Sister Pelagia and the White Bulldog Read Online Free Page A

voluble excuses, claiming that she waged war on her freckles not for the sake of bodily beauty, God forbid, but exclusively out of a sense of decorum—a nun with a freckly nose was a ridiculous sight.
    “Oh, indeed?” said the bishop, shaking his head dubiously, still putting off getting down to the important business.
    Sister Pelagia’s transitions from boldness to meekness and back again always occurred with such lightning speed that it was impossible to keep track of them. And now again she asked in a bold voice, with a glint in her eye: “Your Grace, surely you did not summon me because of my freckles?”
    And once more Mitrofanii could not bring himself to speak of his business. He cleared his throat and walked up and down the length of the library yet again. He asked how her pupils were doing in school. Were they diligent, did they want to learn, were the sisters not perhaps teaching them anything superfluous that would not help, but merely hinder them, in their life?
    “I am told that you have begun to teach them swimming. Why? They say you have ordered a bathing hut to be set up on the River and you splash about with them there. Is this a good thing?”
    “Swimming is essential for girls, in the first place because it is good for their health and develops the flexibility of their limbs, and in the second place because it is good for their figures,” the nun replied. “They are from poor families, and most of them have no dowries. When they grow up, they will have to find husbands…Your Grace, you did not summon me here because of the school, either. We spoke about it only two days ago, and about the swimming, too.”
    Pelagia was not one of those people who can be duped for long, and so Mitrofanii finally began talking about the idea he had conceived before he fell asleep the night before.
    “The ass that I spoke of is myself. Acceding to your requests, and even more to the promptings of my own wretched vanity, which is absolutely improper for a pastor, I keep it a secret from everyone that it is not I who am the genuine expert in the field of unraveling obscure secrets and piercing through false appearances, but you, the meek and mild nun Pelagia. And now, like the ass who was so fond of fame, I am expected by everyone to produce new miracles and new revelations. Now no one will ever believe that the whole business was entirely your doing, and I did no more than to set you a work of penance.”
    The needles stopped clacking against each other and bright sparks sprang to the surface of the round brown eyes.
    “What has happened, father? It clearly can’t be in our province, or I should know about it. Has someone stolen the church treasury again, as they did last year at Shrovetide?” the sister asked with impatient curiosity. “Or, God forbid, killed a clergyman? What work of penance will Your Grace set me to perform this time?”
    “No, nobody has been killed,” said Mitrofanii, turning away in embarrassment. “This is something different. Not a criminal matter. At least, it is not a matter for the police…I’ll tell you what it is, and for the time being, you just listen. You can tell me afterward what you think. Yes, do knit. Knit and listen.”
    He walked across to the window and delivered the following explanation, gazing all the while out into the orchard, from time to time drumming on the window frame with his fingers.
    “Not far from here, about eight miles away, is the estate of my great aunt, Marya Afanasievna Tatishcheva. She is extremely old now, but there was a time, long ago, when she was considered one of the greatest beauties in St. Petersburg. I remember her coming to visit us when I was a boy. She was fun-loving then, young, and she used to play checkers with me…. She married an officer, a regimental commander, and made the rounds of various remote garrisons with him, then he retired and they settled at Drozdovka. Her husband, Apollon Nikolaevich, who is now deceased, was