III. From the Talks and Teachings of the Elder Zosima

(e) Something About the Russian Monk and His Possible Significance

Fathers and teachers, what is a monk? In the enlightened world this word is now uttered by some with mockery, and by others even as a term of abuse. And the further it goes, the worse. It is true, oh, it is true, that in monasticism too there are many idlers, gratifiers of the flesh, lovers of pleasure, and insolent vagabonds. Educated people of the world point to this: “You are lazy,” they say, “and useless members of society, you live off other people’s labor, you are shameless beggars.” And yet how many there are in monasticism who are humble and meek, who thirst for solitude and for ardent prayer in silence. These are pointed to less, and are even passed over in silence altogether, and how amazed people would be if I said that from these meek ones, who thirst for solitary prayer, the salvation of the Russian land will perhaps come forth once again! For truly they are being made ready in silence “for the day and the hour, and the month and the year.” For the present, in their solitude, they preserve Christ’s image seemly and undistorted, in the purity of God’s truth, as they received it from the most ancient fathers, apostles, and martyrs, and when the time comes they will reveal it to the wavering truth of the world. This is a great thought. From the East this star will shine forth.

So I think of the monk, and can it be false, can it be arrogant? Look at the worldly, at the whole world that exalts itself above the people of God: has not the image of God and his truth been distorted in it? They have science, and in science only what is subject to the senses. But the spiritual world, the higher half of man’s being, is rejected altogether, driven out with a kind of triumph, even with hatred. The world has proclaimed freedom, especially of late, and what do we see in this freedom of theirs? Slavery alone, and suicide! For the world says: “You have needs, and therefore satisfy them, for you have the same rights as the noblest and richest of men. Do not be afraid to satisfy them, but even multiply them”—that is the present teaching of the world. And in this they see freedom. And what comes of this right to multiply one’s needs? Among the rich, isolation and spiritual suicide, and among the poor, envy and murder, for they have been given the rights, but have not yet been shown the means to satisfy their needs. They assure us that the world, the further it goes, the more it is united and built up into a brotherly communion, because it shortens distances and sends thoughts through the air. Alas, do not believe in such a union of men. Taking freedom to mean the multiplying and the swift quenching of needs, they distort their own nature, for they breed in themselves a host of senseless and foolish desires, habits, and the most absurd inventions. They live only for envy of one another, for the pleasures of the flesh, and for show. To have dinners, carriages and horses, rank, and slaves to wait on them is already held to be such a necessity that for its sake, to satisfy this necessity, they sacrifice even life, honor, and the love of mankind, and they even kill themselves if they cannot satisfy it. Among those who are not rich we see the same thing, while among the poor the unquenched needs and the envy are drowned for the time being in drink. But soon, instead of wine, they will drink their fill of blood as well; that is where they are being led. I ask you: is such a man free? I knew one “fighter for an idea” who told me himself that when they took his tobacco from him in prison, he was so tormented by this deprivation that he very nearly went and betrayed his “idea,” only so that they would give him tobacco. And yet a man like that says: “I am going to fight for mankind.” Well, where will such a man go, and what is he capable of? Of some quick deed, perhaps, but he will not hold out for long. And it is no wonder that instead of freedom they have fallen into slavery, and instead of serving brotherly love and human unity they have fallen, on the contrary, into separation and isolation, as my mysterious visitor and teacher told me in my youth. And therefore in the world the thought of serving mankind, of the brotherhood and wholeness of men, is dying out more and more, and truly this thought is now met even with mockery, for how is he to give up his habits, where is this slave to go, if he is so used to quenching the countless needs that he himself has invented? He is in isolation, and what is the whole to him? And they have come to this, that they have heaped up more things, and there is less joy.

The monastic way is another matter. People even laugh at obedience, fasting, and prayer, and yet in them alone lies the way to real, to true freedom: I cut away from myself needs that are superfluous and unnecessary, I humble my self-loving and proud will and scourge it with obedience, and by this, with God’s help, I reach freedom of the spirit, and spiritual gladness along with it! Which of them is more able to lift up a great thought and go to serve it: the rich man in his isolation, or this one who has been set free from the tyranny of things and habits? The monk is reproached with his isolation: “You have isolated yourself to save your own soul within the monastery walls, and forgotten the brotherly service of mankind.” But we shall see yet who will be the more zealous for brotherly love. For the isolation is not with us but with them, only they do not see it. And from among us men of action for the people came forth in olden times, so why should there not be such men now as well? The same humble and meek ones, the fasters and keepers of silence, will rise up and go forth to the great work. The salvation of Russia is from the people. And the Russian monastery has been with the people from of old. If the people are in isolation, then we are in isolation too. The people believe as we do, and an unbelieving man of action will accomplish nothing here in Russia, even if he is sincere in heart and a genius in mind. Remember this. The people will confront the atheist and overcome him, and there will be one Orthodox Russia. Cherish the people, then, and guard their heart. Bring them up in quiet. That is your monastic feat, for this people is a bearer of God.

(f) Something About Masters and Servants, and Whether It Is Possible for Masters and Servants to Become Brothers to One Another in Spirit

Lord, who denies it, there is sin among the people too. And the flame of corruption is spreading even visibly, by the hour, and it comes from above. Isolation is setting in among the people too: kulaks and commune-eaters are appearing; already the merchant wants honors more and more, strives to show himself educated while having no education whatever, and for this he basely scorns ancient custom and is ashamed even of the faith of his fathers. He calls on princes, and yet all he is himself is a spoiled peasant. The people have festered with drunkenness and can no longer give it up. And how much cruelty toward the family, toward the wife, even toward the children; all from drunkenness. I have seen in factories children even ten years old: sickly, wasted, stooped, and already depraved. A stifling workroom, a pounding machine, work the whole God-given day, foul words and drink, drink, and is that what the soul of so small a child needs? He needs the sun, children’s games, and everywhere a bright example, and at least a drop of love for him. Let this not be, monks, let there be no torturing of children; rise up and preach this, quickly, quickly. But God will save Russia, for though the common man is depraved and can no longer deny himself his stinking sin, still he knows that his stinking sin is cursed by God and that he does wrong in sinning. So that our people still believe tirelessly in righteousness, acknowledge God, weep with tender feeling. Not so the higher ones. They, following science, want to arrange themselves justly by their own minds alone, but now without Christ, as before, and they have already declared that there is no crime, there is no sin any longer. And by their lights that is right: for if you have no God, then what crime can there be? In Europe the people are rising against the rich by force already, and the people’s leaders everywhere lead them to blood and teach them that their wrath is just. But “cursed be their wrath, for it is cruel.” But the Lord will save Russia, as he has saved her many times already. Salvation will come from the people, from their faith and their humility. Fathers and teachers, guard the faith of the people, and this is no dream: all my life I have been struck by the true and seemly dignity of our great people; I have seen it myself, I can bear witness myself, I have seen it and marveled, seen it in spite of the very stench of the sins and the beggarly look of our people. They are not servile, and that after two centuries of slavery. Free in look and manner, but without giving any offense. And not vengeful, and not envious. “You are highborn, you are rich, you are clever and talented—so be it, God bless you. I honor you, but I know that I too am a man. In that I honor you without envy, in that very thing I show you my human dignity.” Truly, if they do not say this (for they do not yet know how to say it), then they act so; I have seen it myself, I have tried it myself, and would you believe it: the poorer and lower our Russian man is, the more this seemly truth can be seen in him, for the rich among them, the kulaks and commune-eaters, are in great numbers already corrupted, and much, much of this has come from our own negligence and lack of care! But God will save his own, for great is Russia in her humility. I dream of seeing, and as it were already see clearly, our future: for it will come to pass that even the most corrupted of our rich men will end by being ashamed of his riches before the poor man, and the poor man, seeing this humility, will understand and give way to him with joy, and will answer his seemly shame with kindness. Believe that it will end so: that is where it is going. Only in man’s spiritual dignity is there equality, and this will be understood only among us. Let there be brothers, and there will be brotherhood, but until there is brotherhood they will never share among themselves. The image of Christ is in our keeping, and it will shine out to all the world like a precious diamond… So be it, so be it!

Fathers and teachers, a thing once happened to me that moved me deeply. In my wanderings I once met, in the provincial town of K., my former orderly Afanasy, and by then eight years had already gone by since I had parted from him. He caught sight of me by chance in the marketplace, knew me, ran up to me, and, God, how glad he was, he simply rushed at me: “Father, sir, is it you? Can it really be you I see?” He took me home with him. He was already out of the service, had married, and had already had two babes. He and his spouse lived by petty trade from a stall in the market. His little room was poor, but clean and cheerful. He sat me down, put on the samovar, sent for his wife, as though I had made some holiday for him by appearing at his house. He brought his little ones to me: “Bless them, Father.” “Is it for me to bless?” I answer him. “I am a simple and humble monk; I will pray to God for them, and for you, Afanasy Pavlovich, I pray to God always, every day, ever since that very day, for it was from you,” I say, “that everything came.” And I explained it to him as best I could. And what does the man do? He looks at me and still cannot picture to himself that I, his former master, an officer, am before him now in such a state and in such clothes: he even began to weep. “Why are you weeping,” I say to him, “you unforgettable man, you had better rejoice for me in your soul, my dear, for my path is joyful and bright.” He said little, but kept sighing and shaking his head at me tenderly. “Where is your fortune, then?” he asks. I answer him: “I gave it to the monastery, and we live in common.” After tea I began to take leave of them, and suddenly he brought me out a fifty-kopeck piece, an offering for the monastery, and another fifty-kopeck piece, I see, he is pressing into my hand, in a hurry: “This one is for you,” he says, “a wanderer, a traveler; it may come in handy for you, Father.” I accepted his fifty kopecks, bowed to him and to his spouse, and went away gladdened, and thought on the road: “Here we both are now, he at home and I on my way, sighing, no doubt, and smiling joyfully, in the gladness of our hearts, shaking our heads and remembering how God brought us to meet.” And I never saw him again from that day on. I was his master and he was my servant, and now, as we kissed each other lovingly and in spiritual tenderness, a great human union had come about between us. I have thought much about this, and now I think thus: is it so beyond the reach of the mind that this great and simple-hearted union might come about in its own time, and everywhere, among our Russian people? I believe that it will come about, and the time is near.

And about servants I will add the following: as a youth I used to be very angry with servants: “the cook served it too hot, the orderly did not brush my clothes.” But then a thought of my dear brother’s suddenly shone upon me, one I had heard from him in my childhood: “Am I worth it, such as I am, that another should serve me, and that I should order him about for his poverty and his ignorance?” And I marveled then and there that the simplest thoughts, plain to the eye, come so late into our minds. Without servants there is no managing in the world, but so act that your servant is freer in spirit than if he were not a servant. And why can I not be a servant to my servant, and in such a way that he even sees it, and without any pride on my part, or disbelief on his? Why should my servant not be like my own kin, so that I take him at last into my family and rejoice at it? Even now this is quite possible to accomplish, and it will serve as the foundation for the future, already magnificent union of men, when man will not seek servants for himself, and will not wish to turn people like himself into servants, as he does now, but on the contrary will wish with all his might to become himself the servant of all, according to the Gospel. And can it be a dream that in the end man will find his joys only in deeds of enlightenment and mercy, and not in cruel joys as now—in gluttony, fornication, swagger, boasting, and the envious lording of one over another? I firmly believe that it is not, and that the time is near. People laugh and ask: when will this time come, and does it look as though it will come? But I think that with Christ we shall settle this great matter. And how many ideas have there been on earth, in human history, that were unthinkable even ten years before and that suddenly appeared when their mysterious hour had come, and swept over the whole earth? So it will be with us as well, and our people will shine out upon the world, and all people will say: “The stone that the builders rejected has been made the head of the corner.” And the mockers themselves ought to be asked: if ours is a dream, then when will you put up your building and arrange yourselves justly by your minds alone, without Christ? And if they themselves assert that they, on the contrary, are the ones moving toward union, then truly only the most simple-hearted of them believe it, so that one may even marvel at such simple-heartedness. Truly they have more of dreamy fantasy than we do. They mean to arrange themselves justly, but, having rejected Christ, they will end by flooding the world with blood, for blood calls to blood, and he who has drawn the sword will perish by the sword. And were it not for Christ’s promise, they would destroy one another even to the last two men on earth. And even these last two would not, in their pride, be able to hold each other back, so that the last would destroy the next to last, and then himself as well. And so it would come to pass, were it not for Christ’s promise that for the sake of the meek and humble this thing shall be cut short. Back then, still in an officer’s uniform, after my duel, I began to speak about servants in society, and everyone, I remember, wondered at me: “What, then,” they said, “are we to sit our servant on the sofa and serve him tea?” And I answered them then: “And why not, if only now and then?” Everyone laughed at the time. Their question was frivolous and my answer unclear, but I think there was some truth in it all the same.

