After the service on Tuesday, his holiness Pyotr was in the diocesan bishop’s house receiving petitions there; he got excited and angry, and then drove home.  He was as unwell as before; he longed to be in bed, but he had hardly reached home when he was informed that a young merchant called Erakin, who subscribed liberally to charities, had come to see him about a very important matter.  The bishop had to see him.  Erakin stayed about an hour, talked very loud, almost shouted, and it was difficult to understand what he said.

“God grant it may,” he said as he went away.  “Most essential!  According to circumstances, your holiness!  I trust it may!”

After him came the Mother Superior from a distant convent.  And when she had gone they began ringing for vespers.  He had to go to church.

In the evening the monks sang harmoniously, with inspiration.  A young priest with a black beard conducted the service; and the bishop, hearing of the Bridegroom who comes at midnight and of the Heavenly Mansion adorned for the festival, felt no repentance for his sins, no tribulation, but peace at heart and tranquillity.  And he was carried back in thought to the distant past, to his childhood and youth, when, too, they used to sing of the Bridegroom and of the Heavenly Mansion; and now that past rose up before him—­living, fair, and joyful as in all likelihood it never had been.  And perhaps in the other world, in the life to come, we shall think of the distant past, of our life here, with the same feeling.  Who knows?  The bishop was sitting near the altar.  It was dark; tears flowed down his face.  He thought that here he had attained everything a man in his position could attain; he had faith and yet everything was not clear, something was lacking still.  He did not want to die; and he still felt that he had missed what was most important, something of which he had dimly dreamed in the past; and he was troubled by the same hopes for the future as he had felt in childhood, at the academy and abroad.

“How well they sing to-day!” he thought, listening to the singing.  “How nice it is!”

IV

On Thursday he celebrated mass in the cathedral; it was the Washing of Feet.  When the service was over and the people were going home, it was sunny, warm; the water gurgled in the gutters, and the unceasing trilling of the larks, tender, telling of peace, rose from the fields outside the town.  The trees were already awakening and smiling a welcome, while above them the infinite, fathomless blue sky stretched into the distance, God knows whither.