On reaching home his holiness drank some tea, then changed his clothes, lay down on his bed, and told the lay brother to close the shutters on the windows.  The bedroom was darkened.  But what weariness, what pain in his legs and his back, a chill heavy pain, what a noise in his ears!  He had not slept for a long time—­for a very long time, as it seemed to him now, and some trifling detail which haunted his brain as soon as his eyes were closed prevented him from sleeping.  As on the day before, sounds reached him from the adjoining rooms through the walls, voices, the jingle of glasses and teaspoons. . . .  Marya Timofyevna was gaily telling Father Sisoy some story with quaint turns of speech, while the latter answered in a grumpy, ill-humoured voice:  “Bother them!  Not likely!  What next!” And the bishop again felt vexed and then hurt that with other people his old mother behaved in a simple, ordinary way, while with him, her son, she was shy, spoke little, and did not say what she meant, and even, as he fancied, had during all those three days kept trying in his presence to find an excuse for standing up, because she was embarrassed at sitting before him.  And his father?  He, too, probably, if he had been living, would not have been able to utter a word in the bishop’s presence. . . .

Something fell down on the floor in the adjoining room and was broken; Katya must have dropped a cup or a saucer, for Father Sisoy suddenly spat and said angrily: 

“What a regular nuisance the child is!  Lord forgive my transgressions!  One can’t provide enough for her.”

Then all was quiet, the only sounds came from outside.  And when the bishop opened his eyes he saw Katya in his room, standing motionless, staring at him.  Her red hair, as usual, stood up from under the comb like a halo.

“Is that you, Katya?” he asked.  “Who is it downstairs who keeps opening and shutting a door?”

“I don’t hear it,” answered Katya; and she listened.

“There, someone has just passed by.”

“But that was a noise in your stomach, uncle.”

He laughed and stroked her on the head.

“So you say Cousin Nikolasha cuts up dead people?” he asked after a pause.

“Yes, he is studying.”

“And is he kind?”

“Oh, yes, he’s kind.  But he drinks vodka awfully.”

“And what was it your father died of?”

“Papa was weak and very, very thin, and all at once his throat was bad.  I was ill then, too, and brother Fedya; we all had bad throats.  Papa died, uncle, and we got well.”

Her chin began quivering, and tears gleamed in her eyes and trickled down her cheeks.

“Your holiness,” she said in a shrill voice, by now weeping bitterly, “uncle, mother and all of us are left very wretched. . . .  Give us a little money . . . do be kind . . . uncle darling. . . .”

He, too, was moved to tears, and for a long time was too much touched to speak.  Then he stroked her on the head, patted her on the shoulder and said: