Don't grieve.
Be sure I shall not die without your being by to hear my last word.
To you I will say that word, my son, it will be my last gift to you.
To you, dear son, because you love me.
But now go to keep your promise."
Alyosha immediately obeyed, though it was hard to go.
But the promise that he should hear his last word on earth, that it should be the last gift to him, Alyosha, sent a thrill of rapture through his soul.
He made haste that he might finish what he had to do in the town and return quickly.
Father Paissy, too, uttered some words of exhortation which moved and surprised him greatly.
He spoke as they left the cell together.
"Remember, young man, unceasingly," Father Paissy began, without preface, "that the science of this world, which has become a great power, has, especially in the last century, analysed everything divine handed down to us in the holy books. After this cruel analysis the learned of this world have nothing left of all that was sacred of old.
But they have only analysed the parts and overlooked the whole, and indeed their blindness is marvellous.
Yet the whole still stands steadfast before their eyes, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
Has it not lasted nineteen centuries, is it not still a living, a moving power in the individual soul and in the masses of people?
It is still as strong and living even in the souls of atheists, who have destroyed everything!
For even those who have renounced Christianity and attack it, in their inmost being still follow the Christian ideal, for hitherto neither their subtlety nor the ardour of their hearts has been able to create a higher ideal of man and of virtue than the ideal given by Christ of old.
When it has been attempted, the result has been only grotesque.
Remember this especially, young man, since you are being sent into the world by your departing elder.
Maybe, remembering this great day, you will not forget my words, uttered from the heart for your guidance, seeing you are young, and the temptations of the world are great and beyond your strength to endure.
Well, now go, my orphan."
With these words Father Paissy blessed him.
As Alyosha left the monastery and thought them over, he suddenly realised that he had met a new and unexpected friend, a warmly loving teacher, in this austere monk who had hitherto treated him sternly. It was as though Father Zossima had bequeathed him to him at his death, and "perhaps that's just what had passed between them," Alyosha thought suddenly.
The philosophic reflections he had just heard so unexpectedly testified to the warmth of Father Paissy's heart. He was in haste to arm the boy's mind for conflict with temptation and to guard the young soul left in his charge with the strongest defence he could imagine.
Chapter 2.
At His Father's
FIRST of all, Alyosha went to his father.
On the way he remembered that his father had insisted the day before that he should come without his brother Ivan seeing him.
"Why so?" Alyosha wondered suddenly. "Even if my father has something to say to me alone, why should I go in unseen?
Most likely in his excitement yesterday he meant to say something different," he decided.
Yet he was very glad when Marfa Ignatyevna, who opened the garden gate to him (Grigory, it appeared, was ill in bed in the lodge), told him in answer to his question that Ivan Fyodorovitch had gone out two hours ago.
"And my father?"
"He is up, taking his coffee," Marfa answered somewhat drily.
Alyosha went in.
The old man was sitting alone at the table wearing slippers and a little old overcoat. He was amusing himself by looking through some accounts, rather inattentively however.
He was quite alone in the house, for Smerdyakov too had gone out marketing.
Though he had got up early and was trying to put a bold face on it, he looked tired and weak.
His forehead, upon which huge purple bruises had come out during the night, was bandaged with a red handkerchief; his nose too was swollen terribly in the night, and some smaller bruises covered it in patches, giving his whole face a peculiarly spiteful and irritable look.
The old man was aware of this, and turned a hostile glance on Alyosha as he came in.
"The coffee is cold," he cried harshly; "I won't offer you any.
I've ordered nothing but a Lenten fish soup to-day, and I don't invite anyone to share it.
Why have you come?"
"To find out how you are," said Alyosha.
"Yes.
Besides, I told you to come yesterday.
It's all of no consequence.
You need not have troubled.
But I knew you'd come poking in directly."
He said this with almost hostile feeling.
At the same time he got up and looked anxiously in the looking-glass (perhaps for the fortieth time that morning) at his nose.
He began, too, binding his red handkerchief more becomingly on his forehead.