feat_summary_path: finished_summaries/cliffnotes/The Brothers Karamazov/section_10_part_0.txt
feat_book_id: The Brothers Karamazov.book vii.chapter i-chapter iv
feat_summary_id: book vii
feat_summary: {"name": "Book VII", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201219142226/https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/b/the-brothers-karamazov/summary-and-analysis/part-3-book-vii", "summary": "As soon as Father Zossima's body is prepared for burial, it is placed in a large room. News traveling fast, the room is quickly filled. As soon as they hear of the elder's death, large numbers of people gather, expecting a miracle. There is no miracle, however, only this: Zossima's corpse begins to putrefy almost immediately, and the odor of decay is soon sickening to all of the mourners. All present become nauseated and begin to grow fearful because they believe that the decay of a body is related to its spiritual character. It seems an evil omen that Zossima's corpse would rot so soon after death, for the elder was popularly believed to be on the verge of sainthood. Discontented monks and enemies of Father Zossima are not long to act. Quickly they announce that the decaying body is proof that the elder was no saint; at last the doctrine he preached is proved to be incorrect. The townspeople are confused. Tradition and superstition are embedded in their nerves. They have expected something awesome but certainly not a portent that points to Zossima's being a possible disciple of Satan. Not even Alyosha escapes the fear that grips the community. He cannot understand why God has allowed such disgrace to accompany the elder's death. Father Ferapont, the fanatical ascetic, rushes to Zossima's cell and begins to exorcise devils out of all the corners. Elsewhere there is also madness -- the entire monastery is torn by confused loyalties and uncertainties. Finally, the extreme Ferapont is ordered to leave. But shortly thereafter, there is another departure from the monastery. Alyosha leaves also; he wishes to find solitude to grieve and ponder. Alone, he again questions the justice of all that has happened. Instead of receiving the glory that Alyosha believed was Zossima's due, his mentor is now \"degraded and dishonored.\" Alyosha cannot doubt God, but he must question why He has allowed such a dreadful thing to occur. Alyosha is interrupted in his thoughts as the seminarian, Rakitin, who earlier mocked Alyosha, ridicules his grief and makes contemptuous remarks about Zossima's decaying body. He tempts Alyosha with sausage and vodka, both of which are denied a monk during Lent, and Alyosha suddenly accepts both. Rakitin then goes a step further and suggests that they visit Grushenka, and again Alyosha agrees. Grushenka is astonished at her visitors but regains her composure and explains that she is waiting for an important message to arrive. They are curious about the message, and she tells them that it comes from an army officer whom she loved five years ago and who deserted her. Now he has returned to the province and is sending for her. Grushenka notices Alyosha's dejection and tries to cheer him by sitting on his knee and teasing him, but when she learns that Father Zossima died only a few hours earlier, she too becomes remorseful. She upbraids herself and denounces her life as that of a wicked sinner. Alyosha stops her, speaking with great kindness and understanding, and the two suddenly exchange glimpses into each other's souls. Love and trust are given, one to the other, and Grushenka unabashedly speaks to Alyosha of her problems; she no longer feels ashamed of her life. As for Alyosha, Grushenka's genuine expressions of sympathy lift him out of the deep depression he has felt since Zossima's death. Rakitin cannot understand this sudden compassion between them and is spiteful and vindictive, especially after Grushenka confesses that she had paid Rakitin to bring Alyosha to her. The message arrives from Grushenka's lover, and she excuses herself and leaves, asking Alyosha to tell Dmitri that she did love him -- once, for an hour. Very late, Alyosha returns to the monastery and goes to Zossima's cell. He kneels and prays, still troubled by many things, and then hears Father Paissy reading the account of the wedding at Cana in the Gospel of St. John. Because he is exhausted and because of the sweet lull of the Father's voice, Alyosha dozes. He dreams that he is at the marriage in Cana, along with Christ and the other guests. Zossima appears and calls to Alyosha; he tells him to come forth and join the crowd, reminding him that man should be joyful. Even today, he says, Alyosha has helped Grushenka find her path toward salvation. Alyosha wakes, and his eyes are filled with tears of joy. He goes outside and flings himself on the earth, kissing and embracing it. His heart is filled with ecstasy over his new knowledge and his new understanding of the joy of life.", "analysis": "Dostoevsky has been preparing the reader throughout the novel for this single crisis in Alyosha's life. There have been many hints that a miracle is expected to accompany Zossima's death, but one of the central points of Ivan's Grand Inquisitor tale is that man must believe freely in the teachings of a person without the benefit of either divine manifestations or miracles. A person's beliefs, furthermore, can be greatly strengthened by emerging triumphantly from a period of great doubt. In this chapter, Dostoevsky presents Alyosha's tests -- corollaries of Christ's tests in the wilderness. If Alyosha emerges successfully, then he will be qualified to move within society and to influence it. Alyosha, of course, does not need miracles for himself. But he recognizes the need of others for them, and with no miracle and because the body is decaying, he knows that spiteful rumors will rise around Zossima's memory. He cannot endure the holiest of holy men being exposed to jeering and mockery. Such indignity and humiliation of premature decay are unnecessary. Alyosha's questionings align him closely with his brother Ivan. Ivan also asked about God's justice, and, like his brother, Alyosha does not question God; he is concerned only about His justice. When the seminarian appears, Alyosha even echoes Ivan's arguments by saying, \"I am not rebelling against my God; I simply don't accept His world.\" But Karamazovs are concerned with justice, not God Himself. Alyosha, of course, realizes that Christ went through such jeering and mockery. But for a moment, he gives way to temptation, and in this way he becomes human and not semi-divine; he becomes believably mortal. He can later be more deeply admired for his courage in resisting temptation. Alyosha questions, and by his questions one realizes the value of doubting. A serene acceptance of all -- with no questioning -- is neither courageous nor admirable; it is merely shallow, immature. Alyosha, when he defies his vows, accepts the sausage and vodka, and goes to see Grushenka, has a temporary spiritual revolt but emerges a much stronger adherent of faith. In terms of a larger perspective within the action of the novel, one should remember that Ivan leaves town on the day that Zossima dies. Ivan catches the train at about the same time that Alyosha arrives at Grushenka's. Also, it is later this evening that Fyodor's murder takes place, and it is also later this evening that Alyosha rediscovers his faith and rededicates himself to the principles advocated by Father Zossima. Ironically, Alyosha's transformation initially results from his encounter with Grushenka. He goes there in defiance of his monastic orders. Grushenka, for her part, hopes to seduce Alyosha's innocence; his purity is threatening. But when they meet, Alyosha sees in Grushenka a woman he cannot condemn; he sees \"a loving heart\" that can compassionately respond to the suffering that Alyosha is undergoing. In his confession to her, he admits that he came hoping only to find an evil woman. Such honesty is infectious and transforming. Grushenka says, \"He is the first, the only one who has pitied me . . . I've been waiting all my life for some one like you. I knew that someone like you would come and forgive me.\" And, unlikely as it seems, perhaps in a way like the miracle that all expected, carnality and purity create new love and compassion. The explanation, however, is far from being that of a miracle. Alyosha has only followed Zossima's teachings. He has loved Grushenka; he has not damned her; and he, and she, suddenly rediscover themselves. At the end of this scene, Rakitin, who could not understand the attraction between Alyosha and Grushenka, feels that Alyosha dislikes him for taking twenty-five rubles from Grushenka. But the point is this: Alyosha does not judge him; Rakitin leaves because he judges himself and finds himself guilty. When Alyosha returns to the monastery, he feels such mixed emotions that there is a \"sweetness in his heart.\" By this single experience with Grushenka, he has found the value of much that Zossima preached. He has seen how responding to even such a person as Grushenka has changed his entire view of life. Suddenly, he feels himself at peace with the entire world. Alyosha listens to the monk read of the marriage in Cana and realizes that Christ came to give people pleasure in this world; he came to preach a message of joy and love. This is exactly what Father Zossima advocated. In his dream, he sees his beloved elder in the presence of Christ and knows that the message they both preached is far more important than any \"miracle.\" With love, he embraces the earth and is quietly filled with new understanding of all that Zossima said. He leaves the monastery with new conviction. He is ready at last to take his place in the world as Zossima said that he must."}
text: PART III  Book VII. Alyosha Chapter I. The Breath Of Corruption
  
  
  The body of Father Zossima was prepared for burial according to the
  established ritual. As is well known, the bodies of dead monks and hermits
  are not washed. In the words of the Church Ritual: "If any one of the
  monks depart in the Lord, the monk designated (that is, whose office it
  is) shall wipe the body with warm water, making first the sign of the
  cross with a sponge on the forehead of the deceased, on the breast, on the
  hands and feet and on the knees, and that is enough." All this was done by
  Father Paissy, who then clothed the deceased in his monastic garb and
  wrapped him in his cloak, which was, according to custom, somewhat slit to
  allow of its being folded about him in the form of a cross. On his head he
  put a hood with an eight-cornered cross. The hood was left open and the
  dead man's face was covered with black gauze. In his hands was put an ikon
  of the Saviour. Towards morning he was put in the coffin which had been
  made ready long before. It was decided to leave the coffin all day in the
  cell, in the larger room in which the elder used to receive his visitors
  and fellow monks. As the deceased was a priest and monk of the strictest
  rule, the Gospel, not the Psalter, had to be read over his body by monks
  in holy orders. The reading was begun by Father Iosif immediately after
  the requiem service. Father Paissy desired later on to read the Gospel all
  day and night over his dead friend, but for the present he, as well as the
  Father Superintendent of the Hermitage, was very busy and occupied, for
  something extraordinary, an unheard-of, even "unseemly" excitement and
  impatient expectation began to be apparent in the monks, and the visitors
  from the monastery hostels, and the crowds of people flocking from the
  town. And as time went on, this grew more and more marked. Both the
  Superintendent and Father Paissy did their utmost to calm the general
  bustle and agitation.
  
  When it was fully daylight, some people began bringing their sick, in most
  cases children, with them from the town--as though they had been waiting
  expressly for this moment to do so, evidently persuaded that the dead
  elder's remains had a power of healing, which would be immediately made
  manifest in accordance with their faith. It was only then apparent how
  unquestionably every one in our town had accepted Father Zossima during
  his lifetime as a great saint. And those who came were far from being all
  of the humbler classes.
  
  This intense expectation on the part of believers displayed with such
  haste, such openness, even with impatience and almost insistence,
  impressed Father Paissy as unseemly. Though he had long foreseen something
  of the sort, the actual manifestation of the feeling was beyond anything
  he had looked for. When he came across any of the monks who displayed this
  excitement, Father Paissy began to reprove them. "Such immediate
  expectation of something extraordinary," he said, "shows a levity,
  possible to worldly people but unseemly in us."
  
  But little attention was paid him and Father Paissy noticed it uneasily.
  Yet he himself (if the whole truth must be told), secretly at the bottom
  of his heart, cherished almost the same hopes and could not but be aware
  of it, though he was indignant at the too impatient expectation around
  him, and saw in it light-mindedness and vanity. Nevertheless, it was
  particularly unpleasant to him to meet certain persons, whose presence
  aroused in him great misgivings. In the crowd in the dead man's cell he
  noticed with inward aversion (for which he immediately reproached himself)
  the presence of Rakitin and of the monk from Obdorsk, who was still
  staying in the monastery. Of both of them Father Paissy felt for some
  reason suddenly suspicious--though, indeed, he might well have felt the
  same about others.
  
  The monk from Obdorsk was conspicuous as the most fussy in the excited
  crowd. He was to be seen everywhere; everywhere he was asking questions,
  everywhere he was listening, on all sides he was whispering with a
  peculiar, mysterious air. His expression showed the greatest impatience
  and even a sort of irritation.
  
