THE evening service was being celebrated1 on the eve of Palm Sunday in the Old Petrovsky Convent. When they began distributing the palm it was close upon ten o’clock, the candles were burning dimly, the wicks wanted snuffing; it was all in a sort of mist. In the twilight2 of the church the crowd seemed heaving like the sea, and to Bishop3 Pyotr, who had been unwell for the last three days, it seemed that all the faces—old and young, men’s and women’s—were alike, that everyone who came up for the palm had the same expression in his eyes. In the mist he could not see the doors; the crowd kept moving and looked as though there were no end to it. The female choir4 was singing, a nun5 was reading the prayers for the day.
How stifling6, how hot it was! How long the service went on! Bishop Pyotr was tired. His breathing was laboured and rapid, his throat was parched7, his shoulders ached with weariness, his legs were trembling. And it disturbed him unpleasantly when a religious maniac8 uttered occasional shrieks9 in the gallery. And then all of a sudden, as though in a dream or delirium10, it seemed to the bishop as though his own mother Marya Timofyevna, whom he had not seen for nine years, or some old woman just like his mother, came up to him out of the crowd, and, after taking a palm branch from him, walked away looking at him all the while good-humouredly with a kind, joyful12 smile until she was lost in the crowd. And for some reason tears flowed down his face. There was peace in his heart, everything was well, yet he kept gazing fixedly13 towards the left choir, where the prayers were being read, where in the dusk of evening you could not recognize anyone, and—wept. Tears glistened14 on his face and on his beard. Here someone close at hand was weeping, then someone else farther away, then others and still others, and little by little the church was filled with soft weeping. And a little later, within five minutes, the nuns’ choir was singing; no one was weeping and everything was as before.
Soon the service was over. When the bishop got into his carriage to drive home, the gay, melodious15 chime of the heavy, costly16 bells was filling the whole garden in the moonlight. The white walls, the white crosses on the tombs, the white birch-trees and black shadows, and the far-away moon in the sky exactly over the convent, seemed now living their own life, apart and incomprehensible, yet very near to man. It was the beginning of April, and after the warm spring day it turned cool; there was a faint touch of frost, and the breath of spring could be felt in the soft, chilly17 air. The road from the convent to the town was sandy, the horses had to go at a walking pace, and on both sides of the carriage in the brilliant, peaceful moonlight there were people trudging18 along home from church through the sand. And all was silent, sunk in thought; everything around seemed kindly19, youthful, akin11, everything—trees and sky and even the moon, and one longed to think that so it would be always.
At last the carriage drove into the town and rumbled20 along the principal street. The shops were already shut, but at Erakin’s, the millionaire shopkeeper’s, they were trying the new electric lights, which flickered21 brightly, and a crowd of people were gathered round. Then came wide, dark, deserted22 streets, one after another; then the highroad, the open country, the fragrance23 of pines. And suddenly there rose up before the bishop’s eyes a white turreted24 wall, and behind it a tall belfry in the full moonlight, and beside it five shining, golden cupolas: this was the Pankratievsky Monastery25, in which Bishop Pyotr lived. And here, too, high above the monastery, was the silent, dreamy moon. The carriage drove in at the gate, crunching26 over the sand; here and there in the moonlight there were glimpses of dark monastic figures, and there was the sound of footsteps on the flag-stones. . . .
“You know, your holiness, your mamma arrived while you were away,” the lay brother informed the bishop as he went into his cell.
“My mother? When did she come?”
“Before the evening service. She asked first where you were and then she went to the convent.”
“Then it was her I saw in the church, just now! Oh, Lord!”
And the bishop laughed with joy.
“She bade me tell your holiness,” the lay brother went on, “that she would come to-morrow. She had a little girl with her—her grandchild, I suppose. They are staying at Ovsyannikov’s inn.”
“What time is it now?”
“A little after eleven.”
“Oh, how vexing27!”
The bishop sat for a little while in the parlour, hesitating, and as it were refusing to believe it was so late. His arms and legs were stiff, his head ached. He was hot and uncomfortable. After resting a little he went into his bedroom, and there, too, he sat a little, still thinking of his mother; he could hear the lay brother going away, and Father Sisoy coughing the other side of the wall. The monastery clock struck a quarter.
The bishop changed his clothes and began reading the prayers before sleep. He read attentively28 those old, long familiar prayers, and at the same time thought about his mother. She had nine children and about forty grandchildren. At one time, she had lived with her husband, the deacon, in a poor village; she had lived there a very long time from the age of seventeen to sixty. The bishop remembered her from early childhood, almost from the age of three, and—how he had loved her! Sweet, precious childhood, always fondly remembered! Why did it, that long-past time that could never return, why did it seem brighter, fuller, and more festive29 than it had really been? When in his childhood or youth he had been ill, how tender and sympathetic his mother had been! And now his prayers mingled30 with the memories, which gleamed more and more brightly like a flame, and the prayers did not hinder his thinking of his mother.
