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Dear reader, there are moments when one reaches the brink of their life, and a single, long-forgotten memory pops back into their mind. In the moments when their life had burnt the brightest, those trivial bits of the past were just tiny specks of candle light in a sunlit chapel, a corner torn from a colored painting. But when the blaze of the day are completely extinguished, only these tiny candles will remain shining; when the painting fades away, bleached by the waves of time, only the little corner will be left behind. In that instance, as a man sees a full-grown forest withering before him, he’ll, for once, wish for the sticky little leaves that come out in Spring.
In one afternoon, months after his father’s death and his brother’s condemnation, Ivan Fyodorovich lay a sick, meager man on Katerina Ivanovna’s bed. A demon sat on a wooden chair across him with hands folded on his knees. As he meditated, afloat on his flowing thoughts, a maelstrom suddenly emerged and pulled him fathoms deeper into the depths of memory--into a cold, snowy winter night fourteen years ago...
*
He was ten then. Sitting on his bed, in a likewise reverie. It was getting late--way past his bedtime. Yefim Petrovich and his madame were already long asleep. However, Ivan didn’t feel like sleeping yet; he spent the time looking around, turning his eyes from the window to the bookshelf on the left, then to the bookshelf beside it, then back to the window. While halfheartedly conducting this swift survey of his surroundings, the boy was immersed in deep thought. No, not in those childish fantasies so common among all other ten-year-old boys. This young mind was occupied by words: words his tutor had spoken to him in his lessons, words he read from books left behind by the most distinguished intellectuals of the century and the centuries before, words of philosophy so deeply insightful that they would make the socially distinguished gentlemen of our wealthy class shake their heads in bewilderment. Words from the Holy Books. Sometimes.
Then there was a roar of thunder, breaking the boy out of his pensiveness. Strange, thunder in the winter, he thought, as another row of sound reached his eyes and left him in slight shivers. He blew the candle, lay down and covered himself with his feather blanket--submerged from neck to toe. An urge to submerge his head too into the soft linen shield popped up in his mind, but this silly thought was quickly dismissed. No, he wouldn’t want to suffocate himself. It’s just the thunder, nothing big, he muttered to himself, trying to hypnotize the little tremors of his body to rest. Now, sleep!
In the tumultuous symphony of thunder, a rhythmic series of tap-a-taps suddenly broke through--the sound of footsteps, coming from the corridor. Then a sharp creaking sound. The door opened, and a figure peered in. It was almost completely obscured by the darkness; still, the moonlight from the gaps between the silk curtains saved it from such an unseemly fate. It came into Ivan’s eyes a silhouette, peeking behind the door, seeking permission to intrude. Still, that was enough for him to make out what--or who--it was.
“Come in,” he said quietly, but loud enough to be heard.
Another thunder roared. The visitor, like a small, frightened animal seeking shelter, scurried into the room. It climbed onto his bed and dug under his cover, tightly clinging to the blanket to block the sound. A soft strand of hair brushed against his chin, making the proud boy’s otherwise stoic lips to produce a slight up-lifted arch.
“Alyoshka, you little boy,” he chided as he reached out his hand toward the intruder’s furry head, “it’s just the thunder.”
Silence, except for the gentle cracking of the candlestick. Alyosha pressed himself tighter to his brother’s chest and said nothing.
Ivan sighed. “I don’t mean that you can’t stay. But still, move up a little bit. You can’t hide your face under the cover forever, I’m serious. You’ll smother yourself.”
“No, no. It’s not just the thunder.” A small sound, as soft as a feather, floated out from underneath.
“Then what is it? Wait, let me come down.”
The snow continued to fall, separated from the room by the thick, glass window. In the tender embrace of the feather blanket, the two boys laid face to face, eyes locked onto each other though the overwhelming darkness had reduced everything to naught.
“Ivan, do you think that dreams could be real?”
“No. There are some peculiar cases, though, when some man dreams of a prophet visiting him at night and the next day looses his cat or his razor. I’ve read that in some newspapers.”
“What about nightmares?”
“Nightmares...are you all right? You don’t sound yourself.” Ivan asked as he suddenly noticed there was a small tremor in Alyosha’s usually tranquil voice.
