The Elder Zossima

Mikhail Nesterov (1862-1942) The Vision of the Youth Bartholomew

To complete my journey – which I know is quite imperfect and subjective – through the five big novels of Dostoevsky, I intend to talk about the character of the Elder(1) Zossima(2).

Even if he is not the central figure of The Brothers Karamazov, the Elder plays a very important role, were it only as a result of his influence on the young Alyosha. He appears at different times in the story, and one of the twelve books of the novel (the sixth, which is about 80 pages) is completely dedicated to him. This means that he will deserve more than one article.

The novel is entirely driven by irony – this is particularly evident in the titles that the writer gave to his chapters –, and I shall be faithful to this approach by beginning with the end, more precisely with the death of the Elder. 

The old man is enveloped with a reputation of indisputable holiness. Father Ferapont is the only monk who looks at him scornfully and directs a dull hatred at him. So, all expect that, after his death, the body of Fr. Zossima will remain intact and will not decay, something that in the popular devotion is a clear sign of holiness.

But it turns out that, very soon after the death of the old monk, "the breath of corruption" – this is how the writer entitles this chapter – becomes perceptible in the cell where the body is exposed. From the announcement of the death, an agitated crowd had gathered at the monastery, waiting for miracles. Father Païssy, confessor of the Elder, is worried about it and even takes offence: “Such immediate expectation of something extraordinary, he said, shows a levity (…) unseemly in us”(3). 

But now, there was no way to doubt it. “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.” Very soon, the news spreads like wildfire through the city and is a source of scandal. Also at the monastery, it is a great temptation and scandal. The jealousy that some once directed to the Elder turns to hatred. “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…” Some do not even hesitate at all to speak ill of his teaching: “He followed the fashionable belief (…) He was not strict in fasting, allowed himself sweet things (…) He abused the sacrament of confession…” Actually, the devotees show their real face, as hypocrites. Blinded by their greediness for supposedly supernatural signs, they are unable to see and recognize the obvious: the Elder Zossima was a saint.

It is now Fr. Ferapont, accompanied by a group of monks, who enters the cell where the body of the Elder rests, screaming: “Satan, go hence! Satan, go hence!” Father Païssy intervenes: “You cast out the evil spirit, but perhaps you are serving him yourself (…) 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.”

The young Alyosha himself, who received so much from the Elder, is shattered for a time under the influence of the general suspicion. Everything that happened, all these taunts, hurt and destabilize him. The man that he loved most in the world is "dishonored". He runs away  from the monastery, but in the evening, he returns there and enters the cell where the body of Elder Zossima lies. There, he finds Fr. Païssy reading the Gospel. Alyosha kneels in a corner and prays. “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”. Gradually, Alyosha falls asleep listening to the reading of the story of the Wedding at Cana (Gospel of John, chapter 2). In a dream, he sees the Elder Zossima who tells him: “We are rejoicing (…)We are drinking the new wine, the wine of new, great gladness…” Alyosha wakes up, gets up and leaves, full of excitement. He throws himself down on the earth and kisses the ground “weeping, sobbing and watering it with his tears, and vows passionately to love it, to love it for ever and ever…” Then, he gets up, full of an unspeakable strength. “Someone visited my soul in that hour, he used to say afterwards, with implicit faith in his words”. So, beyond death, the Elder fills his disciple with a new energy that will inspire him and make of him a fighter of love.

We will have to discover what dwelled in the heart and in the soul of the old man Zossima. That will be for a future article.

Fiodor (the other one)

 

Ambrose of Optino

(1) This is how we translate the Russian word “starets”. In the Russian tradition, this name is given to a monk whose wisdom and discernment make of him a spiritual father.

(2) Several figures have inspired the writer to portray the character of Zossima. First, Tikhon of Zadonsk, who lived during the second half of the 18th century. Dostoevsky made use of his writings to compose the teachings of the Elder Zossima. But it is especially the Elder Ambrose of Optino who was used as a model. We know that the novelist went several times to the Optino monastery. According to Vladimir Lossky, "The outdoor setting, the description of the monastery up to the slightest detail, the expectation of the visitors, the scene of the reception at the Elder, remind one of Optino".

(3) All quotations are from The Brothers Karamazov, translated by Constance Garnett, on Gutenberg project http://www.gutenberg.org/files/28054/28054-0.txt

Alyosha Karamazov

Nikolaï Bogdanov-Belsky (1868-1945), Boy on a lawn

Alexey (Alyosha) Karamazov is a “radiant” figure, among the best known of Dostoevsky's fictional universe. The freedom he shows facing difficult and even dark situations is quite amazing. The family drama described in the very last and brilliant novel of the great Fyodor does not leave Alyosha indifferent, but it makes him grow up and mature. His eyes are able to discern precious stones in the middle of the mud. His kindness radiates and awakens, in those who meet him, feelings of trust and bursts of faith.

Having sketched the portrait of the elder son, Dmitri (Mitya), who possesses a passionate and excessive temperament, and then Ivan’s, a dark, restless, tortured person, the novelist describes the third son Karamazov, Alyosha: “First of all, I must explain that this young man, Alyosha, was not a fanatic, and, in my opinion at least, was not even a mystic (...) He was simply an early lover of humanity, and that he adopted the monastic life was simply because at that time it struck him, so to say, as the ideal escape for his soul struggling from the darkness of worldly wickedness to the light of love” (I, I, IV)⁽¹⁾. Indeed, at the beginning of the story, Alyosha is a novice in a monastery, where the elder Zossima is his spiritual father.

