oor and went into the
elder's cell where his coffin was now standing. There was no one in the
cell but Father Paissy, reading the Gospel in solitude over the coffin,
and the young novice Porfiry, who, exhausted by the previous night's
conversation and the disturbing incidents of the day, was sleeping the
deep sound sleep of youth on the floor of the other room. Though Father
Paissy heard Alyosha come in, he did not even look in his direction.
Alyosha turned to the right from the door to the corner, fell on his knees
and began to pray.

His soul was overflowing but with mingled feelings; no single sensation
stood out distinctly; on the contrary, one drove out another in a slow,
continual rotation. But there was a sweetness in his heart and, strange to
say, Alyosha was not surprised at it. Again he saw that coffin before him,
the hidden dead figure so precious to him, but the weeping and poignant
grief of the morning was no longer aching in his soul. As soon as he came
in, he fell down before the coffin as before a holy shrine, but joy, joy
was glowing in his mind and in his heart. The one window of the cell was
open, the air was fresh and cool. "So the smell must have become stronger,
if they opened the window," thought Alyosha. But even this thought of the
smell of corruption, which had seemed to him so awful and humiliating a
few hours before, no longer made him feel miserable or indignant. He began
quietly praying, but he soon felt that he was praying almost mechanically.
Fragments of thought floated through his soul, flashed like stars and went
out again at once, to be succeeded by others. But yet there was reigning
in his soul a sense of the wholeness of things--something steadfast and
comforting--and he was aware of it himself. Sometimes he began praying
ardently, he longed to pour out his thankfulness and love....

But when he had begun to pray, he passed suddenly to something else, and
sank into thought, forgetting both the prayer and what had interrupted it.
He began listening to what Father Paissy was reading, but worn out with
exhaustion he gradually began to doze.

"_And the third day there was a marriage in Cana of Galilee;_" read Father
Paissy. "_And the mother of Jesus was there; And both Jesus was called,
and his disciples, to the marriage._"

"Marriage? What's that?... A marriage!" floated whirling through Alyosha's
mind. "There is happiness for her, too.... She has gone to the feast....
No, she has n