Page 272 - the-brothers-karamazov

but he was in a sort of ecstasy. They heard him with emo-
tion, though many wondered at his words and found them
obscure.... Afterwards all remembered those words.
When Alyosha happened for a moment to leave the cell,
he was struck by the general excitement and suspense in
the monks who were crowding about it. This anticipation
showed itself in some by anxiety, in others by devout solem-
nity. All were expecting that some marvel would happen
immediately after the elder’s death. Their suspense was,
from one point of view, almost frivolous, but even the most
austere of the monks were affected by it. Father Paissy’s face
looked the gravest of all.
Alyosha was mysteriously summoned by a monk to see
Rakitin, who had arrived from town with a singular letter
for him from Madame Hohlakov. In it she informed Alyo-
sha of a strange and very opportune incident. It appeared
that among the women who had come on the previous day
to receive Father Zossima’s blessing, there had been an old
woman from the town, a sergeant’s widow, called Prohoro-
vna. She had inquired whether she might pray for the rest
of the soul of her son, Vassenka, who had gone to Irkutsk,
and had sent her no news for over a year. To which Father
Zossima had answered sternly, forbidding her to do so, and
saying that to pray for the living as though they were dead
was a kind of sorcery. He afterwards forgave her on account
of her ignorance, and added, ‘as though reading the book
of the future’ (this was Madame Hohlakov’s expression),
words of comfort: ‘that her son Vassya was certainly alive
and he would either come himself very shortly or send a

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