  As for Rakitin, he, as appeared later, had come so early to the hermitage
  at the special request of Madame Hohlakov. As soon as that good-hearted
  but weak-minded woman, who could not herself have been admitted to the
  hermitage, waked and heard of the death of Father Zossima, she was
  overtaken with such intense curiosity that she promptly dispatched Rakitin
  to the hermitage, to keep a careful look out and report to her by letter
  every half-hour or so "_everything that takes place_." She regarded
  Rakitin as a most religious and devout young man. He was particularly
  clever in getting round people and assuming whatever part he thought most
  to their taste, if he detected the slightest advantage to himself from
  doing so.
  
  It was a bright, clear day, and many of the visitors were thronging about
  the tombs, which were particularly numerous round the church and scattered
  here and there about the hermitage. As he walked round the hermitage,
  Father Paissy remembered Alyosha and that he had not seen him for some
  time, not since the night. And he had no sooner thought of him than he at
  once noticed him in the farthest corner of the hermitage garden, sitting
  on the tombstone of a monk who had been famous long ago for his
  saintliness. He sat with his back to the hermitage and his face to the
  wall, and seemed to be hiding behind the tombstone. Going up to him,
  Father Paissy saw that he was weeping quietly but bitterly, with his face
  hidden in his hands, and that his whole frame was shaking with sobs.
  Father Paissy stood over him for a little.
  
  "Enough, dear son, enough, dear," he pronounced with feeling at last. "Why
  do you weep? Rejoice and weep not. Don't you know that this is the
  greatest of his days? Think only where he is now, at this moment!"
  
  Alyosha glanced at him, uncovering his face, which was swollen with crying
  like a child's, but turned away at once without uttering a word and hid
  his face in his hands again.
  
  "Maybe it is well," said Father Paissy thoughtfully; "weep if you must,
  Christ has sent you those tears."
  
  "Your touching tears are but a relief to your spirit and will serve to
  gladden your dear heart," he added to himself, walking away from Alyosha,
  and thinking lovingly of him. He moved away quickly, however, for he felt
  that he too might weep looking at him.
  
  Meanwhile the time was passing; the monastery services and the requiems
  for the dead followed in their due course. Father Paissy again took Father
  Iosif's place by the coffin and began reading the Gospel. But before three
  o'clock in the afternoon that something took place to which I alluded at
  the end of the last book, something so unexpected by all of us and so
  contrary to the general hope, that, I repeat, this trivial incident has
  been minutely remembered to this day in our town and all the surrounding
  neighborhood. I may add here, for myself personally, that I feel it almost
  repulsive to recall that event which caused such frivolous agitation and
  was such a stumbling-block to many, though in reality it was the most
  natural and trivial matter. I should, of course, have omitted all mention
  of it in my story, if it had not exerted a very strong influence on the
  heart and soul of the chief, though future, hero of my story, Alyosha,
  forming a crisis and turning-point in his spiritual development, giving a
  shock to his intellect, which finally strengthened it for the rest of his
  life and gave it a definite aim.
  
  And so, to return to our story. When before dawn they laid Father
  Zossima's body in the coffin and brought it into the front room, the
  question of opening the windows was raised among those who were around the
  coffin. But this suggestion made casually by some one was unanswered and
  almost unnoticed. Some of those present may perhaps have inwardly noticed
  it, only to reflect that the anticipation of decay and corruption from the
  body of such a saint was an actual absurdity, calling for compassion (if
  not a smile) for the lack of faith and the frivolity it implied. For they
  expected something quite different.
  
  And, behold, soon after midday there were signs of something, at first
  only observed in silence by those who came in and out and were evidently
  each afraid to communicate the thought in his mind. But by three o'clock
  those signs had become so clear and unmistakable, that the news swiftly
  reached all the monks and visitors in the hermitage, promptly penetrated
  to the monastery, throwing all the monks into amazement, and finally, in
  the shortest possible time, spread to the town, exciting every one in it,
  believers and unbelievers alike. The unbelievers rejoiced, and as for the
  believers some of them rejoiced even more than the unbelievers, for "men
  love the downfall and disgrace of the righteous," as the deceased elder
  had said in one of his exhortations.
  
  The fact is that a smell of decomposition began to come from the coffin,
  growing gradually more marked, and by three o'clock it was quite
  unmistakable. In all the past history of our monastery, no such scandal
  could be recalled, and in no other circumstances could such a scandal have
  been possible, as showed itself in unseemly disorder immediately after
  this discovery among the very monks themselves. Afterwards, even many
  years afterwards, some sensible monks were amazed and horrified, when they
  recalled that day, that the scandal could have reached such proportions.
  For in the past, monks of very holy life had died, God-fearing old men,
  whose saintliness was acknowledged by all, yet from their humble coffins,
  too, the breath of corruption had come, naturally, as from all dead
  bodies, but that had caused no scandal nor even the slightest excitement.
  Of course there had been, in former times, saints in the monastery whose
  memory was carefully preserved and whose relics, according to tradition,
  showed no signs of corruption. This fact was regarded by the monks as
  touching and mysterious, and the tradition of it was cherished as
  something blessed and miraculous, and as a promise, by God's grace, of
  still greater glory from their tombs in the future.
  
  One such, whose memory was particularly cherished, was an old monk, Job,
  who had died seventy years before at the age of a hundred and five. He had
  been a celebrated ascetic, rigid in fasting and silence, and his tomb was
  pointed out to all visitors on their arrival with peculiar respect and
  mysterious hints of great hopes connected with it. (That was the very tomb
  on which Father Paissy had found Alyosha sitting in the morning.) Another
  memory cherished in the monastery was that of the famous Father Varsonofy,
  who was only recently dead and had preceded Father Zossima in the
  eldership. He was reverenced during his lifetime as a crazy saint by all
  the pilgrims to the monastery. There was a tradition that both of these
  had lain in their coffins as though alive, that they had shown no signs of
  decomposition when they were buried and that there had been a holy light
  in their faces. And some people even insisted that a sweet fragrance came
  from their bodies.
  
  Yet, in spite of these edifying memories, it would be difficult to explain
  the frivolity, absurdity and malice that were manifested beside the coffin
  of Father Zossima. It is my private opinion that several different causes
  were simultaneously at work, one of which was the deeply-rooted hostility
  to the institution of elders as a pernicious innovation, an antipathy
  hidden deep in the hearts of many of the monks. Even more powerful was
  jealousy of the dead man's saintliness, so firmly established during his
  lifetime that it was almost a forbidden thing to question it. For though
  the late elder had won over many hearts, more by love than by miracles,
  and had gathered round him a mass of loving adherents, none the less, in
  fact, rather the more on that account he had awakened jealousy and so had
  come to have bitter enemies, secret and open, not only in the monastery
  but in the world outside it. He did no one any harm, but "Why do they
  think him so saintly?" And that question alone, gradually repeated, gave
  rise at last to an intense, insatiable hatred of him. That, I believe, was
  why many people were extremely delighted at the smell of decomposition
  which came so quickly, for not a day had passed since his death. At the
  same time there were some among those who had been hitherto reverently
  devoted to the elder, who were almost mortified and personally affronted
  by this incident. This was how the thing happened.
  
  As soon as signs of decomposition had begun to appear, the whole aspect of
  the monks betrayed their secret motives in entering the cell. They went
  in, stayed a little while and hastened out to confirm the news to the
  crowd of other monks waiting outside. Some of the latter shook their heads
  mournfully, but others did not even care to conceal the delight which
  gleamed unmistakably in their malignant eyes. And now no one reproached
  them for it, no one raised his voice in protest, which was strange, for
  the majority of the monks had been devoted to the dead elder. But it
  seemed as though God had in this case let the minority get the upper hand
  for a time.
  
  Visitors from outside, particularly of the educated class, soon went into
  the cell, too, with the same spying intent. Of the peasantry few went into
  the cell, though there were crowds of them at the gates of the hermitage.
  After three o'clock the rush of worldly visitors was greatly increased and
  this was no doubt owing to the shocking news. People were attracted who
  would not otherwise have come on that day and had not intended to come,
  and among them were some personages of high standing. But external decorum
  was still preserved and Father Paissy, with a stern face, continued firmly
  and distinctly reading aloud the Gospel, apparently not noticing what was
  taking place around him, though he had, in fact, observed something
  unusual long before. But at last the murmurs, first subdued but gradually
  louder and more confident, reached even him. "It shows God's judgment is
  not as man's," Father Paissy heard suddenly. The first to give utterance
  to this sentiment was a layman, an elderly official from the town, known
  to be a man of great piety. But he only repeated aloud what the monks had
  long been whispering. They had long before formulated this damning
  conclusion, and the worst of it was that a sort of triumphant satisfaction
  at that conclusion became more and more apparent every moment. Soon they
  began to lay aside even external decorum and almost seemed to feel they
  had a sort of right to discard it.
  
  "And for what reason can _this_ have happened," some of the monks said, at
  first with a show of regret; "he had a small frame and his flesh was dried
  up on his bones, what was there to decay?"
  
  "It must be a sign from heaven," others hastened to add, and their opinion
  was adopted at once without protest. For it was pointed out, too, that if
  the decomposition had been natural, as in the case of every dead sinner,
  it would have been apparent later, after a lapse of at least twenty-four
  hours, but this premature corruption "was in excess of nature," and so the
  finger of God was evident. It was meant for a sign. This conclusion seemed
  irresistible.
  
  Gentle Father Iosif, the librarian, a great favorite of the dead man's,
  tried to reply to some of the evil speakers that "this is not held
  everywhere alike," and that the incorruptibility of the bodies of the just
  was not a dogma of the Orthodox Church, but only an opinion, and that even
  in the most Orthodox regions, at Athos for instance, they were not greatly
  confounded by the smell of corruption, and there the chief sign of the
  glorification of the saved was not bodily incorruptibility, but the color
  of the bones when the bodies have lain many years in the earth and have
  decayed in it. "And if the bones are yellow as wax, that is the great sign
  that the Lord has glorified the dead saint, if they are not yellow but
  black, it shows that God has not deemed him worthy of such glory--that is
  the belief in Athos, a great place, where the Orthodox doctrine has been
  preserved from of old, unbroken and in its greatest purity," said Father
  Iosif in conclusion.
  
  But the meek Father's words had little effect and even provoked a mocking
  retort. "That's all pedantry and innovation, no use listening to it," the
  monks decided. "We stick to the old doctrine, there are all sorts of
  innovations nowadays, are we to follow them all?" added others.
  
  "We have had as many holy fathers as they had. There they are among the
  Turks, they have forgotten everything. Their doctrine has long been impure
  and they have no bells even," the most sneering added.
  
  Father Iosif walked away, grieving the more since he had put forward his
  own opinion with little confidence as though scarcely believing in it
  himself. He foresaw with distress that something very unseemly was
  beginning and that there were positive signs of disobedience. Little by
  little, all the sensible monks were reduced to silence like Father Iosif.
  And so it came to pass that all who loved the elder and had accepted with
  devout obedience the institution of the eldership were all at once
  terribly cast down and glanced timidly in one another's faces, when they
  met. Those who were hostile to the institution of elders, as a novelty,
  held up their heads proudly. "There was no smell of corruption from the
  late elder Varsonofy, but a sweet fragrance," they recalled malignantly.
  "But he gained that glory not because he was an elder, but because he was
  a holy man."
  
  And this was followed by a shower of criticism and even blame of Father
  Zossima. "His teaching was false; he taught that life is a great joy and
  not a vale of tears," said some of the more unreasonable. "He followed the
  fashionable belief, he did not recognize material fire in hell," others,
  still more unreasonable, added. "He was not strict in fasting, allowed
  himself sweet things, ate cherry jam with his tea, ladies used to send it
  to him. Is it for a monk of strict rule to drink tea?" could be heard
  among some of the envious. "He sat in pride," the most malignant declared
  vindictively; "he considered himself a saint and he took it as his due
  when people knelt before him." "He abused the sacrament of confession,"
  the fiercest opponents of the institution of elders added in a malicious
  whisper. And among these were some of the oldest monks, strictest in their
  devotion, genuine ascetics, who had kept silent during the life of the
  deceased elder, but now suddenly unsealed their lips. And this was
  terrible, for their words had great influence on young monks who were not
  yet firm in their convictions. The monk from Obdorsk heard all this
  attentively, heaving deep sighs and nodding his head. "Yes, clearly Father
  Ferapont was right in his judgment yesterday," and at that moment Father
  Ferapont himself made his appearance, as though on purpose to increase the
  confusion.
  
