feat_summary_path: finished_summaries/shmoop/The Brothers Karamazov/section_44_part_0.txt
feat_book_id: The Brothers Karamazov.book 7.chapter 4
feat_summary_id: book 7, chapter 4
feat_summary: {"name": "Book 7, Chapter 4", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201023112808/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/brothers-karamazov/summary/book-7-chapter-4", "summary": "Alyosha gets back to the monastery at 9 in the evening and visits Zosima's cell, where Father Paissy continues to read from the Gospels over Zosima's coffin. Alyosha kneels to pray and finds that instead of all of those conflicting emotions he felt earlier, he just feels a kind of \"sweetness.\" Father Paissy is reading the story of the marriage at Cana, where Jesus performed his first miracle of transforming water into wine. As Alyosha drifts in and out of sleep, still praying, he enters into a kind of a trance, in which snippets of Paissy's reading mingle with his own scattered impressions of the day's events. While in this trance-like state, he sees Zosima himself appear before him, filled with joy. Zosima tells Alyosha that everyone - presumably in heaven - is at the wedding feast, everyone who gave just an onion. Suddenly Alyosha is filled with rapture and wakes up. He goes outside and falls to ground, kissing it. Three days later, Alyosha leaves the monastery as Zosima had directed him.", "analysis": ""}
text: Chapter IV. Cana Of Galilee
  
  
  It was very late, according to the monastery ideas, when Alyosha returned
  to the hermitage; the door-keeper let him in by a special entrance. It had
  struck nine o'clock--the hour of rest and repose after a day of such
  agitation for all. Alyosha timidly opened the door and went into the
  elder's cell where his coffin was now standing. There was no one in the
  cell but Father Paissy, reading the Gospel in solitude over the coffin,
  and the young novice Porfiry, who, exhausted by the previous night's
  conversation and the disturbing incidents of the day, was sleeping the
  deep sound sleep of youth on the floor of the other room. Though Father
  Paissy heard Alyosha come in, he did not even look in his direction.
  Alyosha turned to the right from the door to the corner, fell on his knees
  and began to pray.
  
  His soul was overflowing but with mingled feelings; no single sensation
  stood out distinctly; on the contrary, one drove out another in a slow,
  continual rotation. But there was a sweetness in his heart and, strange to
  say, Alyosha was not surprised at it. Again he saw that coffin before him,
  the hidden dead figure so precious to him, but the weeping and poignant
  grief of the morning was no longer aching in his soul. As soon as he came
  in, he fell down before the coffin as before a holy shrine, but joy, joy
  was glowing in his mind and in his heart. The one window of the cell was
  open, the air was fresh and cool. "So the smell must have become stronger,
  if they opened the window," thought Alyosha. But even this thought of the
  smell of corruption, which had seemed to him so awful and humiliating a
  few hours before, no longer made him feel miserable or indignant. He began
  quietly praying, but he soon felt that he was praying almost mechanically.
  Fragments of thought floated through his soul, flashed like stars and went
  out again at once, to be succeeded by others. But yet there was reigning
  in his soul a sense of the wholeness of things--something steadfast and
  comforting--and he was aware of it himself. Sometimes he began praying
  ardently, he longed to pour out his thankfulness and love....
  
  But when he had begun to pray, he passed suddenly to something else, and
  sank into thought, forgetting both the prayer and what had interrupted it.
  He began listening to what Father Paissy was reading, but worn out with
  exhaustion he gradually began to doze.
  
  "_And the third day there was a marriage in Cana of Galilee;_" read Father
  Paissy. "_And the mother of Jesus was there; And both Jesus was called,
  and his disciples, to the marriage._"
  
  "Marriage? What's that?... A marriage!" floated whirling through Alyosha's
  mind. "There is happiness for her, too.... She has gone to the feast....
  No, she has not taken the knife.... That was only a tragic phrase.... Well
  ... tragic phrases should be forgiven, they must be. Tragic phrases
  comfort the heart.... Without them, sorrow would be too heavy for men to
  bear. Rakitin has gone off to the back alley. As long as Rakitin broods
  over his wrongs, he will always go off to the back alley.... But the high
  road ... The road is wide and straight and bright as crystal, and the sun
  is at the end of it.... Ah!... What's being read?"...
  
