Nikolay Leskov
Trivia of Bishop's Life
(Pictures from nature)
There is not a single state in which there would not be excellent men of every kind, but, unfortunately, each person seems to his own gaze of the greatest importance to be an object.
(“People's Pride”, Moscow, 1788)
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION
During 1878, the Russian press reported a lot of interesting and characteristic anecdotes about some of our bishops. A significant proportion of these stories are so incredible that a person unfamiliar with diocesan practice could easily mistake them for fiction; but for people familiar with the clear life, they have a completely different meaning. There is no doubt that these are not someone's fabrications, but the real, living truth, written off from nature, and, moreover, by no means with an evil purpose.
Knowledgeable people know that among our "lords" immediacy never failed - this is not subject to the slightest doubt, and from this point of view, the stories did not reveal anything new, but it is annoying that they stopped, showing, as if deliberately, only one side these interesting morals, developed under the special conditions of the original exclusivity of the position of the Russian bishop, and hid many other aspects of hierarchal life.
It is impossible to agree that all the strange things that are told about the bishops are arbitrarily inflated by them, and I want to try to say something in defense of our bishops, who find no other defenders for themselves, except for narrow and one-sided people who revere any speech about bishops for an insult to their dignity.
From my everyday experience, I have had the opportunity more than once to be convinced that our rulers, and even the most direct of them, in their originality, are by no means so insensitive and inaccessible to the influences of society, as correspondents represent. I want to say something about this, in order to take away from some denunciations their obvious one-sidedness, which directly blames the whole matter on the rulers alone and does not pay the slightest attention to their position and to the attitude of society itself towards them. In my opinion, our society must bear at least a fraction of the reproaches addressed to the bishops.
No matter how paradoxical this may seem to anyone, however, I ask for attention to those examples that I will give as proof of my positions.
CHAPTER FIRST
The first Russian bishop I knew was Orlovsky - Nicodemus. In our house they began to mention his name on the occasion that he handed over the son of my father's poor sister as a recruit. My father, a man of decisive and courageous character, went to him and dealt with him very severely in his own bishop's house... This had no further consequences.
In our house, the black clergy in general, and the bishops in particular, were not liked. I was simply afraid of them, probably because for a long time I remembered my father’s terrible anger at Nikodim and the assurance of my nurse that frightened me that “the bishops had crucified Christ.” I was taught to love Christ since childhood.
The first bishop I knew personally was Smaragd Krizhanovsky during his administration of the Oryol diocese.
This recollection belongs to the earliest years of my adolescence, when, while studying at the Oryol gymnasium, I constantly heard stories about the deeds of this lord and his secretary, “terrible Bruyevich”.
My information about these people was quite varied, because, due to my somewhat exceptional marital status, at that time I moved in two opposite circles of Oryol society. According to my father, who came from a clergy, I visited some of the Oryol clergy and sometimes went on holidays to the monastery settlement, where proteges and subordinates languishing in the expectation of the “sovereign court” lived. Among relatives on my mother’s side, who belonged to the then provincial “light,” I saw the governor, Prince Pyotr Ivanovich Trubetskoy, who could not stand Smaragd and found insatiable pleasure everywhere to scold him. Prince Trubetskoy constantly called Smaragd nothing more than a "goat", and Smaragd, in retaliation, called the prince a "rooster".
Subsequently, I noticed many times that many generals like to call bishops "goats", and the bishops also, in turn, call the generals "roosters".
It's probably the way it should be for some reason.
Governor Prince Trubetskoy and Bishop Smaragd disliked each other from the first meeting and considered it a duty to be at enmity with each other throughout their joint service in Orel, where on this occasion there were many stories about their quarrels and bickering, for the most part, however, or completely incorrect , or at least greatly exaggerated. Such, for example, is the anecdote told everywhere with undoubted authenticity about how Bishop Smaragd allegedly walked with banners to the sound of bells on the way out to visit a priest taken by order of Prince Trubetskoy to the unit on a night round while this priest was walking with a monstrance to the sick .
