feat_summary_path: finished_summaries/sparknotes/The Brothers Karamazov/section_4_part_1.txt
feat_book_id: The Brothers Karamazov.book 4.chapter 1
feat_summary_id: book 4, chapter 1
feat_summary: {"name": "book 4, Chapter 1", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210305110438/https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/brothersk/section5/", "summary": "Father Ferapont Zosima, realizing that he will soon die, summons a group of students and friends to his side to have one last conversation about faith, love, and goodness. As he speaks, he emphasizes the importance of actively loving mankind, and of carrying universal love into all dealings with other people. He also discourages his listeners from being judgmental, saying that every person on Earth shares the blame for the sins of every other person. As Alyosha leaves Zosima's bedside, he reflects on his elder's impending death, and thinks that surely God would not let such a wise man die without marking his death with a spectacular miracle of some sort. Alyosha is certain that everyone in the monastery feels the same way, with the possible exception of the dour Father Ferapont, Zosima's enemy and an advocate of a harsh and ascetic form of piety that bears little resemblance to Zosima's warmhearted doctrine of love and forgiveness. Zosima calls Alyosha back to his cell. He asks him again to leave the monastery in order to help his family and to do good in the town. This time, Alyosha agrees to do so", "analysis": ""}
text: PART II Book IV. Lacerations Chapter I. Father Ferapont
  
  
  Alyosha was roused early, before daybreak. Father Zossima woke up feeling
  very weak, though he wanted to get out of bed and sit up in a chair. His
  mind was quite clear; his face looked very tired, yet bright and almost
  joyful. It wore an expression of gayety, kindness and cordiality. "Maybe I
  shall not live through the coming day," he said to Alyosha. Then he
  desired to confess and take the sacrament at once. He always confessed to
  Father Paissy. After taking the communion, the service of extreme unction
  followed. The monks assembled and the cell was gradually filled up by the
  inmates of the hermitage. Meantime it was daylight. People began coming
  from the monastery. After the service was over the elder desired to kiss
  and take leave of every one. As the cell was so small the earlier visitors
  withdrew to make room for others. Alyosha stood beside the elder, who was
  seated again in his arm-chair. He talked as much as he could. Though his
  voice was weak, it was fairly steady.
  
  "I've been teaching you so many years, and therefore I've been talking
  aloud so many years, that I've got into the habit of talking, and so much
  so that it's almost more difficult for me to hold my tongue than to talk,
  even now, in spite of my weakness, dear Fathers and brothers," he jested,
  looking with emotion at the group round him.
  
  Alyosha remembered afterwards something of what he said to them. But
  though he spoke out distinctly and his voice was fairly steady, his speech
  was somewhat disconnected. He spoke of many things, he seemed anxious
  before the moment of death to say everything he had not said in his life,
  and not simply for the sake of instructing them, but as though thirsting
  to share with all men and all creation his joy and ecstasy, and once more
  in his life to open his whole heart.
  
  "Love one another, Fathers," said Father Zossima, as far as Alyosha could
  remember afterwards. "Love God's people. Because we have come here and
  shut ourselves within these walls, we are no holier than those that are
  outside, but on the contrary, from the very fact of coming here, each of
  us has confessed to himself that he is worse than others, than all men on
  earth.... And the longer the monk lives in his seclusion, the more keenly
  he must recognize that. Else he would have had no reason to come here.
  When he realizes that he is not only worse than others, but that he is
  responsible to all men for all and everything, for all human sins,
  national and individual, only then the aim of our seclusion is attained.
  For know, dear ones, that every one of us is undoubtedly responsible for
  all men and everything on earth, not merely through the general sinfulness
  of creation, but each one personally for all mankind and every individual
  man. This knowledge is the crown of life for the monk and for every man.
  For monks are not a special sort of men, but only what all men ought to
  be. Only through that knowledge, our heart grows soft with infinite,
  universal, inexhaustible love. Then every one of you will have the power
  to win over the whole world by love and to wash away the sins of the world
  with your tears.... Each of you keep watch over your heart and confess
  your sins to yourself unceasingly. Be not afraid of your sins, even when
  perceiving them, if only there be penitence, but make no conditions with
  God. Again I say, Be not proud. Be proud neither to the little nor to the
  great. Hate not those who reject you, who insult you, who abuse and
  slander you. Hate not the atheists, the teachers of evil, the
  materialists--and I mean not only the good ones--for there are many good
  ones among them, especially in our day--hate not even the wicked ones.
  Remember them in your prayers thus: Save, O Lord, all those who have none
  to pray for them, save too all those who will not pray. And add: it is not
  in pride that I make this prayer, O Lord, for I am lower than all men....
  Love God's people, let not strangers draw away the flock, for if you
  slumber in your slothfulness and disdainful pride, or worse still, in
  covetousness, they will come from all sides and draw away your flock.
  Expound the Gospel to the people unceasingly ... be not extortionate....
  Do not love gold and silver, do not hoard them.... Have faith. Cling to
  the banner and raise it on high."
  
