position can hardly help taking himself rather seriously. At the first moment he did not like Zossima. There was, indeed, something in the elder’s face which many people besides Miüsov might not have liked. He was a short, bent, little man, with very weak legs, and though he was only sixty-five, he looked at least ten years older. His face was very thin and covered with a network of fine wrinkles, particularly numerous about his eyes, which were small, light-colored, quick, and shining like two bright points. He had a sprinkling of gray hair about his temples. His pointed beard was small and scanty, and his lips, which smiled frequently, were as thin as two threads. His nose was not long, but sharp, like a bird’s beak.
“To all appearances a malicious soul, full of petty pride,” thought Miüsov. He felt altogether dissatisfied with his position.
A cheap little clock on the wall struck twelve hurriedly, and served to begin the conversation.
“Precisely to our time,” cried Fyodor Pavlovitch, “but no sign of my son, Dmitri. I apologize for him, sacred elder!” (Alyosha shuddered all over at “sacred elder.”) “I am always punctual myself, minute for minute, remembering that punctuality is the courtesy of kings. …”
“But you are not a king, anyway,” Miüsov muttered, losing his self-restraint at once.
“Yes; that’s true. I’m not a king, and, would you believe it, Pyotr Alexandrovitch, I was aware of that myself. But, there! I always say the wrong thing.
Your reverence,” he cried, with sudden pathos, “you behold before you a buffoon in earnest! I introduce myself as such. It’s an old habit, alas! And if I sometimes talk nonsense out of place it’s with an object, with the object of amusing people and making myself agreeable. One must be agreeable, mustn’t one?