Nikolay Leskov
Trivia of Bishop's Life
(Pictures from nature)
There is not a single state in which there would not be excellent men of every kind, but, unfortunately, each person seems to his own gaze of the greatest importance to be an object.
("People's Pride", Moscow, 1788)
Preface to the first edition
During 1878, the Russian press reported a lot of interesting and characteristic anecdotes about some of our bishops. A significant proportion of these stories are so incredible that a person unfamiliar with diocesan practice could easily mistake them for fiction; but for people familiar with the clear life, they have a completely different meaning. There is no doubt that these are not someone's fabrications, but the real, living truth, written off from nature, and, moreover, by no means with an evil purpose.
Knowledgeable people know that among our "lords" spontaneity has never been impoverished - this is not subject to the slightest doubt, and from this point of view the stories did not reveal anything new, but it is annoying that they stopped, showing, as if deliberately, only one side these interesting morals, developed under the special conditions of the original exclusivity of the position of the Russian bishop, and hid many other aspects of hierarchal life.
It is impossible to agree that all the strange things that are told about the bishops are arbitrarily inflated by them, and I want to try to say something in protection our bishops, who find no other defenders for themselves, except for narrow and one-sided people who regard any speech about bishops as an insult to their dignity.
From my everyday experience, I have had the opportunity more than once to be convinced that our rulers, and even the most direct of them, in their originality, are by no means so insensitive and inaccessible to the influences of society, as correspondents represent. I want to say something about this, in order to take away from some denunciations their obvious one-sidedness, which directly blames the whole matter on the rulers alone and does not pay the slightest attention to their position and to the attitude of society itself towards them. In my opinion, our society must bear at least a fraction of the reproaches addressed to the bishops.
No matter how paradoxical this may seem to anyone, however, I ask for attention to those examples that I will give as proof of my positions.
Chapter first
The first Russian bishop I knew was Orlovsky - Nicodemus. In our house they began to mention his name on the occasion that he handed over the son of my father's poor sister as a recruit. My father, a man of decisive and courageous character, went to him and dealt with him very severely in his own bishop's house... This had no further consequences.
In our house, the black clergy in general, and the bishops in particular, were not liked. I was simply afraid of them, probably because for a long time I remembered my father’s terrible anger at Nikodim and the assurance of my nurse that frightened me that “the bishops crucified Christ.” I was taught to love Christ since childhood.
The first bishop I knew personally was Smaragd Krizhanovsky during his administration of the Oryol diocese.
This memory refers to the earliest years of my adolescence, when I, studying at the Oryol gymnasium, constantly heard stories about the deeds of this lord and his secretary, "terrible Bruyevich."
My information about these people was quite varied, because, due to my somewhat exceptional marital status, at that time I moved in two opposite circles of Oryol society. According to my father, who came from a clergy, I visited some of the Oryol clergy and sometimes went on holidays to the monastery settlement, where proteges and subordinates, languishing in the expectation of the "sovereign court", lived. Among relatives on my mother’s side, who belonged to the then provincial “light”, I saw the governor, Prince Pyotr Ivanovich Trubetskoy, who could not stand Smaragd and found insatiable pleasure everywhere to scold him. Prince Trubetskoy constantly called Smaragd nothing more than a "goat", and Smaragd, in retaliation, called the prince a "rooster".
Subsequently, I noticed many times that many generals like to call bishops "goats", and the bishops also, in turn, call the generals "roosters."
It's probably the way it should be for some reason.
Governor Prince Trubetskoy and Bishop Smaragd disliked each other from the first meeting and considered it a duty to be at enmity with each other throughout their joint service in Orel, where on this occasion there were many stories about their quarrels and bickering, for the most part, however, or completely incorrect , or at least greatly exaggerated. Such, for example, is the anecdote told everywhere with undoubted authenticity about how Bishop Smaragd allegedly walked with banners to the sound of bells on the way out to visit a priest taken by order of Prince Trubetskoy to the unit on a night round while this priest was walking with a monstrance to the sick .
