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

questions that wrung his inexperienced and virginal heart. He could

not endure without mortification, without resentment even, that the

holiest of holy men should have been exposed to the jeering and

spiteful mockery of the frivolous crowd so inferior to him. Even had

there been no miracles, had there been nothing marvellous to justify

his hopes, why this indignity, why this humiliation, why this

premature decay, “in excess of nature,” as the spiteful monks said?

Why this “sign from heaven,” which they so triumphantly acclaimed in

company with Father Ferapont, and why did they believe they had gained

the right to acclaim it? Where is the finger of Providence? Why did

Providence hide its face “at the most critical moment” (so Alyosha

thought it), as though voluntarily submitting to the blind, dumb,

pitiless laws of nature?

That was why Alyosha’s heart was bleeding, and, of course, as I

have said already, the sting of it all was that the man he loved above

everything on earth should be put to shame and humiliated! This

murmuring may have been shallow and unreasonable in my hero, but I

repeat again for the third time-and am prepared to admit that it

might be difficult to defend my feeling-I am glad that my hero showed

himself not too reasonable at that moment, for any man of sense will

always come back to reason in time, but, if love does not gain the

upper hand in a boy’s heart at such an exceptional moment, when will

it? I will not, however, omit to mention something strange, which came

for a time to the surface of Alyosha’s mind at this fatal and

obscure moment. This new something was the harassing impression left

by the conversation with Ivan, which now persistently haunted

Alyosha’s mind. At this moment it haunted him. Oh, it was not that

something of the fundamental, elemental, so to speak, faith of his

soul had been shaken. He loved his God and believed in Him

steadfastly, though he was suddenly murmuring against Him. Yet a vague

but tormenting and evil impression left by his conversation with

Ivan the day before, suddenly revived again now in his soul and seemed

forcing its way to the surface of his consciousness.

It had begun to get dusk when Rakitin, crossing the pine copse

from the hermitage to the monastery, suddenly noticed Alyosha, lying

face downwards on the ground under a tree, not moving and apparently

asleep. He went up and called him by his name.

“You here, Alexey? Can you have- ” he began wondering but broke

off. He had meant to say, “Can you have come to this?”

Alyosha did not look at him, but from a slight movement Rakitin at

once saw that he heard and understood him.

“What’s the matter?” he went on; but the surprise in his face

gradually passed into a smile that became more and more ironical.

“I say, I’ve been looking for you for the last two hours. You

suddenly disappeared. What are you about? What foolery is this? You

might just look at me…”

Alyosha raised his head, sat up and leaned his back against the

tree. He was not crying, but there was a look of suffering and

irritability in his face. He did not look at Rakitin, however, but

looked away to one side of him.

“Do you know your face is quite changed? There’s none of your

famous mildness to be seen in it. Are you angry with someone? Have

they been ill-treating you?”

“Let me alone,” said Alyosha suddenly, with a weary gesture of his

hand, still looking away from him.

“Oho! So that’s how we are feeling! So you can shout at people

like other mortals. That is a come-down from the angels. I say,

Alyosha, you have surprised me, do you hear? I mean it. It’s long

since I’ve been surprised at anything here. I always took you for an

educated man.

Alyosha at last looked at him, but vaguely, as though scarcely

understanding what he said.

“Can you really be so upset simply because your old man has

begun to stink? You don’t mean to say you seriously believed that he

was going to work miracles?” exclaimed Rakitin, genuinely surprised

again.

“I believed, I believe, I want to believe, and I will believe,

what more do you want?” cried Alyosha irritably.

“Nothing at all, my boy. Damn it all! why, no schoolboy of

thirteen believes in that now. But there… So now you are in a temper

with your God, you are rebelling against Him; He hasn’t given

promotion, He hasn’t bestowed the order of merit! Eh, you are a set!”

Alyosha gazed a long while with his eyes half closed at Rakitin,

and there was a sudden gleam in his eyes… but not of anger with

Rakitin.

“I am not rebelling against my God; I simply ‘don’t accept His

world.’” Alyosha suddenly smiled a forced smile.

