CHAPTER II

Porfiry Vladimirych's hopes were not realized. First occurred the catastrophe with Petenka, then Arina Petrovna's death. And there was no possibility in sight of his extricating himself by means of some ugly machinations. He could not dismiss Yevpraksia for dissolute conduct, because Arina Petrovna had carried the affair too far and made it too widely known. Nor was Ulita so very reliable. Dexterous woman though she was, yet if he put his trust in her, he might have to deal with the coroner. For the first time in his life Yudushka seriously and sincerely regretted his loneliness; for the first time he realized vaguely that the people around him were not mere pawns to be played with.

"Why didn't she wait a while to die?" Yudushka reproached his mother dear. "She should have fixed it all up quietly and with good sense, and then--as she pleased! If it's time to die--you can't help it. I am sorry for the old woman. But if God wills it so, all our tears, and the doctors, and the cures, and all of us are naught before the power of God. The old woman lived long enough. She had her day--was herself a mistress all her life, and left her children a gentry estate. She lived to old age--well that's enough."

And as usual his idle mind, not used to dwell on a matter presenting practical obstacles, skipped to the easier topic that gave occasion to endless, unhampered verbiage.

"And to think how she died! Why, her death was worthy of a saint," he lied to himself, not knowing, though, whether he lied or spoke the truth. "Without ailment, without trouble--just so. She heaved a sigh, and before we knew it, she was no more. Oh, mother dear! And her smile, and the glow of her cheeks! Her hands placed together as if she wanted to confer a blessing. She shut her eyes and--good-by!"

But in the very heat of his sentimental babblings, something would suddenly prick him. That filthy business again. Fi, fi! "And really why didn't she wait a while! It was only a matter of a month or so, and now, look what she did!"

For some time he attempted to pretend ignorance, and answered Ulita's inquiries just as he had answered his mother's, "I don't know, I don't know anything."

But Ulita, an impudent woman, who had suddenly become conscious of her power, could not be dismissed like that.

"Do _I_ know? Have I brought this business on?" she cut him short. And then he realized that from that moment on the happy combination of the rôle of adulterer with the rôle of the unconcerned observer of the consequences of his adultery had become quite impossible.

Nearer and nearer came the disaster, inevitable, tangible. It pursued him relentlessly and--what was worst of all--it paralyzed his idle mind. He exerted all possible efforts to rid himself of the thought of the approaching calamity, to drown it in a torrent of idle words, but he succeeded only in part. He tried to hide behind the infallibility of the law of Providence and, as was his custom, turned it into a ball of thread which he could wind and unwind without end. There was the parable of the hair falling from a man's head, and the legend of the house built on sand; but just at the moment when his idle thoughts were about to roll down into a kind of mysterious abyss, when the endless winding of the ball seemed quite assured, a single word suddenly jumped out from the ambush and broke the thread. Alas! That one word was "adultery" and designated an act of which Yudushka did not wish to confess himself guilty even to himself.

When all his efforts to forget the disaster or to do away with it proved futile, when he realized at last that he was caught, his soul became filled with anguish. He walked back and forth in the room, thinking of nothing, and he felt that something inside of him trembled and ached. It was a check that his idle mind felt for the first time. Up to now, wherever his idle and empty imagination carried him, it always found boundless space, space that gave room to all possible kinds of combinations. Even the deaths of Volodka and Petka, even the death of Arina Petrovna had not baffled his flow of idle thoughts and words. Those were common, well recognized situations, met by well recognized, well established forms--requiems, funeral dinners, and the like. All this he had done in strict accordance with the custom and thus vindicated himself, so to speak, before the laws of man and Providence. But adultery--what was that? Why, that meant an arraignment of his entire life, the showing up of its inner sham. Though he had formerly been known as a pettifogger, even as a Bloodsucker, gossip had had so little legal background that he could safely retort, "Prove it!"

And now, all of a sudden--adulterer! A known, convicted adulterer. He had not even resorted to "measures," so great had been his confidence in Arina Petrovna; he had not even worked up a story to cover the thing. And on a Lenten day at that. The shame of it!

In these inner talks with himself, in spite of their confusion, there was something like an awakening of conscience. But the question was whether Yudushka would continue along that path or whether his idle mind would even in this grave matter perform its usual function of finding a loophole through which he could crawl out and emerge unscathed.

