“Enough, dear son, enough, my friend,” he said at last with deep feeling. “What is it? You should rejoice and not weep. Don’t you know that this is the greatest of his days? Where is he now, at this moment—only think of that!”
Alyosha glanced up at him, uncovering his face, which was swollen with tears like a little child’s, but turned away at once without saying a word and again hid his face in his hands.
“Ah, perhaps it’s just as well,” Father Paissy said thoughtfully, “perhaps you should weep, Christ has sent you these tears.” And he added, to himself now, “Your tender tears are a relief for your soul and will serve to gladden your dear heart.” And he moved away from Alyosha, thinking of him with love. He hastened to go, incidentally, because he felt that, looking at him, he might start weeping himself. Meanwhile time went on, the monastic services and services for the dead continued in due order. Father Paissy again replaced Father Iosif by the coffin, and again took over the reading of the Gospel from him. But it was not yet three o’clock in the afternoon when something occurred that I have already mentioned at the end of the previous book, something so little expected by any of us, and so contrary to the general hope, that, I repeat, a detailed and frivolous account of this occurrence has been remembered with great vividness in our town and all the neighborhood even to the present day. Here again I will add, speaking for myself personally, that I find it almost loathsome to recall this frivolous and tempting occurrence, essentially quite insignificant and natural, and I would, of course, omit all mention of it from my story, if it had not influenced in the strongest and most definite way the soul and heart of the main,
