looked at Alyosha standing a step behind the elder, he would have caught a quick flush crimsoning his cheeks in an instant. His eyes shone and he looked down.
“She has a message for you, Alexey Fyodorovitch. How are you?” the mother went on, holding out her exquisitely gloved hand to Alyosha.
The elder turned round and all at once looked attentively at Alyosha. The latter went nearer to Lise and, smiling in a strangely awkward way, held out his hand to her too. Lise assumed an important air.
“Katerina Ivanovna has sent you this through me.” She handed him a little note. “She particularly begs you to go and see her as soon as possible; that you will not fail her, but will be sure to come.”
“She asks me to go and see her? Me? What for?” Alyosha muttered in great astonishment. His face at once looked anxious.
“Oh, it’s all to do with Dmitri Fyodorovitch and — what has happened lately,” the mother explained hurriedly. “Katerina Ivanovna has made up her mind, but she must see you about it…. Why, of course, I can’t say. But she wants to see you at once. And you will go to her, of course. It is a Christian duty.”
“I have only seen her once,” Alyosha protested with the same perplexity.
“Oh, she is such a lofty, incomparable creature If only for her suffering…. Think what she has gone through, what she is enduring now Think what awaits her! It’s all terrible, terrible!
“Very well, I will come,” Alyosha decided, after rapidly scanning the brief, enigmatic note, which consisted of an urgent entreaty that he would come, without any sort of explanation.
“Oh, how sweet and generous that would be of you” cried Lise with sudden animation. “I told mamma you’d be sure not to go. I said you were saving your soul. How splendid you are I’ve always thought you were splendid. How glad I am to tell you so!”
“Lise!” said her mother impressively, though she smiled after she had said it.
“You have quite forgotten us, Alexey Fyodorovitch,” she said; “you never come to see us. Yet Lise has told me twice that she is never happy except with you.”
Alyosha raised his downcast eyes and again flushed, and again smiled without knowing why. But the elder was no longer watching him. He had begun talking to a monk who, as mentioned before, had been awaiting his entrance by Lise’s chair. He was evidently a monk of the humblest, that is of the peasant, class, of a narrow outlook, but a true believer, and, in his own way, a stubborn one. He announced that he had come from the far north, from Obdorsk, from Saint Sylvester, and was a member of a poor monastery, consisting of only ten monks. The elder gave him his blessing and invited him to come to his cell whenever he liked.
“How can you presume to do such deeds?” the monk asked suddenly, pointing solemnly and significantly at Lise. He was referring to her “healing.”
“It’s too early, of course, to speak of that. Relief is not complete cure, and may proceed from different causes. But if there has been any healing, it is by no power but God’s will. It’s all from God. Visit me, Father,” he added to the monk. “It’s not often I can see visitors. I am ill, and I know that my days are numbered.”
“Oh, no, no! God will not take you from us. You will live a long, long time yet,” cried the lady. “And in what way are you ill? You look so well, so gay and happy.”
“I am extraordinarily better to-day. But I know that it’s only for a moment. I understand my disease now thoroughly. If I seem so happy to you, you could never say anything that would please me so much. For men are made for happiness, and anyone who is completely happy has a right to say to himself, ‘I am doing God’s will on earth.’ All the righteous, all the saints, all the holy martyrs were happy.”
“Oh, how you speak! What bold and lofty words” cried the lady. “You seem to pierce with your words. And yet — happiness, happiness — where is it? Who can say of himself that he is happy? Oh, since you have been so good as to let us see you once more to-day, let me tell you what I could not utter last time, what I dared not say, all I am suffering and have been for so long! I am suffering! Forgive me! I am suffering!”
And in a rush of fervent feeling she clasped her hands before him.
“From what specially?”
“I suffer… from lack of faith.”
“Lack of faith in God?”
“Oh, no, no! I dare not even think of that. But the future life — it is such an enigma And no one, no one can solve it. Listen! You are a healer, you are deeply versed in the human soul, and of course I dare not expect you to believe me entirely, but I assure you on my word of honour that I am not speaking lightly now. The thought of the life beyond the grave distracts me to anguish, to terror. And I don’t know to whom to appeal, and have not dared to all my life. And now I am so bold as to ask you. Oh, God! What will you think of me now?”
She clasped her hands.
“Don’t distress yourself about my opinion of you,” said the elder. “I quite believe in the sincerity of your suffering.”
“Oh, how thankful I am to you! You see, I shut my eyes and ask myself if everyone has faith, where did it come from? And then they do say that it all comes from terror at the menacing phenomena of nature, and that none of it’s real. And I say to myself, ‘What if I’ve been believing all my life, and when I come to die there’s nothing but the burdocks growing on my grave?’ as I read in some author. It’s awful! How — how can I get back my faith? But I only believed when I was a little child, mechanically, without thinking of anything. How, how is one to prove it? have come now to lay my soul before you and to ask you about it. If I let this chance slip, no one all my life will answer me. How can I prove it? How can I convince myself? Oh, how unhappy I am! I stand and look about me and see that scarcely anyone else cares; no one troubles his head about it, and I’m the only one who can’t stand it. It’s deadly — deadly!”
“No doubt. But there’s no proving it, though you can be convinced of it.”
“By the experience of active love. Strive to love your neighbour actively and indefatigably. In as far as you advance in love you will grow surer of the reality of God and of the immortality of your soul. If you attain to perfect self-forgetfulness in the love of your neighbour, then you will believe without doubt, and no doubt can possibly enter your soul. This has been tried. This is certain.”
“In active love? There’s another question and such a question! You see, I so love humanity that — would you believe it? — I often dream of forsaking all that I have, leaving Lise, and becoming a sister of mercy. I close my eyes and think and dream, and at that moment I feel full of strength to overcome all obstacles. No wounds, no festering sores could at that moment frighten me. I would bind them up and wash them with my own hands. I would nurse the afflicted. I would be ready to kiss such wounds.”
“It is much, and well that your mind is full of such dreams and not others. Some time, unawares, you may do a good deed in reality.”
“Yes. But could I endure such a life for long?” the lady went on fervently, almost frantically. “That’s the chief question — that’s my most agonising question. I shut my eyes and ask myself, ‘Would you persevere long on that path? And if the patient whose wounds you are washing did not meet you with gratitude, but worried you with his whims, without valuing or remarking your charitable services,