When he had finished his prayers he undressed and lay down, and at once, as soon as it was dark, there rose before his mind his dead father, his mother, his native village Lesopolye . . . the creak of wheels, the bleat31 of sheep, the church bells on bright summer mornings, the gypsies under the window—oh, how sweet to think of it! He remembered the priest of Lesopolye, Father Simeon—mild, gentle, kindly; he was a lean little man, while his son, a divinity student, was a huge fellow and talked in a roaring bass32 voice. The priest’s son had flown into a rage with the cook and abused her: “Ah, you Jehud’s ass33!” and Father Simeon overhearing it, said not a word, and was only ashamed because he could not remember where such an ass was mentioned in the Bible. After him the priest at Lesopolye had been Father Demyan, who used to drink heavily, and at times drank till he saw green snakes, and was even nicknamed Demyan Snakeseer. The schoolmaster at Lesopolye was Matvey Nikolaitch, who had been a divinity student, a kind and intelligent man, but he, too, was a drunkard; he never beat the schoolchildren, but for some reason he always had hanging on his wall a bunch of birch-twigs, and below it an utterly34 meaningless inscription35 in Latin: “Betula kinderbalsamica secuta.” He had a shaggy black dog whom he called Syntax.
And his holiness laughed. Six miles from Lesopolye was the village Obnino with a wonder-working ikon. In the summer they used to carry the ikon in procession about the neighbouring villages and ring the bells the whole day long; first in one village and then in another, and it used to seem to the bishop then that joy was quivering in the air, and he (in those days his name was Pavlusha) used to follow the ikon, bareheaded and barefoot, with na?ve faith, with a na?ve smile, infinitely36 happy. In Obnino, he remembered now, there were always a lot of people, and the priest there, Father Alexey, to save time during mass, used to make his deaf nephew Ilarion read the names of those for whose health or whose souls’ peace prayers were asked. Ilarion used to read them, now and then getting a five or ten kopeck piece for the service, and only when he was grey and bald, when life was nearly over, he suddenly saw written on one of the pieces of paper: “What a fool you are, Ilarion.” Up to fifteen at least Pavlusha was undeveloped and idle at his lessons, so much so that they thought of taking him away from the clerical school and putting him into a shop; one day, going to the post at Obnino for letters, he had stared a long time at the post-office clerks and asked: “Allow me to ask, how do you get your salary, every month or every day?”
His holiness crossed himself and turned over on the other side, trying to stop thinking and go to sleep.
“My mother has come,” he remembered and laughed.
The moon peeped in at the window, the floor was lighted up, and there were shadows on it. A cricket was chirping37. Through the wall Father Sisoy was snoring in the next room, and his aged38 snore had a sound that suggested loneliness, forlornness, even vagrancy39. Sisoy had once been housekeeper40 to the bishop of the diocese, and was called now “the former Father Housekeeper”; he was seventy years old, he lived in a monastery twelve miles from the town and stayed sometimes in the town, too. He had come to the Pankratievsky Monastery three days before, and the bishop had kept him that he might talk to him at his leisure about matters of business, about the arrangements here. . . .
At half-past one they began ringing for matins. Father Sisoy could be heard coughing, muttering something in a discontented voice, then he got up and walked barefoot about the rooms.
“Father Sisoy,” the bishop called.
Sisoy went back to his room and a little later made his appearance in his boots, with a candle; he had on his cassock over his underclothes and on his head was an old faded skull-cap.
“I can’t sleep,” said the bishop, sitting up. “I must be unwell. And what it is I don’t know. Fever!”
“You must have caught cold, your holiness. You must be rubbed with tallow.” Sisoy stood a little and yawned. “O Lord, forgive me, a sinner.”
“They had the electric lights on at Erakin’s today,” he said; “I don’t like it!”
Father Sisoy was old, lean, bent41, always dissatisfied with something, and his eyes were angry-looking and prominent as a crab’s.
“I don’t like it,” he said, going away. “I don’t like it. Bother it!”
II
Next day, Palm Sunday, the bishop took the service in the cathedral in the town, then he visited the bishop of the diocese, then visited a very sick old lady, the widow of a general, and at last drove home. Between one and two o’clock he had welcome visitors dining with him—his mother and his niece Katya, a child of eight years old. All dinner-time the spring sunshine was streaming in at the windows, throwing bright light on the white tablecloth42 and on Katya’s red hair. Through the double windows they could hear the noise of the rooks and the notes of the starlings in the garden.
“It is nine years since we have met,” said the old lady. “And when I looked at you in the monastery yesterday, good Lord! you’ve not changed a bit, except maybe you are thinner and your beard is a little longer. Holy Mother, Queen of Heaven! Yesterday at the evening service no one could help crying. I, too, as I looked at you, suddenly began crying, though I couldn’t say why. His Holy Will!”
