The mysterious visitor. The Elder Zossima again…

Ivan Kramskoï (1837-1887) - Selfportrait

In a recent article, I started talking about the Elder Zossima. I mentioned his meeting with a "mysterious visitor". Dostoevsky dedicates twenty pages to the account of this meeting. They are a section of the "Notes of the Life or the deceased Priest and Monk, the Elder Zossima, taken from his own words by Alexey Fyodorovitch Karamazov".

A brief reminder of the background. As a young officer who had become, according to his own words, “a cruel, absurd, almost savage creature”, the future elder⁽¹⁾ became aware of his degradation after provoking a rival to a duel, and then, in his anger, violently hitting his assistant. Overwhelmed by the darkness he discovers in himself, he humbly apologizes to the soldier whom he had struck, and when he meets his opponent in the duel, instead of taking advantage of the first, missed, shot of his rival, he throws away his gun and asks for forgiveness. Finally, he announces his decision to enter a monastery. The rumor of these events spread rapidly, and it is in this context that he meets the mysterious visitor.

If I consider it useful to mention this episode, it is because it illustrates an important spiritual reality, namely that any true experience of God is rooted in a human experience. In other words, the Spirit by whom God speaks to our hearts expresses himself through mediations.

These mediations are numerous and extremely varied. They may come as a powerful word – a word of the Scripture, for example – that pierces the heart. But they may come as well as a tiny event, like the smile of a child or, as I once heard said, a glance that pauses on a small flower pot on a window sill, chasing away in a moment the darkness of despair. In the case aformentioned, it is the story of the uncompleted duel and the accompanying forgiveness that overwhelms the “mysterious visitor” and leads him to conversion.

Here is the storyline of The Mysterious Visitor. At first, he is described as an important man, “in a prominent position, respected by all, rich (…) he was very charitable, too, in secret, a fact which only became known after his death.” He explains why he is coming to visit the young officer: “–‘You are, I see, a man of great strength of character’, he said; ‘as you have dared to serve the truth, even when by doing so you risked incurring the contempt of all’.” And he adds: “–‘Tell me, please (…) what were your exact sensations, if you can recall them, at the moment when you made up your mind to ask forgiveness at the duel’?” And the young Zynovy goes on to tell – what he had still never told to anybody –, how he prostrated himself before his assistant to ask forgiveness, and concludes: “–‘When once I had started on that road, to go farther along it was far from being difficult, but became a source of joy and happiness’.”

In his turn, the visitor shares his deep convictions: “–‘Heaven lies hidden within all of us – here it lies hidden in me now, and if I will it, it will be revealed to me tomorrow and for all time (…) And that we are all responsible to all for all (…) in very truth, so soon as men understand that, the Kingdom of Heaven will be for them not a dream, but a living reality’.”

Even if it is not expressed in a very nuanced manner, this last assertion, typical of Russian spirituality, is a very important aspect in the thinking of Dostoevsky: every human heart shelters a part of evil, and so participates in what darkens the world. Solzhenitsyn expresses the same thing when he writes, in The Gulag Archipelago, that “the battleline between good and evil runs through the heart of every man”.

But let us come back to our mysterious visitor. During their frequent discussions, the young officer began to perceive that his visitor “was brooding over some plan in his heart, and was preparing himself perhaps for a great deed (…) Sometimes an extraordinary agitation would come over him, and almost always on such occasions he would get up and go away.” And, one day, “quite unexpectedly indeed, after he had been talking with great fervor a long time, I saw him suddenly turn pale, and his face worked convulsively, while he stared persistently at me. –‘What’s the matter?’ I said; ‘do you feel ill?’ He had just been complaining of headache. –‘I... do you know... I murdered someone’. He said this and smiled with a face as white as chalk. –‘What are you saying?’ I cried. –‘You see’, he said, with a pale smile, ‘how much it has cost me to say the first word. Now I have said it, I feel I’ve taken the first step and shall go on’.”