While Yudushka was thus smarting under his own mental vacuity, Yevpraksia was undergoing an unexpected inner change. Evidently the anticipation of motherhood untied the mental fetters that had hitherto held her bound. Up to that time she had been indifferent to everything and regarded Porfiry Vladimirych as a "master" in relation to whom she was a mere subordinate. Now, for the first time, she grasped a definite idea. It began to dawn on her that here was a state of affairs where she was the most important figure, and where she could not be driven about with impunity. As a consequence, even her face, usually blank and stolid, became lighted up and intelligent.

The death of Arina Petrovna had been the first fact in her semi-conscious life that produced a sobering effect upon her. No matter how peculiar the attitude of the old mistress to Yevpraksia's prospective motherhood was, still there were glimpses of sympathy in it and nothing of the disgusting evasiveness of Yudushka. So Yevpraksia had begun to see a protector in Arina Petrovna, as if expecting that some kind of attack was being planned against her. The forebodings of that attack were all the more persistent since they were not illuminated by consciousness, but merely filled the whole of her being with vague anxiety. Her mind was not vigorous enough to tell her definitely the point from which the attack would come and the form it would take; but her instincts had already been so aroused that the very sight of Yudushka filled her with an inexplicable fear. "Yes, that's where it will come from," reverberated in the inner chambers of her soul--from that coffin filled with dead dust, from that coffin she had so long been tending like a hireling, from that coffin which by some miracle had become the father and lord of _her_ child! The feeling this thought awakened in her was akin to hatred and would inevitably have passed into hatred had it not been diverted by the sympathy and interest of Arina Petrovna, who, by constant chatter, never gave Yevpraksia a chance to think.

But Arina Petrovna retired to Pogorelka, and then vanished entirely. The feeling of anxiety and uneasiness in Yevpraksia became still more intense.

The stillness in which the Golovliovo manor became engulfed was broken only by a rustle announcing that Yudushka was stealing through the corridors, listening at the doors. Or sometimes, some one of the servants would come running from the yard and bang the door of the maids' room. But then stillness would again creep in from all sides. It was a dead stillness that filled Yevpraksia's being with superstitions and anguish. And since she was nearing her time, she had not even the sleepy feeling to look forward to that came in the evening after a day of household chores.

She tried once or twice to be affectionate with Porfiry Vladimirych and engage his kindly sympathies. Her attempts only resulted in brief but mean scenes that reacted painfully even on her crude sensibilities. All that was left to her was to sit with her arms folded and think, that is, be alarmed. And as to the causes for alarm, they multiplied daily. The death of Arina Petrovna had untied Yudushka's hands and introduced into the Golovliovo manor a new element of tale-bearing, which thereafter became the one thing in which Yudushka's soul reveled.

Ulita was aware that Porfiry Vladimirych was afraid and that with his idle, empty, perfidious character fear bordered on hatred. Besides, she knew very well that he was incapable not only of attachment but even of simple pity, and he kept Yevpraksia only because, thanks to her, his daily life flowed on in an undeviating rut. Equipped with these simple data, Ulita was in a position to nurse the feeling of hatred that arose in Yudushka whenever he was reminded of the coming "disaster."

Soon Yevpraksia became entangled in a web of gossip. Ulita every now and then "reported" to the master. In one instance she complained about the wasteful disposal of house provisions.

"I am afraid, master, your stuff is spent a bit too fast. I went to the cellar a while ago to get cured beef. I remembered a new tub had been begun not long ago, and--would you believe it? I look into the tub and find only two or three slices at the bottom."

"Is it possible?" said Porfiry Vladimirych, staring at her.

"If I had not seen it myself, I shouldn't have believed it, either. It's surprising what heaps of stuff are used up! Butter, barley, pickles--everything. Other folk feed their servants on gruel and goose-fat, but our servants must have it with butter, and sweet butter at that."

"Is that so?" exclaimed Porfiry Vladimirych, almost frightened.

At another time she entered casually and "reported" about the master's linen.

"Master, I think you ought to stop Yevpraksia, really. Of course, she is a girl, inexperienced, but still, take the linen for instance. She wasted piles of it on bed sheets and swaddling clothes, and it's all fine linen, you know."

Porfiry Vladimirych merely cast a fiery glance, but the whole of his empty being was thrown into convulsions by her "report."

"Of course, she cares for her infant," continued Ulita, in a mellifluous voice. "She thinks Lord knows what, a prince is going to be born. And I think that he, I mean the infant, could well sleep on fustian bedding--with such a mother."

At times she simply teased Yudushka.

