The Brothers Karamazov
I enjoyed listening and looking at them. ‘My dear friends
and comrades,’ said I, ‘don’t worry about my resigning my
commission, for I have done so already. I have sent in my
papers this morning and as soon as I get my discharge I
shall go into a monastery — it’s with that object I am leav-
ing the regiment.’
When I had said this every one of them burst out laugh-
ing.
‘You should have told us of that first, that explains every-
thing, we can’t judge a monk.’
They laughed and could not stop themselves, and not
scornfully, but kindly and merrily. They all felt friendly
to me at once, even those who had been sternest in their
censure, and all the following month, before my discharge
came, they could not make enough of me. ‘Ah, you monk,’
they would say. And everyone said something kind to me,
they began trying to dissuade me, even to pity me: ‘What
are you doing to yourself?’
‘No,’ they would say, ‘he is a brave fellow, he faced fire
and could have fired his own pistol too, but he had a dream
the night before that he should become a monk, that’s why
he did it.’
It was the same thing with the society of the town. Till
then I had been kindly received, but had not been the ob-
ject of special attention, and now all came to know me at
once and invited me; they laughed at me, but they loved
me. I may mention that although everybody talked openly
of our duel, the authorities took no notice of it, because my
antagonist was a near relation of our general, and as there