 

Ivan Kramskoï (1837-1887) - Portrait of a man

The narrator then describes the circumstances of the murder for which the visitor blamed himself. Mad with passion after having been betrayed by the woman he loved, he made his way to her home one night, and taking advantage of the absence of the servants, he entered her room and planted a dagger in her heart. Then, by an infernal calculation, he arranged it that a servant be accused, arrested and put in prison, where he died in the early days of the trial...

It took time before remorse assailed him, but once it arrived, it was terrible: “He had begun to have awful dreams. But, being a man of fortitude, he bore his suffering a long time, thinking: ‘I shall expiate everything by this secret agony’. But that hope, too, was vain; the longer it went on, the more intense was his suffering”. Then, he began to be pursued by a thought: “He dreamed of rising up, going out and confessing in the face of all men that he had committed murder”. This thought obsessed him for three years, and when he heard of this story of duel and forgiveness he made the decision to accept blame. The visitor then evokes the disaster that his confession would be for his wife and his children… “–‘Go!’ said I, ‘confess. Everything passes, only the truth remains. Your children will understand, when they grow up, the nobility of your resolution’.”

But doubts and hesitations continued for weeks. The visitor came every night, often bitter and showing at times a kind of hatred: “–‘Every time I come to you, you look at me so inquisitively as though to say, ‘He has still not confessed!’ Wait a bit, don’t despise me too much. It’s not such an easy thing to do, as you would think. Perhaps I shall not do it at all. You won’t go and inform against me then, will you?’ (…) –‘I have just come from my wife’, he went on. ‘Do you understand what the word ‘wife’ means? When I went out, the children called to me, ‘Good-by, father, make haste back to read The Children’s Magazine with us’. No, you don’t understand that! No one is wise from another man’s woe’.”

The description of the extraordinary spiritual struggle continues over several pages. One day, Zynovy reads him a verse of the Epistle to the Hebrews: “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.” The man takes the book and flings it down. “He was trembling all over. –‘An awful text, he said’ (…) He rose from the chair. –‘Well!’ he said, ‘good-by, perhaps I shan’t come again... we shall meet in heaven. So I have been for fourteen years ‘in the hands of the living God’, that’s how one must think of those fourteen years. Tomorrow I will beseech those hands to let me go’.” The visitor goes away, while his host starts praying. In the middle of the night, the man returns, claiming to have forgotten something... a handkerchief... or anything whatever... “He sat down. I stood over him. –‘You sit down, too’, said he. I sat down. We sat still for two minutes; he looked intently at me and suddenly smiled – I remembered that – then he got up, embraced me warmly and kissed me. –‘Remember’, he said, ‘how I came to you a second time. Do you hear, remember it!’ And he went out. ‘Tomorrow’, I thought.”

Indeed, the next day, in front of the numerous guests gathered to celebrate his birthday, the visitor confesses his crime and gives various proofs that incriminate him. All believe that he had become crazy. Actually, a few days later, he falls ill. His wife, together with many others, accuses Zynovy of being responsible for his ‘madness’. But, eventually, she allows him to see her husband.

“–‘It is done!’ he said. ‘I’ve long been yearning to see you, why didn’t you come?’ I did not tell him that they would not let me see him. –‘God has had pity on me and is calling me to Himself. I know I am dying, but I feel joy and peace for the first time after so many years (…) Neither my wife nor the judges, nor any one has believed it. My children will never believe it either. I see in that God’s mercy to them. I shall die, and my name will be without a stain for them’.” Then, he adds: “–‘Do you remember how I came back to you that second time, at midnight? I told you to remember it. You know what I came back for? I came to kill you! (…) I went out from you then into the darkness, I wandered about the streets, struggling with myself. And suddenly I hated you so that I could hardly bear it (…) I hated you as though you were the cause, as though you were to blame for everything (…) The Lord vanquished the devil in my heart. But let me tell you, you were never nearer death’.”