  I have mentioned already that he rarely left his wooden cell by the
  apiary. He was seldom even seen at church and they overlooked this neglect
  on the ground of his craziness, and did not keep him to the rules binding
  on all the rest. But if the whole truth is to be told, they hardly had a
  choice about it. For it would have been discreditable to insist on
  burdening with the common regulations so great an ascetic, who prayed day
  and night (he even dropped asleep on his knees). If they had insisted, the
  monks would have said, "He is holier than all of us and he follows a rule
  harder than ours. And if he does not go to church, it's because he knows
  when he ought to; he has his own rule." It was to avoid the chance of
  these sinful murmurs that Father Ferapont was left in peace.
  
  As every one was aware, Father Ferapont particularly disliked Father
  Zossima. And now the news had reached him in his hut that "God's judgment
  is not the same as man's," and that something had happened which was "in
  excess of nature." It may well be supposed that among the first to run to
  him with the news was the monk from Obdorsk, who had visited him the
  evening before and left his cell terror-stricken.
  
  I have mentioned above, that though Father Paissy, standing firm and
  immovable reading the Gospel over the coffin, could not hear nor see what
  was passing outside the cell, he gauged most of it correctly in his heart,
  for he knew the men surrounding him, well. He was not shaken by it, but
  awaited what would come next without fear, watching with penetration and
  insight for the outcome of the general excitement.
  
  Suddenly an extraordinary uproar in the passage in open defiance of
  decorum burst on his ears. The door was flung open and Father Ferapont
  appeared in the doorway. Behind him there could be seen accompanying him a
  crowd of monks, together with many people from the town. They did not,
  however, enter the cell, but stood at the bottom of the steps, waiting to
  see what Father Ferapont would say or do. For they felt with a certain
  awe, in spite of their audacity, that he had not come for nothing.
  Standing in the doorway, Father Ferapont raised his arms, and under his
  right arm the keen inquisitive little eyes of the monk from Obdorsk peeped
  in. He alone, in his intense curiosity, could not resist running up the
  steps after Father Ferapont. The others, on the contrary, pressed farther
  back in sudden alarm when the door was noisily flung open. Holding his
  hands aloft, Father Ferapont suddenly roared:
  
  "Casting out I cast out!" and, turning in all directions, he began at once
  making the sign of the cross at each of the four walls and four corners of
  the cell in succession. All who accompanied Father Ferapont immediately
  understood his action. For they knew he always did this wherever he went,
  and that he would not sit down or say a word, till he had driven out the
  evil spirits.
  
  "Satan, go hence! Satan, go hence!" he repeated at each sign of the cross.
  "Casting out I cast out," he roared again.
  
  He was wearing his coarse gown girt with a rope. His bare chest, covered
  with gray hair, could be seen under his hempen shirt. His feet were bare.
  As soon as he began waving his arms, the cruel irons he wore under his
  gown could be heard clanking.
  
  Father Paissy paused in his reading, stepped forward and stood before him
  waiting.
  
  "What have you come for, worthy Father? Why do you offend against good
  order? Why do you disturb the peace of the flock?" he said at last,
  looking sternly at him.
  
  "What have I come for? You ask why? What is your faith?" shouted Father
  Ferapont crazily. "I've come here to drive out your visitors, the unclean
  devils. I've come to see how many have gathered here while I have been
  away. I want to sweep them out with a birch broom."
  
  "You cast out the evil spirit, but perhaps you are serving him yourself,"
  Father Paissy went on fearlessly. "And who can say of himself 'I am holy'?
  Can you, Father?"
  
  "I am unclean, not holy. I would not sit in an arm-chair and would not
  have them bow down to me as an idol," thundered Father Ferapont. "Nowadays
  folk destroy the true faith. The dead man, your saint," he turned to the
  crowd, pointing with his finger to the coffin, "did not believe in devils.
  He gave medicine to keep off the devils. And so they have become as common
  as spiders in the corners. And now he has begun to stink himself. In that
  we see a great sign from God."
  
  The incident he referred to was this. One of the monks was haunted in his
  dreams and, later on, in waking moments, by visions of evil spirits. When
  in the utmost terror he confided this to Father Zossima, the elder had
  advised continual prayer and rigid fasting. But when that was of no use,
  he advised him, while persisting in prayer and fasting, to take a special
  medicine. Many persons were shocked at the time and wagged their heads as
  they talked over it--and most of all Father Ferapont, to whom some of the
  censorious had hastened to report this "extraordinary" counsel on the part
  of the elder.
  
  "Go away, Father!" said Father Paissy, in a commanding voice, "it's not
  for man to judge but for God. Perhaps we see here a 'sign' which neither
  you, nor I, nor any one of us is able to comprehend. Go, Father, and do
  not trouble the flock!" he repeated impressively.
  
  "He did not keep the fasts according to the rule and therefore the sign
  has come. That is clear and it's a sin to hide it," the fanatic, carried
  away by a zeal that outstripped his reason, would not be quieted. "He was
  seduced by sweetmeats, ladies brought them to him in their pockets, he
  sipped tea, he worshiped his belly, filling it with sweet things and his
  mind with haughty thoughts.... And for this he is put to shame...."
  
  "You speak lightly, Father." Father Paissy, too, raised his voice. "I
  admire your fasting and severities, but you speak lightly like some
  frivolous youth, fickle and childish. Go away, Father, I command you!"
  Father Paissy thundered in conclusion.
  
  "I will go," said Ferapont, seeming somewhat taken aback, but still as
  bitter. "You learned men! You are so clever you look down upon my
  humbleness. I came hither with little learning and here I have forgotten
  what I did know, God Himself has preserved me in my weakness from your
  subtlety."
  
  Father Paissy stood over him, waiting resolutely. Father Ferapont paused
  and, suddenly leaning his cheek on his hand despondently, pronounced in a
  sing-song voice, looking at the coffin of the dead elder:
  
  "To-morrow they will sing over him 'Our Helper and Defender'--a splendid
  anthem--and over me when I die all they'll sing will be 'What earthly
  joy'--a little canticle,"(6) he added with tearful regret. "You are proud
  and puffed up, this is a vain place!" he shouted suddenly like a madman,
  and with a wave of his hand he turned quickly and quickly descended the
  steps. The crowd awaiting him below wavered; some followed him at once and
  some lingered, for the cell was still open, and Father Paissy, following
  Father Ferapont on to the steps, stood watching him. But the excited old
  fanatic was not completely silenced. Walking twenty steps away, he
  suddenly turned towards the setting sun, raised both his arms and, as
  though some one had cut him down, fell to the ground with a loud scream.
  
  "My God has conquered! Christ has conquered the setting sun!" he shouted
  frantically, stretching up his hands to the sun, and falling face
  downwards on the ground, he sobbed like a little child, shaken by his
  tears and spreading out his arms on the ground. Then all rushed up to him;
  there were exclamations and sympathetic sobs ... a kind of frenzy seemed
  to take possession of them all.
  
  "This is the one who is a saint! This is the one who is a holy man!" some
  cried aloud, losing their fear. "This is he who should be an elder,"
  others added malignantly.
  
  "He wouldn't be an elder ... he would refuse ... he wouldn't serve a
  cursed innovation ... he wouldn't imitate their foolery," other voices
  chimed in at once. And it is hard to say how far they might have gone, but
  at that moment the bell rang summoning them to service. All began crossing
  themselves at once. Father Ferapont, too, got up and crossing himself went
  back to his cell without looking round, still uttering exclamations which
  were utterly incoherent. A few followed him, but the greater number
  dispersed, hastening to service. Father Paissy let Father Iosif read in
  his place and went down. The frantic outcries of bigots could not shake
  him, but his heart was suddenly filled with melancholy for some special
  reason and he felt that. He stood still and suddenly wondered, "Why am I
  sad even to dejection?" and immediately grasped with surprise that his
  sudden sadness was due to a very small and special cause. In the crowd
  thronging at the entrance to the cell, he had noticed Alyosha and he
  remembered that he had felt at once a pang at heart on seeing him. "Can
  that boy mean so much to my heart now?" he asked himself, wondering.
  
  At that moment Alyosha passed him, hurrying away, but not in the direction
  of the church. Their eyes met. Alyosha quickly turned away his eyes and
  dropped them to the ground, and from the boy's look alone, Father Paissy
  guessed what a great change was taking place in him at that moment.
  
  "Have you, too, fallen into temptation?" cried Father Paissy. "Can you be
  with those of little faith?" he added mournfully.
  
  Alyosha stood still and gazed vaguely at Father Paissy, but quickly turned
  his eyes away again and again looked on the ground. He stood sideways and
  did not turn his face to Father Paissy, who watched him attentively.
  
  "Where are you hastening? The bell calls to service," he asked again, but
  again Alyosha gave no answer.
  
  "Are you leaving the hermitage? What, without asking leave, without asking
  a blessing?"
  
  Alyosha suddenly gave a wry smile, cast a strange, very strange, look at
  the Father to whom his former guide, the former sovereign of his heart and
  mind, his beloved elder, had confided him as he lay dying. And suddenly,
  still without speaking, waved his hand, as though not caring even to be
  respectful, and with rapid steps walked towards the gates away from the
  hermitage.
  
  "You will come back again!" murmured Father Paissy, looking after him with
  sorrowful surprise.
  
  
  
  
  Chapter II. A Critical Moment
  
  
  Father Paissy, of course, was not wrong when he decided that his "dear
  boy" would come back again. Perhaps indeed, to some extent, he penetrated
  with insight into the true meaning of Alyosha's spiritual condition. Yet I
  must frankly own that it would be very difficult for me to give a clear
  account of that strange, vague moment in the life of the young hero I love
  so much. To Father Paissy's sorrowful question, "Are you too with those of
  little faith?" I could of course confidently answer for Alyosha, "No, he
  is not with those of little faith. Quite the contrary." Indeed, all his
  trouble came from the fact that he was of great faith. But still the
  trouble was there and was so agonizing that even long afterwards Alyosha
  thought of that sorrowful day as one of the bitterest and most fatal days
  of his life. If the question is asked: "Could all his grief and
  disturbance have been only due to the fact that his elder's body had shown
  signs of premature decomposition instead of at once performing miracles?"
  I must answer without beating about the bush, "Yes, it certainly was." I
  would only beg the reader not to be in too great a hurry to laugh at my
  young hero's pure heart. I am far from intending to apologize for him or
  to justify his innocent faith on the ground of his youth, or the little
  progress he had made in his studies, or any such reason. I must declare,
  on the contrary, that I have genuine respect for the qualities of his
  heart. No doubt a youth who received impressions cautiously, whose love
  was lukewarm, and whose mind was too prudent for his age and so of little
  value, such a young man might, I admit, have avoided what happened to my
  hero. But in some cases it is really more creditable to be carried away by
  an emotion, however unreasonable, which springs from a great love, than to
  be unmoved. And this is even truer in youth, for a young man who is always
  sensible is to be suspected and is of little worth--that's my opinion!
  
  "But," reasonable people will exclaim perhaps, "every young man cannot
  believe in such a superstition and your hero is no model for others."
  
  To this I reply again, "Yes! my hero had faith, a faith holy and
  steadfast, but still I am not going to apologize for him."
  
