feat_summary_path: finished_summaries/sparknotes/The Brothers Karamazov/section_1_part_1.txt
feat_book_id: The Brothers Karamazov.book 2.chapter 1
feat_summary_id: book 2, chapter 1
feat_summary: {"name": "book 2, Chapter 1", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210305110438/https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/brothersk/section2/", "summary": "They Arrive at the Monastery On a warm, clear day at the end of August, Fyodor Pavlovich and Ivan Karamazov arrive at the monastery for the meeting with Zosima. Pyotr Alexandrovich Miusov, the cousin of Fyodor Pavlovich's first wife who briefly adopted the young Dmitri, is with them, as is Kalganov, a young relative of Miusov's who is living with him while preparing to enter a university. None of the men knows much about religion. Miusov, an atheist, has not been in a church for three decades. The men look around the monastery curiously. Miusov detests Fyodor Pavlovich, who intentionally torments Miusov by mocking the monastery and pretending not to understand why Miusov, as an irreligious man, would care what the monks think of him. Miusov angrily chastises himself for letting Fyodor Pavlovich bother him, but Fyodor Pavlovich's crudeness and vulgarity are so exasperating to Miusov that he cannot control his irritation. Dmitri has not yet arrived, and the men are shown to Zosima's cell to wait. The little monk who escorts them tells them that they are all invited to lunch with the Father Superior of the monastery after their meeting", "analysis": ""}
text: Book II. An Unfortunate Gathering Chapter I. They Arrive At The Monastery
  
  
  It was a warm, bright day at the end of August. The interview with the
  elder had been fixed for half-past eleven, immediately after late mass.
  Our visitors did not take part in the service, but arrived just as it was
  over. First an elegant open carriage, drawn by two valuable horses, drove
  up with Miuesov and a distant relative of his, a young man of twenty,
  called Pyotr Fomitch Kalganov. This young man was preparing to enter the
  university. Miuesov, with whom he was staying for the time, was trying to
  persuade him to go abroad to the university of Zurich or Jena. The young
  man was still undecided. He was thoughtful and absent-minded. He was nice-
  looking, strongly built, and rather tall. There was a strange fixity in
  his gaze at times. Like all very absent-minded people he would sometimes
  stare at a person without seeing him. He was silent and rather awkward,
  but sometimes, when he was alone with any one, he became talkative and
  effusive, and would laugh at anything or nothing. But his animation
  vanished as quickly as it appeared. He was always well and even
  elaborately dressed; he had already some independent fortune and
  expectations of much more. He was a friend of Alyosha's.
  
  In an ancient, jolting, but roomy, hired carriage, with a pair of old
  pinkish-gray horses, a long way behind Miuesov's carriage, came Fyodor
  Pavlovitch, with his son Ivan. Dmitri was late, though he had been
  informed of the time the evening before. The visitors left their carriage
  at the hotel, outside the precincts, and went to the gates of the
  monastery on foot. Except Fyodor Pavlovitch, none of the party had ever
  seen the monastery, and Miuesov had probably not even been to church for
  thirty years. He looked about him with curiosity, together with assumed
  ease. But, except the church and the domestic buildings, though these too
  were ordinary enough, he found nothing of interest in the interior of the
  monastery. The last of the worshippers were coming out of the church,
  bareheaded and crossing themselves. Among the humbler people were a few of
  higher rank--two or three ladies and a very old general. They were all
  staying at the hotel. Our visitors were at once surrounded by beggars, but
  none of them gave them anything, except young Kalganov, who took a ten-
  copeck piece out of his purse, and, nervous and embarrassed--God knows
  why!--hurriedly gave it to an old woman, saying: "Divide it equally." None
  of his companions made any remark upon it, so that he had no reason to be
  embarrassed; but, perceiving this, he was even more overcome.
  
  It was strange that their arrival did not seem expected, and that they
  were not received with special honor, though one of them had recently made
  a donation of a thousand roubles, while another was a very wealthy and
  highly cultured landowner, upon whom all in the monastery were in a sense
  dependent, as a decision of the lawsuit might at any moment put their
  fishing rights in his hands. Yet no official personage met them.
  