"Do you know, master, what I was going to ask you?" she began. "What are you going to do about the infant? Are you going to make him your son, or will you, like other folk, put him in the foundling asylum."

At this Porfiry Vladimirych flashed such a fierce glance at her that she was instantly silenced.

And amidst the hatred that was rising from every corner, the moment drew nearer and nearer when the appearance of a tiny, crying, "servant of God" would in one way or another bring order into the moral chaos of the Golovliovo manor, and would increase the number of the "servants of God" that inhabit this universe.

It was seven o'clock in the evening. Porfiry Vladimirych had had his after-dinner nap and was in his study filling up sheets of paper with columns of figures. He was busy with the following problem: How much money would he now have had, if his dear mother Arina Petrovna had not appropriated the hundred ruble note his grandfather had given him on the day of his birth, but had placed it in the bank to the credit of the minor Porfiry? It came out not much--only eight hundred rubles in notes.

"It isn't a lot of money, let's say," Yudushka mused idly, "but still it's good to know that you have it for a rainy day. Any time you need it--you can just go and get it. You don't have to bow to anybody, or ask favors--just take your own money, given to you by your grandfather. Oh, mother dear! How could you have acted so rashly?"

Porfiry Vladimirych had allayed the fears that had only recently paralyzed his capacity for thinking idle nonsense. The glimmerings of conscience awakened by the difficult position in which Yevpraksia's pregnancy put him, and by the sudden death of Arina Petrovna, little by little faded away. His idle mind had done its work, and Yudushka had finally succeeded by great effort, it is true, in drowning all thought of the impending "disaster" in his bottomless pit of verbiage. One could not say he had made up his mind consciously, but rather intuitively. It was instinct in him that made him revert to his favorite formula: "I don't know anything, I allow nothing, I forbid everything," which he applied in every difficulty. On this occasion, too, it put an end to the inner turbulence that had briefly agitated him.

Now, this matter of the coming birth was of no concern to him, and his face assumed an indifferent, impenetrable look. He almost ignored Yevpraksia, not even calling her by name. If ever he did inquire about her he would say, "How about that woman--still sick?" He proved to be so strong that eyen Ulita, who had been through the school of serfdom and had learned quite a lot about reading people's minds, realized that to battle with a man who had no scruples and who would go to any lengths was quite impossible.

The Golovliovo manor was plunged in darkness. Only Yudushka's study and the side room occupied by Yevpraksia were illuminated by a glimmering light. Stillness reigned in Yudushka's rooms, broken only by the rattle of the beads on the counting board and the faint squeak of Yudushka's pencil.

Suddenly, in the dead stillness he heard a distant but piercing groan. Yudushka trembled, his lips quivered, his pencil jerked.

"One hundred and twenty rubles plus twelve rubles and ten kopeks," whispered Porfiry Vladimirych, endeavoring to stifle the unpleasant sensation produced by the groan.

But the groans were now coming with increasing frequency. Finally they got to be annoying. It became so difficult for him to work that he left the desk. First he paced back and forth trying not to hear; but little by little curiosity gained the upper hand. He opened the door cautiously, put his head into the darkness of the adjacent room and listened in an attitude of watchful expectation.

"My, I think I forgot to light the lamp before the ikon of the Holy Virgin, the Assuager of Our Sorrows," flashed through his mind.

Suddenly he heard quick footsteps in the corridor, and he darted back into his study, cautiously closing the door and mincing on tiptoe to the ikon.

A moment later he was already in "proper form," so that when the door opened wide and Ulita rushed into the room, she found him in a pose of prayer with folded hands.

"I am afraid Yevpraksia's life is in danger," said Ulita, not hesitating to interrupt Yudushka's prayers. But Porfiry Vladimirych did not even turn his face; he began to move his lips faster than before, and instead of answering waved his hand in the air as if to chase away an annoying fly.

"What's the use of waving your hand? I say Yevpraksia is doing poorly. She may die any moment," Ulita insisted gruffly.

This time Yudushka turned toward her, but his face was as calm and unctuous as if he had just been in communion with the Deity, and had cast off all earthly cares, and did not even understand what could make people disturb him.

"Though it's sinful to chide after prayer, still as a human being I cannot keep from complaining. How many times have I not asked you not to disturb me when I say my prayers?" he said in a voice befitting his worshipful mood, and permitting himself only a shake of his head as a sign of Christian reproach. "Well, what has happened?"

"What could have happened? Yevpraksia is in labor and cannot give birth. As if you haven't heard it before. Oh, you! Go and look at her at least."

