visited your settlement for
the mending of a thresher."

"Yes, yes. That is where I DID see you. It was you, was it not? Well,
do you still disagree with me?"

To which the old man added with a nod and a smile:

"See how well I remember your words! You are, I imagine, still of the
same opinion?"

"How should I not be?" responded Silantiev dourly.

"Ah, well! Ah, well!"

And the old man stretched his hands over the fire once more,
discoloured hands the thumbs of which were curiously bent outwards and
splayed, and, seemingly, unable to move in harmony with the fingers.

The ex-soldier shouted across the river:

"The land here is easy to work, and makes the people lazy. Who would
care to live in such a region? Who would care to come to it? Much
rather would I go and earn a living on difficult land."

The old man paid no heed, but said to Silantiev--said to him with an
austere, derisive smile:

"Do you STILL think it necessary to struggle against what has been
ordained of God? Do you STILL think that long-suffering is bad, and
resistance good? Young man, your soul is weak indeed: and remember that
it is only the soul that can overcome Satan."

In response Silantiev rose to his feet, shook his fist at the old man,
and shouted in a rough, angry voice, a voice that was not his own:

"All that I have heard before, and from others besides yourself. The
truth is that I hold all you father-confessors in abhorrence.
Moreover," (this last was added with a violent oath) "it is not Satan
that needs to be resisted, but such devil's ravens, such devil's
vampires, as YOU."

Which said, he kicked a stone away from the fire, thrust his hands into
his pockets, and turned slowly on his heel, with his elbows pressed
close to his sides. Nevertheless the old man, still smiling, said to me
in an undertone:

"He is proud, but that will not last for long."

"Why not?"

"Because I know in advance that--"

Breaking off short, he turned his head upon his shoulder, and sat
listening to some shouting that was going on across the river. Everyone
in that quarter was drunk, and, in particular, someone could be heard
bawling in a tone of challenge:

"Oh? I, you say? A-a-ah! Then take that!"

Silantiev, stepping lightly from stone to stone, crossed the river.
Then he mingled--a conspicuous figure (owing to his apparent
handlessness)--with the crowd. Somehow, on his departure, I felt ill at
ease.

Twitching his fingers as though