In fact, there was no such incident in Orel at all. Many say that it was supposedly in Saratov or Ryazan, where Bishop Smaragd also episcopated and also quarreled, but it is not surprising that this was not there either. One thing is certain, that Smaragd could not stand Prince Pyotr Ivanovich Trubetskoy and even more so his wife, Princess Trubetskoy, nee Wittgenstein, whom he, it seems, not without reason, called "the boisterous German." Smaragd showed remarkable rudeness to this energetic lady, including once in my presence he made such a sharp and insulting remark to her in church that it horrified the Orlovites. But the princess demolished and could not answer Smaragda.
Bishop Smaragd was an irritable and harsh man, and if the anecdotes about his quarrels with the governors are not always factually true, then all of them in their very work correctly depict the character of the quarreling dignitaries and the public idea of them. Prince Pyotr Ivanovich Trubetskoy in all these anecdotes appears to be an arrogant, petty and tactless person. It was said about him that he was "cockereling" - puffing up his feathers and kicking with a spur at anything, and the late Smaragd "goat". He acted with a calculation: he used to look at the cockerel for some time and not even shake his beard, but if he were to be careful and step out of the fence, he would butt him at that very moment and throw him back on his perch.
Nikolay Leskov Trivia of Bishop's Life (Pictures from nature)
There is not a single state in which there would not be excellent men of every kind, but, unfortunately, each person seems to his own gaze of the greatest importance to be an object.
("People's Pride", Moscow, 1788)
Preface to the first edition
During 1878, the Russian press reported a lot of interesting and characteristic anecdotes about some of our bishops. A significant proportion of these stories are so incredible that a person unfamiliar with diocesan practice could easily mistake them for fiction; but for people familiar with the clear life, they have a completely different meaning. There is no doubt that these are not someone's fabrications, but the real, living truth, written off from nature, and, moreover, by no means with an evil purpose.
Knowledgeable people know that among our "lords" spontaneity has never been impoverished - this is not subject to the slightest doubt, and from this point of view the stories did not reveal anything new, but it is annoying that they stopped, showing, as if deliberately, only one side these interesting morals, developed under the special conditions of the original exclusivity of the position of the Russian bishop, and hid many other aspects of hierarchal life.
It is impossible to agree that all the strange things that are told about the bishops are arbitrarily inflated by them, and I want to try to say something in protection our bishops, who find no other defenders for themselves, except for narrow and one-sided people who regard any speech about bishops as an insult to their dignity.
From my everyday experience, I have had the opportunity more than once to be convinced that our rulers, and even the most direct of them, in their originality, are by no means so insensitive and inaccessible to the influences of society, as correspondents represent. I want to say something about this, in order to take away from some denunciations their obvious one-sidedness, which directly blames the whole matter on the rulers alone and does not pay the slightest attention to their position and to the attitude of society itself towards them. In my opinion, our society must bear at least a fraction of the reproaches addressed to the bishops.
No matter how paradoxical this may seem to anyone, however, I ask for attention to those examples that I will give as proof of my positions.
Chapter first
The first Russian bishop I knew was Orlovsky - Nicodemus. In our house they began to mention his name on the occasion that he handed over the son of my father's poor sister as a recruit. My father, a man of decisive and courageous character, went to him and dealt with him very severely in his own bishop's house... This had no further consequences.
In our house, the black clergy in general, and the bishops in particular, were not liked. I was simply afraid of them, probably because for a long time I remembered my father’s terrible anger at Nikodim and the assurance of my nurse that frightened me that “the bishops crucified Christ.” I was taught to love Christ since childhood.
The first bishop I knew personally was Smaragd Krizhanovsky during his administration of the Oryol diocese.
This memory refers to the earliest years of my adolescence, when I, studying at the Oryol gymnasium, constantly heard stories about the deeds of this lord and his secretary, "terrible Bruyevich."