"What is there to look at? Am I a doctor? Can I give her advice, or what? I don't know anything, I don't know any of your business. I know there is a sick woman in the house, but why she is sick and what her sickness is, that, I confess, I never had the curiosity to find out. Send for the priest if the patient is in danger. That's one piece of advice I can give you. Send for the priest, pray with him, light the ikon lamps. And then I'll have tea with the parson."

Porfiry Vladimirych was glad that he expressed himself so well in this most decisive moment. He looked at Ulita firmly as if he meant to say, "Well refute me, if you can."

Even she was baffled by his equanimity. "Suppose you do come and take a look," she repeated.

"I will not go because I have nothing to do there. If it were business, I would go without being called. If I have to go five versts on business, I'll go five versts, and if ten versts, I'll go ten. It may be in wind and storm, but I'll go. For I know there is business to attend to and I've got to go whether I want to or not."

Ulita thought she was asleep and that in her sleep she saw Satan himself standing before her and discoursing.

"To send for the priest--that's business! A prayer--do you know what the Scriptures say about a prayer? 'A prayer cures the afflicted.' That's what it says. So see to it. Send for the priest, pray together, and I, too, will pray in the meantime. You will pray there, in the ikon room, and I will invoke God's mercy here in my study. By joint effort, you on one side, I on the other, we may after all succeed in making our prayers heard in Heaven."

The priest was sent for, but before he came, Yevpraksia, in agony, delivered herself of the child. From the hurried steps and banging doors, Porfiry Vladimirych understood that something decisive had happened. And, indeed, in a few minutes hurried steps were heard in the corridor, and Ulita rushed in holding a tiny creature wrapped up in linen.

"Here! Look at it!" she exclaimed triumphantly, bringing the child close to the face of Porfiry Vladimirych.

For a moment it looked as if Yudushka were hesitating. His body swayed forward and a bright spark flashed in his eyes. But only for a moment. The next instant he turned up his nose squeamishly and waved his hand.

"No, no! I am afraid. I don't like them. Go away, go away!" he began to stammer, with infinite aversion in his face.

"Why don't you at least ask if it's a boy or a girl?" Ulita pleaded with him.

"No, no! What for? It's none of my business. It's your affair, and I don't know anything. I don't know anything, and I don't want to know either. Go away, for Christ's sake, be gone!"

Again Ulita felt as though she were in a nightmare with Satan standing in front of her. It exasperated her.

"I'll take him and put him on your sofa. Go nurse him!" That was a threat.

But Yudushka was not the man to be moved. While Ulita was threatening, he was already facing the ikon, with hands stretched upward. Evidently he was imploring God to forgive all people, those who sinned knowingly, and those who sinned unknowingly; those who sinned in word and those who sinned in deed; and he thanked the Lord that he himself was not a sinner or an adulterer, and that the Lord in His grace had led him in the righteous path. Even his nose trembled with the solemnity of his feeling. Ulita observed him for some time, blew out her lips in disgust and left.

"God took one Volodka and gave another Volodka," flashed up in Yudushka's mind quite irrelevantly; but he at once became aware of this sudden play of thought and spat inwardly in annoyance.

Soon the priest came and chanted and burned incense. Yudushka heard the drawl of the sexton as he was chanting, "Oh, Zealous Protectress!" and gladly chimed in. Soon Ulita came running to the door again and shouted, "He was christened Volodimir!"

Yudushka was moved by the strange coincidence of this circumstance and his recent aberration of mind. He saw the will of God in it, and this time he did not spit, but said to himself:

"Well, then, thank God! He took one Volodka and gave another. That's what God can do. You lose something in one place and you think it's gone, but God, if He wishes, rewards you for it a hundredfold."

At last it was announced that the samovar was on the table and the priest was waiting in the dining-room. Porfiry Vladimirych became quite peaceful and solemn. The Golovliovo priest, Father Aleksandr, was a polite man, and he endeavored to give his intercourse with Yudushka a worldly tone. In the landlord's manor there were all-night vigils every week and on the eve of every principal holiday, in addition to the ceremonial services performed every first of the month. That meant an income of over a hundred rubles a year. Father Aleksandr was not unmindful of this, nor of the fact that the landmarks between the church lands and Yudushka's lands had not yet been settled upon, and Yudushka, on passing the church meadows, would many times exclaim, "My, what fine meadows!" So the priest's worldly behavior toward Yudushka was tempered by fear, which came out every time the priest visited the manor. He would work himself up into gay spirits, though he really had no occasion to feel happy. And when Porfiry Vladimirych gave expression to heresies concerning the ways of Providence, the after-life, and so forth, the priest, though not quite approving of the heresies, still did not consider them sacrilegious and blasphemous, but ascribed them to the temerity of spirit characteristic of the gentry.