  Though I declared above, and perhaps too hastily, that I should not
  explain or justify my hero, I see that some explanation is necessary for
  the understanding of the rest of my story. Let me say then, it was not a
  question of miracles. There was no frivolous and impatient expectation of
  miracles in his mind. And Alyosha needed no miracles at the time, for the
  triumph of some preconceived idea--oh, no, not at all--what he saw before
  all was one figure--the figure of his beloved elder, the figure of that
  holy man whom he revered with such adoration. The fact is that all the
  love that lay concealed in his pure young heart for every one and
  everything had, for the past year, been concentrated--and perhaps wrongly
  so--on one being, his beloved elder. It is true that being had for so long
  been accepted by him as his ideal, that all his young strength and energy
  could not but turn towards that ideal, even to the forgetting at the
  moment "of every one and everything." He remembered afterwards how, on
  that terrible day, he had entirely forgotten his brother Dmitri, about
  whom he had been so anxious and troubled the day before; he had forgotten,
  too, to take the two hundred roubles to Ilusha's father, though he had so
  warmly intended to do so the preceding evening. But again it was not
  miracles he needed but only "the higher justice" which had been in his
  belief outraged by the blow that had so suddenly and cruelly wounded his
  heart. And what does it signify that this "justice" looked for by Alyosha
  inevitably took the shape of miracles to be wrought immediately by the
  ashes of his adored teacher? Why, every one in the monastery cherished the
  same thought and the same hope, even those whose intellects Alyosha
  revered, Father Paissy himself, for instance. And so Alyosha, untroubled
  by doubts, clothed his dreams too in the same form as all the rest. And a
  whole year of life in the monastery had formed the habit of this
  expectation in his heart. But it was justice, justice, he thirsted for,
  not simply miracles.
  
  And now the man who should, he believed, have been exalted above every one
  in the whole world, that man, instead of receiving the glory that was his
  due, was suddenly degraded and dishonored! What for? Who had judged him?
  Who could have decreed this? Those were the 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 marvelous 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 some one? 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.... I
  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
  'dishonorable.' Well! I should like to see what your talents and sense of
  honor 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. Hm! 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 he 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."
  
  
  
  
  Chapter III. An Onion
  
  
  Grushenka lived in the busiest part of the town, near the cathedral
  square, in a small wooden lodge in the courtyard belonging to the house of
  the widow Morozov. The house was a large stone building of two stories,
  old and very ugly. The widow led a secluded life with her two unmarried
  nieces, who were also elderly women. She had no need to let her lodge, but
  every one knew that she had taken in Grushenka as a lodger, four years
  before, solely to please her kinsman, the merchant Samsonov, who was known
  to be the girl's protector. It was said that the jealous old man's object
  in placing his "favorite" with the widow Morozov was that the old woman
  should keep a sharp eye on her new lodger's conduct. But this sharp eye
  soon proved to be unnecessary, and in the end the widow Morozov seldom met
  Grushenka and did not worry her by looking after her in any way. It is
  true that four years had passed since the old man had brought the slim,
  delicate, shy, timid, dreamy, and sad girl of eighteen from the chief town
  of the province, and much had happened since then. Little was known of the
  girl's history in the town and that little was vague. Nothing more had
  been learnt during the last four years, even after many persons had become
  interested in the beautiful young woman into whom Agrafena Alexandrovna
  had meanwhile developed. There were rumors that she had been at seventeen
  betrayed by some one, some sort of officer, and immediately afterwards
  abandoned by him. The officer had gone away and afterwards married, while
  Grushenka had been left in poverty and disgrace. It was said, however,
  that though Grushenka had been raised from destitution by the old man,
  Samsonov, she came of a respectable family belonging to the clerical
  class, that she was the daughter of a deacon or something of the sort.
  
  And now after four years the sensitive, injured and pathetic little orphan
  had become a plump, rosy beauty of the Russian type, a woman of bold and
  determined character, proud and insolent. She had a good head for
  business, was acquisitive, saving and careful, and by fair means or foul
  had succeeded, it was said, in amassing a little fortune. There was only
  one point on which all were agreed. Grushenka was not easily to be
  approached and except her aged protector there had not been one man who
  could boast of her favors during those four years. It was a positive fact,
  for there had been a good many, especially during the last two years, who
  had attempted to obtain those favors. But all their efforts had been in
  vain and some of these suitors had been forced to beat an undignified and
  even comic retreat, owing to the firm and ironical resistance they met
  from the strong-willed young person. It was known, too, that the young
  person had, especially of late, been given to what is called
  "speculation," and that she had shown marked abilities in that direction,
  so that many people began to say that she was no better than a Jew. It was
  not that she lent money on interest, but it was known, for instance, that
  she had for some time past, in partnership with old Karamazov, actually
  invested in the purchase of bad debts for a trifle, a tenth of their
  nominal value, and afterwards had made out of them ten times their value.
  
  The old widower Samsonov, a man of large fortune, was stingy and
  merciless. He tyrannized over his grown-up sons, but, for the last year
  during which he had been ill and lost the use of his swollen legs, he had
  fallen greatly under the influence of his protegee, whom he had at first
  kept strictly and in humble surroundings, "on Lenten fare," as the wits
  said at the time. But Grushenka had succeeded in emancipating herself,
  while she established in him a boundless belief in her fidelity. The old
  man, now long since dead, had had a large business in his day and was also
  a noteworthy character, miserly and hard as flint. Though Grushenka's hold
  upon him was so strong that he could not live without her (it had been so
  especially for the last two years), he did not settle any considerable
  fortune on her and would not have been moved to do so, if she had
  threatened to leave him. But he had presented her with a small sum, and
  even that was a surprise to every one when it became known.
  
  "You are a wench with brains," he said to her, when he gave her eight
  thousand roubles, "and you must look after yourself, but let me tell you
  that except your yearly allowance as before, you'll get nothing more from
  me to the day of my death, and I'll leave you nothing in my will either."
  
  And he kept his word; he died and left everything to his sons, whom, with
  their wives and children, he had treated all his life as servants.
  Grushenka was not even mentioned in his will. All this became known
  afterwards. He helped Grushenka with his advice to increase her capital
  and put business in her way.
  
  When Fyodor Pavlovitch, who first came into contact with Grushenka over a
  piece of speculation, ended to his own surprise by falling madly in love
  with her, old Samsonov, gravely ill as he was, was immensely amused. It is
  remarkable that throughout their whole acquaintance Grushenka was
  absolutely and spontaneously open with the old man, and he seems to have
  been the only person in the world with whom she was so. Of late, when
  Dmitri too had come on the scene with his love, the old man left off
  laughing. On the contrary, he once gave Grushenka a stern and earnest
  piece of advice.
  
  "If you have to choose between the two, father or son, you'd better choose
  the old man, if only you make sure the old scoundrel will marry you and
  settle some fortune on you beforehand. But don't keep on with the captain,
  you'll get no good out of that."
  
  These were the very words of the old profligate, who felt already that his
  death was not far off and who actually died five months later.
  
  I will note, too, in passing, that although many in our town knew of the
  grotesque and monstrous rivalry of the Karamazovs, father and son, the
  object of which was Grushenka, scarcely any one understood what really
  underlay her attitude to both of them. Even Grushenka's two servants
  (after the catastrophe of which we will speak later) testified in court
  that she received Dmitri Fyodorovitch simply from fear because "he
  threatened to murder her." These servants were an old cook, invalidish and
  almost deaf, who came from Grushenka's old home, and her granddaughter, a
  smart young girl of twenty, who performed the duties of a maid. Grushenka
  lived very economically and her surroundings were anything but luxurious.
  Her lodge consisted of three rooms furnished with mahogany furniture in
  the fashion of 1820, belonging to her landlady.
  
  It was quite dark when Rakitin and Alyosha entered her rooms, yet they
  were not lighted up. Grushenka was lying down in her drawing-room on the
  big, hard, clumsy sofa, with a mahogany back. The sofa was covered with
  shabby and ragged leather. Under her head she had two white down pillows
  taken from her bed. She was lying stretched out motionless on her back
  with her hands behind her head. She was dressed as though expecting some
  one, in a black silk dress, with a dainty lace fichu on her head, which
  was very becoming. Over her shoulders was thrown a lace shawl pinned with
  a massive gold brooch. She certainly was expecting some one. She lay as
  though impatient and weary, her face rather pale and her lips and eyes
  hot, restlessly tapping the arm of the sofa with the tip of her right
  foot. The appearance of Rakitin and Alyosha caused a slight excitement.
  From the hall they could hear Grushenka leap up from the sofa and cry out
  in a frightened voice, "Who's there?" But the maid met the visitors and at
  once called back to her mistress.
  
  "It's not he, it's nothing, only other visitors."
  
  "What can be the matter?" muttered Rakitin, leading Alyosha into the
  drawing-room.
  
  Grushenka was standing by the sofa as though still alarmed. A thick coil
  of her dark brown hair escaped from its lace covering and fell on her
  right shoulder, but she did not notice it and did not put it back till she
  had gazed at her visitors and recognized them.
  
  "Ah, it's you, Rakitin? You quite frightened me. Whom have you brought?
  Who is this with you? Good heavens, you have brought him!" she exclaimed,
  recognizing Alyosha.
  
  "Do send for candles!" said Rakitin, with the free-and-easy air of a most
  intimate friend, who is privileged to give orders in the house.
  
  "Candles ... of course, candles.... Fenya, fetch him a candle.... Well,
  you have chosen a moment to bring him!" she exclaimed again, nodding
  towards Alyosha, and turning to the looking-glass she began quickly
  fastening up her hair with both hands. She seemed displeased.
  
  "Haven't I managed to please you?" asked Rakitin, instantly almost
  offended.
  
  "You frightened me, Rakitin, that's what it is." Grushenka turned with a
  smile to Alyosha. "Don't be afraid of me, my dear Alyosha, you cannot
  think how glad I am to see you, my unexpected visitor. But you frightened
  me, Rakitin, I thought it was Mitya breaking in. You see, I deceived him
  just now, I made him promise to believe me and I told him a lie. I told
  him that I was going to spend the evening with my old man, Kuzma Kuzmitch,
  and should be there till late counting up his money. I always spend one
  whole evening a week with him making up his accounts. We lock ourselves in
  and he counts on the reckoning beads while I sit and put things down in
  the book. I am the only person he trusts. Mitya believes that I am there,
  but I came back and have been sitting locked in here, expecting some news.
  How was it Fenya let you in? Fenya, Fenya, run out to the gate, open it
  and look about whether the captain is to be seen! Perhaps he is hiding and
  spying, I am dreadfully frightened."
  
  "There's no one there, Agrafena Alexandrovna, I've just looked out, I keep
  running to peep through the crack, I am in fear and trembling myself."
  
  "Are the shutters fastened, Fenya? And we must draw the curtains--that's
  better!" She drew the heavy curtains herself. "He'd rush in at once if he
  saw a light. I am afraid of your brother Mitya to-day, Alyosha."
  
  Grushenka spoke aloud, and, though she was alarmed, she seemed very happy
  about something.
  
  "Why are you so afraid of Mitya to-day?" inquired Rakitin. "I should have
  thought you were not timid with him, you'd twist him round your little
  finger."
  
  "I tell you, I am expecting news, priceless news, so I don't want Mitya at
  all. And he didn't believe, I feel he didn't, that I should stay at Kuzma
  Kuzmitch's. He must be in his ambush now, behind Fyodor Pavlovitch's, in
  the garden, watching for me. And if he's there, he won't come here, so
  much the better! But I really have been to Kuzma Kuzmitch's, Mitya
  escorted me there. I told him I should stay there till midnight, and I
  asked him to be sure to come at midnight to fetch me home. He went away
  and I sat ten minutes with Kuzma Kuzmitch and came back here again. Ugh, I
  was afraid, I ran for fear of meeting him."
  
  "And why are you so dressed up? What a curious cap you've got on!"
  