  But the elder spoke more disconnectedly than Alyosha reported his words
  afterwards. Sometimes he broke off altogether, as though to take breath,
  and recover his strength, but he was in a sort of ecstasy. They heard him
  with emotion, though many wondered at his words and found them obscure....
  Afterwards all remembered those words.
  
  When Alyosha happened for a moment to leave the cell, he was struck by the
  general excitement and suspense in the monks who were crowding about it.
  This anticipation showed itself in some by anxiety, in others by devout
  solemnity. All were expecting that some marvel would happen immediately
  after the elder's death. Their suspense was, from one point of view,
  almost frivolous, but even the most austere of the monks were affected by
  it. Father Paissy's face looked the gravest of all.
  
  Alyosha was mysteriously summoned by a monk to see Rakitin, who had
  arrived from town with a singular letter for him from Madame Hohlakov. In
  it she informed Alyosha of a strange and very opportune incident. It
  appeared that among the women who had come on the previous day to receive
  Father Zossima's blessing, there had been an old woman from the town, a
  sergeant's widow, called Prohorovna. She had inquired whether she might
  pray for the rest of the soul of her son, Vassenka, who had gone to
  Irkutsk, and had sent her no news for over a year. To which Father Zossima
  had answered sternly, forbidding her to do so, and saying that to pray for
  the living as though they were dead was a kind of sorcery. He afterwards
  forgave her on account of her ignorance, and added, "as though reading the
  book of the future" (this was Madame Hohlakov's expression), words of
  comfort: "that her son Vassya was certainly alive and he would either come
  himself very shortly or send a letter, and that she was to go home and
  expect him." And "Would you believe it?" exclaimed Madame Hohlakov
  enthusiastically, "the prophecy has been fulfilled literally indeed, and
  more than that." Scarcely had the old woman reached home when they gave
  her a letter from Siberia which had been awaiting her. But that was not
  all; in the letter written on the road from Ekaterinenburg, Vassya
  informed his mother that he was returning to Russia with an official, and
  that three weeks after her receiving the letter he hoped "to embrace his
  mother."
  
  Madame Hohlakov warmly entreated Alyosha to report this new "miracle of
  prediction" to the Superior and all the brotherhood. "All, all, ought to
  know of it!" she concluded. The letter had been written in haste, the
  excitement of the writer was apparent in every line of it. But Alyosha had
  no need to tell the monks, for all knew of it already. Rakitin had
  commissioned the monk who brought his message "to inform most respectfully
  his reverence Father Paissy, that he, Rakitin, has a matter to speak of
  with him, of such gravity that he dare not defer it for a moment, and
  humbly begs forgiveness for his presumption." As the monk had given the
  message to Father Paissy before that to Alyosha, the latter found after
  reading the letter, there was nothing left for him to do but to hand it to
  Father Paissy in confirmation of the story.
  
  And even that austere and cautious man, though he frowned as he read the
  news of the "miracle," could not completely restrain some inner emotion.
  His eyes gleamed, and a grave and solemn smile came into his lips.
  
  "We shall see greater things!" broke from him.
  
  "We shall see greater things, greater things yet!" the monks around
  repeated.
  
  But Father Paissy, frowning again, begged all of them, at least for a
  time, not to speak of the matter "till it be more fully confirmed, seeing
  there is so much credulity among those of this world, and indeed this
  might well have chanced naturally," he added, prudently, as it were to
  satisfy his conscience, though scarcely believing his own disavowal, a
  fact his listeners very clearly perceived.
  
  Within the hour the "miracle" was of course known to the whole monastery,
  and many visitors who had come for the mass. No one seemed more impressed
  by it than the monk who had come the day before from St. Sylvester, from
  the little monastery of Obdorsk in the far North. It was he who had been
  standing near Madame Hohlakov the previous day and had asked Father
  Zossima earnestly, referring to the "healing" of the lady's daughter, "How
  can you presume to do such things?"
  
