Forty Stories - Anton Chekhov [150]
He could not grow accustomed to the terror he inspired unwittingly among people in spite of his quiet and modest ways. Everyone in the province seemed to shrivel and show demonstrable signs of guilt and fear the moment he glanced at them. Everyone, even the old archpresbyters, trembled in his presence; they all threw themselves at his feet, and not long ago an old lady, the wife of a village priest, came to him and was so overcome with awe that she was unable to utter a word, and went away without asking for anything. And he, who was incapable of uttering a harsh word against people in his sermons, and who never blamed people because he pitied them so, was moved to fury by these suppliants; he lost his temper and hurled their petitions to the floor. In all the time he had been there not one single person had spoken to him genuinely, simply, humanly. Even his old mother had changed—had in fact changed more than most! Why did she chatter incessantly with Father Sisoi, and laugh so much with him, while maintaining a strange seriousness and reserve and constraint in the presence of her son? It was not like her. The only person who behaved naturally and said whatever came into his head was old Father Sisoi, who had lived with bishops all his life and had outlasted eleven of them. And so Bishop Peter was at ease with him, although, of course, he was a horrible and empty-headed little man.
After the service on Tuesday, Bishop Peter went to the archbishop’s house and received petitions; he grew excited, lost his temper, and drove home. He felt as unwell as before, and longed for his bed, but he was hardly in the house when he was informed that the young merchant Yerakin, a benefactor of the church, had come to see him on important business. The Bishop was obliged to receive him. Yerakin stayed about an hour, talking in a loud voice, almost screaming, and it was difficult to understand what he said.
“May God grant it!” the merchant said as he went away. “It’s absolutely necessary, too! According to the circumstances, Your Eminence! Oh, I do hope it comes to pass!”
After him came the mother superior of a distant convent. And when she had gone, the bells were ringing for vespers and he had to go to the church.
That evening the monks sang in harmony and as though inspired, while a young black-bearded priest officiated; and the Bishop, listening as they sang of the Bridegroom who entered at midnight into the chamber adorned for Him, felt no sorrow over his sins, nor any grief, only a great sense of peace and tranquillity, and in his imagination he was being swept back into the distant past, to the days of his childhood and youth, when they also sang of the Bridegroom entering the chamber, and now the past rose up before him, vivid, beautiful, and joyful, as in all likelihood it had never been. And perhaps in the other world, in the life to come, we shall remember the distant past, our life on earth, with the same feeling. Who knows? The Bishop sat near the altar, where the shadows were deepest, while tears trickled down his cheeks, and he thought of how he had attained everything a man of his position could attain; he had faith, but not everything was clear to him. Something was lacking, and he did not want to die. He felt he had failed to discover the most important thing of all, something which he had glimpsed obscurely in dreams in the past, and he was still troubled by the same hopes for the future he had