  "_And when they wanted wine, the mother of Jesus saith unto him, They have
  no wine_" ... Alyosha heard.
  
  "Ah, yes, I was missing that, and I didn't want to miss it, I love that
  passage: it's Cana of Galilee, the first miracle.... Ah, that miracle! Ah,
  that sweet miracle! It was not men's grief, but their joy Christ visited,
  He worked His first miracle to help men's gladness.... 'He who loves men
  loves their gladness, too' ... He was always repeating that, it was one of
  his leading ideas.... 'There's no living without joy,' Mitya says.... Yes,
  Mitya.... 'Everything that is true and good is always full of
  forgiveness,' he used to say that, too" ...
  
  "_Jesus saith unto her, Woman, what has it to do with thee or me? Mine
  hour is not yet come._
  
  "_His mother saith unto the servants, Whatsoever he saith unto you, do
  it_" ...
  
  "Do it.... Gladness, the gladness of some poor, very poor, people.... Of
  course they were poor, since they hadn't wine enough even at a wedding....
  The historians write that, in those days, the people living about the Lake
  of Gennesaret were the poorest that can possibly be imagined ... and
  another great heart, that other great being, His Mother, knew that He had
  come not only to make His great terrible sacrifice. She knew that His
  heart was open even to the simple, artless merrymaking of some obscure and
  unlearned people, who had warmly bidden Him to their poor wedding. 'Mine
  hour is not yet come,' He said, with a soft smile (He must have smiled
  gently to her). And, indeed, was it to make wine abundant at poor weddings
  He had come down to earth? And yet He went and did as she asked Him....
  Ah, he is reading again"....
  
  "_Jesus saith unto them, Fill the waterpots with water. And they filled
  them up to the brim._
  
  "_And he saith unto them, Draw out now and bear unto the governor of the
  feast. And they bare it._
  
  "_When the ruler of the feast had tasted the water that was made wine, and
  knew not whence it was; (but the servants which drew the water knew;) the
  governor of the feast called the bridegroom,_
  
  "_And saith unto him, Every man at the beginning doth set forth good wine;
  and when men have well drunk, that which is worse; but thou hast kept the
  good wine until now._"
  
  "But what's this, what's this? Why is the room growing wider?... Ah, yes
  ... It's the marriage, the wedding ... yes, of course. Here are the
  guests, here are the young couple sitting, and the merry crowd and ...
  Where is the wise governor of the feast? But who is this? Who? Again the
  walls are receding.... Who is getting up there from the great table?
  What!... He here, too? But he's in the coffin ... but he's here, too. He
  has stood up, he sees me, he is coming here.... God!"...
  
  Yes, he came up to him, to him, he, the little, thin old man, with tiny
  wrinkles on his face, joyful and laughing softly. There was no coffin now,
  and he was in the same dress as he had worn yesterday sitting with them,
  when the visitors had gathered about him. His face was uncovered, his eyes
  were shining. How was this, then? He, too, had been called to the feast.
  He, too, at the marriage of Cana in Galilee....
  
  "Yes, my dear, I am called, too, called and bidden," he heard a soft voice
  saying over him. "Why have you hidden yourself here, out of sight? You
  come and join us too."
  
  It was his voice, the voice of Father Zossima. And it must be he, since he
  called him!
  
  The elder raised Alyosha by the hand and he rose from his knees.
  
  "We are rejoicing," the little, thin old man went on. "We are drinking the
  new wine, the wine of new, great gladness; do you see how many guests?
  Here are the bride and bridegroom, here is the wise governor of the feast,
  he is tasting the new wine. Why do you wonder at me? I gave an onion to a
  beggar, so I, too, am here. And many here have given only an onion
  each--only one little onion.... What are all our deeds? And you, my gentle
  one, you, my kind boy, you too have known how to give a famished woman an
  onion to-day. Begin your work, dear one, begin it, gentle one!... Do you
  see our Sun, do you see Him?"
  
  "I am afraid ... I dare not look," whispered Alyosha.
  
  "Do not fear Him. He is terrible in His greatness, awful in His sublimity,
  but infinitely merciful. He has made Himself like unto us from love and
  rejoices with us. He is changing the water into wine that the gladness of
  the guests may not be cut short. He is expecting new guests, He is calling
  new ones unceasingly for ever and ever.... There they are bringing new
  wine. Do you see they are bringing the vessels...."
  
