The bishop of the diocese, a very fat old man, was ill with rheumatism 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 Doctrines 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 savage. And the documents coming in and going out were reckoned
by tens of thousands; and what documents they were! The higher clergy 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 positively 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 awe which, through no wish of his
own, he inspired in people in spite of his quiet, modest disposition. 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 previously 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 chatter
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 bishops 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 subscribed 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 monks sang harmoniously, 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 Mansion
adorned for the festival, felt no repentance for his sins, no tribulation,
but peace at heart and tranquillity. 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 attained everything a man in
his position could attain; 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!”
