Chương Chương 5 · Elders

. Elders

Some of my readers may imagine that my young man was a sickly,

ecstatic, poorly developed creature, a pale, consumptive dreamer. On

the contrary, Alyosha was at this time a well-grown, red-cheeked,

clear-eyed lad of nineteen, radiant with health. He was very handsome,

too, graceful, moderately tall, with hair of a dark brown, with a

regular, rather long, oval-shaped face, and wide-set dark gray, shining

eyes; he was very thoughtful, and apparently very serene. I shall be

told, perhaps, that red cheeks are not incompatible with fanaticism and

mysticism; but I fancy that Alyosha was more of a realist than any one.

Oh! no doubt, in the monastery he fully believed in miracles, but, to

my thinking, miracles are never a stumbling-block to the realist. It is

not miracles that dispose realists to belief. The genuine realist, if

he is an unbeliever, will always find strength and ability to

disbelieve in the miraculous, and if he is confronted with a miracle as

an irrefutable fact he would rather disbelieve his own senses than

admit the fact. Even if he admits it, he admits it as a fact of nature

till then unrecognized by him. Faith does not, in the realist, spring

from the miracle but the miracle from faith. If the realist once

believes, then he is bound by his very realism to admit the miraculous

also. The Apostle Thomas said that he would not believe till he saw,

but when he did see he said, “My Lord and my God!” Was it the miracle

forced him to believe? Most likely not, but he believed solely because

he desired to believe and possibly he fully believed in his secret

heart even when he said, “I do not believe till I see.”

I shall be told, perhaps, that Alyosha was stupid, undeveloped, had not

finished his studies, and so on. That he did not finish his studies is

true, but to say that he was stupid or dull would be a great injustice.

I’ll simply repeat what I have said above. He entered upon this path

only because, at that time, it alone struck his imagination and

presented itself to him as offering an ideal means of escape for his

soul from darkness to light. Add to that that he was to some extent a

youth of our last epoch—that is, honest in nature, desiring the truth,

seeking for it and believing in it, and seeking to serve it at once

with all the strength of his soul, seeking for immediate action, and

ready to sacrifice everything, life itself, for it. Though these young

men unhappily fail to understand that the sacrifice of life is, in many

cases, the easiest of all sacrifices, and that to sacrifice, for

instance, five or six years of their seething youth to hard and tedious

study, if only to multiply tenfold their powers of serving the truth

and the cause they have set before them as their goal—such a sacrifice

is utterly beyond the strength of many of them. The path Alyosha chose

was a path going in the opposite direction, but he chose it with the

same thirst for swift achievement. As soon as he reflected seriously he

was convinced of the existence of God and immortality, and at once he

instinctively said to himself: “I want to live for immortality, and I

will accept no compromise.” In the same way, if he had decided that God

and immortality did not exist, he would at once have become an atheist

and a socialist. For socialism is not merely the labor question, it is

before all things the atheistic question, the question of the form

taken by atheism to-day, the question of the tower of Babel built

without God, not to mount to heaven from earth but to set up heaven on

earth. Alyosha would have found it strange and impossible to go on

living as before. It is written: “Give all that thou hast to the poor

and follow Me, if thou wouldst be perfect.”

Alyosha said to himself: “I can’t give two roubles instead of ‘all,’

and only go to mass instead of ‘following Him.’” Perhaps his memories

of childhood brought back our monastery, to which his mother may have

taken him to mass. Perhaps the slanting sunlight and the holy image to

which his poor “crazy” mother had held him up still acted upon his

imagination. Brooding on these things he may have come to us perhaps

only to see whether here he could sacrifice all or only “two roubles,”