(g) About Prayer, About Love, and About Contact with Other Worlds

Young man, do not forget prayer. Each time in your prayer, if it is sincere, a new feeling will flash forth, and in it a new thought as well, one you did not know before and that will encourage you afresh; and you will understand that prayer is an education. And remember this: each day, and whenever you are able, say over to yourself: “Lord, have mercy on all who have come before you today.” For every hour and every moment thousands of people leave their life on this earth and their souls come to stand before the Lord—and how many of them have parted from the earth cut off from all, known to no one, in sadness and anguish that no one will grieve for them or even know of them at all: whether they lived or not. And so, perhaps, from the other end of the earth your prayer too will rise up to the Lord for his repose, though you did not know him at all, nor he you. How moving it is for his soul, standing in fear before the Lord, to feel at that moment that someone is praying for him too, that there remains on earth a human being who loves him as well. And God, too, will look more mercifully on you both, for if you have pitied him so, how much more will he pity him, he who is infinitely more merciful and loving than you. And he will forgive him for your sake.

Brothers, do not be afraid of men’s sin, love man even in his sin, for that is already a likeness of divine love and is the height of love on earth. Love all of God’s creation, the whole of it and every grain of sand. Love each little leaf, each ray of God’s light. Love the animals, love the plants, love every thing. If you love every thing, you will perceive the mystery of God in things. Once you have perceived it, you will begin to know it ceaselessly, further and further, more and more, every day. And in the end you will love the whole world with a love that is entire and universal. Love the animals: God has given them the beginnings of thought and a joy untroubled. Do not trouble it, then, do not torment them, do not take their joy from them, do not go against God’s thought. Man, do not exalt yourself above the animals: they are without sin, while you with your grandeur make the earth fester by your coming upon it and leave your festering trail behind you—alas, almost all of us! Love children above all, for they too are without sin, like the angels, and they live to move us to tenderness, to purify our hearts, and as a kind of guidance for us. Woe to him who offends a little child. And it was Father Anfim who taught me to love children: he, dear and silent in our wanderings, would buy them gingerbread and sugar candy with the coppers given us as alms and hand them out; he could not pass by children without his soul being shaken: such a man he was.

