While on the march, Pierre hears Karatáev tell a fable about suffering and forgiveness. Pierre finds the story very moving.
Summary:
This chapter consists mainly in a fable which Pierre hears Karatáev tell often. Pierre had long been familiar with that story. Karatáev had told it to him alone some half-dozen times and always with an especially joyful emotion. But well as he knew it, Pierre now listened to that tale as to something new, and the quiet rapture Karatáev evidently felt as he told it communicated itself also to Pierre. The story was of an old merchant who lived a good and God-fearing life with his family, and who went once to the Nízhni fair with a companion-a rich merchant where he is framed for a murder he did not commit. The merchant is sent to Siberia for hard labor. In Siberia, the person who actually committed the murder meets the old merchant. Moved by seeing what he has done, the actual murderer confesses to the authorities, (he was a great sinner). This leads to a pardon from the Czar for the old merchant, but the merchant dies before the pardon arrives.
quote from the chapter:
And the old man said, ‘God will forgive you, we are all sinners in His sight. I suffer for my own sins,’ and he wept bitter tears. Well, and what do you think, dear friends? Karatáev continued, his face brightening more and more with a rapturous smile as if what he now had to tell contained the chief charm and the whole meaning of his story: What do you think, dear fellows? That murderer confessed to the authorities. ‘I have taken six lives,’ he says (he was a great sinner), ‘but what I am most sorry for is this old man. Don’t let him suffer because of me.’ So he confessed and it was all written down and the papers sent off in due form. The place was a long way off, and while they were judging, what with one thing and another, filling in the papers all in due form-the authorities I mean-time passed. The affair reached the Tsar. After a while the Tsar’s decree came: to set the merchant free and give him a compensation that had been awarded. The paper arrived and they began to look for the old man. ‘Where is the old man who has been suffering innocently and in vain? A paper has come from the Tsar!’ so they began looking for him, here Karatáev’s lower jaw trembled, but God had already forgiven him-he was dead! That’s how it was, dear fellows! Karatáev concluded and sat for a long time silent, gazing before him with a smile.
And Pierre’s soul was dimly but joyfully filled not by the story itself but by its mysterious significance: by the rapturous joy that lit up Karatáev’s face as he told it, and the mystic significance of that joy.
Book 14, Chapter 13
While on the march, Pierre hears Karatáev tell a fable about suffering and forgiveness. Pierre finds the story very moving.
Summary:
This chapter consists mainly in a fable which Pierre hears Karatáev tell often. Pierre had long been familiar with that story. Karatáev had told it to him alone some half-dozen times and always with an especially joyful emotion. But well as he knew it, Pierre now listened to that tale as to something new, and the quiet rapture Karatáev evidently felt as he told it communicated itself also to Pierre. The story was of an old merchant who lived a good and God-fearing life with his family, and who went once to the Nízhni fair with a companion-a rich merchant where he is framed for a murder he did not commit. The merchant is sent to Siberia for hard labor. In Siberia, the person who actually committed the murder meets the old merchant. Moved by seeing what he has done, the actual murderer confesses to the authorities, (he was a great sinner). This leads to a pardon from the Czar for the old merchant, but the merchant dies before the pardon arrives.
quote from the chapter:
And the old man said, ‘God will forgive you, we are all sinners in His sight. I suffer for my own sins,’ and he wept bitter tears. Well, and what do you think, dear friends? Karatáev continued, his face brightening more and more with a rapturous smile as if what he now had to tell contained the chief charm and the whole meaning of his story: What do you think, dear fellows? That murderer confessed to the authorities. ‘I have taken six lives,’ he says (he was a great sinner), ‘but what I am most sorry for is this old man. Don’t let him suffer because of me.’ So he confessed and it was all written down and the papers sent off in due form. The place was a long way off, and while they were judging, what with one thing and another, filling in the papers all in due form-the authorities I mean-time passed. The affair reached the Tsar. After a while the Tsar’s decree came: to set the merchant free and give him a compensation that had been awarded. The paper arrived and they began to look for the old man. ‘Where is the old man who has been suffering innocently and in vain? A paper has come from the Tsar!’ so they began looking for him, here Karatáev’s lower jaw trembled, but God had already forgiven him-he was dead! That’s how it was, dear fellows! Karatáev concluded and sat for a long time silent, gazing before him with a smile.
And Pierre’s soul was dimly but joyfully filled not by the story itself but by its mysterious significance: by the rapturous joy that lit up Karatáev’s face as he told it, and the mystic significance of that joy.
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