The Brothers Karamazov

he Breath Of Corruption

The body of Father Zossima was prepared for burial according to the
established ritual. As is well known, the bodies of dead monks and
hermits are not washed. In the words of the Church Ritual: “If any one
of the monks depart in the Lord, the monk designated (that is, whose
office it is) shall wipe the body with warm water, making first the
sign of the cross with a sponge on the forehead of the deceased, on the
breast, on the hands and feet and on the knees, and that is enough.”
All this was done by Father Païssy, who then clothed the deceased in
his monastic garb and wrapped him in his cloak, which was, according to
custom, somewhat slit to allow of its being folded about him in the
form of a cross. On his head he put a hood with an eight‐cornered
cross. The hood was left open and the dead man’s face was covered with
black gauze. In his hands was put an ikon of the Saviour. Towards
morning he was put in the coffin which had been made ready long before.
It was decided to leave the coffin all day in the cell, in the larger
room in which the elder used to receive his visitors and fellow monks.
As the deceased was a priest and monk of the strictest rule, the
Gospel, not the Psalter, had to be read over his body by monks in holy
orders. The reading was begun by Father Iosif immediately after the
requiem service. Father Païssy desired later on to read the Gospel all
day and night over his dead friend, but for the present he, as well as
the Father Superintendent of the Hermitage, was very busy and occupied,
for something extraordinary, an unheard‐of, even “unseemly” excitement
and impatient expectation began to be apparent in the monks, and the
visitors from the monastery hostels, and the crowds of people flocking
from the town. And as time went on, this grew more and more marked.
Both the Superintendent and Father Païssy did their utmost to calm the
general bustle and agitation.

When it was fully daylight, some people began bringing their sick, in
most cases children, with them from the town—as though they had been
waiting expressly for this moment to do so, evidently persuaded that
the dead elder’s remains had a power of healing, which would be
immediately made manifest in accordance with their faith. It was only
then apparent how unquestionably every one in our town had accepted
Father Zossima during his lifetime as a great saint. And those who came
were far from being all of the humbler classes.

This intense expectation on the part of believers displayed with such
haste, such openness, even with impatience and almost insistence,
impressed Father Païssy as unseemly. Though he had long foreseen
something of the sort, the actual manifestation of the feeling was
beyond anything he had looked for. When he came across any of the monks
who displayed this excitement, Father Païssy began to reprove them.
“Such immediate expectation of something extraordinary,” he said,
“shows a levity, possible to worldly people but unseemly in us.”

But little attention was paid him and Father Païssy noticed it
uneasily. Yet he himself (if the whole truth must be told), secretly at
the bottom of his heart, cherished almost the same hopes and could not
but be aware of it, though he was indignant at the too impatient
expectation around him, and saw in it light‐mindedness and vanity.
Nevertheless, it was particularly unpleasant to him to meet certain
persons, whose presence aroused in him great misgivings. In the crowd
in the dead man’s cell he noticed with inward aversion (for which he
immediately reproached himself) the presence of Rakitin and of the monk
from Obdorsk, who was still staying in the monastery. Of both of them
Father Païssy felt for some reason suddenly suspicious—though, indeed,
he might well have felt the same about others.

The monk from Obdorsk was conspicuous as the most fussy in the excited
crowd. He was to be seen everywhere; everywhere he was asking
questions, everywhere he was listening, on all sides he was whispering
with a peculiar, mysterious air. His expression showed the greatest
impatience and even a sort of irritation.

As for Rakitin, he, as appeared later, had come so early to the
hermitage at the special request of Madame Hohlakov. As soon as that
good‐hearted but weak‐minded woman, who could not herself have been
admitted to the hermitage, waked and heard of the death of Father
Zossima, she was overtaken with such intense curiosity that she
promptly dispatched Rakitin to the hermitage, to keep a careful look
out and report to her by letter every half‐hour or so “everything that
takes place.” She regarded Rakitin as a most religious and devout
young man. He was particularly clever in getting round people and
assuming whatever part he thought most to their taste, if he detected
the slightest advantage to himself from doing so.

