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‘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 con-
science, 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 si-
lence 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