and in the monastery he met this elder. I must digress to explain what

an “elder” is in Russian monasteries, and I am sorry that I do not feel

very competent to do so. I will try, however, to give a superficial

account of it in a few words. Authorities on the subject assert that

the institution of “elders” is of recent date, not more than a hundred

years old in our monasteries, though in the orthodox East, especially

in Sinai and Athos, it has existed over a thousand years. It is

maintained that it existed in ancient times in Russia also, but through

the calamities which overtook Russia—the Tartars, civil war, the

interruption of relations with the East after the destruction of

Constantinople—this institution fell into oblivion. It was revived

among us towards the end of last century by one of the great

“ascetics,” as they called him, Païssy Velitchkovsky, and his

disciples. But to this day it exists in few monasteries only, and has

sometimes been almost persecuted as an innovation in Russia. It

flourished especially in the celebrated Kozelski Optin Monastery. When

and how it was introduced into our monastery I cannot say. There had

already been three such elders and Zossima was the last of them. But he

was almost dying of weakness and disease, and they had no one to take

his place. The question for our monastery was an important one, for it

had not been distinguished by anything in particular till then: they

had neither relics of saints, nor wonder-working ikons, nor glorious

traditions, nor historical exploits. It had flourished and been

glorious all over Russia through its elders, to see and hear whom

pilgrims had flocked for thousands of miles from all parts.

What was such an elder? An elder was one who took your soul, your will,

into his soul and his will. When you choose an elder, you renounce your

own will and yield it to him in complete submission, complete

self-abnegation. This novitiate, this terrible school of abnegation, is

undertaken voluntarily, in the hope of self-conquest, of self-mastery,

in order, after a life of obedience, to attain perfect freedom, that

is, from self; to escape the lot of those who have lived their whole

life without finding their true selves in themselves. This institution

of elders is not founded on theory, but was established in the East

from the practice of a thousand years. The obligations due to an elder

are not the ordinary “obedience” which has always existed in our

Russian monasteries. The obligation involves confession to the elder by

all who have submitted themselves to him, and to the indissoluble bond

between him and them.

The story is told, for instance, that in the early days of Christianity

one such novice, failing to fulfill some command laid upon him by his

elder, left his monastery in Syria and went to Egypt. There, after

great exploits, he was found worthy at last to suffer torture and a

martyr’s death for the faith. When the Church, regarding him as a

saint, was burying him, suddenly, at the deacon’s exhortation, “Depart

all ye unbaptized,” the coffin containing the martyr’s body left its

place and was cast forth from the church, and this took place three

times. And only at last they learnt that this holy man had broken his

vow of obedience and left his elder, and, therefore, could not be

forgiven without the elder’s absolution in spite of his great deeds.

Only after this could the funeral take place. This, of course, is only

an old legend. But here is a recent instance.

A monk was suddenly commanded by his elder to quit Athos, which he

loved as a sacred place and a haven of refuge, and to go first to

Jerusalem to do homage to the Holy Places and then to go to the north

to Siberia: “There is the place for thee and not here.” The monk,

overwhelmed with sorrow, went to the Œcumenical Patriarch at

Constantinople and besought him to release him from his obedience. But

the Patriarch replied that not only was he unable to release him, but

there was not and could not be on earth a power which could release him

except the elder who had himself laid that duty upon him. In this way

the elders are endowed in certain cases with unbounded and inexplicable

authority. That is why in many of our monasteries the institution was

at first resisted almost to persecution. Meantime the elders

immediately began to be highly esteemed among the people. Masses of the

ignorant people as well as men of distinction flocked, for instance, to

the elders of our monastery to confess their doubts, their sins, and

their sufferings, and ask for counsel and admonition. Seeing this, the

opponents of the elders declared that the sacrament of confession was

being arbitrarily and frivolously degraded, though the continual

opening of the heart to the elder by the monk or the layman had nothing

of the character of the sacrament. In the end, however, the institution

of elders has been retained and is becoming established in Russian

monasteries. It is true, perhaps, that this instrument which had stood

the test of a thousand years for the moral regeneration of a man from

slavery to freedom and to moral perfectibility may be a two-edged

weapon and it may lead some not to humility and complete self-control

but to the most Satanic pride, that is, to bondage and not to freedom.

The elder Zossima was sixty-five. He came of a family of landowners,

had been in the army in early youth, and served in the Caucasus as an

officer. He had, no doubt, impressed Alyosha by some peculiar quality

of his soul. Alyosha lived in the cell of the elder, who was very fond

of him and let him wait upon him. It must be noted that Alyosha was

bound by no obligation and could go where he pleased and be absent for

whole days. Though he wore the monastic dress it was voluntarily, not

to be different from others. No doubt he liked to do so. Possibly his

youthful imagination was deeply stirred by the power and fame of his

elder. It was said that so many people had for years past come to

confess their sins to Father Zossima and to entreat him for words of

advice and healing, that he had acquired the keenest intuition and

could tell from an unknown face what a new-comer wanted, and what was

the suffering on his conscience. He sometimes astounded and almost

alarmed his visitors by his knowledge of their secrets before they had

spoken a word.