And in spite of the affectionate tone in which she said this, he could see she was constrained43 as though she were uncertain whether to address him formally or familiarly, to laugh or not, and that she felt herself more a deacon’s widow than his mother. And Katya gazed without bElinking at her uncle, his holiness, as though trying to discover what sort of a person he was. Her hair sprang up from under the comb and the velvet44 ribbon and stood out like a halo; she had a turned-up nose and sly eyes. The child had broken a glass before sitting down to dinner, and now her grandmother, as she talked, moved away from Katya first a wineglass and then a tumbler. The bishop listened to his mother and remembered how many, many years ago she used to take him and his brothers and sisters to relations whom she considered rich; in those days she was taken up with the care of her children, now with her grandchildren, and she had brought Katya. . . .
“Your sister, Varenka, has four children,” she told him; “Katya, here, is the eldest45. And your brother-in-law Father Ivan fell sick, God knows of what, and died three days before the Assumption; and my poor Varenka is left a beggar.”
“And how is Nikanor getting on?” the bishop asked about his eldest brother.
“He is all right, thank God. Though he has nothing much, yet he can live. Only there is one thing: his son, my grandson Nikolasha, did not want to go into the Church; he has gone to the university to be a doctor. He thinks it is better; but who knows! His Holy Will!”
“Nikolasha cuts up dead people,” said Katya, spilling water over her knees.
“Sit still, child,” her grandmother observed calmly, and took the glass out of her hand. “Say a prayer, and go on eating.”
“How long it is since we have seen each other!” said the bishop, and he tenderly stroked his mother’s hand and shoulder; “and I missed you abroad, mother, I missed you dreadfully.”
“Thank you.”
“I used to sit in the evenings at the open window, lonely and alone; often there was music playing, and all at once I used to be overcome with homesickness and felt as though I would give everything only to be at home and see you.”
His mother smiled, beamed, but at once she made a grave face and said:
“Thank you.”
His mood suddenly changed. He looked at his mother and could not understand how she had come by that respectfulness, that timid expression of face: what was it for? And he did not recognize her. He felt sad and vexed46. And then his head ached just as it had the day before; his legs felt fearfully tired, and the fish seemed to him stale and tasteless; he felt thirsty all the time. . . .
After dinner two rich ladies, landowners, arrived and sat for an hour and a half in silence with rigid47 countenances48; the archimandrite, a silent, rather deaf man, came to see him about business. Then they began ringing for vespers; the sun was setting behind the wood and the day was over. When he returned from church, he hurriedly said his prayers, got into bed, and wrapped himself up as warm as possible.
It was disagreeable to remember the fish he had eaten at dinner. The moonlight worried him, and then he heard talking. In an adjoining room, probably in the parlour, Father Sisoy was talking politics:
“There’s war among the Japanese now. They are fighting. The Japanese, my good soul, are the same as the Montenegrins; they are the same race. They were under the Turkish yoke49 together.”
And then he heard the voice of Marya Timofyevna:
“So, having said our prayers and drunk tea, we went, you know, to Father Yegor at Novokatnoye, so. . .”
And she kept on saying, “having had tea” or “having drunk tea,” and it seemed as though the only thing she had done in her life was to drink tea.
The bishop slowly, languidly, recalled the seminary, the academy. For three years he had been Greek teacher in the seminary: by that time he could not read without spectacles. Then he had become a monk50; he had been made a school inspector51. Then he had defended his thesis for his degree. When he was thirty-two he had been made rector of the seminary, and consecrated52 archimandrite: and then his life had been so easy, so pleasant; it seemed so long, so long, no end was in sight. Then he had begun to be ill, had grown very thin and almost blind, and by the advice of the doctors had to give up everything and go abroad.
“And what then?” asked Sisoy in the next room.
“Then we drank tea . . .” answered Marya Timofyevna.
“Good gracious, you’ve got a green beard,” said Katya suddenly in surprise, and she laughed.
The bishop remembered that the grey-headed Father Sisoy’s beard really had a shade of green in it, and he laughed.
“God have mercy upon us, what we have to put up with with this girl!” said Sisoy, aloud, getting angry. “Spoilt child! Sit quiet!”
The bishop remembered the perfectly53 new white church in which he had conducted the services while living abroad, he remembered the sound of the warm sea. In his flat he had five lofty light rooms; in his study he had a new writing-table, lots of books. He had read a great deal and often written. And he remembered how he had pined for his native land, how a blind beggar woman had played the guitar under his window every day and sung of love, and how, as he listened, he had always for some reason thought of the past. But eight years had passed and he had been called back to Russia, and now he was a suffragan bishop, and all the past had retreated far away into the mist as though it were a dream. . . .
