Reading The Brothers Karamazov: Part Two - The Children

A scan from my 1981 paperback.

 

Dostoevsky abruptly interrupts (or so it seems) the story with an absurd situation between Alyosha and an unnamed boy who the reader later learns is Ilyusha.  Alyosha is walking from his father's house to visit Katerina when he happens upon a band of schoolboys.  They are all throwing stones at another boy in the distance.  

Alyosha tries to understand the explanations by the boys for why they are doing this when, suddenly, the boy in the distance starts throwing stones at Alyosha, hitting him painfully a couple of times.  The boys quickly explain that he is throwing at him because he knows Alyosha is a Karamazov, which really doesn't explain anything.  Why does that matter?

Alyosha tries to get the boys to stop throwing stones back at the boy.  He will go over to him and try to reason with the disgruntled lad.  But when Alyosha approaches, the boy throws more stones at him.  Undeterred, he walks up to the boy inquiring as to why all the stones are being thrown.  The boy promptly grabs Alyosha's hand and bites his middle finger.  “He sank his teeth into it and did not let go for ten seconds...The finger was bitten to the bone close to the nail, the blood spurting out of it.” (page 215)

Pulling his hand back in shock, Alyosha does not get angry.   Dostoevsky tells us he looks at the boy “with gentle eyes” and demands to know what he has done to the boy?  He has never seen him before.  At this the boy breaks down crying and runs away leaving a flabbergasted Alyosha to bandage his wound as best he can.  He has no idea why what just happened to him happened.  He has no time to even think about it because he has more pressing matters. He proceeds with haste on to visit Katerina.  

This seemingly pointless and absurd interruption in the unfolding plot seems odd when the reader first encounters it.  Of course, what Dostoevsky is cleverly doing is introducing children into the narrative, however inconsequential at the moment.  It also serves as a literary pause in what up to now has been an unrelenting story filled with all sorts of characters and interactions who, at times, express philosophical themes.  This strange episode actually gives the reader a refreshing pause in the action.

The most important attribution made by this odd occurrence is how Alyosha responds to the situation.  He treats the boys as equals, asking them questions and engaging in extended dialog with them.  When his finger is severely bitten, he does not get angry.  He is gentle, but firmly insisting that the boy explain his overly aggressive behavior.  Dostoevsky is showing the reader how Father Zosima has influenced Alyosha's life.

Of course, there are other moments throughout the novel where Alyosha displays compassionate Christian wisdom by “turning the other cheek.”  He always manages to do it without quoting scripture or even referring to either Jesus or Zosima.  He simply lives his life by example.  (His natural talent for this is likely one reason Zosima believes he should go out into the world and not become a monk.)  This initial moment with the novel's children allows Dostoevsky to demonstrate how we all should behave to the often absurd pain that living brings.  You do so with a paradoxical balance of calm curiosity, mutual respect, and firm gentility.    

The mystery is soon solved.  A few pages later, the wealthy, high-society Katerina sends Alyosha on an errand.  He is to take 200 rubles to a retired captain, who Dimitry beat up and dragged through the streets in a drunken rage the previous week, in compensation for his injuries.  Alyosha inadvertently (due to his youthful inexperience) sends Katerina into a fit of hysteria for telling her that she really loves Ivan and should not marry Dimitry, neither of them loves the other.  (Romantic love is a very complex web for Dostoevsky.  Ivan, who is there too, tells Alyosha he's wrong.  She never loved him though he loves her.)  She sends him on this errand but screams at him, enraged with her intensely torn emotions, “you're a little holy fool!”

This “holy fool” motif is another thread through the novel.  Dostoevsky had previously written The Idiot, in which he explores the often innocent psychology of the title character, who is enlightened, but acts awkwardly, naively in ordinary situations.  Jerzy Kosinsky did the same thing with the novel (and movie) Being There (1970).  Robert Heinlein did it with his classic, Stranger in a Strange Land (1961), as did Winston Groom with Forrest Gump (1986, film in 1994).

Later, as Alyosha is with the retired, impoverished captain, we encounter the man's two daughters.  They listen in on his conversation with the captain.  One girl reacts sharply toward him, for no apparent reason.  She declares “an idiot comes” into her little cabin.  She also calls him a “clown.”  This phrasing is a deliberate nod to The Idiot.  If the reader knows Myshkin from that book, they will better comprehend the “holy fool” aspect to Alyosha's character.