A week later, the visitor dies. After some time, Zynovy is bothered by people who came “and questioned me with great interest and eagerness, for man loves to see the downfall and disgrace of the righteous. But I held my tongue, and very shortly after, I left the town”. Five months later, he entered the monastery where he took the name Zossima. “But I remember in my prayer to this day, the servant of God, Mihail [it is only at the end of the story that we learn the name of the mysterious visitor], who suffered so greatly”.

Besides its intensity, this story makes us, once more, plumb the depths of human consciousness and, if we have faith, contemplate the invisible but powerful action of God who, according to Paul Claudel, “writes straight with crooked lines”.

Fiodor (the other one)

(1) In the Russian original as well as in the French translation, we learn that his name is Zynovy. This name does not appear in the English translation quoted here.

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

Church in Suzdal - Picture Véronique Hallereau
vhallereau.net

“You cannot be a judge of anyone." The Elder Zossima, continued

 

Mikhail Nesterov (1862-1942) - The Hermit

“Even five minutes before his death, they said afterwards wonderingly, it was impossible to foresee it. He seemed suddenly to feel an acute pain in his chest, he turned pale and pressed his hands to his heart. All rose from their seats and hastened to him. But though suffering, he still looked at them with a smile, sank slowly from his chair on to his knees, then bowed his face to the ground, stretched out his arms and as though in joyful ecstasy, praying and kissing the ground, quietly and joyfully gave up his soul to God.”(1).

Such was the death of Elder Zossima. But what kind of man was he? What kind of role does he play in the complex composition of The Brothers Karamazov? After all, an entire book – about one-twelfth of the work – is almost entirely dedicated to him. Nevertheless, even if the old monk has a determining influence on the young Alyosha, he does not really participate in the plot of the novel. As Paul Evdokimov points out, Dostoevsky’s spiritual characters (the Elder Zosima in The Brothers Karamazov, or Father Tykhon, in Demons) are present "as icons." They are not actors in the story, but they enlighten it.

The spiritual light he receives from his master is the power that will lead Alyosha throughout the novel. And the sections on this monk form a kind of spiritual biography, written by the disciple, that Dostoevsky integrates into the story, under a significant title: “Notes of the Life of the deceased Priest and Monk, the Elder Zossima, taken from his own words by Alexey Fyodorovitch Karamazov”.

The old man whom Alexey (Alyosha) has known is a peaceful man, rooted in God, with a bright and comforting look. But it was not always so, as the elder portends in these words: “It’s the great mystery of human life that old grief passes gradually into quiet, tender joy. The mild serenity of age takes the place of the riotous blood of youth. I bless the rising sun each day, and, as before, my hearts sings to meet it, but now I love even more its setting, its long slanting rays and the soft, tender, gentle memories that come with them, the dear images from the whole of my long, happy life — and over all the Divine Truth, softening, reconciling, forgiving!”

The reader then discovers the darker side of the life of Zynovy, the name he bore before entering the monastery. As a young man, he entered the Cadet Corps in St. Petersburg. He remembers how, in military life: “many of my childish impressions grew dimmer (…) I was transformed into a cruel, absurd, almost savage creature. A surface polish of courtesy and society manners I did acquire together with the French language. But we all, myself included, looked upon the soldiers in our service as cattle.”

Ilya Repine (1844-1930) - Ivan the Terrible and his son

This last statement comes to life in an event he describes in detail. He has just incited another soldier to a duel. “In the evening, returning home in a savage and brutal humor, I flew into a rage with my orderly Afanasy, and gave him two blows in the face with all my might, so that it was covered with blood. He had not long been in my service and I had struck him before, but never with such ferocious cruelty.” The next morning, at dawn, he sees the sun rising and hears the birds singing, and he feels in his “heart as it were something vile and shameful.” He suddenly remembers  the event of the previous evening. “It all rose before my mind (…), he stood before me and I was beating him straight on the face and he was holding his arms stiffly down, his head erect, his eyes fixed upon me as though on parade. He staggered at every blow and did not even dare to raise his hands to protect himself. That is what a man has been brought to, and that was a man beating a fellow creature! What a crime! It was as though a sharp dagger had pierced me right through.” Now, a lieutenant, his friend, comes and finds him for the duel... He tells him to wait a moment, rushes to the closet of his orderly: “’Afanasy’, I said, ‘I gave you two blows on the face yesterday, forgive me’, I said. He started as though he were frightened, and looked at me; and I saw that it was not enough, and on the spot, in my full officer’s uniform, I dropped at his feet and bowed my head to the ground. ‘Forgive me’, I said. Then he was completely aghast. ‘Your honor... sir, what are you doing? Am I worth it?’ And he burst out crying as I had done before, hid this face in his hands, turned to the window and shook all over with his sobs.”

