I. Старец Зосима и его гости

He had, however, risen from his bed no more than a quarter of an hour before Alyosha's arrival; the visitors had gathered in his cell earlier and were waiting for him to wake, on Father Paissy's firm assurance that "the teacher will surely rise, to converse once more with those dear to his heart, as he himself declared and as he himself promised this very morning."

In this promise — and indeed in every word of the dying elder — Father Paissy believed so firmly that, had he seen him even wholly insensible and not so much as breathing, yet had his promise that he would rise once more and take his leave of him, he would perhaps not have believed even in death itself, but would have gone on expecting that the dying man would come to and fulfill what he had foretold.

And in the morning the elder Zossima had said to him plainly, as he lay down to sleep: "I shall not die before I have once more drunk my fill of conversation with you, beloved of my heart, and gazed upon your dear faces, and poured out my soul to you yet again."

Those who had gathered for what was, in all likelihood, the elder's last conversation were the friends most devoted to him from years long past.

There were four of them: the hieromonks Father Joseph and Father Paissy, and the hieromonk Father Mikhail, warden of the skete, a man not yet very old and far from so learned, of humble origin, but firm in spirit, unshakably and simply believing, severe in appearance yet pierced by a deep tenderness in his heart, though he visibly hid that tenderness almost to the point of shame.

The fourth visitor was a quite aged, very plain little monk, of the poorest peasant stock, Brother Anfim, almost barely literate, silent and quiet, scarcely speaking to anyone, the humblest among the most humble, and bearing the look of a man who had been, as if forever, frightened by something great and terrible that was beyond the reach of his mind.

This man, as if forever trembling, the elder Zossima loved greatly, and throughout his whole life he treated him with extraordinary reverence, though he had perhaps, in all his life, exchanged fewer words with him than with anyone else, despite the fact that at one time he had spent many years wandering together with him, the two of them, across all of holy Russia.

This had been very long ago, some forty years before, when the elder Zossima first began his monastic labor in a poor, little-known monastery near Kostroma, and when soon afterward he set out to accompany Father Anfim on his wanderings to collect alms for their poor little Kostroma monastery.

All of them, both host and guests, had settled in the elder's second room, the one in which his bed stood — a room, as has already been noted, exceedingly cramped, so that all four of them (save for Porfiry the novice, who remained standing) could barely fit themselves around the elder's chair, on chairs brought in from the first room.

Dusk was already beginning to fall; the room was lit by the icon-lamps and the wax candles before the icons.

Catching sight of Alyosha, who had grown abashed at the entrance and halted in the doorway, the elder smiled at him joyfully and held out his hand.

"Greetings, gentle one, greetings, dear one, here you are too. I knew you would come."

Alyosha went up to him, bowed down before him to the ground, and began to weep.

Something was tearing loose from his heart, his soul was trembling, he longed to sob.

"Come now, do not weep over me yet," the elder smiled, laying his right hand on his head, "you see, I am sitting up and conversing; perhaps I shall live another twenty years yet, as that kind, dear woman from Vyshegorye wished me yesterday, with the little girl Lizaveta in her arms."

"Remember, O Lord, both the mother and the little girl Lizaveta!" (He crossed himself.)

"Porfiry, did you carry her gift to where I told you?"

He was recalling the six grivnas of the day before, given by the cheerful pilgrim woman, to be handed over "to her who is poorer than I."

Such offerings are made as penances, voluntarily laid upon oneself for some reason or other, and invariably out of money earned by one's own labor.

The elder had sent Porfiry the evening before to a townswoman of ours who had recently been burned out of her home, a widow with children who, after the fire, had taken to begging.

Porfiry hastened to report that the matter was already done and that he had handed it over, as he had been instructed, "from an unknown benefactress."

"Rise, dear one," the elder went on to Alyosha, "let me look at you. Have you been to your family, and did you see your brother?"

It struck Alyosha as strange that he asked so firmly and precisely about one brother only — but which one: it meant, then, that it was for the sake of this particular brother that he had perhaps sent him away from himself, both yesterday and today.

"I saw one of my brothers," Alyosha answered.

"I mean the one from yesterday, the elder one, to whom I bowed down to the ground."

"Him I saw only yesterday, but today I could not find him anywhere," said Alyosha.

"Hasten to find him; go again tomorrow and make haste, leave everything and make haste."

"Perhaps you may still be in time to forestall something terrible."

"Yesterday I bowed down before his great future suffering."

He suddenly fell silent and seemed to sink into thought.

The words were strange.

Father Joseph, who had witnessed the elder's bow to the ground the day before, exchanged glances with Father Paissy.

Alyosha could not restrain himself.

"Father and teacher," he uttered in extreme agitation, "your words are too obscure to me... What suffering is it that awaits him?"

"Do not be inquisitive."

"Something dreadful appeared to me yesterday... as though his gaze yesterday expressed his entire destiny."

"He had such a look about him... that in an instant I was horrified in my heart at what this man is preparing for himself."

"Once or twice in my life I have seen in certain people that same expression of face... as though it portrayed the whole destiny of those people, and their destiny, alas, came to pass."

"I sent you to him, Alexei, for I thought your brotherly countenance would help him."

"But all is from the Lord, and all our destinies as well."

"'Except a grain of wheat fall into the ground and die, it remaineth alone; but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.'"

"Remember this."

"And you, Alexei, I have many times blessed in my thoughts throughout my life for your countenance — know this," the elder said with a quiet smile.

"This is how I think of you: you shall go forth from these walls, yet in the world you shall abide as a monk."

"You shall have many adversaries, but your very enemies, too, will love you."

"Life will bring you many misfortunes, but it is through them that you will be happy, and will bless life, and will make others bless it — which is the most important thing of all."

"Well, that is the kind of man you are."

"My fathers and teachers," he turned to his guests, smiling tenderly, "never until this day have I told anyone, not even him, why the countenance of this youth has been so dear to my soul."

"Only now will I say it: his face was to me as if a remembrance and a prophecy."

"At the dawn of my days, while still a small child, I had an elder brother who died a youth, before my very eyes, only seventeen years of age in all."

"And afterward, as I passed through my life, I gradually became convinced that this brother of mine had been in my destiny something like a sign and a foreordaining from on high, for had he not appeared in my life, had he not existed at all, never, perhaps — so I think — would I have taken the monastic vows or entered upon this precious path."

"That first manifestation came while I was still in my childhood, and now, here at the close of my path, there has appeared to me before my very eyes, as it were, a repetition of it."

"It is a marvel, my fathers and teachers, that without being so very like him in face, but only somewhat, Alexei seemed to me so akin to him in spirit that many times I took him as if directly for that youth, my brother, come to me at the end of my path mysteriously, for the sake of some remembrance and insight, so that I even marveled at myself and at such a strange fancy of mine."

"Do you hear this, Porfiry," he turned to the novice who waited upon him.

"Many times I have seen on your face something like chagrin that I love Alexei more than you."

"Now you know why it was so; but I love you too, know that, and many times I have grieved that you are aggrieved."

"And to you, dear guests, I wish to tell of this youth, my brother, for there has been in my life no manifestation more precious than this, none more prophetic and more moving."

"My heart has melted with tenderness, and in this very minute I behold my whole life, as though living it all over again..."