not knowing what to do with it.

In later years Pyotr Alexandrovitch Miuesov, a man very sensitive on the
score of money and bourgeois honesty, pronounced the following judgment,
after getting to know Alyosha:

"Here is perhaps the one man in the world whom you might leave alone
without a penny, in the center of an unknown town of a million
inhabitants, and he would not come to harm, he would not die of cold and
hunger, for he would be fed and sheltered at once; and if he were not, he
would find a shelter for himself, and it would cost him no effort or
humiliation. And to shelter him would be no burden, but, on the contrary,
would probably be looked on as a pleasure."

He did not finish his studies at the gymnasium. A year before the end of
the course he suddenly announced to the ladies that he was going to see
his father about a plan which had occurred to him. They were sorry and
unwilling to let him go. The journey was not an expensive one, and the
ladies would not let him pawn his watch, a parting present from his
benefactor's family. They provided him liberally with money and even
fitted him out with new clothes and linen. But he returned half the money
they gave him, saying that he intended to go third class. On his arrival
in the town he made no answer to his father's first inquiry why he had
come before completing his studies, and seemed, so they say, unusually
thoughtful. It soon became apparent that he was looking for his mother's
tomb. He practically acknowledged at the time that that was the only
object of his visit. But it can hardly have been the whole reason of it.
It is more probable that he himself did not understand and could not
explain what had suddenly arisen in his soul, and drawn him irresistibly
into a new, unknown, but inevitable path. Fyodor Pavlovitch could not show
him where his second wife was buried, for he had never visited her grave
since he had thrown earth upon her coffin, and in the course of years had
entirely forgotten where she was buried.

Fyodor Pavlovitch, by the way, had for some time previously not been
living in our town. Three or four years after his wife's death he had gone
to the south of Russia and finally turned up in Odessa, where he spent
several years. He made the acquaintance at first, in his own words, "of a
lot of low Jews, Jewesses, and Jewkins," and ended by being received by
"Jews high and low alike." It may be presumed that at this period he
developed a peculiar faculty for making and hoarding money. He finally
returned to our town only three years before Alyosha's arrival. His former
acquaintances found him looking terribly aged, although he was by no means
an old man. He behaved not exactly with more dignity but with more
effrontery. The former buffoon showed an insolent propensity for making
buffoons of others. His depravity with women was not simply what it used
to be, but even more revolting. In a short time he opened a great number
of new taverns in the district. It was evident that he had perhaps a
hundred thousand roubles or not much less. Many of the inhabitants of the
town and district were soon in his debt, and, of course, had given good
security. Of late, too, he looked somehow bloated and seemed more
irresponsible, more uneven, had sunk into a sort of incoherence, used to
begin one thing and go on with another, as though he were letting himself
go altogether. He was more and more frequently drunk. And, if it had not
been for the same servant Grigory, who by that time had aged considerably
too, and used to look after him sometimes almost like a tutor, Fyodor
Pavlovitch might have got into terrible scrapes. Alyosha's arrival seemed
to affect even his moral side, as though something had awakened in this
prematurely old man which had long been dead in his soul.

"Do you know," he used often to say, looking at Alyosha, "that you are
like her, 'the crazy woman' "--that was what he used to call his dead wife,
Alyosha's mother. Grigory it was who pointed out the "crazy woman's" grave
to Alyosha. He took him to our town cemetery and showed him in a remote
corner a cast-iron tombstone, cheap but decently kept, on which were
inscribed the name and age of the deceased and the date of her death, and
below a four-lined verse, such as are commonly used on old-fashioned
middle-class tombs. To Alyosha's amazement this tomb turned out to be
Grigory's doing. He had put it up on the poor "crazy woman's" grave at his
own expense, after Fyodor Pavlovitch, whom he had often pestered about the
grave, had gone to Odessa, abandoning the grave and all his memories.
Alyosha showed no particular emotion at the sight of his mother's grave.
He only listened to Grigory's minute and solemn account of the erection of
the tomb; he stood with bowed head and walked away without uttering a
word. It was perhaps a year before he visited the cemetery again. But this
little episode was not without an influence upon Fyodor Pavlovitch--and a
very original one. He suddenly took a thousand roubles to our monastery to
pay for requiems for the soul of his wife; but not for the second,
Alyosha's mother, the "crazy woman," but for the first, Adelaida Ivanovna,
who used to thrash him. In the evening of the same day he got drunk and
abused the monks to Alyosha. He himself was far from being religious; he
had probably never put a penny candle before the image of a saint. Strange
impulses of sudden feeling and sudden thought are common in such types.

