Free The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky; Andrew R. MacAndrew

which he himself could not account, as he waited for his brother to deign to come closer to him.
    Dmitry, the oldest brother, showed tremendous respect for Ivan and spoke of him with strange emotion. It was from Dmitry that Alyosha learned the details of the important matters that had linked the two older brothers so closely and so strangely. Dmitry’s enthusiastic admiration for Ivan struck Alyosha even more forcefully since, compared with Ivan, he was almost entirely uneducated, and the two offered such a remarkable contrast in character and personality that it was hard to imagine two men more unlike.
    It was at this time that a meeting, or shall we call it a gathering, of the members of this ill-assorted family took place in the elder’s cell, a gathering that was to deeply affect Alyosha. Actually, the meeting was held under a false pretext. By then, the dispute between Dmitry Karamazov and his father over the inheritance and their financial dealings had reached an impasse, and their relations had become untenable. Mr. Karamazov seems to have first suggested, and that in a jocular tone, that all the Karamazovs gather in the elder’s cell; without asking for Zosima’s direct arbitration, he felt, they could still discuss the matter more decently in the venerable presence of the elder, which might inspire respect and have a reconciliatory effect on them. Dmitry, who had never visited the elder, indeed had never set eyes on him, thought that Zosima was being used to intimidate him; but, since he secretly felt a little guilty about some of the things he had said to his father during their arguments, he accepted the challenge. (It must be noted that, unlike Ivan, Dmitry was not living with his father, but was staying in a house at the opposite end of town.) Peter Miusov, who was in town, turned out to be particularly eager that Mr. Karamazov’s suggestion should be taken up. A typical liberal of the 1840’s and 1850’s, this free-thinker and atheist took a very active interest in the business, perhaps out of boredom or perhaps just to have a little light-hearted fun. He was suddenly eager to have a look at the monastery and at “that holy man.” His lawsuit against the monastery was still dragging on and his claims over the property boundaries and the fishing and wood-cutting rights were still unsettled, so he announced that he wished to see the Father Superior to try and reach an amicable settlement with him. He obviously felt that a man visiting the monastery with such laudable intentions would be received and treated with much greater consideration than an ordinary visitor who had come out of mere curiosity. He thought all these considerations might bring pressure to bear upon the elder from within the monastery. Because of his sickness, the elder had hardly left his cell at all of late and he had been unable to see even his regular visitors. In the end, however, he consented to receive them, and the day was fixed. “I wonder who has set me up as judge over them,” was all he said, smiling at Alyosha.
    When Alyosha first heard of the planned gathering, he was very perturbed. He realized that, of all the contending parties, only Dmitry would take the whole thing seriously, while the others would come to the meeting out of motives that were frivolous and perhaps insulting to the elder. Ivan and Miusov would come out of curiosity, perhaps of the crudest sort, and his father might very easily be planning some piece of buffoonery which would turn the whole thing into a farce. Oh, although he did not talk much, Alyosha knew his father well, for, I must repeat, he was not at all the uncomplicated lad that many people supposed. So it was with a heavy heart that he awaited the day. He was, of course, very anxious that the quarrels within his family should be brought to an end, but he was even more concerned about the elder. He was full of anxiety for him, for his reputation, and, as he imagined the meeting to himself