The Lady with the Little Dog and Other Stories, 1896-1904

The Bishop

I

It was the eve of Palm Sunday and night service had begun at the old convent of St Peter. By the time they had started giving out the willow branches, it was nearly ten, lights had burnt low, wicks needed snuffing and everything was obscured by a thick haze. The congregation rocked like the sea in the gloomy church and all those faces, old and young, male and female, looked exactly alike to Bishop Pyotr, who had not been feeling well for the past three days; to him they all appeared to have exactly the same look in their eyes as they came forward for palms. The doors couldn’t be seen through the haze and the congregation kept moving forward in a seemingly never-ending procession. A woman’s choir was singing and a nun was reading the lessons.

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 bishop 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

The diocesan bishop, old, very stout, and afflicted with rheumatism or gout, had been bedridden for over a month. Bishop Pyotr called on him almost every day and himself saw to the villagers who came for his advice and help. But now he was ill he was struck by the futility and triviality of their tearful petitions. Their ignorance and timidity infuriated him and the sheer weight of all those petty, trifling matters they came to see him about depressed him. He felt that he understood the diocesan bishop, who, in his younger days, had written Studies in Free Will, but who seemed now to be completely obsessed by these trifles, having forgotten everything else, never giving any thought to God. While he was abroad, the bishop must have lost touch completely with Russia and things were not easy for him now. The peasants seemed so coarse, the ladies who came for help so boring and stupid, the theological students and their teachers so ignorant and sometimes so uncivilized, like savages. And all those incoming and outgoing documents – they could be counted by the thousand – what documents! The senior clergy, all over the diocese, were in the habit of awarding good-conduct marks to junior priests, young or old, even to wives and children, and all this had to be discussed, scrutinized and solemnly recorded in official reports. There was never any let-up, not even for a minute, and Bishop Pyotr found this played on his nerves the whole day long: only when he was in church could he relax.

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.

After Tuesday morning service the bishop received parish petitioners at the episcopal palace, which upset and angered him no end: afterwards he went home. Once again he felt ill and longed for his bed. But hardly had he reached his room than he was told that a young merchant called Yerakin, a most charitable man, had come on a most urgent matter. He just could not turn him away. Yerakin stayed for about an hour, and spoke so loud he nearly shouted, making it almost impossible to understand a word he said.

‘God grant – well, you know,’ he said as he left. ‘Oh, most certainly! Depending on the circumstances, your grace. I wish you – well, you know!’

Then the Mother Superior from a distant convent arrived. But by the time she had left, the bells were ringing for evensong and he had to go to church.

That evening the monks’ singing was harmonious and inspired; a young, black-bearded priest was officiating. When he heard the ‘bridegroom who cometh at midnight’² and ‘the mansion richly adorned’, he felt neither penitent nor sorrowful, but a spiritual peace and calm as his thoughts wandered off into the distant past, to his childhood and youth, when they had sung of that same bridegroom and mansion. Now that past seemed alive, beautiful, joyful, such as it most probably had never been. Perhaps, in the next world, in the life to come, we will remember that distant past and our life on earth below with just the same feelings. Who knows? The bishop took his seat in the dark chancel, and the tears flowed. He reflected that he had attained everything a man of his position could hope for, and his faith was still strong. All the same, there were things he did not understand, something was lacking. He did not want to die. And still it seemed that an integral part of his life, which he had vaguely dreamed of at some time, had vanished; and precisely the same hopes for the future which he had nurtured in his childhood, at the college and abroad, still haunted him.

‘Just listen to them sing today!’ he thought, listening intently. ‘How wonderful!’

IV

On Maundy Thursday he celebrated Mass and ritual washing of feet in the cathedral. When the service was over and the congregation had gone home, the weather turned out sunny, warm and cheerful, and water bubbled along the ditches, while the never-ending, sweetly soothing song of the skylarks drifted in from the fields beyond the town. The trees, already in bud, smiled their welcome, while the fathomless, vast expanse of blue sky overhead floated away into the mysterious beyond.

When he arrived home the bishop had his tea, changed, climbed into bed and ordered the lay brother to close the shutters. It was dark in the bedroom. How tired he felt, though, how his legs and back ached with that cold numbing pain – and what a ringing in his ears! He felt that it was ages since he last got some sleep, absolutely ages, and every time he closed his eyes there seemed to be some little trifling thought that flickered into life in his brain and kept him awake. And, just like yesterday, he could hear voices and the clink of glasses and teaspoons through the walls of the adjoining rooms. His mother, Marya, was cheerfully telling Father Sisoy some funny story while the priest kept commenting in a crusty, disgruntled voice, ‘Damn them! Not on your life! What for!’ Once more the bishop felt annoyed, then offended, when he saw that old lady behaving so naturally and normally with strangers, while with him, her own son, she was so timid and inarticulate, always saying the wrong thing and even trying to find an excuse to stand up, as she was too shy to sit down. And what about his father? Had he been alive, he would probably have been unable to say one word with his son there.

