“ For any one to love a man, he must be hidden, for as soon as he shows his face, love is gone. ”
Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov (1880). copy citation
| Author | Fyodor Dostoyevsky |
|---|---|
| Source | The Brothers Karamazov |
| Topic | love hiding |
| Date | 1880 |
| Language | English |
| Reference | |
| Note | Translated by Constance Garnett |
| Weblink | http://www.gutenberg.org/files/28054/28054-h/28054-h.html https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Brothers_Karamazov |
Context
“I once read somewhere of John the Merciful, a saint, that when a hungry, frozen beggar came to him, he took him into his bed, held him in his arms, and began breathing into his mouth, which was putrid and loathsome from some awful disease. I am convinced that he did that from ‘self-laceration,’ from the self-laceration of falsity, for the sake of the charity imposed by duty, as a penance laid on him. For any one to love a man, he must be hidden, for as soon as he shows his face, love is gone.”
“Father Zossima has talked of that more than once,” observed Alyosha; “he, too, said that the face of a man often hinders many people not practiced in love, from loving him. But yet there's a great deal of love in mankind, and almost Christ-like love.”
source
