Fifty-Two Stories

All the way the doctor thought not about his wife, not about Andrei, but about Abogin and the people who lived in the house he had just left. His thoughts were unjust and inhumanly cruel. He judged Abogin and his wife, and Papchinsky, and all those who live in rosy half-light and the smell of perfume, and all the way he hated them and despised them until his heart ached. And in his mind a firm conviction about these people was formed.

Time will pass, and Kirilov’s grief will pass, but this conviction, unjust, unworthy of the human heart, will not pass but will remain in the doctor’s mind to the grave.

1887

THE LETTER

THE RURAL DEAN,¹ Father Fyodor Orlov, a fine-looking, well-nourished man of about fifty, imposing and stern as always, with a habitual dignified expression that never left his face, but weary in the extreme, paced his small drawing room from corner to corner and thought strenuously about one thing: when would his visitor finally go away? This thought tormented him and did not leave him for a moment. The visitor, Father Anastasy, a priest in one of the outlying villages, had come to him some three hours earlier on his own business, very unpleasant and boring, had stayed on, and now, leaning his elbow on a thick accounting ledger, sat in the corner at a small, round table, and apparently had no thought of leaving, though it was already past eight o’clock in the evening.

Not everyone knows how to stop talking at the right time and leave at the right time. It often happens that even well-bred, tactful society people do not notice that their presence is provoking in a tired or busy host a feeling not unlike hatred, and that the feeling is being strenuously hidden and covered up by a lie. Father Anastasy saw and understood perfectly well that his presence was burdensome and inappropriate, that the dean, who had served matins late at night and a long liturgy at noon,² was tired and wanted to rest; he was on the point of getting up and leaving any moment, but instead of getting up, he went on sitting as if he was waiting for something. He was an old man of sixty-five, decrepit beyond his years, bony and stoop-shouldered, with an age-darkened, haggard face, red eyelids, and a long, narrow back like a fish’s; he was dressed in a light-purple cassock, elegant but too ample for him (it had been given to him by the widow of a young priest who recently passed away), a broadcloth kaftan with a wide leather belt, and clumsy boots, the size and color of which clearly showed that Father Anastasy did without galoshes. Despite his clerical dignity and venerable age, something pathetic, downtrodden, and humiliated showed in his dull red eyes, the gray braids with a greenish tinge on his nape, the big shoulder blades on his skinny back…He was silent, did not stir, and coughed so discreetly as if he was afraid the sound of coughing would make his presence more conspicuous.

The old man had come to the dean on business. A couple of months earlier he had been forbidden to serve until further notice, and he had been put under investigation. His sins were many. He led an unsober life, did not get along with the clergy nor with the laity, neglected the parish register and the accounting—these were the formal accusations against him; but besides that there had long been rumors that he performed illegal marriages for money and sold certificates of fasting to clerks and officers who came to him from town.³ These rumors were the more stubborn in that he was poor and had nine children on his neck, who were failures just as he was. His sons were uneducated, spoiled, and sat around doing nothing, and his unattractive daughters were still not married.

Not having strength enough to be candid, the dean paced from corner to corner, saying nothing or speaking only in hints.

“So you’re not going home tonight?” he asked, stopping by the dark window and poking his little finger through the cage to the fluffed-up, sleeping canary.

Father Anastasy roused himself, coughed discreetly, and said in a quick patter:

“Home? God help me, no, Fyodor Ilyich. You yourself know that I can’t serve, so what am I to do there? I left on purpose so as not to meet peoples’ eyes. You yourself know: it’s shameful not to serve. And besides I have business here, Fyodor Ilyich. Tomorrow after breaking the fast⁴ I want to discuss something thoroughly with the father investigator.”

“So…” The dean yawned. “And where are you staying?”

“At Zyavkin’s.”