  Miuesov looked absent-mindedly at the tombstones round the church, and was
  on the point of saying that the dead buried here must have paid a pretty
  penny for the right of lying in this "holy place," but refrained. His
  liberal irony was rapidly changing almost into anger.
  
  "Who the devil is there to ask in this imbecile place? We must find out,
  for time is passing," he observed suddenly, as though speaking to himself.
  
  All at once there came up a bald-headed, elderly man with ingratiating
  little eyes, wearing a full, summer overcoat. Lifting his hat, he
  introduced himself with a honeyed lisp as Maximov, a landowner of Tula. He
  at once entered into our visitors' difficulty.
  
  "Father Zossima lives in the hermitage, apart, four hundred paces from the
  monastery, the other side of the copse."
  
  "I know it's the other side of the copse," observed Fyodor Pavlovitch,
  "but we don't remember the way. It is a long time since we've been here."
  
  "This way, by this gate, and straight across the copse ... the copse. Come
  with me, won't you? I'll show you. I have to go.... I am going myself.
  This way, this way."
  
  They came out of the gate and turned towards the copse. Maximov, a man of
  sixty, ran rather than walked, turning sideways to stare at them all, with
  an incredible degree of nervous curiosity. His eyes looked starting out of
  his head.
  
  "You see, we have come to the elder upon business of our own," observed
  Miuesov severely. "That personage has granted us an audience, so to speak,
  and so, though we thank you for showing us the way, we cannot ask you to
  accompany us."
  
  "I've been there. I've been already; _un chevalier parfait_," and Maximov
  snapped his fingers in the air.
  
  "Who is a _chevalier_?" asked Miuesov.
  
  "The elder, the splendid elder, the elder! The honor and glory of the
  monastery, Zossima. Such an elder!"
  
  But his incoherent talk was cut short by a very pale, wan-looking monk of
  medium height, wearing a monk's cap, who overtook them. Fyodor Pavlovitch
  and Miuesov stopped.
  
  The monk, with an extremely courteous, profound bow, announced:
  
  "The Father Superior invites all of you gentlemen to dine with him after
  your visit to the hermitage. At one o'clock, not later. And you also," he
  added, addressing Maximov.
  
  "That I certainly will, without fail," cried Fyodor Pavlovitch, hugely
  delighted at the invitation. "And, believe me, we've all given our word to
  behave properly here.... And you, Pyotr Alexandrovitch, will you go, too?"
  
  "Yes, of course. What have I come for but to study all the customs here?
  The only obstacle to me is your company...."
  
  "Yes, Dmitri Fyodorovitch is non-existent as yet."
  
  "It would be a capital thing if he didn't turn up. Do you suppose I like
  all this business, and in your company, too? So we will come to dinner.
  Thank the Father Superior," he said to the monk.
  
  "No, it is my duty now to conduct you to the elder," answered the monk.
  
  "If so I'll go straight to the Father Superior--to the Father Superior,"
  babbled Maximov.
  
  "The Father Superior is engaged just now. But as you please--" the monk
  hesitated.
  
  "Impertinent old man!" Miuesov observed aloud, while Maximov ran back to
  the monastery.
  
  "He's like von Sohn," Fyodor Pavlovitch said suddenly.
  
  "Is that all you can think of?... In what way is he like von Sohn? Have
  you ever seen von Sohn?"
  
  "I've seen his portrait. It's not the features, but something indefinable.
  He's a second von Sohn. I can always tell from the physiognomy."
  
  "Ah, I dare say you are a connoisseur in that. But, look here, Fyodor
  Pavlovitch, you said just now that we had given our word to behave
  properly. Remember it. I advise you to control yourself. But, if you begin
  to play the fool I don't intend to be associated with you here.... You see
  what a man he is"--he turned to the monk--"I'm afraid to go among decent
  people with him." A fine smile, not without a certain slyness, came on to
  the pale, bloodless lips of the monk, but he made no reply, and was
  evidently silent from a sense of his own dignity. Miuesov frowned more than
  ever.
  
  "Oh, devil take them all! An outer show elaborated through centuries, and
  nothing but charlatanism and nonsense underneath," flashed through
  Miuesov's mind.
  
