Fifty-Two Stories

“And how you deal with your employees!” the doctor went on indignantly. “You don’t consider them human beings and treat them like the worst swindlers. For instance, allow me to ask, what did you fire me for? I worked ten years for your father, then for you, honorably, with no holidays, no vacations; I earned the love of everyone for a hundred miles around, and suddenly one fine day it was announced to me that I was no longer employed! What for? I still don’t understand! I, a doctor of medicine, a well-born man, a graduate of Moscow University, the father of a family, am such an insignificant little pipsqueak that I can be chucked out with no explanations! Why stand on ceremony with me? I heard later that my wife, without my knowledge, secretly went to you three times to plead for me, and you didn’t receive her even once. They say she wept in the front hall. And for that I can never forgive the late woman! Never!”

The doctor fell silent and clenched his teeth, straining to think of something else very unpleasant and vengeful to say. He remembered something, and his scowling, cold face suddenly brightened.

“Or take your relation with this monastery!” he began eagerly. “You never spared anybody, and the holier the place, the greater the chance that it will get the full dose of your loving kindness and angelic meekness. Why do you keep coming here? What do you need from the monks here, if I may ask? What is Hecuba to you, or you to Hecuba?⁵ Again it’s an amusement, a game, a blasphemy against human beings, and nothing else. You don’t believe in the monks’ God, you have your own God in your heart, whom you arrived at with your own mind at spiritualistic séances; you look condescendingly at church rites, you don’t go to the liturgies or vigils, you sleep till noon…Why do you come here?…You come with your own God to other people’s monastery, and you imagine the monastery considers it a great honor! Oh, yes, of course! Have you ever asked, incidentally, what your visits cost the monks? You were pleased to arrive here tonight, but two days ago a messenger already came here on horseback, sent from your estate to warn them you were coming. Yesterday they spent the whole day preparing rooms for you and waiting. Today the advance guard arrived—an impudent maid, who keeps running around the yard, rustling, pestering with questions, giving orders…I can’t stand it! Today the monks have been on the lookout all day: If you’re not met with ceremony—it’s bad! You’ll complain to the bishop! ‘Your Grace, the monks don’t love me. I don’t know what I’ve done to deserve it. True, I’m a great sinner, but I’m so unhappy!’ One monastery already got a roasting because of you. The archimandrite is a busy, learned man who doesn’t have a free moment, and you keep on summoning him to your rooms. No respect either for his old age or for his cloth. It would be one thing if you donated a lot, it wouldn’t be so bad, but in all this time the monks haven’t received even a hundred roubles from you!”

When the princess was upset, not understood, offended, and when she did not know what to say or do, she usually began to weep. And now she finally covered her face and began to weep in a thin, childish voice. The doctor suddenly fell silent and looked at her. His face darkened and became stern.

“Forgive me, Princess,” he said hollowly. “I yielded to a spiteful feeling and forgot myself. That’s not good.”

And, with an embarrassed cough, forgetting to put his hat on, he quickly walked away from the princess.

Stars were already twinkling in the sky. On the other side of the monastery, the moon was probably rising, because the sky was clear, transparent, and tender. Bats raced noiselessly along the white monastery wall.

The clock slowly struck three-quarters of some hour, probably past eight. The princess stood up and slowly went to the gate. She felt hurt and was weeping, and it seemed to her that the trees, and the stars, and the bats were sorry for her; and the clock struck melodiously only in order to sympathize with her. She was weeping and thinking how good it would be to go into the monastery for the rest of her life. On quiet summer evenings she would stroll in solitude down the footpaths, hurt, insulted, misunderstood, and only God and the starry sky would see the suffering woman’s tears. In the church the vigil was still going on. The princess stopped and listened to the singing; how good this singing sounded in the still, dark air! How sweet it was to weep and suffer to this singing!