The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky (easy to read books for adults list .txt) 📕

They Arrive at the Monastery

IT was a warm, bright day the end of August. The interview with

the elder had been fixed for half-past eleven, immediately after

late mass. Our visitors did not take part in the service, but

arrived just as it was over. First an elegant open carriage, drawn

by two valuable horses, drove up with Miusov and a distant relative of

his, a young man of twenty, called Pyotr Fomitch Kalganov. This

young man was preparing to enter the university. Miusov with whom he

was staying for the time, was trying to persuade him to go abroad to

the university of Zurich or Jena. The young man was still undecided.

He was thoughtful and absent-minded. He was nice-looking, strongly

built, and rather tall. There was a strange fixity in his gaze at

times. Like all very absent-minded people he would sometimes stare

at a person without seeing him. He was silent and rather awkward,

but sometimes, when he was alone with anyone, he became talkative

and effusive, and would laugh at anything or nothing. But his

animation vanished as quickly as it appeared. He was always well and

even elaborately dressed; he had already some independent fortune

and expectations of much more. He was a friend of Alyosha’s.

In an ancient, jolting, but roomy, hired carriage, with a pair

of old pinkish-grey horses, a long way behind Miusov’s carriage,

came Fyodor Pavlovitch, with his son Ivan. Dmitri was late, though

he had been informed of the time the evening before. The visitors left

their carriage at the hotel, outside the precincts, and went to the

gates of the monastery on foot. Except Fyodor Pavlovitch, more of

the party had ever seen the monastery, and Miusov had probably not

even been to church for thirty years. He looked about him with

curiosity, together with assumed ease. But, except the church and

the domestic buildings, though these too were ordinary enough, he

found nothing of interest in the interior of the monastery. The last

of the worshippers were coming out of the church bareheaded and

crossing themselves. Among the humbler people were a few of higher

rank-two or three ladies and a very old general. They were all

staying at the hotel. Our visitors were at once surrounded by beggars,

but none of them gave them anything, except young Kalganov, who took a

ten-copeck piece out of his purse, and, nervous and embarrassed-God

knows why!- hurriedly gave it to an old woman, saying: “Divide it

equally.” None of his companions made any remark upon it, so that he

had no reason to be embarrassed; but, perceiving this, he was even

more overcome.

It was strange that their arrival did not seem expected, and

that they were not received with special honour, though one of them

had recently made a donation of a thousand roubles, while another

was a very wealthy and highly cultured landowner, upon whom all in the

monastery were in a sense dependent, as a decision of the lawsuit

might at any moment put their fishing rights in his hands. Yet no

official personage met them.

Miusov looked absent-mindedly at the tombstones round the

church, and was on the point of saying that the dead buried here

must have paid a pretty penny for the right of lying in this “holy

place,” but refrained. His liberal irony was rapidly changing almost

into anger.

“Who the devil is there to ask in this imbecile place? We must

find out, for time is passing,” he observed suddenly, as though

speaking to himself.

All at once there came up a bald-headed, elderly man with

ingratiating little eyes, wearing a full, summer overcoat. Lifting his

hat, he introduced himself with a honeyed lisp as Maximov, a landowner

of Tula. He at once entered into our visitors’ difficulty.

“Father Zossima lives in the hermitage, apart, four hundred

paces from the monastery, the other side of the copse.”

“I know it’s the other side of the copse,” observed Fyodor

Pavlovitch, “but we don’t remember the way. It is a long time since

we’ve been here.”

“This way, by this gate, and straight across the copse… the

copse. Come with me, won’t you? I’ll show you. I have to go…. I am

going myself. This way, this way.”

They came out of the gate and turned towards the copse. Maximov, a

man of sixty, ran rather than walked, turning sideways to stare at

them all, with an incredible degree of nervous curiosity. His eyes

looked starting out of his head.

“You see, we have come to the elder upon business of our own,”

observed Miusov severely. “That personage has granted us an

audience, so to speak, and so, though we thank you for showing us

the way, we cannot ask you to accompany us.”

“I’ve been there. I’ve been already; un chevalier parfait,” and

Maximov snapped his fingers in the air.

“Who is a chevalier?” asked Miusov.

“The elder, the splendid elder, the elder! The honour and glory of

the monastery, Zossima. Such an elder!”

But his incoherent talk was cut short by a very pale,

wan-looking monk of medium height wearing a monk’s cap, who overtook

them. Fyodor Pavlovitch and Miusov stopped.

The monk, with an extremely courteous, profound bow, announced:

“The Father Superior invites all of you gentlemen to dine with him

after your visit to the hermitage. At one o’clock, not later. And

you also,” he added, addressing Maximov.

“That I certainly will, without fail,” cried Fyodor Pavlovitch,

hugely delighted at the invitation. “And, believe me, we’ve all

given our word to behave properly here…. And you, Pyotr

Alexandrovitch, will you go, too?”

“Yes, of course. What have I come for but to study all the customs

here? The only obstacle to me is your company….”

“Yes, Dmitri Fyodorovitch is non-existent as yet.”

“It would be a capital thing if he didn’t turn up. Do you

suppose I like all this business, and in your company, too? So we will

come to dinner. Thank the Father Superior,” he said to the monk.

“No, it is my duty now to conduct you to the elder,” answered

the monk.

“If so I’ll go straight to the Father Superior-to the Father

Superior,” babbled Maximov.

“The Father Superior is engaged just now. But as you please- ” the

monk hesitated.

“Impertinent old man!” Miusov observed aloud, while Maximov ran

back to the monastery.

“He’s like von Sohn,” Fyodor Pavlovitch said suddenly.

“Is that all you can think of?… In what way is he like von Sohn?

Have you ever seen von Sohn?”

“I’ve seen his portrait. It’s not the features, but something

indefinable. He’s a second von Sohn. I can always tell from the

physiognomy.”

“Ah, I dare say you are a connoisseur in that. But, look here,

Fyodor Pavlovitch, you said just now that we had given our word to

behave properly. Remember it. I advise you to control yourself. But,

if you begin to play the fool I don’t intend to be associated with you

here… You see what a man he is”- he turned to the monk- “I’m

afraid to go among decent people with him.” A fine smile, not

without a certain slyness, came on to the pale, bloodless lips of

the monk, but he made no reply, and was evidently silent from a

sense of his own dignity. Miusov frowned more than ever.

“Oh, devil take them all! An outer show elaborated through

centuries, and nothing but charlatanism and nonsense underneath,”

flashed through Miusov’s mind.

“Here’s the hermitage. We’ve arrived,” cried Fyodor Pavlovitch.

“The gates are shut.”

And he repeatedly made the sign of the cross to the saints painted

above and on the sides of the gates.

“When you go to Rome you must do as the Romans do. Here in this

hermitage there are twenty-five saints being saved. They look at one

another, and eat cabbages. And not one woman goes in at this gate.

That’s what is remarkable. And that really is so. But I did hear

that the elder receives ladies,” he remarked suddenly to the monk.

“Women of the people are here too now, lying in the portico

there waiting. But for ladies of higher rank two rooms have been built

adjoining the portico, but outside the precincts you can see the

windows-and the elder goes out to them