Immediately afterward, the one who is going to become the Elder Zossima goes to the scene of the duel. His opponent shoots first and misses. But our man, instead of fighting back, throws away his gun and asks for forgiveness... The reactions are mitigated: the honor of the regiment, etc. But his comrades are completely confused by the fiery words he addresses to them. He announces to them that he is resigning from the regiment in order to enter a monastery. The rumor of the event spreads quickly: he becomes a kind of hero, and many people try to meet or to invite him. It is in this context that he meets a mysterious visitor. But that is another story... to be continued. 

In the meantime, we can underline how much, for Dostoevsky, the experience of humiliation and repentance are crucial in shaping the consciousness of a man. Indeed, Fr Zossima will never forget that his heart was capable of sheltering such a violence: “Though it’s forty years ago, I recall it now with shame and pain”. Shaped by such an experience, he would be able to welcome without judging and to comfort by testifying of God’s mercy. He would not stop teaching his disciples: “Remember particularly that you cannot be a judge of any one.”

Today, we seek to exonerate ourselves from any fault and, if necessary, we make of our deviations standards. Meanwhile, there are a few who find favor in our eyes, and we easily regard a criminal as a "monster". Through deified characters, Dostoevsky reminds us that "the heart of man is complicated and sick"(2) and that we all share a responsibility in evil: “For no one can judge a criminal, until he recognizes that he is just such a criminal as the man standing before him, and that he perhaps is more than all men to blame for that crime (…) Though that sounds absurd, it is true. If I had been righteous myself, perhaps there would have been no criminal standing before me.”

Fiodor (the other one)

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

(2) Jeremiah 17, 9.

Job, Jeremiah, Yosl…

Is it a coincidence? Four days before Yom Kippur, a colleague passes me a book and asks me to give him my opinion. The story, which takes only about twenty pages of the book, is entitled Yosl Rakover talks to God^(*). It begins with these words: “In one of the ruins of the Warsaw Ghetto, preserved in a little bottle and concealed amongst heaps of charred stone and human bones, the following testament was found, written in the last hours of the ghetto by a Jew named Yosl Rakover.”

I read these twenty pages breathless, crying, my heart in knots. A dazzling text, a powerful cry, rebellious and peaceful at the same time. An incredible profession of faith in the midst of the worst horrors. Job and Jeremiah together... It is only by reading the essay of Paul Badde, which occupies most of the pages of the book, that I realized that it was fiction. But, as Emmanuel Levinas writes (in the last pages of the book), this text is “true as only fiction can be.”

The author of the story is Zvi Kolitz, a Lithuanian Jew, born in 1919. Emigrated to Palestine at the beginning of World War II, he was active in the Zionist movement and was even an agent of the Irgun. In 1946, he published his story in a Yiddish magazine of Buenos Aires, on the occasion of Yom Kippur. Then settled in New York, Zvi Kolitz died there in 2002.

The ups and downs of this text are amazing. For a long time presented as an authentic testimony, deprived of its real author, Yosl Rakover’s testament circulated around the world, raising many questions, but arousing everywhere a real fascination. Even if the fate of this story and that of the author are exciting, it is perfectly possible to ignore them and receive the text in all its strength and brilliance.

