How hot and stuffy it was – and the service was so long! Bishop Pyotr felt tired. He was breathing heavily and panting, his throat was dry, his shoulders ached from weariness and his legs were shaking. Now and then he was unpleasantly disturbed by some ‘God’s fool’ shrieking up in the gallery. Then, all of a sudden, just as though he were dreaming or delirious, the bishop thought that he could see his mother, Marya Timofeyevna (whom he had not seen for nine years) – or an old woman who looked like her – make her way towards him in the congregation, take her branch and gaze at him with a cheerful, kindly, joyful smile as she walked away and was lost in the crowd. For some reason tears trickled down his cheeks. He felt calm enough and all was well, but he stood there quite still, staring at the choir on his left, where the lessons were being read, unable to make out a single face in the dusk – and he wept. Tears glistened on his face and beard. Then someone else, close by, burst out crying, then another a little further away, then another and another, until the entire church was gradually filled with a gentle weeping. But about five minutes later the nuns were singing, the weeping had stopped and everything was normal again.
Soon the service was over. As the bishop climbed into his carriage, homeward bound, the whole moonlit garden was overflowing with the joyful, harmonious ringing of heavy bells. White walls, white crosses on graves, white birches, dark shadows, the moon high above the convent – everything seemed to be living a life of its own, beyond the understanding of man, but close to him nonetheless. It was early April, and after that mild day it had turned chilly, with a slight frost, and there was a breath of spring in that soft, cold air. The road from the convent to the town was sandy and they had to travel at walking pace. In the bright, tranquil moonlight churchgoers were trudging through the sand, on both sides of the carriage. They were all silent and deep in thought; and everything around was so welcoming, young, so near at hand – the trees, the sky, even the moon – that one wished it would always be like this.
The carriage finally reached the town and rumbled down the main street. The shops were already closed, except Yerakin’s (a merchant millionaire), where electric lighting was being tested, violently flashing on and off while a crowd of people looked on. Dark, wide, deserted streets followed, then the high road (built by the council) on the far side of town, then the open fields, where the fragrance of pines filled the air. Suddenly a white, crenellated wall loomed up before the bishop, with a lofty belfry beyond, flooded by the moonlight, and with five, large gleaming golden ‘onion’ cupolas next to it – this was Pankratiyev Monastery, where Bishop Pyotr lived. And here again, far above, was that same tranquil, pensive moon. The carriage drove through the gates, crunching over the sand, and here and there he caught fleeting glimpses of dark figures of monks in the moonlight; footsteps echoed on flagstones.
‘Your mother called while you were out, your grace,’ the lay brother announced as the bishop went into his room.
‘My mother? When did she come?’
‘Before evening service. First she asked where you were, then she drove off to the convent.’
‘So I did see her in the church then – goodness gracious!’ The bishop laughed joyfully.
‘She asked me to inform your grace that she’ll be coming tomorrow,’ the lay brother went on. ‘There’s a little girl with her, her granddaughter, I suppose. They’re staying at Ovsyannikov’s inn.’
‘What’s the time now?’
‘Just past eleven.’
‘Oh, that’s a shame.’
The bishop sat meditating in his drawing-room for a little while, hardly believing that it was so late. His arms and legs were aching all over, and he had a pain in the back of his neck; he felt hot and uncomfortable. After he had rested, he went to his bedroom and sat down again, still thinking about his mother. He could hear the lay brother going out and Father Sisoy coughing in the next room. The monastery clock struck the quarter. The bishop changed into his nightclothes and began to say his prayers. As he carefully read those old, long-familiar words he thought of his mother. She had nine children and about forty grandchildren. Once she had lived with her husband, a deacon, in a poor village. This was for a long, long time, from her seventeenth to her sixtieth year. The bishop remembered her from his early childhood, almost from the age of three, and how he had loved her! Dear, precious, unforgettable childhood! It had gone for ever and was irrevocable. Why does this time always seem brighter, gayer, richer than it is in reality? How tender and caring his mother had been when he was ill as a child and a young man! And now prayers mingled with his memories, which flared up even brighter now, like flames – and these prayers did not disturb his thoughts about his mother.
