finished_summaries/shmoop/The Brothers Karamazov/section_12_part_0.txt
The Brothers Karamazov.book 2.chapter 8
book 2, chapter 8
{"name": "Book 2, Chapter 8", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201023112808/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/brothers-karamazov/summary/book-2-chapter-8", "summary": "While Alyosha was helping Zosima in his cell, Miusov, Kalganov, and Ivan proceeded on to the Father Superior's. Miusov had just finished apologizing for Fyodor's behavior when Fyodor popped in. Fyodor had been planning on skipping the lunch, having caused enough commotion already, but in his carriage he had changed his mind and decided he had a couple more tricks up his sleeve. Fyodor at first accuses Maximov the landowner of being somebody else - some dude named von Sohn who, according to Fyodor, had died a grotesque death in a brothel. Next, Fyodor attacks the Father Superior and the monastery in general. He accuses them of stealing the peasants' money and spending it on lavish spreads like the dinner they're about to enjoy. He also accuses them of turning his second wife, the \"shrieker\" against him. During these tirades, the Father Superior's only reaction is to thank Fyodor for giving them all a dose of humility, which Fyodor ignores. Miusov can't stand Fyodor's behavior anymore and leaves, followed by Kalganov. Fyodor also leaves, demanding that Alyosha leave the monastery as well. Ivan follows Fyodor. As they get into their carriage, the landowner Maximov comes running after, thinking that the real party's with Fyodor. But Ivan pushes him away from the carriage and orders the driver to leave. In their carriage, Fyodor tries to get Ivan to talk, but Ivan coldly ignores him.", "analysis": ""}
Chapter VIII. The Scandalous Scene


Miuesov, as a man of breeding and delicacy, could not but feel some inward
qualms, when he reached the Father Superior's with Ivan: he felt ashamed
of having lost his temper. He felt that he ought to have disdained that
despicable wretch, Fyodor Pavlovitch, too much to have been upset by him
in Father Zossima's cell, and so to have forgotten himself. "The monks
were not to blame, in any case," he reflected, on the steps. "And if
they're decent people here (and the Father Superior, I understand, is a
nobleman) why not be friendly and courteous with them? I won't argue, I'll
fall in with everything, I'll win them by politeness, and ... and ... show
them that I've nothing to do with that AEsop, that buffoon, that Pierrot,
and have merely been taken in over this affair, just as they have."

He determined to drop his litigation with the monastery, and relinquish
his claims to the wood-cutting and fishery rights at once. He was the more
ready to do this because the rights had become much less valuable, and he
had indeed the vaguest idea where the wood and river in question were.

These excellent intentions were strengthened when he entered the Father
Superior's dining-room, though, strictly speaking, it was not a dining-
room, for the Father Superior had only two rooms altogether; they were,
however, much larger and more comfortable than Father Zossima's. But there
was no great luxury about the furnishing of these rooms either. The
furniture was of mahogany, covered with leather, in the old-fashioned
style of 1820; the floor was not even stained, but everything was shining
with cleanliness, and there were many choice flowers in the windows; the
most sumptuous thing in the room at the moment was, of course, the
beautifully decorated table. The cloth was clean, the service shone; there
were three kinds of well-baked bread, two bottles of wine, two of
excellent mead, and a large glass jug of kvas--both the latter made in the
monastery, and famous in the neighborhood. There was no vodka. Rakitin
related afterwards that there were five dishes: fish-soup made of
sterlets, served with little fish patties; then boiled fish served in a
special way; then salmon cutlets, ice pudding and compote, and finally,
blanc-mange. Rakitin found out about all these good things, for he could
not resist peeping into the kitchen, where he already had a footing. He
had a footing everywhere, and got information about everything. He was of
an uneasy and envious temper. He was well aware of his own considerable
abilities, and nervously exaggerated them in his self-conceit. He knew he
would play a prominent part of some sort, but Alyosha, who was attached to
him, was distressed to see that his friend Rakitin was dishonorable, and
quite unconscious of being so himself, considering, on the contrary, that
because he would not steal money left on the table he was a man of the
highest integrity. Neither Alyosha nor any one else could have influenced
him in that.

