The Brothers Karamazov

lusha’s Funeral. The Speech At The Stone

He really was late. They had waited for him and had already decided to
bear the pretty flower‐decked little coffin to the church without him.
It was the coffin of poor little Ilusha. He had died two days after
Mitya was sentenced. At the gate of the house Alyosha was met by the
shouts of the boys, Ilusha’s schoolfellows. They had all been
impatiently expecting him and were glad that he had come at last. There
were about twelve of them, they all had their school‐bags or satchels
on their shoulders. “Father will cry, be with father,” Ilusha had told
them as he lay dying, and the boys remembered it. Kolya Krassotkin was
the foremost of them.

“How glad I am you’ve come, Karamazov!” he cried, holding out his hand
to Alyosha. “It’s awful here. It’s really horrible to see it. Snegiryov
is not drunk, we know for a fact he’s had nothing to drink to‐day, but
he seems as if he were drunk ... I am always manly, but this is awful.
Karamazov, if I am not keeping you, one question before you go in?”

“What is it, Kolya?” said Alyosha.

“Is your brother innocent or guilty? Was it he killed your father or
was it the valet? As you say, so it will be. I haven’t slept for the
last four nights for thinking of it.”

“The valet killed him, my brother is innocent,” answered Alyosha.

“That’s what I said,” cried Smurov.

“So he will perish an innocent victim!” exclaimed Kolya; “though he is
ruined he is happy! I could envy him!”

“What do you mean? How can you? Why?” cried Alyosha surprised.

“Oh, if I, too, could sacrifice myself some day for truth!” said Kolya
with enthusiasm.

“But not in such a cause, not with such disgrace and such horror!” said
Alyosha.

“Of course ... I should like to die for all humanity, and as for
disgrace, I don’t care about that—our names may perish. I respect your
brother!”

“And so do I!” the boy, who had once declared that he knew who had
founded Troy, cried suddenly and unexpectedly, and he blushed up to his
ears like a peony as he had done on that occasion.

Alyosha went into the room. Ilusha lay with his hands folded and his
eyes closed in a blue coffin with a white frill round it. His thin face
was hardly changed at all, and strange to say there was no smell of
decay from the corpse. The expression of his face was serious and, as
it were, thoughtful. His hands, crossed over his breast, looked
particularly beautiful, as though chiseled in marble. There were
flowers in his hands and the coffin, inside and out, was decked with
flowers, which had been sent early in the morning by Lise Hohlakov. But
there were flowers too from Katerina Ivanovna, and when Alyosha opened
the door, the captain had a bunch in his trembling hands and was
strewing them again over his dear boy. He scarcely glanced at Alyosha
when he came in, and he would not look at any one, even at his crazy
weeping wife, “mamma,” who kept trying to stand on her crippled legs to
get a nearer look at her dead boy. Nina had been pushed in her chair by
the boys close up to the coffin. She sat with her head pressed to it
and she too was no doubt quietly weeping. Snegiryov’s face looked
eager, yet bewildered and exasperated. There was something crazy about
his gestures and the words that broke from him. “Old man, dear old
man!” he exclaimed every minute, gazing at Ilusha. It was his habit to
call Ilusha “old man,” as a term of affection when he was alive.

“Father, give me a flower, too; take that white one out of his hand and
give it me,” the crazy mother begged, whimpering. Either because the
little white rose in Ilusha’s hand had caught her fancy or that she
wanted one from his hand to keep in memory of him, she moved
restlessly, stretching out her hands for the flower.

“I won’t give it to any one, I won’t give you anything,” Snegiryov
cried callously. “They are his flowers, not yours! Everything is his,
nothing is yours!”

“Father, give mother a flower!” said Nina, lifting her face wet with
tears.

“I won’t give away anything and to her less than any one! She didn’t
love Ilusha. She took away his little cannon and he gave it to her,”
the captain broke into loud sobs at the thought of how Ilusha had given
up his cannon to his mother. The poor, crazy creature was bathed in
noiseless tears, hiding her face in her hands.