It was a bright, clear day, and many of the visitors were thronging
about the tombs, which were particularly numerous round the church and
scattered here and there about the hermitage. As he walked round the
hermitage, Father Païssy remembered Alyosha and that he had not seen
him for some time, not since the night. And he had no sooner thought of
him than he at once noticed him in the farthest corner of the hermitage
garden, sitting on the tombstone of a monk who had been famous long ago
for his saintliness. He sat with his back to the hermitage and his face
to the wall, and seemed to be hiding behind the tombstone. Going up to
him, Father Païssy saw that he was weeping quietly but bitterly, with
his face hidden in his hands, and that his whole frame was shaking with
sobs. Father Païssy stood over him for a little.

“Enough, dear son, enough, dear,” he pronounced with feeling at last.
“Why do you weep? Rejoice and weep not. Don’t you know that this is the
greatest of his days? Think only where he is now, at this moment!”

Alyosha glanced at him, uncovering his face, which was swollen with
crying like a child’s, but turned away at once without uttering a word
and hid his face in his hands again.

“Maybe it is well,” said Father Païssy thoughtfully; “weep if you must,
Christ has sent you those tears.”

“Your touching tears are but a relief to your spirit and will serve to
gladden your dear heart,” he added to himself, walking away from
Alyosha, and thinking lovingly of him. He moved away quickly, however,
for he felt that he too might weep looking at him.

Meanwhile the time was passing; the monastery services and the requiems
for the dead followed in their due course. Father Païssy again took
Father Iosif’s place by the coffin and began reading the Gospel. But
before three o’clock in the afternoon that something took place to
which I alluded at the end of the last book, something so unexpected by
all of us and so contrary to the general hope, that, I repeat, this
trivial incident has been minutely remembered to this day in our town
and all the surrounding neighborhood. I may add here, for myself
personally, that I feel it almost repulsive to recall that event which
caused such frivolous agitation and was such a stumbling‐block to many,
though in reality it was the most natural and trivial matter. I should,
of course, have omitted all mention of it in my story, if it had not
exerted a very strong influence on the heart and soul of the chief,
though future, hero of my story, Alyosha, forming a crisis and
turning‐point in his spiritual development, giving a shock to his
intellect, which finally strengthened it for the rest of his life and
gave it a definite aim.

And so, to return to our story. When before dawn they laid Father
Zossima’s body in the coffin and brought it into the front room, the
question of opening the windows was raised among those who were around
the coffin. But this suggestion made casually by some one was
unanswered and almost unnoticed. Some of those present may perhaps have
inwardly noticed it, only to reflect that the anticipation of decay and
corruption from the body of such a saint was an actual absurdity,
calling for compassion (if not a smile) for the lack of faith and the
frivolity it implied. For they expected something quite different.

And, behold, soon after midday there were signs of something, at first
only observed in silence by those who came in and out and were
evidently each afraid to communicate the thought in his mind. But by
three o’clock those signs had become so clear and unmistakable, that
the news swiftly reached all the monks and visitors in the hermitage,
promptly penetrated to the monastery, throwing all the monks into
amazement, and finally, in the shortest possible time, spread to the
town, exciting every one in it, believers and unbelievers alike. The
unbelievers rejoiced, and as for the believers some of them rejoiced
even more than the unbelievers, for “men love the downfall and disgrace
of the righteous,” as the deceased elder had said in one of his
exhortations.

The fact is that a smell of decomposition began to come from the
coffin, growing gradually more marked, and by three o’clock it was
quite unmistakable. In all the past history of our monastery, no such
scandal could be recalled, and in no other circumstances could such a
scandal have been possible, as showed itself in unseemly disorder
immediately after this discovery among the very monks themselves.
Afterwards, even many years afterwards, some sensible monks were amazed
and horrified, when they recalled that day, that the scandal could have
reached such proportions. For in the past, monks of very holy life had
died, God‐fearing old men, whose saintliness was acknowledged by all,
yet from their humble coffins, too, the breath of corruption had come,
naturally, as from all dead bodies, but that had caused no scandal nor
even the slightest excitement. Of course there had been, in former
times, saints in the monastery whose memory was carefully preserved and
whose relics, according to tradition, showed no signs of corruption.
This fact was regarded by the monks as touching and mysterious, and the
tradition of it was cherished as something blessed and miraculous, and
as a promise, by God’s grace, of still greater glory from their tombs
in the future.

