“The devil take you one and all!” he suddenly yelled. “Why the devil did I have anything to do with you! I don’t even want to know you anymore. Go by yourself, there’s your road!”
And turning abruptly into another street, he left Alyosha alone in the dark. Alyosha walked out of town, and went across the fields to the monastery.
Chapter 4: Cana
It was very late by monastery rules when Alyosha came to the hermitage. The gatekeeper let him in by a special entrance. It had already struck nine, the hour of general rest and quiet, after such a troubled day for them all. Alyosha timidly opened the door and entered the elder’s cell, where his coffin now stood. There was no one in the cell but Father Paissy, who was alone reading the Gospel over the coffin, and the young novice Porfiry, who, worn out from the previous night’s conversation and the day’s commotion, slept a sound young sleep on the floor in the next room. Father Paissy, though he had heard Alyosha come in, did not even look up at him. Alyosha turned to the right of the door, went to the corner, knelt, and began to pray. His soul was overflowing, but somehow vaguely, and no single sensation stood out, making itself felt too much; on the contrary, one followed another in a sort of slow and calm rotation. But there was sweetness in his heart, and, strangely, Alyosha was not surprised at that. Again he saw this coffin before him, and this dead man all covered up in it, who had been so precious to him, but in his soul there was none of that weeping, gnawing, tormenting pity that had been there earlier, in the morning. Now, as he entered, he fell down before the coffin as if it were a holy thing, but joy, joy was shining in his mind and in his heart. The window of the cell was open, the air was fresh and rather cool—”the smell must have become even worse if they decided to open the window,” Alyosha thought. But even this thought about the putrid odor, which only recently had seemed to him so terrible and inglorious, did not now stir up any of his former anguish and indignation. He quietly began praying, but soon felt that he was praying almost mechanically. Fragments of thoughts flashed in his soul, catching fire like little stars and dying out at once to give way to others, yet there reigned in his soul something whole, firm, assuaging, and he was conscious of it himself. He would ardently begin a prayer, he wanted so much to give thanks and to love ... But, having begun the prayer, he would suddenly pass to something else, lapse into thought, and forget both his prayer and what had interrupted it. He tried listening to what Father Paissy was reading, but, being very worn out, he began little by little to doze off . . .
“And the third day there was a marriage
“Marriage? What was that ... marriage ... ?” swept like a whirlwind through Alyosha’s mind. “There is happiness for her, too ... She went to the feast ... No, she didn’t take a knife, she didn’t take a knife, that was only a ‘pathetic’ phrase ... Well, one should forgive pathetic phrases, one must. Pathetic phrases ease the soul, without them men’s grief would be too heavy. Rakitin walked off into the alley. As long as Rakitin thinks about his grudges, he will always walk off into some alley ... But the road ... the road is wide, straight, bright, crystal, and the sun is at the end of it ... Ah? .. . what are they reading?”
“And when they wanted wine, the mother of Jesus saith unto him, They have no wine ... ,” Alyosha overheard.
“Ah, yes, I’ve been missing it and I didn’t want to miss it, I love that passage: it’s Cana of Galilee, the first miracle ... Ah, that miracle, ah, that lovely miracle! Not grief, but men’s joy Christ visited when he worked his first miracle, he helped men’s joy ... He who loves men, loves their joy . ..’ The dead man used to repeat it all the time, it was one of his main thoughts ... One cannot live without joy, says Mitya ... Yes, Mitya ... All that is true and beautiful is always full of all-forgiveness—that, too, he used to say...”
“. . . Jesus saith unto her, Woman, what have I to do with thee? mine hour is not yet come. His mother saith unto the servants, Whatsoever he saith unto you, do it.”