  "How curious you are yourself, Rakitin! I tell you, I am expecting a
  message. If the message comes, I shall fly, I shall gallop away and you
  will see no more of me. That's why I am dressed up, so as to be ready."
  
  "And where are you flying to?"
  
  "If you know too much, you'll get old too soon."
  
  "Upon my word! You are highly delighted ... I've never seen you like this
  before. You are dressed up as if you were going to a ball." Rakitin looked
  her up and down.
  
  "Much you know about balls."
  
  "And do you know much about them?"
  
  "I have seen a ball. The year before last, Kuzma Kuzmitch's son was
  married and I looked on from the gallery. Do you suppose I want to be
  talking to you, Rakitin, while a prince like this is standing here. Such a
  visitor! Alyosha, my dear boy, I gaze at you and can't believe my eyes.
  Good heavens, can you have come here to see me! To tell you the truth, I
  never had a thought of seeing you and I didn't think that you would ever
  come and see me. Though this is not the moment now, I am awfully glad to
  see you. Sit down on the sofa, here, that's right, my bright young moon. I
  really can't take it in even now.... Eh, Rakitin, if only you had brought
  him yesterday or the day before! But I am glad as it is! Perhaps it's
  better he has come now, at such a moment, and not the day before
  yesterday."
  
  She gayly sat down beside Alyosha on the sofa, looking at him with
  positive delight. And she really was glad, she was not lying when she said
  so. Her eyes glowed, her lips laughed, but it was a good-hearted merry
  laugh. Alyosha had not expected to see such a kind expression in her
  face.... He had hardly met her till the day before, he had formed an
  alarming idea of her, and had been horribly distressed the day before by
  the spiteful and treacherous trick she had played on Katerina Ivanovna. He
  was greatly surprised to find her now altogether different from what he
  had expected. And, crushed as he was by his own sorrow, his eyes
  involuntarily rested on her with attention. Her whole manner seemed
  changed for the better since yesterday, there was scarcely any trace of
  that mawkish sweetness in her speech, of that voluptuous softness in her
  movements. Everything was simple and good-natured, her gestures were
  rapid, direct, confiding, but she was greatly excited.
  
  "Dear me, how everything comes together to-day!" she chattered on again.
  "And why I am so glad to see you, Alyosha, I couldn't say myself! If you
  ask me, I couldn't tell you."
  
  "Come, don't you know why you're glad?" said Rakitin, grinning. "You used
  to be always pestering me to bring him, you'd some object, I suppose."
  
  "I had a different object once, but now that's over, this is not the
  moment. I say, I want you to have something nice. I am so good-natured
  now. You sit down, too, Rakitin; why are you standing? You've sat down
  already? There's no fear of Rakitin's forgetting to look after himself.
  Look, Alyosha, he's sitting there opposite us, so offended that I didn't
  ask him to sit down before you. Ugh, Rakitin is such a one to take
  offense!" laughed Grushenka. "Don't be angry, Rakitin, I'm kind to-day.
  Why are you so depressed, Alyosha? Are you afraid of me?" She peeped into
  his eyes with merry mockery"
  
  "He's sad. The promotion has not been given," boomed Rakitin.
  
  "What promotion?"
  
  "His elder stinks."
  
  "What? You are talking some nonsense, you want to say something nasty. Be
  quiet, you stupid! Let me sit on your knee, Alyosha, like this." She
  suddenly skipped forward and jumped, laughing, on his knee, like a
  nestling kitten, with her right arm about his neck. "I'll cheer you up, my
  pious boy. Yes, really, will you let me sit on your knee? You won't be
  angry? If you tell me, I'll get off?"
  
  Alyosha did not speak. He sat afraid to move, he heard her words, "If you
  tell me, I'll get off," but he did not answer. But there was nothing in
  his heart such as Rakitin, for instance, watching him malignantly from his
  corner, might have expected or fancied. The great grief in his heart
  swallowed up every sensation that might have been aroused, and, if only he
  could have thought clearly at that moment, he would have realized that he
  had now the strongest armor to protect him from every lust and temptation.
  Yet in spite of the vague irresponsiveness of his spiritual condition and
  the sorrow that overwhelmed him, he could not help wondering at a new and
  strange sensation in his heart. This woman, this "dreadful" woman, had no
  terror for him now, none of that terror that had stirred in his soul at
  any passing thought of woman. On the contrary, this woman, dreaded above
  all women, sitting now on his knee, holding him in her arms, aroused in
  him now a quite different, unexpected, peculiar feeling, a feeling of the
  intensest and purest interest without a trace of fear, of his former
  terror. That was what instinctively surprised him.
  
  "You've talked nonsense enough," cried Rakitin, "you'd much better give us
  some champagne. You owe it me, you know you do!"
  
  "Yes, I really do. Do you know, Alyosha, I promised him champagne on the
  top of everything, if he'd bring you? I'll have some too! Fenya, Fenya,
  bring us the bottle Mitya left! Look sharp! Though I am so stingy, I'll
  stand a bottle, not for you, Rakitin, you're a toadstool, but he is a
  falcon! And though my heart is full of something very different, so be it,
  I'll drink with you. I long for some dissipation."
  
  "But what is the matter with you? And what is this message, may I ask, or
  is it a secret?" Rakitin put in inquisitively, doing his best to pretend
  not to notice the snubs that were being continually aimed at him.
  
  "Ech, it's not a secret, and you know it, too," Grushenka said, in a voice
  suddenly anxious, turning her head towards Rakitin, and drawing a little
  away from Alyosha, though she still sat on his knee with her arm round his
  neck. "My officer is coming, Rakitin, my officer is coming."
  
  "I heard he was coming, but is he so near?"
  
  "He is at Mokroe now; he'll send a messenger from there, so he wrote; I
  got a letter from him to-day. I am expecting the messenger every minute."
  
  "You don't say so! Why at Mokroe?"
  
  "That's a long story, I've told you enough."
  
  "Mitya'll be up to something now--I say! Does he know or doesn't he?"
  
  "He know! Of course he doesn't. If he knew, there would be murder. But I
  am not afraid of that now, I am not afraid of his knife. Be quiet,
  Rakitin, don't remind me of Dmitri Fyodorovitch, he has bruised my heart.
  And I don't want to think of that at this moment. I can think of Alyosha
  here, I can look at Alyosha ... smile at me, dear, cheer up, smile at my
  foolishness, at my pleasure.... Ah, he's smiling, he's smiling! How kindly
  he looks at me! And you know, Alyosha, I've been thinking all this time
  you were angry with me, because of the day before yesterday, because of
  that young lady. I was a cur, that's the truth.... But it's a good thing
  it happened so. It was a horrid thing, but a good thing too." Grushenka
  smiled dreamily and a little cruel line showed in her smile. "Mitya told
  me that she screamed out that I 'ought to be flogged.' I did insult her
  dreadfully. She sent for me, she wanted to make a conquest of me, to win
  me over with her chocolate.... No, it's a good thing it did end like
  that." She smiled again. "But I am still afraid of your being angry."
  
  "Yes, that's really true," Rakitin put in suddenly with genuine surprise.
  "Alyosha, she is really afraid of a chicken like you."
  
  "He is a chicken to you, Rakitin ... because you've no conscience, that's
  what it is! You see, I love him with all my soul, that's how it is!
  Alyosha, do you believe I love you with all my soul?"
  
  "Ah, you shameless woman! She is making you a declaration, Alexey!"
  
  "Well, what of it, I love him!"
  
  "And what about your officer? And the priceless message from Mokroe?"
  
  "That is quite different."
  
  "That's a woman's way of looking at it!"
  
  "Don't you make me angry, Rakitin." Grushenka caught him up hotly. "This
  is quite different. I love Alyosha in a different way. It's true, Alyosha,
  I had sly designs on you before. For I am a horrid, violent creature. But
  at other times I've looked upon you, Alyosha, as my conscience. I've kept
  thinking 'how any one like that must despise a nasty thing like me.' I
  thought that the day before yesterday, as I ran home from the young
  lady's. I have thought of you a long time in that way, Alyosha, and Mitya
  knows, I've talked to him about it. Mitya understands. Would you believe
  it, I sometimes look at you and feel ashamed, utterly ashamed of
  myself.... And how, and since when, I began to think about you like that,
  I can't say, I don't remember...."
  
  Fenya came in and put a tray with an uncorked bottle and three glasses of
  champagne on the table.
  
  "Here's the champagne!" cried Rakitin. "You're excited, Agrafena
  Alexandrovna, and not yourself. When you've had a glass of champagne,
  you'll be ready to dance. Eh, they can't even do that properly," he added,
  looking at the bottle. "The old woman's poured it out in the kitchen and
  the bottle's been brought in warm and without a cork. Well, let me have
  some, anyway."
  
  He went up to the table, took a glass, emptied it at one gulp and poured
  himself out another.
  
  "One doesn't often stumble upon champagne," he said, licking his lips.
  "Now, Alyosha, take a glass, show what you can do! What shall we drink to?
  The gates of paradise? Take a glass, Grushenka, you drink to the gates of
  paradise, too."
  
  "What gates of paradise?"
  
  She took a glass, Alyosha took his, tasted it and put it back.
  
  "No, I'd better not," he smiled gently.
  
  "And you bragged!" cried Rakitin.
  
  "Well, if so, I won't either," chimed in Grushenka, "I really don't want
  any. You can drink the whole bottle alone, Rakitin. If Alyosha has some, I
  will."
  
  "What touching sentimentality!" said Rakitin tauntingly; "and she's
  sitting on his knee, too! He's got something to grieve over, but what's
  the matter with you? He is rebelling against his God and ready to eat
  sausage...."
  
  "How so?"
  
  "His elder died to-day, Father Zossima, the saint."
  
  "So Father Zossima is dead," cried Grushenka. "Good God, I did not know!"
  She crossed herself devoutly. "Goodness, what have I been doing, sitting
  on his knee like this at such a moment!" She started up as though in
  dismay, instantly slipped off his knee and sat down on the sofa.
  
  Alyosha bent a long wondering look upon her and a light seemed to dawn in
  his face.
  
  "Rakitin," he said suddenly, in a firm and loud voice; "don't taunt me
  with having rebelled against God. I don't want to feel angry with you, so
  you must be kinder, too, I've lost a treasure such as you have never had,
  and you cannot judge me now. You had much better look at her--do you see
  how she has pity on me? I came here to find a wicked soul--I felt drawn to
  evil because I was base and evil myself, and I've found a true sister, I
  have found a treasure--a loving heart. She had pity on me just now....
  Agrafena Alexandrovna, I am speaking of you. You've raised my soul from
  the depths."
  
  Alyosha's lips were quivering and he caught his breath.
  
  "She has saved you, it seems," laughed Rakitin spitefully. "And she meant
  to get you in her clutches, do you realize that?"
  
  "Stay, Rakitin." Grushenka jumped up. "Hush, both of you. Now I'll tell
  you all about it. Hush, Alyosha, your words make me ashamed, for I am bad
  and not good--that's what I am. And you hush, Rakitin, because you are
  telling lies. I had the low idea of trying to get him in my clutches, but
  now you are lying, now it's all different. And don't let me hear anything
  more from you, Rakitin."
  
  All this Grushenka said with extreme emotion.
  
  "They are both crazy," said Rakitin, looking at them with amazement. "I
  feel as though I were in a madhouse. They're both getting so feeble
  they'll begin crying in a minute."
  
  "I shall begin to cry, I shall," repeated Grushenka. "He called me his
  sister and I shall never forget that. Only let me tell you, Rakitin,
  though I am bad, I did give away an onion."
  
  "An onion? Hang it all, you really are crazy."
  
  Rakitin wondered at their enthusiasm. He was aggrieved and annoyed, though
  he might have reflected that each of them was just passing through a
  spiritual crisis such as does not come often in a lifetime. But though
  Rakitin was very sensitive about everything that concerned himself, he was
  very obtuse as regards the feelings and sensations of others--partly from
  his youth and inexperience, partly from his intense egoism.
  
