“Greetings, my quiet one, greetings, my dear, so you’ve come. I knew you would come.”
Alyosha went up to him, prostrated before him, and began to weep. Something was bursting from his heart, his soul was trembling, he wanted to sob.
“Come now, don’t weep over me yet,” smiled the elder, laying his right hand on his head, “you see, I am sitting and talking, perhaps I’ll live twenty years more, as that woman wished me yesterday, that kind, dear woman from Vyshegorye, with the girl Lizaveta in her arms. Remember, = Lord, both the mother and the girl Lizaveta!” He crossed himself. “Porfiry, did you take her offering where I told you?”
He was remembering the sixty kopecks donated by the cheerful worshipper the day before, to be given “to someone poorer than I am.” Such offerings are made as a penance, taken upon oneself voluntarily for one reason or another, and always from money gained by one’s own labor. That same evening the elder had sent Porfiry to one of our townspeople, a widow with several children, who had recently lost everything in a fire and afterwards went begging. Porfiry hastened to report that it had been done, and that he had given the money, as he was instructed, “from an unknown benefactress.”
“Stand up, my dear,” the elder continued to Alyosha, “let me look at you. Have you been with your people, did you see your brother?”
It seemed strange to Alyosha that he should ask so firmly and precisely about just one of his brothers—but which one? Perhaps it was for that same brother that he had sent him away both yesterday and today.
“I saw one of my brothers,” Alyosha replied. “I mean the one from yesterday, the older one, before whom I bowed to the ground.”
“I saw him only yesterday; today I simply couldn’t find him,” said Alyosha.
“Make haste and find him, go again tomorrow and make haste, leave everything and make haste. Perhaps you’ll still be able to prevent something terrible. I bowed yesterday to his great future suffering.”
He suddenly fell silent and seemed to lapse into thought. His words were strange. Father Iosif, a witness to the elder’s bow the day before, exchanged glances with Father Paissy. Alyosha could not help himself:
“Father and teacher,” he spoke in great excitement, “your words are too vague ... What is this suffering that awaits him?”
“Do not be curious. Yesterday I seemed to see something terrible ... as if his eyes yesterday expressed his whole fate. He had a certain look ... so that I was immediately horrified in my heart at what this man was preparing for himself. Once or twice in my life I’ve seen people with the same expression in their faces ... as if it portrayed the whole fate of the person, and that fate, alas, came about. I sent you to him, Alexei, because I thought your brotherly countenance would help him. But everything is from the Lord, and all our fates as well. ‘Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.’ Remember that. And you, Alexei, I have blessed in my thoughts many times in my life for your face, know that,” the elder said with a quiet smile. “Thus I think of you: you will go forth from these walls, but you will sojourn in the world like a monk. You will have many opponents, but your very enemies will love you. Life will bring you many misfortunes, but through them you will be happy, and you will bless life and cause others to bless it—which is the most important thing. That is how you are. My fathers and teachers,” he turned to his visitors with a tender smile, “till this day I have never said even to him why the face of this youth is so dear to my soul. Only now do I say: his face has been, as it were, a reminder and a prophecy for me. At the dawn of my days, when still a little child, I had an older brother who died in his youth, before my eyes, being only seventeen years old. And later, making my way through life, I gradually came to see that this brother was, as it were, a pointer and a destination from above in my fate, for if he had not appeared in my life, if he had not been at all, then never, perhaps, as I think, would I have entered monastic orders and set out upon this precious path. That first appearance was still in my childhood, and now, on the decline of my path, a repetition of him, as it were, appeared before my eyes. It is a wonder, fathers and teachers, that while he does not resemble him very much in appearance, but only slightly, Alexei seemed to me to resemble him so much spiritually that many times I have actually taken him, as it were, for that youth, my brother, come to me mysteriously at the end of my way, for a certain remembrance and perception, so that I was even surprised at myself and this strange fancy of mine. Do you hear, Porfiry?” he turned to the novice who served him. “Many times I have seen you look distressed, as it were, that I should love Alexei more than you. Now you know why it was so, but I love you, too, know that, and I have grieved many times at your distress. And to you, my dear visitors, I wish to speak of this youth, my brother, for there has been no appearance in my life more precious than this one, more prophetic and moving. My heart feels tender, and at this moment I am contemplating my whole life as if I were living it all anew ...”
Here I must note that this last talk of the elder with those who visited him on the last day of his life has been partly preserved in writing. Alexei Fyodorovich Karamazov wrote it down from memory some time after the elder’s death. But whether it was just that conversation, or he added to it in his notes from former conversations with his teacher as well, I cannot determine. Besides, in these notes the whole speech of the elder goes on continuously, as it were, as if he were recounting his life in the form of a narrative, addressing his friends, whereas undoubtedly, according to later reports, it in fact went somewhat differently, for the conversation that evening was general, and though the visitors rarely interrupted their host, still they did speak for themselves, intervening in the talk, perhaps even imparting and telling something of their own; besides, there could hardly have been such continuity in the narration, because the elder sometimes became breathless, lost his voice, and even lay down on his bed to rest, though he did not fall asleep, and the visitors did not leave their places. Once or twice the conversation was interrupted by readings from the Gospel, Father Paissy doing the reading. It is also remarkable, however, that not one of them supposed he would die that same night, the less so as on this last evening of his life, after a day of sound sleep, he suddenly seemed to have found new strength in himself, which sustained him through all this long conversation with his friends. It was as though a last loving effort sustained this incredible animation in him, but only for a short time, for his life ceased suddenly ... But of that later. At this point I want to make clear that I have preferred, rather than recounting all the details of the conversation, to limit myself to the elder’s story according to the manuscript of Alexei Fyodorovich Karamazov. It will be shorter and not so tedious, though, of course, I repeat, Alyosha also took much from previous conversations and put it all together.