feat_summary_path: finished_summaries/shmoop/The Brothers Karamazov/section_95_part_0.txt
feat_book_id: The Brothers Karamazov.epilogue.chapter 3
feat_summary_id: epilogue, chapter 3
feat_summary: {"name": "Epilogue, Book 12, Chapter 3", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201023112808/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/brothers-karamazov/summary/epilogue-book-12-chapter-3", "summary": "The funeral is Ilyusha's. That's right, that angelic little boy from Book 10 died just a couple days after Dmitri was sentenced. All the boys have collected around Ilyusha's coffin, including Kolya. The narrator notes that Ilyusha's corpse doesn't smell. His body is covered in flowers donated by Lise Khokhlakov and Katerina Ivanovna. Captain Snegiryov is sober but still a mess. Mrs. Snegiryov and Ninochka are also at the coffin. Mrs. Snegiryov wants a white rose that has been placed in Ilyusha's hands, but the captain refuses to give it to her. The boys and Alyosha carry Ilyusha's coffin out a few hundred paces away to the church, accompanied by Snegiryov, who fusses over trivial details such as a crust of bread he had promised to crumble over his son's grave so that the swallows would visit it. The coffin is placed in the middle of the church, and everyone surrounds it as the funeral service is read. The coffin is then buried, and the children have to withhold Snegiryov from the open grave. On the way back, Snegiryov starts for the grave again and the children have to persuade him to follow them home. When they return Snegiryov gives his wife some flowers from the funeral, then breaks down in tears, as does the rest of the family, over the sight of his son's boots. Unable to bear it, Kolya suddenly leaves, along with the rest of the children and Alyosha. As they walk slowly down the path, they come upon Ilyusha's favorite stone. Overcome with emotion, Alyosha makes a little speech to the children about how he would like them to remember this moment as a time when they were all good and kind. The children declare their love for Alyosha. Kolya asks Alyosha about the afterlife, and Alyosha affirms that there is an afterlife where they will see Ilyusha again. Then they go back to the Snegiryovs' to eat pancakes. Really. The boys all cheer for Karamazov.", "analysis": ""}
text: Chapter III. Ilusha's Funeral. The Speech At The Stone
  
  
  He really was late. They had waited for him and had already decided to
  bear the pretty flower-decked little coffin to the church without him. It
  was the coffin of poor little Ilusha. He had died two days after Mitya was
  sentenced. At the gate of the house Alyosha was met by the shouts of the
  boys, Ilusha's schoolfellows. They had all been impatiently expecting him
  and were glad that he had come at last. There were about twelve of them,
  they all had their school-bags or satchels on their shoulders. "Father
  will cry, be with father," Ilusha had told them as he lay dying, and the
  boys remembered it. Kolya Krassotkin was the foremost of them.
  
  "How glad I am you've come, Karamazov!" he cried, holding out his hand to
  Alyosha. "It's awful here. It's really horrible to see it. Snegiryov is
  not drunk, we know for a fact he's had nothing to drink to-day, but he
  seems as if he were drunk ... I am always manly, but this is awful.
  Karamazov, if I am not keeping you, one question before you go in?"
  
  "What is it, Kolya?" said Alyosha.
  
  "Is your brother innocent or guilty? Was it he killed your father or was
  it the valet? As you say, so it will be. I haven't slept for the last four
  nights for thinking of it."
  
  "The valet killed him, my brother is innocent," answered Alyosha.
  
  "That's what I said," cried Smurov.
  
  "So he will perish an innocent victim!" exclaimed Kolya; "though he is
  ruined he is happy! I could envy him!"
  
  "What do you mean? How can you? Why?" cried Alyosha surprised.
  
  "Oh, if I, too, could sacrifice myself some day for truth!" said Kolya
  with enthusiasm.
  
  "But not in such a cause, not with such disgrace and such horror!" said
  Alyosha.
  
  "Of course ... I should like to die for all humanity, and as for disgrace,
  I don't care about that--our names may perish. I respect your brother!"
  
  "And so do I!" the boy, who had once declared that he knew who had founded
  Troy, cried suddenly and unexpectedly, and he blushed up to his ears like
  a peony as he had done on that occasion.
  