When he had finished his prayers, he undressed and lay down. The moment darkness closed in all around him he had visions of his late father, his mother, his native village of Lesopolye… Creaking wheels, bleating sheep, church bells ringing out on bright summer mornings, gipsies at the window – how delightful it was thinking about these things! He recalled the priest at Lesopolye – that gentle, humble, good-hearted Father Simeon who was very short and thin, but who had a terribly tall son (a theological student) with a furious-sounding bass voice. Once his son had lost his temper with the cook and called her ‘Ass of Jehudiel’, which made Father Simeon go very quiet, for he was only too ashamed of not being able to remember where this particular ass was mentioned in the Bible. He was succeeded at Lesopolye by Father Demyan, who drank until he saw green serpents and even earned the nickname Demyan Snake-eye. Matvey Nikolaich, the village schoolmaster, a former theological student, had been a kind, intelligent man, but a heavy drinker as well. He never beat his pupils, but for some reason always had a bundle of birch twigs hanging on the wall with the motto in dog Latin underneath: Betula kinderbalsamica secuta.1 He had a shaggy black dog called Syntax.
The bishop laughed. About five miles from Lesopolye was the village of Obnino with its miracle-working icon, carried in procession round the neighbouring villages every summer, when bells would ring out all day long – first in one village, then in another. On these occasions the bishop (who was called ‘Pavlusha’) thought that the very air was quivering with joy and he would follow the icon bareheaded, barefoot, smiling innocently, immeasurably happy in his simple faith. Now he remembered that the congregations at Obnino were always quite large, and that the priest there, Father Aleksey, had managed to shorten the services by making his deaf nephew Ilarion read out the little notices and inscriptions pinned to the communion bread – prayers ‘for the health of’ and ‘for the departed soul of’. Ilarion read these out, occasionally getting five or ten copecks for his trouble, and only when he had gone grey and bald, when life had passed him by, did he suddenly notice a piece of paper with ‘Ilarion is a fool’ written on it. Pavlusha had been a backward child, at least until he was fifteen years old, and he was such a poor pupil at the church school that they even considered sending him to work in a shop. Once when he was collecting the mail from Obnino post office, he had stared at the clerks there for a long time, after which he asked, ‘May I inquire how you’re paid, monthly or daily?’
The bishop crossed himself and turned over in an effort to stop thinking about such things and go to sleep.
‘Mother’s here,’ he remembered – and he laughed.
The moon peered in at the window, casting its light on the floor, where shadows lay.
A cricket chirped. In the next room Father Sisoy was snoring away, and there was a solitary note in his senile snoring, making one think of an orphan or a homeless wanderer. At one time Sisoy had been a diocesan bishop’s servant and he was called ‘Father ex-housekeeper’. He was seventy, and now lived in a monastery about ten miles from the town. But he stayed in town whenever he had to. Three days before, he had gone to the Pankratiyev Monastery, and the bishop had taken him into his own rooms, so that they could have a leisurely chat about church affairs and local business.
At half past one the bell rang for matins. The bi
shop could hear Father Sisoy coughing and mumbling ill-humouredly, after which he got up and started pacing up and down in his bare feet.
The bishop called out, ‘Father Sisoy!’, upon which Sisoy went back to his room, reappearing a little later in his boots, with a candle in his hand. Over his underclothes he was wearing a cassock and an old, faded skullcap.
‘I can’t get to sleep,’ the bishop said as he sat down. ‘I must be ill, I just don’t know what’s wrong! It’s so hot!’
‘Your grace must have caught a cold. You need a rubdown with candle grease.’
Sisoy stood there for a few minutes and said to himself with a yawn, ‘Lord forgive me, miserable sinner that I am.’