“How do you mean, you don’t accept the world?” Rakitin thought a

moment over his answer. “What idiocy is this?”

Alyosha did not answer.

“Come, enough nonsense, now to business. Have you had anything

to eat to-day?”

“I don’t remember…. I think I have.”

“You need keeping up, to judge by your face. It makes one sorry to

look at you. You didn’t sleep all night either, I hear; you had a

meeting in there. And then all this bobbery afterwards. Most likely

you’ve had nothing to eat but a mouthful of holy bread. I’ve got

some sausage in my pocket; I’ve brought it from the town in case of

need, only you won’t eat sausage….”

“Give me some.”

“I say! You are going it! Why, it’s a regular mutiny, with

barricades! Well, my boy, we must make the most of it. Come to my

place… shouldn’t mind a drop of vodka myself, I am tired to death.

Vodka is going too far for you, I suppose… or would you like some?”

“Give me some vodka too.”

“Hullo! You surprise me, brother!” Rakitin looked at him in

amazement. “Well, one way or another, vodka or sausage, this is a

jolly fine chance and mustn’t be missed. Come along.”

Alyosha got up in silence and followed Rakitin.

“If your little brother Ivan could see this wouldn’t he be

surprised! By the way, your brother Ivan set off to Moscow this

morning, did you know?”

“Yes,” answered Alyosha listlessly, and suddenly the image of

his brother Dmitri rose before his mind. But only for a minute, and

though it reminded him of something that must not be put off for a

moment, some duty, some terrible obligation, even that reminder made

no impression on him, did not reach his heart and instantly faded

out of his mind and was forgotten. But, a long while afterwards,

Alyosha remembered this.

“Your brother Ivan declared once that I was a ‘liberal booby

with no talents whatsoever.’ Once you, too, could not resist letting

me know I was ‘dishonourable.’ Well! I should like to see what your

talents and sense of honour will do for you now.” This phrase

Rakitin finished to himself in a whisper.

“Listen!” he said aloud, “Let’s go by the path beyond the

monastery straight to the town. H’m! I ought to go to Madame

Hohlakov’s by the way. Only fancy, I’ve written to tell her everything

that happened, and would you believe it, she answered me instantly

in pencil (the lady has a passion for writing notes) that ‘she would

never have expected such conduct from a man of such a reverend

character as Father Zossima.’ That was her very word: ‘conduct.’ She

is angry too. Eh, you are a set! Stay!” he cried suddenly again. He

suddenly stopped and taking Alyosha by the shoulder made him stop too.

“Do you know, Alyosha,” he peeped inquisitively into his eyes,

absorbed in a sudden new thought which had dawned on him, and though

he was laughing outwardly he was evidently afraid to utter that new

idea aloud, so difficult he still found it to believe in the strange

and unexpected mood in which he now saw Alyosha. “Alyosha, do you know

where we had better go?” he brought out at last timidly, and

insinuatingly.

“I don’t care… where you like.”

“Let’s go to Grushenka, eh? Will you come?” pronounced Rakitin

at last, trembling with timid suspense.

“Let’s go to Grushenka,” Alyosha answered calmly, at once, and

this prompt and calm agreement was such a surprise to Rakitin that

he almost started back.

“Well! I say!” he cried in amazement, but seizing Alyosha firmly

by the arm be led him along the path, still dreading that he would

change his mind.

They walked along in silence; Rakitin was positively afraid to

talk.

“And how glad she will be, how delighted!” he muttered, but lapsed

into silence again. And indeed it was not to please Grushenka he was

taking Alyosha to her. He was a practical person and never undertook

anything without a prospect of gain for himself. His object in this

case was twofold, first a revengeful desire to see “the downfall of

the righteous,” and Alyosha’s fall “from the saints to the sinners,”

over which he was already gloating in his imagination, and in the

second place he had in view a certain material gain for himself, of

which more will be said later.

“So the critical moment has come,” he thought to himself with

spiteful glee, “and we shall catch it on the hop, for it’s just what

we want.”