When Yudushka entered, the priest hurriedly gave him his blessing and just as hurriedly pulled his hand back as if afraid the Bloodsucker would bite it. He wanted to congratulate his spiritual son on the birth of the new little Vladimir, but uncertain how Yudushka was taking the matter, he decided not to congratulate him.

"It's misty outdoors," the priest began. "By popular signs, in which one may say there seems to be a great deal of superstition, such a state of the atmosphere signifies that thawing weather is near."

"And maybe it will turn out to be a frost. We are foretelling thawing weather and God will go ahead and send us a frost," retorted Yudushka, with a bustling; air of gaiety, and seated himself at the table, this time attended by the butler Prokhor.

"It is true that man in his aspirations strives to attain the unattainable and to gain access to the inaccessible; and as a consequence he incurs cause for penance, or even veritable grief."

"That is why we ought to refrain from guessing and foretelling and be satisfied with what God sends us. If He sends us warm weather, we ought to be satisfied with warm weather; if He send us frost, let us welcome the frost. We'll order the stoves heated more than usual, and those who travel will wrap themselves tight in fur coats, and there you are--we're all warm."

"Quite true."

"There are many nowadays who go circling round. They don't like this and they are dissatisfied with that, and the other thing is not after their heart, but I don't approve. I don't make forecasts myself, and I don't care for it in others. It is haughtiness of spirit--that's what I call it."

"That's true, too."

"We are all pilgrims here, that's how I look at it. Well, as to having a glass of tea, or a light bite, or something, we are allowed to do that, for God gave us our body and limbs. Even the government would not forbid us that. 'You can eat, if you want to,' it says, 'but hold your tongue.'"

"Also perfectly true," exclaimed the priest, tapping the saucer with the bottom of his empty tea-glass in exultation over the harmony between them.

"As I understand it, God gave man reason not to explore the unknown, but to refrain from sin. If I, for instance, feel a craving of the flesh or a temptation of some kind, I call my reason to the rescue and say, 'Show me, forsooth, the ways by which I may overcome this craving,' and I am quite right, for in such cases reason can really be of great use."

"Still, faith is superior, in a way," the priest offered in slight correction.

"Faith is one thing and reason is another. Faith points out the goal, and reason finds the way. It goes searching in every direction till at last it finds something. Take, for instance, all these drugs and plasters and healing herbs and potions--all of them have been invented by reason. But we ought to see to it that such invention is in accordance with faith, to our salvation and not to our ruin."

"I cannot disagree with you in this, either."

"There is a certain book, father, that I read some time ago. It says that one must not disdain the offices of reason if the latter is guided by faith, for a man without reason soon becomes the plaything of passion; and I even think that the first downfall of man came about because the devil in the shape of the serpent beclouded the human reason."

The reverend father did not object to this either, though he refrained from assent, since it was not yet clear to him what Yudushka had up his sleeve.

"We often see that people not only fall into sinful thought, but even commit crimes, all because of lack of reason. The flesh tempts, and if there is no reason, man falls into the abyss. Man craves something sweet, he craves gaiety and pleasure, especially when it comes through women. How will you preserve yourself without the aid of reason? And if, let's say, for instance, I do possess reason, I'll take some camphor and rub it in where necessary, and put some in other parts, and before you know, the craving is over as if it had never been there."

Yudushka became silent as if waiting to hear what the priest had to say in response, but the priest was still uncertain what Yudushka was driving at and therefore he only coughed and said quite irrelevantly:

"There are hens in my yard--very restless on account of the change of season. They run and jump about, and can't find a place for themselves."

"All because neither birds nor beasts nor reptiles possess reason. What is a bird? It has no worry, no cares--just flies about. The other day, for instance, I looked out of the window and saw some sparrows pecking at manure. Manure is enough for them but not for man."

"Yet in some cases even the Scriptures take birds as examples."

"In some cases, that's true. Where faith without reason can be a man's salvation, we must do as the birds do, pray to God, compose verses."

Porfiry Vladimirych grew silent. Though talkative by nature and though the event of the day naturally lent itself to a lengthy discussion, the most suitable form for the remarks on the subject had evidently not yet ripened in his mind.