Alyosha noticed that many, almost all, went in to the elder for the

first time with apprehension and uneasiness, but came out with bright

and happy faces. Alyosha was particularly struck by the fact that

Father Zossima was not at all stern. On the contrary, he was always

almost gay. The monks used to say that he was more drawn to those who

were more sinful, and the greater the sinner the more he loved him.

There were, no doubt, up to the end of his life, among the monks some

who hated and envied him, but they were few in number and they were

silent, though among them were some of great dignity in the monastery,

one, for instance, of the older monks distinguished for his strict

keeping of fasts and vows of silence. But the majority were on Father

Zossima’s side and very many of them loved him with all their hearts,

warmly and sincerely. Some were almost fanatically devoted to him, and

declared, though not quite aloud, that he was a saint, that there could

be no doubt of it, and, seeing that his end was near, they anticipated

miracles and great glory to the monastery in the immediate future from

his relics. Alyosha had unquestioning faith in the miraculous power of

the elder, just as he had unquestioning faith in the story of the

coffin that flew out of the church. He saw many who came with sick

children or relatives and besought the elder to lay hands on them and

to pray over them, return shortly after—some the next day—and, falling

in tears at the elder’s feet, thank him for healing their sick.

Whether they had really been healed or were simply better in the

natural course of the disease was a question which did not exist for

Alyosha, for he fully believed in the spiritual power of his teacher

and rejoiced in his fame, in his glory, as though it were his own

triumph. His heart throbbed, and he beamed, as it were, all over when

the elder came out to the gates of the hermitage into the waiting crowd

of pilgrims of the humbler class who had flocked from all parts of

Russia on purpose to see the elder and obtain his blessing. They fell

down before him, wept, kissed his feet, kissed the earth on which he

stood, and wailed, while the women held up their children to him and

brought him the sick “possessed with devils.” The elder spoke to them,

read a brief prayer over them, blessed them, and dismissed them. Of

late he had become so weak through attacks of illness that he was

sometimes unable to leave his cell, and the pilgrims waited for him to

come out for several days. Alyosha did not wonder why they loved him

so, why they fell down before him and wept with emotion merely at

seeing his face. Oh! he understood that for the humble soul of the

Russian peasant, worn out by grief and toil, and still more by the

everlasting injustice and everlasting sin, his own and the world’s, it

was the greatest need and comfort to find some one or something holy to

fall down before and worship.

“Among us there is sin, injustice, and temptation, but yet, somewhere

on earth there is some one holy and exalted. He has the truth; he knows

the truth; so it is not dead upon the earth; so it will come one day to

us, too, and rule over all the earth according to the promise.”

Alyosha knew that this was just how the people felt and even reasoned.

He understood it, but that the elder Zossima was this saint and

custodian of God’s truth—of that he had no more doubt than the weeping

peasants and the sick women who held out their children to the elder.

The conviction that after his death the elder would bring extraordinary

glory to the monastery was even stronger in Alyosha than in any one

there, and, of late, a kind of deep flame of inner ecstasy burnt more

and more strongly in his heart. He was not at all troubled at this

elder’s standing as a solitary example before him.

“No matter. He is holy. He carries in his heart the secret of renewal

for all: that power which will, at last, establish truth on the earth,

and all men will be holy and love one another, and there will be no

more rich nor poor, no exalted nor humbled, but all will be as the

children of God, and the true Kingdom of Christ will come.” That was

the dream in Alyosha’s heart.

The arrival of his two brothers, whom he had not known till then,

seemed to make a great impression on Alyosha. He more quickly made

friends with his half-brother Dmitri (though he arrived later) than

with his own brother Ivan. He was extremely interested in his brother

Ivan, but when the latter had been two months in the town, though they

had met fairly often, they were still not intimate. Alyosha was

naturally silent, and he seemed to be expecting something, ashamed

about something, while his brother Ivan, though Alyosha noticed at

first that he looked long and curiously at him, seemed soon to have

left off thinking of him. Alyosha noticed it with some embarrassment.