I have mentioned already that he looked bloated. His countenance at this
time bore traces of something that testified unmistakably to the life he
had led. Besides the long fleshy bags under his little, always insolent,
suspicious, and ironical eyes; besides the multitude of deep wrinkles in
his little fat face, the Adam's apple hung below his sharp chin like a
great, fleshy goiter, which gave him a peculiar, repulsive, sensual
appearance; add to that a long rapacious mouth with full lips, between
which could be seen little stumps of black decayed teeth. He slobbered
every time he began to speak. He was fond indeed of making fun of his own
face, though, I believe, he was well satisfied with it. He used
particularly to point to his nose, which was not very large, but very
delicate and conspicuously aquiline. "A regular Roman nose," he used to
say, "with my goiter I've quite the countenance of an ancient Roman
patrician of the decadent period." He seemed proud of it.

Not long after visiting his mother's grave Alyosha suddenly announced that
he wanted to enter the monastery, and that the monks were willing to
receive him as a novice. He explained that this was his strong desire, and
that he was solemnly asking his consent as his father. The old man knew
that the elder Zossima, who was living in the monastery hermitage, had
made a special impression upon his "gentle boy."

"That is the most honest monk among them, of course," he observed, after
listening in thoughtful silence to Alyosha, and seeming scarcely surprised
at his request. "H'm!... So that's where you want to be, my gentle boy?"

He was half drunk, and suddenly he grinned his slow half-drunken grin,
which was not without a certain cunning and tipsy slyness. "H'm!... I had
a presentiment that you would end in something like this. Would you
believe it? You were making straight for it. Well, to be sure you have
your own two thousand. That's a dowry for you. And I'll never desert you,
my angel. And I'll pay what's wanted for you there, if they ask for it.
But, of course, if they don't ask, why should we worry them? What do you
say? You know, you spend money like a canary, two grains a week. H'm!...
Do you know that near one monastery there's a place outside the town where
every baby knows there are none but 'the monks' wives' living, as they are
called. Thirty women, I believe. I have been there myself. You know, it's
interesting in its own way, of course, as a variety. The worst of it is
it's awfully Russian. There are no French women there. Of course they
could get them fast enough, they have plenty of money. If they get to hear
of it they'll come along. Well, there's nothing of that sort here, no
'monks' wives,' and two hundred monks. They're honest. They keep the
fasts. I admit it.... H'm.... So you want to be a monk? And do you know
I'm sorry to lose you, Alyosha; would you believe it, I've really grown
fond of you? Well, it's a good opportunity. You'll pray for us sinners; we
have sinned too much here. I've always been thinking who would pray for
me, and whether there's any one in the world to do it. My dear boy, I'm
awfully stupid about that. You wouldn't believe it. Awfully. You see,
however stupid I am about it, I keep thinking, I keep thinking--from time
to time, of course, not all the while. It's impossible, I think, for the
devils to forget to drag me down to hell with their hooks when I die. Then
I wonder--hooks? Where would they get them? What of? Iron hooks? Where do
they forge them? Have they a foundry there of some sort? The monks in the
monastery probably believe that there's a ceiling in hell, for instance.
Now I'm ready to believe in hell, but without a ceiling. It makes it more
refined, more enlightened, more Lutheran that is. And, after all, what
does it matter whether it has a ceiling or hasn't? But, do you know,
there's a damnable question involved in it? If there's no ceiling there
can be no hooks, and if there are no hooks it all breaks down, which is
unlikely again, for then there would be none to drag me down to hell, and
if they don't drag me down what justice is there in the world? _Il
faudrait les inventer_, those hooks, on purpose for me alone, for, if you
only knew, Alyosha, what a blackguard I am."

"But there are no hooks there," said Alyosha, looking gently and seriously
at his father.

"Yes, yes, only the shadows of hooks, I know, I know. That's how a
Frenchman described hell: '_J'ai bu l'ombre d'un cocher qui avec l'ombre
d'une brosse frottait l'ombre d'une carrosse._' How do you know there are
no hooks, darling? When you've lived with the monks you'll sing a
different tune. But go and get at the truth there, and then come and tell
me. Anyway it's easier going to the other world if one knows what there is
there. Besides, it will be more seemly for you with the monks than here
with me, with a drunken old man and young harlots ... though you're like
an angel, nothing touches you. And I dare say nothing will touch you
there. That's why I let you go, because I hope for that. You've got all
your wits about you. You will burn and you will burn out; you will be
healed and come back again. And I will wait for you. I feel that you're
the only creature in the world who has not condemned me. My dear boy, I
feel it, you know. I can't help feeling it."

