The gatekeeper paused a little, and once again coughed, answered:
“Mother is such a thing, they threw the baby to us in turn, where to put it then?”
They were delivered outside the door. Heavy footsteps and creak of floorboards were heard, the door clanging open with a hook and in the doorway slightly illuminated by a lamp light from the far corner of the room, a portly figure of a woman in monastic vestments was drawn.
Looking fearfully at the puny figure of the old man and carrying in his hand, she waved her hand, as if inviting to enter, silently turned and moved into the depths of the room.
Pantelei followed, dragged the burden to the middle of the cell and set the basket on the floor, at the feet of the abbess. He stomped a little, groaned and walked a few steps back to the door, where he stood silently, waiting for further instructions.
Silence fell in the room, from time to time disturbed by a slight snapping of the knuckles of the rosary, which the nun’s fingers habitually fingered. The silence dragged on, the abbess was obviously thinking something.
The watchman, shifting from foot to foot, coughed slightly, which brought the nun out of his reverie. She threw a sidelong glance at him and ordered not taking the baby out, to swaddle slightly and see what was between the legs of the child.
Pantelei was lively enough for his age, he obeyed the order, put his hand under the baby, raised it and lightly shook the rags into which he was wrapped, looked at the indicated place, then grunted reported:
– Malets, mother, peasant rank means.
The abbess, silently listened to the report, then moved to a corner where the lamp did not burn brightly, illuminating the faces on the icons, and began to whisper prayers softly. After reading some canon, Pantelei did not very well understand the intricacies of Tauly Savior, Toli of the Mother of God, having finished rustling her lips, the nun finally turned and ordered to bring her sister Martha, the key keeper and counselor of the Mother Superior.
After some time, Martha’s sister, skinny and tall as a pole, appeared in Pantele’s cell, Pantelei loomed behind her.
“Pantelei, what are you hanging around here, go to your place, you have already done your job, brought us a present.”
Grumbled not quite abbess. He muttered something under his breath, reluctantly turned around, and shuffled along the corridor. After waiting for the watchman’s figure to disappear, she turned with some irony to Martha.
– Well, that sister in Christ, admire the next present.
And she waved her hand toward the bench behind her. Martha went to the shop on which the basket with the baby stood, cast a glance at the basket with the contents, and without saying a word stared at the abbess, waiting for the continuation, she knowing her mentor, understood that she had already decided everything.
– Tell me Marfush, how are you doing with the noblewoman Vasilisa, how is she feeling?
“The noblewoman is weak, and all the tears are pouring, she is sad that not the heir was born, but the next daughter.”
Reported to her boss Martha, she in this monastery knew everything or almost everything and everyone, it was not in vain that she was the right hand of the abbess.
“Sad, you say, that’s good.”
The Mother Superior spoke in thought. There was silence in the room, the abbess went deeper into thought, on her usually calm and domineering face, now shadows of doubt were running through, reflecting some internal thought process, careful consideration of a complex decision.
– You’re here, Marfusha, take the baby to the sisters that they took birth, let them take care, and let no one else know, and let them not talk about how the birth went and who was born.
Yes, and Panteleya warn you to keep your mouth shut, and tell him, he’ll chat, I’ll drive him out, do you understand everything?
She nodded her head, grabbed the basket with the baby, and left the cell, closing the door to the room behind her. The abbess knelt before the icons, and while baptized she whispered the words of prayer.
What Mother Anthony had planned before carrying out, required prayer, otherwise she would be tormented by doubt in her soul, and it would interfere with her plan, she knew from experience, and she was always guided by the rule, so long as there are doubts, do not start a business.
Chapter Two Foundling
Well, what are these nuns cunning. They took and fused a baby to an aunt of some kind, I began to get used to these aunts in robes, and they just gave me the first comer, and that order me to think about these, to put it mildly, inadequacies.
Yes, women once again showed me what faithful creatures they are. For several days they pestered me with their attention and can be said with love, but then they took me and gave everyone a universal pet an incomprehensible whisper, but to me on the drum that she was a high-born noblewoman, almost from Rurik, great… great… great… great-granddaughter, I just don’t want to, out of principle and out of harm, you God’s brides asked me or inquired about my opinion before giving me away to no one. Well, so what, that I don’t have anything, as they say, with a big tail, not old. As long as a sinless baby, but at the same time I have my own opinion.
Well, who are they after that, how many times have you been convinced that you can’t believe the women, now my experience has been exacerbated, now I won’t believe the women in the cassocks.
Here on this my thought has once again, in recent times, entered the clinch. I’m fifty years old and conscious, and at the same time, I’m really, a baby wrapped in diapers so that my mother doesn’t cry, and who doesn’t dare to blather a word, for objective reasons, namely, I just don’t know how to say it, firstly, but secondly, I always had a gag in my mouth in the form of a rag with some sticky muck, but what for it asks me to constantly shove it in my mouth, although from the third day, instead of this rag, which this aunt gave me to me, my chest in my mouth shoves.
And nothing like that, milk will be more delicious, that rag. But how did it happen that I’m an adult and you can say the old uncle, now I’m specifically cradling in the arms of a woman who, purring something, once again thrust her breast into me, and I smack her milk with her smack.
Well, nonsense, but if it was the nonsense of the patient of the yellow house, then it would be understandable and understandable, and therefore my brain would not fall into the clinch periodically, from situevina in any way impossible in real life, and under no circumstances, but nonetheless absolutely real.
All right, clinch, clinch, but to live or survive, as you like, everything is the same. Although it’s not very clear how to live an infant with adult consciousness or how to live an adult consciousness in the infant’s body. The dilemma, however, of tfu, has philosophized. This my friend is not a dilemma, but the realities of life, you know. But this is only half the trouble, although how to calculate this trouble in percentage terms is not very clear, well, okay, someone was distracted.
The only good thing about my current state is that no one bothers to think. All the last time, as soon as I realized myself in a new capacity, one thought haunted me, how did I manage to get into such a thing, and in general I am it or someone else.
And the second half of the question seemed more important, the keenest interest was that I was still the same, only of small sizes, or it wasn’t me physically, but my mind was hooked into the baby’s body.
Well, I did not believe, with all my rational mind, in the transmigration of souls from one body to another, and there were good, again rational considerations. Namely, a person is born where the keyword is born, somehow simultaneously with his only body and his only inherent consciousness at the same time and together, and, therefore, there is no Other body for his consciousness, since