In the early pages of Fyodor Dostoevsky’s hefty masterpiece, The Brothers Karamazov, there is an intriguing scene featuring a “lady of little faith” and the holy elder, Zosima. To the fatherly sage, the lady intimates her fantasies of forfeiting all her worldly possessions–and even forsaking her invalid daughter–to become an angel of compassion to the destitute.
“I close my eyes and think and dream, and at that moment, I feel full of strength to overcome all obstacles. No wounds, no festering sores could at that moment frighten me. I would bind them up and wash them with my own hands. I would nurse the afflicted. I would be ready to kiss such wounds,” she rhapsodizes.
But then despair benights her visage, and she laments: “Yes. But could I endure such a life for long?…I shut my eyes and ask myself, ‘Would you persevere long on that path? And if the patient whose wounds you are washing did not meet you with gratitude, but worried you with his whims, without valuing or remarking your charitable services, began abusing you and rudely commanding you, and complaining to the superior authorities of you (which often happens when people are in great suffering)–what then? Would you persevere in your love, or not?’ And do you know, I came with horror to the conclusion that, if anything could dissipate my love to humanity, it would be ingratitude. In short, I am a hired servant, I expect my payment at once–that is, praise, and the repayment of love with love. Otherwise I am incapable of loving anyone.’”
