all his life and had outlived eleven of them. And that was why he felt at ease with him, though he was unquestionably a difficult, fussy man.
On Tuesday after the liturgy the bishop was at the diocesan bishop’s house and received petitioners there, became upset, angry, then went home. He was still unwell and felt like going to bed; but he had no sooner come home than he was informed that Yerakin, a young merchant, a donor, had come on very important business. He had to be received. Yerakin stayed for about an hour, talked very loudly, almost shouted, and it was difficult to understand what he said.
“God grant that!” he said, going out. “Most unfailingly! Depending on the circumstances, Your Episcopal Grace! I wish that!”
After him came an abbess from a distant convent. And when she left, the bells rang for vespers, and he had to go to church.
In the evening the monks sang harmoniously, inspiredly, the office was celebrated by a young hieromonk with a black beard; and the bishop, listening to the verses about the Bridegroom who cometh at midnight and about the chamber that is adorned,7 felt, not repentance for his sins, not sorrow, but inner peace, silence, and was carried in his thoughts into the distant past, into his childhood and youth, when they had also sung about the Bridegroom and the chamber, and now that past appeared alive, beautiful, joyful, as it probably never had been. And perhaps in the other world, in the other life, we shall remember the distant past, our life here, with the same feeling. Who knows! The bishop sat in the sanctuary, it was dark there. Tears flowed down his face. He was thinking that here he had achieved everything possible for a man in his position, he had faith, and yet not everything was clear, something was still lacking, he did not want to die; and it still seemed that there was some most important thing which he did not have, of which he had once vaguely dreamed, and in the present he was stirred by the same hope for the future that he had had in childhood, and in the academy, and abroad.
“They’re singing so well today!” he thought, listening to the choir. “So well!”
IV
On Thursday he served the liturgy in the cathedral, and there was the washing of feet.8 When the church service ended and people were going home, it was sunny, warm, cheerful, the water ran noisily in the ditches, and from the fields outside town came the ceaseless singing of larks, tender, calling all to peace. The trees were awake and smiled amiably, and over them, God knows how far, went the fathomless, boundless blue sky.
On coming home, Bishop Pyotr had tea, then changed his clothes, went to bed, and told his cell attendant to close the window blinds. The bedroom became dark. What weariness, though, what pain in his legs and back, a heavy, cold pain, and what a ringing in his ears! He lay without sleeping for a long time, as it now seemed to him, for a very long time, and it was some trifle that kept him from sleeping, that flickered in his brain as soon as his eyes closed. As on the previous day, voices, the clink of glasses and teaspoons came through the wall from neighboring rooms … Marya Timofeevna, merry and bantering, was telling Father Sisoy something, and he responded sullenly, in a displeased voice: “Oh, them! Hah! What else!” And again the bishop felt vexed and then hurt that the old woman behaved in an ordinary and simple way with strangers, but with him, her son, was timid, spoke rarely, and did not say what she wanted to say, and even, as it had seemed to him all those days, kept looking for an excuse to stand up, because she was embarrassed to sit in his presence. And his father? If he were alive, he would probably be unable to utter a single word before him …
Something fell on the floor in the next room and smashed; it must have been Katya dropping a cup or a saucer, because Father Sisoy suddenly spat and said angrily:
“The girl’s a sheer punishment, Lord, forgive me, a sinner! There’s never enough with her!”
Then it became quiet, only sounds from outside reached him. And when the bishop opened his eyes, he saw Katya in his room, standing motionless and looking at him. Her red hair, as usual, rose from behind her comb like a halo.
“It’s you, Katya?” he asked. “Who keeps opening and closing the door downstairs?”
“I don’t hear it,” Katya said and listened.
“There, somebody just passed by.”
“It’s in your stomach, uncle!”
He laughed and patted her head.
“So you say cousin Nikolasha cuts up dead people?” he asked after a pause.
“Yes. He’s studying.”
“Is he kind?”
“Kind enough. Only he drinks a lot of vodka.”
“And what illness did your father die of?”
“Papa was weak and very, very thin, and suddenly—in his throat. I got sick then and so did my brother Fedya, all in the throat. Papa died, and we got well.”
Her chin trembled and tears welled up in her eyes and rolled slowly down her cheeks.
“Your Grace,” she said in a high little voice, now crying bitterly, “mama and all of us were left in such misery … Give us a little money … Be so kind … dear uncle! …”
He, too, became tearful and for a long time was too upset to utter a word, then he patted her head, touched her shoulder, and said:
“Very well, very well, child. The bright resurrection of Christ will come, and then we’ll talk … I’ll help you … I will …”
Quietly, timidly, his mother came in and crossed herself before the icons. Noticing that he was not asleep, she asked:
“Would you like some soup?”
“No, thank you …” he replied. “I don’t want any.”
“You don’t look well … seems to me. But then how could you not get sick! On your feet the whole day, the whole day—my God, it’s painful even to look at you. Well, Easter’s not far off, God grant you’ll be able to rest, then