I confine myself here to quote a few fragments. But first, it is necessary to set the scene. It is April 28th, 1943. The Warsaw Ghetto is living its last hours, in a deluge of fire and under a barrage of artillery. Yosl witnessed the death of his wife and his six children, and now his time has come. In the house where he writes, lying on the ground, he is surrounded by the bodies of his comrades, fallen before him: “I look into their faces and it is as if irony had washed over them, peaceful and gently mocking. As if they wanted to say: ‘Have a little patience, you foolish man, another minute or two and everything will become clear to you, too’.” 

The fall of the Warsaw Ghetto

Indeed, he is unable to understand, otherwise than in revolt and anger, the killing madness that surrounds him. “The animals of the forest seem so dear and precious to me that it pains my heart to hear the criminals who are now masters of Europe likened to them. It is not true that there is something of the animal in Hitler. He is — I am utterly convinced of it — a typical child of modern man. Mankind has borne him and raised him and he is the direct, unfeigned expression of mankind's innermost, deepest-hidden urges. In a forest where I was hiding, I met a dog one night, a sick, starving, crazed dog, his tail between his legs. Immediately we felt our common situation (…) He rubbed up against me, buried his head in my lap, and licked my hands. I don't know if I have ever wept the way I wept that night; I wrapped myself around his neck and cried like a child (...) I was ashamed before the dog, for being not a dog but a man.”

But it is God, that he always wanted to serve with dedication – “with all my heart and with all my soul and with all my strength” – to whom Yosl now turns. He wants Him to give reasons. Because, he says, “God has hidden His face. God has hidden His face from the world and delivered mankind over to its own savage urges and instincts (…) In such a circumstance I have, naturally, no expectation of a miracle and do not beg of Him, my Lord, that He should take pity on me. Let Him veil His face in indifference to me as He has veiled it to millions of others of His people…” Yosl knows that God is just, and even that He is “the God of vengeance and our Torah threatens death for the smallest of transgressions”. But the Talmud tells us that “a single death sentence from the High Council in seventy years was enough to make people call ‘You murderers’ after the judges. The God of the other peoples, however, whom they call ‘the God of Love,’ has offered to love every creature created in His image, and yet they have been murdering us without pity in His name day in, day out, for almost two thousand years.”

Then, Yosl stops his thoughts to profess his faith. “I am proud to be a Jew. Because being a Jew is an art. Being a Jew is hard (…) I believe that to be a Jew is to be a fighter, an eternal swimmer against the roiling, evil current of humanity. The Jew is a hero, a martyr, a saint (…) One is born a Jew as one is born an artist. One cannot free oneself of being a Jew. That is God's mark upon us (…) I believe in the God of Israel, even when He has done everything to make me cease to believe in Him. I believe in His laws even when I cannot justify His deeds. My relationship to Him is no longer that of a servant to his master, but of a student to his rabbi. I bow my head before His greatness, but I will not kiss the rod with which He chastises me. I love Him. But I love His Torah more.”

Finally – and these are the most ardent pages – Yosl addresses his God. “And so, my God, before I die, freed from all fear, beyond terror, in a state of absolute inner peace and trust, I will allow myself to call You to account one last time in my life.” He demands to know. “O tell us, what more must happen before You reveal Your face to the world again? (…) Now, more than at any previous stage on our endless road of suffering — we, the tormented, the reviled, the suffocated, the buried alive and burned alive, we, the humiliated, the mocked, the ridiculed, the slaughtered in our millions — now more than ever do we have the right to know: Where are the limits of Your patience?”

Surprisingly, this call changes into intercession and a demand for mercy. “And I wish to say something more to You: You should not pull the rope too tight, because it might, heaven forbid, yet snap. The temptation into which You have led us is so grievous, so unbearably grievous, that You should, You must, forgive those of Your people who in their misery and anger have turned away from You. Forgive those who have turned away from You in their misery, but also those of Your people who have turned away from You for their own comfort (…) Forgive also those who have taken Your name in vain, who have followed other gods, who have become indifferent to You (…) I am saying all this to You in plain words because I believe in You, because I believe in You more than ever before, because I know now that You are my God. For You are not, You cannot be the God of those whose deeds are the most horrific proof of their militant godlessness.”

