Fifty-Two Stories

“What Father Avramy?”

“Father Avramy who was the priest in Sinkovo before me. He was removed from the position on account of…weakness, but he lives in Sinkovo even now! Where can he go? Who will feed him? He’s old, but still he needs a corner, and bread, and some clothes! I can’t allow that he, with his holy order, should go begging! It would be my sin if something happened! My sin! He…owes money to everybody, but it’s my sin if I don’t pay for him.”

Father Yakov tore from his place and, staring madly at the floor, began pacing from corner to corner.

“My God! My God!” he muttered, now raising his arms, now lowering them. “Lord, save us and have mercy! And why did you take such an order upon yourself, if you’re of little faith and have no strength? There’s no end to my despair! Queen of Heaven, save me.”

“Calm down, Father,” said Kunin.

“We’re starving, Pavel Mikhailovich!” Father Yakov went on. “Kindly forgive me, but it’s beyond my strength…I know if I ask, if I bow my head, everyone will help me, but…I can’t! I’m ashamed! How am I going to ask from peasants? You work here, you know…How can I hold out my hand and ask from beggars? And I can’t ask from those who are richer, from the landowners! Pride! I’m ashamed!”

Father Yakov waved his arm and scratched his head nervously with both hands.

“Ashamed! God, how ashamed! I’m proud, I can’t stand it that people see my poverty. When you visited us, we simply had no tea, Pavel Mikhailovich! Not a speck of tea, but my pride kept me from telling you! I’m ashamed of my clothes, of these patches…Ashamed of my vestments, of my hunger…And is pride a proper thing for a priest?”

Father Yakov stopped in the middle of the study and, as if not noticing Kunin’s presence, began reasoning with himself.

“Well, let’s say I can bear with the hunger and the shame, but, Lord, I also have a wife! I took her from a good family! She’s not used to hard work, she’s sensitive, she’s used to tea, and white bread, and bedsheets…She played the piano in her parents’ house…She’s young, not yet twenty…No doubt she would like to dress up, and frolic a bit, and go visiting…And with me…she’s worse off than any kitchen maid, she’s ashamed to show herself outside. My God, my God! The only pleasure she has is when I come home from my visits with an apple or a little cookie…”

Father Yakov again began to scratch his head with both hands.

“And as a result what we have isn’t love, it’s pity…I can’t see her without compassion! And, Lord, what’s going on in the world. If somebody writes about it in the newspapers, people won’t believe it…And when will there be an end to it all!”

“Enough now, Father!” Kunin almost cried out, frightened by his tone. “Why look at life so darkly?”

“Kindly forgive me, Pavel Mikhailovich…,” Father Yakov muttered, as if drunk. “Forgive me, it’s all nothing, pay no attention…And I only blame myself and will go on blaming myself…I will!”

Father Yakov glanced over his shoulder and began to whisper:

“Early one morning I was walking from Sinkovo to Luchkovo; I look, and there’s a woman standing on the riverbank doing something…I come closer and don’t believe my eyes…Terrible! Doctor Ivan Sergeich’s wife is there rinsing laundry…A doctor’s wife, who finished boarding school! It means she went early in the morning and half a mile from the village, so that people wouldn’t see her…Invincible pride! When she saw I was near her and had noticed her poverty, she blushed all over…I was taken aback, frightened, I ran up to her, wanted to help, but she tried to hide the laundry from me so that I wouldn’t see her tattered undershirts…”

“This is all somehow even unbelievable…,” said Kunin, sitting down and looking at Father Yakov’s pale face almost with horror.

“Precisely unbelievable! It’s never happened before, Pavel Mikhailovich, that doctors’ wives rinsed their linen in the river! Not in any country! As a pastor and a spiritual father, I should not have allowed her to do it, but what can I do? What? I myself always try to be treated by her husband free of charge. You were right to be so good as to declare it unbelievable! The eyes refuse to believe it! You know, during the liturgy I sometimes peek out from the altar, and when I see all my public, the hungry Avramy and my wife, and remember the doctor’s wife, her hands blue from the cold—believe me, I’m at a loss and stand there like a fool, oblivious, until the sacristan calls to me…Terrible!”

Father Yakov started pacing again.

“Lord Jesus!” He waved his arms. “Saints alive! I can’t even serve…There you’re telling me about the school, and I’m like a wooden idol, I understand nothing and can only think about food…Even before the altar…But…what am I doing?” Father Yakov caught himself. “You have to leave. Excuse me, it’s just that I’m so…Forgive me…”