My information about these people was quite varied, because, due to my somewhat exceptional marital status, at that time I moved in two opposite circles of Oryol society. According to my father, who came from a clergy, I visited some of the Oryol clergy and sometimes went on holidays to the monastery settlement, where proteges and subordinates, languishing in the expectation of the "sovereign court", lived. Among relatives on my mother’s side, who belonged to the then provincial “light”, I saw the governor, Prince Pyotr Ivanovich Trubetskoy, who could not stand Smaragd and found insatiable pleasure everywhere to scold him. Prince Trubetskoy constantly called Smaragd nothing more than a "goat", and Smaragd, in retaliation, called the prince a "rooster".
Subsequently, I noticed many times that many generals like to call bishops "goats", and the bishops also, in turn, call the generals "roosters."
It's probably the way it should be for some reason.
Governor Prince Trubetskoy and Bishop Smaragd disliked each other from the first meeting and considered it a duty to be at enmity with each other throughout their joint service in Orel, where on this occasion there were many stories about their quarrels and bickering, for the most part, however, or completely incorrect , or at least greatly exaggerated. Such, for example, is the anecdote told everywhere with undoubted authenticity about how Bishop Smaragd allegedly walked with banners to the sound of bells on the way out to visit a priest taken by order of Prince Trubetskoy to the unit on a night round while this priest was walking with a monstrance to the sick .
In fact, there was no such incident in Orel at all. Many say that it was supposedly in Saratov or Ryazan, where Bishop Smaragd also episcopated and also quarreled, but it is not surprising that this was not there either. One thing is certain, that Smaragd could not stand Prince Pyotr Ivanovich Trubetskoy and even more so his wife, Princess Trubetskoy, nee Wittgenstein, whom he, it seems, not without reason, called "the boisterous German." Smaragd showed remarkable rudeness to this energetic lady, including once in my presence he made such a sharp and insulting remark to her in church that it horrified the Orlovites. But the princess demolished and could not answer Smaragda.
Bishop Smaragd was an irritable and harsh man, and if the anecdotes about his quarrels with the governors are not always factually true, then all of them in their very work correctly depict the character of the quarreling dignitaries and the public idea of them. Prince Pyotr Ivanovich Trubetskoy in all these anecdotes appears to be an arrogant, petty and tactless person. It was said about him that he was "cockereling" - puffing up his feathers and kicking with a spur at anything, and the late Smaragd "goat". He acted with a calculation: he used to look at the cockerel for some time and not even shake his beard, but if he were to be careful and step out of the fence, he would butt him at that very moment and throw him back on his perch.
In the circles of the Oryol society, which did not like either Prince Trubetskoy or Bishop Smaragd, the latter still enjoyed the best attention. At least his intelligence and his "irrepressibility" were appreciated in him. They said about him:
- A tomboy and a fine fellow - he is not afraid of God, nor is he ashamed of people.
Such people acquire authority in Russian society, the legitimacy of which I do not intend to dispute, but I have reason to think that the late Oryol impudent bishop is hardly in fact "neither afraid of God, nor people ashamed."
Of course, if you look at this lord from a general point of view, then, perhaps, such authority can be recognized behind him; but if you look at him from the side of some trifles, which very often elude general attention, it will turn out that Smaragd was not alien to the ability to be ashamed of people, and perhaps even to fear God.
Here are examples of this, which, probably, are completely unknown to some, and perhaps still forgotten by others.
Now I will first introduce the readers to the original person from the Oryol old-timers, who was extremely afraid of the “irrepressible Smaragd”.
At the very time when they lived and fought in Orel, Prince. P. I. Trubetskoy and Bishop Smaragd, in the same place in this “long-suffering Orel”, in a small gray house on Poleshskaya Square, retired Major Alexander Khristianovich Shultz lived not very long ago. Everyone in Orel knew him and everyone called him with the title "Major Schultz", although he never wore a military dress and some of his very majorship seemed a little "apocryphal". Where he came from and who he was, hardly anyone knew with complete certainty. Joking people even dared to assert that "Major Schultz" is the eternal Jew Ahasuerus or another, equally mysterious, but meaningful person.
N.S. Leskov
Trivia of Bishop's Life
(Pictures from nature)
There is not a single state in which
There were excellent men in every kind, but, to
Regret, every man own his own sight
The greatest importance seems to be a subject.