Father Sisoy came into the bedroom with a candle.
“I say!” he said, wondering, “are you asleep already, your holiness?”
“What is it?”
“Why, it’s still early, ten o’clock or less. I bought a candle to-day; I wanted to rub you with tallow.”
“I am in a fever . . .” said the bishop, and he sat up. “I really ought to have something. My head is bad. . . .”
Sisoy took off the bishop’s shirt and began rubbing his chest and back with tallow.
“That’s the way . . . that’s the way . . .” he said. “Lord Jesus Christ . . . that’s the way. I walked to the town to-day; I was at what’s-his-name’s—the chief priest Sidonsky’s. . . . I had tea with him. I don’t like him. Lord Jesus Christ. . . . That’s the way. I don’t like him.”
III
The bishop of the diocese, a very fat old man, was ill with rheumatism54 or gout, and had been in bed for over a month. Bishop Pyotr went to see him almost every day, and saw all who came to ask his help. And now that he was unwell he was struck by the emptiness, the triviality of everything which they asked and for which they wept; he was vexed at their ignorance, their timidity; and all this useless, petty business oppressed him by the mass of it, and it seemed to him that now he understood the diocesan bishop, who had once in his young days written on “The Doctrines55 of the Freedom of the Will,” and now seemed to be all lost in trivialities, to have forgotten everything, and to have no thoughts of religion. The bishop must have lost touch with Russian life while he was abroad; he did not find it easy; the peasants seemed to him coarse, the women who sought his help dull and stupid, the seminarists and their teachers uncultivated and at times savage56. And the documents coming in and going out were reckoned by tens of thousands; and what documents they were! The higher clergy57 in the whole diocese gave the priests, young and old, and even their wives and children, marks for their behaviour—a five, a four, and sometimes even a three; and about this he had to talk and to read and write serious reports. And there was positively58 not one minute to spare; his soul was troubled all day long, and the bishop was only at peace when he was in church.
He could not get used, either, to the awe59 which, through no wish of his own, he inspired in people in spite of his quiet, modest disposition60. All the people in the province seemed to him little, scared, and guilty when he looked at them. Everyone was timid in his presence, even the old chief priests; everyone “flopped” at his feet, and not long previously61 an old lady, a village priest’s wife who had come to consult him, was so overcome by awe that she could not utter a single word, and went empty away. And he, who could never in his sermons bring himself to speak ill of people, never reproached anyone because he was so sorry for them, was moved to fury with the people who came to consult him, lost his temper and flung their petitions on the floor. The whole time he had been here, not one person had spoken to him genuinely, simply, as to a human being; even his old mother seemed now not the same! And why, he wondered, did she chatter63 away to Sisoy and laugh so much; while with him, her son, she was grave and usually silent and constrained, which did not suit her at all. The only person who behaved freely with him and said what he meant was old Sisoy, who had spent his whole life in the presence of bishops64 and had outlived eleven of them. And so the bishop was at ease with him, although, of course, he was a tedious and nonsensical man.
After the service on Tuesday, his holiness Pyotr was in the diocesan bishop’s house receiving petitions there; he got excited and angry, and then drove home. He was as unwell as before; he longed to be in bed, but he had hardly reached home when he was informed that a young merchant called Erakin, who subscribed65 liberally to charities, had come to see him about a very important matter. The bishop had to see him. Erakin stayed about an hour, talked very loud, almost shouted, and it was difficult to understand what he said.
“God grant it may,” he said as he went away. “Most essential! According to circumstances, your holiness! I trust it may!”
After him came the Mother Superior from a distant convent. And when she had gone they began ringing for vespers. He had to go to church.
In the evening the monks66 sang harmoniously67, with inspiration. A young priest with a black beard conducted the service; and the bishop, hearing of the Bridegroom who comes at midnight and of the Heavenly Mansion68 adorned69 for the festival, felt no repentance70 for his sins, no tribulation71, but peace at heart and tranquillity72. And he was carried back in thought to the distant past, to his childhood and youth, when, too, they used to sing of the Bridegroom and of the Heavenly Mansion; and now that past rose up before him—living, fair, and joyful as in all likelihood it never had been. And perhaps in the other world, in the life to come, we shall think of the distant past, of our life here, with the same feeling. Who knows? The bishop was sitting near the altar. It was dark; tears flowed down his face. He thought that here he had attained73 everything a man in his position could attain74; he had faith and yet everything was not clear, something was lacking still. He did not want to die; and he still felt that he had missed what was most important, something of which he had dimly dreamed in the past; and he was troubled by the same hopes for the future as he had felt in childhood, at the academy and abroad.
“How well they sing to-day!” he thought, listening to the singing. “How nice it is!”
