sides a perfect sea of lights and heard the splutter of candles,
but, as in past years, he could not see the people, and it seemed
as though these were all the same people as had been round him in
those days, in his childhood and his youth; that they would always
be the same every year and till such time as God only knew.

His father had been a deacon, his grandfather a priest, his
great-grandfather a deacon, and his whole family, perhaps from the
days when Christianity had been accepted in Russia, had belonged
to the priesthood; and his love for the Church services, for the
priesthood, for the peal of the bells, was deep in him, ineradicable,
innate. In church, particularly when he took part in the service,
he felt vigorous, of good cheer, happy. So it was now. Only when
the eighth gospel had been read, he felt that his voice had grown
weak, even his cough was inaudible. His head had begun to ache
intensely, and he was troubled by a fear that he might fall down.
And his legs were indeed quite numb, so that by degrees he ceased
to feel them and could not understand how or on what he was standing,
and why he did not fall. . . .

It was a quarter to twelve when the service was over. When he reached
home, the bishop undressed and went to bed at once without even
saying his prayers. He could not speak and felt that he could not
have stood up. When he had covered his head with the quilt he felt
a sudden longing to be abroad, an insufferable longing! He felt
that he would give his life not to see those pitiful cheap shutters,
those low ceilings, not to smell that heavy monastery smell. If
only there were one person to whom he could have talked, have opened
his heart!