The boys, seeing that the father would not leave the coffin and that it
was time to carry it out, stood round it in a close circle and began to
lift it up.

“I don’t want him to be buried in the churchyard,” Snegiryov wailed
suddenly; “I’ll bury him by the stone, by our stone! Ilusha told me to.
I won’t let him be carried out!”

He had been saying for the last three days that he would bury him by
the stone, but Alyosha, Krassotkin, the landlady, her sister and all
the boys interfered.

“What an idea, bury him by an unholy stone, as though he had hanged
himself!” the old landlady said sternly. “There in the churchyard the
ground has been crossed. He’ll be prayed for there. One can hear the
singing in church and the deacon reads so plainly and verbally that it
will reach him every time just as though it were read over his grave.”

At last the captain made a gesture of despair as though to say, “Take
him where you will.” The boys raised the coffin, but as they passed the
mother, they stopped for a moment and lowered it that she might say
good‐ by to Ilusha. But on seeing that precious little face, which for
the last three days she had only looked at from a distance, she
trembled all over and her gray head began twitching spasmodically over
the coffin.

“Mother, make the sign of the cross over him, give him your blessing,
kiss him,” Nina cried to her. But her head still twitched like an
automaton and with a face contorted with bitter grief she began,
without a word, beating her breast with her fist. They carried the
coffin past her. Nina pressed her lips to her brother’s for the last
time as they bore the coffin by her. As Alyosha went out of the house
he begged the landlady to look after those who were left behind, but
she interrupted him before he had finished.

“To be sure, I’ll stay with them, we are Christians, too.” The old
woman wept as she said it.

They had not far to carry the coffin to the church, not more than three
hundred paces. It was a still, clear day, with a slight frost. The
church bells were still ringing. Snegiryov ran fussing and distracted
after the coffin, in his short old summer overcoat, with his head bare
and his soft, old, wide‐brimmed hat in his hand. He seemed in a state
of bewildered anxiety. At one minute he stretched out his hand to
support the head of the coffin and only hindered the bearers, at
another he ran alongside and tried to find a place for himself there. A
flower fell on the snow and he rushed to pick it up as though
everything in the world depended on the loss of that flower.

“And the crust of bread, we’ve forgotten the crust!” he cried suddenly
in dismay. But the boys reminded him at once that he had taken the
crust of bread already and that it was in his pocket. He instantly
pulled it out and was reassured.

“Ilusha told me to, Ilusha,” he explained at once to Alyosha. “I was
sitting by him one night and he suddenly told me: ‘Father, when my
grave is filled up crumble a piece of bread on it so that the sparrows
may fly down, I shall hear and it will cheer me up not to be lying
alone.’ ”

“That’s a good thing,” said Alyosha, “we must often take some.”

“Every day, every day!” said the captain quickly, seeming cheered at
the thought.

They reached the church at last and set the coffin in the middle of it.
The boys surrounded it and remained reverently standing so, all through
the service. It was an old and rather poor church; many of the ikons
were without settings; but such churches are the best for praying in.
During the mass Snegiryov became somewhat calmer, though at times he
had outbursts of the same unconscious and, as it were, incoherent
anxiety. At one moment he went up to the coffin to set straight the
cover or the wreath, when a candle fell out of the candlestick he
rushed to replace it and was a fearful time fumbling over it, then he
subsided and stood quietly by the coffin with a look of blank
uneasiness and perplexity. After the Epistle he suddenly whispered to
Alyosha, who was standing beside him, that the Epistle had not been
read properly but did not explain what he meant. During the prayer,
“Like the Cherubim,” he joined in the singing but did not go on to the
end. Falling on his knees, he pressed his forehead to the stone floor
and lay so for a long while.

