not that sum now," said Kunin with
a sigh. "I spent all I had on my tour and got into debt, too. Let
us try and think of some plan together."

Kunin began planning aloud. He explained his views and watched
Father Yakov's face, seeking signs of agreement or approval in it.
But the face was apathetic and immobile, and expressed nothing but
constrained shyness and uneasiness. Looking at it, one might have
supposed that Kunin was talking of matters so abstruse that Father
Yakov did not understand and only listened from good manners, and
was at the same time afraid of being detected in his failure to
understand.

"The fellow is not one of the brightest, that's evident . . ."
thought Kunin. "He's rather shy and much too stupid."

Father Yakov revived somewhat and even smiled only when the footman
came into the study bringing in two glasses of tea on a tray and a
cake-basket full of biscuits. He took his glass and began drinking
at once.

"Shouldn't we write at once to the bishop?" Kunin went on, meditating
aloud. "To be precise, you know, it is not we, not the Zemstvo, but
the higher ecclesiastical authorities, who have raised the question
of the church parish schools. They ought really to apportion the
funds. I remember I read that a sum of money had been set aside for
the purpose. Do you know nothing about it?"

Father Yakov was so absorbed in drinking tea that he did not answer
this question at once. He lifted his grey-blue eyes to Kunin, thought
a moment, and as though recalling his question, he shook his head
in the negative. An expression of pleasure and of the most ordinary
prosaic appetite overspread his face from ear to ear. He drank and
smacked his lips over every gulp. When he had drunk it to the very
last drop, he put his glass on the table, then took his glass back
again, looked at the bottom of it, then put it back again. The
expression of pleasure faded from his face. . . . Then Kunin saw
his visitor take a biscuit from the cake-basket, nibble a little
bit off it, then turn it over in his hand and hurriedly stick it
in his pocket.

"Well, that's not at all clerical!" thought Kunin, shrugging his
shoulders contemptuously. "What is it, priestly greed or childishness?"

After giving his visitor another glass of tea and seeing him to the
entry, Kunin lay down on the sofa and abandoned himself to the
unpleasant feeling induced in him by the visit of Father Yakov.

"What a strange wild creature!" he though