Book II

An Unfortunate Gathering

Chapter 1

They Arrive at the Monastery

IT was a warm, bright day the end of August. The interview with the elder had been fixed for half-past eleven, immediately after late mass. Our visitors did not take part in the service, but arrived just as it was over. First an elegant open carriage, drawn by two valuable horses, drove up with Miusov and a distant relative of his, a young man of twenty, called Pyotr Fomitch Kalganov. This young man was preparing to enter the university. Miusov with whom he was staying for the time, was trying to persuade him to go abroad to the university of Zurich or Jena. The young man was still undecided. He was thoughtful and absent-minded. He was nice-looking, strongly built, and rather tall. There was a strange fixity in his gaze at times. Like all very absent-minded people he would sometimes stare at a person without seeing him. He was silent and rather awkward, but sometimes, when he was alone with anyone, he became talkative and effusive, and would laugh at anything or nothing. But his animation vanished as quickly as it appeared. He was always well and even elaborately dressed; he had already some independent fortune and expectations of much more. He was a friend of Alyosha’s.

In an ancient, jolting, but roomy, hired carriage, with a pair of old pinkish-grey horses, a long way behind Miusov’s carriage, came Fyodor Pavlovitch, with his son Ivan. Dmitri was late, though he had been informed of the time the evening before. The visitors left their carriage at the hotel, outside the precincts, and went to the gates of the monastery on foot. Except Fyodor Pavlovitch, more of the party had ever seen the monastery, and Miusov had probably not even been to church for thirty years. He looked about him with curiosity, together with assumed ease. But, except the church and the domestic buildings, though these too were ordinary enough, he found nothing of interest in the interior of the monastery. The last of the worshippers were coming out of the church bareheaded and crossing themselves. Among the humbler people were a few of higher rank — two or three ladies and a very old general. They were all staying at the hotel. Our visitors were at once surrounded by beggars, but none of them gave them anything, except young Kalganov, who took a ten-copeck piece out of his purse, and, nervous and embarrassed — God knows why! — hurriedly gave it to an old woman, saying: “Divide it equally.” None of his companions made any remark upon it, so that he had no reason to be embarrassed; but, perceiving this, he was even more overcome.

It was strange that their arrival did not seem expected, and that they were not received with special honour, though one of them had recently made a donation of a thousand roubles, while another was a very wealthy and highly cultured landowner, upon whom all in the monastery were in a sense dependent, as a decision of the lawsuit might at any moment put their fishing rights in his hands. Yet no official personage met them.

Miusov looked absent-mindedly at the tombstones round the church, and was on the point of saying that the dead buried here must have paid a pretty penny for the right of lying in this “holy place,” but refrained. His liberal irony was rapidly changing almost into anger.

“Who the devil is there to ask in this imbecile place? We must find out, for time is passing,” he observed suddenly, as though speaking to himself.

All at once there came up a bald-headed, elderly man with ingratiating little eyes, wearing a full, summer overcoat. Lifting his hat, he introduced himself with a honeyed lisp as Maximov, a landowner of Tula. He at once entered into our visitors’ difficulty.

“Father Zossima lives in the hermitage, apart, four hundred paces from the monastery, the other side of the copse.”

“I know it’s the other side of the copse,” observed Fyodor Pavlovitch, “but we don’t remember the way. It is a long time since we’ve been here.”

“This way, by this gate, and straight across the copse... the copse. Come with me, won’t you? I’ll show you. I have to go.... I am going myself. This way, this way.”

They came out of the gate and turned towards the copse. Maximov, a man of sixty, ran rather than walked, turning sideways to stare at them all, with an incredible degree of nervous curiosity. His eyes looked starting out of his head.

“You see, we have come to the elder upon business of our own,” observed Miusov severely. “That personage has granted us an audience, so to speak, and so, though we thank you for showing us the way, we cannot ask you to accompany us.”

“I’ve been there. I’ve been already; un chevalier parfait,” and Maximov snapped his fingers in the air.

“Who is a chevalier?” asked Miusov.

“The elder, the splendid elder, the elder! The honour and glory of the monastery, Zossima. Such an elder!”

But his incoherent talk was cut short by a very pale, wan-looking monk of medium height wearing a monk’s cap, who overtook them. Fyodor Pavlovitch and Miusov stopped.

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

“The Father Superior invites all of you gentlemen to dine with him after your visit to the hermitage. At one o’clock, not later. And you also,” he added, addressing Maximov.

