Sister Pelagia and the Red Cockerel Read Online Free PDF Page A

had begun in his customary manner—quietly as if he were treading cautiously. He praised his guest from Zavolzhsk for his good relations with the temporal authorities, and especially for the fact that the governor took Mitrofanii’s advice and went to him for confession. “This is an example of the inseparability of the state and the church, on which alone the edifice of the social order can stand secure,” Pobedin had said, raising one finger for greater effect.
    Then he had delivered a mild rebuke for the bishop’s spineless and insipid approach in dealings with members of different creeds and faiths, of whom there were very many in Zavolzhie: there were Protestant colonists there, and Catholics descended from the old Poles in exile, and Moslems, and even pagans.
    His Excellency had a distinctive manner of speaking—as if he were reading a report from a written text. A smooth and fluent manner, but somehow dry and wearisome for his listeners. “The state church is a system under which the authorities recognize one confession as the true faith and exclusively support and patronize one church, to the greater or lesser diminution of the honors, rights, and privileges of other churches,” Konstantin Petrovich had pontificated. “Otherwise the state would lose its spiritual unity with the people, of whom the overwhelming majority adhere to Orthodoxy. A state without a faith is nothing other than a utopia that is impossible to realize, since the absence of faith is the direct negation of the state. What trust can the Orthodox masses have in the authorities if the people and the authorities have different faiths, or if the authorities have no faith at all?”
    Mitrofanii tolerated this lecture for as long as he could (which was not for very long, since patience was definitely not one of the bishop’s strong points) and eventually interrupted the exalted orator.
    “Konstantin Petrovich, I am convinced that the Orthodox confession is the truest and most beneficent of all faiths, and I am so convinced not for reasons of state, but by the acceptance of my soul. However, as Your Excellency is aware from our previous conversations, I consider it harmful and even criminal to convert those of other faiths to our religion by means of force.”
    Pobedin nodded—not in agreement, but in condemnation, as if he had expected nothing else from the bishop but impolite interruptions and obduracy.
    “Yes, I am aware that your Zavolzhsk faction” (Pobedin emphasized this unpleasant, even ominous, word in his intonation) “is opposed to all violence …”
    At this point the Chief Procurator paused before striking a crushing blow that had, beyond the slightest doubt, been prepared in advance.
    “… violence and criminality” (again that emphatic intonation). “But I had never before suspected just how far your zealousness in eradicating the latter extended.” After waiting for an expression of caution to appear on Mitrofanii’s face following these strange words, Pobedin asked in a menacingly ingratiating tone: “Just who do you and your entourage imagine you are, bishop? The new Vidoques? Or Sherlock Holmeses?”
    At this point Sister Pelagia, who was present at the conversation, turned pale and could not suppress a quiet exclamation. Only now had she realized why His Eminence had been ordered to bring her, a lowly nun, to the audience.
    The Chief Procurator immediately confirmed her dark surmise: “It was not on a whim that I asked you to bring with you the head of your famous convent school. No doubt, Sister, you thought that we would be discussing education?”
    That really was what Pelagia had thought. It was only six months since the bishop had given his blessing for her to take over as head of the Zavolzhsk school for young girls, following the death of Sister Christina, but during that brief period Pelagia had managed to introduce more than enough reforms to draw down on her head the displeasure of the head of the Holy