In the next room something fell on the floor and broke. Katya must have dropped a cup or saucer, because Father Sisoy suddenly spat and said angrily, ‘That girl’s a real terror, Lord forgive me, miserable sinner! She won’t be satisfied until she’s broken everything!’

Then it grew quiet except for some sounds from outside. When the bishop opened his eyes, Katya was in his room, standing quite still and looking at him. As usual, her red hair rose up above her comb like a halo.

‘Is that you, Katya?’ he asked. ‘Who keeps opening and shutting that door downstairs?’

‘I can’t hear anything,’ she replied, listening hard.

‘Listen – someone’s just gone through.’

‘That was your stomach rumbling, Uncle!’

He laughed and stroked her head.

‘So Cousin Nikolasha cuts dead bodies up, does he?’ he asked after a short silence.

‘Yes, he’s studying to be a doctor.’

‘Is he nice?’

‘Yes, he’s all right, but he’s a real devil with the vodka!’

‘What did your father die of?’

‘Papa was always weak and terribly thin, then suddenly he had a bad throat. I became ill as well, and my brother Fedya too – all of us had bad throats. Papa died, but we got better, Uncle.’

Her chin trembled and tears welled up in her eyes and trickled down her cheeks. ‘Your grace,’ she said in a thin little voice, weeping bitterly now, ‘Mama and I were left with nothing… please give us a little money, please Uncle, dear!’

He burst out crying too and for a while was so upset he couldn’t say a word. Then he stroked her hair, touched her shoulder and said, ‘Never mind, little girl, it’s all right. Soon it will be Easter Sunday and we’ll have a little talk then… Of course I’ll help you…’

Then his mother came in, quietly and timidly, and turned and prayed to the icon. Seeing that he was awake she asked, ‘Would you like a little soup?’

‘No thanks, I’m not hungry.’

‘Looking at you now, I can see you’re not well. And I’m not surprised. On your feet all day long. Good God, it really hurts me to see you like this. Well, Easter’s not far away and you can have a rest then, God willing. But I won’t bother you any more with my nonsense. Come on, Katya, let the bishop sleep.’

He could recall her talking to some rural dean in that mock-respectful way a long, long time ago, when he was still a small boy. Only from her unusually loving eyes and the anxious, nervous look she darted at him as she left the room could one tell that she was actually his mother. He closed his eyes and appeared to have fallen asleep, but twice he heard the clock striking, then Father Sisoy coughing in the next room. His mother came into the room again and watched him anxiously for a minute. He heard some coach or carriage drive up to the front steps. Suddenly there was a knock and the door banged: in came the lay brother, shouting, ‘Your grace.’

‘What’s the matter?’

‘The carriage is ready, it’s time for evening service.’

‘What’s the time?’

‘Quarter past seven.’

He got dressed and went to the cathedral. Throughout the entire twelve lessons from the Gospels he had to stand motionless in the centre; he read the first, the longest and most beautiful, himself. A lighthearted mood came over him. He knew that first lesson (‘Now is the Son of Man glorified’)³ by heart. Now and again he raised his eyes as he read and he saw a sea of lights on both sides of him, heard the candles sputtering. But he could not make any faces out as he used to do in years gone by, and he felt that this was the very same congregation he had seen when he was a boy and a young man, and he felt that it would be the same year after year – for how long God alone knew. His father had been a deacon, his grandfather a priest, and his great-grandfather a deacon. In all likelihood his entire family, from the time of the coming of Christianity to Russia,⁴ had belonged to the clergy and his love of ritual, of the priesthood, of ringing bells was deep, innate and ineradicable. He always felt active, cheerful and happy when he was in church, especially when he was officiating, and this was how he felt now. Only after the eighth lesson had been read did he feel that his voice was weakening, he could not even hear himself cough and he had a splitting headache; he began to fear he might fall down any moment. In actual fact his legs had gone quite numb, there was no longer any feeling in them. He just could not make out how he was managing to keep on his feet at all and didn’t fall over.

It was a quarter to twelve when the service finished. The moment he arrived home, the bishop undressed and went to bed without even saying his prayers. He was unable to speak and thought his legs were about to give way. As he pulled the blanket over him he had a sudden urge, an intolerable longing to go abroad. He felt that he could even sacrifice his life, so long as he didn’t have to look at those miserable cheap shutters any more, those low ceilings, and he yearned to escape from that nasty monastery smell.