  Alyosha went into the room. Ilusha lay with his hands folded and his eyes
  closed in a blue coffin with a white frill round it. His thin face was
  hardly changed at all, and strange to say there was no smell of decay from
  the corpse. The expression of his face was serious and, as it were,
  thoughtful. His hands, crossed over his breast, looked particularly
  beautiful, as though chiseled in marble. There were flowers in his hands
  and the coffin, inside and out, was decked with flowers, which had been
  sent early in the morning by Lise Hohlakov. But there were flowers too
  from Katerina Ivanovna, and when Alyosha opened the door, the captain had
  a bunch in his trembling hands and was strewing them again over his dear
  boy. He scarcely glanced at Alyosha when he came in, and he would not look
  at any one, even at his crazy weeping wife, "mamma," who kept trying to
  stand on her crippled legs to get a nearer look at her dead boy. Nina had
  been pushed in her chair by the boys close up to the coffin. She sat with
  her head pressed to it and she too was no doubt quietly weeping.
  Snegiryov's face looked eager, yet bewildered and exasperated. There was
  something crazy about his gestures and the words that broke from him. "Old
  man, dear old man!" he exclaimed every minute, gazing at Ilusha. It was
  his habit to call Ilusha "old man," as a term of affection when he was
  alive.
  
  "Father, give me a flower, too; take that white one out of his hand and
  give it me," the crazy mother begged, whimpering. Either because the
  little white rose in Ilusha's hand had caught her fancy or that she wanted
  one from his hand to keep in memory of him, she moved restlessly,
  stretching out her hands for the flower.
  
  "I won't give it to any one, I won't give you anything," Snegiryov cried
  callously. "They are his flowers, not yours! Everything is his, nothing is
  yours!"
  
  "Father, give mother a flower!" said Nina, lifting her face wet with
  tears.
  
  "I won't give away anything and to her less than any one! She didn't love
  Ilusha. She took away his little cannon and he gave it to her," the
  captain broke into loud sobs at the thought of how Ilusha had given up his
  cannon to his mother. The poor, crazy creature was bathed in noiseless
  tears, hiding her face in her hands.
  
  The boys, seeing that the father would not leave the coffin and that it
  was time to carry it out, stood round it in a close circle and began to
  lift it up.
  
  "I don't want him to be buried in the churchyard," Snegiryov wailed
  suddenly; "I'll bury him by the stone, by our stone! Ilusha told me to. I
  won't let him be carried out!"
  
  He had been saying for the last three days that he would bury him by the
  stone, but Alyosha, Krassotkin, the landlady, her sister and all the boys
  interfered.
  
  "What an idea, bury him by an unholy stone, as though he had hanged
  himself!" the old landlady said sternly. "There in the churchyard the
  ground has been crossed. He'll be prayed for there. One can hear the
  singing in church and the deacon reads so plainly and verbally that it
  will reach him every time just as though it were read over his grave."
  
  At last the captain made a gesture of despair as though to say, "Take him
  where you will." The boys raised the coffin, but as they passed the
  mother, they stopped for a moment and lowered it that she might say good-
  by to Ilusha. But on seeing that precious little face, which for the last
  three days she had only looked at from a distance, she trembled all over
  and her gray head began twitching spasmodically over the coffin.
  
  "Mother, make the sign of the cross over him, give him your blessing, kiss
  him," Nina cried to her. But her head still twitched like an automaton and
  with a face contorted with bitter grief she began, without a word, beating
  her breast with her fist. They carried the coffin past her. Nina pressed
  her lips to her brother's for the last time as they bore the coffin by
  her. As Alyosha went out of the house he begged the landlady to look after
  those who were left behind, but she interrupted him before he had
  finished.
  
  "To be sure, I'll stay with them, we are Christians, too." The old woman
  wept as she said it.
  
  They had not far to carry the coffin to the church, not more than three
  hundred paces. It was a still, clear day, with a slight frost. The church
  bells were still ringing. Snegiryov ran fussing and distracted after the
  coffin, in his short old summer overcoat, with his head bare and his soft,
  old, wide-brimmed hat in his hand. He seemed in a state of bewildered
  anxiety. At one minute he stretched out his hand to support the head of
  the coffin and only hindered the bearers, at another he ran alongside and
  tried to find a place for himself there. A flower fell on the snow and he
  rushed to pick it up as though everything in the world depended on the
  loss of that flower.
  