IV
On Thursday he celebrated mass in the cathedral; it was the Washing of Feet. When the service was over and the people were going home, it was sunny, warm; the water gurgled in the gutters75, and the unceasing trilling of the larks76, tender, telling of peace, rose from the fields outside the town. The trees were already awakening77 and smiling a welcome, while above them the infinite, fathomless78 blue sky stretched into the distance, God knows whither.
On reaching home his holiness drank some tea, then changed his clothes, lay down on his bed, and told the lay brother to close the shutters79 on the windows. The bedroom was darkened. But what weariness, what pain in his legs and his back, a chill heavy pain, what a noise in his ears! He had not slept for a long time—for a very long time, as it seemed to him now, and some trifling80 detail which haunted his brain as soon as his eyes were closed prevented him from sleeping. As on the day before, sounds reached him from the adjoining rooms through the walls, voices, the jingle81 of glasses and teaspoons82. . . . Marya Timofyevna was gaily83 telling Father Sisoy some story with quaint84 turns of speech, while the latter answered in a grumpy, ill-humoured voice: “Bother them! Not likely! What next!” And the bishop again felt vexed and then hurt that with other people his old mother behaved in a simple, ordinary way, while with him, her son, she was shy, spoke62 little, and did not say what she meant, and even, as he fancied, had during all those three days kept trying in his presence to find an excuse for standing85 up, because she was embarrassed at sitting before him. And his father? He, too, probably, if he had been living, would not have been able to utter a word in the bishop’s presence. . . .
Something fell down on the floor in the adjoining room and was broken; Katya must have dropped a cup or a saucer, for Father Sisoy suddenly spat86 and said angrily:
“What a regular nuisance the child is! Lord forgive my transgressions87! One can’t provide enough for her.”
Then all was quiet, the only sounds came from outside. And when the bishop opened his eyes he saw Katya in his room, standing motionless, staring at him. Her red hair, as usual, stood up from under the comb like a halo.
“Is that you, Katya?” he asked. “Who is it downstairs who keeps opening and shutting a door?”
“I don’t hear it,” answered Katya; and she listened.
“There, someone has just passed by.”
“But that was a noise in your stomach, uncle.”
He laughed and stroked her on the head.
“So you say Cousin Nikolasha cuts up dead people?” he asked after a pause.
“Yes, he is studying.”
“And is he kind?”
“Oh, yes, he’s kind. But he drinks vodka awfully88.”
“And what was it your father died of?”
“Papa was weak and very, very thin, and all at once his throat was bad. I was ill then, too, and brother Fedya; we all had bad throats. Papa died, uncle, and we got well.”
Her chin began quivering, and tears gleamed in her eyes and trickled89 down her cheeks.
“Your holiness,” she said in a shrill90 voice, by now weeping bitterly, “uncle, mother and all of us are left very wretched. . . . Give us a little money . . . do be kind . . . uncle darling. . . .”
He, too, was moved to tears, and for a long time was too much touched to speak. Then he stroked her on the head, patted her on the shoulder and said:
“Very good, very good, my child. When the holy Easter comes, we will talk it over. . . . I will help you. . . . I will help you. . . .”
His mother came in quietly, timidly, and prayed before the ikon. Noticing that he was not sleeping, she said:
“Won’t you have a drop of soup?”
“No, thank you,” he answered, “I am not hungry.”
“You seem to be unwell, now I look at you. I should think so; you may well be ill! The whole day on your legs, the whole day. . . . And, my goodness, it makes one’s heart ache even to look at you! Well, Easter is not far off; you will rest then, please God. Then we will have a talk, too, but now I’m not going to disturb you with my chatter. Come along, Katya; let his holiness sleep a little.”
And he remembered how once very long ago, when he was a boy, she had spoken exactly like that, in the same jestingly respectful tone, with a Church dignitary. . . . Only from her extraordinarily91 kind eyes and the timid, anxious glance she stole at him as she went out of the room could one have guessed that this was his mother. He shut his eyes and seemed to sleep, but twice heard the clock strike and Father Sisoy coughing the other side of the wall. And once more his mother came in and looked timidly at him for a minute. Someone drove up to the steps, as he could hear, in a coach or in a chaise. Suddenly a knock, the door slammed, the lay brother came into the bedroom.
“Your holiness,” he called.
“Well?”
“The horses are here; it’s time for the evening service.”
“What o’clock is it?”
“A quarter past seven.”
He dressed and drove to the cathedral. During all the “Twelve Gospels” he had to stand in the middle of the church without moving, and the first gospel, the longest and the most beautiful, he read himself. A mood of confidence and courage came over him. That first gospel, “Now is the Son of Man glorified,” he knew by heart; and as he read he raised his eyes from time to time, and saw on both sides a perfect sea of lights and heard the splutter of candles, but, as in past years, he could not see the people, and it seemed as though these were all the same people as had been round him in those days, in his childhood and his youth; that they would always be the same every year and till such time as God only knew.