And the prayer becomes like a blind leap into faith, but incredibly daring and with plenty of extraordinary nobility. “I cannot praise You for the deeds You tolerate. But I bless and praise Your very existence, Your terrible majesty. How mighty it must be if even what is taking place now makes no impression on You! But because You are so great and I so small, I beg You — I warn You — for Your name's sake: Stop crowning Your greatness by veiling Your face from the scourging of the wretched!”

 

Zvi Kolitz

Finally, speechless, stunned, we must listen to the last words of Yosl to his God. He first recalls the story of a Jew who had fled the Spanish Inquisition. On an island where he landed, his wife was struck down by lightning and his child carried of by a wave. Left alone on his rock, he exclaimed: “God of Israel, I have fled to this place so that I may serve You in peace, to follow Your commandments and glorify Your name. You, however, are doing everything to make me cease believing in You. But if You think that You will succeed with these trials in deflecting me from the true path, then I cry to You, my God and the God of my parents, that none of it will help You. You may insult me, You may chastise me, You may take from me the dearest and the best that I have in the world, You may torture me to death — I will always believe in You. I will love You always and forever — even despite You.” And Yosl appropriates these words of fire: “You have done everything to make me lose my faith in You, to make me cease to believe in You. But I die exactly as I have lived, an unshakeable believer in You. Praised be forever the God of the dead, the God of vengeance, of truth and judgment, who will soon unveil His face to the world again and shake its foundations with His almighty voice. Sh'ma Yisroel! Hear, Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord is one. Into Your hands, O Lord, I commend my soul.”

Once the book was closed, and after recovering  my senses somewhat,  I thought that I had just read the answer to the Grand Inquisitor found in The Brothers Karamazov...

Fiodor

(*) Zvi KOLITZ, Yosl Rakover talks to God, First Vintage International Edition, 2000. Besides the story itself, the book includes an essay by Paul Badde on Zvi Kolitz, a short text – a speech given in April 1955 – by Emmanuel Levinas, entitled Loving the Torah more than God, and another one of Leon Wieseltier. The text of the story is available online http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/k/kolitz-god.html

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

The divided man

Mme Vigée-Lebrun (1755-1842) Portrait of Prince Sergey Gagarin

The human heart is divided. The line between good and evil crosses him throughout (cf. Alexander Solzhenitsyn: “The line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being”, The Gulag Archipelago). The human being carries within himself a "double" which contradicts him, opposes him, or forces him. Dostoevsky is so penetrated by this truth that it becomes a recurring motive in his work. There is, of course, The Double, one of his first novels, entirely built on this theme, but the idea of "double" appears in many other books and is illustrated by many other characters. And in his 1877 Writers Diary, he writes: "The ‘double’ is a grave and bright idea, and in my whole work, I've never pursued nothing of more important than this idea".

Among many others, a character in The Adolescent appears to me to illustrate marvelously this fundamental human ambiguity that Dostoevsky calls "the idea of the double". It is about Versilov, the father of Arkady, the teenager who is also the narrator of the book. Illegitimate son of an aristocrat – Versilov – and of a servant, the teenager goes in search of this imperceptible father. Imperceptible because divided and thus "double". At no time, the face, the words or the gestures of Versilov seem completely transparent, simple and true. Everything is "double". It is at the end of the story, after a redeeming event, that the man will appear unified, simplified, restored.

