The onion

What It Is

The onion is a folk fable that Grushenka tells Alexei Fyodorovich Karamazov on the day the elder's body begins to smell, which she had heard in childhood from the cook Matryona: a wicked woman dies without any virtue except an onion pulled from the vegetable garden and given to a beggar, and the guardian angel holds this onion out over the lake of fire to pull her out. The other sinners cling to it, the woman kicks them off because she thinks the onion is hers alone, and the onion breaks. The fable ends badly, but the book does not let it stop there: the word passes from Grushenka to Alyosha, from Alyosha to the dream in which Elder Zosima gives it back to him as the reason for being at the feast, and it returns to Grushenka's lips on the night at Mokroye. It is the novel's measure of goodness: a minimal gesture, without calculation, which proves no virtue and yet still weighs.

Where It Appears

In chapter III of Book VII, Rakitin takes Alyosha to Grushenka's house in pursuit of two gains, the twenty-five rubles she promised him for bringing Alyosha and the fall of the righteous man. She waits, dressed in black silk, for the message from the officer who abandoned her five years ago, and had planned to devour the young man. The scene leaves the script when Rakitin tells them the elder has died: she jumps from Alyosha's lap and crosses herself, and he, instead of judging her, tells her what he has just realized.

нашел сестру искреннюю, нашел сокровище — душу любящую… [...] Ты мою душу сейчас восстановила., I have found a sincere sister, I have found a treasure, a loving soul… [...] You have restored my soul just now.

Grushenka tells the two of them to be quiet, says she is wicked and that she gave an onion all the same, and tells the fable to Alyosha, and not to Rakitin.

Жила-была одна баба злющая-презлющая и померла. И не осталось после нее ни одной добродетели. Схватили ее черти и кинули в огненное озеро. А ангел-хранитель ее стоит да и думает: какую бы мне такую добродетель ее припомнить, чтобы богу сказать. Вспомнил и говорит богу: она, говорит, в огороде луковку выдернула и нищенке подала. И отвечает ему бог: возьми ж ты, говорит, эту самую луковку, протяни ей в озеро, пусть ухватится и тянется, и коли вытянешь ее вон из озера, то пусть в рай идет, а оборвется луковка, то там и оставаться бабе, где теперь. Побежал ангел к бабе, протянул ей луковку: на, говорит, баба, схватись и тянись. И стал он ее осторожно тянуть и уж всю было вытянул, да грешники прочие в озере, как увидали, что ее тянут вон, и стали все за нее хвататься, чтоб и их вместе с нею вытянули. А баба-то была злющая-презлющая, и почала она их ногами брыкать: „Меня тянут, а не вас, моя луковка, а не ваша“. Только что она это выговорила, луковка-то и порвалась. И упала баба в озеро и горит по сей день. А ангел заплакал и отошел, There was once a wicked, wicked woman, and she died. Not a single virtue remained of her. The devils seized her and threw her into the lake of fire. And her guardian angel stood there thinking: what virtue of hers could I recall, to tell God? He remembered and said to God: she, he says, pulled an onion out of the vegetable garden and gave it to a beggar. And God answers him: take that same onion, he says, and hold it out to her in the lake, let her grab hold and pull; and if you pull her out of the lake, let her go to paradise, but if the onion breaks, let the woman stay where she is now. The angel ran to the woman and held out the onion: here, he says, woman, grab hold and pull. And he began to pull her gently, and had almost got her all the way out, but the other sinners in the lake, when they saw her being pulled out, all clung to her so they could be pulled out with her. And the woman was wicked, wicked, and she began to kick them with her feet: "I am being pulled, not you, my onion, not yours!" No sooner had she said it than the onion broke. And the woman fell back into the lake and burns there to this day. And the angel wept and went away.

She turns the fable against herself: the woman who kicks the others off to keep the onion is her. Then she makes Alyosha the full confession of the plan that his gaze undid.

Хотела я тебя погубить, Алеша, правда это великая, совсем положила [...] Но на тебя глядя, положила: его проглочу. Проглочу и смеяться буду., I wanted to destroy you, Alyosha, it is a great truth, I had quite made up my mind [...] But looking at you, I made up my mind: I will swallow him. I will swallow him and laugh.

When she asks him what he has done for her, Alyosha answers her with her own word, weeping.

луковку я тебе подал, одну самую малую луковку, только, только!.., I gave you an onion, just one, the smallest of all, only that, only that!...

In chapter IV of Book VII, back at the coffin, Alyosha falls asleep listening to the Gospel of Cana and sees Zosima at the feast, small and laughing, who calls him to the table with Grushenka's word.

The master goes on, and turns the onion into a task.

In chapter VIII of Book VIII, at Mokroye, already tipsy at the feast, Grushenka tells Dmitri Fyodorovich Karamazov that one day she will go to a monastery, because Alyosha said one word to her that day that will last her whole life, and that tonight she wants to dance. She returns to the onion without needing to tell it again.

Я луковку подала. Злодейке такой, как я, молиться хочется!, I gave an onion. A wicked woman like me also feels like praying!

What It Means

The fable measures what saves by the floor: it does not ask for holiness, it asks for a gesture, and the scarcity of the gesture is the point. In Grushenka's mouth it serves to condemn herself, because the woman is her, who has one onion only and defends it with kicks. In Alyosha's it serves to refuse merit: he gave the smallest of all, and only that. In Zosima's it serves to lift from the listener the weight of having to deserve: at the Cana feast everyone gave one onion. The image is the same and changes its effect according to who says it and to whom, a condemnation in one case and an invitation in the other, and what is hard in the fable, the ending in which the woman cries "my onion, not yours", is never taken back.

Two readings of the fable, and the text sustains both. In one, the onion breaks because the woman holds it back, and Alyosha's gesture, which gives without holding anything and without expecting salvation, is the onion that does not break: Grushenka rises precisely because no one has demanded anything of her. In the other, the onion is only the floor, and the fable ends at its worst point, with the angel weeping and going away, without Zosima's dream saying whether the woman was saved. At Mokroye, in chapter VIII of Book VIII, Grushenka returns to the onion like someone who does not yet know which of the two she is in: she says she gave one, asks to pray, and soon after asks everyone why she is so good, without waiting for an answer.

Relationships

• Default themes: Guilt, Faith.
• Themes of the work: Guilt, Faith.
• Characters: Grushenka, Alexei Fyodorovich Karamazov, Elder Zosima, Rakitin, Dmitri Fyodorovich Karamazov.
• Neighboring symbols: the noxious odor, which opens the same day, and the earth watered with tears, where Alyosha's night ends.