“Shall we not behold greater things?” he suddenly let fall.

“We shall, we shall!” the monks around him repeated, but Father Paissy frowned again and asked them all to tell no one about it for the time being, “not until we have more confirmation, for there is much frivolousness among people in the world, and this incident also may have taken place naturally,” he added prudently, as if for the sake of conscience, but almost not believing in his own reservation, as his listeners very well saw. Within an hour, of course, the “miracle” became known to the whole monastery, and even to many of the laymen who had come there for the liturgy. More than anyone else, the new miracle seemed to have struck the little monk “from St. Sylvester’s,” who had come to the monastery the day before from his small Obdorsk monastery in the far north. The day before, standing near Madame Khokhlakov, he had bowed to the elder and, pointing to that lady’s “healed” daughter, had asked him with great feeling: “How do you dare do such deeds?”

He was already in some perplexity as it was, and almost did not know what to believe. The previous evening he had visited the monastery’s Father Ferapont in his private cell beyond the apiary, and was struck by this meeting, which had made an extraordinary and terrifying impression on him. This old Father Ferapont was that same aged monk, the great faster and keeper of silence, whom we have already mentioned as an adversary of the elder Zosima, and above all of the institution of elders, which he regarded as a harmful and frivolous innovation. He was an extremely dangerous adversary, even though, as a keeper of silence, he hardly ever spoke a word to anyone. He was dangerous mainly because many brothers fully sympathized with him, and among visiting laymen many honored him as a great ascetic and a righteous man, even though they regarded him as unquestionably a holy fool. Indeed, it was this that fascinated them. Father Ferapont never went to the elder Zosima. Though he lived in the hermitage, he was not much bothered by hermitage rules, again because he behaved like a real holy fool. He was about seventy-five years old, if not more, and lived beyond the hermitage apiary, in a corner of the wall, in an old, half-ruined wooden cell built there in ancient times, back in the last century, for a certain Father Iona, also a great faster and keeper of silence, who had lived to be a hundred and five and of whose deeds many curious stories were still current in the monastery and its environs. Father Ferapont had so succeeded that he, too, was finally placed, about seven years earlier, in this same solitary little cell, really just a simple hut, but which rather resembled a chapel because it housed such a quantity of donative icons with donative icon lamps eternally burning before them, which Father Ferapont was appointed, as it were, to look after and keep lit. He ate, it was said (and in fact it was true), only two pounds of bread in three days, not more; it was brought to him every three days by the beekeeper who lived there in the apiary, but even with this beekeeper who served him, Father Ferapont rarely spoke a word. These four pounds of bread, together with a prosphora,^[110] which the Superior regularly sent the blessed man after the late Sunday liturgy,^[111] constituted his entire weekly sustenance. The water in his jug was changed every day. He rarely appeared at a liturgy. Visiting admirers sometimes saw him spend the whole day in prayer without rising from his knees or turning around. And even if he occasionally got into conversation with them, he was brief, curt, strange, and almost always rude. There were, however, very rare occasions when he would start talking with visitors, but for the most part he merely uttered some one strange saying, which always posed a great riddle for the visitor, and then, despite all entreaties, would give no further explanation. He was not a priest but just a simple monk. There was, however, a very strange rumor among the most ignorant people that Father Ferapont was in communication with the heavenly spirits and conversed only with them, which was why he was silent with people. The Obdorsk monk found his way to the apiary on directions from the beekeeper, also rather a silent and surly monk, and went to the corner where Father Ferapont’s cell stood. “Maybe he’ll speak, since you’re a visitor, or maybe you’ll get nothing out of him,” the beekeeper warned him. The monk, as he himself recounted later, approached in great fear. It was already rather late. This time Father Ferapont was sitting by the door of the cell on a low bench. Over him a huge old elm was lightly rustling. The evening was turning cool. The Obdorsk monk prostrated before the holy man and asked for his blessing.

“Do you want me to prostrate in front of you, too, monk?” said Father Ferapont. “Arise!”

The monk stood up.

“Blessing wilt thou bless thyself, have a seat here. Where’d you drop from?”

What struck the poor monk most was that Father Ferapont, with his undoubtedly great fasting, and though he was of such an advanced age, still looked to be a vigorous old man. He was tall, held himself erect, without stooping, and had a fresh face, thin but healthy. He also undoubtedly still preserved considerable strength. And he was of athletic build. Despite his great age, he was not even completely gray yet, and his hair and beard, formerly quite black, were still very thick. His eyes were gray, large, luminous, but extremely bulging, even strikingly so. He spoke with a strong northern accent. He was dressed in a long, reddish peasant coat made from coarse convict broadcloth, as it used to be called, with a thick rope for a belt. His neck and chest were bare. An almost completely blackened shirt of the thickest canvas, which had not been taken off for months, stuck out from under the coat. It was said that underneath he wore thirty pounds of chain. On his bare feet he wore a pair of old shoes, which were almost in pieces.

“From the small Obdorsk monastery of St. Selivester,” the visiting monk replied humbly, watching the hermit with his quick, curious, though somewhat frightened eyes.

“I was at your Selivester’s. Used to live there. How’s Selivester’s health?”

The monk faltered.

“Eh, what muddleheads you peoples are! How do you keep Lent?”

“This is the refectory rule, according to the ancient order of the monastery: for all forty days of Lent there are no meals on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. On Tuesdays and Thursdays we have white bread, stewed fruit with honey, cloudberries or salt cabbage and oatmeal gruel, and on Saturdays white cabbage soup, noodles with peas, and hot kasha, all made with oil. On Sundays we have cabbage soup, dried fish, and kasha. During Holy Week,^[112]from Monday until Saturday evening, for six days, we eat only bread and water and uncooked vegetables, and that with restraint; eating is permitted, but not every day, just as in the first week. On Great and Holy Friday we eat nothing, and on Great Saturday, too, we fast until the third hour and then have a little bread and water and one cup of wine. On Great and Holy Thursday we eat uncooked food or boiled food without oil, and drink wine. For the rule of the Council of Laodicea^[113] says of Great Thursday: ‘It is not worthy during the Great Lent to relax on the Thursday of the last week and so dishonor all forty days.’^[114] That’s how it is with us. But what’s that compared to you, great father,” the little monk added, taking courage, “for all year round, and even on Holy Easter, you eat just bread and water, and as much bread as we’d eat in two days lasts you a whole week. Truly marvelous is your great abstinence!”

“And mushrooms?” Father Ferapont suddenly asked.

“Mushrooms?” the surprised monk repeated.

“Right. I can do without their bread, I don’t need it at all, I can go to the forest and live on mushrooms and berries, but they can’t do without their bread here, that’s why they’re in bondage to the devil. Nowadays these unclean ones say there’s no need to fast so much. Arrogant and unclean is their reasoning.”