  He was now somewhat puzzled and did not know whom to believe. The evening
  before he had visited Father Ferapont in his cell apart, behind the
  apiary, and had been greatly impressed and overawed by the visit. This
  Father Ferapont was that aged monk so devout in fasting and observing
  silence who has been mentioned already, as antagonistic to Father Zossima
  and the whole institution of "elders," which he regarded as a pernicious
  and frivolous innovation. He was a very formidable opponent, although from
  his practice of silence he scarcely spoke a word to any one. What made him
  formidable was that a number of monks fully shared his feeling, and many
  of the visitors looked upon him as a great saint and ascetic, although
  they had no doubt that he was crazy. But it was just his craziness
  attracted them.
  
  Father Ferapont never went to see the elder. Though he lived in the
  hermitage they did not worry him to keep its regulations, and this too
  because he behaved as though he were crazy. He was seventy-five or more,
  and he lived in a corner beyond the apiary in an old decaying wooden cell
  which had been built long ago for another great ascetic, Father Iona, who
  had lived to be a hundred and five, and of whose saintly doings many
  curious stories were still extant in the monastery and the neighborhood.
  
  Father Ferapont had succeeded in getting himself installed in this same
  solitary cell seven years previously. It was simply a peasant's hut,
  though it looked like a chapel, for it contained an extraordinary number
  of ikons with lamps perpetually burning before them--which men brought to
  the monastery as offerings to God. Father Ferapont had been appointed to
  look after them and keep the lamps burning. It was said (and indeed it was
  true) that he ate only two pounds of bread in three days. The beekeeper,
  who lived close by the apiary, used to bring him the bread every three
  days, and even to this man who waited upon him, Father Ferapont rarely
  uttered a word. The four pounds of bread, together with the sacrament
  bread, regularly sent him on Sundays after the late mass by the Father
  Superior, made up his weekly rations. The water in his jug was changed
  every day. He rarely appeared at mass. Visitors who came to do him homage
  saw him sometimes kneeling all day long at prayer without looking round.
  If he addressed them, he was brief, abrupt, strange, and almost always
  rude. On very rare occasions, however, he would talk to visitors, but for
  the most part he would utter some one strange saying which was a complete
  riddle, and no entreaties would induce him to pronounce a word in
  explanation. He was not a priest, but a simple monk. There was a strange
  belief, chiefly however among the most ignorant, that Father Ferapont had
  communication with heavenly spirits and would only converse with them, and
  so was silent with men.
  
  The monk from Obdorsk, having been directed to the apiary by the
  beekeeper, who was also a very silent and surly monk, went to the corner
  where Father Ferapont's cell stood. "Maybe he will speak as you are a
  stranger and maybe you'll get nothing out of him," the beekeeper had
  warned him. The monk, as he related afterwards, approached in the utmost
  apprehension. It was rather late in the evening. Father Ferapont was
  sitting at the door of his cell on a low bench. A huge old elm was lightly
  rustling overhead. There was an evening freshness in the air. The monk
  from Obdorsk bowed down before the saint and asked his blessing.
  
  "Do you want me to bow down to you, monk?" said Father Ferapont. "Get up!"
  
  The monk got up.
  
  "Blessing, be blessed! Sit beside me. Where have you come from?"
  
  What most struck the poor monk was the fact that in spite of his strict
  fasting and great age, Father Ferapont still looked a vigorous old man. He
  was tall, held himself erect, and had a thin, but fresh and healthy face.
  There was no doubt he still had considerable strength. He was of athletic
  build. In spite of his great age he was not even quite gray, and still had
  very thick hair and a full beard, both of which had once been black. His
  eyes were gray, large and luminous, but strikingly prominent. He spoke
  with a broad accent. He was dressed in a peasant's long reddish coat of
  coarse convict cloth (as it used to be called) and had a stout rope round
  his waist. His throat and chest were bare. Beneath his coat, his shirt of
  the coarsest linen showed almost black with dirt, not having been changed
  for months. They said that he wore irons weighing thirty pounds under his
  coat. His stockingless feet were thrust in old slippers almost dropping to
  pieces.
  
  "From the little Obdorsk monastery, from St. Sylvester," the monk answered
  humbly, whilst his keen and inquisitive, but rather frightened little eyes
  kept watch on the hermit.
  
  "I have been at your Sylvester's. I used to stay there. Is Sylvester
  well?"
  
  The monk hesitated.
  
  "You are a senseless lot! How do you keep the fasts?"
  
