sitting on the tombstone of a monk who had been famous long ago for his saintliness. He sat with his back to the hermitage and his face to the wall, and seemed to be hiding behind the tombstone. Going up to him, Father Païssy saw that he was weeping quietly but bitterly, with his face hidden in his hands, and that his whole frame was shaking with sobs. Father Païssy stood over him for a little.
“Enough, dear son, enough, dear,” he pronounced with feeling at last.
“Why do you weep? Rejoice and weep not. Don’t you know that this is the greatest of his days? Think only where he is now, at this moment!”
Alyosha glanced at him, uncovering his face, which was swollen with crying like a child’s, but turned away at once without uttering a word and hid his face in his hands again.
“Maybe it is well,” said Father Païssy thoughtfully; “weep if you must, Christ has sent you those tears.”
“Your touching tears are but a relief to your spirit and will serve to gladden your dear heart,” he added to himself, walking away from Alyosha, and thinking lovingly of him.
He moved away quickly, however, for he felt that he too might weep looking at him.
Meanwhile the time was passing; the monastery services and the requiems for the dead followed in their due course. Father Païssy again took Father Iosif’s place by the coffin and began reading the Gospel. But before three o’clock in the afternoon that something took place to which I alluded at the end of the last book, something so unexpected by all of us and so contrary to the general hope, that, I repeat, this trivial incident has been minutely remembered to this day in our town and all the surrounding neighborhood. I may add here,