Sister Pelagia and the White Bulldog (17 page)

The attorney drove away, but a stream of new guests kept arriving, having learned of the sad event. There were neighboring landowners, and many of the province’s notables, including even the marshal of the nobility. It is unlikely that so great a crowd would have come to bid farewell to the general’s widow Tatishcheva if not for the rumors that had spread rapidly through the territory of Zavolzhie. The faces of those gathered together expressed, in addition to the mournful anticipation appropriate to the occasion, a strange excitement, and the words “will” and “puppy” were spoken frequently in low, hissing whispers.

Miss Wrigley was enveloped in a strange agitation that became ever more noticeable as things went on. When it finally became clear that the will remained in force, the Englishwoman was entirely engulfed in something very much like a whirlpool. Ladies and gentlemen whom she scarcely knew, or did not know at all, approached her and spoke words filled with the most fervid sympathy, glancing curiously into her eyes. Others, in contrast, demonstratively avoided the heiress, their entire demeanor expressive of condemnation and even contempt. Poor Miss Wrigley lost her bearings completely and every now and then went dashing impulsively to seek out Pyotr Georgievich and Naina Georgievna, desperate to explain herself to them.

However, Naina Georgievna still did not come out of her room, and Pyotr Georgievich had been appropriated by Bubentsov. When she went out into the courtyard to see if the bishop was coming at last, Pelagia saw Vladimir Lvovich rapidly leading the confused Petya as far away as possible from the general crowd, holding him by the shoulder with one hand and gesticulating with the other. She caught a brief snatch of a phrase: “…investigate the circumstances and appeal, you absolutely must appeal.”

Moreover, the public servant had plenty of other business in hand as well. In the morning an express courier came galloping out to him from the town at breakneck speed, and in the afternoon there was another. On both occasions Vladimir Lvovich shut himself away in the library with the messengers for a long time, after which the mysterious riders hurtled off no less recklessly in the opposite direction. The investigation into the case of the missing heads was clearly being conducted in earnest.

MITROFANII ARRIVED WHEN it was almost evening, after they had already given up hope.

Approaching to be blessed, Pelagia said reproachfully: “Marya Afanasievna will be happy now. She is worn out with waiting, poor woman.”

“Never mind,” replied His Grace, absentmindedly crossing everyone who had come out into the yard to meet him. “It is not her, but death who is tired of waiting. And there is no harm in taunting the grim reaper a little.”

He seemed somehow brisk and businesslike, not solemn at all. As if he had not come to give a dying woman the last sacraments but to inspect the local deanery or on some other important but routine matter.

“Air the carriage, it’s rather stuffy in there,” he said for some reason to the lay brother who was sitting beside the driver on the coachbox.

To Pelagia he said: “Come on, then, take me to her.”

“Your Grace, what about the gifts of the Holy Sacrament?” she reminded him. “You have to administer extreme unction.”

“Extreme unction? Why not, I can give the last rites; unction is good for the health too. Father Alexii!”

A subdeacon in a brocade surplice clambered ponderously out of the carriage, carrying a portable tabernacle.

They walked along the dark corridor where the walls were lined with people bowing as their voices rustled: “Bless me, Your Grace.” Mitrofanii gave his blessing, but he did not seem to recognize anyone and he had an abstracted air. He turned everybody out of the bedroom, allowing only Father Alexii and Pelagia to enter with him.

“What’s this, handmaid of the Lord, have you decided to die?” he asked the woman in the bed severely, and it was clear that this was not the nephew Mishenka talking, but the strict pastor. “Are you yearning so greatly to join our Heavenly Father? Has He called you, or are you imposing yourself on His hospitality? If it is your will, then it is a sin.”

But the stern words produced no effect on Marya Afanasievna. She gazed fixedly at the bishop with a severe look in her eyes and waited.

“Very well,” sighed Mitrofanii, and he pulled his black traveling cassock up over his head, revealing the gold chasuble beneath it, with the precious episcopal panagion on the chest. “Make ready, father.”