  Something glowed in Alyosha's heart, something filled it till it ached,
  tears of rapture rose from his soul.... He stretched out his hands,
  uttered a cry and waked up.
  
  Again the coffin, the open window, and the soft, solemn, distinct reading
  of the Gospel. But Alyosha did not listen to the reading. It was strange,
  he had fallen asleep on his knees, but now he was on his feet, and
  suddenly, as though thrown forward, with three firm rapid steps he went
  right up to the coffin. His shoulder brushed against Father Paissy without
  his noticing it. Father Paissy raised his eyes for an instant from his
  book, but looked away again at once, seeing that something strange was
  happening to the boy. Alyosha gazed for half a minute at the coffin, at
  the covered, motionless dead man that lay in the coffin, with the ikon on
  his breast and the peaked cap with the octangular cross, on his head. He
  had only just been hearing his voice, and that voice was still ringing in
  his ears. He was listening, still expecting other words, but suddenly he
  turned sharply and went out of the cell.
  
  He did not stop on the steps either, but went quickly down; his soul,
  overflowing with rapture, yearned for freedom, space, openness. The vault
  of heaven, full of soft, shining stars, stretched vast and fathomless
  above him. The Milky Way ran in two pale streams from the zenith to the
  horizon. The fresh, motionless, still night enfolded the earth. The white
  towers and golden domes of the cathedral gleamed out against the sapphire
  sky. The gorgeous autumn flowers, in the beds round the house, were
  slumbering till morning. The silence of earth seemed to melt into the
  silence of the heavens. The mystery of earth was one with the mystery of
  the stars....
  
  Alyosha stood, gazed, and suddenly threw himself down on the earth. He did
  not know why he embraced it. He could not have told why he longed so
  irresistibly to kiss it, to kiss it all. But he kissed it weeping, sobbing
  and watering it with his tears, and vowed passionately to love it, to love
  it for ever and ever. "Water the earth with the tears of your joy and love
  those tears," echoed in his soul.
  
  What was he weeping over?
  
  Oh! in his rapture he was weeping even over those stars, which were
  shining to him from the abyss of space, and "he was not ashamed of that
  ecstasy." There seemed to be threads from all those innumerable worlds of
  God, linking his soul to them, and it was trembling all over "in contact
  with other worlds." He longed to forgive every one and for everything, and
  to beg forgiveness. Oh, not for himself, but for all men, for all and for
  everything. "And others are praying for me too," echoed again in his soul.
  But with every instant he felt clearly and, as it were, tangibly, that
  something firm and unshakable as that vault of heaven had entered into his
  soul. It was as though some idea had seized the sovereignty of his
  mind--and it was for all his life and for ever and ever. He had fallen on
  the earth a weak boy, but he rose up a resolute champion, and he knew and
  felt it suddenly at the very moment of his ecstasy. And never, never, all
  his life long, could Alyosha forget that minute.
  
  "Some one visited my soul in that hour," he used to say afterwards, with
  implicit faith in his words.
  
  Within three days he left the monastery in accordance with the words of
  his elder, who had bidden him "sojourn in the world."
  
  
  
  
  
  
feat_summary_name: Book 7, Chapter 4
target: Alyosha gets back to the monastery at 9 in the evening and visits Zosima's cell, where Father Paissy continues to read from the Gospels over Zosima's coffin. Alyosha kneels to pray and finds that instead of all of those conflicting emotions he felt earlier, he just feels a kind of "sweetness." Father Paissy is reading the story of the marriage at Cana, where Jesus performed his first miracle of transforming water into wine. As Alyosha drifts in and out of sleep, still praying, he enters into a kind of a trance, in which snippets of Paissy's reading mingle with his own scattered impressions of the day's events. While in this trance-like state, he sees Zosima himself appear before him, filled with joy. Zosima tells Alyosha that everyone - presumably in heaven - is at the wedding feast, everyone who gave just an onion. Suddenly Alyosha is filled with rapture and wakes up. He goes outside and falls to ground, kissing it. Three days later, Alyosha leaves the monastery as Zosima had directed him.