For a long while he heard footsteps in the next room and could not
tell whose they were. At last the door opened, and Sisoy came in
with a candle and a tea-cup in his hand.

"You are in bed already, your holiness?" he asked. "Here I have
come to rub you with spirit and vinegar. A thorough rubbing does a
great deal of good. Lord Jesus Christ! . . . That's the way . . .
that's the way. . . . I've just been in our monastery. . . . I don't
like it. I'm going away from here to-morrow, your holiness; I don't
want to stay longer. Lord Jesus Christ. . . . That's the way. . . ."

Sisoy could never stay long in the same place, and he felt as though
he had been a whole year in the Pankratievsky Monastery. Above all,
listening to him it was difficult to understand where his home was,
whether he cared for anyone or anything, whether he believed in
God. . . . He did not know himself why he was a monk, and, indeed,
he did not think about it, and the time when he had become a monk
had long passed out of his memory; it seemed as though he had been
born a monk.

"I'm going away to-morrow; God be with them all."

"I should like to talk to you. . . . I can't find the time," said
the bishop softly with an effort. "I don't know anything or anybody
here. . . ."

"I'll stay till Sunday if you like; so be it, but I don't want to
stay longer. I am sick of them!"

"I ought not to be a bishop," said the bishop softly. "I ought to