His father had been a deacon, his grandfather a priest, his great-grandfather a deacon, and his whole family, perhaps from the days when Christianity had been accepted in Russia, had belonged to the priesthood; and his love for the Church services, for the priesthood, for the peal92 of the bells, was deep in him, ineradicable, innate93. In church, particularly when he took part in the service, he felt vigorous, of good cheer, happy. So it was now. Only when the eighth gospel had been read, he felt that his voice had grown weak, even his cough was inaudible. His head had begun to ache intensely, and he was troubled by a fear that he might fall down. And his legs were indeed quite numb94, so that by degrees he ceased to feel them and could not understand how or on what he was standing, and why he did not fall. . . .
It was a quarter to twelve when the service was over. When he reached home, the bishop undressed and went to bed at once without even saying his prayers. He could not speak and felt that he could not have stood up. When he had covered his head with the quilt he felt a sudden longing95 to be abroad, an insufferable longing! He felt that he would give his life not to see those pitiful cheap shutters, those low ceilings, not to smell that heavy monastery smell. If only there were one person to whom he could have talked, have opened his heart!
For a long while he heard footsteps in the next room and could not tell whose they were. At last the door opened, and Sisoy came in with a candle and a tea-cup in his hand.
“You are in bed already, your holiness?” he asked. “Here I have come to rub you with spirit and vinegar. A thorough rubbing does a great deal of good. Lord Jesus Christ! . . . That’s the way . . . that’s the way. . . . I’ve just been in our monastery. . . . I don’t like it. I’m going away from here to-morrow, your holiness; I don’t want to stay longer. Lord Jesus Christ. . . . That’s the way. . . .”
Sisoy could never stay long in the same place, and he felt as though he had been a whole year in the Pankratievsky Monastery. Above all, listening to him it was difficult to understand where his home was, whether he cared for anyone or anything, whether he believed in God. . . . He did not know himself why he was a monk, and, indeed, he did not think about it, and the time when he had become a monk had long passed out of his memory; it seemed as though he had been born a monk.
“I’m going away to-morrow; God be with them all.”
“I should like to talk to you. . . . I can’t find the time,” said the bishop softly with an effort. “I don’t know anything or anybody here. . . .”
“I’ll stay till Sunday if you like; so be it, but I don’t want to stay longer. I am sick of them!”
“I ought not to be a bishop,” said the bishop softly. “I ought to have been a village priest, a deacon . . . or simply a monk. . . . All this oppresses me . . . oppresses me.”
“What? Lord Jesus Christ. . . . That’s the way. Come, sleep well, your holiness! . . . What’s the good of talking? It’s no use. Good-night!”
The bishop did not sleep all night. And at eight o’clock in the morning he began to have hemorrhage from the bowels96. The lay brother was alarmed, and ran first to the archimandrite, then for the monastery doctor, Ivan Andreyitch, who lived in the town. The doctor, a stout97 old man with a long grey beard, made a prolonged examination of the bishop, and kept shaking his head and frowning, then said:
“Do you know, your holiness, you have got typhoid?”
After an hour or so of hemorrhage the bishop looked much thinner, paler, and wasted; his face looked wrinkled, his eyes looked bigger, and he seemed older, shorter, and it seemed to him that he was thinner, weaker, more insignificant98 than any one, that everything that had been had retreated far, far away and would never go on again or be repeated.
“How good,” he thought, “how good!”
His old mother came. Seeing his wrinkled face and his big eyes, she was frightened, she fell on her knees by the bed and began kissing his face, his shoulders, his hands. And to her, too, it seemed that he was thinner, weaker, and more insignificant than anyone, and now she forgot that he was a bishop, and kissed him as though he were a child very near and very dear to her.
“Pavlusha, darling,” she said; “my own, my darling son! . . . Why are you like this? Pavlusha, answer me!”
Katya, pale and severe, stood beside her, unable to understand what was the matter with her uncle, why there was such a look of suffering on her grandmother’s face, why she was saying such sad and touching99 things. By now he could not utter a word, he could understand nothing, and he imagined he was a simple ordinary man, that he was walking quickly, cheerfully through the fields, tapping with his stick, while above him was the open sky bathed in sunshine, and that he was free now as a bird and could go where he liked!
“Pavlusha, my darling son, answer me,” the old woman was saying. “What is it? My own!”
“Don’t disturb his holiness,” Sisoy said angrily, walking about the room. “Let him sleep . . . what’s the use . . . it’s no good. . . .”
Three doctors arrived, consulted together, and went away again. The day was long, incredibly long, then the night came on and passed slowly, slowly, and towards morning on Saturday the lay brother went in to the old mother who was lying on the sofa in the parlour, and asked her to go into the bedroom: the bishop had just breathed his last.
