“Don’t interfere, Father Anastasy,” said his Reverence sternly.

“Nikolay Matveyitch asked him, ’What madame is this helping the soup at your table?’” the deacon went on, gloomily scanning Anastasy’s bent figure. “‘That is my wife,’ said he.  ’When was your wedding?’ Nikolay Matveyitch asked him, and Pyotr answered, ‘We were married at Kulikov’s restaurant.’”

His Reverence’s eyes flashed wrathfully and the colour came into his temples.  Apart from his sinfulness, Pyotr was not a person he liked.  Father Fyodor had, as they say, a grudge against him.  He remembered him a boy at school—­he remembered him distinctly, because even then the boy had seemed to him not normal.  As a schoolboy, Petrushka had been ashamed to serve at the altar, had been offended at being addressed without ceremony, had not crossed himself on entering the room, and what was still more noteworthy, was fond of talking a great deal and with heat—­and, in Father Fyodor’s opinion, much talking was unseemly in children and pernicious to them; moreover Petrushka had taken up a contemptuous and critical attitude to fishing, a pursuit to which both his Reverence and the deacon were greatly addicted.  As a student Pyotr had not gone to church at all, had slept till midday, had looked down on people, and had been given to raising delicate and insoluble questions with a peculiarly provoking zest.

“What would you have?” his Reverence asked, going up to the deacon and looking at him angrily.  “What would you have?  This was to be expected!  I always knew and was convinced that nothing good would come of your Pyotr!  I told you so, and I tell you so now.  What you have sown, that now you must reap!  Reap it!”

“But what have I sown, Father Fyodor?” the deacon asked softly, looking up at his Reverence.

“Why, who is to blame if not you?  You’re his father, he is your offspring!  You ought to have admonished him, have instilled the fear of God into him.  A child must be taught!  You have brought him into the world, but you haven’t trained him up in the right way.  It’s a sin!  It’s wrong!  It’s a shame!”

His Reverence forgot his exhaustion, paced to and fro and went on talking.  Drops of perspiration came out on the deacon’s bald head and forehead.  He raised his eyes to his Reverence with a look of guilt, and said: 

“But didn’t I train him, Father Fyodor?  Lord have mercy on us, haven’t I been a father to my children?  You know yourself I spared nothing for his good; I have prayed and done my best all my life to give him a thorough education.  He went to the high school and I got him tutors, and he took his degree at the University.  And as to my not being able to influence his mind, Father Fyodor, why, you can judge for yourself that I am not qualified to do so!  Sometimes when he used to come here as a student, I would begin admonishing him in my way, and he wouldn’t heed me.  I’d say to him, ’Go to church,’ and he would answer, ‘What for?’ I would begin explaining, and he would say, ‘Why? what for?’ Or he would slap me on the shoulder and say, ’Everything in this world is relative, approximate and conditional.  I don’t know anything, and you don’t know anything either, dad.’”