ool, Yegor, I'll
stand by you."

He took his purse out of his pocket, turned his back to Yegorushka,
fumbled for a long time among the smaller coins, and, finding a
ten-kopeck piece, gave it to Yegorushka.

Father Christopher, without haste, blessed Yegorushka.

"In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. . . .
Study," he said. "Work hard, my lad. If I die, remember me in your
prayers. Here is a ten-kopeck piece from me, too. . . ."

Yegorushka kissed his hand, and shed tears; something whispered in
his heart that he would never see the old man again.

"I have applied at the high school already," said Ivan Ivanitch in
a voice as though there were a corpse in the room. "You will take
him for the entrance examination on the seventh of August. . . .
Well, good-bye; God bless you, good-bye, Yegor!"

"You might at least have had a cup of tea," wailed Nastasya Petrovna.

Through the tears that filled his eyes Yegorushka could not see his
uncle and Father Christopher go out. He rushed to the window, but
they were not in the yard, and the red dog, who had just been
barking, was running back from the gate with the air of having done
his duty. When Yegorushka ran out of the gate Ivan Ivanitch and
Father Christopher, the former waving his stick with the crook, the
latter his staff, were just turning the corner. Yegorushka felt
that with these people all that he had known till then had vanished
from him for ever. He sank helplessly on to the little bench, and
with bitter tears greeted the new unknown life that was beginning
for him now. . . .

What would that life be like?

End of Project Gutenberg's The Bishop and Other Stories, by Anton Chekhov

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