Appendix
The Original Part Two, Chapter 9
At Tikhon's
I
Nikolai Vsevolodovich did not sleep that night and spent the whole of it sitting on the sofa, often turning his fixed gaze towards one point in the corner by the chest of drawers. His lamp burned all night. Around seven in the morning he fell asleep sitting up, and when Alexei Yegorovich, as their custom had been established once and for all, came into his room at exactly half past nine with a morning cup of coffee, and woke him up by his appearance, he, having opened his eyes, seemed unpleasantly surprised that he could have slept so long and that it was already so late. He hastily drank his coffee, hastily dressed, and hurriedly left the house. To Alexei Yegorovich's cautious inquiry: "Will there be any orders?"—he answered nothing. He walked along the street, looking at the ground, deep in thought, and only at moments raising his head and suddenly showing now and then some vague but intense disquiet. At one intersection, still not far from his house, a crowd of men crossed his path, fifty or more; they walked decorously, almost silently, in deliberate order. By the shop near which he had to wait for about a minute, someone said they were "Shpigulin workers." He barely paid any attention to them. Finally, at around half past ten, he reached the gates of our Savior - St. Yefimi Bogorodsky monastery, [211]on the outskirts of town, by the river. It was only here that he suddenly seemed to remember something, stopped, hastily and anxiously felt for something in his side pocket—and grinned. Entering the grounds, he asked the first server he met how to find Bishop Tikhon, who was living in retirement in the monastery. The server began bowing and led him off at once. By the porch at the end of a long, two-storied monastery building, they met a fat and gray-haired monk, who imperiously and deftly took him over from the server and led him through a long, narrow corridor, also kept bowing (although, being unable to bend down owing to his fatness, he merely jerked his head frequently and abruptly) and kept inviting him to please come in, though Stavrogin was following him even without that. The monk kept posing all sorts of questions and talked about the father archimandrite; [212]receiving no answers, he became more and more deferential. Stavrogin noticed that he was known there, though, as far as he could remember, he had come there only in childhood. When they reached the door at the very end of the corridor, the monk opened it as if with an imperious hand, inquired familiarly of the cell attendant who sprang over to him whether they could come in, and, without even waiting for an answer, flung the door wide and, inclining, allowed the "dear" visitor to pass by: then, having been rewarded, he quickly vanished, all but fled. Nikolai Vsevolodovich entered a small room, and at almost the same moment there appeared in the doorway of the adjoining room a tall and lean man of about fifty-five, in a simple household cassock, who looked as if he were somewhat ill, with a vague smile and a strange, as if shy, glance. This was the very Tikhon of whom Nikolai Vsevolodovich had heard for the first time from Shatov, and of whom, since then, he had managed to gather certain information.
The information was diverse and contradictory, but there was something common to all of it—namely, that those who loved and those who did not love Tikhon (there were such), all somehow passed over him in silence—those who did not love him, probably out of scorn, and his devotees, even the ardent ones, out of some sort of modesty, as if they wished to conceal something about him, some weakness of his, perhaps holy folly. [213]Nikolai Vsevolodovich learned that he had been living in the monastery for some six years and that he was visited by the simplest people as well as the noblest persons; that even in far-off Petersburg he had ardent admirers, chiefly lady admirers. On the other hand, he heard from one of our dignified little old "club" gentlemen, a pious gentleman himself, that "this Tikhon is all but mad, a totally giftless being in any case, and unquestionably a tippler." I will add, running ahead of myself, that this last is decidedly nonsense, that he simply had a chronic rheumatic condition in his legs and now and then some nervous spasms. Nikolai Vsevolodovich also learned that, either from weakness of character or from "an absentmindedness unpardonable and unbefitting his rank," the retired bishop had proved unable to inspire any particular respect for himself in the monastery. It was said that the father archimandrite, a stern and strict man with regard to his duties as a superior, and known, besides, for his learning, even nursed a certain hostility towards him, as it were, and denounced him (not to his face, but indirectly) for careless living and almost for heresy. The monastery brethren, too, seemed to treat the ailing bishop not so much carelessly as, so to speak, familiarly. The two rooms that constituted Tikhon's cell were also furnished somehow strangely. Alongside clumpish old-style furniture with worn-through leather stood three or four elegant pieces: a luxurious easy chair, a big desk of excellent finish, an elegantly carved bookcase, little tables, whatnots—all given to him. There was an expensive Bukhara carpet, and straw mats alongside it. There were prints of "secular" subjects and from mythological times, and right there in the corner, on a big icon stand, icons gleaming with gold and silver, among them one from ancient times with relics. The library, they say, had also been assembled in a much too varied and contrasting way: alongside the writings of great Christian hierarchs and ascetics, there were theatrical writings "and maybe even worse." After the first greetings, spoken for some reason with obvious mutual awkwardness, hastily and even indistinctly, Tikhon led his visitor to the study, sat him down on the sofa facing the table, and placed himself next to him in a wicker armchair. Nikolai Vsevolodovich was still greatly distracted by some inner anxiety that was oppressing him. It looked as if he had resolved upon something extraordinary and unquestionable but at the same time almost impossible for him. For a minute or so he looked around the study, apparently not noticing what he was looking at; he was thinking and, of course, did not know what about. He was roused by the silence, and it suddenly seemed to him that Tikhon looked down somehow bashfully and even with some unnecessary and ridiculous smile. This instantly aroused loathing in him; he wanted to get up and leave, the more so as Tikhon, in his opinion, was decidedly drunk. But the man suddenly raised his eyes and gave him a look that was so firm and so full of thought, and at the same time so unexpected and enigmatic in its expression, that he almost jumped. He imagined somehow that Tikhon already knew why he had come, had already been forewarned (though no one in the whole world could have known the reason), and that if he did not start speaking first, it was to spare him, for fear of humiliating him.
"Do you know me?" he suddenly asked curtly. "Did I introduce myself to you when I came in? I'm rather distracted..."
"You did not introduce yourself, but I had the pleasure of seeing you once, four years ago, here at the monastery ... by chance."
Tikhon spoke very unhurriedly and evenly, in a soft voice, pronouncing the words clearly and distinctly.
"I wasn't in this monastery four years ago," Nikolai Vsevolodovich objected, somehow even rudely, "I was here only as a little child, when you weren't here at all."
"Perhaps you've forgotten?" Tikhon observed cautiously and without insistence.
"No, I haven't forgotten; and it would be funny not to remember," Stavrogin insisted somehow excessively. "Perhaps you simply heard about me and formed some idea, and so you confused that with seeing me."
Tikhon held his peace. Here Nikolai Vsevolodovich noticed how a nervous twitch would occasionally pass over his face, the sign of an old nervous disorder.
"I can see only that you are not well today," he said, "and I think it will be better if I leave."