And he even began blubbering. He was sentimental. He was wicked and
sentimental.




Chapter V. Elders


Some of my readers may imagine that my young man was a sickly, ecstatic,
poorly developed creature, a pale, consumptive dreamer. On the contrary,
Alyosha was at this time a well-grown, red-cheeked, clear-eyed lad of
nineteen, radiant with health. He was very handsome, too, graceful,
moderately tall, with hair of a dark brown, with a regular, rather long,
oval-shaped face, and wide-set dark gray, shining eyes; he was very
thoughtful, and apparently very serene. I shall be told, perhaps, that red
cheeks are not incompatible with fanaticism and mysticism; but I fancy
that Alyosha was more of a realist than any one. Oh! no doubt, in the
monastery he fully believed in miracles, but, to my thinking, miracles are
never a stumbling-block to the realist. It is not miracles that dispose
realists to belief. The genuine realist, if he is an unbeliever, will
always find strength and ability to disbelieve in the miraculous, and if
he is confronted with a miracle as an irrefutable fact he would rather
disbelieve his own senses than admit the fact. Even if he admits it, he
admits it as a fact of nature till then unrecognized by him. Faith does
not, in the realist, spring from the miracle but the miracle from faith.
If the realist once believes, then he is bound by his very realism to
admit the miraculous also. The Apostle Thomas said that he would not
believe till he saw, but when he did see he said, "My Lord and my God!"
Was it the miracle forced him to believe? Most likely not, but he believed
solely because he desired to believe and possibly he fully believed in his
secret heart even when he said, "I do not believe till I see."

I shall be told, perhaps, that Alyosha was stupid, undeveloped, had not
finished his studies, and so on. That he did not finish his studies is
true, but to say that he was stupid or dull would be a great injustice.
I'll simply repeat what I have said above. He entered upon this path only
because, at that time, it alone struck his imagination and presented
itself to him as offering an ideal means of escape for his soul from
darkness to light. Add to that that he was to some extent a youth of our
last epoch--that is, honest in nature, desiring the truth, seeking for it
and believing in it, and seeking to serve it at once with all the strength
of his soul, seeking for immediate action, and ready to sacrifice
everything, life itself, for it. Though these young men unhappily fail to
understand that the sacrifice of life is, in many cases, the easiest of
all sacrifices, and that to sacrifice, for instance, five or six years of
their seething youth to hard and tedious study, if only to multiply
tenfold their powers of serving the truth and the cause they have set
before them as their goal--such a sacrifice is utterly beyond the strength
of many of them. The path Alyosha chose was a path going in the opposite
direction, but he chose it with the same thirst for swift achievement. As
soon as he reflected seriously he was convinced of the existence of God
and immortality, and at once he instinctively said to himself: "I want to
live for immortality, and I will accept no compromise." In the same way,
if he had decided that God and immortality did not exist, he would at once
have become an atheist and a socialist. For socialism is not merely the
labor question, it is before all things the atheistic question, the
question of the form taken by atheism to-day, the question of the tower of
Babel built without God, not to mount to heaven from earth but to set up
heaven on earth. Alyosha would have found it strange and impossible to go
on living as before. It is written: "Give all that thou hast to the poor
and follow Me, if thou wouldst be perfect."

Alyosha said to himself: "I can't give two roubles instead of 'all,' and
only go to mass instead of 'following Him.' " Perhaps his memories of
childhood brought back our monastery, to which his mother may have taken
him to mass. Perhaps the slanting sunlight and the holy image to which his
poor "crazy" mother had held him up still acted upon his imagination.
Brooding on these things he may have come to us perhaps only to see
whether here he could sacrifice all or only "two roubles," and in the
monastery he met this elder. I must digress to explain what an "elder" is
in Russian monasteries, and I am sorry that I do not feel very competent
to do so. I will try, however, to give a superficial account of it in a
few words. Authorities on the subject assert that the institution of
"elders" is of recent date, not more than a hundred years old in our
monasteries, though in the orthodox East, especially in Sinai and Athos,
it has existed over a thousand years. It is maintained that it existed in
ancient times in Russia also, but through the calamities which overtook
Russia--the Tartars, civil war, the interruption of relations with the East
after the destruction of Constantinople--this institution fell into
oblivion. It was revived among us towards the end of last century by one
of the great "ascetics," as they called him, Paissy Velitchkovsky, and his
disciples. But to this day it exists in few monasteries only, and has
sometimes been almost persecuted as an innovation in Russia. It flourished
especially in the celebrated Kozelski Optin Monastery. When and how it was
introduced into our monastery I cannot say. There had already been three
such elders and Zossima was the last of them. But he was almost dying of
weakness and disease, and they had no one to take his place. The question
for our monastery was an important one, for it had not been distinguished
by anything in particular till then: they had neither relics of saints,
nor wonder-working ikons, nor glorious traditions, nor historical
exploits. It had flourished and been glorious all over Russia through its
elders, to see and hear whom pilgrims had flocked for thousands of miles
from all parts.

