Page 481 - the-brothers-karamazov

mony in the family at all. Indeed, precious memories may
remain even of a bad home, if only the heart knows how to
find what is precious. With my memories of home I count,
too, my memories of the Bible, which, child as I was, I was
very eager to read at home. I had a book of Scripture history
then with excellent pictures, called A Hundred and Four
Stories from the Old and New Testament, and I learned to
read from it. I have it lying on my shelf now; I keep it as a
precious relic of the past. But even before I learned to read,
I remember first being moved to devotional feeling at eight
years old. My mother took me alone to mass (I don’t remem-
ber where my brother was at the time) on the Monday before
Easter. It was a fine day, and I remember to-day, as though I
saw it now, how the incense rose from the censer and softly
floated upwards and, overhead in the cupola, mingled in
rising waves with the sunlight that streamed in at the little
window. I was stirred by the sight, and for the first time in
my life I consciously received the seed of God’s word in my
heart. A youth came out into the middle of the church car-
rying a big book, so large that at the time I fancied he could
scarcely carry it. He laid it on the reading desk, opened it,
and began reading, and suddenly for the first time I under-
stood something read in the church of God. In the land of
Uz, there lived a man, righteous and God-fearing, and he
had great wealth, so many camels, so many sheep and ass-
es, and his children feasted, and he loved them very much
and prayed for them. ‘It may be that my sons have sinned in
their feasting.’ Now the devil came before the Lord together
with the sons of God, and said to the Lord that he had gone

0 The Brothers Karamazov