  "And the crust of bread, we've forgotten the crust!" he cried suddenly in
  dismay. But the boys reminded him at once that he had taken the crust of
  bread already and that it was in his pocket. He instantly pulled it out
  and was reassured.
  
  "Ilusha told me to, Ilusha," he explained at once to Alyosha. "I was
  sitting by him one night and he suddenly told me: 'Father, when my grave
  is filled up crumble a piece of bread on it so that the sparrows may fly
  down, I shall hear and it will cheer me up not to be lying alone.' "
  
  "That's a good thing," said Alyosha, "we must often take some."
  
  "Every day, every day!" said the captain quickly, seeming cheered at the
  thought.
  
  They reached the church at last and set the coffin in the middle of it.
  The boys surrounded it and remained reverently standing so, all through
  the service. It was an old and rather poor church; many of the ikons were
  without settings; but such churches are the best for praying in. During
  the mass Snegiryov became somewhat calmer, though at times he had
  outbursts of the same unconscious and, as it were, incoherent anxiety. At
  one moment he went up to the coffin to set straight the cover or the
  wreath, when a candle fell out of the candlestick he rushed to replace it
  and was a fearful time fumbling over it, then he subsided and stood
  quietly by the coffin with a look of blank uneasiness and perplexity.
  After the Epistle he suddenly whispered to Alyosha, who was standing
  beside him, that the Epistle had not been read properly but did not
  explain what he meant. During the prayer, "Like the Cherubim," he joined
  in the singing but did not go on to the end. Falling on his knees, he
  pressed his forehead to the stone floor and lay so for a long while.
  
  At last came the funeral service itself and candles were distributed. The
  distracted father began fussing about again, but the touching and
  impressive funeral prayers moved and roused his soul. He seemed suddenly
  to shrink together and broke into rapid, short sobs, which he tried at
  first to smother, but at last he sobbed aloud. When they began taking
  leave of the dead and closing the coffin, he flung his arms about, as
  though he would not allow them to cover Ilusha, and began greedily and
  persistently kissing his dead boy on the lips. At last they succeeded in
  persuading him to come away from the step, but suddenly he impulsively
  stretched out his hand and snatched a few flowers from the coffin. He
  looked at them and a new idea seemed to dawn upon him, so that he
  apparently forgot his grief for a minute. Gradually he seemed to sink into
  brooding and did not resist when the coffin was lifted up and carried to
  the grave. It was an expensive one in the churchyard close to the church,
  Katerina Ivanovna had paid for it. After the customary rites the grave-
  diggers lowered the coffin. Snegiryov with his flowers in his hands bent
  down so low over the open grave that the boys caught hold of his coat in
  alarm and pulled him back. He did not seem to understand fully what was
  happening. When they began filling up the grave, he suddenly pointed
  anxiously at the falling earth and began trying to say something, but no
  one could make out what he meant, and he stopped suddenly. Then he was
  reminded that he must crumble the bread and he was awfully excited,
  snatched up the bread and began pulling it to pieces and flinging the
  morsels on the grave.
  
  "Come, fly down, birds, fly down, sparrows!" he muttered anxiously.
  
  One of the boys observed that it was awkward for him to crumble the bread
  with the flowers in his hands and suggested he should give them to some
  one to hold for a time. But he would not do this and seemed indeed
  suddenly alarmed for his flowers, as though they wanted to take them from
  him altogether. And after looking at the grave, and as it were, satisfying
  himself that everything had been done and the bread had been crumbled, he
  suddenly, to the surprise of every one, turned, quite composedly even, and
  made his way homewards. But his steps became more and more hurried, he
  almost ran. The boys and Alyosha kept up with him.
  
  "The flowers are for mamma, the flowers are for mamma! I was unkind to
  mamma," he began exclaiming suddenly.
  