What was such an elder? An elder was one who took your soul, your will,
into his soul and his will. When you choose an elder, you renounce your
own will and yield it to him in complete submission, complete self-
abnegation. This novitiate, this terrible school of abnegation, is
undertaken voluntarily, in the hope of self-conquest, of self-mastery, in
order, after a life of obedience, to attain perfect freedom, that is, from
self; to escape the lot of those who have lived their whole life without
finding their true selves in themselves. This institution of elders is not
founded on theory, but was established in the East from the practice of a
thousand years. The obligations due to an elder are not the ordinary
"obedience" which has always existed in our Russian monasteries. The
obligation involves confession to the elder by all who have submitted
themselves to him, and to the indissoluble bond between him and them.

The story is told, for instance, that in the early days of Christianity
one such novice, failing to fulfill some command laid upon him by his
elder, left his monastery in Syria and went to Egypt. There, after great
exploits, he was found worthy at last to suffer torture and a martyr's
death for the faith. When the Church, regarding him as a saint, was
burying him, suddenly, at the deacon's exhortation, "Depart all ye
unbaptized," the coffin containing the martyr's body left its place and
was cast forth from the church, and this took place three times. And only
at last they learnt that this holy man had broken his vow of obedience and
left his elder, and, therefore, could not be forgiven without the elder's
absolution in spite of his great deeds. Only after this could the funeral
take place. This, of course, is only an old legend. But here is a recent
instance.

A monk was suddenly commanded by his elder to quit Athos, which he loved
as a sacred place and a haven of refuge, and to go first to Jerusalem to
do homage to the Holy Places and then to go to the north to Siberia:
"There is the place for thee and not here." The monk, overwhelmed with
sorrow, went to the OEcumenical Patriarch at Constantinople and besought
him to release him from his obedience. But the Patriarch replied that not
only was he unable to release him, but there was not and could not be on
earth a power which could release him except the elder who had himself
laid that duty upon him. In this way the elders are endowed in certain
cases with unbounded and inexplicable authority. That is why in many of
our monasteries the institution was at first resisted almost to
persecution. Meantime the elders immediately began to be highly esteemed
among the people. Masses of the ignorant people as well as men of
distinction flocked, for instance, to the elders of our monastery to
confess their doubts, their sins, and their sufferings, and ask for
counsel and admonition. Seeing this, the opponents of the elders declared
that the sacrament of confession was being arbitrarily and frivolously
degraded, though the continual opening of the heart to the elder by the
monk or the layman had nothing of the character of the sacrament. In the
end, however, the institution of elders has been retained and is becoming
established in Russian monasteries. It is true, perhaps, that this
instrument which had stood the test of a thousand years for the moral
regeneration of a man from slavery to freedom and to moral perfectibility
may be a two-edged weapon and it may lead some not to humility and
complete self-control but to the most Satanic pride, that is, to bondage
and not to freedom.

The elder Zossima was sixty-five. He came of a family of landowners, had
been in the army in early youth, and served in the Caucasus as an officer.
He had, no doubt, impressed Alyosha by some peculiar quality of his soul.
Alyosha lived in the cell of the elder, who was very fond of him and let
him wait upon him. It must be noted that Alyosha was bound by no
obligation and could go where he pleased and be absent for whole days.
Though he wore the monastic dress it was voluntarily, not to be different
from others. No doubt he liked to do so. Possibly his youthful imagination
was deeply stirred by the power and fame of his elder. It was said that so
many people had for years past come to confess their sins to Father
Zossima and to entreat him for words of advice and healing, that he had
acquired the keenest intuition and could tell from an unknown face what a
new-comer wanted, and what was the suffering on his conscience. He
sometimes astounded and almost alarmed his visitors by his knowledge of
their secrets before they had spoken a word.