For a long time he heard someone’s footsteps in the next room, but he just could not recollect whose they could be.

Finally the door opened and in came Sisoy with candle and tea cup.

‘In bed already, your grace?’ he asked. ‘I’ve come to give you a good rubdown with vodka and vinegar. It’ll do you the world of good if it’s well rubbed in. Lord above! There, that’s it… I’ve just been to the monastery. Don’t like it there! I’m leaving tomorrow, master, I’ve had enough. Oh, Jesus Christ!’

Sisoy was incapable of staying very long in one place and he felt as though he had already spent a whole year at the Pankratiyev Monastery. But the hardest thing was making any sense out of what he said, discovering where his home really was, whether he loved anyone or anything, whether he believed in God. He did not really know himself why he had become a monk – he never gave the matter any thought – and he had long forgotten the time when he had taken his vows. It was as if he had come into this world as a monk.

‘Tomorrow I’m off, damn it all!’

‘I’d like to have a talk with you, but I never seem to get round to it,’ the bishop said softly and with great effort. ‘But I don’t know anyone or anything here.’

‘I’ll stay until Sunday if you like, but after that I’m off, damn it!’

‘Why am I a bishop?’ the bishop continued in his soft voice. ‘I should have been a village priest, a lay reader or an ordinary monk. All of this crushes the life out of me…’

‘What? Heavens above! Now… there! You can have a good sleep now, your grace. Whatever next! Good night!’

The bishop did not sleep the whole night. At about eight o’clock in the morning he had rectal bleeding. The lay brother panicked and rushed off, first to the Father Superior, then he went to the monastery doctor, Ivan Andreyevich, who lived in town. This doctor, a plump old man with a long grey beard, gave the bishop a thorough examination, kept shaking his head and frowning, after which he said, ‘Did you know it’s typhoid, your grace?’

Within an hour of the haemorrhage, the bishop had turned thin, pale, and he had a pinched look. His face became wrinkled, his eyes dilated and he seemed suddenly to have aged and shrunk. He felt thinner and weaker and more insignificant than anyone else, and it seemed the entire past had vanished somewhere far, far away and would never be repeated or continued.

‘How wonderful!’ he thought. ‘How wonderful!’

His old mother arrived. She was frightened when she saw his wrinkled face and dilated eyes, and she fell on her knees by the bed and started kissing his face, shoulders and hands. And somehow she too thought that he had become thinner, weaker and more insignificant than anyone else; she forgot that he was a bishop and kissed him like a much-loved child.

‘Darling Pavlusha,’ she said. ‘My own flesh and blood… my little son… What’s happened to you? Pavlusha, answer me.’

Katya stood there, pale and solemn, unable to understand what had happened to her uncle and why her grandmother had such a pained expression, why she spoke so sadly and emotionally. But the bishop just could not articulate a simple word, understood nothing that was going on and he felt that he was just an ordinary, simple man walking swiftly and cheerfully across fields, beating his stick on the ground, under a broad, brilliant sky. Now he was as free as a bird and could go wherever he liked!

‘Pavlusha, my angel, my son!’ the old lady said. ‘What’s the matter, dear, please answer!’

‘Leave him alone,’ Sisoy said angrily as he crossed the room. ‘Let him sleep, there’s nothing you can do… nothing…’

Three doctors arrived, consulted together and left. That day seemed never-ending, unbelievably long, and then came a seemingly endless night. Just before dawn on the Saturday, the lay brother went up to the old lady, who was lying on a couch in the drawing-room, and asked her to come to the bedroom as the bishop had just departed this world.

Next day was Easter Sunday. There were forty-two churches in the town and six monasteries and the sonorous, joyful, incessant pealing of bells lay over it, from morn till night, rippling the spring air. Birds sang and the sun shone brightly. The big market square was noisy, swings rocked back and forwards, barrel organs played, an accordion squealed and drunken shouts rang out.

In the afternoon there was pony-trotting down the main street. In brief, it was all so cheerful, gay and happy, just as it had been the year before and as it probably would be in the years to come.

A month later a new suffragan bishop was appointed. No one remembered Bishop Pyotr any more and soon they forgot all about him. Only the old lady (the late bishop’s mother) who was now living with her brother-in-law, a deacon in an obscure provincial town, talked about her son to the women she met when she went out in the evening to fetch her cow from pasture; then she would tell them about her children, her grandchildren, about her son who had been a bishop. And she spoke hesitantly, afraid they would not believe her. Nor did they all believe her, as it happened.