  Some one called to him to put on his hat as it was cold. But he flung the
  hat in the snow as though he were angry and kept repeating, "I won't have
  the hat, I won't have the hat." Smurov picked it up and carried it after
  him. All the boys were crying, and Kolya and the boy who discovered about
  Troy most of all. Though Smurov, with the captain's hat in his hand, was
  crying bitterly too, he managed, as he ran, to snatch up a piece of red
  brick that lay on the snow of the path, to fling it at the flock of
  sparrows that was flying by. He missed them, of course, and went on crying
  as he ran. Half-way, Snegiryov suddenly stopped, stood still for half a
  minute, as though struck by something, and suddenly turning back to the
  church, ran towards the deserted grave. But the boys instantly overtook
  him and caught hold of him on all sides. Then he fell helpless on the snow
  as though he had been knocked down, and struggling, sobbing, and wailing,
  he began crying out, "Ilusha, old man, dear old man!" Alyosha and Kolya
  tried to make him get up, soothing and persuading him.
  
  "Captain, give over, a brave man must show fortitude," muttered Kolya.
  
  "You'll spoil the flowers," said Alyosha, "and mamma is expecting them,
  she is sitting crying because you would not give her any before. Ilusha's
  little bed is still there--"
  
  "Yes, yes, mamma!" Snegiryov suddenly recollected, "they'll take away the
  bed, they'll take it away," he added as though alarmed that they really
  would. He jumped up and ran homewards again. But it was not far off and
  they all arrived together. Snegiryov opened the door hurriedly and called
  to his wife with whom he had so cruelly quarreled just before:
  
  "Mamma, poor crippled darling, Ilusha has sent you these flowers," he
  cried, holding out to her a little bunch of flowers that had been frozen
  and broken while he was struggling in the snow. But at that instant he saw
  in the corner, by the little bed, Ilusha's little boots, which the
  landlady had put tidily side by side. Seeing the old, patched, rusty-
  looking, stiff boots he flung up his hands and rushed to them, fell on his
  knees, snatched up one boot and, pressing his lips to it, began kissing it
  greedily, crying, "Ilusha, old man, dear old man, where are your little
  feet?"
  
  "Where have you taken him away? Where have you taken him?" the lunatic
  cried in a heartrending voice. Nina, too, broke into sobs. Kolya ran out
  of the room, the boys followed him. At last Alyosha too went out.
  
  "Let them weep," he said to Kolya, "it's no use trying to comfort them
  just now. Let us wait a minute and then go back."
  
  "No, it's no use, it's awful," Kolya assented. "Do you know, Karamazov,"
  he dropped his voice so that no one could hear them, "I feel dreadfully
  sad, and if it were only possible to bring him back, I'd give anything in
  the world to do it."
  
  "Ah, so would I," said Alyosha.
  
  "What do you think, Karamazov? Had we better come back here to-night?
  He'll be drunk, you know."
  
  "Perhaps he will. Let us come together, you and I, that will be enough, to
  spend an hour with them, with the mother and Nina. If we all come together
  we shall remind them of everything again," Alyosha suggested.
  
  "The landlady is laying the table for them now--there'll be a funeral
  dinner or something, the priest is coming; shall we go back to it,
  Karamazov?"
  
  "Of course," said Alyosha.
  
  "It's all so strange, Karamazov, such sorrow and then pancakes after it,
  it all seems so unnatural in our religion."
  
  "They are going to have salmon, too," the boy who had discovered about
  Troy observed in a loud voice.
  
  "I beg you most earnestly, Kartashov, not to interrupt again with your
  idiotic remarks, especially when one is not talking to you and doesn't
  care to know whether you exist or not!" Kolya snapped out irritably. The
  boy flushed crimson but did not dare to reply.
  
  Meantime they were strolling slowly along the path and suddenly Smurov
  exclaimed:
  
  "There's Ilusha's stone, under which they wanted to bury him."
  
  They all stood still by the big stone. Alyosha looked and the whole
  picture of what Snegiryov had described to him that day, how Ilusha,
  weeping and hugging his father, had cried, "Father, father, how he
  insulted you," rose at once before his imagination.
  
  A sudden impulse seemed to come into his soul. With a serious and earnest
  expression he looked from one to another of the bright, pleasant faces of
  Ilusha's schoolfellows, and suddenly said to them:
  
  "Boys, I should like to say one word to you, here at this place."
  