Alyosha noticed that many, almost all, went in to the elder for the first
time with apprehension and uneasiness, but came out with bright and happy
faces. Alyosha was particularly struck by the fact that Father Zossima was
not at all stern. On the contrary, he was always almost gay. The monks
used to say that he was more drawn to those who were more sinful, and the
greater the sinner the more he loved him. There were, no doubt, up to the
end of his life, among the monks some who hated and envied him, but they
were few in number and they were silent, though among them were some of
great dignity in the monastery, one, for instance, of the older monks
distinguished for his strict keeping of fasts and vows of silence. But the
majority were on Father Zossima's side and very many of them loved him
with all their hearts, warmly and sincerely. Some were almost fanatically
devoted to him, and declared, though not quite aloud, that he was a saint,
that there could be no doubt of it, and, seeing that his end was near,
they anticipated miracles and great glory to the monastery in the
immediate future from his relics. Alyosha had unquestioning faith in the
miraculous power of the elder, just as he had unquestioning faith in the
story of the coffin that flew out of the church. He saw many who came with
sick children or relatives and besought the elder to lay hands on them and
to pray over them, return shortly after--some the next day--and, falling in
tears at the elder's feet, thank him for healing their sick.

Whether they had really been healed or were simply better in the natural
course of the disease was a question which did not exist for Alyosha, for
he fully believed in the spiritual power of his teacher and rejoiced in
his fame, in his glory, as though it were his own triumph. His heart
throbbed, and he beamed, as it were, all over when the elder came out to
the gates of the hermitage into the waiting crowd of pilgrims of the
humbler class who had flocked from all parts of Russia on purpose to see
the elder and obtain his blessing. They fell down before him, wept, kissed
his feet, kissed the earth on which he stood, and wailed, while the women
held up their children to him and brought him the sick "possessed with
devils." The elder spoke to them, read a brief prayer over them, blessed
them, and dismissed them. Of late he had become so weak through attacks of
illness that he was sometimes unable to leave his cell, and the pilgrims
waited for him to come out for several days. Alyosha did not wonder why
they loved him so, why they fell down before him and wept with emotion
merely at seeing his face. Oh! he understood that for the humble soul of
the Russian peasant, worn out by grief and toil, and still more by the
everlasting injustice and everlasting sin, his own and the world's, it was
the greatest need and comfort to find some one or something holy to fall
down before and worship.

"Among us there is sin, injustice, and temptation, but yet, somewhere on
earth there is some one holy and exalted. He has the truth; he knows the
truth; so it is not dead upon the earth; so it will come one day to us,
too, and rule over all the earth according to the promise."

Alyosha knew that this was just how the people felt and even reasoned. He
understood it, but that the elder Zossima was this saint and custodian of
God's truth--of that he had no more doubt than the weeping peasants and the
sick women who held out their children to the elder. The conviction that
after his death the elder would bring extraordinary glory to the monastery
was even stronger in Alyosha than in any one there, and, of late, a kind
of deep flame of inner ecstasy burnt more and more strongly in his heart.
He was not at all troubled at this elder's standing as a solitary example
before him.

"No matter. He is holy. He carries in his heart the secret of renewal for
all: that power which will, at last, establish truth on the earth, and all
men will be holy and love one another, and there will be no more rich nor
poor, no exalted nor humbled, but all will be as the children of God, and
the true Kingdom of Christ will come." That was the dream in Alyosha's
heart.

The arrival of his two brothers, whom he had not known till then, seemed
to make a great impression on Alyosha. He more quickly made friends with
his half-brother Dmitri (though he arrived later) than with his own
brother Ivan. He was extremely interested in his brother Ivan, but when
the latter had been two months in the town, though they had met fairly
often, they were still not intimate. Alyosha was naturally silent, and he
seemed to be expecting something, ashamed about something, while his
brother Ivan, though Alyosha noticed at first that he looked long and
curiously at him, seemed soon to have left off thinking of him. Alyosha
noticed it with some embarrassment. He ascribed his brother's indifference
at first to the disparity of their age and education. But he also wondered
whether the absence of curiosity and sympathy in Ivan might be due to some
other cause entirely unknown to him. He kept fancying that Ivan was
absorbed in something--something inward and important--that he was striving
towards some goal, perhaps very hard to attain, and that that was why he
had no thought for him. Alyosha wondered, too, whether there was not some
contempt on the part of the learned atheist for him--a foolish novice. He
knew for certain that his brother was an atheist. He could not take
offense at this contempt, if it existed; yet, with an uneasy embarrassment
which he did not himself understand, he waited for his brother to come
nearer to him. Dmitri used to speak of Ivan with the deepest respect and
with a peculiar earnestness. From him Alyosha learnt all the details of
the important affair which had of late formed such a close and remarkable
bond between the two elder brothers. Dmitri's enthusiastic references to
Ivan were the more striking in Alyosha's eyes since Dmitri was, compared
with Ivan, almost uneducated, and the two brothers were such a contrast in
personality and character that it would be difficult to find two men more
unlike.