Then he said out loud, ‘Those Yerakins have got electric lights now, I don’t like it!’
Father Sisoy was old, skinny and hunchbacked and he was always complaining. His eyes were angry and bulging, like a crab’s.
‘Don’t like it,’ he repeated as he went out, ‘don’t want nothing to do with it!’
II
Next day, Palm Sunday, the bishop celebrated Mass in the cathedral, after which he visited the diocesan bishop, called on a very old general’s wife, who was extremely ill, and finally went home. After one o’clock he had some rather special guests to lunch – his aged mother and his eight-year-old niece, Katya.
Throughout the meal the spring sun shone through the windows overlooking the yard, glinting cheerfully on the white tablecloth and in Katya’s red hair. Through the double windows they could hear the rooks cawing in the garden and the starlings singing.
‘It’s nine years since we last saw each other,’ the old lady was saying. ‘But when I saw you yesterday in the convent – heavens, I thought, you haven’t changed one bit, only you’re thinner now and you’ve let your beard grow. Blessed Virgin! Everyone cried at the service, they just couldn’t help it. When I looked at you I cried too, quite suddenly, just don’t know why. It’s God’s will!’
Although she said this with affection, she was clearly quite embarrassed, wondering whether she should address him formally or as a close relative, whether she could laugh or not. And she seemed to think she was more a deacon’s widow than a bishop’s mother. All this time Katya looked at her right reverend uncle without blinking an eyelid, apparently trying to guess what kind of man he was. Her hair welled up like a halo from her comb and velvet ribbon; she had a snub nose and cunning eyes. Before lunch she had broken a glass and her grandmother kept moving tumblers and wine glasses out of her reach during the conversation. As he listened to his mother, the bishop recalled the time, many, many years ago, when she took him and his brothers and sisters to see some relatives, who were supposed to be rich. Then she had her hands full with the children. Now she had grandchildren, and here she was with Katya.
‘Your sister Barbara has four children,’ she told him. ‘Katya’s the eldest. Father Ivan – your brother-in-law – was taken ill, God knows with what, and he passed away three days before Assumption. Now my poor Barbara has to go round begging.’
The bishop inquired about Nikanor, his eldest brother.
‘He’s all right, thank God. He doesn’t have much, but he makes ends meet, thank God. But there’s just one thing: his son Nikolasha, my little grandson, didn’t want to go into the church and he’s at university, studying to be a doctor. He thinks that’s better, but who knows? It’s the will of God.’
‘Nikolasha cuts up dead people,’ Katya said, spilling water over her lap.
‘Sit still, child,’ her grandmother said calmly, taking a tumbler out of her hands. ‘You must pray before you eat.’
‘It’s been such a long time since we met,’ the bishop observed, tenderly stroking his mother’s arm and shoulder. ‘When I was abroad I missed you, Mother, I really missed you!’
‘That’s very kind of you!’
‘I used to sit during the evenings by an open window, all on my own, when suddenly I’d hear a band playing and then I’d long for Russia. I felt I would have given anything just to go home, to see you…’
His mother beamed all over but immediately pulled a serious face and repeated, ‘That’s very kind of you!’
Then he had a sharp change of mood. As he looked at his mother, he was puzzled by this obsequious, timid expression and tone of voice. What was the reason? – it wasn’t at all like her.
He felt sad and irritated. And now he had the same headache as yesterday, and a killing pain in the legs. Moreover, the fish was unappetizing, had no flavour at all and it made him continually thirsty.
After lunch two rich landowning ladies arrived and they sat for over an hour and a half without saying a word, making long faces. The Father Superior, a taciturn man, who was rather hard of hearing, came on some business. Then the bells rang for evensong, the sun sank behind the forest and the day was over. As soon as he came back from the church, the bishop hurriedly said his prayers, went to bed and tucked himself up more warmly than usual.
