VIII. A Scandal

When Miusov and Ivan Fyodorovich were already going in to the abbot’s, there took place quickly in Pyotr Alexandrovich, as in a sincerely decent and delicate man, a certain process, delicate in its own way: he became ashamed of being angry. He felt to himself that he ought, in essence, to have so little respect for that trashy Fyodor Pavlovich that he should not have lost his composure in the elder’s cell and lost his head the way it had turned out. “At least the monks aren’t to blame for anything here,” he suddenly decided on the abbot’s porch, “and if they are decent people here too (this Father Nikolai, the abbot, is also of the nobility, it seems), then why not be nice, amiable, and courteous with them?… I won’t argue, I’ll even agree with them, I’ll win them over with amiability and… and… finally, I’ll prove to them that I am no companion of that Aesop, that buffoon, that Pierrot, and that I have been caught out just as they all have…”

As for the disputed timber-cutting rights in the wood and that fishing (where all this was he did not know himself), he decided to give them up to the monks finally, once and for all, that very day, the more so since it was all worth very little, and to drop all his lawsuits against the monastery.

All these good intentions were strengthened still more when they entered the Father Abbot’s dining room. He had no dining room, however, because in his whole lodging he had, properly speaking, only two rooms, much more spacious and comfortable, it is true, than the elder’s. But the furnishing of the rooms was not distinguished by any particular comfort either: the furniture was of leather and mahogany, in the old fashion of the twenties; even the floors were unpainted; but everything shone with cleanliness, and there were many expensive flowers in the windows; the chief luxury at that moment, though, was naturally the luxuriously laid table, although here too, speaking relatively: the tablecloth was clean, the dishes gleaming; there was excellently baked bread of three kinds, two bottles of wine, two bottles of magnificent monastery mead, and a big glass jug of the monastery kvass that was famous in the neighborhood. There was no vodka at all. Rakitin related afterward that the dinner had been prepared this time with five courses: there was fish soup with sterlet and little fish pies; then boiled fish, prepared in some excellent and special way; then cutlets of salmon, ice cream and stewed fruit, and finally a little kissel something like blancmange. All this Rakitin had sniffed out, unable to restrain himself and peeping on purpose into the abbot’s kitchen, where he also had his connections. He had connections everywhere and got information everywhere. He had a very restless and envious heart. He was entirely conscious of his considerable abilities, but in his conceit he exaggerated them nervously. He knew for certain that he would be a man of action in his way, but what tormented Alyosha, who was very much attached to him, was that his friend Rakitin was dishonest and decidedly not aware of it himself; on the contrary, knowing that he would not steal money from a table, he considered himself, once and for all, a man of the highest honesty. Here not only Alyosha but nobody at all could have done anything.

Rakitin, being a minor person, could not be invited to the dinner, but Father Iosif and Father Paisy had been invited, and with them one more hieromonk. They were already waiting in the abbot’s dining room when Pyotr Alexandrovich, Kalganov, and Ivan Fyodorovich came in. The landowner Maximov was waiting too, off to one side. The Father Abbot stepped forward into the middle of the room to meet his guests. He was a tall, lean, but still strong old man, black-haired, heavily streaked with gray, with a long, austere, and grave face. He greeted his guests with a silent bow, but this time they came up to receive his blessing. Miusov even ventured to kiss his hand, but the abbot somehow drew it back in time, and the kiss did not take place. Ivan Fyodorovich and Kalganov, on the other hand, received the blessing in full this time, that is, with the most simple-hearted, peasant-like smack on the hand.

“We must apologize profusely, Your Very Reverence,” Pyotr Alexandrovich began, grinning amiably, but all the same in a grave and respectful tone, “apologize for appearing alone, without our companion Fyodor Pavlovich, whom you invited; he has been obliged to forgo your repast, and not without reason. In the cell of the reverend Father Zosima, carried away by his unhappy family quarrel with his son, he uttered several words quite out of place… in a word, quite improper… which, it seems” (he glanced at the hieromonks), “Your Very Reverence already knows of. And therefore, being conscious of his guilt himself and sincerely repenting, he felt ashamed and, unable to overcome his shame, asked us, me and his son Ivan Fyodorovich, to express to you all his sincere regret, contrition, and repentance… In a word, he hopes and wishes to make amends for everything later, but now, asking your blessing, he begs you to forget what has happened…”

Miusov fell silent. Having uttered the last words of his tirade, he remained entirely pleased with himself, so much so that not a trace of his recent irritation was left in his soul. Fully and sincerely he loved mankind again. The abbot, having listened to him gravely, inclined his head slightly and said in reply:

“I feel deep regret for the one who has gone. Perhaps at our table he would have come to love us, as we would him. Pray, gentlemen, be seated and eat.”

