‘What do you mean, your Napravnik?’ I can see from the first split second that it’s not coming off, that he’s standing there seriously, but I keep on: ‘I wanted,’ I say, ‘to make a joke, for our general amusement. Mr. Napravnik is our famous Russian Kapellmeister, and we, for the harmony of our enterprise, also precisely need a sort of Kapellmeister, as it were . . .’ I explained it all and compared it quite reasonably, didn’t I? I beg your pardon,’ he says, ‘I am an ispravnik, and I will not allow you to use my title for your puns. ‘ He turned around and was about to walk away. I started after him, calling out: ‘Yes, yes, you are an ispravnik, not Napravnik.’ ‘No,’ he says, ‘have it your way. I am Napravnik.’ And just imagine, our deal fell through! And that’s how I am, it’s always like that with me. I’m forever damaging myself with my own courtesy! Once, this was many years ago now, I said to an influential person, ‘Your wife, sir, is a ticklish woman,’ referring to her honor, her moral qualities, so to speak. And he suddenly retorted, ‘Did you tickle her?’ I couldn’t help myself; why not a little pleasant banter, I thought? ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘I did tickle her, sir.’ Well, at that he gave me quite a tickling...! But it was a long time ago, so I’m not even ashamed to tell about it. I’m always damaging myself like that!”

“You’re doing it now, too,” Miusov muttered in disgust.

The elder silently looked from one to the other.

“Really! Imagine, I knew it all along, Pyotr Alexandrovich, and, you know I even had a feeling that I was doing it just as I started speaking, and you know, I even had a feeling that you would be the first to point it out to me. In those seconds when I see that my joke isn’t going over, mycheeks, reverend lather, begin to stick to my lower gums; it feels almost like a cramp; I’ve had it since my young days, when I was a sponger on the gentry and made my living by sponging. I’m a natural-born buffoon, I am, reverend father, just like a holy fool; I won’t deny that there’s maybe an unclean spirit living in me, too not a very high caliber one, by the way, otherwise he would have chosen grander quarters, only not you, Pyotr Alexandrovich, your quarters are none too grand either. But to make up for it, I believe, I believe in God. It’s only lately that I’ve begun to have doubts, but to make up for it I’m sitting and waiting to hear lofty words. I am, reverend father, like the philosopher Diderot.^[30] Do you know, most holy father, how Diderot the philosopher came to see Metropolitan Platon^[31] in the time of the empress Catherine? He walks in and says right off: ‘There is no God.’ To which the great hierarch raises his finger and answers: ‘The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God.’^[32] Right then and there our man fell at his feet: ‘I believe,’ he cries, ‘I will accept baptism!’ And so they baptized him at once. Princess Dashkova^[33] was his godmother, and his godfather was Potiomkin . . .”^[34] “Fyodor Pavlovich, this is unbearable! You know yourself that you are lying, that your silly story isn’t true. Why are you clowning?” Miusov said in a trembling voice, losing all control of himself.

“All my life I’ve had a feeling that it wasn’t true!” Fyodor Pavlovich cried excitedly. “No, let me tell you the whole truth, gentlemen. Great elder! Forgive me, but that last part, about Diderot’s baptism, I invented myself just a moment ago, while I was telling it to you. It never occurred to me before. I made it up for its piquancy. That’s why I’m clowning, Pyotr Alexandrovich, to make myself more endearing. Though sometimes I don’t know myself why I do it. As for Diderot, I heard this ‘the fool hath said’ maybe twenty times from local landowners when I was still young and lived with them; by the way, I also heard it, Pyotr Alexandrovich, from your aunt, Mavra Fominishna. They all still believe that the godless Diderot came to Metropolitan Platon to argue about God...”