("People's Pride". Moscow, 1783)
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION
During 1878, the Russian press reported a lot of interesting and characteristic anecdotes about some of our bishops. A significant proportion of these stories are so incredible that a person unfamiliar with diocesan practice could easily mistake them for fiction; but for people familiar with the clear life, they have a completely different meaning. There is no doubt that these are not someone's fabrications, but the real, living truth, written off from nature, and, moreover, by no means with an evil purpose.
Knowledgeable people know that among our "lords" spontaneity has never been impoverished - this is not subject to the slightest doubt, and from this point of view, the stories did not reveal anything new; but it is regrettable that they stopped, showing, as if deliberately, only one side of these interesting morals, developed under the special conditions of the original exclusivity of the position of the Russian bishop, and hid many other aspects of the life of a bishop.
It is impossible to agree that all the strange things that are told about the bishops are arbitrarily inflated by them, and I want to try to say something in _defence_ of our bishops, who find no other defenders for themselves, except for narrow and one-sided people who consider any speech about bishops to be an insult to their dignity.
From my everyday experience, I have had the opportunity more than once to be convinced that our rulers, and even the most direct of them, in their originality, are by no means so insensitive and inaccessible to the influences of society, as correspondents represent. I want to say something about this, in order to take away from some denunciations their obvious one-sidedness, which directly blames the whole matter on the rulers alone and does not pay the slightest attention to their position and to the attitude of society itself towards them. In my opinion, our society must bear at least a fraction of the reproaches addressed to the bishops.
No matter how paradoxical this may seem to someone, however, I ask for attention to those examples that I will cite as proof of my delusions.
CHAPTER FIRST
The first Russian bishop I knew was Orlovsky - Nicodemus. In our house they began to mention his name on the occasion that he handed over the son of my father's poor sister as a recruit. My father, a man of decisive and courageous chauffeur, went to him and dealt with him very severely in his own bishop's house... This had no further consequences.
In the past, we did not like the black clergy in general, and bishops in particular. I was simply afraid of them, probably because for a long time I remembered my father's terrible anger at Nikodim and my nurse's assurance, which frightened me, that "the priests had crucified Christ." I was taught to love Christ since childhood.
The first bishop I knew personally was Smaragd Krizhanovsky during his administration of the Oryol diocese.
This memory refers to the earliest years of my adolescence, when I, studying at the Oryol gymnasium, constantly heard stories about the deeds of this lord and his secretary, "terrible Bruyevich."
My information about these persons was rather vague, because, due to my somewhat exceptional marital status, at that time I moved in two opposite circles of Oryol society. According to my father, who came from a spiritual rank, I visited some of the Oryol spiritualists and sometimes went on holidays to the monastery settlement, where henchmen and subordinates languishing in the expectation of "sovereign judgment" lived. Among relatives on my mother's side, who belonged to the then provincial "light", I saw the governor, Prince Pyotr Ivanovich Trubetskoy, who could not stand Smaragd and found it an insatiable pleasure to scold him everywhere. Prince Trubetskoy constantly called Smaragd nothing more than a "goat", and Smaragd, in retaliation, called the prince a "rooster".
Subsequently, I noticed many times that many generals like to call bishops "goats", and the bishops also, in turn, call the generals "roosters".
It's probably the way it should be for some reason.
Governor Prince Trubetskoy and Bishop Smaragd disliked each other from the first meeting and considered it their duty to fight between the battles throughout their joint service in Orel, where on this occasion there were many stories about their quarrels and bickering, for the most part, however, or completely incorrect , or at least greatly exaggerated. Such, for example, is the anecdote told everywhere with undoubted authenticity about how Bishop Smaragd allegedly walked with banners to the sound of bells on the convoy to visit a priest taken by order of Prince Trubetskoy to the unit on a night round while this priest was walking with a monstrance to the sick .
