The Brothers Karamazov

“The same way my Nikitushka was comforting me, word for word, like you, he’d say: ‘Foolish woman,’ he’d say, ‘why do you cry so? Our little son is surely with the Lord God now, singing with the angels.’ He’d say it to me, and he’d be crying himself, I could see, he’d be crying just like me. ‘I know, Nikitushka,’ I’d say, ‘where else can he be if not with the Lord God, only he isn’t here, with us, Nikitushka, he isn’t sitting here with us like before! ‘ If only I could just have one more look at him, if I could see him one more time, I wouldn’t even go up to him, I wouldn’t speak, I’d hide in a corner, only to see him for one little minute, to hear him the way he used to play in the backyard and come in and shout in his little voice: ‘Mama, where are you?’ Only to hear how he walks across the room, just once, just one time, pat-pat-pat with his little feet, so quick, so quick, the way I remember he used to run up to me, shouting and laughing, if only I could hear his little feet pattering and know it was him! But he’s gone, dear father, he’s gone and I’ll never hear him again! His little belt is here, but he’s gone, and I’ll never see him, I’ll never hear him again...!”

She took her boy’s little gold-braided belt from her bosom and, at the sight of it, began shaking with sobs, covering her eyes with her hands, through which streamed the tears that suddenly gushed from her eyes.

“This,” said the elder, “is Rachel of old ‘weeping for her children, and she would not be comforted, because they are not.’^[40] This is the lot that befalls you, mothers, on earth. And do not be comforted, you should not be comforted, do not be comforted, but weep. Only each time you weep, do not fail to remember that your little son is one of God’s angels, that he looks down at you from there and sees you, and rejoices in your tears and points them out to the Lord God. And you will be filled with this great mother’s weeping for a long time, but in the end it will turn into quiet joy for you, and your bitter tears will become tears of quiet tenderness and the heart’s purification, which saves from sin. And I will remember your little child in my prayers for the repose of the dead. What was his name?”

“Alexei, dear father.”

“A lovely name! After Alexei, the man of God?”^[41]

“Of God, dear father, of God. Alexei, the man of God.”

“A great saint! I’ll remember, mother, I’ll remember, and I’ll remember your sorrow in my prayers, and I’ll remember your husband, too. Only it is a sin for you to desert him. Go to your husband and take care of him. Your little boy will look down and see that you’ve abandoned his father, and will weep for both of you: why, then, do you trouble his blessedness? He’s alive, surely he’s alive, for the soul lives forever, and though he’s not at home, he is invisibly near you. How, then, can he come to his home if you say you now hate your home? To whom will he go if he does not find you, his father and mother, together? You see him now in your dreams and are tormented, but at home he will send you quiet dreams. Go to your husband, mother, go this very day.”

“I will go, my dear, according to your word, I will go. You’ve touched my heart. Nikitushka, my Nikitushka, you are waiting for me, my dear, waiting for me!” The woman began to murmur, but the elder had already turned to a very old little old lady, dressed not as a pilgrim but in town fashion. One could see by her eyes that she had come for some purpose and had something on her mind. She introduced herself as the widow of a noncommissioned officer, not from far away but from our own town. Her dear son Vasenka had served somewhere in the army commissariat and then gone to Siberia, to Irkutsk. He wrote twice from there, but it had already been a year now since he stopped writing. She made inquiries about him, but to tell the truth she did not even know where to inquire.

“Just the other day, Stepanida Ilyinishna Bedryagin, she’s a merchant’s wife, a wealthy woman, said to me: ‘I tell you what, Prokhorovna, go to church and put your son on a list to be remembered among the dead. His soul,’ she says, ‘will get troubled, and he’ll write to you. It’s just the thing to do,’ Stepanida Ilyinishna says, ‘it’s been tested many times.’ Only I’m not so sure ... Dear father, is it right or wrong? Would it be a good thing to do?”

“Do not even think of it. It is shameful even to ask. How is it possible to commemorate a living soul as one of the dead, and his own mother at that! It is a great sin, it is like sorcery, it can be forgiven only because of your ignorance. You had better pray to the Queen of Heaven, our swift intercessor and helper, for his health, and that you be forgiven for your wrong thoughts. And I will tell you something else, Prokhorovna: either he himself, your boy, will soon come back to you, or he will surely send you a letter. I promise you that. Go, and from now on be at peace. Your boy is alive, I tell you.”