He stood before the icon and began a prayer aloud. Everyone bowed their heads respectfully, and the landowner Maximov even put himself especially forward, pressing his palms together before him out of particular reverence.

And it was just then that Fyodor Pavlovich played his last trick. It must be noted that he really had meant to leave, and really had felt the impossibility, after his disgraceful behavior in the elder’s cell, of going to dinner at the abbot’s as if nothing had happened. Not that he was so very ashamed of himself or blamed himself; perhaps even quite the opposite; but all the same he felt that to go to dinner would be unseemly. But no sooner had his rattling carriage been brought round to the porch of the guesthouse than, already climbing into it, he suddenly paused. His own words at the elder’s came back to him: “It always seems to me, when I go in anywhere, that I am lower than everyone and that everyone takes me for a buffoon—so then let me really play the buffoon, because all of you, to the last man, are stupider and lower than I am.” He felt like taking revenge on everyone for his own dirty tricks. He suddenly recalled now, appropriately, how once, earlier, someone had asked him: “Why do you hate so-and-so so much?” And he had answered then, in a fit of his buffoonish shamelessness: “Here’s why: it’s true he has done nothing to me, but I played a most unscrupulous dirty trick on him, and as soon as I had played it, I hated him for it at once.” Remembering this now, he grinned quietly and spitefully in a moment’s reflection. His eyes flashed, and even his lips trembled. “Well, once I’ve begun, I may as well finish,” he suddenly decided. His innermost feeling at that moment could have been expressed in these words: “After all, I can’t rehabilitate myself now, so let me spit on them some more, to the point of shamelessness: I’m not ashamed of you, and that’s that!” He told the coachman to wait, and he himself went back with quick steps into the monastery and straight to the abbot’s. He did not yet know well what he would do, but he knew that he was no longer master of himself and that—at the slightest push—he would at once go now to the utmost limit of some vileness—only vileness, however, and by no means any crime or any such escapade as a court might punish. In the latter case he always knew how to restrain himself, and was even amazed at himself on that score on some occasions. He appeared in the abbot’s dining room at the very moment when the prayer had ended and everyone was moving to the table. Stopping on the threshold, he looked the company over and laughed a long, insolent, malicious little laugh, boldly looking everyone in the eye.

“And they thought I’d left, and here I am!” he cried to the whole room.

For a moment everyone stared straight at him and was silent, and suddenly everyone felt that something disgusting and absurd was about to come of this, with an undoubted scandal. Pyotr Alexandrovich passed at once from the most benign mood to the most ferocious. Everything that had died down and gone quiet in his heart rose up again all at once and came to life. “No, I cannot bear this!” he cried. “I cannot at all, and… I cannot in any way!”

The blood rushed to his head. He even got muddled, but this was no time for style, and he seized his hat.

“What is it he can’t?” cried Fyodor Pavlovich. “‘Cannot in any way, and cannot by any means’? Your Reverence, am I to come in or not? Will you receive a fellow guest at table?”

“You are welcome with all our hearts,” the abbot answered. “Gentlemen! May I allow myself,” he suddenly added, “to beg you from the depths of my soul to set aside your chance quarrels and come together in love and kindred harmony, with prayer to the Lord, at our humble table…”

“No, no, it is impossible,” Pyotr Alexandrovich cried, as if beside himself.

“And if it’s impossible for Pyotr Alexandrovich, then it’s impossible for me too, and I won’t stay. That’s what I came for. From now on I’ll go everywhere with Pyotr Alexandrovich: if you leave, Pyotr Alexandrovich, I’ll go too; if you stay, I’ll stay too. You stung him most of all with that kindred harmony, Father Abbot: he doesn’t acknowledge himself as my kinsman! Isn’t that so, von Sohn? And there stands von Sohn. Hello, von Sohn.”

“You… mean me, sir?” muttered the astonished landowner Maximov.

“Of course I mean you,” Fyodor Pavlovich shouted. “Who else? The Father Abbot can hardly be von Sohn!”

“But I’m not von Sohn either, I’m Maximov.”

“No, you’re von Sohn. Your Reverence, do you know what von Sohn is? There was a criminal case like that: he was murdered in a house of fornication—that, I believe, is what such places are called among you—murdered and robbed, and in spite of his venerable years, he was nailed into a box, sealed up, and sent from Petersburg to Moscow in the baggage car, with a number on it. And while they were nailing him in, the harlot dancing girls sang songs and played on the psaltery, that is, on the pianoforty. So this is that very same von Sohn. He has risen from the dead, isn’t that so, von Sohn?”

“What is this? What does this mean?” voices were heard among the group of hieromonks.

“Let’s go!” Pyotr Alexandrovich shouted, turning to Kalganov.