Miusov rose, not only losing patience, but even somehow forgetting himself. He was furious, and realized that this made him ridiculous. Indeed, something altogether impossible was taking place in the cell. For perhaps forty or fifty years, from the time of the former elders, visitors had been coming to this cell, but always with the deepest reverence, not otherwise. Almost all who were admitted entered the cell with the awareness that they were being shown great favor. Many fell to their knees and would not rise for as long as the visit lasted. Even many “higher” persons, even many of the most learned ones, moreover even some of the freethinkers who came out of curiosity, or for some other reason, when entering the cell with others or having obtained a private audience, considered it their foremost duty—to a man— to show the deepest respect and tactfulness throughout the audience, the more so as there was no question of money involved, but only of love and mercy on one side, and on the other of repentance and the desire to resolve some difficult question of the soul or a difficult moment in the life of the heart. So that suddenly this buffoonery displayed by Fyodor Pavlovich, with no respect for the place he was in, produced in the onlookers, at least in some of them, both astonishment and bewilderment. The hieromonks, who incidentally showed no change at all in their physiognomies, were watching with grave attention for what the elder would say, but they seemed as if they were about to stand up, like Miusov. Alyosha was on the verge of tears and stood looking downcast. What seemed strangest of all to him was that his brother, Ivan Fyodorovich, on whom alone he had relied and who alone had enough influence on their father to have been able to stop him, was now sitting quite motionless in his chair, looking down and waiting, apparently with some kind of inquisitive curiosity, to see how it would all end, as if he himself were a complete stranger there. Alyosha could not even look at Rakitin (the seminarian), whom he knew and was almost close with. Alyosha knew his thoughts (though he alone in the whole monastery knew them).

“Forgive me ... ,” Miusov began, addressing the elder, “it may seem to you that I, too, am a participant in this unworthy farce. My mistake was in trusting that even such a man as Fyodor Pavlovich would be willing to recognize his duties when visiting such a venerable person ... I did not think that I would have to apologize just for the fact of coming with him...”

Pyotr Alexandrovich broke off and, completely embarrassed, was about to leave the room.

“Do not upset yourself, I beg you,” the elder suddenly rose on his feeble legs, took Pyotr Alexandrovich by both hands, and sat him down again on the chair. “Do not worry, I beg you. I ask you particularly to be my guest.” And with a bow, he turned and sat down again on his settee.

“Great elder, speak and tell me whether I offend you with my liveliness or not?” Fyodor Pavlovich suddenly cried, gripping the arms of his chair as if he were about to leap out of it, depending on the answer.

“I earnestly beg you, too, not to worry and not to be uncomfortable,” the elder said to him imposingly. “Be at ease, and feel completely at home. And above all do not be so ashamed of yourself, for that is the cause of everything.”

“Completely at home? You mean in my natural state? Oh, that is much, too much—but I’m touched, and I accept! You know, blessed father, you shouldn’t challenge me to be in my natural state, you shouldn’t risk it ... I myself will not go so far as to be in my natural state. I’m warning you in order to protect you. Well, and the rest is wrapped in the mists of uncertainty; though there are some who would like to paint me in broad strokes. I’m referring to you, Pyotr Alexandrovich; and you, most holy being, here is what I have for you: I pour out my rapture!” He rose slightly and, lifting up his hands, said; “ ‘Blessed is the womb that bare thee and the paps which thou hast sucked”—the paps especially! That remark you just made: ‘Not to be so ashamed of myself, for that is the cause of everything’—it’s as if you pierced me right through and read inside me. That is exactly how it all seems to me, when I walk into a room, that I’m lower than anyone else, and that everyone takes me for a buffoon, so ‘Why not, indeed, play the buffoon, I’m not afraid of your opinions, because you’re all, to a man, lower than me! ‘ That’s why I’m a buffoon, I’m a buffoon out of shame, great elder, out of shame. I act up just because I’m insecure. If only I were sure, when I came in, that everyone would take me at once for the most pleasant and intelligent of men—oh, Lord! what a good man I’d be! Teacher!” he suddenly threw himself on his knees, “what should I do to inherit eternal life?”^[35]It was hard even now to tell whether hewas joking or was indeed greatly moved.