第71章

"that her son Vassya was certainly alive and he would either come himself very shortly or send a letter, and that she was to go home and expect him." And "Would you believe it?" exclaimed Madame Hohlakov enthusiastically, "the prophecy has been fulfilled literally indeed, and more than that." Scarcely had the old woman reached home when they gave her a letter from Siberia which had been awaiting her.But that was not all; in the letter written on the road from Ekaterinenburg, Vassya informed his mother that he was returning to Russia with an official, and that three weeks after her receiving the letter he hoped "to embrace his mother."Madame Hohlakov warmly entreated Alyosha to report this new "miracle of prediction" to the Superior and all the brotherhood."All, all, ought to know of it" she concluded.The letter had been written in haste, the excitement of the writer was apparent in every line of it.But Alyosha had no need to tell the monks, for all knew of it already.Rakitin had commissioned the monk who brought his message "to inform most respectfully his reverence Father Paissy, that he, Rakitin, has a matter to speak of with him, of such gravity that he dare not defer it for a moment, and humbly begs forgiveness for his presumption." As the monk had given the message to Father Paissy, before that to Alyosha, the latter found after reading the letter, there was nothing left for him to do but to hand it to Father Paissy in confirmation of the story.

And even that austere and cautious man, though he frowned as he read the news of the "miracle," could not completely restrain some inner emotion.His eyes gleamed, and a grave and solemn smile came into his lips.

"We shall see greater things!" broke from him.

"We shall see greater things, greater things yet!" the monks around repeated.

But Father Paissy, frowning again, begged all of them, at least for a time, not to speak of the matter "till it be more fully confirmed, seeing there is so much credulity among those of this world, and indeed this might well have chanced naturally," he added, prudently, as it were to satisfy his conscience, though scarcely believing his own disavowal, a fact his listeners very clearly perceived.

Within the hour the "miracle" was of course known to the whole monastery, and many visitors who had come for the mass.No one seemed more impressed by it than the monk who had come the day before from St.Sylvester, from the little monastery of Obdorsk in the far North.It was he who had been standing near Madame Hohlakov the previous day and had asked Father Zossima earnestly, referring to the "healing" of the lady's daughter, "How can you presume to do such things?"He was now somewhat puzzled and did not know whom to believe.

The evening before he had visited Father Ferapont in his cell apart, behind the apiary, and had been greatly impressed and overawed by the visit.This Father Ferapont was that aged monk so devout in fasting and observing silence who has been mentioned already, as antagonistic to Father Zossima and the whole institution of "elders," which he regarded as a pernicious and frivolous innovation.He was a very formidable opponent, although from his practice of silence he scarcely spoke a word to anyone.What made him formidable was that a number of monks fully shared his feeling, and many of the visitors looked upon him as a great saint and ascetic, although they had no doubt that he was crazy.But it was just his craziness attracted them.

Father Ferapont never went to see the elder.Though he lived in the hermitage they did not worry him to keep its regulations, and this too because he behaved as though he were crazy.He was seventy-five or more, and he lived in a corner beyond the apiary in an old decaying wooden cell which had been built long ago for another great ascetic, Father Iona, who had lived to be a hundred and five, and of whose saintly doings many curious stories were still extant in the monastery and the neighbourhood.

Father Ferapont had succeeded in getting himself installed in this same solitary cell seven years previously.It was simply a peasant's hut, though it looked like a chapel, for it contained an extraordinary number of ikons with lamps perpetually burning before them- which men brought to the monastery as offerings to God.Father Ferapont had been appointed to look after them and keep the lamps burning.It was said (and indeed it was true) that he ate only two pounds of bread in three days.The beekeeper, who lived close by the apiary, used to bring him the bread every three days, and even to this man who waited upon him, Father Ferapont rarely uttered a word.The four pounds of bread, together with the sacrament bread, regularly sent him on Sundays after the late mass by the Father Superior, made up his weekly rations.The water in his jug was changed every day.He rarely appeared at mass.Visitors who came to do him homage saw him sometimes kneeling all day long at prayer without looking round.If he addressed them, he was brief, abrupt, strange, and almost always rude.

On very rare occasions, however, he would talk to visitors, but for the most part he would utter some one strange saying which was a complete riddle, and no entreaties would induce him to pronounce a word in explanation.He was not a priest, but a simple monk.There was a strange belief, chiefly, however, among the most ignorant, that Father Ferapont had communication with heavenly spirits and would only converse with them, and so was silent with men.