The thought of the fish at lunch lingered very unpleasantly in his mind. First the moonlight disturbed him, then he could hear people talking. Father Sisoy was most likely talking politics in the next room, or the drawing-room, perhaps.
‘The Japanese are at war now and fighting. Like the Montenegrins they are, ma’am, the same tribe, both were under the Turkish yoke.’
Then the bishop’s mother was heard to say, ‘Well then, after we said our prayers, hum – and had a cup of tea, we went to see Father Yegor at Novokhatnoye, hum…’
From those continual ‘had a cup of tea’s or ‘drank a drop’s, one would have thought that all she ever did in her life was drink tea. Slowly and phlegmatically the bishop recalled the theological college and academy. For three years he had taught Greek in the college, and then he could no longer read without spectacles; afterwards he became a monk and then inspector of schools. Then he took his doctorate. At the age of thirty-two he was appointed rector of the college and made Father Superior. Life was so pleasant and easy then, that it seemed it would continue like that for ever. But then he was taken ill, lost a lot of weight and nearly went blind. As a result he was obliged, on his doctors’ advice, to drop everything and go abroad.
‘And then what?’ Sisoy asked in the next room.
‘Then we had tea,’ the bishop’s mother replied.
‘Father, you’ve got a green beard!’ Katya suddenly exclaimed with a surprised laugh. The bishop laughed too, remembering that grey-haired Father Sisoy’s beard actually did have a greenish tinge.
‘Heavens, that girl’s a real terror,’ Sisoy said in a loud, angry voice. ‘Such a spoilt child! Sit still!’
The bishop recalled the newly built white church, where he had officiated when he was abroad. And he remembered the roar of that warm sea. He had a five-room flat there with high ceilings, a new desk in the study and a library. He had read and written a lot. He remembered feeling homesick for his native Russia and how that blind beggar woman who sang of love and played the guitar every day under his window had always reminded him of the past. But eight years had gone by, and he was recalled to Russia. By now he was a suffragan bishop, and his entire past seemed to have disappeared into the misty beyond, as though it had all been a dream. Father Sisoy came into the bedroom carrying a candle.
‘Oho, asleep already, your grace?’
‘What’s the matter?’
‘Well, it’s still quite early, ten o’clock – even earlier perhaps. I’ve brought a candle so I can give you a good greasing.’
‘I’ve a temperature,’ the bishop said and sat up. ‘But I really must take something, my head’s terrible…’
Sisoy took the bishop’s shirt off and started rubbing his chest and back with candle grease.
‘Yes, that’s it, there, that’s it. Oh Christ in heaven! There… I went into town today and called on Father – what’s his name? – Sidonsky and I had tea with him. Don’t care for him much. Lord save us! No, I don’t care for him…’
III
He found it quite impossible to harden himself against the fear he aroused in people (through no desire of his own) despite his gentle, modest nature. Everyone in the province struck him as small, terrified and guilty when he looked at them. Everyone – even the senior clergy – quailed when he was around, all of them threw themselves at his feet. Not so long before, an old country priest’s wife, who had come begging some favour, was struck dumb with fear and left without saying one word, her mission unaccomplished. As the bishop could never bring himself to say a bad word about anyone in his sermons, and felt too much compassion to criticize, he found himself flying into tempers, getting mad with his petitioners and throwing their applications on the floor. Never had anyone spoken openly and naturally to him, as man to man, during the whole time he was there. Even his old mother seemed to have been transformed – now she was quite a different person! And he asked himself how she could chatter away to Sisoy and laugh so much, while with him, her own son, she was so withdrawn and embarrassed – which wasn’t like her at all. The only one to feel free and easy and who would speak his mind in his presence was old Sisoy, who had spent his whole life attending bishops and who had outlived eleven of them. This was why the bishop felt at ease with him, although he was, without question, a difficult, cantankerous old man.
The Lady With the Little Dog and Other Stories, 1896-1904 Page 37