In fact, there was no such incident in Orel at all. Many say that it was supposedly in Saratov or Ryazan, where Bishop Smaragd also episcopated and also quarreled, but it is not surprising that this was not there either. One thing is certain, that Smaragd could not stand Prince Peter Ivanovich Toubetsky and even more so his wife, Princess Trubetskoy, born Wittgenstein, whom he, it seems, not without reason, called "the boisterous German." Smaragd showed remarkable rudeness to this energetic lady, and once in my presence he made such a sharp and insulting remark to her in church that it horrified the Orlovites. But the princess demolished and could not answer Smaragda.
Bishop Smaragd was an irritable and harsh man, and if the anecdotes about his quarrels with the governors are not always factually true, then all of them in their very composition correctly depict the character of the quarreling bosses and the public idea of them. Prince Pyotr Ivanovich Trubetskoy in all these anecdotes appears to be an arrogant, arrogant and tactless person. It was said about him that he was "cockereling" - puffing up his feathers and kicking with a spur at anything, and the late Smaragd "goat". He acted with a calculation: he used to look at the cockerel for a while and not even shake his beard, but if he were to be careful and step out of the fence, he would immediately butt him and throw him back on his perch.
In the circles of the Oryol society, which did not like either Prince Trubetskoy or Bishop Smaragd, the latter still enjoyed the best attention. In him, at least his mind and his "irrepressibility" were appreciated. They said about him:
A tomboy and a fine fellow - he is not afraid of God, he is not ashamed of people.
Such people acquire authority in Russian society, the legitimacy of which I do not intend to dispute, but I have reason to think that the late Oryol impudent bishop is hardly in fact "neither afraid of God, nor people ashamed."
Of course, if you look at this lord from a general point of view, then, perhaps, such authority can be recognized behind him; but if you look at him from the side of some little things that very often escape general attention, it turns out that Smaragd was not alien to the ability to be ashamed of people, and maybe even to be afraid of God.
Here are examples that are probably completely unknown to some, and perhaps still forgotten by others.
Now I will first introduce to the readers the original man from the Oryol old-timers, who was extremely afraid of the "irrepressible Smaragd".
At the very time when they lived and fought in Orel, Prince. P. I. Trubetskoy and Bishop Smaragd, in the same place, in this "long-suffering Orel", in a small gray house on Poleshskaya Square, retired Major Alexander Khristianovich Shultz lived not too long ago. Everyone in Orel knew him and everyone called him with the title: "Major Schultz", although he never wore a military dress and some of his very majorship seemed a little "apocryphal". Where he came from and who he was - hardly anyone knew with complete certainty. Joking people even dared to assert that "Major Schultz" is the eternal Jew Ahasuerus or another, equally mysterious, but meaningful person.
Alexander Khristianovich Schultz ever since I remember him - and I remember him from my childhood - was an old man, lean, slightly hunched, rather tall, strong build, with a lot of gray hair in his hair, with a thick, very pleasant mustache, covering his completely toothless mouth, and with shining, sparkling gray eyes in regular eyelids, lined with long and thick dark eyelashes. People who saw him shortly before his death say that this is how he died. He was a very clever man and even more so - very pleasant, always cheerful, always free, a skillful storyteller and a leisurely joker, who sometimes knew how to deftly confuse confusion and unravel it even more adroitly. Not only was he a benevolent person, but he also did a lot of good. The official position of Schultz in Orel was expressed by the fact that he was the permanent foreman of the noble club. He did not occupy any other place and lived by no one knows what, but he lived very well. His small apartment was always furnished with taste, on a bachelor's foot; he was always visited by some visiting nobleman; appetizers in his house were always served plentiful, both with him and without him. Vasily, a very intelligent and polite man, was in charge of his house, and he had the most faithful devotion to his master. There were no women in the house, although the late Schultz was a great lover of the female sex and, in the words of Vasily, "frightfully followed this subject."
