The Brothers Karamazov

“They thought I was gone, and here I am!” he shouted for all to hear.

For a moment everyone stared straight at him in silence, and then suddenly they all felt that now something revolting, absurd, and undoubtedly scandalous was about to happen. Pyotr Alexandrovich, from a most benign mood, immediately turned ferocious. All that had just died out and grown quiet in his heart instantly resurrected and rose up.

“No! This I cannot bear!”he cried, “I absolutely cannot and ... I simply cannot!”

The blood rushed to his head. He even stammered, but he could not be bothered about style and grabbed his hat.

“What is it that he cannot,” Fyodor Pavlovich cried out,” that he ‘absolutely cannot and simply cannot’? Your reverence, may I come in? Will you accept me at your table?”

“You are most cordially welcome,” the Superior replied. “Gentlemen!” he added suddenly, “allow me to ask you earnestly to lay aside your incidental quarrels and come together in love and familial harmony, with a prayer to the Lord, over our humble meal...”

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

“If it’s impossible for Pyotr Alexandrovich, then it’s impossible for me—I won’t stay either. That is why I came. I will be with Pyotr Alexandrovich wherever he goes: if you leave, I leave, Pyotr Alexandrovich, and if you stay, I stay. You really stung him with that ‘familial harmony,’ Father Superior: he doesn’t consider himself my relative! Am I right, von Sohn? That’s von Sohn over there. Greetings, von Sohn!”^[65]

“Are you ... is it me, sir?” muttered the amazed landowner Maximov.

“Of course it’s you,” Fyodor Pavlovich shouted. “Who else? The Father Superior couldn’t be von Sohn!”

“But I am not von Sohn either, I am Maximov.”

“No, you’re von Sohn. Your reverence, do you know about von Sohn? It was a murder case: he was killed in a house of fornication—is that what you call those places?—they killed him and robbed him and, despite his venerable age, stuffed him into a box, nailed it shut, and sent it from Petersburg to Moscow in a baggage car, with a label and everything. And as they nailed him up, the dancing harlots were singing songs to the psaltery, I mean the pianoforte. And this is that same von Sohn. He rose from the dead, didn’t you, von Sohn?”

“What’s that? How can he!” came from the group of hieromonks.

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

“No, sir, allow me!” Fyodor Pavlovich interrupted shrilly, taking another step into the room. “Allow me to finish. You defamed me there in the cell, as if I’d behaved disrespectfully—namely, by shouting about gudgeons. Pyotr Alexandrovich Miusov, my relative, likes it when one speaks with plus de noblesse que de sincérité, and I, conversely, like to speak with plus de sincérité que de noblesse,

and—to hell with noblesse!^[66] Right, von Sohn? Excuse me, Father Superior, although I’m a buffoon and play the buffoon, still I’m an honorable knight and I want to have my say. Yes, I’m an honorable knight, and in Pyotr Alexandrovich there is wounded vanity and nothing more. I came here today, perhaps, to look around and have my say. My son Alexei is saving his soul here; I’m a father, I’m concerned for his future, and I ought to be concerned. I was listening and performing and quietly observing, and now I want to give you the last act of the performance. How is it with us generally? With us, once a thing falls, it lies there. With us, if a thing once falls, it can lie there forever. I won’t have it, sirs! I want to rise! Holy fathers, you make me indignant. Confession is a great mystery before which I stand in awe and am ready to bow down, and here suddenly everyone in the cell falls on his knees and confesses out loud. Is it proper to confess out loud? The Holy Fathers instituted whispered confession, only then is there any mystery in it, and that has been so since olden times.^[67] Otherwise how am I to explain to him in front of everyone that I did this and that, for instance ... well, this and that, you know what I mean! Sometimes it’s even indecent to say it. There would be a scandal! No, fathers, one might even get drawn into flagellationism with you here . . .^[68] I shall write to the Synod the first chance I get,^[69] and I shall take my son Alexei home ...”