Page 556 - the-brothers-karamazov

flung open and Father Ferapont appeared in the doorway.
Behind him there could be seen accompanying him a crowd
of monks, together with many people from the town. They
did not, however, enter the cell, but stood at the bottom of
the steps, waiting to see what Father Ferapont would say or
do. For they felt with a certain awe, in spite of their audacity,
that he had not come for nothing. Standing in the doorway,
Father Ferapont raised his arms, and under his right arm
the keen inquisitive little eyes of the monk from Obdorsk
peeped in. He alone, in his intense curiosity, could not re-
sist running up the steps after Father Ferapont. The others,
on the contrary, pressed farther back in sudden alarm when
the door was noisily flung open. Holding his hands aloft,
Father Ferapont suddenly roared:
‘Casting out I cast out!’ and, turning in all directions, he
began at once making the sign of the cross at each of the
four walls and four corners of the cell in succession. All who
accompanied Father Ferapont immediately understood his
action. For they knew he always did this wherever he went,
and that he would not sit down or say a word, till he had
driven out the evil spirits.
‘Satan, go hence! Satan, go hence!’ he repeated at each
sign of the cross. ‘Casting out I cast out,’ he roared again.
He was wearing his coarse gown girt with a rope. His
bare chest, covered with grey hair, could be seen under his
hempen shirt. His feet were bare. As soon as he began wav-
ing his arms, the cruel irons he wore under his gown could
be heard clanking.
Father Paissy paused in his reading, stepped forward