Chapter 3 Bishop Three

three The diocesan bishop was a fat old man, suffering from rheumatism or gout, who had not risen for a month.Bishop Peter visited him almost every day, meeting those who asked for help in his place.Now that he was sick himself, he was surprised at how trivial and petty all those pleadings and crying beggings were, and the clumsiness and timidity of those people irritated him, and there were so many petty and unnecessary requests that he was overwhelmed. It suffocated him, and he felt that he only now knew the diocesan bishop who, in his youth, had written "The Liberty of the Will," and who now seemed so absorbed in trivial affairs that he forgot everything and Think of God again.The bishop had been abroad for many years, and he was probably not used to life in Russia. It was not easy for him. He found the people vulgar, the women who asked for things dull and stupid, the students of the madrassas and their teachers. Uneducated and sometimes brutal.There were no less than tens of thousands of official documents received and issued, but what kind of official documents were those!The vicar of the whole diocese assigns fives, fours, and sometimes threes to the conduct of priests, young and old, and their wives and children, and on these matters he must speak, review, and draw up solemn papers.He didn't even have a minute to spare, and he was trembling all day long. Only when he was in the church could Bishop Peter calm down.

Mild and modest in spite of his disposition, he, against his will, aroused in the hearts of men an awe which he could not in any case be accustomed to.All the people in the province looked small, terrified, and guilty when he looked at them.Before him, everyone, even the old high priest, was timid, and everyone knelt before him with a "thump"; not long ago a woman who asked for help, the old wife of a country priest, was frightened. I couldn't say anything, so I just left without getting anything.When he preached, he never had the heart to speak ill of people, and he never blamed them, because he felt pity for them, but when he received those who asked for help, he often lost his temper, got angry, and threw their papers on the ground.During the time he had been here, no one had spoken to him sincerely, frankly, kindly, and even his old mother seemed different, quite different!

May I ask, why can she talk endlessly with Sixoy and laugh non-stop, but she is so serious with him and her son, as usual, she doesn't speak much, and she is very restrained, which is completely inconsistent with her personality? ?There was only one person who acted casually in front of him and said what he wanted to say, that is the old man Sisoy, who had been with the bishops all his life and served under eleven bishops successively.The Bishop was therefore free with him, but, of course, he was a dull, uninteresting fellow. On Tuesday, after Mass, the bishop went to the diocesan bishop's house, where he received those who asked for help, agitated and angry, and then drove home.He still felt unwell, and longed to lie down in bed; but no sooner had he reached the house than it was reported that the young merchant, Elagin, the benefactor, had come and wanted to see him on some important business.I had to meet him.Elagin sat for about an hour, talking very loudly, almost shouting, and it was difficult to understand what he was saying.

"Bless God, that's the way to go!" he said as he went away. "It must be so! Let it be, my lord!I hope so! " After he had gone, a distant Abbess arrived.As soon as she was gone, the bells for Vespers rang, and the Bishop went to church. Every evening, the monks sang harmoniously and enthusiastically; a young monk with a black beard presided over the vespers, and the bishop listened to the song until the bridegroom came in the middle of the night, and sang to the magnificently decorated hall , what he felt in his heart was not a confession of sin, nor sorrow, but peace and rest of the soul, and his thoughts carried him back to the distant past, to childhood and boyhood, when the Bridegroom was sung like this, Changing the palace, the present past seems so vivid, beautiful, and joyous, probably it has never been like this before.Perhaps in another world, in the afterlife, we will recall the distant past, our earthly life, with such emotion.Who knows!The Bishop sat by the altar, and it was dark there.

Tears streamed down his cheeks.He thought to himself that he has now everything that is possible in his position, that he has faith, but not everything is clear, that he still lacks something, that he does not want to die.He still felt as if something vital was missing, something he had dimly longed for in the past, and this hope for the future stirred him as much as it had done in childhood, in the religious college, or abroad. "How well they sang today!" he thought, listening to the singing. "How wonderful!"