Summary of the book
The meeting that gives the Book its name was called to settle the division between Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov and Dmitri Fyodorovich Karamazov with the help of Elder Zosima, and it never gets to money at all. Instead, the father turns the cell into a stage, the elder answers the clown with a short recommendation (not to lie to oneself), the peasant women and a society lady learn from him what consolation is and what active love is, Ivan Fyodorovich Karamazov calmly sets out the thesis of a court that would belong to the Church, and the scene explodes when Mitya arrives and Zosima kneels before him. The following sequence, the abbot's dinner, repeats the scandal on a larger scale. The question that runs through the Book is what sustains a moral life when no one is obliged to look: Zosima's doctrine, without rhetoric, or the excess of the Karamazovs, which turns every declaration into a scene.
Chapter I: The Visitors Arrive at the Monastery
Chapter summary
On a clear, hot late-August day, the meeting with the elder is set for after the late mass, around half past eleven, but the visitors do not go to mass and arrive when it ends. They come in two carriages: in the first, an elegant one, Pyotr Alexandrovich Miusov and the distant relative Pyotr Fomich Kalganov, a young man of about twenty whom Miusov is trying to take abroad to study and who is Alyosha's friend; in the second, old and noisy, Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov and his son Ivan Fyodorovich Karamazov. Dmitri Fyodorovich Karamazov, who was warned the day before, is late. Only Fyodor had ever known a monastery; Miusov has not entered a church for some thirty years and looks at everything with curiosity and forced ease. None of the monks comes to receive them, which irritates him, because one of the visitors had recently donated a thousand rubles and the other is a rich landowner on whom the monks depend because of a fishing dispute, and his liberal irony is already close to anger.
Then the small landowner from Tula, Maximov, an old man of about sixty, unctuous, appears, offers to guide them to the hermitage and runs along beside them with a spasmodic curiosity; Miusov dismisses him coldly, saying they have an audience. A pale monk catches up with them with the abbot's invitation to lunch at one o'clock, and Fyodor accepts delightedly and reminds everyone that they promised to behave. Miusov accepts because he came precisely to see the customs, but he fears the company, and Fyodor, who thinks Maximov looks like Von Sohn, hears from Miusov that if he starts playing the buffoon, Miusov does not want to be put on the same level. The monk smiles thinly and says nothing, and Miusov thinks, irritated, that everything there is the appearance of centuries and charlatanism.
Analysis
At the gate of the hermitage Fyodor makes large signs of the cross before the painted saints and cracks jokes about the twenty-five saints who are saved there by looking at one another and eating cabbage, about the ban on women, and about the custom of Athos of keeping even the hens away. The monk explains that the elder receives illustrious ladies in two rooms of the gallery, outside the wall, and that Madame Khokhlakova is waiting there with her sick daughter. Fyodor asks about the previous elder, who used to beat women with a stick, and the monk denies it: that elder sometimes seemed like a holy fool, but people tell a lot of nonsense. Miusov gives a last warning, and Fyodor provokes him:
Совсем неизвестно, с чего вы в таком великом волнении, — насмешливо заметил Федор Павлович, — али грешков боитесь? Ведь он, говорят, по глазам узнает, кто с чем приходит. Да и как высоко цените вы их мнение, вы, такой парижанин и передовой господин, удивили вы меня даже, вот что!
, It is not at all clear why you are in such great agitation, Fyodor Pavlovich remarked mockingly, are you afraid of your little sins? For they say he knows by the eyes who comes with what. And how highly you value their opinion, you, such a Parisian and progressive gentleman, you have even surprised me, that's what!
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Chapter II: The Buffoon Before the Elder
Chapter summary
In the cell two religious are already waiting, the librarian Father Iosif and Father Paissy, and standing in a corner a seminarian of about twenty-two, a protégé of the monastery, Rakitin, with an attentive face and calculated respect. Elder Zosima enters with Alyosha and exchanges bows to the floor with the religious. Miusov had resolved, the day before, to ask at least for the blessing as a simple courtesy, but on seeing those bows he changes his mind and makes a courtly bow; Fyodor mimics him, Ivan bows politely with his hands held at his sides, and Kalganov, confused, does not bow at all. The elder lowers his raised hand and invites them to sit. Alyosha blushes with shame: his bad forebodings are coming true. In the poor cell, with old icons and Italian engravings, Miusov measures the elder with his eyes, does not like him, and finds his soul small and arrogant.