Rakitin, of course, was a person of too little consequence to be invited
to the dinner, to which Father Iosif, Father Paissy, and one other monk
were the only inmates of the monastery invited. They were already waiting
when Miuesov, Kalganov, and Ivan arrived. The other guest, Maximov, stood a
little aside, waiting also. The Father Superior stepped into the middle of
the room to receive his guests. He was a tall, thin, but still vigorous
old man, with black hair streaked with gray, and a long, grave, ascetic
face. He bowed to his guests in silence. But this time they approached to
receive his blessing. Miuesov even tried to kiss his hand, but the Father
Superior drew it back in time to avoid the salute. But Ivan and Kalganov
went through the ceremony in the most simple-hearted and complete manner,
kissing his hand as peasants do.

"We must apologize most humbly, your reverence," began Miuesov, simpering
affably, and speaking in a dignified and respectful tone. "Pardon us for
having come alone without the gentleman you invited, Fyodor Pavlovitch. He
felt obliged to decline the honor of your hospitality, and not without
reason. In the reverend Father Zossima's cell he was carried away by the
unhappy dissension with his son, and let fall words which were quite out
of keeping ... in fact, quite unseemly ... as"--he glanced at the
monks--"your reverence is, no doubt, already aware. And therefore,
recognizing that he had been to blame, he felt sincere regret and shame,
and begged me, and his son Ivan Fyodorovitch, to convey to you his
apologies and regrets. In brief, he hopes and desires to make amends
later. He asks your blessing, and begs you to forget what has taken
place."

As he uttered the last word of his tirade, Miuesov completely recovered his
self-complacency, and all traces of his former irritation disappeared. He
fully and sincerely loved humanity again.

The Father Superior listened to him with dignity, and, with a slight bend
of the head, replied:

"I sincerely deplore his absence. Perhaps at our table he might have
learnt to like us, and we him. Pray be seated, gentlemen."

He stood before the holy image, and began to say grace, aloud. All bent
their heads reverently, and Maximov clasped his hands before him, with
peculiar fervor.

It was at this moment that Fyodor Pavlovitch played his last prank. It
must be noted that he really had meant to go home, and really had felt the
impossibility of going to dine with the Father Superior as though nothing
had happened, after his disgraceful behavior in the elder's cell. Not that
he was so very much ashamed of himself--quite the contrary perhaps. But
still he felt it would be unseemly to go to dinner. Yet his creaking
carriage had hardly been brought to the steps of the hotel, and he had
hardly got into it, when he suddenly stopped short. He remembered his own
words at the elder's: "I always feel when I meet people that I am lower
than all, and that they all take me for a buffoon; so I say let me play
the buffoon, for you are, every one of you, stupider and lower than I." He
longed to revenge himself on every one for his own unseemliness. He
suddenly recalled how he had once in the past been asked, "Why do you hate
so and so, so much?" And he had answered them, with his shameless
impudence, "I'll tell you. He has done me no harm. But I played him a
dirty trick, and ever since I have hated him."

Remembering that now, he smiled quietly and malignantly, hesitating for a
moment. His eyes gleamed, and his lips positively quivered. "Well, since I
have begun, I may as well go on," he decided. His predominant sensation at
that moment might be expressed in the following words, "Well, there is no
rehabilitating myself now. So let me shame them for all I am worth. I will
show them I don't care what they think--that's all!"

He told the coachman to wait, while with rapid steps he returned to the
monastery and straight to the Father Superior's. He had no clear idea what
he would do, but he knew that he could not control himself, and that a
touch might drive him to the utmost limits of obscenity, but only to
obscenity, to nothing criminal, nothing for which he could be legally
punished. In the last resort, he could always restrain himself, and had
marveled indeed at himself, on that score, sometimes. He appeared in the
Father Superior's dining-room, at the moment when the prayer was over, and
all were moving to the table. Standing in the doorway, he scanned the
company, and laughing his prolonged, impudent, malicious chuckle, looked
them all boldly in the face. "They thought I had gone, and here I am
again," he cried to the whole room.