One such, whose memory was particularly cherished, was an old monk,
Job, who had died seventy years before at the age of a hundred and
five. He had been a celebrated ascetic, rigid in fasting and silence,
and his tomb was pointed out to all visitors on their arrival with
peculiar respect and mysterious hints of great hopes connected with it.
(That was the very tomb on which Father Païssy had found Alyosha
sitting in the morning.) Another memory cherished in the monastery was
that of the famous Father Varsonofy, who was only recently dead and had
preceded Father Zossima in the eldership. He was reverenced during his
lifetime as a crazy saint by all the pilgrims to the monastery. There
was a tradition that both of these had lain in their coffins as though
alive, that they had shown no signs of decomposition when they were
buried and that there had been a holy light in their faces. And some
people even insisted that a sweet fragrance came from their bodies.

Yet, in spite of these edifying memories, it would be difficult to
explain the frivolity, absurdity and malice that were manifested beside
the coffin of Father Zossima. It is my private opinion that several
different causes were simultaneously at work, one of which was the
deeply‐rooted hostility to the institution of elders as a pernicious
innovation, an antipathy hidden deep in the hearts of many of the
monks. Even more powerful was jealousy of the dead man’s saintliness,
so firmly established during his lifetime that it was almost a
forbidden thing to question it. For though the late elder had won over
many hearts, more by love than by miracles, and had gathered round him
a mass of loving adherents, none the less, in fact, rather the more on
that account he had awakened jealousy and so had come to have bitter
enemies, secret and open, not only in the monastery but in the world
outside it. He did no one any harm, but “Why do they think him so
saintly?” And that question alone, gradually repeated, gave rise at
last to an intense, insatiable hatred of him. That, I believe, was why
many people were extremely delighted at the smell of decomposition
which came so quickly, for not a day had passed since his death. At the
same time there were some among those who had been hitherto reverently
devoted to the elder, who were almost mortified and personally
affronted by this incident. This was how the thing happened.

As soon as signs of decomposition had begun to appear, the whole aspect
of the monks betrayed their secret motives in entering the cell. They
went in, stayed a little while and hastened out to confirm the news to
the crowd of other monks waiting outside. Some of the latter shook
their heads mournfully, but others did not even care to conceal the
delight which gleamed unmistakably in their malignant eyes. And now no
one reproached them for it, no one raised his voice in protest, which
was strange, for the majority of the monks had been devoted to the dead
elder. But it seemed as though God had in this case let the minority
get the upper hand for a time.

Visitors from outside, particularly of the educated class, soon went
into the cell, too, with the same spying intent. Of the peasantry few
went into the cell, though there were crowds of them at the gates of
the hermitage. After three o’clock the rush of worldly visitors was
greatly increased and this was no doubt owing to the shocking news.
People were attracted who would not otherwise have come on that day and
had not intended to come, and among them were some personages of high
standing. But external decorum was still preserved and Father Païssy,
with a stern face, continued firmly and distinctly reading aloud the
Gospel, apparently not noticing what was taking place around him,
though he had, in fact, observed something unusual long before. But at
last the murmurs, first subdued but gradually louder and more
confident, reached even him. “It shows God’s judgment is not as man’s,”
Father Païssy heard suddenly. The first to give utterance to this
sentiment was a layman, an elderly official from the town, known to be
a man of great piety. But he only repeated aloud what the monks had
long been whispering. They had long before formulated this damning
conclusion, and the worst of it was that a sort of triumphant
satisfaction at that conclusion became more and more apparent every
moment. Soon they began to lay aside even external decorum and almost
seemed to feel they had a sort of right to discard it.

“And for what reason can this have happened,” some of the monks said,
at first with a show of regret; “he had a small frame and his flesh was
dried up on his bones, what was there to decay?”