“That I certainly will, without fail,” cried Fyodor Pavlovitch, hugely delighted at the invitation. “And, believe me, we’ve all given our word to behave properly here.... And you, Pyotr Alexandrovitch, will you go, too?”

“Yes, of course. What have I come for but to study all the customs here? The only obstacle to me is your company....”

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

“It would be a capital thing if he didn’t turn up. Do you suppose I like all this business, and in your company, too? So we will come to dinner. Thank the Father Superior,” he said to the monk.

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

“If so I’ll go straight to the Father Superior — to the Father Superior,” babbled Maximov.

“The Father Superior is engaged just now. But as you please — “ the monk hesitated.

“Impertinent old man!” Miusov observed aloud, while Maximov ran back to the monastery.

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

“Is that all you can think of?... In what way is he like von Sohn? Have you ever seen von Sohn?”

“I’ve seen his portrait. It’s not the features, but something indefinable. He’s a second von Sohn. I can always tell from the physiognomy.”

“Ah, I dare say you are a connoisseur in that. But, look here, Fyodor Pavlovitch, you said just now that we had given our word to behave properly. Remember it. I advise you to control yourself. But, if you begin to play the fool I don’t intend to be associated with you here... You see what a man he is” — he turned to the monk — “I’m afraid to go among decent people with him.” A fine smile, not without a certain slyness, came on to the pale, bloodless lips of the monk, but he made no reply, and was evidently silent from a sense of his own dignity. Miusov frowned more than ever.

“Oh, devil take them all! An outer show elaborated through centuries, and nothing but charlatanism and nonsense underneath,” flashed through Miusov’s mind.

“Here’s the hermitage. We’ve arrived,” cried Fyodor Pavlovitch. “The gates are shut.”

And he repeatedly made the sign of the cross to the saints painted above and on the sides of the gates.

“When you go to Rome you must do as the Romans do. Here in this hermitage there are twenty-five saints being saved. They look at one another, and eat cabbages. And not one woman goes in at this gate. That’s what is remarkable. And that really is so. But I did hear that the elder receives ladies,” he remarked suddenly to the monk.

“Women of the people are here too now, lying in the portico there waiting. But for ladies of higher rank two rooms have been built adjoining the portico, but outside the precincts you can see the windows — and the elder goes out to them by an inner passage when he is well enough. They are always outside the precincts. There is a Harkov lady, Madame Hohlakov, waiting there now with her sick daughter. Probably he has promised to come out to her, though of late he has been so weak that he has hardly shown himself even to the people.”

“So then there are loopholes, after all, to creep out of the hermitage to the ladies. Don’t suppose, holy father, that I mean any harm. But do you know that at Athos not only the visits of women are not allowed, but no creature of the female sex — no hens, nor turkey hens, nor cows.”

“Fyodor Pavlovitch, I warn you I shall go back and leave you here. They’ll turn you out when I’m gone.”

“But I’m not interfering with you, Pyotr Alexandrovitch. Look,” he cried suddenly, stepping within the precincts, “what a vale of roses they live in!”

Though there were no roses now, there were numbers of rare and beautiful autumn flowers growing wherever there was space for them, and evidently tended by a skilful hand; there were flower-beds round the church, and between the tombs; and the one-storied wooden house where the elder lived was also surrounded with flowers.

“And was it like this in the time of the last elder, Varsonofy? He didn’t care for such elegance. They say he used to jump up and thrash even ladies with a stick,” observed Fyodor Pavlovitch, as he went up the steps.

“The elder Varsonofy did sometimes seem rather strange, but a great deal that’s told is foolishness. He never thrashed anyone,” answered the monk. “Now, gentlemen, if you will wait a minute I will announce you.”

“Fyodor Pavlovitch, for the last time, your compact, do you hear? Behave properly or I will pay you out!” Miusov had time to mutter again.

“I can’t think why you are so agitated,” Fyodor Pavlovitch observed sarcastically. “Are you uneasy about your sins? They say he can tell by one’s eyes what one has come about. And what a lot you think of their opinion! you, a Parisian, and so advanced. I’m surprised at you.”

But Miusov had no time to reply to this sarcasm. They were asked to come in. He walked in, somewhat irritated.

“Now, I know myself, I am annoyed, I shall lose my temper and begin to quarrel — and lower myself and my ideas,” he reflected.