The bishop of the diocese, a very fat old man, was ill with rheumatism
or gout, and had been in bed for over a month. Bishop Pyotr went
to see him almost every day, and saw all who came to ask his help.
And now that he was unwell he was struck by the emptiness, the
triviality of everything which they asked and for which they wept;
he was vexed at their ignorance, their timidity; and all this
useless, petty business oppressed him by the mass of it, and it
seemed to him that now he understood the diocesan bishop, who had
once in his young days written on "The Doctrines of the Freedom of
the Will," and now seemed to be all lost in trivialities, to have
forgotten everything, and to have no thoughts of religion. The
bishop must have lost touch with Russian life while he was abroad;
he did not find it easy; the peasants seemed to him coarse, the
women who sought his help dull and stupid, the seminarists and their
teachers uncultivated and at times savage. And the documents coming
in and going out were reckoned by tens of thousands; and what
documents they were! The higher clergy in the whole diocese gave
the priests, young and old, and even their wives and children, marks
for their behaviour--a five, a four, and sometimes even a three;
and about this he had to talk and to read and write serious reports.
And there was positively not one minute to spare; his soul was
troubled all day long, and the bishop was only at peace when he was
in church.

He could not get used, either, to the awe which, through no wish
of his own, he inspired in people in spite of his quiet, modest
disposition. All the people in the province seemed to him little,
scared, and guilty when he looked at them. Everyone was timid in
his presence, even the old chief priests; everyone "flopped" at his