Reading The Brothers Karamazov: Part Five – Alyosha's Ecstasy

Scan from my 1981 paperback.

The Brothers Karamazov is often a weighty and gloomy story.  But there are enough moments of humor, interesting ideas and fascinating story happenings to propel the reader to the end of the 900+ page book.  We want to know more about these characters and their beliefs/motivations.  Alyosha takes us through most of the story, though he is not present at the important plot points like the murder, Ivan's conversations with Smerdyakov and subsequent devil hallucination, or Dimitry's wild exploits due to Grushenka.

The youngest brother is a fascinating character.  He is naturally passive and mild, yet he has flashes of passion and a firm strength.  He accepts everyone on their own terms, rarely casting judgment upon others.  So they are all free to be themselves completely with Alyosha.  In this way, Dostoevsky is able to reveal most major characters honestly to the reader.   By contrast, when Alyosha is not around, the story goes slightly out of focus, becoming more hidden and ambiguous.

With Alyosha we have a genuine hero to root for.  He has a good heart, is accepting, full of compassion, a gentle though not weak manner, and is refreshingly open-minded though true to his Christian faith.  He is, however, absent-minded from time to time because he lives very much in the present moment, as do all passionate Karamazovs.  

One extraordinary moment occurs when Alyosha returns from Grunshenka's to visit Father Zosima's coffined body lying in state after the elder's death.  It is late at night and Alyosha is tired from a long emotionally distraught day.  Ominously, the body has an overpowering stench about it, which some townspeople take as a omen of evil.  No one can stand to be near the coffin as it lay open all-night as per monastic custom.

This moment in itself is rather extraordinary, which is why it ends up triggering a profound transformation in Alyosha.   You have to understand all of this to fully understand any of it.  Though evident, the stench does not bother Alyosha as he kneels before the coffin.  He notices all the windows are open and the cold Russian night air is entering Zosima's cell.  He deduces that the repulsive odor must have gotten worse while he was away.     

Father Paisii is there, continuously reading scripture aloud.  Alyosha listens to him and slowly he drifts toward sleep.  He is dozing in and out of consciousness as Dostoevsky treats the reader with the intimate thoughts of Alyosha on the verge of sleep.  It is something we have all experienced.  Being at the edge of slumber where reality sort of a dream.  The psychological understanding and detail in the writing is superb.

This is a full, direct quote.  The ellipses are Dostoevsky's, reflecting the dreamy quality to the experience: “'Marriage...What marriage?...'  The words whirled through Alyosha's head.  'There is happiness for her too...she has gone to ball...No, she didn't, she didn't take the knife...she just said that...People must always be forgiven for saying such emotional things...emotional words make people feel better...Sometimes the pain would be unbearable if they couldn't say those things...Rakitin turned into a back alley and walked away...As long as he thinks of the offenses he has suffered, he will always be turning off into back alleys...But there is a bright, wide open road, a straight road, shining like crystal, leading to the sun...Ah, was he reading?...'

“'And they wanted wine, the mother of Jesus saith unto Him, They have no wine'...Alyosha heard the voice reading.

“'Ah, yes, I missed a passage there...That's a shame – I didn't want to miss it – I love that passage – it's Cana of Galiliee, the first miracle...Ah, that miracle, what a lovely miracle!  It wasn't sorrow, it was human happiness that Christ extolled, and the first miracle He worked was to bring men happiness...'He who loves men loves their happiness,' Father Zosima used to repeat that often – that was one of this guiding ideas.'..And Mitya says it is impossible to live without happiness...Yes, Mitya...Whatever is true and beautiful is always full of forgiveness – the elder used to say that too...'” (page 436)

Let's take a moment a dissect these few paragraphs.  To begin with, Alyosha is trying to make out what Father Paisii is reading.  Then he fuses the image of Jesus' mother with Grushenka, who he has just visited with and who is being swept away from Petersburg by her true lover.  This is horrible news for Dimitry, who passionately loves Grushenka.  This is all fused in the reader's mind by a general philosophy of forgiveness, which connects Alyosha's stream of consciousness with a minor atheistic character (Rakitin) as a tangible model for how forgiveness would improve his life.  It is the “straight path toward the sun” which is the Christian “straight and narrow way.”

Then the reader encounters one of the many dozens of times the Bible is quoted throughout the novel.  This triggers Alyosha's half-asleep mind to reflect upon the passage and recall that it was fundamental to his “guru.”  This, in turn, leads to thoughts of Dimitry (Mitya is his informal name, all Russian novels have multiple names for the same character).  Which revolve around his older brother's unhappy relationship situation, being engaged to a woman he does not love, having the love his life leave the city.  But realizing that Dimitry sees beauty in Grushenka and that there is a well-spring of forgiveness to everything “true and beautiful.”

