The wooden church up to which Kunin drove was old and grey; the columns of the porch had once been painted white, but the colour had now completely peeled off, and they looked like two ungainly shafts.  The ikon over the door looked like a dark smudged blur.  But its poverty touched and softened Kunin.  Modestly dropping his eyes, he went into the church and stood by the door.  The service had only just begun.  An old sacristan, bent into a bow, was reading the “Hours” in a hollow indistinct tenor.  Father Yakov, who conducted the service without a deacon, was walking about the church, burning incense.  Had it not been for the softened mood in which Kunin found himself on entering the poverty-stricken church, he certainly would have smiled at the sight of Father Yakov.  The short priest was wearing a crumpled and extremely long robe of some shabby yellow material; the hem of the robe trailed on the ground.

The church was not full.  Looking at the parishioners, Kunin was struck at the first glance by one strange circumstance:  he saw nothing but old people and children. . . .  Where were the men of working age?  Where was the youth and manhood?  But after he had stood there a little and looked more attentively at the aged-looking faces, Kunin saw that he had mistaken young people for old.  He did not, however, attach any significance to this little optical illusion.

The church was as cold and grey inside as outside.  There was not one spot on the ikons nor on the dark brown walls which was not begrimed and defaced by time.  There were many windows, but the general effect of colour was grey, and so it was twilight in the church.

“Anyone pure in soul can pray here very well,” thought Kunin.  “Just as in St. Peter’s in Rome one is impressed by grandeur, here one is touched by the lowliness and simplicity.”

But his devout mood vanished like smoke as soon as Father Yakov went up to the altar and began mass.  Being still young and having come straight from the seminary bench to the priesthood, Father Yakov had not yet formed a set manner of celebrating the service.  As he read he seemed to be vacillating between a high tenor and a thin bass; he bowed clumsily, walked quickly, and opened and shut the gates abruptly. . . .  The old sacristan, evidently deaf and ailing, did not hear the prayers very distinctly, and this very often led to slight misunderstandings.  Before Father Yakov had time to finish what he had to say, the sacristan began chanting his response, or else long after Father Yakov had finished the old man would be straining his ears, listening in the direction of the altar and saying nothing till his skirt was pulled.  The old man had a sickly hollow voice and an asthmatic quavering lisp. . . .  The complete lack of dignity and decorum was emphasized by a very small boy who seconded the sacristan and whose head was hardly visible over the railing of the choir.  The boy sang in a shrill falsetto and seemed to be trying to avoid singing in tune.  Kunin stayed a little while, listened and went out for a smoke.  He was disappointed, and looked at the grey church almost with dislike.