He ascribed his brother’s indifference at first to the disparity of

their age and education. But he also wondered whether the absence of

curiosity and sympathy in Ivan might be due to some other cause

entirely unknown to him. He kept fancying that Ivan was absorbed in

something—something inward and important—that he was striving towards

some goal, perhaps very hard to attain, and that that was why he had no

thought for him. Alyosha wondered, too, whether there was not some

contempt on the part of the learned atheist for him—a foolish novice.

He knew for certain that his brother was an atheist. He could not take

offense at this contempt, if it existed; yet, with an uneasy

embarrassment which he did not himself understand, he waited for his

brother to come nearer to him. Dmitri used to speak of Ivan with the

deepest respect and with a peculiar earnestness. From him Alyosha

learnt all the details of the important affair which had of late formed

such a close and remarkable bond between the two elder brothers.

Dmitri’s enthusiastic references to Ivan were the more striking in

Alyosha’s eyes since Dmitri was, compared with Ivan, almost uneducated,

and the two brothers were such a contrast in personality and character

that it would be difficult to find two men more unlike.

It was at this time that the meeting, or, rather gathering of the

members of this inharmonious family took place in the cell of the elder

who had such an extraordinary influence on Alyosha. The pretext for

this gathering was a false one. It was at this time that the discord

between Dmitri and his father seemed at its acutest stage and their

relations had become insufferably strained. Fyodor Pavlovitch seems to

have been the first to suggest, apparently in joke, that they should

all meet in Father Zossima’s cell, and that, without appealing to his

direct intervention, they might more decently come to an understanding

under the conciliating influence of the elder’s presence. Dmitri, who

had never seen the elder, naturally supposed that his father was trying

to intimidate him, but, as he secretly blamed himself for his outbursts

of temper with his father on several recent occasions, he accepted the

challenge. It must be noted that he was not, like Ivan, staying with

his father, but living apart at the other end of the town. It happened

that Pyotr Alexandrovitch Miüsov, who was staying in the district at

the time, caught eagerly at the idea. A Liberal of the forties and

fifties, a freethinker and atheist, he may have been led on by boredom

or the hope of frivolous diversion. He was suddenly seized with the

desire to see the monastery and the holy man. As his lawsuit with the

monastery still dragged on, he made it the pretext for seeing the

Superior, in order to attempt to settle it amicably. A visitor coming

with such laudable intentions might be received with more attention and

consideration than if he came from simple curiosity. Influences from

within the monastery were brought to bear on the elder, who of late had

scarcely left his cell, and had been forced by illness to deny even his

ordinary visitors. In the end he consented to see them, and the day was

fixed.

“Who has made me a judge over them?” was all he said, smilingly, to

Alyosha.

Alyosha was much perturbed when he heard of the proposed visit. Of all

the wrangling, quarrelsome party, Dmitri was the only one who could

regard the interview seriously. All the others would come from

frivolous motives, perhaps insulting to the elder. Alyosha was well

aware of that. Ivan and Miüsov would come from curiosity, perhaps of

the coarsest kind, while his father might be contemplating some piece

of buffoonery. Though he said nothing, Alyosha thoroughly understood

his father. The boy, I repeat, was far from being so simple as every

one thought him. He awaited the day with a heavy heart. No doubt he was

always pondering in his mind how the family discord could be ended. But

his chief anxiety concerned the elder. He trembled for him, for his

glory, and dreaded any affront to him, especially the refined,

courteous irony of Miüsov and the supercilious half-utterances of the

highly educated Ivan. He even wanted to venture on warning the elder,

telling him something about them, but, on second thoughts, said

nothing. He only sent word the day before, through a friend, to his

brother Dmitri, that he loved him and expected him to keep his promise.

Dmitri wondered, for he could not remember what he had promised, but he

answered by letter that he would do his utmost not to let himself be

provoked “by vileness,” but that, although he had a deep respect for

the elder and for his brother Ivan, he was convinced that the meeting

was either a trap for him or an unworthy farce.

“Nevertheless I would rather bite out my tongue than be lacking in

respect to the sainted man whom you reverence so highly,” he wrote in

conclusion. Alyosha was not greatly cheered by the letter.