At last came the funeral service itself and candles were distributed.
The distracted father began fussing about again, but the touching and
impressive funeral prayers moved and roused his soul. He seemed
suddenly to shrink together and broke into rapid, short sobs, which he
tried at first to smother, but at last he sobbed aloud. When they began
taking leave of the dead and closing the coffin, he flung his arms
about, as though he would not allow them to cover Ilusha, and began
greedily and persistently kissing his dead boy on the lips. At last
they succeeded in persuading him to come away from the step, but
suddenly he impulsively stretched out his hand and snatched a few
flowers from the coffin. He looked at them and a new idea seemed to
dawn upon him, so that he apparently forgot his grief for a minute.
Gradually he seemed to sink into brooding and did not resist when the
coffin was lifted up and carried to the grave. It was an expensive one
in the churchyard close to the church, Katerina Ivanovna had paid for
it. After the customary rites the grave‐ diggers lowered the coffin.
Snegiryov with his flowers in his hands bent down so low over the open
grave that the boys caught hold of his coat in alarm and pulled him
back. He did not seem to understand fully what was happening. When they
began filling up the grave, he suddenly pointed anxiously at the
falling earth and began trying to say something, but no one could make
out what he meant, and he stopped suddenly. Then he was reminded that
he must crumble the bread and he was awfully excited, snatched up the
bread and began pulling it to pieces and flinging the morsels on the
grave.

“Come, fly down, birds, fly down, sparrows!” he muttered anxiously.

One of the boys observed that it was awkward for him to crumble the
bread with the flowers in his hands and suggested he should give them
to some one to hold for a time. But he would not do this and seemed
indeed suddenly alarmed for his flowers, as though they wanted to take
them from him altogether. And after looking at the grave, and as it
were, satisfying himself that everything had been done and the bread
had been crumbled, he suddenly, to the surprise of every one, turned,
quite composedly even, and made his way homewards. But his steps became
more and more hurried, he almost ran. The boys and Alyosha kept up with
him.

“The flowers are for mamma, the flowers are for mamma! I was unkind to
mamma,” he began exclaiming suddenly.

Some one called to him to put on his hat as it was cold. But he flung
the hat in the snow as though he were angry and kept repeating, “I
won’t have the hat, I won’t have the hat.” Smurov picked it up and
carried it after him. All the boys were crying, and Kolya and the boy
who discovered about Troy most of all. Though Smurov, with the
captain’s hat in his hand, was crying bitterly too, he managed, as he
ran, to snatch up a piece of red brick that lay on the snow of the
path, to fling it at the flock of sparrows that was flying by. He
missed them, of course, and went on crying as he ran. Half‐way,
Snegiryov suddenly stopped, stood still for half a minute, as though
struck by something, and suddenly turning back to the church, ran
towards the deserted grave. But the boys instantly overtook him and
caught hold of him on all sides. Then he fell helpless on the snow as
though he had been knocked down, and struggling, sobbing, and wailing,
he began crying out, “Ilusha, old man, dear old man!” Alyosha and Kolya
tried to make him get up, soothing and persuading him.

“Captain, give over, a brave man must show fortitude,” muttered Kolya.

“You’ll spoil the flowers,” said Alyosha, “and mamma is expecting them,
she is sitting crying because you would not give her any before.
Ilusha’s little bed is still there—”

“Yes, yes, mamma!” Snegiryov suddenly recollected, “they’ll take away
the bed, they’ll take it away,” he added as though alarmed that they
really would. He jumped up and ran homewards again. But it was not far
off and they all arrived together. Snegiryov opened the door hurriedly
and called to his wife with whom he had so cruelly quarreled just
before:

“Mamma, poor crippled darling, Ilusha has sent you these flowers,” he
cried, holding out to her a little bunch of flowers that had been
frozen and broken while he was struggling in the snow. But at that
instant he saw in the corner, by the little bed, Ilusha’s little boots,
which the landlady had put tidily side by side. Seeing the old,
patched, rusty‐ looking, stiff boots he flung up his hands and rushed
to them, fell on his knees, snatched up one boot and, pressing his lips
to it, began kissing it greedily, crying, “Ilusha, old man, dear old
man, where are your little feet?”

“Where have you taken him away? Where have you taken him?” the lunatic
cried in a heartrending voice. Nina, too, broke into sobs. Kolya ran
out of the room, the boys followed him. At last Alyosha too went out.

“Let them weep,” he said to Kolya, “it’s no use trying to comfort them
just now. Let us wait a minute and then go back.”

