[atari 2600]

"Yes, my dear, I am called, too, called and bidden," he heard a

soft voice saying over him. "Why have you hidden yourself here, out of

sight? You come and join us too."

It was his voice, the voice of Father Zossima. And it must be

he, since he called him!

The elder raised Alyosha by the hand and he rose from his knees.

"We are rejoicing," the little, thin old man went on. "We are

drinking the new wine, the wine of new, great gladness; do you see how

many guests? Here are the bride and bridegroom, here is the wise

governor of the feast, he is tasting the new wine. Why do you wonder

at me? I gave an onion to a beggar, so I, too, am here. And many

here have given only an onion each- only one little onion.... What are

all our deeds? And you, my gentle one, you, my kind boy, you too

have known how to give a famished woman an onion to-day. Begin your

work, dear one, begin it, gentle one! Do you see our Sun, do you see

Him?"

"I am afraid... I dare not look," whispered Alyosha.

"Do not fear Him. He is terrible in His greatness, awful in His

sublimity, but infinitely merciful. He has made Himself like unto us

from love and rejoices with us. He is changing the water into wine

that the gladness of the guests may not be cut short. He is

expecting new guests, He is calling new ones unceasingly for ever

and ever.... There they are bringing new wine. Do you see they are

bringing the vessels..."

Something glowed in Alyosha's heart, something filled it till it

ached, tears of rapture rose from his soul.... He stretched out his

hands, uttered a cry and waked up.

Again the coffin, the open window, and the soft, solemn,

distinct reading of the Gospel. But Alyosha did not listen to the

reading. It was strange, he had fallen asleep on his knees, but now he

was on his feet, and suddenly, as though thrown forward, with three

firm rapid steps he went right up to the coffin. His shoulder

brushed against Father Paissy without his noticing it. Father Paissy

raised his eyes for an instant from his book, but looked away again at

once, seeing that something strange was happening to the boy.

Alyosha gazed for half a minute at the coffin, at the covered,

motionless dead man that lay in the coffin, with the ikon on his

breast and the peaked cap with the octangular cross on his head. He

had only just been hearing his voice, and that voice was still ringing

in his ears. He was listening, still expecting other words, but

suddenly he turned sharply and went out of the cell.

He did not stop on the steps either, but went quickly down; his

soul, overflowing with rapture, yearned for freedom, space,

openness. The vault of heaven, full of soft, shining stars,

stretched vast and fathomless above him. The Milky Way ran in two pale

streams from the zenith to the horizon. The fresh, motionless, still

night enfolded the earth. The white towers and golden domes of the

cathedral gleamed out against the sapphire sky. The gorgeous autumn

flowers, in the beds round the house, were slumbering till morning.

The silence of earth seemed to melt into the silence of the heavens.

The mystery of earth was one with the mystery of the stars....

Alyosha stood, gazed, and suddenly threw himself down on the

earth. He did not know why he embraced it. He could not have told

why he longed so irresistibly to kiss it, to kiss it all. But he

kissed it weeping, sobbing, and watering it with his tears, and

vowed passionately to love it, to love it for ever and ever. "Water

the earth with the tears of your joy and love those tears," echoed

in his soul.

What was he weeping over?

Oh! in his rapture he was weeping even over those stars, which

were shining to him from the abyss of space, and "he was not ashamed

of that ecstasy." There seemed to be threads from all those

innumerable worlds of God, linking his soul to them, and it was

trembling all over "in contact with other worlds." He longed to

forgive everyone and for everything, and to beg forgiveness. Oh, not

for himself, but for all men, for all and for everything. "And

others are praying for me too," echoed again in his soul. But with

every instant he felt clearly and, as it were, tangibly, that

something firm and unshakable as that vault of heaven had entered into

his soul. It was as though some idea had seized the sovereignty of his

mind- and it was for all his life and for ever and ever. He had fallen

on the earth a weak boy, but he rose up a resolute champion, and he

knew and felt it suddenly at the very moment of his ecstasy. And

never, never, his life long, could Alyosha forget that minute.

"Someone visited my soul in that hour," he used to say afterwards,

with implicit faith in his words.

Within three days he left the monastery in accordance with the

words of his elder, who had bidden him "sojourn in the world."