It was at this time that the meeting, or, rather gathering of the members
of this inharmonious family took place in the cell of the elder who had
such an extraordinary influence on Alyosha. The pretext for this gathering
was a false one. It was at this time that the discord between Dmitri and
his father seemed at its acutest stage and their relations had become
insufferably strained. Fyodor Pavlovitch seems to have been the first to
suggest, apparently in joke, that they should all meet in Father Zossima's
cell, and that, without appealing to his direct intervention, they might
more decently come to an understanding under the conciliating influence of
the elder's presence. Dmitri, who had never seen the elder, naturally
supposed that his father was trying to intimidate him, but, as he secretly
blamed himself for his outbursts of temper with his father on several
recent occasions, he accepted the challenge. It must be noted that he was
not, like Ivan, staying with his father, but living apart at the other end
of the town. It happened that Pyotr Alexandrovitch Miuesov, who was staying
in the district at the time, caught eagerly at the idea. A Liberal of the
forties and fifties, a freethinker and atheist, he may have been led on by
boredom or the hope of frivolous diversion. He was suddenly seized with
the desire to see the monastery and the holy man. As his lawsuit with the
monastery still dragged on, he made it the pretext for seeing the
Superior, in order to attempt to settle it amicably. A visitor coming with
such laudable intentions might be received with more attention and
consideration than if he came from simple curiosity. Influences from
within the monastery were brought to bear on the elder, who of late had
scarcely left his cell, and had been forced by illness to deny even his
ordinary visitors. In the end he consented to see them, and the day was
fixed.

"Who has made me a judge over them?" was all he said, smilingly, to
Alyosha.

Alyosha was much perturbed when he heard of the proposed visit. Of all the
wrangling, quarrelsome party, Dmitri was the only one who could regard the
interview seriously. All the others would come from frivolous motives,
perhaps insulting to the elder. Alyosha was well aware of that. Ivan and
Miuesov would come from curiosity, perhaps of the coarsest kind, while his
father might be contemplating some piece of buffoonery. Though he said
nothing, Alyosha thoroughly understood his father. The boy, I repeat, was
far from being so simple as every one thought him. He awaited the day with
a heavy heart. No doubt he was always pondering in his mind how the family
discord could be ended. But his chief anxiety concerned the elder. He
trembled for him, for his glory, and dreaded any affront to him,
especially the refined, courteous irony of Miuesov and the supercilious
half-utterances of the highly educated Ivan. He even wanted to venture on
warning the elder, telling him something about them, but, on second
thoughts, said nothing. He only sent word the day before, through a
friend, to his brother Dmitri, that he loved him and expected him to keep
his promise. Dmitri wondered, for he could not remember what he had
promised, but he answered by letter that he would do his utmost not to let
himself be provoked "by vileness," but that, although he had a deep
respect for the elder and for his brother Ivan, he was convinced that the
meeting was either a trap for him or an unworthy farce.

"Nevertheless I would rather bite out my tongue than be lacking in respect
to the sainted man whom you reverence so highly," he wrote in conclusion.
Alyosha was not greatly cheered by the letter.