  "You see, Alyosha," Grushenka turned to him with a nervous laugh. "I was
  boasting when I told Rakitin I had given away an onion, but it's not to
  boast I tell you about it. It's only a story, but it's a nice story. I
  used to hear it when I was a child from Matryona, my cook, who is still
  with me. It's like this. Once upon a time there was a peasant woman and a
  very wicked woman she was. And she died and did not leave a single good
  deed behind. The devils caught her and plunged her into the lake of fire.
  So her guardian angel stood and wondered what good deed of hers he could
  remember to tell to God; 'She once pulled up an onion in her garden,' said
  he, 'and gave it to a beggar woman.' And God answered: 'You take that
  onion then, hold it out to her in the lake, and let her take hold and be
  pulled out. And if you can pull her out of the lake, let her come to
  Paradise, but if the onion breaks, then the woman must stay where she is.'
  The angel ran to the woman and held out the onion to her. 'Come,' said he,
  'catch hold and I'll pull you out.' And he began cautiously pulling her
  out. He had just pulled her right out, when the other sinners in the lake,
  seeing how she was being drawn out, began catching hold of her so as to be
  pulled out with her. But she was a very wicked woman and she began kicking
  them. 'I'm to be pulled out, not you. It's my onion, not yours.' As soon
  as she said that, the onion broke. And the woman fell into the lake and
  she is burning there to this day. So the angel wept and went away. So
  that's the story, Alyosha; I know it by heart, for I am that wicked woman
  myself. I boasted to Rakitin that I had given away an onion, but to you
  I'll say: 'I've done nothing but give away one onion all my life, that's
  the only good deed I've done.' So don't praise me, Alyosha, don't think me
  good, I am bad, I am a wicked woman and you make me ashamed if you praise
  me. Eh, I must confess everything. Listen, Alyosha. I was so anxious to
  get hold of you that I promised Rakitin twenty-five roubles if he would
  bring you to me. Stay, Rakitin, wait!"
  
  She went with rapid steps to the table, opened a drawer, pulled out a
  purse and took from it a twenty-five rouble note.
  
  "What nonsense! What nonsense!" cried Rakitin, disconcerted.
  
  "Take it. Rakitin, I owe it you, there's no fear of your refusing it, you
  asked for it yourself." And she threw the note to him.
  
  "Likely I should refuse it," boomed Rakitin, obviously abashed, but
  carrying off his confusion with a swagger. "That will come in very handy;
  fools are made for wise men's profit."
  
  "And now hold your tongue, Rakitin, what I am going to say now is not for
  your ears. Sit down in that corner and keep quiet. You don't like us, so
  hold your tongue."
  
  "What should I like you for?" Rakitin snarled, not concealing his ill-
  humor. He put the twenty-five rouble note in his pocket and he felt
  ashamed at Alyosha's seeing it. He had reckoned on receiving his payment
  later, without Alyosha's knowing of it, and now, feeling ashamed, he lost
  his temper. Till that moment he had thought it discreet not to contradict
  Grushenka too flatly in spite of her snubbing, since he had something to
  get out of her. But now he, too, was angry:
  
  "One loves people for some reason, but what have either of you done for
  me?"
  
  "You should love people without a reason, as Alyosha does."
  
  "How does he love you? How has he shown it, that you make such a fuss
  about it?"
  
  Grushenka was standing in the middle of the room; she spoke with heat and
  there were hysterical notes in her voice.
  
  "Hush, Rakitin, you know nothing about us! And don't dare to speak to me
  like that again. How dare you be so familiar! Sit in that corner and be
  quiet, as though you were my footman! And now, Alyosha, I'll tell you the
  whole truth, that you may see what a wretch I am! I am not talking to
  Rakitin, but to you. I wanted to ruin you, Alyosha, that's the holy truth;
  I quite meant to. I wanted to so much, that I bribed Rakitin to bring you.
  And why did I want to do such a thing? You knew nothing about it, Alyosha,
  you turned away from me; if you passed me, you dropped your eyes. And I've
  looked at you a hundred times before to-day; I began asking every one
  about you. Your face haunted my heart. 'He despises me,' I thought; 'he
  won't even look at me.' And I felt it so much at last that I wondered at
  myself for being so frightened of a boy. I'll get him in my clutches and
  laugh at him. I was full of spite and anger. Would you believe it, nobody
  here dares talk or think of coming to Agrafena Alexandrovna with any evil
  purpose. Old Kuzma is the only man I have anything to do with here; I was
  bound and sold to him; Satan brought us together, but there has been no
  one else. But looking at you, I thought, I'll get him in my clutches and
  laugh at him. You see what a spiteful cur I am, and you called me your
  sister! And now that man who wronged me has come; I sit here waiting for a
  message from him. And do you know what that man has been to me? Five years
  ago, when Kuzma brought me here, I used to shut myself up, that no one
  might have sight or sound of me. I was a silly slip of a girl; I used to
  sit here sobbing; I used to lie awake all night, thinking: 'Where is he
  now, the man who wronged me? He is laughing at me with another woman, most
  likely. If only I could see him, if I could meet him again, I'd pay him
  out, I'd pay him out!' At night I used to lie sobbing into my pillow in
  the dark, and I used to brood over it; I used to tear my heart on purpose
  and gloat over my anger. 'I'll pay him out, I'll pay him out!' That's what
  I used to cry out in the dark. And when I suddenly thought that I should
  really do nothing to him, and that he was laughing at me then, or perhaps
  had utterly forgotten me, I would fling myself on the floor, melt into
  helpless tears, and lie there shaking till dawn. In the morning I would
  get up more spiteful than a dog, ready to tear the whole world to pieces.
  And then what do you think? I began saving money, I became hard-hearted,
  grew stout--grew wiser, would you say? No, no one in the whole world sees
  it, no one knows it, but when night comes on, I sometimes lie as I did
  five years ago, when I was a silly girl, clenching my teeth and crying all
  night, thinking, 'I'll pay him out, I'll pay him out!' Do you hear? Well
  then, now you understand me. A month ago a letter came to me--he was
  coming, he was a widower, he wanted to see me. It took my breath away;
  then I suddenly thought: 'If he comes and whistles to call me, I shall
  creep back to him like a beaten dog.' I couldn't believe myself. Am I so
  abject? Shall I run to him or not? And I've been in such a rage with
  myself all this month that I am worse than I was five years ago. Do you
  see now, Alyosha, what a violent, vindictive creature I am? I have shown
  you the whole truth! I played with Mitya to keep me from running to that
  other. Hush, Rakitin, it's not for you to judge me, I am not speaking to
  you. Before you came in, I was lying here waiting, brooding, deciding my
  whole future life, and you can never know what was in my heart. Yes,
  Alyosha, tell your young lady not to be angry with me for what happened
  the day before yesterday.... Nobody in the whole world knows what I am
  going through now, and no one ever can know.... For perhaps I shall take a
  knife with me to-day, I can't make up my mind ..."
  
  And at this "tragic" phrase Grushenka broke down, hid her face in her
  hands, flung herself on the sofa pillows, and sobbed like a little child.
  
  Alyosha got up and went to Rakitin.
  
  "Misha," he said, "don't be angry. She wounded you, but don't be angry.
  You heard what she said just now? You mustn't ask too much of human
  endurance, one must be merciful."
  
  Alyosha said this at the instinctive prompting of his heart. He felt
  obliged to speak and he turned to Rakitin. If Rakitin had not been there,
  he would have spoken to the air. But Rakitin looked at him ironically and
  Alyosha stopped short.
  
  "You were so primed up with your elder's teaching last night that now you
  have to let it off on me, Alexey, man of God!" said Rakitin, with a smile
  of hatred.
  
  "Don't laugh, Rakitin, don't smile, don't talk of the dead--he was better
  than any one in the world!" cried Alyosha, with tears in his voice. "I
  didn't speak to you as a judge but as the lowest of the judged. What am I
  beside her? I came here seeking my ruin, and said to myself, 'What does it
  matter?' in my cowardliness, but she, after five years in torment, as soon
  as any one says a word from the heart to her--it makes her forget
  everything, forgive everything, in her tears! The man who has wronged her
  has come back, he sends for her and she forgives him everything, and
  hastens joyfully to meet him and she won't take a knife with her. She
  won't! No, I am not like that. I don't know whether you are, Misha, but I
  am not like that. It's a lesson to me.... She is more loving than we....
  Have you heard her speak before of what she has just told us? No, you
  haven't; if you had, you'd have understood her long ago ... and the person
  insulted the day before yesterday must forgive her, too! She will, when
  she knows ... and she shall know.... This soul is not yet at peace with
  itself, one must be tender with it ... there may be a treasure in that
  soul...."
  
  Alyosha stopped, because he caught his breath. In spite of his ill-humor
  Rakitin looked at him with astonishment. He had never expected such a
  tirade from the gentle Alyosha.
  
  "She's found some one to plead her cause! Why, are you in love with her?
  Agrafena Alexandrovna, our monk's really in love with you, you've made a
  conquest!" he cried, with a coarse laugh.
  
  Grushenka lifted her head from the pillow and looked at Alyosha with a
  tender smile shining on her tear-stained face.
  
  "Let him alone, Alyosha, my cherub; you see what he is, he is not a person
  for you to speak to. Mihail Osipovitch," she turned to Rakitin, "I meant
  to beg your pardon for being rude to you, but now I don't want to.
  Alyosha, come to me, sit down here." She beckoned to him with a happy
  smile. "That's right, sit here. Tell me," she shook him by the hand and
  peeped into his face, smiling, "tell me, do I love that man or not? the
  man who wronged me, do I love him or not? Before you came, I lay here in
  the dark, asking my heart whether I loved him. Decide for me, Alyosha, the
  time has come, it shall be as you say. Am I to forgive him or not?"
  
  "But you have forgiven him already," said Alyosha, smiling.
  
  "Yes, I really have forgiven him," Grushenka murmured thoughtfully. "What
  an abject heart! To my abject heart!" She snatched up a glass from the
  table, emptied it at a gulp, lifted it in the air and flung it on the
  floor. The glass broke with a crash. A little cruel line came into her
  smile.
  
  "Perhaps I haven't forgiven him, though," she said, with a sort of menace
  in her voice, and she dropped her eyes to the ground as though she were
  talking to herself. "Perhaps my heart is only getting ready to forgive. I
  shall struggle with my heart. You see, Alyosha, I've grown to love my
  tears in these five years.... Perhaps I only love my resentment, not him
  ..."
  
  "Well, I shouldn't care to be in his shoes," hissed Rakitin.
  
  "Well, you won't be, Rakitin, you'll never be in his shoes. You shall
  black my shoes, Rakitin, that's the place you are fit for. You'll never
  get a woman like me ... and he won't either, perhaps ..."
  
  "Won't he? Then why are you dressed up like that?" said Rakitin, with a
  venomous sneer.
  
  "Don't taunt me with dressing up, Rakitin, you don't know all that is in
  my heart! If I choose to tear off my finery, I'll tear it off at once,
  this minute," she cried in a resonant voice. "You don't know what that
  finery is for, Rakitin! Perhaps I shall see him and say: 'Have you ever
  seen me look like this before?' He left me a thin, consumptive cry-baby of
  seventeen. I'll sit by him, fascinate him and work him up. 'Do you see
  what I am like now?' I'll say to him; 'well, and that's enough for you, my
  dear sir, there's many a slip twixt the cup and the lip!' That may be what
  the finery is for, Rakitin." Grushenka finished with a malicious laugh.
  "I'm violent and resentful, Alyosha, I'll tear off my finery, I'll destroy
  my beauty, I'll scorch my face, slash it with a knife, and turn beggar. If
  I choose, I won't go anywhere now to see any one. If I choose, I'll send
  Kuzma back all he has ever given me, to-morrow, and all his money and I'll
  go out charing for the rest of my life. You think I wouldn't do it,
  Rakitin, that I would not dare to do it? I would, I would, I could do it
  directly, only don't exasperate me ... and I'll send him about his
  business, I'll snap my fingers in his face, he shall never see me again!"
  
