“A witch is a witch,” Savely pronounced in a hollow, tearful voice, hurriedly blowing his nose on the hem of his shirt; “though you are my wife, though you are of a clerical family, I’d say what you are even at confession....  Why, God have mercy upon us!  Last year on the Eve of the Prophet Daniel and the Three Young Men there was a snowstorm, and what happened then?  The mechanic came in to warm himself.  Then on St. Alexey’s Day the ice broke on the river and the district policeman turned up, and he was chatting with you all night... the damned brute!  And when he came out in the morning and I looked at him, he had rings under his eyes and his cheeks were hollow!  Eh?  During the August fast there were two storms and each time the huntsman turned up.  I saw it all, damn him!  Oh, she is redder than a crab now, aha!”

“You didn’t see anything.”

“Didn’t I!  And this winter before Christmas on the Day of the Ten Martyrs of Crete, when the storm lasted for a whole day and night—­do you remember?—­the marshal’s clerk was lost, and turned up here, the hound....  Tfoo!  To be tempted by the clerk!  It was worth upsetting God’s weather for him!  A drivelling scribbler, not a foot from the ground, pimples all over his mug and his neck awry!  If he were good-looking, anyway—­but he, tfoo! he is as ugly as Satan!”

The sexton took breath, wiped his lips and listened.  The bell was not to be heard, but the wind banged on the roof, and again there came a tinkle in the darkness.

“And it’s the same thing now!” Savely went on.  “It’s not for nothing the postman is lost!  Blast my eyes if the postman isn’t looking for you!  Oh, the devil is a good hand at his work; he is a fine one to help!  He will turn him round and round and bring him here.  I know, I see!  You can’t conceal it, you devil’s bauble, you heathen wanton!  As soon as the storm began I knew what you were up to.”

“Here’s a fool!” smiled his wife.  “Why, do you suppose, you thick-head, that I make the storm?”

“H’m!...  Grin away!  Whether it’s your doing or not, I only know that when your blood’s on fire there’s sure to be bad weather, and when there’s bad weather there’s bound to be some crazy fellow turning up here.  It happens so every time!  So it must be you!”

To be more impressive the sexton put his finger to his forehead, closed his left eye, and said in a singsong voice: 

“Oh, the madness! oh, the unclean Judas!  If you really are a human being and not a witch, you ought to think what if he is not the mechanic, or the clerk, or the huntsman, but the devil in their form!  Ah!  You’d better think of that!”

“Why, you are stupid, Savely,” said his wife, looking at him compassionately.  “When father was alive and living here, all sorts of people used to come to him to be cured of the ague:  from the village, and the hamlets, and the Armenian settlement.  They came almost every day, and no one called them devils.  But if anyone once a year comes in bad weather to warm himself, you wonder at it, you silly, and take all sorts of notions into your head at once.”