Free eBooks at Planet eBook.com 1on my calling.’ He turned and walked away. I followed him,
shouting, ‘Yes, yes, you are an Ispravnik, not a Napravnik.’
‘No,’ he said, ‘since you called me a Napravnik I am one.’
And would you believe it, it ruined our business! And I’m al-
ways like that, always like that. Always injuring myself with
my politeness. Once, many years ago, I said to an influential
person: ‘Your wife is a ticklish lady,’ in an honourable sense,
of the moral qualities, so to speak. But he asked me, ‘Why,
have you tickled her?’ I thought I’d be polite, so I couldn’t
help saying, ‘Yes,’ and he gave me a fine tickling on the spot.
Only that happened long ago, so I’m not ashamed to tell the
story. I’m always injuring myself like that.’
‘You’re doing it now,’ muttered Miusov, with disgust.
Father Zossima scrutinised them both in silence.
‘Am I? Would you believe it, I was aware of that, too, Pyotr
Alexandrovitch, and let tell you, indeed, I foresaw I should
as soon as I began to speak. And do you know I foresaw, too,
that you’d be the first to remark on it. The minute I see my
joke isn’t coming off, your reverence, both my cheeks feel as
though they were drawn down to the lower jaw and there is
almost a spasm in them. That’s been so since I was young,
when I had to make jokes for my living in noblemen’s fami-
lies. I am an inveterate buffoon, and have been from birth
up, your reverence, it’s as though it were a craze in me. I
dare say it’s a devil within me. But only a little one. A more
serious one would have chosen another lodging. But not
your soul, Pyotr Alexandrovitch; you’re not a lodging worth
having either. But I do believe — I believe in God, though
I have had doubts of late. But now I sit and await words of