Before some thoughts you will stand perplexed, especially when you see men’s sin, and you will ask yourself: “Shall I take it by force, or by humble love?” Always decide: “I will take it by humble love.” If you resolve on this once and for all, you may be able to conquer the whole world. Loving humility is a terrible power, the strongest of all, and there is nothing like it. Every day and hour, every minute, walk round yourself and watch over yourself, that your image may be seemly. You have passed by a little child, say, passed by in spite, with a foul word, with a wrathful soul; you may not even have noticed the child, but he saw you, and your image, unsightly and ungodly, may have stayed in his defenseless little heart. You did not know it, but you may already have cast a bad seed into him by this, and it may grow, I dare say, and all because you did not guard yourself before the child, because you had not nurtured in yourself a heedful, active love. Brothers, love is a teacher, but one must know how to gain it, for it is hard to gain, it is dearly bought, by long labor and over a long time, for one must love not only for a chance moment but for all time. Anyone can love by chance; even a villain can love. My young brother asked forgiveness of the birds: it seems senseless, as it were, and yet it is true, for all is like an ocean, all flows and touches; touch it in one place, and it echoes at the other end of the world. Let it be madness to ask forgiveness of the birds, but it would be easier for the birds, and for the child, and for every animal around you, if you yourself were more seemly than you are now, if only by a single drop. All is like an ocean, I tell you. Then you would begin to pray to the birds too, tormented by an all-embracing love, as if in some kind of rapture, and you would pray that they too might forgive you your sin. Treasure this rapture, however senseless it may seem to people.

My friends, ask God for gladness. Be glad like children, like the birds of heaven. And do not let men’s sin confuse you in your labors; do not fear that it will wear away your work and keep it from being accomplished; do not say: “Sin is strong, ungodliness is strong, our foul surroundings are strong, and we are alone and powerless; the foul surroundings will wear us down and keep our good labor from being accomplished.” Flee this despondency, children! There is only one salvation for you here: take yourself and make yourself answerable for all the sin of men. Friend, this is truly so, for the moment you sincerely make yourself answerable for everything and for everyone, you will see at once that it really is so, and that it is you who are guilty for everyone and for everything. But by throwing your own laziness and your own powerlessness onto others, you will end by sharing in Satan’s pride and murmuring against God. Of Satan’s pride I think thus: it is hard for us on earth even to comprehend it, and therefore how easy it is to fall into error and share in it, and that while supposing that we are doing something great and beautiful. And many of the strongest feelings and impulses of our nature we cannot comprehend while we are on earth; do not be led astray by this either, and do not think that it can serve you in any way as a justification, for the eternal judge will ask of you what you could comprehend, and not what you could not; you will be convinced of it yourself, for then you will see all things rightly and will no longer dispute. On earth, truly, we are as it were wandering, and were it not for the precious image of Christ before us, we would perish and lose our way altogether, like mankind before the Flood. Much on earth is concealed from us, but in return we have been given a secret, hidden sense of our living bond with another world, with a world on high, a higher world; and our thoughts and feelings have their roots not here but in other worlds. That is why philosophers say that the essence of things cannot be comprehended on earth. God took seeds from other worlds and sowed them on this earth and grew his garden, and everything that could come up came up, but what has grown lives and is alive only through its sense of contact with mysterious other worlds; if this sense grows weak or is destroyed in you, then what has grown in you dies as well. Then you will become indifferent to life and even come to hate it. So I think.

(h) Can One Be the Judge of One’s Fellow Men? About Faith to the End

Remember above all that you cannot be anyone’s judge. For there can be no judge of a criminal on earth until the judge himself knows that he too is just such a criminal as the one standing before him, and that he, for the crime of the one standing before him, is perhaps more guilty than anyone. When he has grasped this, then he will be able to be a judge as well. However mad it may seem, this is the truth. For if I myself were righteous, perhaps there would be no criminal standing before me. If you are able to take upon yourself the crime of the criminal who stands before you and whom your heart is judging, then take it upon yourself at once and suffer for him yourself, and release him without reproach. Even if the law itself has appointed you his judge, act even then in this spirit, as far as you possibly can, for he will go off and pass a harsher sentence on himself than yours would have been. And if he goes away from your kiss unmoved and laughing at you, do not be led astray by this either: it means that his time has not yet come, but it will come in its own time; and if it does not come, it is all the same: if not he, then another in his place will come to know, and will suffer, and will condemn and accuse himself, and the truth will be made complete. Believe this, believe it without a doubt, for in this very thing lies all the hope and all the faith of the saints.