“No, sir, allow me!” Fyodor Pavlovich interrupted shrilly, taking another step into the room. “Allow me to finish too. There in the cell I was given a bad name for having behaved disrespectfully, namely for shouting about gudgeons. Pyotr Alexandrovich Miusov, my kinsman, likes there to be plus de noblesse que de sincérité (more nobility than sincerity) in what one says, while I, conversely, like there to be plus de sincérité que de noblesse in what I say, and—to hell with noblesse! Isn’t that so, von Sohn? Allow me, Father Abbot, though I am a buffoon and play the buffoon, I am a knight of honor and I want to speak my mind. Yes, sir, I am a knight of honor, and in Pyotr Alexandrovich there is wounded vanity and nothing more. Perhaps I even came here today just to have a look and speak my mind. My son Alexei is here working out his salvation; I am his father, I care about his fate, and I must care. I kept listening and play-acting, and watching on the quiet, and now I want to perform the last act of the performance for you as well. How is it with us, after all? With us, whatever falls stays lying. With us, whatever has once fallen must lie there forever and ever. Not on your life, sir! I wish to get up. Holy Fathers, you make me indignant. Confession is a great sacrament, before which I too stand in awe and am ready to prostrate myself, but there in the cell, suddenly, they are all on their little knees, confessing out loud. Is it really permitted to confess out loud? The holy Fathers established confession in the ear; only then will your confession be a sacrament, and that has been so from of old. Otherwise how am I going to explain to him in front of everybody that I, for instance, this and that… well, I mean this and that, you understand? Sometimes it’s even indecent to say it. Why, it’s a scandal! No, Fathers, with you here one might get drawn into the Khlysty, I dare say… I’ll write to the Synod at the first opportunity, and my son Alexei I’ll take home…”

Here, a nota bene. Fyodor Pavlovich had heard bells ringing somewhere. There had once been malicious gossip, reaching even the bishop (not only about our monastery but about others where the institution of elders had been established), that the elders were supposedly too much respected, even to the detriment of the abbot’s rank, and that, among other things, the elders supposedly abused the sacrament of confession, and so on, and so on. These were absurd accusations, which in their time died away of themselves, both here and everywhere. But the stupid devil that had caught up Fyodor Pavlovich and was carrying him on his own nerves somewhere farther and farther into the depths of disgrace prompted him with this former accusation, of which Fyodor Pavlovich himself did not understand the first word. And he could not even state it properly, the more so since this time nobody in the elder’s cell had been kneeling or confessing aloud, so that Fyodor Pavlovich could not have seen anything of the kind himself and was speaking only from old rumors and gossip that he had somehow recalled. But, having spoken his stupidity, he felt that he had blurted out absurd nonsense, and suddenly he wanted to prove at once to his listeners, and most of all to himself, that what he had said was not nonsense at all. And although he knew perfectly well that with each further word he would add to the nonsense already spoken more of the same, still more absurd, he could no longer hold himself back and went flying as if downhill.

“How vile!” cried Pyotr Alexandrovich.

“Forgive me,” the abbot said suddenly. “It was said of old: ‘And he began to speak many things against me, even to certain foul things. But I, having heard it all, said within myself: Behold, this is the medicine of Jesus, and he has sent it to heal my vainglorious soul.’ And therefore we too thank you humbly, precious guest!”

And he bowed to Fyodor Pavlovich from the waist.

“Tut-tut-tut! Sanctimony and old phrases! Old phrases and old gestures! The old lies and the official routine of bowing to the ground! We know these bows! ‘A kiss on the lips and a dagger in the heart,’ as in Schiller’s Robbers. I don’t like falseness, Fathers, I want the truth! But the truth is not in gudgeons, and I have proclaimed it! Father monks, why do you fast? Why do you expect a reward for it in heaven? Why, for a reward like that I’ll go and fast too! No, holy monk, you try being virtuous in life, be of use to society, without shutting yourself up in a monastery with your bread provided and without expecting a reward up there; now that will be a bit harder. I can speak smoothly too, you see, Father Abbot. What have they got ready here?” He went up to the table. “Old Factory port, Médoc bottled by the Yeliseyev Brothers, well done, Fathers! It doesn’t look much like gudgeons. Just look at all the little bottles the Fathers have set out, heh-heh-heh! And who supplied all this? It’s the Russian peasant, the toiler, who brings here the kopeck earned by his callused hands, tearing it away from his family and from the needs of the state! Why, holy Fathers, you suck the people’s blood!”

“That is quite unworthy on your part,” said Father Iosif. Father Paisy stubbornly kept silent. Miusov rushed out of the room, and Kalganov after him.