“It must be a sign from heaven,” others hastened to add, and their
opinion was adopted at once without protest. For it was pointed out,
too, that if the decomposition had been natural, as in the case of
every dead sinner, it would have been apparent later, after a lapse of
at least twenty‐four hours, but this premature corruption “was in
excess of nature,” and so the finger of God was evident. It was meant
for a sign. This conclusion seemed irresistible.

Gentle Father Iosif, the librarian, a great favorite of the dead man’s,
tried to reply to some of the evil speakers that “this is not held
everywhere alike,” and that the incorruptibility of the bodies of the
just was not a dogma of the Orthodox Church, but only an opinion, and
that even in the most Orthodox regions, at Athos for instance, they
were not greatly confounded by the smell of corruption, and there the
chief sign of the glorification of the saved was not bodily
incorruptibility, but the color of the bones when the bodies have lain
many years in the earth and have decayed in it. “And if the bones are
yellow as wax, that is the great sign that the Lord has glorified the
dead saint, if they are not yellow but black, it shows that God has not
deemed him worthy of such glory—that is the belief in Athos, a great
place, where the Orthodox doctrine has been preserved from of old,
unbroken and in its greatest purity,” said Father Iosif in conclusion.

But the meek Father’s words had little effect and even provoked a
mocking retort. “That’s all pedantry and innovation, no use listening
to it,” the monks decided. “We stick to the old doctrine, there are all
sorts of innovations nowadays, are we to follow them all?” added
others.

“We have had as many holy fathers as they had. There they are among the
Turks, they have forgotten everything. Their doctrine has long been
impure and they have no bells even,” the most sneering added.

Father Iosif walked away, grieving the more since he had put forward
his own opinion with little confidence as though scarcely believing in
it himself. He foresaw with distress that something very unseemly was
beginning and that there were positive signs of disobedience. Little by
little, all the sensible monks were reduced to silence like Father
Iosif. And so it came to pass that all who loved the elder and had
accepted with devout obedience the institution of the eldership were
all at once terribly cast down and glanced timidly in one another’s
faces, when they met. Those who were hostile to the institution of
elders, as a novelty, held up their heads proudly. “There was no smell
of corruption from the late elder Varsonofy, but a sweet fragrance,”
they recalled malignantly. “But he gained that glory not because he was
an elder, but because he was a holy man.”

And this was followed by a shower of criticism and even blame of Father
Zossima. “His teaching was false; he taught that life is a great joy
and not a vale of tears,” said some of the more unreasonable. “He
followed the fashionable belief, he did not recognize material fire in
hell,” others, still more unreasonable, added. “He was not strict in
fasting, allowed himself sweet things, ate cherry jam with his tea,
ladies used to send it to him. Is it for a monk of strict rule to drink
tea?” could be heard among some of the envious. “He sat in pride,” the
most malignant declared vindictively; “he considered himself a saint
and he took it as his due when people knelt before him.” “He abused the
sacrament of confession,” the fiercest opponents of the institution of
elders added in a malicious whisper. And among these were some of the
oldest monks, strictest in their devotion, genuine ascetics, who had
kept silent during the life of the deceased elder, but now suddenly
unsealed their lips. And this was terrible, for their words had great
influence on young monks who were not yet firm in their convictions.
The monk from Obdorsk heard all this attentively, heaving deep sighs
and nodding his head. “Yes, clearly Father Ferapont was right in his
judgment yesterday,” and at that moment Father Ferapont himself made
his appearance, as though on purpose to increase the confusion.

I have mentioned already that he rarely left his wooden cell by the
apiary. He was seldom even seen at church and they overlooked this
neglect on the ground of his craziness, and did not keep him to the
rules binding on all the rest. But if the whole truth is to be told,
they hardly had a choice about it. For it would have been discreditable
to insist on burdening with the common regulations so great an ascetic,
who prayed day and night (he even dropped asleep on his knees). If they
had insisted, the monks would have said, “He is holier than all of us
and he follows a rule harder than ours. And if he does not go to
church, it’s because he knows when he ought to; he has his own rule.”
It was to avoid the chance of these sinful murmurs that Father Ferapont
was left in peace.