Under the cascade of thunder, the roars of merciless celestial beasts, the tremulous whisper of the child was a sparrow’s meek squeak: “It always happens in a night with heavy thunder. I am in a room, a candle is burning beside me, but without warmth--somehow, the fire’s cold. Suddenly, there are devils everywhere, under the table, in the corners, under my bed, everywhere. Sometimes, there is a closet with open doors, and dozens of devils come right out from it. Then they start to come right at me, trying to grab me. But after I’ve made the sign of the cross, they’ll stop coming and stand waiting for a second or two. Then I’ll think, “that’s it,” and lie down to sleep. Then they will come for me again, the whole crowd of them, with horns and tails, and I’ll become so terrified that I try to run away; only that I don’t often get away from them, and my dream ends right when they’ve pounced on me.”
“But once I’ve made it out and ran to the corridor. There stood a giant mirror. I saw my own reflection in it--and, oh, it was terrible. I saw devils clinging on my neck, squeezing with their hellish claws. Then I heard them whispering in their raspy voice. I couldn’t make out what exactly they were saying--their voice was too high, too raspy--but I’ve heard the phrase “filthy, filthy blood” repeated over and over again. It all seemed so real. I could almost feel the pain.”
Before he could say more, Ivan he took his shivering little hand and interlocked it with long, steady fingers: “Dear, whatever you see at night, devils or angels alike, you won’t see them after you wake up. And I’m also pretty sure that no devil will come after you. You’re just a little boy, Alyoshka, I tell you. The devils only want sinners, and because of that, you’re surely not on their wish list. That dream of yours, it isn’t real, even if it might be real for someone else.”
“Brother, is it possible for two people to have the same dream?”
“Maybe.”
“Have you had this dream before?”
A pause. “No.”
“...Really?”
“No.” You lie. Demons looked at him, laughing. You lie, you blackguard, heathen. Filthy, filthy Karamazov-born.
“Brother, why are you shivering?”
He steadied himself. “I’m not.”
“Okay.”
A moment of silence, except the roaring of thunder outside, and the hurried inhale-exhales of the two boys hidden beneath a feather-woven quilt, shielded from that villainous voyeur clothed in transparency: Fate. But neither of them could rejoice in such solace--one was kept in consternation by a plea not yet uttered in mind; and the other, a drastic fear of that certain plea. And a rising headache.
“Brother, I wish mother’s still here.”
“Me too.”
“I never had nightmares with her around. She would pr--”
He freed his brother’s hand from the interlock with an abrupt, fierce sway. “Say it. Alexei, say it what you want.”
“...”
“Say it.”
“Brother, can you pray with me?”
“...No.”
Brother, can you pray with me?
A deluge of images exploded in his mind. An icon, a small altar. Sunlight peeking in from the barred windows of an attic. Soft linen. Soft linen of a dress, laces at the edge. Shrieking. Hysterics. There are angels up there, she said, pointing a finger up toward the sky, her eyes big and bulged with dark circles and wrinkles on marble-smooth skin made sharp and edged by an under-laying indomitable skeletal frame. A child on her knees, pretty-faced, sleeping with wide opened eyes, lashes fluttering like butterflies. Look, the angels are smiling at you. A child who called him brother. She knelt before the icon, the child lying on her knees, gentle rustle of soft linen. Ivan, pray with me.
So he prayed. He knelt, hands clasped together, full moon on the night sky. He beseeched the sky, the proud boy, for a miracle. Even now I know that whatever You ask of God, God will give you. He prayed.
He prayed and prayed, voices coming from the ceiling, full moon on the night sky. Whatever You ask of God, God will give you. He prayed.
Full moon on the night sky. He prayed.
Full moon, sluggishly falling down from the brightening sky. He prayed.
Up went the rosy-fingered Dawn. He stopped praying.
Lord, if you have been here, my mother would not have died.
And since then, every Sunday, when the church bell struck seven times, he would lock himself in the cellar of his study-room, his self-made sarcophagus, dispelling the pious chants of Believers with a malicious grin. Avoiding the expectant stare of a pair of youthful eyes till the expectancy in them turned into distress.