  "Here's the hermitage. We've arrived," cried Fyodor Pavlovitch. "The gates
  are shut."
  
  And he repeatedly made the sign of the cross to the saints painted above
  and on the sides of the gates.
  
  "When you go to Rome you must do as the Romans do. Here in this hermitage
  there are twenty-five saints being saved. They look at one another, and
  eat cabbages. And not one woman goes in at this gate. That's what is
  remarkable. And that really is so. But I did hear that the elder receives
  ladies," he remarked suddenly to the monk.
  
  "Women of the people are here too now, lying in the portico there waiting.
  But for ladies of higher rank two rooms have been built adjoining the
  portico, but outside the precincts--you can see the windows--and the elder
  goes out to them by an inner passage when he is well enough. They are
  always outside the precincts. There is a Harkov lady, Madame Hohlakov,
  waiting there now with her sick daughter. Probably he has promised to come
  out to her, though of late he has been so weak that he has hardly shown
  himself even to the people."
  
  "So then there are loopholes, after all, to creep out of the hermitage to
  the ladies. Don't suppose, holy father, that I mean any harm. But do you
  know that at Athos not only the visits of women are not allowed, but no
  creature of the female sex--no hens, nor turkey-hens, nor cows."
  
  "Fyodor Pavlovitch, I warn you I shall go back and leave you here. They'll
  turn you out when I'm gone."
  
  "But I'm not interfering with you, Pyotr Alexandrovitch. Look," he cried
  suddenly, stepping within the precincts, "what a vale of roses they live
  in!"
  
  Though there were no roses now, there were numbers of rare and beautiful
  autumn flowers growing wherever there was space for them, and evidently
  tended by a skillful hand; there were flower-beds round the church, and
  between the tombs; and the one-storied wooden house where the elder lived
  was also surrounded with flowers.
  
  "And was it like this in the time of the last elder, Varsonofy? He didn't
  care for such elegance. They say he used to jump up and thrash even ladies
  with a stick," observed Fyodor Pavlovitch, as he went up the steps.
  
  "The elder Varsonofy did sometimes seem rather strange, but a great deal
  that's told is foolishness. He never thrashed any one," answered the monk.
  "Now, gentlemen, if you will wait a minute I will announce you."
  
  "Fyodor Pavlovitch, for the last time, your compact, do you hear? Behave
  properly or I will pay you out!" Miuesov had time to mutter again.
  
  "I can't think why you are so agitated," Fyodor Pavlovitch observed
  sarcastically. "Are you uneasy about your sins? They say he can tell by
  one's eyes what one has come about. And what a lot you think of their
  opinion! you, a Parisian, and so advanced. I'm surprised at you."
  
  But Miuesov had no time to reply to this sarcasm. They were asked to come
  in. He walked in, somewhat irritated.
  
  "Now, I know myself, I am annoyed, I shall lose my temper and begin to
  quarrel--and lower myself and my ideas," he reflected.
  
  
  
  
  
feat_summary_name: book 2, Chapter 1
target: They Arrive at the Monastery On a warm, clear day at the end of August, Fyodor Pavlovich and Ivan Karamazov arrive at the monastery for the meeting with Zosima. Pyotr Alexandrovich Miusov, the cousin of Fyodor Pavlovich's first wife who briefly adopted the young Dmitri, is with them, as is Kalganov, a young relative of Miusov's who is living with him while preparing to enter a university. None of the men knows much about religion. Miusov, an atheist, has not been in a church for three decades. The men look around the monastery curiously. Miusov detests Fyodor Pavlovich, who intentionally torments Miusov by mocking the monastery and pretending not to understand why Miusov, as an irreligious man, would care what the monks think of him. Miusov angrily chastises himself for letting Fyodor Pavlovich bother him, but Fyodor Pavlovich's crudeness and vulgarity are so exasperating to Miusov that he cannot control his irritation. Dmitri has not yet arrived, and the men are shown to Zosima's cell to wait. The little monk who escorts them tells them that they are all invited to lunch with the Father Superior of the monastery after their meeting