  She uttered the last words in an hysterical scream, but broke down again,
  hid her face in her hands, buried it in the pillow and shook with sobs.
  
  Rakitin got up.
  
  "It's time we were off," he said, "it's late, we shall be shut out of the
  monastery."
  
  Grushenka leapt up from her place.
  
  "Surely you don't want to go, Alyosha!" she cried, in mournful surprise.
  "What are you doing to me? You've stirred up my feeling, tortured me, and
  now you'll leave me to face this night alone!"
  
  "He can hardly spend the night with you! Though if he wants to, let him!
  I'll go alone," Rakitin scoffed jeeringly.
  
  "Hush, evil tongue!" Grushenka cried angrily at him; "you never said such
  words to me as he has come to say."
  
  "What has he said to you so special?" asked Rakitin irritably.
  
  "I can't say, I don't know. I don't know what he said to me, it went
  straight to my heart; he has wrung my heart.... He is the first, the only
  one who has pitied me, that's what it is. Why did you not come before, you
  angel?" She fell on her knees before him as though in a sudden frenzy.
  "I've been waiting all my life for some one like you, I knew that some one
  like you would come and forgive me. I believed that, nasty as I am, some
  one would really love me, not only with a shameful love!"
  
  "What have I done to you?" answered Alyosha, bending over her with a
  tender smile, and gently taking her by the hands; "I only gave you an
  onion, nothing but a tiny little onion, that was all!"
  
  He was moved to tears himself as he said it. At that moment there was a
  sudden noise in the passage, some one came into the hall. Grushenka jumped
  up, seeming greatly alarmed. Fenya ran noisily into the room, crying out:
  
  "Mistress, mistress darling, a messenger has galloped up," she cried,
  breathless and joyful. "A carriage from Mokroe for you, Timofey the
  driver, with three horses, they are just putting in fresh horses.... A
  letter, here's the letter, mistress."
  
  A letter was in her hand and she waved it in the air all the while she
  talked. Grushenka snatched the letter from her and carried it to the
  candle. It was only a note, a few lines. She read it in one instant.
  
  "He has sent for me," she cried, her face white and distorted, with a wan
  smile; "he whistles! Crawl back, little dog!"
  
  But only for one instant she stood as though hesitating; suddenly the
  blood rushed to her head and sent a glow to her cheeks.
  
  "I will go," she cried; "five years of my life! Good-by! Good-by, Alyosha,
  my fate is sealed. Go, go, leave me all of you, don't let me see you
  again! Grushenka is flying to a new life.... Don't you remember evil
  against me either, Rakitin. I may be going to my death! Ugh! I feel as
  though I were drunk!"
  
  She suddenly left them and ran into her bedroom.
  
  "Well, she has no thoughts for us now!" grumbled Rakitin. "Let's go, or we
  may hear that feminine shriek again. I am sick of all these tears and
  cries."
  
  Alyosha mechanically let himself be led out. In the yard stood a covered
  cart. Horses were being taken out of the shafts, men were running to and
  fro with a lantern. Three fresh horses were being led in at the open gate.
  But when Alyosha and Rakitin reached the bottom of the steps, Grushenka's
  bedroom window was suddenly opened and she called in a ringing voice after
  Alyosha:
  
  "Alyosha, give my greetings to your brother Mitya and tell him not to
  remember evil against me, though I have brought him misery. And tell him,
  too, in my words: 'Grushenka has fallen to a scoundrel, and not to you,
  noble heart.' And add, too, that Grushenka loved him only one hour, only
  one short hour she loved him--so let him remember that hour all his
  life--say, 'Grushenka tells you to!' "
  
  She ended in a voice full of sobs. The window was shut with a slam.
  
  "H'm, h'm!" growled Rakitin, laughing, "she murders your brother Mitya and
  then tells him to remember it all his life! What ferocity!"
  
  Alyosha made no reply, he seemed not to have heard. He walked fast beside
  Rakitin as though in a terrible hurry. He was lost in thought and moved
  mechanically. Rakitin felt a sudden twinge as though he had been touched
  on an open wound. He had expected something quite different by bringing
  Grushenka and Alyosha together. Something very different from what he had
  hoped for had happened.
  
  "He is a Pole, that officer of hers," he began again, restraining himself;
  "and indeed he is not an officer at all now. He served in the customs in
  Siberia, somewhere on the Chinese frontier, some puny little beggar of a
  Pole, I expect. Lost his job, they say. He's heard now that Grushenka's
  saved a little money, so he's turned up again--that's the explanation of
  the mystery."
  
  Again Alyosha seemed not to hear. Rakitin could not control himself.
  
  "Well, so you've saved the sinner?" he laughed spitefully. "Have you
  turned the Magdalene into the true path? Driven out the seven devils, eh?
  So you see the miracles you were looking out for just now have come to
  pass!"
  
  "Hush, Rakitin," Alyosha answered with an aching heart.
  
  "So you despise me now for those twenty-five roubles? I've sold my friend,
  you think. But you are not Christ, you know, and I am not Judas."
  
  "Oh, Rakitin, I assure you I'd forgotten about it," cried Alyosha, "you
  remind me of it yourself...."
  
  But this was the last straw for Rakitin.
  
  "Damnation take you all and each of you!" he cried suddenly, "why the
  devil did I take you up? I don't want to know you from this time forward.
  Go alone, there's your road!"
  
  And he turned abruptly into another street, leaving Alyosha alone in the
  dark. Alyosha came out of the town and walked across the fields to the
  monastery.
  
  
  
  
  Chapter IV. Cana Of Galilee
  
  
  It was very late, according to the monastery ideas, when Alyosha returned
  to the hermitage; the door-keeper let him in by a special entrance. It had
  struck nine o'clock--the hour of rest and repose after a day of such
  agitation for all. Alyosha timidly opened the door and went into the
  elder's cell where his coffin was now standing. There was no one in the
  cell but Father Paissy, reading the Gospel in solitude over the coffin,
  and the young novice Porfiry, who, exhausted by the previous night's
  conversation and the disturbing incidents of the day, was sleeping the
  deep sound sleep of youth on the floor of the other room. Though Father
  Paissy heard Alyosha come in, he did not even look in his direction.
  Alyosha turned to the right from the door to the corner, fell on his knees
  and began to pray.
  
  His soul was overflowing but with mingled feelings; no single sensation
  stood out distinctly; on the contrary, one drove out another in a slow,
  continual rotation. But there was a sweetness in his heart and, strange to
  say, Alyosha was not surprised at it. Again he saw that coffin before him,
  the hidden dead figure so precious to him, but the weeping and poignant
  grief of the morning was no longer aching in his soul. As soon as he came
  in, he fell down before the coffin as before a holy shrine, but joy, joy
  was glowing in his mind and in his heart. The one window of the cell was
  open, the air was fresh and cool. "So the smell must have become stronger,
  if they opened the window," thought Alyosha. But even this thought of the
  smell of corruption, which had seemed to him so awful and humiliating a
  few hours before, no longer made him feel miserable or indignant. He began
  quietly praying, but he soon felt that he was praying almost mechanically.
  Fragments of thought floated through his soul, flashed like stars and went
  out again at once, to be succeeded by others. But yet there was reigning
  in his soul a sense of the wholeness of things--something steadfast and
  comforting--and he was aware of it himself. Sometimes he began praying
  ardently, he longed to pour out his thankfulness and love....
  
  But when he had begun to pray, he passed suddenly to something else, and
  sank into thought, forgetting both the prayer and what had interrupted it.
  He began listening to what Father Paissy was reading, but worn out with
  exhaustion he gradually began to doze.
  
  "_And the third day there was a marriage in Cana of Galilee;_" read Father
  Paissy. "_And the mother of Jesus was there; And both Jesus was called,
  and his disciples, to the marriage._"
  
  "Marriage? What's that?... A marriage!" floated whirling through Alyosha's
  mind. "There is happiness for her, too.... She has gone to the feast....
  No, she has not taken the knife.... That was only a tragic phrase.... Well
  ... tragic phrases should be forgiven, they must be. Tragic phrases
  comfort the heart.... Without them, sorrow would be too heavy for men to
  bear. Rakitin has gone off to the back alley. As long as Rakitin broods
  over his wrongs, he will always go off to the back alley.... But the high
  road ... The road is wide and straight and bright as crystal, and the sun
  is at the end of it.... Ah!... What's being read?"...
  
  "_And when they wanted wine, the mother of Jesus saith unto him, They have
  no wine_" ... Alyosha heard.
  
  "Ah, yes, I was missing that, and I didn't want to miss it, I love that
  passage: it's Cana of Galilee, the first miracle.... Ah, that miracle! Ah,
  that sweet miracle! It was not men's grief, but their joy Christ visited,
  He worked His first miracle to help men's gladness.... 'He who loves men
  loves their gladness, too' ... He was always repeating that, it was one of
  his leading ideas.... 'There's no living without joy,' Mitya says.... Yes,
  Mitya.... 'Everything that is true and good is always full of
  forgiveness,' he used to say that, too" ...
  
  "_Jesus saith unto her, Woman, what has it to do with thee or me? Mine
  hour is not yet come._
  
  "_His mother saith unto the servants, Whatsoever he saith unto you, do
  it_" ...
  
  "Do it.... Gladness, the gladness of some poor, very poor, people.... Of
  course they were poor, since they hadn't wine enough even at a wedding....
  The historians write that, in those days, the people living about the Lake
  of Gennesaret were the poorest that can possibly be imagined ... and
  another great heart, that other great being, His Mother, knew that He had
  come not only to make His great terrible sacrifice. She knew that His
  heart was open even to the simple, artless merrymaking of some obscure and
  unlearned people, who had warmly bidden Him to their poor wedding. 'Mine
  hour is not yet come,' He said, with a soft smile (He must have smiled
  gently to her). And, indeed, was it to make wine abundant at poor weddings
  He had come down to earth? And yet He went and did as she asked Him....
  Ah, he is reading again"....
  
  "_Jesus saith unto them, Fill the waterpots with water. And they filled
  them up to the brim._
  
  "_And he saith unto them, Draw out now and bear unto the governor of the
  feast. And they bare it._
  
  "_When the ruler of the feast had tasted the water that was made wine, and
  knew not whence it was; (but the servants which drew the water knew;) the
  governor of the feast called the bridegroom,_
  
  "_And saith unto him, Every man at the beginning doth set forth good wine;
  and when men have well drunk, that which is worse; but thou hast kept the
  good wine until now._"
  
  "But what's this, what's this? Why is the room growing wider?... Ah, yes
  ... It's the marriage, the wedding ... yes, of course. Here are the
  guests, here are the young couple sitting, and the merry crowd and ...
  Where is the wise governor of the feast? But who is this? Who? Again the
  walls are receding.... Who is getting up there from the great table?
  What!... He here, too? But he's in the coffin ... but he's here, too. He
  has stood up, he sees me, he is coming here.... God!"...
  
  Yes, he came up to him, to him, he, the little, thin old man, with tiny
  wrinkles on his face, joyful and laughing softly. There was no coffin now,
  and he was in the same dress as he had worn yesterday sitting with them,
  when the visitors had gathered about him. His face was uncovered, his eyes
  were shining. How was this, then? He, too, had been called to the feast.
  He, too, at the marriage of Cana in Galilee....
  
  "Yes, my dear, I am called, too, called and bidden," he heard a soft voice
  saying over him. "Why have you hidden yourself here, out of sight? You
  come and join us too."
  
  It was his voice, the voice of Father Zossima. And it must be he, since he
  called him!
  
  The elder raised Alyosha by the hand and he rose from his knees.
  
