Chapter 13 Chapter Thirteen

At noon on the 22nd, Pierre walked up the mountain along the muddy and slippery road. He looked at his feet and at the rough mountain road.He occasionally glanced at the familiar crowd around him, and then at the feet, all familiar to him.The snow-blue lap dog ran merrily along the side of the road.Sometimes, to prove its agility and contentment, it lifted a hind leg, hopped on three legs, then ran on four legs, barking and running towards the crow perched on the dead body.The lapdogs are happier, smoother and rounder than they were in Moscow.There are dead and rotten meat of various animals everywhere along the road—from human to horse, rotten meat in different degrees; wolves dare not approach the sides of the road with pedestrians, while dogs can chew as much as they like.

It had been raining since the morning, and it was about to clear up. The rain stopped for a while, and then it started to rain again, heavier than before. The road was already soaked, and the water flowed along the ruts to form gutters. Pierre looked sideways as he walked, curling up a finger every three steps.He muttered in his heart, "Down, down, make it bigger!" He felt that he was thinking of nothing, but, deep down, his soul was thinking of one important and comforting thing.This is the most subtle spiritual gain he got from his conversation with Karatayev yesterday. At their yesterday's camp, Pierre, feeling very cold beside a dying fire, got up and went to the nearest fire, which was burning more vigorously.Platon, sitting by the fire, wrapping his greatcoat up to his head like a vestment, told the soldiers in a moving, pleasant, but weak, sick voice a story that Pierre had long since familiar story.In the second half of the night, which is usually when Karatayev is particularly active after an episode of malaria.Pierre approached the fire, heard Platon's weak, sickly voice, saw his poor face illuminated by the fire, and his heart was pricked like a needle.Surprised by his sympathy for this man, he wanted to go away, but there was no other fire to go to, so Pierre, trying not to look at Platon, sat down by the fire.

"How are you?" he asked. "Body? If we complain about sickness, God will not give us death." Karatayev said he resumed the story he had begun. "... I say, my brother," went on Platon, with a smile on his pale, haggard face, and a strange, joyous gleam in his eyes, "I say, my brother..." Pierre had long known this story, and Karatayev had told it to him alone at least six times, and each time he told it with a strange, joyful feeling.However, no matter how familiar Pierre is with this story, it still sounds fresh to him now. The serenity and inner joy that Karatayev showed when telling this story infected Pierre.This story is about an old businessman who followed the rules and believed in God with his whole family. Once he went to Makali with a rich businessman.

The two of them stayed in an inn, and both of them lay down to sleep, and the next morning found that the rich merchant had been murdered and robbed of his property.Find a blood-stained knife under the old merchant's pillow.The old merchant was tried, flogged, his nostrils were torn out,—everything was done according to the rules,—said Karatayev—and then he was exiled to hard labor. "That's it, my brother (Pierre came here when Karatayev was talking), it's been more than ten years since the incident, the old man was doing hard labor in a labor camp, he behaved well, a bad thing No, he just begged God to give him a life. Hey! One night the convicts got together, just like we do now, and the old man was among them. They talked about why they got what they did, and how they offended God One said that he had killed one person, another said that he killed two people, another said that he was arson, and another said that he was a fugitive and had no crime. Then everyone asked the old man, "Old man And why did you suffer this crime? "And I, little brothers, I suffered for my own and for the sins of others. I never killed a man, took nothing from others, and often helped the poor."Dear little brothers, I am a businessman and I have a lot of property. He told everyone the story in detail from beginning to end. "I'm not sorry for myself, it's God's will, but there is only one thing," he said, "my wife and children are so pitiful. At this point, the old man wept. It happened that one of the prisoners killed the businessman. "Old man," said the man, "where did that happen?"What time?which month? He asked all about it, and his heart was stung. He walked up to the old man just like that--thumped, and fell at his feet. This crime, brothers, what he said is true, brothers, the old man is not guilty, he was wronged, that thing was done by me, that knife was stuffed into your pillow while you were asleep below.Forgive me, old man. ’ he said, ‘For God’s sake, forgive me. "

Karatayev stopped talking. He stared at the fire, smiled happily, and turned on the fire. —“The old man said, God will forgive you, and we all have sinned against God, and I suffered it for my own sin.” He wept, tears streaming down his cheeks.Don't you think, good people," said Karatayev, smiling with joy, his eyes shining brighter and brighter, as if there was something most charming and meaningful in the story he had just told . "It's beyond your imagination, my dear friends, that the murderer turned himself in to the authorities. He said, 'I've killed six people, I'm the murderer, but it's the old man who hurts me the most. The authorities recorded the confession, issued the official documents, and everything was handled according to the regulations. The place was far away, the first trial was retrial, and the official documents were reported layer by layer, and finally reached the hands of the tsar. The tsar's order came: acquitted, Return the confiscated property. The official documents have come down, and you are looking for the old man everywhere. Where is the innocent old man?" Karatayev's jaw was trembling. 'God has forgiven him - he's dead.You see, that's the way it is, my dear friends. ’ concluded Karatayev, smiling and staring silently into the distance for a long pause.

At this moment, Pierre was vague and full of joy, not because of the story itself, but because of its mysterious significance, Karataev's ecstasy and this kind of ecstasy when he told it. Mesmerized with mystical meaning.