Next day was Easter Sunday. There were forty-two churches and six monasteries100 in the town; the sonorous101, joyful clang of the bells hung over the town from morning till night unceasingly, setting the spring air aquiver; the birds were singing, the sun was shining brightly. The big market square was noisy, swings were going, barrel organs were playing, accordions102 were squeaking103, drunken voices were shouting. After midday people began driving up and down the principal street.
In short, all was merriment, everything was satisfactory, just as it had been the year before, and as it will be in all likelihood next year.
A month later a new suffragan bishop was appointed, and no one thought anything more of Bishop Pyotr, and afterwards he was completely forgotten. And only the dead man’s old mother, who is living to-day with her son-in-law the deacon in a remote little district town, when she goes out at night to bring her cow in and meets other women at the pasture, begins talking of her children and her grandchildren, and says that she had a son a bishop, and this she says timidly, afraid that she may not be believed. . . .
And, indeed, there are some who do not believe her.
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1
celebrated
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| adj.有名的，声誉卓著的 | |
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twilight
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| n.暮光，黄昏；暮年，晚期，衰落时期 | |
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bishop
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| n.主教，（国际象棋）象 | |
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choir
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| n.唱诗班，唱诗班的席位，合唱团，舞蹈团；v.合唱 | |
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nun
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| n.修女，尼姑 | |
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stifling
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| a.令人窒息的 | |
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parched
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| adj.焦干的；极渴的；v.（使）焦干 | |
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maniac
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| n.精神癫狂的人；疯子 | |
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shrieks
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| n.尖叫声( shriek的名词复数 )v.尖叫( shriek的第三人称单数 ) | |
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delirium
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| n. 神智昏迷,说胡话;极度兴奋 | |
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akin
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| adj.同族的，类似的 | |
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12
joyful
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| adj.欢乐的，令人欢欣的 | |
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13
fixedly
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| adv.固定地；不屈地，坚定不移地 | |
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14
glistened
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| v.湿物闪耀，闪亮( glisten的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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15
melodious
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| adj.旋律美妙的，调子优美的，音乐性的 | |
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16
costly
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| adj.昂贵的，价值高的，豪华的 | |
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17
chilly
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| adj.凉快的，寒冷的 | |
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18
trudging
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| vt.& vi.跋涉，吃力地走（trudge的现在分词形式） | |
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19
kindly
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| adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地 | |
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rumbled
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| 发出隆隆声，发出辘辘声( rumble的过去式和过去分词 )； 轰鸣着缓慢行进； 发现…的真相； 看穿（阴谋） | |
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21
flickered
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| （通常指灯光）闪烁，摇曳( flicker的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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22
deserted
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| adj.荒芜的，荒废的，无人的，被遗弃的 | |
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23
fragrance
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| n.芬芳，香味，香气 | |
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24
turreted
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| a.(像炮塔般)旋转式的 | |
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25
monastery
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| n.修道院，僧院，寺院 | |
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26
crunching
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| v.嘎吱嘎吱地咬嚼( crunch的现在分词 )；嘎吱作响；（快速大量地）处理信息；数字捣弄 | |
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27
vexing
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| adj.使人烦恼的，使人恼火的v.使烦恼( vex的现在分词 )；使苦恼；使生气；详细讨论 | |
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28
attentively
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| adv.聚精会神地；周到地；谛；凝神 | |
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29
festive
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| adj.欢宴的，节日的 | |
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30
mingled
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| 混合，混入( mingle的过去式和过去分词 )； 混进，与…交往[联系] | |
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31
bleat
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| v.咩咩叫，(讲)废话，哭诉；n.咩咩叫，废话，哭诉 | |
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32
bass
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| n.男低音(歌手)；低音乐器；低音大提琴 | |
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33
ass
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| n.驴；傻瓜，蠢笨的人 | |
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34
utterly
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| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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35
inscription
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| n.（尤指石块上的）刻印文字，铭文，碑文 | |
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36
infinitely
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| adv.无限地，无穷地 | |
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37
chirping
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| 鸟叫，虫鸣( chirp的现在分词 ) | |
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38
aged
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| adj.年老的，陈年的 | |
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39
vagrancy
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| （说话的，思想的）游移不定； 漂泊； 流浪； 离题 | |
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40
housekeeper
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| n.管理家务的主妇，女管家 | |
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41
bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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42
tablecloth
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| n.桌布，台布 | |
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43
constrained
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| adj.束缚的,节制的 | |
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44
velvet
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| n.丝绒，天鹅绒；adj.丝绒制的，柔软的 | |
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45
eldest
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| adj.最年长的，最年老的 | |
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46
vexed
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| adj.争论不休的；（指问题等）棘手的；争论不休的问题；烦恼的v.使烦恼( vex的过去式和过去分词 )；使苦恼；使生气；详细讨论 | |
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47
rigid
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| adj.严格的，死板的；刚硬的，僵硬的 | |
