The Brothers Karamazovdisplayed this excitement, Father Paissy began to reprove
them. ‘Such immediate expectation of something extraor-
dinary,’ he said, ‘shows a levity, possible to worldly people
but unseemly in us.’
But little attention was paid him and Father Paissy no-
ticed it uneasily. Yet he himself (if the whole truth must be
told), secretly at the bottom of his heart, cherished almost
the same hopes and could not but be aware of it, though he
was indignant at the too impatient expectation around him,
and saw in it light-mindedness and vanity. Nevertheless, it
was particularly unpleasant to him to meet certain persons,
whose presence aroused in him great misgivings. In the
crowd in the dead man’s cell he noticed with inward aver-
sion (for which he immediately reproached himself) the
presence of Rakitin and of the monk from Obdorsk, who
was still staying in the monastery. Of both of them Father
Paissy felt for some reason suddenly suspicious — though,
indeed, he might well have felt the same about others.
The monk from Obdorsk was conspicuous as the most
fussy in the excited crowd. He was to be seen everywhere;
everywhere he was asking questions, everywhere he was
listening, on all sides he was whispering with a peculiar,
mysterious air. His expression showed the greatest impa-
tience and even a sort of irritation.
As for Rakitin, he, as appeared later, had come so early to
the hermitage at the special request of Madame Hohlakov.
As soon as that good-hearted but weak-minded woman,
who could not herself have been admitted to the hermit-
age, waked and heard of the death of Father Zossima, she