It turns out that the captain has a little boy named Ilyusha who is ill.  The reader learns that the captain's son is the boy who bit his finger only a couple of hours previously.  The reason he did so was because he recognized him as a Karamazov and knew he was Dimitry's brother, who had beat up his father the week before.  The boy instantly hated Alyosha once he knew who he was.

Now, this is a little too convenient here for my taste.  In the mid-nineteenth century, without the aid of photographs or social media other than oral gossip, we are to believe that all these boys knew Alyosha was related to Dimitry while this was the first time any of them had ever seen Alyosha and, so far as we know, none of them had ever met Dimitry.  It is possible, I suppose, but it is actually an overly-convenient contrivance in Dostoevsky's story.  A weak point that I have to discount because this is classic romantic literature, after all, and some things are better off simply accepting.  Still, it is an annoyingly quaint plot weakness.

The captain is insulted by Katerina's offer of money and gives it back to Alyosha joining his daughter in firing abuse at him.  Alyosha is not having a good day.  He ineptly caused Katerina to go into hysterics.  He is verbally abused  for attempting her errand.  Stones have been thrown at him and his finger is throbbing from being bitten.  After this unfortunate series of events, Dostoevsky does not return to the children again for 400 pages.

He begins Part Four, Book X by introducing a new 13-year-old character.  Kolya and a group of boys are playing around railroad tracks.  He decides to lay between the rails and allows a train to rush over him.  Afterwards, the boys rush to him and find that Kolya is alive.  He survived because he passed out and therefore never moved an inch.  But he does not tell any of the boys that he fainted.  He wants his act to appear glorious to his friends.   

Kolya meets Alyosha, who by now has changed.  Becoming a monk is no longer an option and he is now dressed as a “handsome” young gentleman.  But in mannerisms he is still the same Alyosha.  “His charming, smiling face radiated a gentle, quiet joy.”  Alyosha approaches the adolescent, offering to shake hands.  Among other subtle things, this impresses Kolya.  Alyosha is treating him as an equal.  Kolya is a very bright boy, who is trying out ideas in his youthful life.  He currently believes he is a socialist and an atheist.  The two talk about several things, Ilyusha's illness being one of them.

The subject comes around to play.  Kolya thinks playing, especially with younger children, is a waste of time when there is so much to ponder and learn.  Alyosha disagrees.  He compares play to the theater, but insists that playing games with others is better, more natural.  Kolya's mind is opened and he promises to ponder that when he gets home.

The two visit Ilyusha's bedside, who has been bedridden for two weeks.  Kolya gets into a rather deep conversation with the captain about history.  He declares he does not “have much respect for world history as a whole...It's nothing but the study of a succession of human blunders.  The only subjects I respect are mathematics and the natural sciences.”  Further, he calls the continued study of Latin to be a “swindle” because all the “classics” have been translated into mother tongues.  Latin is no longer needed.

Alyosha questions where he gets such ideas.  Kolya then moves on to his atheism.  “God is only a hypothesis.”  He points to Voltaire as a nonbeliever.  All through this conversational episode, Kolya is internally chastising himself for being overly honest and blunt about his feelings.  Alyosha responds by pointing out that Voltaire was indeed a believer, though God was not his primary motivation.  Importantly, Alyosha says this “quietly and unaffectedly,” as Father Zosima might have done.

Trying to hold his tongue, Kolya can't help himself and declares that he is a socialist as well.  To this Alyosha laughs, saying the boy is a little young to have decided about such things.  Undeterred, Kolya advances his point.  He sees “Christ” (the boy uses this word, Alyosha never does) as “an extremely humane character” who would join the socialist revolution if he were here today.  

Alyosha knows someone has planted these thoughts into Kolya's mind.  The boy confesses it was a minor character.  He goes further, “if God didn't exist he would have to be invented.”  Then the boy inquires, more than once, if Alyosha thinks he is being “ridiculous.”  The final response is revealing more than might initially seem.  

Alyosha tells him to forget about whether he is being ridiculous.  Worrying about that is pointless.  Though he seems too young for such thoughts, Alyosha admits that many young boys think of socialism and atheism today.  He flatly states “The devil has crept into that insanity” reiterating that he means this is the work of the actual devil.  Then he tells the boy that he does not have to be like so many others.  

