“So be it! So be it!” Father Paissy confirmed with reverence and severity.

“Strange, most strange,” Miusov pronounced, not so much fervently as with, so to speak, a sort of repressed indignation.

“What seems so strange to you?” Father Iosif cautiously inquired.

“But, really, what are you talking about?” Miusov exclaimed, as if suddenly bursting out. “The state is abolished on earth, and the Church is raised to the level of the state! It’s not even Ultramontanism, it’s arch-Ultramontanism! Even Pope Gregory the Seventh never dreamed of such a thing!”^[50]

“You have been pleased to understand it in a completely opposite sense,” Father Paissy spoke sternly. “It is not the Church that turns into the state, you see. That is Rome and its dream. That is the third temptation of the devil!^[51] But, on the contrary, the state turns into the Church, it rises up to the Church and becomes the Church over all the earth, which is the complete opposite of Ultramontanism and of Rome, and of your interpretation, and is simply the great destiny of Orthodoxy on earth. This star will show forth from the East.”

Miusov was imposingly silent. His whole figure expressed remarkable self-respect. A haughtily condescending smile appeared on his lips. Alyosha followed it all with a pounding heart. The whole conversation stirred him deeply. He happened to glance at Rakitin, who stood motionless in his former place by the door, listening and watching attentively, though with downcast eyes. But by the lively color in his cheeks, Alyosha guessed that Rakitin, too, was stirred, probably no less than he was. Alyosha knew what stirred him.

“Allow me to relate a little anecdote, gentlemen,” Miusov suddenly said imposingly and with a sort of especially grand air. “In Paris, several years ago now, soon after the December revolution,^[52]I happened once, while visiting an acquaintance, then a very, very important and official person, to meet there a most curious gentleman. This individual was not exactly an undercover agent, but something like the supervisor of an entire teamof political agents—rather an influential position in its way. Seizing the chance, out of great curiosity, I struck up a conversation with him; and since he was there not as an acquaintance but as a subordinate official, who had come with a certain kind of report, he, seeing for his part how I was received by his superior, deigned to show me some frankness—well, of course, to a certain extent; that is, he was more polite than frank, precisely as a Frenchman can be polite, the more so because he viewed me as a foreigner. But I well understood him. The topic was socialist revolutionaries, who then, by the way, were being persecuted. Omitting the main essence of the conversation, I shall quote only one most curious remark that this person suddenly let drop: ‘We are not, in fact, afraid of all these socialists, anarchists, atheists, and revolutionaries,’ he said. ‘We keep an eye on them, and their movements are known to us. But there are some special people among them, although not many: these are believers in God and Christians, and at the same time socialists. They are the ones we are most afraid of; they are terrible people! A socialist Christian is more dangerous than a socialist atheist.’ His words struck me even then, but now, here, gentlemen, I somehow suddenly recalled them ...”

“That is, you apply them to us and see us as socialists?” Father Paissy asked directly, without beating around the bush. But before Pyotr Alexandrovich was able to think of a reply, the door opened and in came the long-awaited Dmitri Fyodorovich. Indeed, he was, as it were, no longer expected, and his sudden appearance at first even caused some surprise.

Chapter 6: Why Is Such a Man Alive!

Dmitri Fyodorovich, a young man of twenty-eight, of medium height and agreeable looks, appeared, however, much older than his years. He was muscular and one could tell that he possessed considerable physical strength; nonetheless something sickly, as it were, showed in his face. His face was lean, his cheeks hollow, their color tinged with a sort of unhealthy sallowness. His rather large, dark, prominent eyes had an apparently firm and determined, yet somehow vague, look. Even when he was excited and talking irritably, his look, as it were, did not obey his inner mood but expressed something else, sometimes not at all corresponding to the present moment. “It’s hard to know what he’s thinking about,” those who spoke with him would occasionally say. Others, seeing something pensive and gloomy in his eyes, would suddenly be struck by his unexpected laughter, betraying gay and playful thoughts precisely at the moment when he looked so gloomy. Though his somewhat sickly look at that time could well be understood: everyone knew or had heard about the extremely troubled and “riotous” life he had given himself up to precisely of late, just as they knew about the remarkable irritation he reached in quarrels with his father over the controversial money. Already there were several anecdotes about it going around town. It is true that he was irritable by nature, “abrupt and erratic of mind,” as our justice of the peace, Semyon Ivanovich Kachalnikov, characteristically described him at one of our gatherings. He entered, impeccably and smartly dressed, his frock coat buttoned, wearing black gloves and carrying his top hat. As a recently retired military man, he wore a moustache and still shaved his beard. His dark brown hair was cut short and combed somehow forward on his temples. He had a long, resolute military stride. He stopped for a moment on the threshold and, glancing around at everyone, went directly to the elder, guessing him to be the host. He made a low bow to him and asked for his blessing. The elder rose a little in his chair and blessed him; Dmitri Fyodorovich respectfully kissed his hand and with remarkable excitement, almost irritation, said:

“Be so generous as to forgive me for having kept you waiting so long. But the servant Smerdyakov, sent by papa, in reply to my insistent question about the time, told me twice in the most definite tone that the appointment was at one. Now I suddenly find out ...”

“Don’t worry,” the elder interrupted, “it’s nothing, you’re just a bit late, it doesn’t matter...”

“I am extremely grateful, and could expect no less from your goodness.” Having snapped out these words, Dmitri Fyodorovich bowed once again, then, suddenly turning to his “papa,” made the same deep and respectful bow to him as well. It was obvious that he had considered this bow beforehand and conceived it sincerely, believing it his duty to express thereby his respect and goodwill. Fyodor Pavlovich, though taken unawares, found the proper reply at once: in response to Dmitri Fyodorovich’s bow, he jumped up from his chair and responded to his son with exactly as deep a bow. His face suddenly became solemn and imposing, which gave him, however, a decidedly wicked look. Then, silently, giving a general bow to all those present in the room, Dmitri Fyodorovich, with his big and resolute strides, went over to the window, sat down on the only remaining chair, not far from Father Paissy, and, leaning forward with his whole body, at once prepared to listen to the continuation of the conversation he had interrupted.

Dmitri Fyodorovich’s appearance had taken no more than a couple of minutes, and the conversation could not fail to start up again. But this time Pyotr Alexandrovich did not deem it necessary to reply to Father Paissy’s persistent and almost irritated question.

“Allow me to dismiss the subject,” he said with a certain worldly nonchalance. “Besides, it’s a complex one. Ivan Fyodorovich, here, is grinning at us: he must have saved something curious for this occasion as well. Ask him.”