00 The Brothers Karamazovknife.... That was only a tragic phrase.... Well... tragic phras-
es should be forgiven, they must be. Tragic phrases comfort
the heart... Without them, sorrow would be too heavy for
men to bear. Rakitin has gone off to the back alley. As long
as Rakitin broods over his wrongs, he will always go off to
the back alley.... But the high road... The road is wide and
straight and bright as crystal, and the sun is at the end of
it.... Ah!... What’s being read?’...
‘And when they wanted wine, the mother of Jesus saith
unto him, They have no wine”... Alyosha heard.
‘Ah, yes, I was missing that, and I didn’t want to miss it, I
love that passage: it’s Cana of Galilee, the first miracle.... Ah,
that miracle! Ah, that sweet miracle! It was not men’s grief,
but their joy Christ visited, He worked His first miracle to
help men’s gladness.... ‘He who loves men loves their glad-
ness, too’... He was always repeating that, it was one of his
leading ideas... ‘There’s no living without joy,’ Mitya says....
Yes, Mitya.... ‘Everything that is true and good is always full
of forgiveness,’ he used to say that, too”...
‘Jesus saith unto her, Woman, what has it to do
with thee or me? Mine hour not yet come.
‘His mother saith unto the servants, Whatsoever
he saith unto you, do it”...
‘Do it.... Gladness, the gladness of some poor, very poor,
people.... Of course they were poor, since they hadn’t wine
enough even at a wedding.... The historians write that, in
those days, the people living about the Lake of Gennesaret
were the poorest that can possibly be imagined... and anoth-
er great heart, that other great being, His Mother, knew that