  "We are rejoicing," the little, thin old man went on. "We are drinking the
  new wine, the wine of new, great gladness; do you see how many guests?
  Here are the bride and bridegroom, here is the wise governor of the feast,
  he is tasting the new wine. Why do you wonder at me? I gave an onion to a
  beggar, so I, too, am here. And many here have given only an onion
  each--only one little onion.... What are all our deeds? And you, my gentle
  one, you, my kind boy, you too have known how to give a famished woman an
  onion to-day. Begin your work, dear one, begin it, gentle one!... Do you
  see our Sun, do you see Him?"
  
  "I am afraid ... I dare not look," whispered Alyosha.
  
  "Do not fear Him. He is terrible in His greatness, awful in His sublimity,
  but infinitely merciful. He has made Himself like unto us from love and
  rejoices with us. He is changing the water into wine that the gladness of
  the guests may not be cut short. He is expecting new guests, He is calling
  new ones unceasingly for ever and ever.... There they are bringing new
  wine. Do you see they are bringing the vessels...."
  
  Something glowed in Alyosha's heart, something filled it till it ached,
  tears of rapture rose from his soul.... He stretched out his hands,
  uttered a cry and waked up.
  
  Again the coffin, the open window, and the soft, solemn, distinct reading
  of the Gospel. But Alyosha did not listen to the reading. It was strange,
  he had fallen asleep on his knees, but now he was on his feet, and
  suddenly, as though thrown forward, with three firm rapid steps he went
  right up to the coffin. His shoulder brushed against Father Paissy without
  his noticing it. Father Paissy raised his eyes for an instant from his
  book, but looked away again at once, seeing that something strange was
  happening to the boy. Alyosha gazed for half a minute at the coffin, at
  the covered, motionless dead man that lay in the coffin, with the ikon on
  his breast and the peaked cap with the octangular cross, on his head. He
  had only just been hearing his voice, and that voice was still ringing in
  his ears. He was listening, still expecting other words, but suddenly he
  turned sharply and went out of the cell.
  
  He did not stop on the steps either, but went quickly down; his soul,
  overflowing with rapture, yearned for freedom, space, openness. The vault
  of heaven, full of soft, shining stars, stretched vast and fathomless
  above him. The Milky Way ran in two pale streams from the zenith to the
  horizon. The fresh, motionless, still night enfolded the earth. The white
  towers and golden domes of the cathedral gleamed out against the sapphire
  sky. The gorgeous autumn flowers, in the beds round the house, were
  slumbering till morning. The silence of earth seemed to melt into the
  silence of the heavens. The mystery of earth was one with the mystery of
  the stars....
  
  Alyosha stood, gazed, and suddenly threw himself down on the earth. He did
  not know why he embraced it. He could not have told why he longed so
  irresistibly to kiss it, to kiss it all. But he kissed it weeping, sobbing
  and watering it with his tears, and vowed passionately to love it, to love
  it for ever and ever. "Water the earth with the tears of your joy and love
  those tears," echoed in his soul.
  
  What was he weeping over?
  
  Oh! in his rapture he was weeping even over those stars, which were
  shining to him from the abyss of space, and "he was not ashamed of that
  ecstasy." There seemed to be threads from all those innumerable worlds of
  God, linking his soul to them, and it was trembling all over "in contact
  with other worlds." He longed to forgive every one and for everything, and
  to beg forgiveness. Oh, not for himself, but for all men, for all and for
  everything. "And others are praying for me too," echoed again in his soul.
  But with every instant he felt clearly and, as it were, tangibly, that
  something firm and unshakable as that vault of heaven had entered into his
  soul. It was as though some idea had seized the sovereignty of his
  mind--and it was for all his life and for ever and ever. He had fallen on
  the earth a weak boy, but he rose up a resolute champion, and he knew and
  felt it suddenly at the very moment of his ecstasy. And never, never, all
  his life long, could Alyosha forget that minute.
  
  "Some one visited my soul in that hour," he used to say afterwards, with
  implicit faith in his words.
  
  Within three days he left the monastery in accordance with the words of
  his elder, who had bidden him "sojourn in the world."
  
  
  
  
  
  
feat_summary_name: Book VII
target: As soon as Father Zossima's body is prepared for burial, it is placed in a large room. News traveling fast, the room is quickly filled. As soon as they hear of the elder's death, large numbers of people gather, expecting a miracle. There is no miracle, however, only this: Zossima's corpse begins to putrefy almost immediately, and the odor of decay is soon sickening to all of the mourners. All present become nauseated and begin to grow fearful because they believe that the decay of a body is related to its spiritual character. It seems an evil omen that Zossima's corpse would rot so soon after death, for the elder was popularly believed to be on the verge of sainthood. Discontented monks and enemies of Father Zossima are not long to act. Quickly they announce that the decaying body is proof that the elder was no saint; at last the doctrine he preached is proved to be incorrect. The townspeople are confused. Tradition and superstition are embedded in their nerves. They have expected something awesome but certainly not a portent that points to Zossima's being a possible disciple of Satan. Not even Alyosha escapes the fear that grips the community. He cannot understand why God has allowed such disgrace to accompany the elder's death. Father Ferapont, the fanatical ascetic, rushes to Zossima's cell and begins to exorcise devils out of all the corners. Elsewhere there is also madness -- the entire monastery is torn by confused loyalties and uncertainties. Finally, the extreme Ferapont is ordered to leave. But shortly thereafter, there is another departure from the monastery. Alyosha leaves also; he wishes to find solitude to grieve and ponder. Alone, he again questions the justice of all that has happened. Instead of receiving the glory that Alyosha believed was Zossima's due, his mentor is now "degraded and dishonored." Alyosha cannot doubt God, but he must question why He has allowed such a dreadful thing to occur. Alyosha is interrupted in his thoughts as the seminarian, Rakitin, who earlier mocked Alyosha, ridicules his grief and makes contemptuous remarks about Zossima's decaying body. He tempts Alyosha with sausage and vodka, both of which are denied a monk during Lent, and Alyosha suddenly accepts both. Rakitin then goes a step further and suggests that they visit Grushenka, and again Alyosha agrees. Grushenka is astonished at her visitors but regains her composure and explains that she is waiting for an important message to arrive. They are curious about the message, and she tells them that it comes from an army officer whom she loved five years ago and who deserted her. Now he has returned to the province and is sending for her. Grushenka notices Alyosha's dejection and tries to cheer him by sitting on his knee and teasing him, but when she learns that Father Zossima died only a few hours earlier, she too becomes remorseful. She upbraids herself and denounces her life as that of a wicked sinner. Alyosha stops her, speaking with great kindness and understanding, and the two suddenly exchange glimpses into each other's souls. Love and trust are given, one to the other, and Grushenka unabashedly speaks to Alyosha of her problems; she no longer feels ashamed of her life. As for Alyosha, Grushenka's genuine expressions of sympathy lift him out of the deep depression he has felt since Zossima's death. Rakitin cannot understand this sudden compassion between them and is spiteful and vindictive, especially after Grushenka confesses that she had paid Rakitin to bring Alyosha to her. The message arrives from Grushenka's lover, and she excuses herself and leaves, asking Alyosha to tell Dmitri that she did love him -- once, for an hour. Very late, Alyosha returns to the monastery and goes to Zossima's cell. He kneels and prays, still troubled by many things, and then hears Father Paissy reading the account of the wedding at Cana in the Gospel of St. John. Because he is exhausted and because of the sweet lull of the Father's voice, Alyosha dozes. He dreams that he is at the marriage in Cana, along with Christ and the other guests. Zossima appears and calls to Alyosha; he tells him to come forth and join the crowd, reminding him that man should be joyful. Even today, he says, Alyosha has helped Grushenka find her path toward salvation. Alyosha wakes, and his eyes are filled with tears of joy. He goes outside and flings himself on the earth, kissing and embracing it. His heart is filled with ecstasy over his new knowledge and his new understanding of the joy of life.
feat_summary_analysis: Dostoevsky has been preparing the reader throughout the novel for this single crisis in Alyosha's life. There have been many hints that a miracle is expected to accompany Zossima's death, but one of the central points of Ivan's Grand Inquisitor tale is that man must believe freely in the teachings of a person without the benefit of either divine manifestations or miracles. A person's beliefs, furthermore, can be greatly strengthened by emerging triumphantly from a period of great doubt. In this chapter, Dostoevsky presents Alyosha's tests -- corollaries of Christ's tests in the wilderness. If Alyosha emerges successfully, then he will be qualified to move within society and to influence it. Alyosha, of course, does not need miracles for himself. But he recognizes the need of others for them, and with no miracle and because the body is decaying, he knows that spiteful rumors will rise around Zossima's memory. He cannot endure the holiest of holy men being exposed to jeering and mockery. Such indignity and humiliation of premature decay are unnecessary. Alyosha's questionings align him closely with his brother Ivan. Ivan also asked about God's justice, and, like his brother, Alyosha does not question God; he is concerned only about His justice. When the seminarian appears, Alyosha even echoes Ivan's arguments by saying, "I am not rebelling against my God; I simply don't accept His world." But Karamazovs are concerned with justice, not God Himself. Alyosha, of course, realizes that Christ went through such jeering and mockery. But for a moment, he gives way to temptation, and in this way he becomes human and not semi-divine; he becomes believably mortal. He can later be more deeply admired for his courage in resisting temptation. Alyosha questions, and by his questions one realizes the value of doubting. A serene acceptance of all -- with no questioning -- is neither courageous nor admirable; it is merely shallow, immature. Alyosha, when he defies his vows, accepts the sausage and vodka, and goes to see Grushenka, has a temporary spiritual revolt but emerges a much stronger adherent of faith. In terms of a larger perspective within the action of the novel, one should remember that Ivan leaves town on the day that Zossima dies. Ivan catches the train at about the same time that Alyosha arrives at Grushenka's. Also, it is later this evening that Fyodor's murder takes place, and it is also later this evening that Alyosha rediscovers his faith and rededicates himself to the principles advocated by Father Zossima. Ironically, Alyosha's transformation initially results from his encounter with Grushenka. He goes there in defiance of his monastic orders. Grushenka, for her part, hopes to seduce Alyosha's innocence; his purity is threatening. But when they meet, Alyosha sees in Grushenka a woman he cannot condemn; he sees "a loving heart" that can compassionately respond to the suffering that Alyosha is undergoing. In his confession to her, he admits that he came hoping only to find an evil woman. Such honesty is infectious and transforming. Grushenka says, "He is the first, the only one who has pitied me . . . I've been waiting all my life for some one like you. I knew that someone like you would come and forgive me." And, unlikely as it seems, perhaps in a way like the miracle that all expected, carnality and purity create new love and compassion. The explanation, however, is far from being that of a miracle. Alyosha has only followed Zossima's teachings. He has loved Grushenka; he has not damned her; and he, and she, suddenly rediscover themselves. At the end of this scene, Rakitin, who could not understand the attraction between Alyosha and Grushenka, feels that Alyosha dislikes him for taking twenty-five rubles from Grushenka. But the point is this: Alyosha does not judge him; Rakitin leaves because he judges himself and finds himself guilty. When Alyosha returns to the monastery, he feels such mixed emotions that there is a "sweetness in his heart." By this single experience with Grushenka, he has found the value of much that Zossima preached. He has seen how responding to even such a person as Grushenka has changed his entire view of life. Suddenly, he feels himself at peace with the entire world. Alyosha listens to the monk read of the marriage in Cana and realizes that Christ came to give people pleasure in this world; he came to preach a message of joy and love. This is exactly what Father Zossima advocated. In his dream, he sees his beloved elder in the presence of Christ and knows that the message they both preached is far more important than any "miracle." With love, he embraces the earth and is quietly filled with new understanding of all that Zossima said. He leaves the monastery with new conviction. He is ready at last to take his place in the world as Zossima said that he must.