As every one was aware, Father Ferapont particularly disliked Father
Zossima. And now the news had reached him in his hut that “God’s
judgment is not the same as man’s,” and that something had happened
which was “in excess of nature.” It may well be supposed that among the
first to run to him with the news was the monk from Obdorsk, who had
visited him the evening before and left his cell terror‐stricken.

I have mentioned above, that though Father Païssy, standing firm and
immovable reading the Gospel over the coffin, could not hear nor see
what was passing outside the cell, he gauged most of it correctly in
his heart, for he knew the men surrounding him, well. He was not shaken
by it, but awaited what would come next without fear, watching with
penetration and insight for the outcome of the general excitement.

Suddenly an extraordinary uproar in the passage in open defiance of
decorum burst on his ears. The door was flung open and Father Ferapont
appeared in the doorway. Behind him there could be seen accompanying
him a crowd of monks, together with many people from the town. They did
not, however, enter the cell, but stood at the bottom of the steps,
waiting to see what Father Ferapont would say or do. For they felt with
a certain awe, in spite of their audacity, that he had not come for
nothing. Standing in the doorway, Father Ferapont raised his arms, and
under his right arm the keen inquisitive little eyes of the monk from
Obdorsk peeped in. He alone, in his intense curiosity, could not resist
running up the steps after Father Ferapont. The others, on the
contrary, pressed farther back in sudden alarm when the door was
noisily flung open. Holding his hands aloft, Father Ferapont suddenly
roared:

“Casting out I cast out!” and, turning in all directions, he began at
once making the sign of the cross at each of the four walls and four
corners of the cell in succession. All who accompanied Father Ferapont
immediately understood his action. For they knew he always did this
wherever he went, and that he would not sit down or say a word, till he
had driven out the evil spirits.

“Satan, go hence! Satan, go hence!” he repeated at each sign of the
cross. “Casting out I cast out,” he roared again.

He was wearing his coarse gown girt with a rope. His bare chest,
covered with gray hair, could be seen under his hempen shirt. His feet
were bare. As soon as he began waving his arms, the cruel irons he wore
under his gown could be heard clanking.

Father Païssy paused in his reading, stepped forward and stood before
him waiting.

“What have you come for, worthy Father? Why do you offend against good
order? Why do you disturb the peace of the flock?” he said at last,
looking sternly at him.

“What have I come for? You ask why? What is your faith?” shouted Father
Ferapont crazily. “I’ve come here to drive out your visitors, the
unclean devils. I’ve come to see how many have gathered here while I
have been away. I want to sweep them out with a birch broom.”

“You cast out the evil spirit, but perhaps you are serving him
yourself,” Father Païssy went on fearlessly. “And who can say of
himself ‘I am holy’? Can you, Father?”

“I am unclean, not holy. I would not sit in an arm‐chair and would not
have them bow down to me as an idol,” thundered Father Ferapont.
“Nowadays folk destroy the true faith. The dead man, your saint,” he
turned to the crowd, pointing with his finger to the coffin, “did not
believe in devils. He gave medicine to keep off the devils. And so they
have become as common as spiders in the corners. And now he has begun
to stink himself. In that we see a great sign from God.”

The incident he referred to was this. One of the monks was haunted in
his dreams and, later on, in waking moments, by visions of evil
spirits. When in the utmost terror he confided this to Father Zossima,
the elder had advised continual prayer and rigid fasting. But when that
was of no use, he advised him, while persisting in prayer and fasting,
to take a special medicine. Many persons were shocked at the time and
wagged their heads as they talked over it—and most of all Father
Ferapont, to whom some of the censorious had hastened to report this
“extraordinary” counsel on the part of the elder.

“Go away, Father!” said Father Païssy, in a commanding voice, “it’s not
for man to judge but for God. Perhaps we see here a ‘sign’ which
neither you, nor I, nor any one of us is able to comprehend. Go,
Father, and do not trouble the flock!” he repeated impressively.

“He did not keep the fasts according to the rule and therefore the sign
has come. That is clear and it’s a sin to hide it,” the fanatic,
carried away by a zeal that outstripped his reason, would not be
quieted. “He was seduced by sweetmeats, ladies brought them to him in
their pockets, he sipped tea, he worshiped his belly, filling it with
sweet things and his mind with haughty thoughts.... And for this he is
put to shame....”

