The Brothers Karamazov

ana Of Galilee

It was very late, according to the monastery ideas, when Alyosha
returned to the hermitage; the door‐keeper let him in by a special
entrance. It had struck nine o’clock—the hour of rest and repose after
a day of such agitation for all. Alyosha timidly opened the door and
went into the elder’s cell where his coffin was now standing. There was
no one in the cell but Father Païssy, reading the Gospel in solitude
over the coffin, and the young novice Porfiry, who, exhausted by the
previous night’s conversation and the disturbing incidents of the day,
was sleeping the deep sound sleep of youth on the floor of the other
room. Though Father Païssy heard Alyosha come in, he did not even look
in his direction. Alyosha turned to the right from the door to the
corner, fell on his knees and began to pray.

His soul was overflowing but with mingled feelings; no single sensation
stood out distinctly; on the contrary, one drove out another in a slow,
continual rotation. But there was a sweetness in his heart and, strange
to say, Alyosha was not surprised at it. Again he saw that coffin
before him, the hidden dead figure so precious to him, but the weeping
and poignant grief of the morning was no longer aching in his soul. As
soon as he came in, he fell down before the coffin as before a holy
shrine, but joy, joy was glowing in his mind and in his heart. The one
window of the cell was open, the air was fresh and cool. “So the smell
must have become stronger, if they opened the window,” thought Alyosha.
But even this thought of the smell of corruption, which had seemed to
him so awful and humiliating a few hours before, no longer made him
feel miserable or indignant. He began quietly praying, but he soon felt
that he was praying almost mechanically. Fragments of thought floated
through his soul, flashed like stars and went out again at once, to be
succeeded by others. But yet there was reigning in his soul a sense of
the wholeness of things—something steadfast and comforting—and he was
aware of it himself. Sometimes he began praying ardently, he longed to
pour out his thankfulness and love....

But when he had begun to pray, he passed suddenly to something else,
and sank into thought, forgetting both the prayer and what had
interrupted it. He began listening to what Father Païssy was reading,
but worn out with exhaustion he gradually began to doze.

“And the third day there was a marriage in Cana of Galilee;” read
Father Païssy. “And the mother of Jesus was there; And both Jesus was
called, and his disciples, to the marriage.”

“Marriage? What’s that?... A marriage!” floated whirling through
Alyosha’s mind. “There is happiness for her, too.... She has gone to
the feast.... No, she has not taken the knife.... That was only a
tragic phrase.... Well ... tragic phrases should be forgiven, they must
be. Tragic phrases comfort the heart.... Without them, sorrow would be
too heavy for men to bear. Rakitin has gone off to the back alley. As
long as Rakitin broods over his wrongs, he will always go off to the
back alley.... But the high road ... The road is wide and straight and
bright as crystal, and the sun is at the end of it.... Ah!... What’s
being read?”...

“And when they wanted wine, the mother of Jesus saith unto him, They
have no wine” ... Alyosha heard.

“Ah, yes, I was missing that, and I didn’t want to miss it, I love that
passage: it’s Cana of Galilee, the first miracle.... Ah, that miracle!
Ah, that sweet miracle! It was not men’s grief, but their joy Christ
visited, He worked His first miracle to help men’s gladness.... ‘He who
loves men loves their gladness, too’ ... He was always repeating that,
it was one of his leading ideas.... ‘There’s no living without joy,’
Mitya says.... Yes, Mitya.... ‘Everything that is true and good is
always full of forgiveness,’ he used to say that, too” ...

“Jesus saith unto her, Woman, what has it to do with thee or me? Mine
hour is not yet come.

“His mother saith unto the servants, Whatsoever he saith unto you, do
it” ...

“Do it.... Gladness, the gladness of some poor, very poor, people....
Of course they were poor, since they hadn’t wine enough even at a
wedding.... The historians write that, in those days, the people living
about the Lake of Gennesaret were the poorest that can possibly be
imagined ... and another great heart, that other great being, His
Mother, knew that He had come not only to make His great terrible
sacrifice. She knew that His heart was open even to the simple, artless
merrymaking of some obscure and unlearned people, who had warmly bidden
Him to their poor wedding. ‘Mine hour is not yet come,’ He said, with a
soft smile (He must have smiled gently to her). And, indeed, was it to
make wine abundant at poor weddings He had come down to earth? And yet
He went and did as she asked Him.... Ah, he is reading again”....

“Jesus saith unto them, Fill the waterpots with water. And they filled
them up to the brim.

“And he saith unto them, Draw out now and bear unto the governor of
the feast. And they bare it.

“When the ruler of the feast had tasted the water that was made wine,
and knew not whence it was; (but the servants which drew the water
knew;) the governor of the feast called the bridegroom,

“And saith unto him, Every man at the beginning doth set forth good
wine; and when men have well drunk, that which is worse; but thou hast
kept the good wine until now.”

