A silence followed. Father Yakov threw furtive glances at the
partition wall, smoothed his hair, and blew his nose.

"It's wonderful weather, . . ." he said.

"Yes. I read an interesting thing yesterday. . . . the Volsky Zemstvo
have decided to give their schools to the clergy, that's typical."

Kunin got up, and pacing up and down the clay floor, began to give
expression to his reflections.

"That would be all right," he said, "if only the clergy were equal
to their high calling and recognized their tasks. I am so unfortunate
as to know priests whose standard of culture and whose moral qualities
make them hardly fit to be army secretaries, much less priests. You
will agree that a bad teacher does far less harm than a bad priest."

Kunin glanced at Father Yakov; he was sitting bent up, thinking
intently about something and apparently not listening to his visitor.

"Yasha, come here!" a woman's voice called from behind the partition.
Father Yakov started and went out. Again a whispering began.

Kunin felt a pang of longing for tea.

"No; it's no use my waiting for tea here," he thought, looking at
his watch. "Besides I fancy I am not altogether a welcome visitor.
My host has not deigned to say one word to me; he simply sits and
blinks."

Kunin took up his hat, waited for Father Yakov to return, and said
good-bye to him.

"I have simply wasted the morning," he thought wrathfully on the
way home. "The blockhead! The dummy! He cares no more about the
school than I about last year's snow. . . . No, I shall never get
anything done with him! We are bound to fail! If the Marshal knew
what the priest here was like, he wouldn't be in such a hurry to
talk about a school. We ought first to try and get a decent priest,
and then think about the school."

By now Kunin almost hated Father Yakov. The man, his pitiful,
grotesque figure in the long crumpled robe, his womanish face, his
manner of officiating, his way of life and his formal restrained
respectfulness, wounded the tiny relic of religious feeling which
was stored away in a warm corner of Kunin's heart together with his
nurse's other fairy tales. The coldness and lack of attention with
which Father Yakov had met Kunin's warm and sincere interest in
what was the priest's own work was hard for the former's vanity to
endure. . . .

On the evening of the same day Kunin spent a long time walking about
his rooms and thinking. Then he sat down to the table resolutely