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!
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 teacup 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 tomorrow, 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 tomorrow; 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 have been a village priest, a deacon … or simply a monk. … All this oppresses me … oppresses me.”