For one moment every one stared at him without a word; and at once every
one felt that something revolting, grotesque, positively scandalous, was
about to happen. Miuesov passed immediately from the most benevolent frame
of mind to the most savage. All the feelings that had subsided and died
down in his heart revived instantly.

"No! this I cannot endure!" he cried. "I absolutely cannot! and ... I
certainly cannot!"

The blood rushed to his head. He positively stammered; but he was beyond
thinking of style, and he seized his hat.

"What is it he cannot?" cried Fyodor Pavlovitch, "that he absolutely
cannot and certainly cannot? Your reverence, am I to come in or not? Will
you receive me as your guest?"

"You are welcome with all my heart," answered the Superior. "Gentlemen!"
he added, "I venture to beg you most earnestly to lay aside your
dissensions, and to be united in love and family harmony--with prayer to
the Lord at our humble table."

"No, no, it is impossible!" cried Miuesov, beside himself.

"Well, if it is impossible for Pyotr Alexandrovitch, it is impossible for
me, and I won't stop. That is why I came. I will keep with Pyotr
Alexandrovitch everywhere now. If you will go away, Pyotr Alexandrovitch,
I will go away too, if you remain, I will remain. You stung him by what
you said about family harmony, Father Superior, he does not admit he is my
relation. That's right, isn't it, von Sohn? Here's von Sohn. How are you,
von Sohn?"

"Do you mean me?" muttered Maximov, puzzled.

"Of course I mean you," cried Fyodor Pavlovitch. "Who else? The Father
Superior could not be von Sohn."

"But I am not von Sohn either. I am Maximov."

"No, you are von Sohn. Your reverence, do you know who von Sohn was? It
was a famous murder case. He was killed in a house of harlotry--I believe
that is what such places are called among you--he was killed and robbed,
and in spite of his venerable age, he was nailed up in a box and sent from
Petersburg to Moscow in the luggage van, and while they were nailing him
up, the harlots sang songs and played the harp, that is to say, the piano.
So this is that very von Sohn. He has risen from the dead, hasn't he, von
Sohn?"

"What is happening? What's this?" voices were heard in the group of monks.

"Let us go," cried Miuesov, addressing Kalganov.

"No, excuse me," Fyodor Pavlovitch broke in shrilly, taking another step
into the room. "Allow me to finish. There in the cell you blamed me for
behaving disrespectfully just because I spoke of eating gudgeon, Pyotr
Alexandrovitch. Miuesov, my relation, prefers to have _plus de noblesse que
de sincerite_ in his words, but I prefer in mine _plus de sincerite que de
noblesse_, and--damn the _noblesse_! That's right, isn't it, von Sohn?
Allow me, Father Superior, though I am a buffoon and play the buffoon, yet
I am the soul of honor, and I want to speak my mind. Yes, I am the soul of
honor, while in Pyotr Alexandrovitch there is wounded vanity and nothing
else. I came here perhaps to have a look and speak my mind. My son,
Alexey, is here, being saved. I am his father; I care for his welfare, and
it is my duty to care. While I've been playing the fool, I have been
listening and having a look on the sly; and now I want to give you the
last act of the performance. You know how things are with us? As a thing
falls, so it lies. As a thing once has fallen, so it must lie for ever.
Not a bit of it! I want to get up again. Holy Father, I am indignant with
you. Confession is a great sacrament, before which I am ready to bow down
reverently; but there in the cell, they all kneel down and confess aloud.
Can it be right to confess aloud? It was ordained by the holy Fathers to
confess in secret: then only your confession will be a mystery, and so it
was of old. But how can I explain to him before every one that I did this
and that ... well, you understand what--sometimes it would not be proper to
talk about it--so it is really a scandal! No, Fathers, one might be carried
along with you to the Flagellants, I dare say ... at the first opportunity
I shall write to the Synod, and I shall take my son, Alexey, home."

