Forty Stories - Anton Chekhov [152]
And he remembered how long ago, when he was a boy, he had spoken to high dignitaries of the Church in exactly the same way, playfully and respectfully. Only by noticing her strangely tender eyes and the troubled glance she shot at him as she left the room could anyone have guessed that she was his mother. He closed his eyes and seemed to sleep, but he could hear Father Sisoi coughing on the other side of the wall, and he heard the clock strike twice. His mother came in again, and for a long moment she gazed at him timidly. Then he heard someone driving up to the front steps either in a carriage or an open cart. Suddenly there came a knock, a door banged, the lay brother entered the bedroom.
“Your Eminence!”
“Yes, what is it?”
“The horses have come. It’s time to go to Our Lord’s Passion.”
“What time is it?”
“A quarter past seven.”
He dressed and drove to the cathedral. During the reading of the Twelve Gospels he had to stand motionless in the middle of the church, and the first gospel, which is the longest and most beautiful, he read himself. A mood of confidence and courage took hold of him. That first gospel—“Now is the Son of Man glorified”—he knew by heart, and as he read he sometimes raised his eyes and saw a perfect sea of lights all round him, and he heard the spluttering of the candles, but as happened in the past he was unable to see the people. It occurred to him that they were perhaps the same people who had been around him in the days of his childhood and youth, and they would always be there year after year until such time as God provided.
His father had been a deacon, his grandfather a priest, his great-grandfather a deacon, and perhaps his whole family from the days when Christianity first entered Russia had belonged to the Church, and his love for the holy services, for the priesthood, and for the sound of church bells was ineradicably born in him. In church, especially when he was conducting the service, he felt vividly alive, vigorous, and happy. So it was with him now. Only when the eighth gospel had been read, he felt his voice had grown weak, even his coughing had become inaudible. His head was aching horribly, and he was overwhelmed by the fear of a sudden collapse. His legs had grown quite numb, all the feeling gradually going out of them, and he could not imagine how he was able to stand or what he was standing on, and why he did not fall down.…
It was a quarter to twelve when the service came to an end. As soon as he reached home the Bishop undressed and went to bed without even saying his prayers. He could not speak, and he was sure he could not stand. When he pulled the blanket over him, he felt a sudden longing to be abroad, a deep and passionate longing. He imagined he would give his whole life not to see those cheap pitiful shutters, the low ceilings, not to breathe the overwhelming smell of the monastery. If only there was one person he could talk to, and to whom he could unburden his soul!
For a long time he heard footsteps in the next room, and could not tell whose they were. At last the door opened and Father Sisoi came in with a teacup in one hand and a candle in the other.
“So you’re in bed already, Your Eminence?” Father Sisoi said. “I’ve come to rub you down with vodka and vinegar. A thorough rubbing will do you good! Lord Jesus Christ! There! There! I’ve just come from our monastery.… I don’t like it a bit!… I’ll be leaving tomorrow, Your Eminence, because I’ve had enough of it. Lord Jesus Christ! Well, that’s how it is!…”
Father Sisoi could never stay long in one place, and he felt as though he had been a whole year in the Pankratievsky Monastery. It was hard to tell from what he said where his home was, whether there was anyone or anything he loved, whether he believed in God. He did not know himself why he had become a monk, but he never thought about it, and the time when he took his vows had long since faded from his memory. Perhaps he had been born into the monastery.
“I’m leaving them tomorrow, and may God have them!” Father