“Don’t trouble His Grace,” Sisoy said crossly, passing through the room. “Let him sleep … there’s no point… forget it! …”
Three doctors came, held a consultation, then left. The day was long, unbelievably long, then night came and lasted a very, very long time, and towards morning on Saturday the cell attendant went up to the old woman, who was lying on a sofa in the drawing room, and asked her to go to the bedroom: the bishop had bid the world farewell.
The next day was Easter. There were forty-two churches and six monasteries in the town; a resounding, joyful ringing of bells hung over the town from morning till evening, never silent, stirring up the spring air; the birds sang, the sun shone brightly. It was noisy on the big market square, swings were swinging, barrel organs playing, accordions shrieked, drunken voices shouted. In the afternoon people went driving about the main streets—in short, all was cheerful, all was well, just as it had been the year before, and as it would also be, in all probability, the year after.
A month later a new auxiliary bishop was appointed, and no one thought of Bishop Pyotr anymore. Soon he was completely forgotten. And only the old woman, the mother of the deceased, who now lives with her deacon son-in-law in a forsaken little provincial town, when she went out before evening to meet her cow, and got together by the pasture with other women, would begin telling them about her children and grandchildren, and how she once had a son who was a bishop, and she said it timidly, afraid they would not believe her …
And indeed not everyone believed her.
APRIL 1902
THE FIANCÉE
I
It was ten o’clock in the evening, and a full moon was shining over the garden. In the Shumins’ house the vigil ordered by the grandmother, Marfa Mikhailovna, had just ended, and now Nadya—she had gone out to the garden for a moment—could see the table being set for a light meal in the reception room, and her grandmother bustling about in her magnificent silk dress; Father Andrei, the archpriest of the cathedral, was talking about something with Nadya’s mother, Nina Ivanovna, and now, through the window in the evening light, her mother for some reason looked very young; next to her stood Father Andrei’s son, Andrei Andreich, listening attentively
The garden was quiet, cool, and shadows lay dark and peaceful on the ground. From somewhere far away, very far, probably outside town, came the calling of frogs. May, sweet May, was in the air! She breathed deeply and wanted to think that, not here, but somewhere under the sky, above the trees, far outside town, in the fields and woods, spring’s own life was now unfolding, mysterious, beautiful, rich, and holy, inaccessible to the understanding of weak, sinful human beings. And for some reason she wanted to cry.
She, Nadya, was already twenty-three years old; since the age of sixteen she had been dreaming passionately of marriage, and now at last she was the fiancée of Andrei Andreich, the same one who was standing behind the window; she liked him, the wedding was already set for the seventh of July, and yet there was no joy, she slept badly at night, her gaiety had vanished … From the open window to the basement, where the kitchen was, came the sounds of people hurrying about, of knives chopping, of the door slamming shut on its pulley; there was a smell of roast turkey and pickled cherries. And for some reason it seemed that it would be like this all her life, without change, without end!
Now someone came out of the house and stood on the porch; it was Alexander Timofeich, or simply Sasha, a guest, come from Moscow ten days before. Long ago a distant relative, Marya Petrovna, an impoverished widow, a small, thin, ailing gentlewoman, used to come to the grandmother for charity. She had a son Sasha. For some reason he was said to be a wonderful artist, and when his mother died, the grandmother, for the salvation of her soul, sent him to Komissarov’s school in Moscow; two years later he transferred to a school of fine arts, stayed there for nearly fifteen years, and finished up none too brilliantly in architecture, but he did not go into architecture anyway, but worked in one of the Moscow printing houses. He came to the grandmother’s almost every summer, usually very sick, to rest and recuperate.
He was now wearing a buttoned-up frock coat and shabby duck trousers frayed at the bottoms. His shirt was unironed, and his entire look was somehow unfresh. Very thin, with large eyes and long, slender fingers, bearded, dark, but, for all that, handsome. He was accustomed to the Shumins, as to his own family, and felt at home with them. And the room he lived in there had long been known as Sasha’s room.
Standing on the porch, he saw Nadya and went over to her.
“It’s nice here,” he said.
“Of course it’s nice. You ought to stay till autumn.”
“Yes, that’s probably so. Perhaps I’ll stay with you till September.”
He laughed for no reason and sat down beside her.
“And I’m sitting here and looking at mama,” said Nadya. “She looks so young from here! My mama has her weaknesses, of course,” she added after a pause, “but still she’s an extraordinary woman.”
“Yes, she’s nice …” Sasha agreed. “Your mama is, of course, a very kind and dear woman in her own way, but … how shall I put it? Early this morning I went to your kitchen, and there were four servants sleeping right on the floor, no beds, rags instead of sheets, stench, bedbugs, cockroaches … The same as it was twenty years ago, no change at all. Well, your grandmother, God be with her, that’s how grandmothers are; but your mama speaks French, takes part in theatricals. It seems she might understand.”
When Sasha spoke, he held up two long, skinny fingers in front of his listener.
“I find everything here somehow wild, because I’m unused to it,” he went on. “Devil knows, nobody’s doing anything. Your mother spends the whole day strolling about like some sort of duchess, your grandmother also doesn’t do anything, and neither do you. And your fiancé, Andrei Andreich, doesn’t do anything either.”
Nadya had heard it all last year and, it seemed, the year before last, and she knew that Sasha could not think differently, and it used to make her laugh, but now for some reason she felt annoyed.
“That’s all the same old, boring stuff,” she said and got up. “Try to invent something newer.”
He laughed and also got up, and they both went towards the house. Tall, beautiful, trim, she now looked very healthy and well-dressed beside him; she sensed it and felt sorry for him and, for some reason, slightly awkward.
“And you say a lot that’s unnecessary,” she said. “You just talked about my Andrei, but you don’t know him.”
“My Andrei… God be with your Andrei! It’s your youth I feel sorry for.”
When they went into the reception room, everyone was just sitting down to supper. The grandmother, or granny, as she was known at home, very stout, homely, with thick eyebrows and a little mustache, spoke loudly, and from her voice and manner of speaking it was clear that she was the head of the household. She owned the shopping stalls in the market and the old house with columns and a garden, but every morning she prayed that God would save her from ruin, and with tears at that. Her daughter-in-law, Nadya’s mother, Nina Ivanovna, blond, tightly corseted, in a pince-nez, and with diamonds on every finger; and Father Andrei, an old man, lean, toothless, and with a look as if he were about to say something very funny; and his son, Andrei Andreich, Nadya’s fiancé, stout and handsome, with wavy hair, resembling an actor or an artist—all three were talking about hypnotism.
“You’ll recover after a week with me,” said granny, addressing Sasha, “only you must eat more. Just look at you!” she said. “It’s frightful! A real prodigal son, if I ever saw one!”