The deacon placed a small silver dish on the bedside table and sprinkled grains of wheat onto it. He set an empty censer at its center and laid out seven candles. Mitrofanii blessed the unction and the wine, poured them into the censer, and lit the candles himself. As he anointed the dying woman’s forehead, nostrils, cheeks, lips, breast, and hands, he began reciting a prayer with quiet feeling: “Holy Father, Healer of spirit and of body, Who didst send Thine only Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, Who does heal all ills and free us from death: Heal likewise this Thy handmaiden Marya of the bodily and spiritual ailments that do oppress her and return her to life through the grace of Thy Christ and the prayers of Mary, Most Glorious Ever Virgin, Mother of Christ our God….”

Seven times the bishop performed the appointed rite and prayer, each time extinguishing one of the candles. Marya Afanasievna lay quietly, gazing meekly at the flames of the candles and moving her lips soundlessly, as if she was pronouncing the words: “Lord have mercy.”

When the supplication concluded, Mitrofanii moved a chair up to the bed, sat down, and said in an everyday voice: “We’ll wait a little while to administer Holy Communion. I think the anointing will be enough for now.”

Tatishcheva twitched the corner of her mouth in annoyance and gave a pitiful groan, but the bishop merely held up his hand.

“Lie still and listen. You didn’t pass on yesterday evening, so now you can wait a little longer while your prelate talks to you. And if you decide to die it will be out of sheer obstinacy.”

After this preamble His Grace fell silent for a moment and then he began speaking differently, less loudly but with an earnest sadness.

“You often hear people say, even those who do not believe blindly, but with open eyes, that life is a precious gift from God. But it seems to me that it is not a gift at all, for a gift is intended to bring only pleasure to the heart and the body, while the life of mortal men contains little that is pleasurable. Bodily and spiritual torment, sin and vice, the loss of loved ones—that is our life. A fine gift, is it not? Therefore it seems to me that life should not be understood as a gift, but as a certain work of penance, such as is given to monks, and always his own work to each man, to the limit of his strength, no more but also no less. Each of us possesses a different spiritual strength, and so the severity of the work of penance is different. And likewise each of us has his own appointed term. Those on whom God takes pity He gathers to himself when they are children. For others He appoints a middling term, and those He wishes to test most of all He burdens with long years. The gift will come later, after life. Foolish sinners that we are, we fear it and call it death, but this death is the long-awaited meeting with our All-Merciful Father. The Lord tests each one of us in our own way and in His infinite ingenuity will never repeat Himself. However, it is a great sin and a grievous offense to our Heavenly Father if anyone should seek to shorten the appointed term of his work of penance illegitimately. It is not man who appoints this meeting, but God alone. Therefore is the church set so adamantly against suicide, regarding it as the worst of all sins. Though you may be suffering, in pain and despair, endure it. The Lord knows how much strength each of us has in his soul, and He will not lay an excessive burden on His offspring. What is required is to endure all things with patience so that through this your soul will be cleansed and you will be exalted. But what you are doing is straightforward suicide,” said Mitrofanii, growing angry and departing from his tone of confidential intimacy. “A strong, healthy old woman! What are you doing playing out this comedy? Offending the Lord for the sake of some white bulldog, trying to destroy your very soul! You shall not have deathbed absolution from me, I tell you, because the holy church does not connive with suicides! And if you remain stubborn, I shall have you buried outside the cemetery wall, in unhallowed ground. And I shall lodge objections against your will with the secular authorities, because under the law of Russia the wills of suicides have no validity!”

The dying woman’s eyes glinted briefly with bright fury, and her lips smacked against each other without producing a single sound. But the hands folded piously at her breast trembled, and the hand on the top, the right, struggled to set the thumb between the fingers in a gesture of defiance.

“Very good, very good,” the bishop said gleefully. “Depart this life with the sign of the devil. That will be just perfect for you. When you die, I shan’t allow them to straighten out your fingers. Lie there in the coffin making that gesture, let everybody take a good look at it.”

The widow’s fingers unclenched themselves and straightened out; the palm of her right hand settled gracefully on top of her left.

His Grace nodded and began speaking humanely again, as if he had never lost his temper.

