That was why Alyosha’s heart was bleeding, and of course, as I have already said, here first of all was the person he loved more than anything in the world, and this very person was “disgraced,” this very person was “defamed”! Let this murmuring of my young man be thoughtless and rash, but I repeat again for the third time (granting beforehand that it is also perhaps thoughtless of me to do so): I am glad that at such a moment my young man turned out to be not so reasonable, the time will come for an intelligent man to be reasonable, but if at such an exceptional moment there is no love to be found in a young man’s heart, then when will it come? I must not, however, fail to mention in this connection a certain strange phenomenon that did, if only momentarily, reveal itself in Alyosha’s mind at this fatal and confused moment. This new something that appeared and flashed consisted of a certain tormenting impression from his conversation with his brother Ivan the day before, which Alyosha now kept recalling. Precisely now. Oh, not that any of his basic, so to speak elemental, beliefs were shaken in his soul. He loved his God and believed in him steadfastly, though he suddenly murmured against him. Yet some vague but tormenting and evil impression from the recollection of the previous day’s conversation with his brother Ivan now suddenly stirred again in his soul, demanding more and more to come to the surface. It was already quite dark when Rakitin, passing through the pine grove from the hermitage to the monastery, suddenly noticed Alyosha lying face down on the ground under a tree, motionless and as if asleep. He went up and called him by name.
“Is that you, Alexei? Can it be that ... ,” he began, astonished, but stopped without finishing. He was going to say, “Can it be that you’ve
“What’s the matter with you?” he went on in surprise, but the surprise on his face was already beginning to be supplanted by a smile that turned more and more sarcastic.
“Listen, I’ve been looking for you for over two hours. You suddenly disappeared from the place. What are you doing here? What is all this blessed nonsense? Look at me, at least . . .” Alyosha raised his head, sat up, and leaned his back against the tree. He was not crying, but his face wore an expression of suffering, and there was irritation in his eyes. He did not look at Rakitin, incidentally, but somewhere aside.
“You know, you’ve quite changed countenance. No more of that old, notorious meekness of yours. Are you angry with somebody, or what? Offended?”
“Leave me alone!” Alyosha said suddenly, still without looking at him, and waved his hand wearily.
“Oho, so that’s how we are now! We’re snappish, just like other mortals! And we used to be an angel! Well, Alyoshka, you surprise me, do you know that? I mean it. It’s a long time since anything here has surprised me. Still, I did always consider you an educated man...”
Alyosha finally looked at him, but somehow distractedly, as if he still scarcely understood him.
“Can it be just because your old man got himself stunk? Can it be that you seriously believed he’d start pulling off miracles?” Rakitin exclaimed, passing again to the most genuine amazement.
“I believed, I believe, and I want to believe, and I will believe, and what more do you want!” Alyosha cried irritably.
“Precisely nothing, my dear. Ah, the devil! But even thirteen-year-old schoolboys don’t believe such things anymore! Still ... ah, the devil ... So you’ve gotten angry with your God now, you’ve rebelled: they passed you over for promotion, you didn’t get a medal for the feast day! Ah, you!”
Alyosha gave Rakitin a long look, his eyes somehow narrowed, and something flashed in them ... but not anger at Rakitin.
“I do not rebel against my God, I simply ‘do not accept his world,’ “ Alyosha suddenly smiled crookedly.
“What do you mean, you don’t accept his world?” Rakitin thought over his reply for a moment. “What sort of gibberish is that?”
Alyosha did not answer.
“Well, enough talk of trifles, now to business: did you eat anything today?”
“I don’t remember ... I think I did.”
“By the looks of you, you need fortifying. What a sorry sight! You didn’t sleep last night, so I hear, you had a meeting. And then all this fuss and muss ... I bet you had nothing but a piece of blessed bread to chew on. I’ve got a hunk of sausage here in my pocket, I brought it from town just in case, because I was coming here, only you probably won’t...”
“Let’s have your sausage.”
“Aha! So that’s how it is! Real rebellion, barricades and all! Well, brother, that’s not to be sneered at! Let’s go to my place ... I’d love a shot of vodka right now, I’m dead tired. You wouldn’t go so far as to have vodka ... or would you?”
“Let’s have your vodka.”
