earer as shuffling footsteps also
advanced in my direction, and there came a mutter of:

"Nay, it CANNOT be so!"

"Why is it that the dogs have failed to bark?" I reflected, rubbing my
eyes, and fancying as I did so that the dead man's eyebrows twitched,
and his moustache stirred in a grim smile.

Presently a deep, hoarse, rasping voice vociferated in the forecourt:

"What do you say, old woman? Yes, that he must die--I knew all
along,--so you can cease your chattering? Men like him keep up to the
last, then lay them down to rise to more... WHO is with him? A
stranger? A-ah!"

And, the next moment, a bulk so large and shapeless that it might well
have been the darkness of the night embodied, stumbled against the
outer side of the door, grunted, hiccuped, and lurching head foremost
into the hut, grew wellnigh to the ceiling. Then it waved a gigantic
hand, crossed itself in the direction of the candle, and, bending
forward until its forehead almost touched the feet of the corpse,
queried under its breath:

"How now, Vasil?"

Thereafter, the figure vented a sob whilst a strong smell of vodka
arose in the room, and from the doorway the old woman said in an
appealing voice:

"Pray give HIM the book, Father Demid."

"No indeed! Why should I? I intend to do the reading myself."

And a heavy hand laid itself upon my shoulder, while a great hairy face
bent over mine, and inquired:

"A young man, are you not? A member of the clergy, too, I suppose?"

So covered with tufts of auburn hair was the enormous head above
me--tufts the sheen of which even the semi-obscurity of the pale
candlelight failed to render inconspicuous--that the mass, as a whole,
resembled a mop. And as its owner lurched to and fro, he made me lurch
responsively by now drawing me towards himself, now thrusting me away.
Meanwhile he continued to suffuse my face with the hot, thick odour of
spirituous liquor.

"Father Demid!" again essayed the old woman with an imploring wail, but
he cut her short with the menacing admonition:

"How often have I told you that you must not address a deacon as
'Father'? Go to bed! Yes, be off with you, and let me mind my affairs
myself! GO, I say! But first light me another candle, for I cannot see
a single thing in front of me."

With which, throwing himself upon a bench, the deacon slapped his knee
with a book which he had in his hands, and put to me the query:

"Should you care to have a dram of gorielka? [An