other name for vodka.]

"No," I replied. "At all events, not here."

"Indeed?" the deacon cried, unabashed. "But come, a bottle of the stuff
is here, in my very pocket."

"This is no place in which to be drinking."

For a moment the deacon said nothing. Then he muttered:

"True, true. So let us adjourn to the forecourt.... Yes, what you
say is no more than the truth."

"Had you not better remain seated where you are, and begin the reading?"

"No, I am going to do no such thing. YOU shall do the reading. Tonight
I, I--well I am not very well, for I have been drinking a little."

And, thrusting the book into my stomach, he sank his head upon his
breast, and fell to swaying it ponderously up and down.

"Folk die," was his next utterance, "and the world remains as full of
grief as ever. Yes, folk die even before they have seen a little good
accrue to themselves."

"I see that your book is not a Psalter," here I interposed after an
inspection of the volume.

"You are wrong."

"Then look for yourself."

He grabbed the book by its cover, and, by dint of holding the candle
close to its pages, discovered, eventually, that matters were as I had
stated.

This took him aback completely.

"What can the fact mean?" he exclaimed. "Oh, I know what has happened.
The mistake has come of my being in such a hurry. The other book, the
true Psalter, is a fat, heavy volume, whereas this one is--"

For a moment he seemed sobered by the shock. At all events, he rose
and, approaching the corpse, said, as he bent over the bed with his
beard held back:

"Pardon me, Vasil, but what is to be done?"

Then he straightened himself again, threw back his curls, and, drawing
a bottle from his pocket, and thrusting the neck of the bottle into his
mouth, took a long draught, with a whistling of his nostrils as he did
so.

"Well?" I said.

"Well, I intend to go to bed--my idea is to drink and enjoy myself
awhile."

"Go, then."

"And what of the reading?"

"Who would wish you to mumble words which you would not be
comprehending as you uttered them?"

The deacon reseated himself upon the bench, leaned forward, buried his
face in his hands and remained silent.

Fast the July night was waning. Fast its shadows were dissolving into
corners, and allowing a whiff of fresh dewy morningtide to enter at the
window. Already was the combined light of the two candles growing
paler, with their flames looking like the eyes of a frightened