“I’ve been there. I’ve been already; un chevalier parfait,” and Maximov snapped his fingers in the air.
“Who is a chevalier?” asked Miüsov.
“The elder, the splendid elder, the elder! The honor and glory of the monastery, Zossima. Such an elder!”
But his incoherent talk was cut short by a very pale, wan-looking monk of medium height, wearing a monk’s cap, who overtook them. Fyodor Pavlovitch and Miüsov stopped.
The monk, with an extremely courteous, profound bow, announced:
“The Father Superior invites all of you gentlemen to dine with him after your visit to the hermitage. At one o’clock, not later. And you also,” he added, addressing Maximov.
“That I certainly will, without fail,” cried Fyodor Pavlovitch, hugely delighted at the invitation. “And, believe me, we’ve all given our word to behave properly here. … And you, Pyotr Alexandrovitch, will you go, too?”
“Yes, of course. What have I come for but to study all the customs here? The only obstacle to me is your company. …”
“Yes, Dmitri Fyodorovitch is nonexistent as yet.”
“It would be a capital thing if he didn’t turn up. Do you suppose I like all this business, and in your company, too? So we will come to dinner. Thank the Father Superior,” he said to the monk.
“No, it is my duty now to conduct you to the elder,” answered the monk.
“If so I’ll go straight to the Father Superior—to the Father Superior,” babbled Maximov.
“The Father Superior is engaged just now. But as you please—” the monk hesitated.
“Impertinent old man!” Miüsov observed aloud, while Maximov ran back to the monastery.
“He’s like Von Sohn,” Fyodor Pavlovitch said suddenly.
“Is that all you can think of? … In what way is he like Von Sohn? Have you ever seen Von Sohn?”
“I’ve seen his portrait. It’s not the features, but something indefinable. He’s a second Von Sohn. I can always tell from the physiognomy.”
“Ah, I dare say you are a connoisseur in that. But, look here, Fyodor Pavlovitch, you said just now that we had given our word to behave properly. Remember it. I advise you to control yourself. But, if you begin to play the fool I don’t intend to be associated with you here. … You see what a man he is”—he turned to the monk—“I’m afraid to go among decent people with him.” A fine smile, not without a certain slyness, came on to the pale, bloodless lips of the monk, but he made no reply, and was evidently silent from a sense of his own dignity. Miüsov frowned more than ever.
“Oh, devil take them all! An outer show elaborated through centuries, and nothing but charlatanism and nonsense underneath,” flashed through Miüsov’s mind.
“Here’s the hermitage. We’ve arrived,” cried Fyodor Pavlovitch. “The gates are shut.”
And he repeatedly made the sign of the cross to the saints painted above and on the sides of the gates.
“When you go to Rome you must do as the Romans do. Here in this hermitage there are twenty-five saints being saved. They look at one another, and eat cabbages. And not one woman goes in at this gate. That’s what is remarkable. And that really is so. But I did hear that the elder receives ladies,” he remarked suddenly to the monk.
“Women of the people are here too now, lying in the portico there waiting. But for ladies of higher rank two rooms have been built adjoining the portico, but outside the precincts—you can see the windows—and the elder goes out to them by an inner passage when he is well enough. They are always outside the precincts. There is a Harkov lady, Madame Hohlakov, waiting there now with her sick daughter. Probably he has promised to come out to her, though of late he has been so weak that he has hardly shown himself even to the people.”
“So then there are loopholes, after all, to creep out of the hermitage to the ladies. Don’t suppose, holy father, that I mean any harm. But do you know that at Athos not only the visits of women are not allowed, but no creature of the female sex—no hens, nor turkey-hens, nor cows.”
“Fyodor Pavlovitch, I warn you I shall go back and leave you here. They’ll turn you out when I’m gone.”
“But I’m not interfering with you, Pyotr Alexandrovitch. Look,” he cried suddenly, stepping within the precincts, “what a vale of roses they live in!”
Though there were no roses now, there were numbers of rare and beautiful autumn flowers growing wherever there was space for them, and evidently tended by a skillful hand; there were flowerbeds round the church, and between the tombs; and the one-storied wooden house where the elder lived was also surrounded with flowers.
“And was it like this in the time of the last elder, Varsonofy? He didn’t care for such elegance. They say he used to jump up and thrash even ladies with a stick,” observed Fyodor Pavlovitch, as he went up the steps.
“The elder Varsonofy did sometimes seem rather strange, but a great deal that’s told is foolishness. He never thrashed anyone,” answered the monk. “Now, gentlemen, if you will wait a minute I will announce you.”
“Fyodor Pavlovitch, for the last time, your compact, do you hear? Behave properly or I will pay you out!” Miüsov had time to mutter again.
“I can’t think why you are so agitated,” Fyodor Pavlovitch observed sarcastically. “Are you uneasy about your sins? They say he can tell by one’s eyes what one has come about. And what a lot you think of their opinion! you, a Parisian, and so advanced. I’m surprised at you.”
But Miüsov had no time to reply to this sarcasm. They were asked to come in. He walked in, somewhat irritated.
“Now, I know myself, I am annoyed, I shall lose my temper and begin to quarrel—and lower myself and my ideas,” he reflected.
II
The Old Buffoon
They entered the room