Book I
Karamazov: the name is well-known in Russia; it carries a taste of violence and dark Slavic passion. And there is much truth in the rumors and whispered tales told of Fyodor Karamazov. In his youth he was a loud profligate. His drinking and high living were notorious; he seemed insatiate. And marriage did not tame him. His marriage, true to form, was scandalous. But initially it was not scandalous because of its melodramatic elements -- that was to be expected; life with Karamazov could not be otherwise. Initially, Karamazov's marriage was scandalous because it was romantic: he was penniless yet he wooed and married an heiress. Adelaida Ivanovna believed in her young rebel-husband. Perhaps his spirit was bold and irrepressible, but he was the new breed of liberal Russian manhood. She believed it firmly. She tried to believe it for a long time. Then she was forced to face the ugly reality that instead of a rich-blooded idealist she had married an opportunist who was physically cruel and usually drunk. She also was forced to face another unpleasant truth: she was pregnant. She bore the baby, a son -- Dmitri, or Mitya as she often called him -- and when she could no longer endure her husband's viciousness, she abandoned both her son and husband and eloped with a young student. Karamazov, ostensibly, was staggered by her rejection and, still the overly dramatic sort, like a loud tragedian he spent many of his days driving through the country, lamenting over his wife's desertion. But even that pose grew wearisome and soon he returned to his life of debauchery. When he received the news of Adelaida's death he was in the midst of a drunken orgy. Young Dmitri was neglected and finally taken in by a cousin and when the cousin tired of him the child was given to other relatives; thus the baby grew up with a variety of families. But he was always told about his real father, that the man still lived, and that he held a rather large piece of Adelaida's property that was rightfully Dmitri's. The boy never forgot these tales of land and money and when he reached maturity, he visited his father and asked about the inheritance. He was unable, of course, to get any information from the old man but he began receiving small sums of money and, convinced that the property did exist, he revisited his father. Again the old man evaded his son's questions. But if Karamazov was able to evade Dmitri, he could not evade other matters so successfully -- the problems of his other sons, for example. For after the four-year-old Dmitri was taken away, Karamazov married a second time. This wife, Sofya Ivanovna, was remarkably beautiful and her loveliness and her innocence attracted the lustful Karamazov. He convinced her to elope with him against her guardian's wishes and quickly took advantage of her meekness. He began having loose women in the house and even carried on orgies of debauchery in her presence. During Karamazov's years of cruelty and depravity, Sofya Ivanovna gave birth to two sons, Ivan and Alyosha. But she was not well and did not feel loved despite the attentions of old Grigory, the servant who did his best to comfort her and protect her from Karamazov. In spite of his care, she soon fell ill and died. When her former guardian heard about her death, she came and took the two boys, Ivan and Alyosha, with her and upon her own death she left a thousand rubles to each boy for his education. Ivan Karamazov developed into a brilliant student who helped support himself by writing for journals. He slowly began to make a name for himself in literary circles. One of his articles, for instance, dealt with the function of the ecclesiastical courts; it attracted widespread interest and even the monastery in his native town spoke of it. Alyosha, the youngest Karamazov, developed into a devoutly religious person, his faith based on reality and untinged by mysticism or fanaticism. He was universally well liked, never criticized anyone, and seemed to love everyone. As the action of the novel begins, Alyosha returns to his father's house and meets his brothers. He and Dmitri rapidly become good friends, but he feels puzzled by Ivan's reserve and intellectuality. As for his father, Alyosha openly loves him; he has never criticized or condemned his father's way of life. Alyosha has always been generous and forgiving, thus it was that Karamazov was not surprised when Alyosha first told him that he wanted to become a monk, the disciple of the renowned elder, Zossima. In those days, incidentally, an elder was often controversial. "An elder," it was said, "was one who took your soul, your will, into his soul and his will." But elder, by also setting exemplary models of holiness in their own lives, often attracted large numbers of followers. The Karamazovs are reunited, and the reason for their reunion deeply concerns Alyosha. The discord between Dmitri and his father has reached such a point that one of them, apparently the father, has suggested a meeting in Father Zossima's cell, where they can discuss differences under the conciliating influence of the elder. Alyosha, who understands his brothers and his father better than most people think, greatly fears the meeting.
The Brothers Karamazov is often considered one of the world's most complex novels. Dostoevsky examines many different facets of life, investigates many problems of lasting importance, and is able to do so successfully in this novel because the mere size and bulk of the book allows him to proceed with deliberate slowness in introducing and developing his ideas. Attempting in these Commentaries, however, to isolate some of the main ideas and to analyze them destroys the essential unity of the novel. Part of its greatness is the manner in which Dostoevsky is able to integrate all the divergent elements into one unified whole. Each idea borders upon another and is somewhat vitiated when isolated from the remainder of the novel. In the complex spirit of the novel and in the leisurely nineteenth-century fashion of giving the intricate background of the main characters, Dostoevsky begins his book, then immediately establishes its tone. He first announces the element of mystery in the novel -- the "gloomy and tragic death" of Karamazov -- and then begins defining the elements of tragedy -- especially the Karamazov tragedy. The older Karamazov is depicted as base, vulgar, ill-natured, and completely degraded, and his "tragic" death will be revealed to be tragic only because his sons are implicated in the death -- not because Karamazov himself arouses tragic emotion. In