1 The Brothers Karamazov
what does that vision mean?’
‘I don’t know what it means, Misha.’
‘I knew he wouldn’t explain it to you There’s nothing
wonderful about it, of course, only the usual holy mum-
mery. But there was an object in the performance. All the
pious people in the town will talk about it and spread the
story through the province, wondering what it meant. To
my thinking the old man really has a keen nose; he sniffed
a crime. Your house stinks of it.’
Rakitin evidently had something he was eager to speak
of.
‘It’ll be in your family, this crime. Between your brothers
and your rich old father. So Father Zossima flopped down
to be ready for what may turn up. If something happens
later on, it’ll be: ‘Ah, the holy man foresaw it, prophesied it!’
though it’s a poor sort of prophecy, flopping like that. ‘Ah,
but it was symbolic,’ they’ll say, ‘an allegory,’ and the devil
knows what all! It’ll be remembered to his glory: ‘He pre-
dicted the crime and marked the criminal!’ That’s always
the way with these crazy fanatics; they cross themselves at
the tavern and throw stones at the temple. Like your elder,
he takes a stick to a just man and falls at the feet of a mur-
derer.’
‘What crime? What do you mean?’
Alyosha stopped dead. Rakitin stopped, too.
‘What murderer? As though you didn’t know! I’ll bet
you’ve thought of it before. That’s interesting, too, by the
way. Listen, Alyosha, you always speak the truth, though
you’re always between two stools. Have you thought of it or