Brothers -- Fiction; Didactic fiction; Fathers and sons -- Fiction; Russia -- Social life and customs -- 1533-1917 -- Fiction
Alyosha’s arrival seemed to affect even his moral side, as though
something had awakened in this prematurely old man which had long been
dead in his soul.
“Do you know,” he used often to say, looking at Alyosha, “that you are
like her, ‘the crazy woman’”—that was what he used to call his dead
wife, Alyosha’s mother. Grigory it was who pointed out the “crazy
woman’s” grave to Alyosha. He took him to our town cemetery and showed
him in a remote corner a cast-iron tombstone, cheap but decently kept,
on which were inscribed the name and age of the deceased and the date
of her death, and below a four-lined verse, such as are commonly used
on old-fashioned middle-class tombs. To Alyosha’s amazement this tomb
turned out to be Grigory’s doing. He had put it up on the poor “crazy
woman’s” grave at his own expense, after Fyodor Pavlovitch, whom he had
often pestered about the grave, had gone to Odessa, abandoning the
grave and all his memories. Alyosha showed no particular emotion at the
sight of his mother’s grave. He only listened to Grigory’s minute and
solemn account of the erection of the tomb; he stood with bowed head
and walked away without uttering a word. It was perhaps a year before
he visited the cemetery again. But this little episode was not without
an influence upon Fyodor Pavlovitch—and a very original one. He
suddenly took a thousand roubles to our monastery to pay for requiems
for the soul of his wife; but not for the second, Alyosha’s mother, the
“crazy woman,” but for the first, Adelaïda Ivanovna, who used to thrash
him. In the evening of the same day he got drunk and abused the monks
to Alyosha. He himself was far from being religious; he had probably
never put a penny candle before the image of a saint. Strange impulses
of sudden feeling and sudden thought are common in such types.
I have mentioned already that he looked bloated. His countenance at
this time bore traces of something that testified unmistakably to the
life he had led. Besides the long fleshy bags under his little, always
insolent, suspicious, and ironical eyes; besides the multitude of deep
wrinkles in his little fat face, the Adam’s apple hung below his sharp
chin like a great, fleshy goiter, which gave him a peculiar, repulsive,
sensual appearance; add to that a long rapacious mouth with full lips,
between which could be seen little stumps of black decayed teeth. He
slobbered every time he began to speak. He was fond indeed of making
fun of his own face, though, I believe, he was well satisfied with it.
He used particularly to point to his nose, which was not very large,
but very delicate and conspicuously aquiline. “A regular Roman nose,”
he used to say, “with my goiter I’ve quite the countenance of an
ancient Roman patrician of the decadent period.” He seemed proud of it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account