Sofya Ivanovna, Alyosha’s mother, who died when he was not yet four years old, left deeply impressed memories in his soul. “He remembered one still summer evening, an open window, the slanting rays of the setting sun (that he recalled most vividly of all); in a corner of the room the holy image⁽²⁾, before it a lighted lamp, and on her knees before the image his mother, sobbing hysterically with cries and moans, snatching him up in both arms, squeezing him close till it hurt, and praying for him to the Mother of God, holding him out in both arms to

the image as though to put him under the Mother’s protection...” (I, I, IV).

Because of his simplicity and his purity of heart, the young man shows a surprising freedom which opens every door for him: “Here is perhaps the one man in the world whom you might leave alone without a penny, in the center of an unknown town of a million inhabitants, and he would not come to harm, he would not die of cold and hunger, for he would be fed and sheltered at once; and if he were not, he would find a shelter for himself, and it would cost him no effort or humiliation. And to shelter him would be no burden, but, on the contrary, would probably be looked on as a pleasure.” (I, I, IV).

Throughout the story, we see Alyosha trying and rescue his two elder brothers. So it is that he tries to applie the recommendation – a kind of prophecy – made to him by the elder Zossima: “Christ is with you. Do not abandon Him and He will not abandon you. You will see great sorrow, and in that sorrow you will be happy (...) Go, and make haste. Be near your brothers. And not near one only, but near both.” (I, II, VII). He is very close to Dmitri, whose excess and extravagance do not hide for him a heightened sensitivity and a deep generosity. And even if his relationship with Ivan is more difficult, Alyosha feels for him an equally deep love. He understands what his anguished search means. In a dialogue with a libertine seminarian, who is convinced that all the Karamazov are debauched and miserly, Alyosha asserts: “It is not money, it’s not comfort Ivan is seeking. Perhaps it’s suffering he is seeking (…) he has a stormy spirit. His mind is in bondage. He is haunted by a great, unsolved doubt. He is one of those who don’t want millions, but an answer to their questions” (I, II, VII). The famous chapter called the "Grand Inquisitor" (Part II, Book V) illustrates this thinking of Ivan, for whom the suffering of an innocent child is incompatible with faith in a good God. The implacable demonstration of the "Grand Inquisitor" leaves Alyosha disarmed. Ultimately, his only answer is a kiss on the lips of his brother. And Ivan, deeply shaken, says to him: “It’s enough for me that you are somewhere here, and I shan’t lose my desire for life yet” (II, V, V).

To look at the others with a merciful gaze and without any judgment is the typical behaviour of the deified man. And that is the way Alyosha is perceived, especially by his brother Dmitri:

“You are an angel on earth. You will hear and judge and forgive. And that’s what I need, that someone above me should forgive” (I, III, III).

The old patriarch himself, Fyodor Pavlovich, in his ignominy, was able to perceive something of the goodness that dwells in the heart of his younger son “Alyosha ‘pierced his heart’ by ‘living with him, seeing everything and blaming nothing.’ Moreover, Alyosha brought with him something his father had never known before: a complete absence of contempt for him and an invariable kindness, a perfectly natural unaffected devotion to the old man who deserved it so little” (I, III, I). Moreover, Alyosha will say to his father: “I know your thoughts. Your heart is better than your head” (I, III, VIII).

Nikolaï Bogdanov-Belsky (1868-1945), Future monk

Alyosha is deeply affected by the death of his beloved elder Zossima. It is for him a terrible test. But, after a painful inner struggle, it results in a new birth. The young man leaves his cell: “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 (…) Alyosha stood, gazed, and suddenly threw himself down on the earth. He did not know why he embraced it. ‘Water the earth with the tears of your joy and love those tears,’ echoed in his soul. What was he weeping over? (…) 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 (…) 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 (…) 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” (III, VII, IV). What an amazing experience of birth given by a spiritual father !

Further in the novel, beautiful pages describe Alyosha’s relationships, full of tenderness and respect, with kids (see Book X: “The Boys”), in particular with Kolya Krassotkin and Ilusha Snegiryov. About these episodes, I refer the reader to three texts (unfortunately, not yet translated into English) published in the French version of my blog: “N’ayez pas peur de la vie”, “Ilioucha – ‘Si je t’oublie, Jérusalem…’” and “Éternellement, main dans la main”.

Dostoevsky's “five elephants”⁽³⁾ – not only The Brothers Karamazov – are an inexhaustible mine. But one day I shall have to stop digging there. In the meantime, I felt obliged at least to call to mind the elder Zossima. More to come!

Fiodor (the other one)

(1) All the quotations (Part, Book, Chapter) are from The Brothers Karamazov, translated into English by Constance Garnett, http://www.gutenberg.org/files/28054/28054-0.txt

(2) In the main room of the Russian houses, one or several icons occupied a corner - Krasnoie ugol or "beautiful place" - where they could be seen and worshiped by the inhabitants and visitors.

(3) That is the name given by Svetlana Geier, who translated Dostoevsky into German, to the five great novels of the writer's maturity http://un-idiot-attentif.blogspot.be/2011/02/la-femme-aux-cinq-elephants.html