Selected Stories of Anton Chekov - By Anton Chekhov Page 0,220

rooms … Marya Timofeevna, merry and bantering, was telling Father Sisoy something, and he responded sullenly, in a displeased voice: “Oh, them! Hah! What else!” And again the bishop felt vexed and then hurt that the old woman behaved in an ordinary and simple way with strangers, but with him, her son, was timid, spoke rarely, and did not say what she wanted to say, and even, as it had seemed to him all those days, kept looking for an excuse to stand up, because she was embarrassed to sit in his presence. And his father? If he were alive, he would probably be unable to utter a single word before him …

Something fell on the floor in the next room and smashed; it must have been Katya dropping a cup or a saucer, because Father Sisoy suddenly spat and said angrily:

“The girl’s a sheer punishment, Lord, forgive me, a sinner! There’s never enough with her!”

Then it became quiet, only sounds from outside reached him. And when the bishop opened his eyes, he saw Katya in his room, standing motionless and looking at him. Her red hair, as usual, rose from behind her comb like a halo.

“It’s you, Katya?” he asked. “Who keeps opening and closing the door downstairs?”

“I don’t hear it,” Katya said and listened.

“There, somebody just passed by.”

“It’s in your stomach, uncle!”

He laughed and patted her head.

“So you say cousin Nikolasha cuts up dead people?” he asked after a pause.

“Yes. He’s studying.”

“Is he kind?”

“Kind enough. Only he drinks a lot of vodka.”

“And what illness did your father die of?”

“Papa was weak and very, very thin, and suddenly—in his throat. I got sick then and so did my brother Fedya, all in the throat. Papa died, and we got well.”

Her chin trembled and tears welled up in her eyes and rolled slowly down her cheeks.

“Your Grace,” she said in a high little voice, now crying bitterly, “mama and all of us were left in such misery … Give us a little money … Be so kind … dear uncle! …”

He, too, became tearful and for a long time was too upset to utter a word, then he patted her head, touched her shoulder, and said:

“Very well, very well, child. The bright resurrection of Christ will come, and then we’ll talk … I’ll help you … I will …”

Quietly, timidly, his mother came in and crossed herself before the icons. Noticing that he was not asleep, she asked:

“Would you like some soup?”

“No, thank you …” he replied. “I don’t want any.”

“You don’t look well … seems to me. But then how could you not get sick! On your feet the whole day, the whole day—my God, it’s painful even to look at you. Well, Easter’s not far off, God grant you’ll be able to rest, then we can talk, and I won’t bother you with my talk now. Let’s go, Katechka, let His Grace sleep.”

And he remembered how, a long, long time ago, when he was still a boy, she had spoken with a rural dean in just the same jokingly deferential tone … Only by her extraordinarily kind eyes and the timid, worried glance she cast at him as she left the room, could one see that she was his mother. He closed his eyes and it seemed he slept, but twice he heard the clock strike and Father Sisoy cough on the other side of the wall. His mother came in once more and gazed at him timidly for a moment. Someone drove up to the porch in a coach or a carriage, judging by the sound. Suddenly there came a knock, the bang of a door: the attendant came into his bedroom.

“Your Grace!” he called.

“What?”

“The horses are ready, it’s time to go to the Lord’s Passion.”9

“What time is it?”

“A quarter past seven.”

He dressed and drove to the cathedral. He had to stand motionless in the middle of the church through all twelve Gospel readings, and the first Gospel, the longest, the most beautiful, he read himself. A vigorous, healthy mood came over him. The first Gospel— “Now is the Son of Man glorified”10—he knew by heart; and as he read, he raised his eyes from time to time and saw on both sides a whole sea of lights, heard the sizzle of candles, but, as in previous years, he was unable to see the people, and it seemed to him that they were the same people as in his childhood and youth, that they would be the