Analysis
Chapter III: The Elder Receives the Women
Chapter summary
Outside, on the wooden gallery, some twenty peasant women are waiting, and in the reserved room Madame Khokhlakova (a widow of at most thirty-three, rich and well dressed) with her fourteen-year-old daughter, Lise Khokhlakova, whose legs have been paralyzed for half a year and who is carried about in a wheelchair. Zosima goes first to the people. He covers the head of a klikusha, who sobs and trembles, with his stole, and prays; she calms down. The narrator interrupts the scene to say that, as a child, he heard from teachers and landowners that it was pretense, and that later he learned from doctors that it is a real illness of country women, brought on by work after hard childbirths, grief, and beatings, and that the calm before the chalice is explained by an expectation of miracle and of complete faith.
Analysis
Chapter IV: The Lady Who Doubts Immortality
Chapter summary
Madame Khokhlakova, quick to tears, thanks the elder for having healed Lise: since Thursday, when he prayed over her daughter, the night fevers have stopped, the legs have grown stronger, the girl stood on her own for a minute, and the town doctor, Herzenstube, only shrugs. Zosima, more sober, replies that the girl is still in the chair. Lise laughs at Alexei Fyodorovich Karamazov, who turns red, and hands him a note from Katerina Ivanovna asking him to come see her at once; her mother insists it is because of Dmitri and the latest events. Alyosha, astonished, says he has seen her only once, and agrees.
Analysis
Chapter V: Church and State in the Cell
Chapter summary
The elder takes about twenty-five minutes; it is past half past twelve and Mitya has not arrived, but they have almost forgotten him. When Zosima returns, tired and pale (Alyosha sees that he overcomes his fatigue and has a purpose in keeping the meeting going), the guests are animatedly discussing Ivan's article. Miusov takes part reluctantly and stays in the background, which irritates him even more: the new generation ignores him, he who thought himself equal to everything advanced in Europe. Fyodor, silenced by his word, whispers a jab in Miusov's ear: he did not leave after the story of the saint because he felt humiliated and wants to prove his intelligence out of spite, and now he will not leave before that.
Analysis
Chapter VI: Mitya Arrives and Zosima Kneels
Chapter summary
Dmitri Fyodorovich Karamazov is twenty-eight years old and looks older: muscular, with a thin, yellowish face, dark bulging eyes whose gaze does not follow his mood, impeccably dressed, with a military stride. He goes straight to the elder, kisses his hand and apologizes for being late: the servant Smerdyakov, sent by his father, assured him twice that it was at one o'clock. Then he makes a deep bow to his father, clearly prepared and sincere; Fyodor, taken by surprise, jumps out of his chair and answers with an equal bow, his face serious and even more wicked. Mitya sits near Father Paissy, ready to listen.
Analysis
Chapter VII: Alyosha and the Seminarian Rakitin
Chapter summary
Alyosha leads the elder to the alcove, a small room with an iron bed and felt in place of a mattress, a lectern with a cross and a Gospel, and sits him on the bed, without strength. Zosima looks at him fixedly and sends him to the abbot's lunch to serve at table, because there "there is no peace." Alyosha asks to stay. The elder refuses and tells him:
Analysis
Chapter VIII: The Scandal at the Abbot's Lunch
Chapter summary
Miusov enters the lunch with the aim of making amends. He is ashamed of having grown angry with Fyodor and concludes that the monks are not to blame: he will be gracious, will agree, will cede the fishing and woodcutting rights once and for all and end the lawsuits. The abbot receives the guests in a simple but clean and plentiful room, with bread of three kinds, wine, mead, and kvass, but no vodka. Rakitin, who was not invited, sniffed out the five-course menu in the kitchen: he is restless, envious, and considers himself honest because he would not steal money from the table, which distresses Alyosha, who loves him. The abbot, tall, lean, and strong, does not let Miusov kiss his hand. Miusov apologizes for the absent guest: Fyodor, dragged into an unhappy family quarrel, would have said improper things in the elder's cell and, ashamed, sent word of his regret. The abbot laments the absence, which perhaps would have made them friends at the table, and begins to pray.
Analysis
Reading of the book
Analysis