Free eBooks at Planet eBook.com though alive, that they had shown no signs of decomposi-
tion when they were buried and that there had been a holy
light in their faces. And some people even insisted that a
sweet fragrance came from their bodies.
Yet, in spite of these edifying memories, it would be dif-
ficult to explain the frivolity, absurdity and malice that
were manifested beside the coffin of Father Zossima. It is
my private opinion that several different causes were si-
multaneously at work, one of which was the deeply rooted
hostility to the institution of elders as a pernicious inno-
vation, an antipathy hidden deep in the hearts of many of
the monks. Even more powerful was jealousy of the dead
man’s saintliness, so firmly established during lifetime that
it was almost a forbidden thing to question it. For though
the late elder had won over many hearts, more by love than
by miracles, and had gathered round him a mass of loving
adherents, none the less, in fact, rather the more on that ac-
count he had awakened jealousy and so had come to have
bitter enemies, secret and open, not only in the monas-
tery but in the world outside it. He did no one any harm,
but ‘Why do they think him so saintly?’ And that question
alone, gradually repeated, gave rise at last to an intense, in-
satiable hatred of him. That, I believe, was why many people
were extremely delighted at the smell of decomposition
which came so quickly, for not a day had passed since his
death. At the same time there were some among those who
had been hitherto reverently devoted to the elder, who were
almost mortified and personally affronted by this incident.
This was how the thing happened.