Oh, there are those who remain proud and fierce even in hell, in spite of their certain knowledge and contemplation of irrefutable truth; there are terrible ones, wholly in communion with Satan and his proud spirit. For them hell is voluntary and insatiable, they are sufferers by their own will. For they have cursed themselves by cursing God and life. They feed on their wicked pride, as if a hungry man in the desert were to start sucking his own blood from his body.[223] But they are insatiable unto ages of ages, and reject forgiveness, and curse God who calls to them. They cannot look upon the living God without hatred, and demand that there be no God of life, that God destroy himself and all his creation. And they will burn eternally in the fire of their wrath, thirsting for death and nonexistence. But they will not find death. . .
Here ends the manuscript of Alexei Fyodorovich Karamazov. I repeat: it is incomplete and fragmentary. The biographical information, for example, embraces only the elder’s early youth. From his homilies and opinions, much that had apparently been said at different times and for various reasons is brought together, as if into a single whole. What was said by the elder in those last hours proper of his life is not all precisely outlined, but only a notion is given of the spirit and nature of that conversation as compared with what Alexei Fyodorovich’s manuscript contains from earlier homilies. The elder’s death indeed came quite unexpectedly. For though all who had gathered around him on that last evening fully realized that his death was near, still it was impossible to imagine that it would come so suddenly; on the contrary, his friends, as I have already observed, seeing him apparently so cheerful and talkative that night, were even convinced that there had been a noticeable improvement in his health, be it only for a short time. Even five minutes before the end, as they told later with surprise, it was impossible to foresee anything. He suddenly seemed to feel a most acute pain in his chest, turned pale, and pressed his hands firmly to his heart. They all rose from their seats and rushed towards him; but he—suffering, but still looking at them with a smile—silently lowered himself from his armchair to the floor and knelt, then bowed down with his face to the ground, stretched out his arms, and, as if in joyful ecstasy, kissing the earth and praying (as he himself taught), quietly and joyfully gave up his soul to God. The news of his death spread immediately through the hermitage and reached the monastery. Those closest to the newly departed, and those whose duty it was by rank, began to prepare his body according to the ancient rite, and all the brothers gathered in the church. And still before dawn, as rumor later had it, the news about the newly departed reached town. By morning almost the whole town was talking of the event, and a multitude of townspeople poured into the monastery. But we shall speak of that in the next book, and here shall only add beforehand that the day was not yet over when something occurred that was so unexpected for everyone, and so strange, disturbing, and bewildering, as it were, from the impression it made within the monastery and in town, that even now, after so many years, a very vivid memory of that day, so disturbing for many, is still preserved in our town . . .
PART III
BOOK VII: ALYOSHA
Chapter 1: The Odor of Corruption
The body of the deceased schemahieromonk Father Zosima was prepared for burial according to the established rite.[224]As is known, the bodies of monks and schemamonks are not washed. “When any monk departs to the Lord,” says the Great Prayer Book, “the uchinnenyi [that is, the monk appointed to the task] shall wipe his body with warm water, first making the sign of the cross with a guba [that is, a Greek sponge] on the forehead of the deceased, on his chest, hands, feet, and knees, and no more than that.” Father Paissy himself performed all of this over the deceased. After wiping him, he clothed him in monastic garb and wrapped him in his cloak; to do this, he slit the cloak somewhat, according to the rule, so as to wrap it crosswise. On his head he put a cowl with an eight-pointed cross.[225] The cowl was left open, and the face of the deceased was covered with a black aer.[226] In his hands was placed an icon of the Savior. Arrayed thus, towards morning he was transferred to the coffin (which had been prepared long since). They intended to leave the coffin in the cell (in the large front room, the same room in which the deceased elder received the brothers and lay visitors) for the whole day. As the deceased was a hieromonk of the highest rank, not the Psalter but the Gospel had to be read over him by hieromonks and hierodeacons. The reading was begun, immediately after the service for the dead, by Father Iosif; Father Paissy, who wished to read himself later in the day and all night, was meanwhile very busy and preoccupied, together with the superior of the hermitage, for something extraordinary, some unheard-of and “unseemly” excitement and impatient expectation, suddenly began to appear more and more among the monastery brothers and the lay visitors who came in crowds from the monastery guest houses and from town. Both the Father Superior and Father Paissy made every possible effort to calm this vain excitement. Well into daylight people began arriving from town, some even bringing their sick, children especially—just as if they had been waiting purposely for this moment, apparently in hopes of an immediate healing power, which, according to their faith, should not be slow to appear. Only now did it appear how accustomed people had become in our parts to considering the deceased elder, while he was still alive, an unquestionable and great saint. And those who came were far from being all peasants. This great expectation among the faithful, so hastily and nakedly displayed, even impatiently and all but demandingly, seemed to Father Paissy an unquestionable temptation, and though he had long anticipated it, still it in fact went beyond his expectations. Meeting the excited ones among the monks, he even began to reprimand them: “Such and so instant an expectation of something great,” he would tell them, “is levity, possible only among worldly people; it is not fitting for us.” But he was little heeded, and Father Paissy noticed it uneasily, notwithstanding that he himself (were one to recall the whole truth), though he was indignant at these too-impatient expectations and saw levity and vanity in them, still secretly, within himself, in the depths of his soul, shared almost the same expectations as the excited ones, which fact he could not but admit to himself. Nevertheless certain encounters were particularly unpleasant for him, awakening great doubts in him by some sort of foreboding. In the crowd pressing into the cell of the deceased, he noticed with disgust in his soul (for which he at once reproached himself) the presence, for example, of Rakitin, or the distant visitor, the Ob-dorsk monk, who was still staying at the monastery, both of whom Father Paissy suddenly considered for some reason suspicious—though they were not the only ones who could be pointed to in that sense. Among all the excited ones, the Obdorsk monk stood out as the busiest; he could be seen everywhere, in all places: he asked questions everywhere, listened everywhere, whispered everywhere with a sort of specially mysterious look. The expression on his face was most impatient, and as if already annoyed that the expected thing should be so long in coming. As for Rakitin, it was discovered later that he had turned up so early at the monastery on a special errand from Madame Khokhlakov. The moment she awoke and learned about the deceased, this kind but weak-willed woman, who could not be admitted to the hermitage herself, was suddenly filled with such impetuous curiosity that she at once dispatched Rakitin to the hermitage in her stead, to observe everything and report to her immediately in writing, about every half-hour, on everything that happens. She considered Rakitin a most devout and religious young man—so skillful was he in manipulating everyone and presenting himself to everyone according to the wishes of each, whenever he saw the least advantage for himself. The day was clear and bright, and there were many pilgrims crowded among the hermitage graves, which were scattered all over the grounds, though mainly clustered near the church. Going about the hermitage, Father Paissy suddenly remembered Alyosha, and that he had not seen him for a long time, perhaps not since the night before. And as soon as he remembered him, he noticed him at once, in the furthest corner of the hermitage, near the wall, sitting on the grave of a monk long since departed who was famous for his deeds. He sat with his back to the hermitage, facing the wall, as if hiding behind the tombstone. Coming close to him, Father Paissy saw that he had covered his face with both hands and was weeping, silently but bitterly, his whole body shaking with sobs. Father Paissy stood over him for a while.