“See, Marya, how deep you have drunk of bitter grief in your life. You have buried your beloved husband and outlived four children. But still you did not die. Are these flat-faced dogs really more dear to you than the people you loved? Truly, for shame!”

Mitrofanii waited to see if there would be any sign, but Marya Afanasievna merely closed her eyes.

“But then I know that there is still much life in you, you have not yet lived out your term, you have not yet become ripe and full of years like the patriarchs of the Old Testament. And here is something else for you to think about. Those for whom the Lord has appointed long life bear the greatest suffering of all, because their ordeal is so very long. But their reward is also a special one. The longer I live in this world, the more it seems to me that the infirmity of old age is not even a test, but rather an expression of special grace from God. And this gift is truly a gift. It is only in the wisdom of advanced age that man is freed from the fear of death. The withering of the flesh and the fading of the mind itself—these are a blessed preparation for another life. Death does not scythe your legs from under you with no warning, but enters slowly, a drop at a time, and in this there is perhaps even a certain sweetness. It is no wonder that in their declining years so many of the venerable secluded ascetics who have lived to a great age are less here, in this life, than there, in a state of heavenly bliss. There are times when their very flesh becomes incorruptible at death, and people are astounded. But why do I speak of the venerable saints? It is the same for anyone who is very old, all those he has known—those he has loved or hated—are already there, waiting for him, he is the only one who has tarried, and therefore he is not afraid. He knows with certainty that people of every kind—both cleverer and more stupid than he, both crueler and kinder, both braver and more cowardly—have crossed this terrible threshold safely. And that means it is not so very terrible after all…”

At this point Marya Afanasievna, who had been listening to the bishop’s sermon intently, smiled rapturously and Mitrofanii knitted his black brows, because he had anticipated a different effect. He sighed, crossed himself, and abandoned all attempts to remonstrate with her.

“Well then, if you feel that your time has come, if you are being called—I shall not try to detain you. I shall administer the Last Sacrament and conduct your funeral and lay you in hallowed ground in the proper fashion. I frightened you because I was angry. Die, if your mind is made up. If life no longer has any hold on you, if it has lost its attraction, how can a weak soul such as I am keep you here? Only there is one thing…” He glanced around and spoke to the deacon: “Bring it in now, father.”

Father Alexii nodded and went out of the door. Silence fell in the bedroom. Marya Afanasievna lay with her eyes closed, and her face already looked as if she were not lying in bed, but in the center of a church, in an open coffin, and from under the tall vaults the angels were singing their sweet song of greeting to her. Mitrofanii got up, walked across to the lithograph hanging on the wall, and began studying it intently.

But shortly the door opened and the deacon and the lay brother carried in a closed wicker box with a small opening in the top. They set it down on the floor and, with a bow to the bishop, withdrew to the wall.

Inside the box something rustled strangely and there was a sound that could almost have been squealing. Sister Pelagia craned her neck and stood up on tiptoe in her curiosity as she tried to glance in through the little opening, but Mitrofanii had already thrown back the lid and thrust both his hands into the basket.

“Here, aunty,” he said in his ordinary, non-churchman’s voice. “I wanted to show you this before you die. That’s why I was a little late. On my instructions, messengers combed the entire district; they even made use of the telegraph, although, as you know, I am not fond of such novelties. In a litter at retired major Sipyagin’s house they found a white bulldog, a female, and her ear is just right, too, take a look. And just two hours ago the express steam launch from Nizhny brought me a gift from first-guild merchant Saikin, a little white male, a month and a half old. And he’s a perfect specimen in every respect. The bitch is not white all over—she has brown socks—but she is exceptionally bandy-legged. Her name is Musya. Sipyagin almost refused to let her go—his daughter didn’t want to part with her at all. I had to threaten him with excommunication for the death of a Christian soul, which was actually unlawful on my part. The little dog doesn’t have a name yet, though. Just look at his brown ear. His nose is pink, just as it is supposed to be, and speckled, but most important of all, his little face has quite remarkably droopy cheeks. When the pups are a little older, we can start breeding again. And in no time at all, in no more than two or three generations, the white bulldog will be restored.”