“No, it’s no use, it’s awful,” Kolya assented. “Do you know,
Karamazov,” he dropped his voice so that no one could hear them, “I
feel dreadfully sad, and if it were only possible to bring him back,
I’d give anything in the world to do it.”

“Ah, so would I,” said Alyosha.

“What do you think, Karamazov? Had we better come back here to‐night?
He’ll be drunk, you know.”

“Perhaps he will. Let us come together, you and I, that will be enough,
to spend an hour with them, with the mother and Nina. If we all come
together we shall remind them of everything again,” Alyosha suggested.

“The landlady is laying the table for them now—there’ll be a funeral
dinner or something, the priest is coming; shall we go back to it,
Karamazov?”

“Of course,” said Alyosha.

“It’s all so strange, Karamazov, such sorrow and then pancakes after
it, it all seems so unnatural in our religion.”

“They are going to have salmon, too,” the boy who had discovered about
Troy observed in a loud voice.

“I beg you most earnestly, Kartashov, not to interrupt again with your
idiotic remarks, especially when one is not talking to you and doesn’t
care to know whether you exist or not!” Kolya snapped out irritably.
The boy flushed crimson but did not dare to reply.

Meantime they were strolling slowly along the path and suddenly Smurov
exclaimed:

“There’s Ilusha’s stone, under which they wanted to bury him.”

They all stood still by the big stone. Alyosha looked and the whole
picture of what Snegiryov had described to him that day, how Ilusha,
weeping and hugging his father, had cried, “Father, father, how he
insulted you,” rose at once before his imagination.

A sudden impulse seemed to come into his soul. With a serious and
earnest expression he looked from one to another of the bright,
pleasant faces of Ilusha’s schoolfellows, and suddenly said to them:

“Boys, I should like to say one word to you, here at this place.”

The boys stood round him and at once bent attentive and expectant eyes
upon him.

“Boys, we shall soon part. I shall be for some time with my two
brothers, of whom one is going to Siberia and the other is lying at
death’s door. But soon I shall leave this town, perhaps for a long
time, so we shall part. Let us make a compact here, at Ilusha’s stone,
that we will never forget Ilusha and one another. And whatever happens
to us later in life, if we don’t meet for twenty years afterwards, let
us always remember how we buried the poor boy at whom we once threw
stones, do you remember, by the bridge? and afterwards we all grew so
fond of him. He was a fine boy, a kind‐hearted, brave boy, he felt for
his father’s honor and resented the cruel insult to him and stood up
for him. And so in the first place, we will remember him, boys, all our
lives. And even if we are occupied with most important things, if we
attain to honor or fall into great misfortune—still let us remember how
good it was once here, when we were all together, united by a good and
kind feeling which made us, for the time we were loving that poor boy,
better perhaps than we are. My little doves—let me call you so, for you
are very like them, those pretty blue birds, at this minute as I look
at your good dear faces. My dear children, perhaps you won’t understand
what I am saying to you, because I often speak very unintelligibly, but
you’ll remember it all the same and will agree with my words some time.
You must know that there is nothing higher and stronger and more
wholesome and good for life in the future than some good memory,
especially a memory of childhood, of home. People talk to you a great
deal about your education, but some good, sacred memory, preserved from
childhood, is perhaps the best education. If a man carries many such
memories with him into life, he is safe to the end of his days, and if
one has only one good memory left in one’s heart, even that may
sometime be the means of saving us. Perhaps we may even grow wicked
later on, may be unable to refrain from a bad action, may laugh at
men’s tears and at those people who say as Kolya did just now, ‘I want
to suffer for all men,’ and may even jeer spitefully at such people.
But however bad we may become—which God forbid—yet, when we recall how
we buried Ilusha, how we loved him in his last days, and how we have
been talking like friends all together, at this stone, the cruelest and
most mocking of us—if we do become so—will not dare to laugh inwardly
at having been kind and good at this moment! What’s more, perhaps, that
one memory may keep him from great evil and he will reflect and say,
‘Yes, I was good and brave and honest then!’ Let him laugh to himself,
that’s no matter, a man often laughs at what’s good and kind. That’s
only from thoughtlessness. But I assure you, boys, that as he laughs he
will say at once in his heart, ‘No, I do wrong to laugh, for that’s not
a thing to laugh at.’ ”

“That will be so, I understand you, Karamazov!” cried Kolya, with
flashing eyes.

The boys were excited and they, too, wanted to say something, but they
restrained themselves, looking with intentness and emotion at the
speaker.

“I say this in case we become bad,” Alyosha went on, “but there’s no
reason why we should become bad, is there, boys? Let us be, first and
above all, kind, then honest and then let us never forget each other! I
say that again. I give you my word for my part that I’ll never forget
one of you. Every face looking at me now I shall remember even for
thirty years. Just now Kolya said to Kartashov that we did not care to
know whether he exists or not. But I cannot forget that Kartashov
exists and that he is not blushing now as he did when he discovered the
founders of Troy, but is looking at me with his jolly, kind, dear
little eyes. Boys, my dear boys, let us all be generous and brave like
Ilusha, clever, brave and generous like Kolya (though he will be ever
so much cleverer when he is grown up), and let us all be as modest, as
clever and sweet as Kartashov. But why am I talking about those two?
You are all dear to me, boys, from this day forth, I have a place in my
heart for you all, and I beg you to keep a place in your hearts for me!
Well, and who has united us in this kind, good feeling which we shall
remember and intend to remember all our lives? Who, if not Ilusha, the
good boy, the dear boy, precious to us for ever! Let us never forget
him. May his memory live for ever in our hearts from this time forth!”

“Yes, yes, for ever, for ever!” the boys cried in their ringing voices,
with softened faces.

“Let us remember his face and his clothes and his poor little boots,
his coffin and his unhappy, sinful father, and how boldly he stood up
for him alone against the whole school.”

“We will remember, we will remember,” cried the boys. “He was brave, he
was good!”

“Ah, how I loved him!” exclaimed Kolya.

“Ah, children, ah, dear friends, don’t be afraid of life! How good life
is when one does something good and just!”

“Yes, yes,” the boys repeated enthusiastically.

“Karamazov, we love you!” a voice, probably Kartashov’s, cried
impulsively.

“We love you, we love you!” they all caught it up. There were tears in
the eyes of many of them.

“Hurrah for Karamazov!” Kolya shouted ecstatically.

“And may the dead boy’s memory live for ever!” Alyosha added again with
feeling.

“For ever!” the boys chimed in again.

“Karamazov,” cried Kolya, “can it be true what’s taught us in religion,
that we shall all rise again from the dead and shall live and see each
other again, all, Ilusha too?”

“Certainly we shall all rise again, certainly we shall see each other
and shall tell each other with joy and gladness all that has happened!”
Alyosha answered, half laughing, half enthusiastic.

“Ah, how splendid it will be!” broke from Kolya.

“Well, now we will finish talking and go to his funeral dinner. Don’t
be put out at our eating pancakes—it’s a very old custom and there’s
something nice in that!” laughed Alyosha. “Well, let us go! And now we
go hand in hand.”

“And always so, all our lives hand in hand! Hurrah for Karamazov!”
Kolya cried once more rapturously, and once more the boys took up his
exclamation: “Hurrah for Karamazov!”

THE END

FOOTNOTES

[1] In Russian, “silen.”

[2] A proverbial expression in Russia.

[3] Grushenka.

[4] i.e. setter dog.

[5] Probably the public event was the Decabrist plot against the Tsar,
of December 1825, in which the most distinguished men in Russia were
concerned.—TRANSLATOR’S NOTE.

[6] When a monk’s body is carried out from the cell to the church and
from the church to the graveyard, the canticle “What earthly joy...”
is sung. If the deceased was a priest as well as a monk the canticle
“Our Helper and Defender” is sung instead.

[7] i.e. a chime of bells.

[8] Literally: “Did you get off with a long nose made at you?”—a
proverbial expression in Russia for failure.

[9] Gogol is meant.