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48
countenances
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| n.面容( countenance的名词复数 )；表情；镇静；道义支持 | |
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49
yoke
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| n.轭；支配；v.给...上轭，连接，使成配偶 | |
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50
monk
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| n.和尚，僧侣，修道士 | |
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51
inspector
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| n.检查员，监察员，视察员 | |
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52
consecrated
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| adj.神圣的，被视为神圣的v.把…奉为神圣，给…祝圣( consecrate的过去式和过去分词 )；奉献 | |
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53
perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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54
rheumatism
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| n.风湿病 | |
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55
doctrines
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| n.教条( doctrine的名词复数 )；教义；学说；（政府政策的）正式声明 | |
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56
savage
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| adj.野蛮的；凶恶的，残暴的；n.未开化的人 | |
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57
clergy
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| n.[总称]牧师，神职人员 | |
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58
positively
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| adv.明确地，断然，坚决地；实在，确实 | |
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59
awe
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| n.敬畏，惊惧；vt.使敬畏，使惊惧 | |
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60
disposition
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| n.性情，性格；意向，倾向；排列，部署 | |
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61
previously
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| adv.以前，先前（地） | |
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62
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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63
chatter
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| vi.／n.喋喋不休；短促尖叫；(牙齿)打战 | |
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64
bishops
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| （基督教某些教派管辖大教区的）主教( bishop的名词复数 )； （国际象棋的）象 | |
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65
subscribed
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| v.捐助( subscribe的过去式和过去分词 )；签署，题词；订阅；同意 | |
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66
monks
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| n.修道士，僧侣( monk的名词复数 ) | |
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67
harmoniously
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| 和谐地，调和地 | |
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68
mansion
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| n.大厦，大楼；宅第 | |
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69
adorned
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| [计]被修饰的 | |
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70
repentance
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| n.懊悔 | |
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71
tribulation
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| n.苦难，灾难 | |
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72
tranquillity
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| n. 平静, 安静 | |
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73
attained
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| （通常经过努力）实现( attain的过去式和过去分词 )； 达到； 获得； 达到（某年龄、水平、状况） | |
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74
attain
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| vt.达到，获得，完成 | |
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75
gutters
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| （路边）排水沟( gutter的名词复数 )； 阴沟； （屋顶的）天沟； 贫贱的境地 | |
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76
larks
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| n.百灵科鸟（尤指云雀）( lark的名词复数 )；一大早就起床；鸡鸣即起；（因太费力而不想干时说）算了v.百灵科鸟（尤指云雀）( lark的第三人称单数 )；一大早就起床；鸡鸣即起；（因太费力而不想干时说）算了 | |
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77
awakening
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| n.觉醒，醒悟 adj.觉醒中的；唤醒的 | |
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78
fathomless
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| a.深不可测的 | |
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79
shutters
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| 百叶窗( shutter的名词复数 )； （照相机的）快门 | |
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80
trifling
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| adj.微不足道的；没什么价值的 | |
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81
jingle
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| n.叮当声，韵律简单的诗句；v.使叮当作响，叮当响，押韵 | |
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82
teaspoons
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| n.茶匙( teaspoon的名词复数 )；一茶匙的量 | |
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83
gaily
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| adv.欢乐地，高兴地 | |
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84
quaint
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| adj.古雅的，离奇有趣的，奇怪的 | |
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85
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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86
spat
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| n.口角，掌击；v.发出呼噜呼噜声 | |
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87
transgressions
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| n.违反，违法，罪过( transgression的名词复数 ) | |
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88
awfully
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| adv.可怕地，非常地，极端地 | |
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89
trickled
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| v.滴( trickle的过去式和过去分词 )；淌；使)慢慢走；缓慢移动 | |
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90
shrill
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| adj.尖声的；刺耳的；v尖叫 | |
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91
extraordinarily
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| adv.格外地；极端地 | |
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92
peal
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| n.钟声；v.鸣响 | |
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93
innate
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| adj.天生的，固有的，天赋的 | |
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94
numb
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| adj.麻木的，失去感觉的；v.使麻木 | |
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95
longing
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| n.（for）渴望 | |
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96
bowels
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| n.肠，内脏，内部；肠( bowel的名词复数 )；内部，最深处 | |
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98
insignificant
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| adj.无关紧要的，可忽略的，无意义的 | |
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99
touching
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| adj.动人的，使人感伤的 | |
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100
monasteries
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| 修道院( monastery的名词复数 ) | |
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101
sonorous
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| adj.响亮的，回响的；adv.圆润低沉地；感人地；n.感人，堂皇 | |
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102
accordions
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| n.手风琴( accordion的名词复数 ) | |
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103
squeaking
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| v.短促地尖叫( squeak的现在分词 )；吱吱叫；告密；充当告密者 | |
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