Act without tiring. If, lying down to sleep at night, you recall: “I did not fulfill what I ought to have done,” then rise at once and fulfill it. If those about you are spiteful and unfeeling and do not want to listen to you, fall down before them and ask their forgiveness, for truly you too are guilty in this, that they will not listen to you. And if you can no longer speak with the embittered, serve them in silence and in self-abasement, never losing hope. And if all abandon you and even drive you out by force, then, left alone, fall upon the earth and kiss it, water it with your tears, and the earth will bring forth fruit from your tears, though no one has seen you or heard you in your solitude. Believe to the end, though it should even come about that all on earth went astray and you alone remained faithful: bring your offering even then and praise God, you who alone remain. And if two of you such come together, then there is the whole world already, a world of living love; embrace one another with tender feeling and praise the Lord: for, if only in the two of you, his truth has been made complete.

If you sin yourself and grieve even to death over your sins, or over your sudden sin, then rejoice for another, rejoice for the righteous one, rejoice that if you have sinned, he, for his part, is righteous and has not sinned.

But if the villainy of men stirs you to indignation and to a sorrow past all overcoming, even to the desire for vengeance on the evildoers, then fear that feeling most of all; go at once and seek torments for yourself, as though you yourself were guilty of that villainy of men. Take these torments upon yourself and endure them, and your heart will be appeased, and you will understand that you too are guilty, for you could have been a light to the evildoers, even as the only sinless one, and you were not a light. Had you been a light, you would have lit the path for others too with your light, and the one who did the villainy would perhaps not have done it in your light. And even if you were a light, but you see that people are not saved even by your light, then remain steadfast and do not doubt the power of the heavenly light; believe that if they have not been saved now, they will be saved later. And if they are not saved later either, their sons will be saved, for your light does not die, even though you have died. The righteous one goes away, but his light stays behind. And it is always after the death of the one who saves that men are saved. The human race does not receive its prophets and slays them, but men love their martyrs and honor those whom they have tortured to death. You, though, are working for the whole, you are acting for the time to come. Never seek a reward, for great is your reward on this earth already without it: your spiritual joy, which only the righteous man finds. Fear neither the great nor the mighty, but be wise and always seemly. Know the measure, know the times, learn this. And when you remain in solitude, pray. Love to fall down upon the earth and kiss it. Kiss the earth and love it ceaselessly, insatiably, love all men, love all things, seek this rapture and this ecstasy. Drench the earth with the tears of your joy, and love these tears of yours. And do not be ashamed of this ecstasy, treasure it, for it is a gift of God, a great gift, and it is not given to many, but to the chosen.