  "Our dietary is according to the ancient conventual rules. During Lent
  there are no meals provided for Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. For Tuesday
  and Thursday we have white bread, stewed fruit with honey, wild berries,
  or salt cabbage and wholemeal stirabout. On Saturday white cabbage soup,
  noodles with peas, kasha, all with hemp oil. On weekdays we have dried
  fish and kasha with the cabbage soup. From Monday till Saturday evening,
  six whole days in Holy Week, nothing is cooked, and we have only bread and
  water, and that sparingly; if possible not taking food every day, just the
  same as is ordered for first week in Lent. On Good Friday nothing is
  eaten. In the same way on the Saturday we have to fast till three o'clock,
  and then take a little bread and water and drink a single cup of wine. On
  Holy Thursday we drink wine and have something cooked without oil or not
  cooked at all, inasmuch as the Laodicean council lays down for Holy
  Thursday: 'It is unseemly by remitting the fast on the Holy Thursday to
  dishonor the whole of Lent!' This is how we keep the fast. But what is
  that compared with you, holy Father," added the monk, growing more
  confident, "for all the year round, even at Easter, you take nothing but
  bread and water, and what we should eat in two days lasts you full seven.
  It's truly marvelous--your great abstinence."
  
  "And mushrooms?" asked Father Ferapont, suddenly.
  
  "Mushrooms?" repeated the surprised monk.
  
  "Yes. I can give up their bread, not needing it at all, and go away into
  the forest and live there on the mushrooms or the berries, but they can't
  give up their bread here, wherefore they are in bondage to the devil.
  Nowadays the unclean deny that there is need of such fasting. Haughty and
  unclean is their judgment."
  
  "Och, true," sighed the monk.
  
  "And have you seen devils among them?" asked Ferapont.
  
  "Among them? Among whom?" asked the monk, timidly.
  
  "I went to the Father Superior on Trinity Sunday last year, I haven't been
  since. I saw a devil sitting on one man's chest hiding under his cassock,
  only his horns poked out; another had one peeping out of his pocket with
  such sharp eyes, he was afraid of me; another settled in the unclean belly
  of one, another was hanging round a man's neck, and so he was carrying him
  about without seeing him."
  
  "You--can see spirits?" the monk inquired.
  
  "I tell you I can see, I can see through them. When I was coming out from
  the Superior's I saw one hiding from me behind the door, and a big one, a
  yard and a half or more high, with a thick long gray tail, and the tip of
  his tail was in the crack of the door and I was quick and slammed the
  door, pinching his tail in it. He squealed and began to struggle, and I
  made the sign of the cross over him three times. And he died on the spot
  like a crushed spider. He must have rotted there in the corner and be
  stinking, but they don't see, they don't smell it. It's a year since I
  have been there. I reveal it to you, as you are a stranger."
  
  "Your words are terrible! But, holy and blessed Father," said the monk,
  growing bolder and bolder, "is it true, as they noise abroad even to
  distant lands about you, that you are in continual communication with the
  Holy Ghost?"
  
  "He does fly down at times."
  
  "How does he fly down? In what form?"
  
  "As a bird."
  
  "The Holy Ghost in the form of a dove?"
  
  "There's the Holy Ghost and there's the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit can
  appear as other birds--sometimes as a swallow, sometimes a goldfinch and
  sometimes as a blue-tit."
  
  "How do you know him from an ordinary tit?"
  
  "He speaks."
  
  "How does he speak, in what language?"
  
  "Human language."
  
  "And what does he tell you?"
  
  "Why, to-day he told me that a fool would visit me and would ask me
  unseemly questions. You want to know too much, monk."
  
  "Terrible are your words, most holy and blessed Father," the monk shook
  his head. But there was a doubtful look in his frightened little eyes.
  
  "Do you see this tree?" asked Father Ferapont, after a pause.
  
  "I do, blessed Father."
  
  "You think it's an elm, but for me it has another shape."
  
  "What sort of shape?" inquired the monk, after a pause of vain
  expectation.
  
  "It happens at night. You see those two branches? In the night it is
  Christ holding out His arms to me and seeking me with those arms, I see it
  clearly and tremble. It's terrible, terrible!"
  
  "What is there terrible if it's Christ Himself?"
  
  "Why, He'll snatch me up and carry me away."
  
  "Alive?"
  
  "In the spirit and glory of Elijah, haven't you heard? He will take me in
  His arms and bear me away."
  
  Though the monk returned to the cell he was sharing with one of the
  brothers, in considerable perplexity of mind, he still cherished at heart
  a greater reverence for Father Ferapont than for Father Zossima. He was
  strongly in favor of fasting, and it was not strange that one who kept so
  rigid a fast as Father Ferapont should "see marvels." His words seemed
  certainly queer, but God only could tell what was hidden in those words,
  and were not worse words and acts commonly seen in those who have
  sacrificed their intellects for the glory of God? The pinching of the
  devil's tail he was ready and eager to believe, and not only in the
  figurative sense. Besides he had, before visiting the monastery, a strong
  prejudice against the institution of "elders," which he only knew of by
  hearsay and believed to be a pernicious innovation. Before he had been
  long at the monastery, he had detected the secret murmurings of some
  shallow brothers who disliked the institution. He was, besides, a
  meddlesome, inquisitive man, who poked his nose into everything. This was
  why the news of the fresh "miracle" performed by Father Zossima reduced
  him to extreme perplexity. Alyosha remembered afterwards how their
  inquisitive guest from Obdorsk had been continually flitting to and fro
  from one group to another, listening and asking questions among the monks
  that were crowding within and without the elder's cell. But he did not pay
  much attention to him at the time, and only recollected it afterwards.
  