fact, in the trial scene later in the book, it is pointed out that the murder is not a parricide in the truest sense because Fyodor Karamazov never functioned as a proper father. To support this idea, Dostoevsky begins at the very outset of the novel to show the blackness and vulgarity of the man who is to be murdered. To emphasize the monster within Karamazov, Dostoevsky illustrates the lack of paternal instincts. Karamazov did not discard his children from hatred or malice; he simply forgot about their existence. Furthermore, he was pleased each time that strangers came and took the children and therefore released him from responsibility; this allowed him to devote all his energy to his various orgies. One of Dostoevsky's ideas, prominent throughout the novel, then, concerns the place of the child in society. This theme receives its first expression in the chapter dealing with Fyodor Karamazov's treatment of his children. In Chapter 2, Dostoevsky tells us that Dmitri "was the only one of Fyodor Pavlovitch's three sons who grew up in the belief that he had property and that he would be independent on coming of age." This idea is established early in the novel because it becomes the source of the antagonism existing between father and son. Dostoevsky carefully avoids making a direct statement about the full extent to which the father has cheated his son, but by the manner in which he arranges his descriptions of the father, we can assume that Fyodor has indeed cheated Dmitri out of a major portion of the inheritance. It is also noteworthy that, of the three sons, Dmitri is the only one whom the father intensely dislikes. This is easily explained: the other two sons make no financial demands upon the father; only Dmitri insists upon having his inheritance. Following his thorough characterization of the older Karamazov, Dostoevsky devotes the next several chapters to the offspring -- the brothers Karamazov, as different from one another as can be imagined. Dmitri, throughout the novel, develops into the extreme sensualist, the emotional son. He did not complete his education; instead, he worked his way up through the military ranks to become an officer. He lacked discipline, however, and soon became involved in a duel and was demoted. Later he gained promotion again. But his deeds and emotions are fluid and fluctuating. He has, for instance, an instinctive dislike for his father but forms an immediate friendship with his brother Alyosha. He is the fiery-hearted, fierce, and emotional person who is easily swayed by his feelings. Ivan, on the other hand, is the cold intellectual. At an early age, he developed his propensity for study and his unusual aptitude for learning. He is the very proud son, always conscious that his early training was at someone else's expense. He began, therefore, as soon as possible, to write reviews in order to support himself, and before arriving in his native town, he has published a widely read, widely discussed article about the ecclesiastical courts. This article is the subject of a conversation in the next book between the monks and Ivan. In contrast to his two brothers, Alyosha has none of Ivan's pride, nor is he as fiery as Dmitri. He is "simply an early lover of humanity," one who always tries to see the best side of everyone. He possesses an implicit trust in all people and, in all his relationships, he never judges others. Beneath his modest exterior, however, is a penetrating and understanding mind that detects many subtleties and distinctions. Alyosha is of course deeply religious but he is not the fanatical sort who bases his faith upon miracles. He is the complete realist who arrived at his beliefs concerning immortality and God through reasoning. While presenting the characteristics of the three Karamazov sons, Dostoevsky introduces another principal theme -- the conflict between faith and disbelief. Alyosha and Ivan represent the two opposite poles of acceptance, and it is only natural that they do not become intimate friends at first. Alyosha, however, is perceptive enough to understand Ivan's problem. He knows that "Ivan was absorbed in something -- something inward and important that he was striving toward, some goal, perhaps very hard to attain and that was why he had no thought for him." Looking forward, we realize that Ivan will forever struggle with the idea of belief and immortality and that this struggle will form one of the most dramatic sections of the novel. In contrast, Dmitri will slowly become a person of faith. He and Alyosha, consequently, become intimate friends from the very beginning. In all his writing, Dostoevsky was interested in the psychology of actions. He was particularly interested in the nature of contradictory actions. Many of his characters therefore perform actions that do not seem consistent with their personalities. Dostoevsky often investigates this idea in an attempt to understand why a person who acts in a certain manner will often perform an action that seemingly contradicts his nature. In the character of the father, for example, he shows Fyodor visiting the grave of his first wife and being so touched by her memory that he gives a thousand rubles to the monastery for requiems. For a man usually so miserly with money and not professing a belief in God, this action is strange and contradictory. Dostoevsky comments that "strange impulses of sudden feeling and sudden thought are common in such types." Later he also writes that Fyodor "was wicked and sentimental," and, even though the question of contradictory actions is never solved by Dostoevsky, it does occupy portions of the novel, and the reader should be aware of the investigation. The introduction of Zossima concludes the first book, the brief introduction being a transitional device. Zossima, one should be aware, will hold center stage in the following section. His role is important because he is antithetical to all but one of the vigorous Karamazov clan. He is a passive sort, yet he influences the decisive actions of Alyosha and thus influences the course of the novel. Dostoevsky attempts, in the character of the elder, to present the almost perfect person, and his characterization is convincing. So convincing, in fact, is it to Alyosha that his beliefs are shaken at Zossima's death. He has convinced himself that after the elder's death, Zossima would bring extraordinary glory to the monastery. Death is rarely that simple. The fact that Zossima decomposes so rapidly weighs heavily on Alyosha, and he is therefore tempted to question the validity of God's justice.