Sister Pelagia and the White Bulldog Read Free

shakes, and I get a cold, tight feeling in my chest. I have a special reason for writing to you, Mishenka. I have suffered a great misfortune of such a kind that only you will understand, but I should not wonder if others will poke fun at me and say that the old fool has gone totally cuckoo. I wanted to come to see you myself, but I do not have the strength, although the journey is not really so very long. I lie flat on my back and do nothing but cry. You know how many years, how much effort, and how much money I have invested in order to complete the work to which Apollon Nikolaevich devoted his life.” (At this point the reverend bishop shook his head, because he took a skeptical view of the work to which his deceased uncle had devoted his life.) “Learn then, my friend, what villainy has been committed here at my Drozdovka. Some enemy of mine, and it must be someone who is close to me, put poison into Zagulyai’s and Zakidai’s food. Zakidai is younger; I saved him with emetic stone of antimony and nursed him back to health. But my little Zagulyai passed away. All night long he suffered, tossing and turning, weeping human tears and gazing at me so mournfully, as if to say: Save me, mother, you are my only hope. But I did not save him. In the early morning he gave a pitiful cry, fell over on his side, and gave up the ghost. I fell down in a dead faint and they tell me I spent three hours like that until the doctor arrived from the town. And now I am lying here weak and exhausted, and most of all frightened. It is a conspiracy, Mishenka, a villainous conspiracy. Someone is trying to do away with my little children, and me, an old woman, along with them. In the name of God Almighty I implore you, come. Not to bring me priestly consolation—that is not what I need—but to investigate. Everybody says you have the gift of seeing straight through any villain and unraveling any criminal’s cunning trickery. And what villainy could possibly be worse than this? You must come save me. And I shall adore you eternally and leave you a generous bequest for the cathedral, or some monastery, or the poor orphans, if you like.” At the very end of her letter his aunt switched from a familial tone to an official and respectful one: “Commending myself to your fatherly attention and pastoral prayers and imploring Your Grace’s blessing, I remain your Eminence’s most devoted servant, Marya Tatishcheva.”
    At this point we ought perhaps to offer some explanation concerning the gift about which the general Tatishchev’s widow wrote, and which might appear not entirely becoming to a churchman of bishop’s rank. Be that as it may, reckoned among the reverend bishop’s more sublime merits was the precious talent, one very rarely encountered, for unraveling all sorts of baffling mysteries, especially those of a criminal complexion. One might even say that Mitrofanii had a genuine passion for mental gymnastics of this sort, and on more than one occasion the police authorities, even those from neighboring provinces, had respectfully requested his advice in some confusing investigation. The Bishop of Zavolzhsk secretly took great pride in this reputation of his, but not without certain pangs of conscience—first, because this pride undoubtedly deserved to be categorized as idle vanity, and, second, for another reason known only to himself and a certain other individual, which we will therefore pass over in silence.
    The previous evening, on first reading the letter, His Grace had found his aunt’s request—to go dashing to her estate and investigate the circumstances of Zagulyai’s death—somewhat amusing. And even now, having reread the letter, he thought: Nonsense, it’s just an old woman’s fancies. She’ll spend a day or two in bed and then get up.
    He snuffed out the candle and lay down, but his heart still felt uneasy. He tried to pray for his aunt’s recovery. It is well known that prayers at night ascend to God’s ears