“So, I have written you a love letter, oh, my God, what have I done! Alyosha, do not despise me, and if I have done something very bad and upset you, forgive me. Now the secret of my reputation, ruined perhaps forever, is in your hands.

“I shall surely cry today. Till tomorrow, till that terrible morrow. Lise.

“P.S. Only, Alyosha, you must, must, must come! Lise.” Alyosha read the note with surprise, read it a second time, thought a moment, and suddenly laughed softly and sweetly. Then he gave a start; this laughter seemed sinful to him. But a moment later he laughed again just as softly and happily. He slowly put the note into the little envelope, crossed himself, and lay down. The confusion in his soul suddenly passed. “Lord have mercy on them all today, unhappy and stormy as they are, preserve and guide them. All ways are yours: save them according to your ways. You are love, you will send joy to all!” Alyosha murmured, crossing himself and falling into a serene sleep.

PART II

BOOK IV: STRAINS

Chapter 1: Father Ferapont

Early in the morning, before dawn, Alyosha was awakened. The elder had gotten up, feeling quite weak, though he still wished to move from his bed to the armchair. He was fully conscious; his face, though quite tired, was bright, almost joyful, and his eyes were merry, cordial, welcoming. “I may not survive this coming day,” he said to Alyosha; then he desired to make a confession and receive communion immediately. His confessor had always been Father Paissy. After the completion of both sacraments, the rite of holy unction began.^[107] The hieromonks gathered, and the cell gradually filled with monks from the hermitage. Meanwhile day came. Monks began to arrive from the monastery as well. When the service was over, the elder desired to take leave of everyone and kissed them all. As the cell was small, the first visitors went out to make room for others. Alyosha stood near the elder, who had moved back to the armchair. He spoke and taught as much as he could; his voice, though weak, was still quite firm. “I have taught you for so many years, and therefore spoken aloud for so many years, that it has become a habit, as it were, to speak, and, speaking, to teach you, so much so that I would find it almost more difficult to be silent than to speak, my dear fathers and brothers, even now in my weakness,” he joked, looking tenderly upon those who crowded around him. Later Alyosha recalled something of what he said then. But though he spoke distinctly and in a sufficiently firm voice, his talk was rather incoherent. He spoke of many things, he seemed to want to say everything, to speak one last time before the moment of death, to say all that had not been said in his life, and not only for the sake of instruction, but as if he wished to share his joy and ecstasy with all, to pour out his heart once more in this life . . .

“Love one another, fathers,” the elder taught (as far as Alyosha could recall afterwards). “Love God’s people. For we are not holier than those in the world because we have come here and shut ourselves within these walls, but, on the contrary, anyone who comes here, by the very fact that he has come, already knows himself to be worse than all those who are in the world, worse than all on earth ... And the longer a monk lives within his walls, the more keenly he must be aware of it. For otherwise he had no reason to come here. But when he knows that he is not only worse than all those in the world, but is also guilty before all people, on behalf of all and for all,^[108] for all human sins, the world’s and each person’s, only then will the goal of our unity be achieved. For you must know, my dear ones, that each of us is undoubtedly guilty on behalf of all and for all on earth, not only because of the common guilt of the world, but personally, each one of us, for all people and for each person on this earth. This knowledge is the crown of the monk’s path, and of every man’s path on earth. For monks are not a different sort of men, but only such as all men on earth ought also to be. Only then will our hearts be moved to a love that is infinite , universal, and that knows no satiety. Then each of us will be able to gain the whole world by love and wash away the world’s sins with his tears ... Let each of you keep close company with his heart, let each of you confess to himself untiringly. Do not be afraid of your sin, even when you perceive it, provided you are repentant, but do not place conditions on God. Again I say, do not be proud. Do not be proud before the lowly, do not be proud before the great either. And do not hate those who reject you, disgrace you, revile you, and slander you. Do not hate atheists, teachers of evil, materialists, not even those among them who are wicked, nor those who are good, for many of them are good, especially in our time. Remember them thus in your prayers: save, Lord, those whom there is no one to pray for, save also those who do not want to pray to you. And add at once: it is not in my pride that I pray for it, Lord, for I myself am more vile than all ... Love God’s people, do not let newcomers draw your flock away, for if in your laziness and disdainful pride, in your self-interest most of all, you fall asleep, they will come from all sides and lead your flock away. Teach the Gospel to the people untiringly ... Do not engage in usury ... Do not love silver and gold, do not keep it ... Believe, and hold fast to the banner. Raise it high ...”

The elder spoke, however, in a more fragmentary way than has been set forth here or in the notes that Alyosha later wrote down. Sometimes he stopped speaking altogether, as if gathering his strength, and gasped for breath, yet he seemed to be in ecstasy. He was listened to with great feeling, though many wondered at his words and saw darkness in them ... Afterwards they all remembered these words. When Alyosha happened to leave the cell for a moment, he was struck by the general excitement and anticipation among the brothers crowding in and near the cell. Some were almost anxious in their anticipation, others were solemn. Everyone expected something immediate and great upon the elder’s falling asleep.^[109] This expectation was, from the one point of view, almost frivolous, as it were, yet even the sternest old monks suffered from it. Sternest of all was the face of the old hieromonk Paissy. Alyosha happened to leave the cell only because he had been mysteriously summoned, through a monk, by Rakitin, who came from town with a strange letter sent to Alyosha by Madame Khokhlakov. She informed Alyosha of a curious piece of news, which came at a highly opportune moment. It so happened that the day before, among the faithful peasant women who had come to venerate the elder and receive his blessing, there was a little old lady from town, Prokhorovna, a noncommissioned officer’s widow. She had asked the elder if in a prayer for the dead she could remember her dear son Vasenka, who had gone on official duty far away to Siberia, to Irkutsk, and from whom she had received no news for a year. To which the elder had replied sternly, forbidding it, and likening this sort of commemoration to sorcery. But then, forgiving her because of her ignorance, he had added, “as if looking into the book of the future” (so Madame Khokhlakov put it in her letter), the consolation “that her son Vasya was undoubtedly alive, and that he would either come himself or send a letter shortly, and she should go home and wait for that. And what do you think?” Madame Khokhlakov added ecstatically, “the prophecy came true even literally, and even more than that.” The moment the old lady returned home, she was at once handed a letter from Siberia, which was there waiting for her. And that was not all: in this letter, written en route from Ekaterinburg, Vasya informed his mother that he was coming to Russia, that he was returning with some official, and that in about three weeks after she received this letter “he hoped to embrace his mother.” Madame Khokhlakov insistently and ardently begged Alyosha to report this newly occurred “miracle of prediction” immediately to the Superior and all the brothers: “It must be made known to everyone, everyone!” she exclaimed in conclusion. Her letter had been written hastily, in a rush; the writer’s excitement rang in every line of it. But there was nothing for Alyosha to tell the brothers: everyone already knew everything. Rakitin, as he sent the monk for Alyosha, charged him, besides, “most respectfully to notify his reverence Father Paissy as well, that he, Rakitin, had some business with him, of such importance that he could not postpone informing him of it even for a minute, asking him with a low bow to forgive his boldness.” Since the monk had brought Rakitin’s request to Father Paissy before finding Alyosha, it only remained for Alyosha, after reading the letter, to hand it over to Father Paissy as a document. And then even that stern and mistrustful man, as he read, frowning, the news of the “miracle,” could not quite contain a certain inner emotion. His eyes flashed, and a solemn and knowing smile suddenly came to his lips.