Quite puzzled by the behavior of his father, whom he found after a long separation, Arkady comes there to exclaim, during a discussion with a friend: "I beg you to tell me the whole truth. What I exactly want to know, is what he is as a man... " The reader shares moreover the uncertainty of the narrator. He sees him, sometimes trembling with admiration and tenderness for Versilov, and sometimes looking with suspicion, and even disgust, to a father who is often so distant and cynical. An example, from the first angle: Arkady has just seen his father again after a stormy break. They spoke, but without saying anything that matters. Arkady takes back his father: "We arrived at the exit door, and I, I always followed him. He opened the door, the wind rushing in put out my candle. Then, suddenly, I grabbed his hand. It was a pitch black night. He jumped but did not say a word. I bent up to his hand, and suddenly, eagerly, I began to kiss his hand several times, many times. – ‘My sweet boy, why do you love me so much?’ he muttered, but this time in a quite different voice. His voice had trembled, something entirely new sounded there, as if it was not him who spoke".

From the opposite angle, a situation where the darkness of Versilov shows through the outside of a generous act. In a chivalrous way, he has destroyed a document which would have allowed him to claim an inheritance, and so to wrong the one who was really entitled to it. Hearing that, Arkady exults and tells it to one of his friends: "What a man! What a man! No, but who would have done that? I exclaimed on cloud nine". But his interlocutor – Vassyn – introduces the doubt into his mind: " – I agree with you, many would never have done it... and, no doubt, this is an extremely selfless act... – But?... Tell the bottomm of your thought. Vassyn, you add a 'but'? – Yes, of course, there is also a 'but', the act of Versilov, it seems to me, is maybe a little bit fast, and maybe not quite so straightforward, smiled Vassyn. – Not so straightforward? – No. There is there a kind of 'pedestal'. Because, anyway, he would have been able to do the same thing without injuring himself... "

So, throughout the book, we wonder if Versilov is a righteous man, a victim of events, or a bastard... But that is not really the question! Dostoevsky’s puropose is precisely to show us that he is – and that we are! – both. We will not be able to draw a conclusion until the "bastard" has passed away.

But as dark as the acts of the man may appear, they have almost always their part of light. The relationship which exists between Versilov and Arkady’s mother reflects this ambiguity. This young widower of the good society could have been "satisfied" with seducing the poor Sofia Andreevna, recently married to one of his servants – Makar Dolgoruky –, and then abandon her once achieved the aim. But, inexplicably, he seems to have become attached to her. Arkady notices: "I would not swear that he has loved her, but that he dragged her behind him all his life, that is a fact". Even more surprising, this apparently unscrupulous Versilov feels remorse and comes to ask for forgiveness to the man – a servant! – whose wife he has stolen: "He told me spiritually, tells Arkady, that he had sobbed on the shoulder of Makar Ivanovitch, that he had specially convened for the thing in his office. And she, during this time, she remained prostrate, I do not know where, fainted in her small domestic’s cage..." In Versilov, as in many other characters of Dostoevsky’s novels, exists an internal dislocation. Impossible, throughout the pages of the novel, to know the fairness from the feint. Only the outcome will operate the unity inside him, as the result of a real passover.

Would not the divided man be thus rather a "wounded" man, whose kindness is more important than the wound, and therefore a man in the process of unification, of restoration? All Dostoevsky breathes such a hope. A hope based on the most central belief of the Christian revelation: the faith in a love that no evil can destroy, a love that "never ends"(1Cor 3). This is why, almost always, the characters of the Dostoevskian drama reach an increasing of humanity through testimonies of true love – even unaccomplished. The one to whom love is given enters a path of healing and collects the fruit of the redeeming love. As, for example, in the following scene, which concludes the second part of The Adolescent: "We went out on the canal, and we began leaving. – ‘Will you never kiss me from the bottom of the heart, like a child, as a son kisses his father?’ he whispered, with a strange tremor in his voice. I kissed him warmly. – ‘My sweet... always keep your soul as pure as you have it at the moment’. Never in my life I had kissed him before, never I would have been able to imagine that he wished it himself".

It is still in The Adolescent that we encounter one of the most beautiful characters of a "deified" person: Makar Dolgoruky, the father of the young Arkady. In a next article, I shall try to sketch his portrait. And, why not, to continue in the same direction, with other pure hearts: Alyosha, Myshkin, Sonia ...

Fiodor (the other one)