“Well, Fathers, I’ll follow Pyotr Alexandrovich too! I won’t come to you again; you can beg me on your knees, I won’t come. I sent you a thousand little rubles, so you’ve pricked up your little eyes again, heh-heh-heh! No, I won’t add any more. I’m taking revenge for my bygone youth, for all my humiliation!” He began pounding the table with his fist in a fit of manufactured feeling. “This little monastery has meant much in my life! Many bitter tears I have shed because of it! You turned my wife, the shrieker, against me. You cursed me at seven councils, you spread it all over the neighborhood! Enough, Fathers, this is a liberal age, the age of steamships and railroads. Not a thousand, not a hundred rubles, not a hundred kopecks, you’ll get nothing from me!”

Again a nota bene. Our monastery had never meant anything special in his life, and he had never shed any bitter tears because of it. But he was so carried away by his manufactured tears that for one moment he almost believed himself; he very nearly wept from tender emotion; but at that same instant he felt that it was time to turn the shafts around. In answer to his malicious lie the abbot inclined his head and again said impressively:

“It is said again: ‘Endure with discernment and with joy the dishonor that comes upon you unbidden, and be not confounded, nor hate the one who dishonors you.’ So shall we do.”

“Tut-tut-tut, ‘and they did deem’! and the rest of that gibberish! Go on deeming, Fathers, and I’ll be off. And I am taking my son Alexei away from here forever by my parental authority. Ivan Fyodorovich, my most respectful son, allow me to order you to follow me! Von Sohn, why should you stay here? Come to my place in town right now. It’s jolly at my place. It’s only a little verst or so; instead of Lenten oil I’ll serve you suckling pig with kasha; we’ll have dinner; I’ll put out some cognac, then some liqueur; there’s mamurovka… Hey, von Sohn, don’t let your happiness slip away!”

He went out, shouting and gesticulating. It was at that very moment that Rakitin saw him coming out and pointed him out to Alyosha.

“Alexei!” his father shouted to him from a distance, catching sight of him. “Move to my house for good this very day, and bring your pillow and mattress, and don’t let even the smell of you be left here.”

Alyosha stood rooted to the spot, silently and attentively watching the scene. Meanwhile Fyodor Pavlovich climbed into the carriage, and after him, without even turning to Alyosha to say goodbye, Ivan Fyodorovich silently and sullenly began to climb in. But here yet another clownish and almost incredible scene took place, which rounded off the episode. Suddenly the landowner Maximov appeared at the step of the carriage. He had come running, out of breath, so as not to be late. Rakitin and Alyosha had seen him running. He was in such a hurry that in his impatience he had already put his foot on the step, where Ivan Fyodorovich’s left foot was still standing, and, grabbing hold of the body of the carriage, he began trying to jump in.

“Me too, me too, I’m coming with you!” he kept crying out, hopping up and down, laughing a little merry laugh, with bliss on his face and ready for anything. “Take me too!”

“Well, didn’t I say,” Fyodor Pavlovich shouted in delight, “that this is von Sohn! That this is the real von Sohn, risen from the dead! But how did you break away from there? What von-Sohnery have you been up to there, and how could the likes of you leave a dinner? One must have a brazen face for that! I have a brazen face, but I’m amazed at yours, brother! Jump, jump in quickly! Let him in, Vanya, it will be jolly. He can lie somewhere here at our feet. Will you lie at our feet, von Sohn? Or shall we perch him on the box with the coachman?… Jump up on the box, von Sohn!…”

But Ivan Fyodorovich, who had already taken his seat, silently and with all his might suddenly shoved Maximov in the chest, and Maximov went flying back a whole sazhen, a good seven feet. If he did not fall, it was only by chance.

“Drive on!” Ivan Fyodorovich shouted angrily to the coachman.

“Well, what’s the matter with you? What’s the matter with you? Why did you do that to him?” Fyodor Pavlovich flared up, but the carriage was already moving. Ivan Fyodorovich did not answer.

“Just look at you!” Fyodor Pavlovich said again after two minutes of silence, looking askance at his son. “It was you yourself who thought up this whole monastery business, you yourself egged me on, you yourself approved of it, so why are you angry now?”

“Stop pounding out nonsense; rest a little now, at least,” Ivan Fyodorovich snapped sternly.

Fyodor Pavlovich was silent again for some two minutes.

“A little cognac would be good now,” he remarked sententiously. But Ivan Fyodorovich did not answer.

“When we get there, you’ll have a drink too.”

Ivan Fyodorovich was still silent.

Fyodor Pavlovich waited another two minutes or so.

“But I’ll take Alyoshka out of the monastery all the same, even though it will be very unpleasant for you, most respectful Karl von Moor.”

Ivan Fyodorovich shrugged his shoulders contemptuously and, turning away, began to look at the road. After that they did not speak again all the way home.