We must note here that Fyodor Pavlovitch knew where to look for the weak
spot. There had been at one time malicious rumors which had even reached
the Archbishop (not only regarding our monastery, but in others where the
institution of elders existed) that too much respect was paid to the
elders, even to the detriment of the authority of the Superior, that the
elders abused the sacrament of confession and so on and so on--absurd
charges which had died away of themselves everywhere. But the spirit of
folly, which had caught up Fyodor Pavlovitch, and was bearing him on the
current of his own nerves into lower and lower depths of ignominy,
prompted him with this old slander. Fyodor Pavlovitch did not understand a
word of it, and he could not even put it sensibly, for on this occasion no
one had been kneeling and confessing aloud in the elder's cell, so that he
could not have seen anything of the kind. He was only speaking from
confused memory of old slanders. But as soon as he had uttered his foolish
tirade, he felt he had been talking absurd nonsense, and at once longed to
prove to his audience, and above all to himself, that he had not been
talking nonsense. And, though he knew perfectly well that with each word
he would be adding more and more absurdity, he could not restrain himself,
and plunged forward blindly.

"How disgraceful!" cried Pyotr Alexandrovitch.

"Pardon me!" said the Father Superior. "It was said of old, 'Many have
begun to speak against me and have uttered evil sayings about me. And
hearing it I have said to myself: it is the correction of the Lord and He
has sent it to heal my vain soul.' And so we humbly thank you, honored
guest!" and he made Fyodor Pavlovitch a low bow.

"Tut--tut--tut--sanctimoniousness and stock phrases! Old phrases and old
gestures. The old lies and formal prostrations. We know all about them. A
kiss on the lips and a dagger in the heart, as in Schiller's _Robbers_. I
don't like falsehood, Fathers, I want the truth. But the truth is not to
be found in eating gudgeon and that I proclaim aloud! Father monks, why do
you fast? Why do you expect reward in heaven for that? Why, for reward
like that I will come and fast too! No, saintly monk, you try being
virtuous in the world, do good to society, without shutting yourself up in
a monastery at other people's expense, and without expecting a reward up
aloft for it--you'll find that a bit harder. I can talk sense, too, Father
Superior. What have they got here?" He went up to the table. "Old port
wine, mead brewed by the Eliseyev Brothers. Fie, fie, fathers! That is
something beyond gudgeon. Look at the bottles the fathers have brought
out, he he he! And who has provided it all? The Russian peasant, the
laborer, brings here the farthing earned by his horny hand, wringing it
from his family and the tax-gatherer! You bleed the people, you know, holy
fathers."

"This is too disgraceful!" said Father Iosif.

Father Paissy kept obstinately silent. Miuesov rushed from the room, and
Kalganov after him.

"Well, Father, I will follow Pyotr Alexandrovitch! I am not coming to see
you again. You may beg me on your knees, I shan't come. I sent you a
thousand roubles, so you have begun to keep your eye on me. He he he! No,
I'll say no more. I am taking my revenge for my youth, for all the
humiliation I endured." He thumped the table with his fist in a paroxysm
of simulated feeling. "This monastery has played a great part in my life!
It has cost me many bitter tears. You used to set my wife, the crazy one,
against me. You cursed me with bell and book, you spread stories about me
all over the place. Enough, fathers! This is the age of Liberalism, the
age of steamers and railways. Neither a thousand, nor a hundred roubles,
no, nor a hundred farthings will you get out of me!"

It must be noted again that our monastery never had played any great part
in his life, and he never had shed a bitter tear owing to it. But he was
so carried away by his simulated emotion, that he was for one moment
almost believing it himself. He was so touched he was almost weeping. But
at that very instant, he felt that it was time to draw back.

The Father Superior bowed his head at his malicious lie, and again spoke
impressively:

"It is written again, 'Bear circumspectly and gladly dishonor that cometh
upon thee by no act of thine own, be not confounded and hate not him who
hath dishonored thee.' And so will we."

"Tut, tut, tut! Bethinking thyself and the rest of the rigmarole. Bethink
yourselves, Fathers, I will go. But I will take my son, Alexey, away from
here for ever, on my parental authority. Ivan Fyodorovitch, my most
dutiful son, permit me to order you to follow me. Von Sohn, what have you
to stay for? Come and see me now in the town. It is fun there. It is only
one short verst; instead of lenten oil, I will give you sucking-pig and
kasha. We will have dinner with some brandy and liqueur to it.... I've
cloudberry wine. Hey, von Sohn, don't lose your chance." He went out,
shouting and gesticulating.