“Because you are different, because you weren't ashamed to admit to me things that you consider bad or even ridiculous in yourself. Who else today is willing to do such things?  No one.  In fact, they've lost even the need to admit that they are wrong when they know they are.  So be different from the others, even if you are the only one who is different from the rest.” (page 669)

Kolya is stunned and inspired.  “I was right about you – you know how to make people feel better.”  The boy questions whether Alyosha is “ashamed” to be talking with him like this.  Alyosha responds with a “bright smile” asking of what there is to be ashamed.  But Alyosha inadvertently blushes at the boy, who notices.  He confesses that “it is a bit embarrassing, but I don't know why it should be...”  

Then he becomes serious, telling the boy there will be times in his life when he will be unhappy but that he would end up pleased with his life.  It is an interesting bit of prophecy that seems like a small detail.  But it is the first time Alyosha has predicted anything.  And he is showing the wisdom of Zosima both in the respectful way he addresses Kolya and in seeing the potential of another human being.

Kolya embraces Ilyusha just after the doctor pronounces that he can't treat the child.  He recommends a spa in Sicily might help, but this is a poor family, without means for such things.  The captain grieves and cries “If I forget thee Jerusalem...”  When Kolya inquires, Alyosha explains it is from the Bible, “...meaning if I forget what is most precious to me, if I exchange it for something else, then...” But the boy stops him short yelling “I understand!” as he runs away down the street with his dog.  

It is obvious to the reader that, through his wisdom, Alyosha has a positive influence on the boy.  I think this was very therapeutic for Dostoevsky, to have the character named after his own dead son interact with schoolboys and other children.  It might seem like a inconsequential thing but Dostoevsky chooses to end his great novel with Alyosha and the schoolboys, Kolya among them.  

Ilyusha has died.  Dostoevsky's description of the agony of the captain, his crazed wife and daughters participating in the boy's funeral, is psychologically powerful and superb writing.  The schoolboys carry Ilyusha's coffin to a spot near a rock where he wanted to be buried.  After tremendous anguish, the family departs leaving Alyosha alone with the schoolboys at the graveside.  The handsome youngest Karamazov offers his benediction on the funeral and, indeed, the entire novel.

Alyosha says that he will soon leave this town and be gone for a long time.  He will then “part” with the boys but he wants to tell me something.  “...remember this day when we buried the poor little boy whom we previously pelted with stones – remember, by that bridge? - and to whom, later, we all became so attached...”  Thus does Dostoevsky directly link back to the seemingly absurd situation much earlier.  It is a beautiful tie-in.  And here Dostoevsky opens his heart completely to the reader, no doubt remembering his son.

“I want you to understand, then, that there is nothing nobler, stronger, healthier, and more helpful in life than a good remembrance, particularly a remembrance from our childhood, when we still lived in our parents' house.  You often hear people speak about upbringing and education, but I feel that a beautiful, holy memory preserved from early childhood can be the most important single thing in our development.” (page 934)

It is useful for the reader to recall the moment early in the novel when Alyosha has his own memory of his mother bathing him as an infant in the rays of the setting sun.  Then Alyosha works himself into the height of emotion stating they would all remember Iliyusha forever!  The boys join in shouting that they will remember him “now and always! Forever and ever!”  

“'You know, boys,' Alyosha said, 'you needn't be afraid of life!  Life is so good when you do something that is good and just...May the memory of the dead boy live forever!”  The boys all repeat that, no doubt becoming more animated as they walk “hand in hand” through the streets.  Kolya idealistically shouts that they will go through life unified in this way and asks for three cheers for Alyosha.  These cheers bring the novel to an upbeat close, even though it is still technically a funeral day.  This is a typical, masterful mixing of the bitter and the sweet that Dostoevsky presents throughout the narrative.
     
It doesn't take much insight to see the importance of the line “may the memory of the dead boy live forever” to the author.  Here is where he said good-bye to Alyosha, at the end of The Brothers Karamazov, with inspired schoolboys all around the character, appreciating him.  So, while the children in the novel seem inconsequential as you read “the story,” in fact, they enable Dostoevsky's most intimate benediction of hope at the end of his greatest novel.

Note: Dostoevsky also incorporated children to a lesser degree in The Idiot, which in many ways serves as an prelude to some of the writing techniques and concepts in The Brothers Karamazov.