  The boys stood round him and at once bent attentive and expectant eyes
  upon him.
  
  "Boys, we shall soon part. I shall be for some time with my two brothers,
  of whom one is going to Siberia and the other is lying at death's door.
  But soon I shall leave this town, perhaps for a long time, so we shall
  part. Let us make a compact here, at Ilusha's stone, that we will never
  forget Ilusha and one another. And whatever happens to us later in life,
  if we don't meet for twenty years afterwards, let us always remember how
  we buried the poor boy at whom we once threw stones, do you remember, by
  the bridge? and afterwards we all grew so fond of him. He was a fine boy,
  a kind-hearted, brave boy, he felt for his father's honor and resented the
  cruel insult to him and stood up for him. And so in the first place, we
  will remember him, boys, all our lives. And even if we are occupied with
  most important things, if we attain to honor or fall into great
  misfortune--still let us remember how good it was once here, when we were
  all together, united by a good and kind feeling which made us, for the
  time we were loving that poor boy, better perhaps than we are. My little
  doves--let me call you so, for you are very like them, those pretty blue
  birds, at this minute as I look at your good dear faces. My dear children,
  perhaps you won't understand what I am saying to you, because I often
  speak very unintelligibly, but you'll remember it all the same and will
  agree with my words some time. You must know that there is nothing higher
  and stronger and more wholesome and good for life in the future than some
  good memory, especially a memory of childhood, of home. People talk to you
  a great deal about your education, but some good, sacred memory, preserved
  from childhood, is perhaps the best education. If a man carries many such
  memories with him into life, he is safe to the end of his days, and if one
  has only one good memory left in one's heart, even that may sometime be
  the means of saving us. Perhaps we may even grow wicked later on, may be
  unable to refrain from a bad action, may laugh at men's tears and at those
  people who say as Kolya did just now, 'I want to suffer for all men,' and
  may even jeer spitefully at such people. But however bad we may
  become--which God forbid--yet, when we recall how we buried Ilusha, how we
  loved him in his last days, and how we have been talking like friends all
  together, at this stone, the cruelest and most mocking of us--if we do
  become so--will not dare to laugh inwardly at having been kind and good at
  this moment! What's more, perhaps, that one memory may keep him from great
  evil and he will reflect and say, 'Yes, I was good and brave and honest
  then!' Let him laugh to himself, that's no matter, a man often laughs at
  what's good and kind. That's only from thoughtlessness. But I assure you,
  boys, that as he laughs he will say at once in his heart, 'No, I do wrong
  to laugh, for that's not a thing to laugh at.' "
  
  "That will be so, I understand you, Karamazov!" cried Kolya, with flashing
  eyes.
  
  The boys were excited and they, too, wanted to say something, but they
  restrained themselves, looking with intentness and emotion at the speaker.
  
  "I say this in case we become bad," Alyosha went on, "but there's no
  reason why we should become bad, is there, boys? Let us be, first and
  above all, kind, then honest and then let us never forget each other! I
  say that again. I give you my word for my part that I'll never forget one
  of you. Every face looking at me now I shall remember even for thirty
  years. Just now Kolya said to Kartashov that we did not care to know
  whether he exists or not. But I cannot forget that Kartashov exists and
  that he is not blushing now as he did when he discovered the founders of
  Troy, but is looking at me with his jolly, kind, dear little eyes. Boys,
  my dear boys, let us all be generous and brave like Ilusha, clever, brave
  and generous like Kolya (though he will be ever so much cleverer when he
  is grown up), and let us all be as modest, as clever and sweet as
  Kartashov. But why am I talking about those two? You are all dear to me,
  boys, from this day forth, I have a place in my heart for you all, and I
  beg you to keep a place in your hearts for me! Well, and who has united us
  in this kind, good feeling which we shall remember and intend to remember
  all our lives? Who, if not Ilusha, the good boy, the dear boy, precious to
  us for ever! Let us never forget him. May his memory live for ever in our
  hearts from this time forth!"
  
  "Yes, yes, for ever, for ever!" the boys cried in their ringing voices,
  with softened faces.
  
  "Let us remember his face and his clothes and his poor little boots, his
  coffin and his unhappy, sinful father, and how boldly he stood up for him
  alone against the whole school."
  