It was at that moment Rakitin saw him and pointed him out to Alyosha.

"Alexey!" his father shouted, from far off, catching sight of him. "You
come home to me to-day, for good, and bring your pillow and mattress, and
leave no trace behind."

Alyosha stood rooted to the spot, watching the scene in silence.
Meanwhile, Fyodor Pavlovitch had got into the carriage, and Ivan was about
to follow him in grim silence without even turning to say good-by to
Alyosha. But at this point another almost incredible scene of grotesque
buffoonery gave the finishing touch to the episode. Maximov suddenly
appeared by the side of the carriage. He ran up, panting, afraid of being
too late. Rakitin and Alyosha saw him running. He was in such a hurry that
in his impatience he put his foot on the step on which Ivan's left foot
was still resting, and clutching the carriage he kept trying to jump in.
"I am going with you!" he kept shouting, laughing a thin mirthful laugh
with a look of reckless glee in his face. "Take me, too."

"There!" cried Fyodor Pavlovitch, delighted. "Did I not say he was von
Sohn. It is von Sohn himself, risen from the dead. Why, how did you tear
yourself away? What did you _vonsohn_ there? And how could you get away
from the dinner? You must be a brazen-faced fellow! I am that myself, but
I am surprised at you, brother! Jump in, jump in! Let him pass, Ivan. It
will be fun. He can lie somewhere at our feet. Will you lie at our feet,
von Sohn? Or perch on the box with the coachman. Skip on to the box, von
Sohn!"

But Ivan, who had by now taken his seat, without a word gave Maximov a
violent punch in the breast and sent him flying. It was quite by chance he
did not fall.

"Drive on!" Ivan shouted angrily to the coachman.

"Why, what are you doing, what are you about? Why did you do that?" Fyodor
Pavlovitch protested.

But the carriage had already driven away. Ivan made no reply.

"Well, you are a fellow," Fyodor Pavlovitch said again.

After a pause of two minutes, looking askance at his son, "Why, it was you
got up all this monastery business. You urged it, you approved of it. Why
are you angry now?"

"You've talked rot enough. You might rest a bit now," Ivan snapped
sullenly.

Fyodor Pavlovitch was silent again for two minutes.

"A drop of brandy would be nice now," he observed sententiously, but Ivan
made no response.

"You shall have some, too, when we get home."

Ivan was still silent.

Fyodor Pavlovitch waited another two minutes.

"But I shall take Alyosha away from the monastery, though you will dislike
it so much, most honored Karl von Moor."

Ivan shrugged his shoulders contemptuously, and turning away stared at the
road. And they did not speak again all the way home.






Book 2, Chapter 8
While Alyosha was helping Zosima in his cell, Miusov, Kalganov, and Ivan proceeded on to the Father Superior's. Miusov had just finished apologizing for Fyodor's behavior when Fyodor popped in. Fyodor had been planning on skipping the lunch, having caused enough commotion already, but in his carriage he had changed his mind and decided he had a couple more tricks up his sleeve. Fyodor at first accuses Maximov the landowner of being somebody else - some dude named von Sohn who, according to Fyodor, had died a grotesque death in a brothel. Next, Fyodor attacks the Father Superior and the monastery in general. He accuses them of stealing the peasants' money and spending it on lavish spreads like the dinner they're about to enjoy. He also accuses them of turning his second wife, the "shrieker" against him. During these tirades, the Father Superior's only reaction is to thank Fyodor for giving them all a dose of humility, which Fyodor ignores. Miusov can't stand Fyodor's behavior anymore and leaves, followed by Kalganov. Fyodor also leaves, demanding that Alyosha leave the monastery as well. Ivan follows Fyodor. As they get into their carriage, the landowner Maximov comes running after, thinking that the real party's with Fyodor. But Ivan pushes him away from the carriage and orders the driver to leave. In their carriage, Fyodor tries to get Ivan to talk, but Ivan coldly ignores him.