The Tales of Chekhov, vol 7 | Page 7

bitterly,
"uncle, mother and all of us are left very wretched. . . . Give us a little
money . . . do be kind . . . uncle darling. . . ."
He, too, was moved to tears, and for a long time was too much touched
to speak. Then he stroked her on the head, patted her on the shoulder
and said:
"Very good, very good, my child. When the holy Easter comes, we will
talk it over. . . . I will help you. . . . I will help you. . . ."
His mother came in quietly, timidly, and prayed before the ikon.
Noticing that he was not sleeping, she said:
"Won't you have a drop of soup?"
"No, thank you," he answered, "I am not hungry."
"You seem to be unwell, now I look at you. I should think so; you may
well be ill! The whole day on your legs, the whole day. . . . And, my
goodness, it makes one's heart ache even to look at you! Well, Easter is
not far off; you will rest then, please God. Then we will have a talk, too,
but now I'm not going to disturb you with my chatter. Come along,
Katya; let his holiness sleep a little."
And he remembered how once very long ago, when he was a boy, she
had spoken exactly like that, in the same jestingly respectful tone, with
a Church dignitary. . . . Only from her extraordinarily kind eyes and the
timid, anxious glance she stole at him as she went out of the room
could one have guessed that this was his mother. He shut his eyes and
seemed to sleep, but twice heard the clock strike and Father Sisoy
coughing the other side of the wall. And once more his mother came in
and looked timidly at him for a minute. Someone drove up to the steps,
as he could hear, in a coach or in a chaise. Suddenly a knock, the door
slammed, the lay brother came into the bedroom.
"Your holiness," he called.
"Well?"
"The horses are here; it's time for the evening service."
"What o'clock is it?"

"A quarter past seven."
He dressed and drove to the cathedral. During all the "Twelve Gospels"
he had to stand in the middle of the church without moving, and the
first gospel, the longest and the most beautiful, he read himself. A
mood of confidence and courage came over him. That first gospel,
"Now is the Son of Man glorified," he knew by heart; and as he read he
raised his eyes from time to time, and saw on both sides a perfect sea of
lights and heard the splutter of candles, but, as in past years, he could
not see the people, and it seemed as though these were all the same
people as had been round him in those days, in his childhood and his
youth; that they would always be the same every year and till such time
as God only knew.
His father had been a deacon, his grandfather a priest, his
great-grandfather a deacon, and his whole family, perhaps from the
days when Christianity had been accepted in Russia, had belonged to
the priesthood; and his love for the Church services, for the priesthood,
for the peal of the bells, was deep in him, ineradicable, innate. In
church, particularly when he took part in the service, he felt vigorous,
of good cheer, happy. So it was now. Only when the eighth gospel had
been read, he felt that his voice had grown weak, even his cough was
inaudible. His head had begun to ache intensely, and he was troubled
by a fear that he might fall down. And his legs were indeed quite numb,
so that by degrees he ceased to feel them and could not understand how
or on what he was standing, and why he did not fall. . . .
It was a quarter to twelve when the service was over. When he reached
home, the bishop undressed and went to bed at once without even
saying his prayers. He could not speak and felt that he could not have
stood up. When he had covered his head with the quilt he felt a sudden
longing to be abroad, an insufferable longing! He felt that he would
give his life not to see those pitiful cheap shutters, those low ceilings,
not to smell that heavy monastery smell. If only there were one person
to whom he could have talked, have opened his heart!
For a long while he heard footsteps in the next room and could not tell
whose they were. At last the door opened, and Sisoy came in with a
candle and a tea-cup in