  "We will remember, we will remember," cried the boys. "He was brave, he
  was good!"
  
  "Ah, how I loved him!" exclaimed Kolya.
  
  "Ah, children, ah, dear friends, don't be afraid of life! How good life is
  when one does something good and just!"
  
  "Yes, yes," the boys repeated enthusiastically.
  
  "Karamazov, we love you!" a voice, probably Kartashov's, cried
  impulsively.
  
  "We love you, we love you!" they all caught it up. There were tears in the
  eyes of many of them.
  
  "Hurrah for Karamazov!" Kolya shouted ecstatically.
  
  "And may the dead boy's memory live for ever!" Alyosha added again with
  feeling.
  
  "For ever!" the boys chimed in again.
  
  "Karamazov," cried Kolya, "can it be true what's taught us in religion,
  that we shall all rise again from the dead and shall live and see each
  other again, all, Ilusha too?"
  
  "Certainly we shall all rise again, certainly we shall see each other and
  shall tell each other with joy and gladness all that has happened!"
  Alyosha answered, half laughing, half enthusiastic.
  
  "Ah, how splendid it will be!" broke from Kolya.
  
  "Well, now we will finish talking and go to his funeral dinner. Don't be
  put out at our eating pancakes--it's a very old custom and there's
  something nice in that!" laughed Alyosha. "Well, let us go! And now we go
  hand in hand."
  
  "And always so, all our lives hand in hand! Hurrah for Karamazov!" Kolya
  cried once more rapturously, and once more the boys took up his
  exclamation: "Hurrah for Karamazov!"
  
  
  THE END
  
  
  
  
  
  
  FOOTNOTES
  
  
      1 In Russian, "silen."
  
      2 A proverbial expression in Russia.
  
      3 Grushenka.
  
      4 i.e. setter dog.
  
      5 Probably the public event was the Decabrist plot against the Tsar,
        of December 1825, in which the most distinguished men in Russia were
        concerned.--TRANSLATOR'S NOTE.
  
      6 When a monk's body is carried out from the cell to the church and
        from the church to the graveyard, the canticle "What earthly joy..."
        is sung. If the deceased was a priest as well as a monk the canticle
        "Our Helper and Defender" is sung instead.
  
      7 i.e. a chime of bells.
  
      8 Literally: "Did you get off with a long nose made at you?"--a
        proverbial expression in Russia for failure.
  
      9 Gogol is meant.
  
feat_summary_name: Epilogue, Book 12, Chapter 3
target: The funeral is Ilyusha's. That's right, that angelic little boy from Book 10 died just a couple days after Dmitri was sentenced. All the boys have collected around Ilyusha's coffin, including Kolya. The narrator notes that Ilyusha's corpse doesn't smell. His body is covered in flowers donated by Lise Khokhlakov and Katerina Ivanovna. Captain Snegiryov is sober but still a mess. Mrs. Snegiryov and Ninochka are also at the coffin. Mrs. Snegiryov wants a white rose that has been placed in Ilyusha's hands, but the captain refuses to give it to her. The boys and Alyosha carry Ilyusha's coffin out a few hundred paces away to the church, accompanied by Snegiryov, who fusses over trivial details such as a crust of bread he had promised to crumble over his son's grave so that the swallows would visit it. The coffin is placed in the middle of the church, and everyone surrounds it as the funeral service is read. The coffin is then buried, and the children have to withhold Snegiryov from the open grave. On the way back, Snegiryov starts for the grave again and the children have to persuade him to follow them home. When they return Snegiryov gives his wife some flowers from the funeral, then breaks down in tears, as does the rest of the family, over the sight of his son's boots. Unable to bear it, Kolya suddenly leaves, along with the rest of the children and Alyosha. As they walk slowly down the path, they come upon Ilyusha's favorite stone. Overcome with emotion, Alyosha makes a little speech to the children about how he would like them to remember this moment as a time when they were all good and kind. The children declare their love for Alyosha. Kolya asks Alyosha about the afterlife, and Alyosha affirms that there is an afterlife where they will see Ilyusha again. Then they go back to the Snegiryovs' to eat pancakes. Really. The boys all cheer for Karamazov.