Of course, it all doesn't make a lot of logical sense.  It is all understandable but it clearly does not go together.  One thing leads to another but there is little relationship between the things.  He is dreamily trying to fall asleep and the way Dostoevsky writes this passage reflects his psychological brilliance as an author.  It is also a great example of how a great deal of the novel is written inside the minds of the characters in addition to the more prevalent objectively third-person mode.

Dostoevsky continues the dance between the scripture reading and Alyosha's thoughts.  The youngest brother does not attach himself to any particular thought, his experience is true stream of consciousness.  Until, he suddenly becomes disoriented.  The room seems to be growing.  He is falling into the room where Jesus' mother is to be married, filled with guests.  There he comes face-to-face with Father Zosima, as a “dried-up little man,” who welcomes him, of course.  

“Let us enjoy ourselves,” Zosima beckons, it is a wedding feast after all.  Suddenly, Zosima points Alyosha toward the sun, toward Him, but Alyosha is afraid to look.  The elder tells him He is nothing to be frightened of.  He wishes to welcome more and more guests to the feast.  From the edge of sleep, Alyosha reawakens.

“A bright flame burned in Aloysha's heart.  His heart was full to the brim and even pained him.  Tears of rapture welled up from his soul.  He stretched out his arms and awoke...The coffin was back, and the open window and the measured voice reading the Gospels.  But Alyosha no longer listened to the words.  It was strange: he had fallen asleep kneeling down, but now he was on his feet.  Suddenly, as if tearing himself from the ground, he took three determined steps that brought him so close to the coffin that his shoulder brushed against Father Paisii without his noticing it.  Father Paisii raised his eyes from the Gospels and glanced at Alyosha, but then quickly lowered them to his book again, realizing that something strange was happening to the youth.  For half a minute Alyosha gazed at the coffin, at the covered, motionless body with the icon on his chest and the cowl on his head with the eight-cornered cross on it.  He had just heard his dead elder's voice and that voice was still resounding in his ears.  Alyosha was listening, still hoping to hear...Suddenly, he turned and walked out of the room.” (page 438)

He walks out into the night seeking “...lots of room to move freely.”  Which leads to another rare reference in the novel to the natural world.  “Over his head was the vast vault of the sky, studded with with shining, silent stars.  The still-dim Milky Way was split in two from the zenith to the horizon.  A cool, completely still night enfolded the earth.  The white towers and golden domes gleamed in the sapphire sky.  Gorgeous autumnal flowers in the flowerbeds by the buildings were asleep until morning.  The silence of the earth seemed to merge with the silence of the sky and the mystery of the earth was one with the mystery of the stars...Alyosha stood and gazed for a while; then, like a blade of grass cut by a scythe, he fell to the ground.

“He did not know why he was hugging the earth, why he could not kiss it enough, why he longed to kiss it at all...He kissed it again and again, drenching it with tears, vowing to love it always, always.” (page 439)

Alyosha starts “weeping with ecstasy” over the stars in the infinite distance.  He feels “unashamed” by his behavior.  “He craved to forgive everyone and everything and to beg for forgiveness.” And intimately, “Something, a kind of idea, had taken over his soul forever and ever. He was a weak youth when he fell to the ground and he rose a strong and determined fighter.  He knew it.  He felt it during that moment of rapture.  And never, never thereafter would Alyosha forget that moment.” (page 439)  

Each brother experiences a moment of transformation during the course of the novel, outside the realm of what we might call ordinary consciousness.  Dimitry has his during a brief dream about a peasant mother and her crying baby.  “He also felt a new, unknown fervor welling up in his heart; he felt like weeping.”  This leads him to accept his arrest as an opportunity.  “I want to suffer and to cleanse myself by suffering!”  

Ivan's is a process of psychological deterioration that begins with “a strange and violent anxiety” immediately after his telling of “The Grand Inquisitor.” It then progresses through some shocking conversations with Smerdyakov, accelerates when he faces his personal devil while in a feverish, hallucinatory state, and culminates with his seemingly deranged testimony at the trial.  In the end, he is unconscious with the doctors uncertain of his future.  His bedridden body is taken in by Katerina for further care.

Before either of these happen, Alyosha has his moment of transformation.  Only now does he understand why Father Zosima wanted him to “go out into the world.”  In this exceptionally well-written episode, Alyosha discovers the mysterious unity of the universe through the power of forgiveness.  It is a profound moment in the novel and one of my favorite passages though it only takes up five pages.  He will carry on the elder's life and teachings immersed in society instead of cloistered from it.  In this way he has become a “strong and determined fighter.”  This is not an aggressive strength, obviously.  But it is confident and relentless and steadfastly empowered by the breathtaking force of universal love and forgiveness.  Extraordinary writing.