The Tales of Chekhov, vol 7 | Page 5

said, wondering, "are you asleep already, your holiness?"
"What is it?"
"Why, it's still early, ten o'clock or less. I bought a candle to-day; I
wanted to rub you with tallow."
"I am in a fever . . ." said the bishop, and he sat up. "I really ought to
have something. My head is bad. . . ."
Sisoy took off the bishop's shirt and began rubbing his chest and back
with tallow.
"That's the way . . . that's the way . . ." he said. "Lord Jesus Christ . . .
that's the way. I walked to the town to-day; I was at
what's-his-name's--the chief priest Sidonsky's. . . . I had tea with him. I
don't like him. Lord Jesus Christ. . . . That's the way. I don't like him."
III
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.