ve
never spared any one, and the holier the place, the more chance of
its suffering from your loving-kindness and angelic sweetness. Why
do you come here? What do you want with the monks here, allow me
to ask you? What is Hecuba to you or you to Hecuba? It's another
farce, another amusement for you, another sacrilege against human
dignity, and nothing more. Why, you don't believe in the monks'
God; you've a God of your own in your heart, whom you've evolved
for yourself at spiritualist seances. You look with condescension
upon the ritual of the Church; you don't go to mass or vespers; you
sleep till midday. . . . Why do you come here? . . . You come with
a God of your own into a monastery you have nothing to do with, and
you imagine that the monks look upon it as a very great honour. To
be sure they do! You'd better ask, by the way, what your visits
cost the monastery. You were graciously pleased to arrive here this
evening, and a messenger from your estate arrived on horseback the
day before yesterday to warn them of your coming. They were the
whole day yesterday getting the rooms ready and expecting you. This
morning your advance-guard arrived--an insolent maid, who keeps
running across the courtyard, rustling her skirts, pestering them
with questions, giving orders. . . . I can't endure it! The monks
have been on the lookout all day, for if you were not met with due
ceremony, there would be trouble! You'd complain to the bishop!
'The monks don't like me, your holiness; I don't know what I've
done to displease them. It's true I'm a great sinner, but I'm so
unhappy!' Already one monastery has been in hot water over you. The
Father Superior is a busy, learned man; he hasn't a free moment,
and you keep sending for him to come to your rooms. Not a trace of
respect for age or for rank! If at least you were a bountiful giver
to the monastery, one wouldn't resent it so much, but all this time
the monks have not received a hundred roubles from you!"

Whenever people worried the princess, misunderstood her, or mortified
her, and when she did not know what to say or do, she usually began
to cry. And on this occasion, too, she ended by hiding her face in
her hands and crying aloud in a thin treble like a child. The doctor
suddenly stopped and looked at her. His face darkened and grew
stern.

"Forgive me, Princess," he said in a hollow voice. "I've given way
to a malicious feeling and forgotten myself. It was not right."

An