He lived, as some thought, with cards, that is, he led a constant card game in the club and at home; according to others, he lived thanks to the tender care of his rich friends Kireevsky. It is much easier to believe the latter, especially since Alexander Khristianovich knew how to make himself love very sincerely. Schultz was a very compassionate person and did not forget the commandment "to acquire friends from the mammon of untruth." So, at a time when there were no creatures in Orel yet
Page 1 of 28
Nikolay Leskov
Trivia of Bishop's Life
(Pictures from nature)
There is not a single state in which there would not be excellent men of every kind, but, unfortunately, each person seems to his own gaze of the greatest importance to be an object.
("People's Pride", Moscow, 1788)
Preface to the first edition
During 1878, the Russian press reported a lot of interesting and characteristic anecdotes about some of our bishops. A significant proportion of these stories are so incredible that a person unfamiliar with diocesan practice could easily mistake them for fiction; but for people familiar with the clear life, they have a completely different meaning. There is no doubt that these are not someone's fabrications, but the real, living truth, written off from nature, and, moreover, by no means with an evil purpose.
Knowledgeable people know that among our "lords" spontaneity has never been impoverished - this is not subject to the slightest doubt, and from this point of view the stories did not reveal anything new, but it is annoying that they stopped, showing, as if deliberately, only one side these interesting morals, developed under the special conditions of the original exclusivity of the position of the Russian bishop, and hid many other aspects of hierarchal life.
It is impossible to agree that all the strange things that are told about the bishops are arbitrarily inflated by them, and I want to try to say something in protection our bishops, who find no other defenders for themselves, except for narrow and one-sided people who regard any speech about bishops as an insult to their dignity.
From my everyday experience, I have had the opportunity more than once to be convinced that our rulers, and even the most direct of them, in their originality, are by no means so insensitive and inaccessible to the influences of society, as correspondents represent. I want to say something about this, in order to take away from some denunciations their obvious one-sidedness, which directly blames the whole matter on the rulers alone and does not pay the slightest attention to their position and to the attitude of society itself towards them. In my opinion, our society must bear at least a fraction of the reproaches addressed to the bishops.
No matter how paradoxical this may seem to anyone, however, I ask for attention to those examples that I will give as proof of my positions.
Chapter first
The first Russian bishop I knew was Orlovsky - Nicodemus. In our house they began to mention his name on the occasion that he handed over the son of my father's poor sister as a recruit. My father, a man of decisive and courageous character, went to him and dealt with him very severely in his own bishop's house... This had no further consequences.
In our house, the black clergy in general, and the bishops in particular, were not liked. I was simply afraid of them, probably because for a long time I remembered my father’s terrible anger at Nikodim and the assurance of my nurse that frightened me that “the bishops crucified Christ.” I was taught to love Christ since childhood.
The first bishop I knew personally was Smaragd Krizhanovsky during his administration of the Oryol diocese.
This memory refers to the earliest years of my adolescence, when I, studying at the Oryol gymnasium, constantly heard stories about the deeds of this lord and his secretary, "terrible Bruyevich."
My information about these people was quite varied, because, due to my somewhat exceptional marital status, at that time I moved in two opposite circles of Oryol society. According to my father, who came from a clergy, I visited some of the Oryol clergy and sometimes went on holidays to the monastery settlement, where proteges and subordinates, languishing in the expectation of the "sovereign court", lived. Among relatives on my mother’s side, who belonged to the then provincial “light”, I saw the governor, Prince Pyotr Ivanovich Trubetskoy, who could not stand Smaragd and found insatiable pleasure everywhere to scold him. Prince Trubetskoy constantly called Smaragd nothing more than a "goat", and Smaragd, in retaliation, called the prince a "rooster".
Subsequently, I noticed many times that many generals like to call bishops "goats", and the bishops also, in turn, call the generals "roosters."
It's probably the way it should be for some reason.
Governor Prince Trubetskoy and Bishop Smaragd disliked each other from the first meeting and considered it a duty to be at enmity with each other throughout their joint service in Orel, where on this occasion there were many stories about their quarrels and bickering, for the most part, however, or completely incorrect , or at least greatly exaggerated. Such, for example, is the anecdote told everywhere with undoubted authenticity about how Bishop Smaragd allegedly walked with banners to the sound of bells on the way out to visit a priest taken by order of Prince Trubetskoy to the unit on a night round while this priest was walking with a monstrance to the sick .
