Of course Father Paissy was not mistaken when he decided that his “dear boy” would come back, and perhaps even perceived (if not completely, yet perspicaciously) the true meaning of the mood of Alyosha’s soul. Nevertheless I shall frankly admit that it would be very difficult for me now to convey clearly the precise meaning of this strange and uncertain moment in the life of the hero of my story, whom I love so much and who is still so young. To the rueful question Father Paissy addressed to Alyosha: “Or are you, too, with those of little faith?”—I could, of course, answer firmly for Alyosha: “No, he is not with those of little faith.” Moreover, it was even quite the opposite: all his dismay arose precisely because his faith was so great. But dismay there was, it did arise, and it was so tormenting that even later, long afterwards, Alyosha considered this rueful day one of the most painful and fatal days of his life. If I were asked directly: “Could all this anguish and such great perturbation have arisen in him only because, instead of beginning at once to produce healings, the body of his elder, on the contrary, showed signs of early corruption?” I would answer without hesitation: “Yes, indeed it was so.” I would only ask the reader not to be in too great a hurry to laugh at my young man’s pure heart. Not only have I no intention of apologizing for him, of excusing and justifying his simple faith on account of his youth, for instance, or the little progress he had made formerly in the study of science, and so on and so forth, but I will do the opposite and declare firmly that I sincerely respect the nature of his heart. No doubt some other young man, who takes his heart’s impressions more prudently, who has already learned how to love not ardently but just lukewarmly, whose thoughts, though correct, are too reasonable (and therefore cheap) for his age, such a young man, I say, would avoid what happened to my young man, but in certain cases, really, it is more honorable to yield to some passion, however unwise, if it springs from great love, than not to yield to it at all. Still more so in youth, for a young man who is constantly too reasonable is suspect and of too cheap a price—that is my opinion!”But,” reasonable people may exclaim at this point, “not every young man can believe in such prejudices, and your young man is no example for others.” To this I again reply: yes, my young man believed, believed piously and unshakably, but still I do not apologize for him. You see, though I declared above (and perhaps too hastily) that I was not going to explain, excuse, or justify my hero, I find that it is still necessary, for the further comprehension of my story, to understand certain things. I will say this much: it was not a matter of miracles. It was not an expectation of miracles, frivolous in its impatience. Alyosha did not need miracles then for the triumph of certain convictions (it was not that at all), nor so that some sort of former, preconceived idea would quickly triumph over another—oh, no, by no means: in all this, and above all else, in the first place, there stood before him the person, and only the person—the person of his beloved elder, the person of that righteous man whom he revered to the point of adoration. That was just it, that the entirety of the love for “all and all” that lay hidden in his young and pure heart, then and during the whole previous year, was at times as if wholly concentrated, perhaps even incorrectly, mainly on just one being, at least in the strongest impulses of his heart—on his beloved elder, now deceased. True, this being had stood before him as an indisputable ideal for so long that all his youthful powers and all their yearning could not but turn to this ideal exclusively, in some moments even to the forgetting of “all and all.” (He himself remembered later that on that painful day he quite forgot his brother Dmitri, about whom he had been so worried and grieved the day before; he also forgot to take the two hundred roubles to Ilyushechka’s father, as he had also so fervently intended to do the day before.) Again, it was not miracles he needed, but only a “higher justice,” which, as he believed, had been violated—it was this that wounded his heart so cruelly and suddenly. And what matter if, in the course of events, this “justice” had assumed in Alyosha’s expectations the form of those miracles expected immediately from the remains of his adored former teacher? Everyone in the monastery thought and expected the same, even those whose minds Alyosha revered, Father Paissy himself, for example, and so Alyosha, not troubling himself with any doubts, clothed his dreams in the same form as all the others. And it had been settled thus in his heart for a long time, through the whole year of his life in the monastery, and his heart had acquired the habit of expecting it. But it was justice, justice he thirsted for, not simply miracles! And now he who, according to his hope, was to have been exalted higher than anyone in the whole world, this very man, instead of receiving the glory that was due him, was suddenly thrown down and disgraced! Why? Who had decreed it? Who could have judged so? These were the questions that immediately tormented his inexperienced and virgin heart. He could not bear without insult, even without bitterness of heart, that this most righteous of righteous men should be given over to such derisive and spiteful jeering from a crowd so frivolous and so far beneath him. Let there be no miracles, let nothing miraculous be revealed, let that which was expected immediately not come to pass, but why should there be this ignominy, why should this shame be permitted, why this hasty corruption, which “forestalled nature,” as the spiteful monks were saying? Why this “sign” which they now so triumphantly brought forth together with Father Ferapont, and why did they believe they had any right to bring it forth? Where was Providence and its finger? Why did it hide its finger “at the most necessary moment” (Alyosha thought), as if wanting to submit itself to the blind, mute, merciless laws of nature?
