“About the pigs⁠ ⁠… that’s there too⁠ ⁠… ces cochons. I remember the devils entered into swine and they all were drowned. You must read me that; I’ll tell you why afterwards. I want to remember it word for word. I want it word for word.”

Sofya Matveyevna knew the gospel well and at once found the passage in St. Luke which I have chosen as the motto of my record. I quote it here again:

“ ‘And there was there one herd of many swine feeding on the mountain; and they besought him that he would suffer them to enter into them. And he suffered them.

“ ‘Then went the devils out of the man and entered into the swine; and the herd ran violently down a steep place into the lake, and were choked.

“ ‘When they that fed them saw what was done, they fled, and went and told it in the city and in the country.