  He had no thought to spare for it indeed, for when Father Zossima, feeling
  tired again, had gone back to bed, he thought of Alyosha as he was closing
  his eyes, and sent for him. Alyosha ran at once. There was no one else in
  the cell but Father Paissy, Father Iosif, and the novice Porfiry. The
  elder, opening his weary eyes and looking intently at Alyosha, asked him
  suddenly:
  
  "Are your people expecting you, my son?"
  
  Alyosha hesitated.
  
  "Haven't they need of you? Didn't you promise some one yesterday to see
  them to-day?"
  
  "I did promise--to my father--my brothers--others too."
  
  "You see, you must go. Don't grieve. Be sure I shall not die without your
  being by to hear my last word. To you I will say that word, my son, it
  will be my last gift to you. To you, dear son, because you love me. But
  now go to keep your promise."
  
  Alyosha immediately obeyed, though it was hard to go. But the promise that
  he should hear his last word on earth, that it should be the last gift to
  him, Alyosha, sent a thrill of rapture through his soul. He made haste
  that he might finish what he had to do in the town and return quickly.
  Father Paissy, too, uttered some words of exhortation which moved and
  surprised him greatly. He spoke as they left the cell together.
  
  "Remember, young man, unceasingly," Father Paissy began, without preface,
  "that the science of this world, which has become a great power, has,
  especially in the last century, analyzed everything divine handed down to
  us in the holy books. After this cruel analysis the learned of this world
  have nothing left of all that was sacred of old. But they have only
  analyzed the parts and overlooked the whole, and indeed their blindness is
  marvelous. Yet the whole still stands steadfast before their eyes, and the
  gates of hell shall not prevail against it. Has it not lasted nineteen
  centuries, is it not still a living, a moving power in the individual soul
  and in the masses of people? It is still as strong and living even in the
  souls of atheists, who have destroyed everything! For even those who have
  renounced Christianity and attack it, in their inmost being still follow
  the Christian ideal, for hitherto neither their subtlety nor the ardor of
  their hearts has been able to create a higher ideal of man and of virtue
  than the ideal given by Christ of old. When it has been attempted, the
  result has been only grotesque. Remember this especially, young man, since
  you are being sent into the world by your departing elder. Maybe,
  remembering this great day, you will not forget my words, uttered from the
  heart for your guidance, seeing you are young, and the temptations of the
  world are great and beyond your strength to endure. Well, now go, my
  orphan."
  
  With these words Father Paissy blessed him. As Alyosha left the monastery
  and thought them over, he suddenly realized that he had met a new and
  unexpected friend, a warmly loving teacher, in this austere monk who had
  hitherto treated him sternly. It was as though Father Zossima had
  bequeathed him to him at his death, and "perhaps that's just what had
  passed between them," Alyosha thought suddenly. The philosophic
  reflections he had just heard so unexpectedly testified to the warmth of
  Father Paissy's heart. He was in haste to arm the boy's mind for conflict
  with temptation and to guard the young soul left in his charge with the
  strongest defense he could imagine.
  
  
  
  
  
feat_summary_name: book 4, Chapter 1
target: Father Ferapont Zosima, realizing that he will soon die, summons a group of students and friends to his side to have one last conversation about faith, love, and goodness. As he speaks, he emphasizes the importance of actively loving mankind, and of carrying universal love into all dealings with other people. He also discourages his listeners from being judgmental, saying that every person on Earth shares the blame for the sins of every other person. As Alyosha leaves Zosima's bedside, he reflects on his elder's impending death, and thinks that surely God would not let such a wise man die without marking his death with a spectacular miracle of some sort. Alyosha is certain that everyone in the monastery feels the same way, with the possible exception of the dour Father Ferapont, Zosima's enemy and an advocate of a harsh and ascetic form of piety that bears little resemblance to Zosima's warmhearted doctrine of love and forgiveness. Zosima calls Alyosha back to his cell. He asks him again to leave the monastery in order to help his family and to do good in the town. This time, Alyosha agrees to do so