(i) About Hell and Hellfire: A Mystical Discourse

Fathers and teachers, I ponder: “What is hell?” And I reason thus: “The suffering of being no longer able to love.” Once, in infinite existence, measureless by time or by space, a certain spiritual being was given, through his appearance on earth, the power to say to himself: “I am, and I love.” Once, only once, was it granted him to have a moment of active, living love, and for this earthly life was given him, and with it times and seasons, and what then? This fortunate being rejected the priceless gift, did not prize it, did not come to love it, looked upon it with mockery, and remained unfeeling. Such a one, having departed from the earth, sees Abraham’s bosom and speaks with Abraham, as we are shown in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, and beholds paradise, and may go up to the Lord, but he is tormented precisely by this, that he will go up to the Lord, he who did not love, and come into contact with those who loved, he who scorned their love. For he sees clearly and says to himself now: “Now I have knowledge, and though I have come to thirst to love, there will be no feat in my love now, nor any sacrifice, for earthly life is over, and Abraham will not come with even a drop of living water (that is, with the gift of earthly life again, the former, active life) to cool the flame of the thirst for spiritual love with which I burn now, having scorned it on earth; there is no more life, and there will be no more time! Though I would gladly give my very life for others, it is no longer possible, for that life is past which could have been brought as a sacrifice to love, and now there is an abyss between that life and this existence.” People speak of the material fire of hell: I do not search into this mystery, and I fear it, but I think that if there were material fire, then truly they would be glad of it, for, as I imagine it, in material torment they would forget, if only for a moment, the more terrible spiritual torment. And this spiritual torment cannot be taken from them, for this torment is not outside them but within. And if it could be taken away, then, I think, they would be made still more bitterly unhappy by it. For though the righteous in paradise, seeing their torments, might forgive them and call them to themselves, loving them infinitely, by that very thing they would multiply their torments still more, for they would kindle in them still more strongly the flame of thirst for an answering, active, and grateful love, which is no longer possible. In the timidity of my heart I think, however, that the very awareness of this impossibility would serve them at last as a relief, for, accepting the love of the righteous with no possibility of repaying it, in this submission and in the working of this humility they will find at last a kind of semblance of that active love which they scorned on earth, and something like an action akin to it… I am sorry, my brothers and friends, that I do not know how to say this clearly. But woe to those who have destroyed themselves on earth, woe to the suicides! I think that there can be none more unhappy than they. It is a sin, we are told, to pray to God for them, and outwardly the church seems to reject them, but in the secret of my soul I think that one might pray even for them. For Christ will surely not be angry at love. For such as these I have prayed inwardly all my life, I confess it to you, fathers and teachers, and I pray for them every day even now.

Oh, there are some in hell too who remain proud and fierce, despite indisputable knowledge and the contemplation of irresistible truth; there are terrible ones who have given themselves wholly to Satan and to his proud spirit. For them hell is voluntary and insatiable; they are martyrs of their own free will. For they have cursed themselves, having cursed God and life. They feed on their own spiteful pride, as if a starving man in the desert should begin to suck his own blood from his own body. But they are insatiable forever and ever, and they reject forgiveness, they curse the God who calls them. Without hatred they cannot look upon the living God, and they demand that there be no God of life, that God destroy himself and all his creation. And eternally they will burn in the fire of their own wrath, and thirst for death and nonbeing. But they will not obtain death.

Here ends the manuscript of Alexei Fyodorovich Karamazov. I repeat: it is incomplete and fragmentary. The biographical information, for instance, covers only the elder’s earliest youth. And from his teachings and opinions, things said evidently at different times and on different promptings have been brought together, as if into a single whole. As for what the elder said precisely in these last hours of his life, it is not set down exactly; only an idea is given of the spirit and character of this last talk as well, if one compares it with what is given in Alexei Fyodorovich’s manuscript from his earlier teachings. The elder’s death came truly quite unexpectedly. For although all who had gathered around him that last evening fully understood that his death was near, still no one could have imagined it would come so suddenly; his friends, quite the contrary, as I noted above already, seeing him that night so cheerful, it would seem, and so talkative, were even convinced that a marked improvement had taken place in his health, if only for a short time. Even five minutes before his death, as was related afterward with astonishment, nothing could yet be foreseen. He suddenly felt what seemed a most violent pain in his chest, turned pale, and pressed his hands tightly to his heart. Everyone then rose from their places and rushed to him; but he, though suffering, still looking at them with a smile, quietly let himself down from the armchair to the floor and knelt, then bowed with his face to the ground, spread out his arms, and, as if in joyful rapture, kissing the earth and praying (as he himself had taught), gave up his soul to God, quietly and joyfully. Word of his death at once spread through the hermitage and reached the monastery. Those closest to the newly departed, and those whose rank required it, began to lay out his body according to the ancient rite, and all the brethren gathered in the cathedral church. And even before dawn, as was related afterward by rumor, the news of the newly departed reached the town. By morning nearly the whole town was talking of the event, and a multitude of townspeople streamed to the monastery. But of this we shall speak in the next book, and for now we shall only add in advance that before the day was out, something came to pass that was so unexpected for everyone, and, by the impression it made among the monks and in the town, so strange, as it were, so disturbing and confusing, that even to this day, after so many years, the most vivid memory of that day, so disturbing for so many, is preserved in our town…