"Birds need no reason," he said at last, "because they have no temptations. Or, rather, they have temptations but they are never called to answer for their doings. Birds lead a natural life. They have no property to take care of, no legitimate marriages, hence no widowhood. They are responsible neither to God nor to the authorities. They have only one lord--the cock."

"The cock! That's true. The cock is a sort of Sultan of Turkey to them."

"But man has so arranged his life, that he has given up the liberties granted to him by nature, and therefore he needs much reason: first, to keep himself from falling into sin, and second, not to tempt others. Am I right, father?"

"It is gospel truth. The Scriptures advise us to pluck out the tempting eye."

"That is, if you understand it literally, but there may be a way of avoiding sin not by plucking out the eyes, but by seeing to it that the eye is not tempted. One must have more frequent recourse to prayer, and curb the unruly flesh. Take me, for instance. I am in good health and vigor, I dare say. Well, I have female servants. Still that does not disturb me in the least. I know I can't get along without servants, well then, I keep them. I keep male servants, and female servants of every kind. A maid is needed in the household to fetch something from the cellar, to pour the tea, bring in something to eat--well--God bless her!--She does her work and I do mine, and so we get along very nicely indeed."

While speaking Yudushka tried to look into the priest's eyes, and the latter in his turn, tried to look into Yudushka's. But happily, there was a burning candle between them, so that they could look at each other to their hearts' content and see nothing but the flame of the candle.

"And then again, I take it this way. If you become intimate with your female servants, they'll begin to have their way in the house. And you'll have squabbles and disorder and quarrels and impertinence. I like to keep away from such things."

The priest stared so steadily that his eyes began to swim. Good manners, he knew, demanded that in a general conversation one should every now and then join in with at least a word. So he shook his head and muttered:

"Tss----"

"And if, at that, one behaves as other folks do, as my dear neighbor, Mr. Anpetov, for example, or my other neighbor, Mr. Utrobin, then you can fall into sin before you know it. Utrobin has six offspring on his place begot in that disgraceful way. But I don't want it. I say that if God took away my guardian angel, it means that such was His holy will, that He wanted me to be a widower. And if I am a widower by the grace of God, I must observe my widowerhood honestly and not contaminate my bed. Am I right, father?"

"It's hard, sir."

"I know it's hard, but still I observe it. Some say it's hard, and I say the harder the better, provided God is with you! We can't all have it sweet and easy. Some of us must bear hardships in the name of God. If you deny yourself something _here,_ you will obtain it _there. Here_ it is called hardship and _there,_ virtue. Am I right?"

"As right as can be."

"And talking about virtues--they are not all of the same kind. Some virtues are great, others are small. What do you think?"

"Yes, quite possible, there may be small virtues and great virtues."

"That's just what I say. If a man is careful in his behavior, if he does not speak vile words, if he does not speak vain words, if he does not judge others, if, in addition to all this, he does not vex anybody or take away what is not his--that man will have a clear conscience, and no mud can soil him. And if anyone secretly speaks ill of a man like that, give it no heed. Spit at his insinuations--that's the long and short of it."

"In such cases the precepts of Christianity recommend forgiveness."

"Yes, forgive also. That's what I always do. If someone speaks ill of me, I forgive him and even pray to God for him. He is the gainer because a prayer on his behalf goes to Heaven, and I, too, am the gainer, for after I have prayed I forget about the whole matter."

"That's correct. Nothing lightens one's heart as much as a prayer. Sorrow and anger, and even ailment, all run before it as does the darkness of night before the sun."

"Well, thank God, then. And we should always conduct ourselves so that our life is like a candle in a lantern--seen from every side. Then we will not be misjudged, for there will be no cause. Take us, for example. We sat down here a while ago, have been chatting and talking things over--who could find fault with us? And now let us go and pray to the Lord, and then--to bed. And tomorrow we shall rise again. Isn't that so, father?"

Yudushka rose noisily, shoving his chair aside in sign that the conversation was at an end. The priest also rose and made ready to raise his arm to bless, but Porfiry Vladimirych, as an indication of special favor, caught the priest's hand and pressed it in his own.

"So he was christened Vladimir, father?" said Yudushka, shaking his head sadly in the direction of Yevpraksia's room.

"In honor of the saintly Prince Vladimir, sir."

"Well, God be praised. She is a good and faithful servant, but as to intelligence--well, she hasn't much of it. That's why they fall into adultery."