In fact, there was no such incident in Orel at all. Many say that it was supposedly in Saratov or Ryazan, where Bishop Smaragd also episcopated and also quarreled, but it is not surprising that this was not there either. One thing is certain, that Smaragd could not stand Prince Pyotr Ivanovich Trubetskoy and even more so his wife, Princess Trubetskoy, nee Wittgenstein, whom he, it seems, not without reason, called "the boisterous German." Smaragd showed remarkable rudeness to this energetic lady, including once in my presence he made such a sharp and insulting remark to her in church that it horrified the Orlovites. But the princess demolished and could not answer Smaragda.
Bishop Smaragd was an irritable and harsh man, and if the anecdotes about his quarrels with the governors are not always factually true, then all of them in their very work correctly depict the character of the quarreling dignitaries and the public idea of them. Prince Pyotr Ivanovich Trubetskoy in all these anecdotes appears to be an arrogant, petty and tactless person. It was said about him that he was "cockereling" - puffing up his feathers and kicking with a spur at anything, and the late Smaragd "goat". He acted with a calculation: he used to look at the cockerel for some time and not even shake his beard, but if he were to be careful and step out of the fence, he would butt him at that very moment and throw him back on his perch.
In the circles of the Oryol society, which did not like either Prince Trubetskoy or Bishop Smaragd, the latter still enjoyed the best attention. At least his intelligence and his "irrepressibility" were appreciated in him. They said about him:
- A tomboy and a fine fellow - he is not afraid of God, nor is he ashamed of people.
Such people acquire authority in Russian society, the legitimacy of which I do not intend to dispute, but I have reason to think that the late Oryol impudent bishop is hardly in fact "neither afraid of God, nor people ashamed."
Of course, if you look at this lord from a general point of view, then, perhaps, such authority can be recognized behind him; but if you look at him from the side of some trifles, which very often elude general attention, it will turn out that Smaragd was not alien to the ability to be ashamed of people, and perhaps even to fear God.
Here are examples of this, which, probably, are completely unknown to some, and perhaps still forgotten by others.
Now I will first introduce the readers to the original person from the Oryol old-timers, who was extremely afraid of the “irrepressible Smaragd”.
At the very time when they lived and fought in Orel, Prince. P. I. Trubetskoy and Bishop Smaragd, in the same place in this “long-suffering Orel”, in a small gray house on Poleshskaya Square, retired Major Alexander Khristianovich Shultz lived not very long ago. Everyone in Orel knew him and everyone called him with the title "Major Schultz", although he never wore a military dress and some of his very majorship seemed a little "apocryphal". Where he came from and who he was, hardly anyone knew with complete certainty. Joking people even dared to assert that "Major Schultz" is the eternal Jew Ahasuerus or another, equally mysterious, but meaningful person.
Alexander Khristianovich Schultz ever since I remember him - and I remember him from my childhood - was an old man, lean, slightly hunched, rather tall, strong build, with a lot of gray hair in his hair, with a thick, very pleasant mustache, covering his completely toothless mouth, and with shining, sparkling gray eyes in regular eyelids, covered with long and thick dark eyelashes. People who saw him shortly before his death say that this is how he died. He was a very clever man and even more so - very pleasant, always cheerful, always free, a skillful storyteller and a leisurely joker, who sometimes knew how to deftly confuse confusion and unravel it even more adroitly. Not only was he a benevolent person, but he also did a lot of good. The official position of Schultz in Orel was expressed by the fact that he was the permanent foreman of the noble club. He did not occupy any other place and lived by no one knows what, but he lived very well. His small apartment was always furnished with taste, on a bachelor's foot; he was always visited by some visiting nobleman; appetizer in his house was always served plentiful, both with him and without him. Vasily, a very intelligent and polite man, was in charge of his house, and he had the most faithful devotion to his master. There were no women in the house, although the late Schultz was a great lover of the female sex and, in the words of Vasily, "frightfully followed this subject."