“But what’s this, what’s this? Why is the room growing wider?... Ah,
yes ... It’s the marriage, the wedding ... yes, of course. Here are the
guests, here are the young couple sitting, and the merry crowd and ...
Where is the wise governor of the feast? But who is this? Who? Again
the walls are receding.... Who is getting up there from the great
table? What!... He here, too? But he’s in the coffin ... but he’s here,
too. He has stood up, he sees me, he is coming here.... God!”...

Yes, he came up to him, to him, he, the little, thin old man, with tiny
wrinkles on his face, joyful and laughing softly. There was no coffin
now, and he was in the same dress as he had worn yesterday sitting with
them, when the visitors had gathered about him. His face was uncovered,
his eyes were shining. How was this, then? He, too, had been called to
the feast. He, too, at the marriage of Cana in Galilee....

“Yes, my dear, I am called, too, called and bidden,” he heard a soft
voice saying over him. “Why have you hidden yourself here, out of
sight? You come and join us too.”

It was his voice, the voice of Father Zossima. And it must be he, since
he called him!

The elder raised Alyosha by the hand and he rose from his knees.

“We are rejoicing,” the little, thin old man went on. “We are drinking
the new wine, the wine of new, great gladness; do you see how many
guests? Here are the bride and bridegroom, here is the wise governor of
the feast, he is tasting the new wine. Why do you wonder at me? I gave
an onion to a beggar, so I, too, am here. And many here have given only
an onion each—only one little onion.... What are all our deeds? And
you, my gentle one, you, my kind boy, you too have known how to give a
famished woman an onion to‐day. Begin your work, dear one, begin it,
gentle one!... Do you see our Sun, do you see Him?”

“I am afraid ... I dare not look,” whispered Alyosha.

“Do not fear Him. He is terrible in His greatness, awful in His
sublimity, but infinitely merciful. He has made Himself like unto us
from love and rejoices with us. He is changing the water into wine that
the gladness of the guests may not be cut short. He is expecting new
guests, He is calling new ones unceasingly for ever and ever.... There
they are bringing new wine. Do you see they are bringing the
vessels....”

Something glowed in Alyosha’s heart, something filled it till it ached,
tears of rapture rose from his soul.... He stretched out his hands,
uttered a cry and waked up.

Again the coffin, the open window, and the soft, solemn, distinct
reading of the Gospel. But Alyosha did not listen to the reading. It
was strange, he had fallen asleep on his knees, but now he was on his
feet, and suddenly, as though thrown forward, with three firm rapid
steps he went right up to the coffin. His shoulder brushed against
Father Païssy without his noticing it. Father Païssy raised his eyes
for an instant from his book, but looked away again at once, seeing
that something strange was happening to the boy. Alyosha gazed for half
a minute at the coffin, at the covered, motionless dead man that lay in
the coffin, with the ikon on his breast and the peaked cap with the
octangular cross, on his head. He had only just been hearing his voice,
and that voice was still ringing in his ears. He was listening, still
expecting other words, but suddenly he turned sharply and went out of
the cell.

He did not stop on the steps either, but went quickly down; his soul,
overflowing with rapture, yearned for freedom, space, openness. The
vault of heaven, full of soft, shining stars, stretched vast and
fathomless above him. The Milky Way ran in two pale streams from the
zenith to the horizon. The fresh, motionless, still night enfolded the
earth. The white towers and golden domes of the cathedral gleamed out
against the sapphire sky. The gorgeous autumn flowers, in the beds
round the house, were slumbering till morning. The silence of earth
seemed to melt into the silence of the heavens. The mystery of earth
was one with the mystery of the stars....

Alyosha stood, gazed, and suddenly threw himself down on the earth. He
did not know why he embraced it. He could not have told why he longed
so irresistibly to kiss it, to kiss it all. But he kissed it weeping,
sobbing and watering it with his tears, and vowed passionately to love
it, to love it for ever and ever. “Water the earth with the tears of
your joy and love those tears,” echoed in his soul.

What was he weeping over?

Oh! in his rapture he was weeping even over those stars, which were
shining to him from the abyss of space, and “he was not ashamed of that
ecstasy.” There seemed to be threads from all those innumerable worlds
of God, linking his soul to them, and it was trembling all over “in
contact with other worlds.” He longed to forgive every one and for
everything, and to beg forgiveness. Oh, not for himself, but for all
men, for all and for everything. “And others are praying for me too,”
echoed again in his soul. But with every instant he felt clearly and,
as it were, tangibly, that something firm and unshakable as that vault
of heaven had entered into his soul. It was as though some idea had
seized the sovereignty of his mind—and it was for all his life and for
ever and ever. He had fallen on the earth a weak boy, but he rose up a
resolute champion, and he knew and felt it suddenly at the very moment
of his ecstasy. And never, never, all his life long, could Alyosha
forget that minute.

“Some one visited my soul in that hour,” he used to say afterwards,
with implicit faith in his words.

Within three days he left the monastery in accordance with the words of
his elder, who had bidden him “sojourn in the world.”

Book VIII. Mitya