Leaving him in his self-made sarcophagus, demons laughing at him.
Lord, if you have been here, I would not have died.
“...”
The thunder rolled. A crescendo.
“...Ivan?”
“To hell with you!” Suddenly, he took hold of Alyosha’s neck and pressed.
He squeezed, squeezed with all his might, squeezed as hard as he prayed. His fingers fell like burning stamps of iron on the boy’s tender skin, clawing him, tearing him apart.
His fingers. They pressed onto him, a twisted crown of thorns. Tightening against his throat. Squeezing out his life, his belief, his soul. But the child didn’t even stir. Alyosha stayed still in his malicious grip--a rag doll, a crucified lamb. Something moved under the crown of thorns; something gentle, gentle but rapid, jumping in circulating undulations. A pulse, A heart, gently pumping rivers and streams of blood. Blood, filthy, Karamazovian blood by which they were wedded.
A second passed.
Then another.
The torrent of blood running in streams beneath his hands marked the time passed by. Five seconds. Enough, he said to himself, this is enough. But he couldn’t move his hands, those blasphemous vipers, holding firm onto his brother’s fragile skin, stuck on it like leeches. They disobeyed their corporeal master’s order. The boy still laid motionless in his hand. It was like that time had ossified itself.
Enough. Away from him! He shouted at the top of his lungs, but no sound came out. The muffled words layered in boulders and boulders inside his throat as he endeavored to pronounce more orders, piling up and blocking his mouth with intangible pebbles of angst.
Suffocated, he felt. Suffocated.
Those thorns, those vipers, those leeches...they were not his fingers. They were his mark of Cain. They were the claws of devils, reaching out from hell. The thunder rolled.
Away from him. Get away from my brother!
He was in hell himself.
Then he caught a hand. It grabbed him, fingers laced in fingers, soothing those stiffened claws with benign caresses, making them his again. Then he caught the smell of sticky green leaves and cherries arising from the sensation of soft, tousled hair tickling his chin. Then he pressed his lips over and over again onto the little tousled head and cautiously wrapped the younger boy, sobbing soundlessly, in his arms.
The symphony of the sky fell into a decrescendo.
“Alyoshka.”
“...Yes?”
“Alyoshka. My angel.”
“I’m here.”
“...Why didn’t you fight back?”
“Because I didn’t need to.”
“I could have killed you.”
“You wouldn’t.”
“How do you know, you silly fool?”
“You wouldn’t. Because you ain’t squeezing at all. You had your hands around me, yes, but that’s it. Except that you were breathing and gasping so hastily that you seemed to be choking.”
“You’re lying. I did; I was squeezing with all my might. Another second longer your neck would have snapped off.”
“I’m telling the truth. I didn’t feel a thing.”
“You’re telling the truth, ha! Then why is it that you’re crying right now, you little fool!”
“I’m crying for you.”
“For me!”
“For you to stop tormenting yourself.”
*
And on this touching scene Ivan Fyodorovich boarded, slowly rising from the depths of memory back to the shore--namely, the present. Thus many may wonder, what sort of more hellishly damned thunderstorms have preceded in our two lovely boys’ lives that had left them in such unfamiliar terms? To this I shall say, the elder brother—either having his pride injured by this peculiar incident, or being mortified by the fatal consequences of letting out his capricious alter ego —suddenly found an intense urge to bury himself in books and intellectual work and left his brother’s side, fading into the shadows like a dejected black cat. The younger brother, an ecclesiastic by birth, an early lover of mankind, found himself a sojourner of a monastery and followed the way of the Lord, though not unoften casting an expectant glance toward his brother’s side. Then there was that infamous patricide, which I believe my reader should be quite familiar with.
Still, let us come back to our sick, meager man laying on Katerina Ivanovna’s bed. Awaken from his dream-like reverie, Ivan Fyodorovich took a quick look around the room, and at once realized that the devil sitting beside him was replaced by a young man with soft brown hair and a benign smile.
Seeing this, he cried out jovially in his once-sullen heart: “Alyosha! My angel!”