“Stepan Trofimovitch, one must be prepared for anything. I’ve sent for a priest. You must do what is right.…”
Knowing his convictions, she was terribly afraid of his refusing. He looked at her with surprise.
“Nonsense, nonsense!” she vociferated, thinking he was already refusing. “This is no time for whims. You have played the fool enough.”
“But … am I really so ill, then?”
He agreed thoughtfully. And indeed I was much surprised to learn from Varvara Petrovna afterwards that he showed no fear of death at all. Possibly it was that he simply did not believe it, and still looked upon his illness as a trifling one.
He confessed and took the sacrament very readily. Every one, Sofya Matveyevna, and even the servants, came to congratulate him on taking the sacrament. They were all moved to tears looking at his sunken and exhausted face and his blanched and quivering lips.
“Oui, mes amis, and I only wonder that you … take so much trouble. I shall most likely get up to-morrow, and we will … set off.… Toute cette cérémonie … for which, of course, I feel every proper respect … was …”
“I beg you, father, to remain with the invalid,” said Varvara Petrovna hurriedly, stopping the priest, who had already taken off his vestments. “As soon as tea has been handed, I beg you to begin to speak of religion, to support his faith.”
The priest spoke; every one was standing or sitting round the sick-bed.
“In our sinful days,” the priest began smoothly, with a cup of tea in his hand, “faith in the Most High is the sole refuge of the race of man in all the trials and tribulations of life, as well as its hope for that eternal bliss promised to the righteous.”