And in spite of the affectionate tone in which she said this, he could see she was constrained as though she were uncertain whether to address him formally or familiarly, to laugh or not, and that she felt herself more a deacon’s widow than his mother.  And Katya gazed without blinking at her uncle, his holiness, as though trying to discover what sort of a person he was.  Her hair sprang up from under the comb and the velvet ribbon and stood out like a halo; she had a turned-up nose and sly eyes.  The child had broken a glass before sitting down to dinner, and now her grandmother, as she talked, moved away from Katya first a wineglass and then a tumbler.  The bishop listened to his mother and remembered how many, many years ago she used to take him and his brothers and sisters to relations whom she considered rich; in those days she was taken up with the care of her children, now with her grandchildren, and she had brought Katya. . . .

“Your sister, Varenka, has four children,” she told him; “Katya, here, is the eldest.  And your brother-in-law Father Ivan fell sick, God knows of what, and died three days before the Assumption; and my poor Varenka is left a beggar.”

“And how is Nikanor getting on?” the bishop asked about his eldest brother.

“He is all right, thank God.  Though he has nothing much, yet he can live.  Only there is one thing:  his son, my grandson Nikolasha, did not want to go into the Church; he has gone to the university to be a doctor.  He thinks it is better; but who knows!  His Holy Will!”

“Nikolasha cuts up dead people,” said Katya, spilling water over her knees.

“Sit still, child,” her grandmother observed calmly, and took the glass out of her hand.  “Say a prayer, and go on eating.”

“How long it is since we have seen each other!” said the bishop, and he tenderly stroked his mother’s hand and shoulder; “and I missed you abroad, mother, I missed you dreadfully.”

“Thank you.”

“I used to sit in the evenings at the open window, lonely and alone; often there was music playing, and all at once I used to be overcome with homesickness and felt as though I would give everything only to be at home and see you.”

His mother smiled, beamed, but at once she made a grave face and said: 

“Thank you.”

His mood suddenly changed.  He looked at his mother and could not understand how she had come by that respectfulness, that timid expression of face:  what was it for?  And he did not recognize her.  He felt sad and vexed.  And then his head ached just as it had the day before; his legs felt fearfully tired, and the fish seemed to him stale and tasteless; he felt thirsty all the time. . . .

After dinner two rich ladies, landowners, arrived and sat for an hour and a half in silence with rigid countenances; the archimandrite, a silent, rather deaf man, came to see him about business.  Then they began ringing for vespers; the sun was setting behind the wood and the day was over.  When he returned from church, he hurriedly said his prayers, got into bed, and wrapped himself up as warm as possible.