“You speak lightly, Father.” Father Païssy, too, raised his voice. “I
admire your fasting and severities, but you speak lightly like some
frivolous youth, fickle and childish. Go away, Father, I command you!”
Father Païssy thundered in conclusion.

“I will go,” said Ferapont, seeming somewhat taken aback, but still as
bitter. “You learned men! You are so clever you look down upon my
humbleness. I came hither with little learning and here I have
forgotten what I did know, God Himself has preserved me in my weakness
from your subtlety.”

Father Païssy stood over him, waiting resolutely. Father Ferapont
paused and, suddenly leaning his cheek on his hand despondently,
pronounced in a sing‐song voice, looking at the coffin of the dead
elder:

“To‐morrow they will sing over him ‘Our Helper and Defender’—a splendid
anthem—and over me when I die all they’ll sing will be ‘What earthly
joy’—a little canticle,”[6] he added with tearful regret. “You are
proud and puffed up, this is a vain place!” he shouted suddenly like a
madman, and with a wave of his hand he turned quickly and quickly
descended the steps. The crowd awaiting him below wavered; some
followed him at once and some lingered, for the cell was still open,
and Father Païssy, following Father Ferapont on to the steps, stood
watching him. But the excited old fanatic was not completely silenced.
Walking twenty steps away, he suddenly turned towards the setting sun,
raised both his arms and, as though some one had cut him down, fell to
the ground with a loud scream.

“My God has conquered! Christ has conquered the setting sun!” he
shouted frantically, stretching up his hands to the sun, and falling
face downwards on the ground, he sobbed like a little child, shaken by
his tears and spreading out his arms on the ground. Then all rushed up
to him; there were exclamations and sympathetic sobs ... a kind of
frenzy seemed to take possession of them all.

“This is the one who is a saint! This is the one who is a holy man!”
some cried aloud, losing their fear. “This is he who should be an
elder,” others added malignantly.

“He wouldn’t be an elder ... he would refuse ... he wouldn’t serve a
cursed innovation ... he wouldn’t imitate their foolery,” other voices
chimed in at once. And it is hard to say how far they might have gone,
but at that moment the bell rang summoning them to service. All began
crossing themselves at once. Father Ferapont, too, got up and crossing
himself went back to his cell without looking round, still uttering
exclamations which were utterly incoherent. A few followed him, but the
greater number dispersed, hastening to service. Father Païssy let
Father Iosif read in his place and went down. The frantic outcries of
bigots could not shake him, but his heart was suddenly filled with
melancholy for some special reason and he felt that. He stood still and
suddenly wondered, “Why am I sad even to dejection?” and immediately
grasped with surprise that his sudden sadness was due to a very small
and special cause. In the crowd thronging at the entrance to the cell,
he had noticed Alyosha and he remembered that he had felt at once a
pang at heart on seeing him. “Can that boy mean so much to my heart
now?” he asked himself, wondering.

At that moment Alyosha passed him, hurrying away, but not in the
direction of the church. Their eyes met. Alyosha quickly turned away
his eyes and dropped them to the ground, and from the boy’s look alone,
Father Païssy guessed what a great change was taking place in him at
that moment.

“Have you, too, fallen into temptation?” cried Father Païssy. “Can you
be with those of little faith?” he added mournfully.

Alyosha stood still and gazed vaguely at Father Païssy, but quickly
turned his eyes away again and again looked on the ground. He stood
sideways and did not turn his face to Father Païssy, who watched him
attentively.

“Where are you hastening? The bell calls to service,” he asked again,
but again Alyosha gave no answer.

“Are you leaving the hermitage? What, without asking leave, without
asking a blessing?”

Alyosha suddenly gave a wry smile, cast a strange, very strange, look
at the Father to whom his former guide, the former sovereign of his
heart and mind, his beloved elder, had confided him as he lay dying.
And suddenly, still without speaking, waved his hand, as though not
caring even to be respectful, and with rapid steps walked towards the
gates away from the hermitage.

“You will come back again!” murmured Father Païssy, looking after him
with sorrowful surprise.