Free eBooks at Planet eBook.com
ry, with a Mater Dolorosa embracing it, and several foreign
engravings from the great Italian artists of past centuries.
Next to these costly and artistic engravings were several
of the roughest Russian prints of saints and martyrs, such
as are sold for a few farthings at all the fairs. On the other
walls were portraits of Russian bishops, past and present.
Miusov took a cursory glance at all these ‘conventional’
surroundings and bent an intent look upon the elder. He
had a high opinion of his own insight a weakness excusable
in him as he was fifty, an age at which a clever man of the
world of established position can hardly help taking himself
rather seriously. At the first moment he did not like Zossi-
ma. There was, indeed, something in the elder’s face which
many people besides Miusov might not have liked. He was
a short, bent, little man, with very weak legs, and though
he was only sixty-five, he looked at least ten years older.
His face was very thin and covered with a network of fine
wrinkles, particularly numerous about his eyes, which were
small, light-coloured, quick, and shining like two bright
points. He had a sprinkling of grey hair about his temples.
His pointed beard was small and scanty, and his lips, which
smiled frequently, were as thin as two threads. His nose was
not long, but sharp, like a bird’s beak.
‘To all appearances a malicious soul, full of petty pride,’
thought Miusov. He felt altogether dissatisfied with his po-
sition.
A cheap little clock on the wall struck twelve hurriedly,
and served to begin the conversation.
‘Precisely to our time,’ cried Fyodor Pavlovitch, ‘but no