“If it were not time I shouldn’t say anything.”
The peasant from Vozdrevo went to the kitchen, crossed himself before the icon, and, making a low bow to the priest’s wife, sat down on a bench near the door.
The peasant’s wife had been suffering a long time; and, having given birth to a stillborn child, was now at the point of death.
While gazing at what was going on in the hut he sat busily thinking how he should carry off the priest. Should he drive him across the Kossoe, as he had come, or should he go round another way? The road was bad near the village. The river was frozen over, but was not strong enough to bear. He had hardly been able to get across.
A labourer came in and threw down an armful of birch logs near the stove, asking the peasant to break up some of it to light the fire, whereupon the peasant took off his coat and set to work.
The priest awoke, as he always did, full of life and spirits. While still in bed, he crossed himself and said his favourite prayer, “To the King of Heaven,” and repeated “Lord have mercy on us” several times. Getting up, he washed, brushed his long hair, put on his boots and an old cassock, and then, standing before the icons, began his morning prayers. When be reached the middle of the Lord’s Prayer, and had come to the words, “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive them that trespass against us,” he stopped, remembering the deacon who was drunk the day before, and who on meeting him muttered audibly, “Hypocrite, Pharisee.” These words, Pharisee and hypocrite, pained Father Vasily particularly because, although conscious of having many faults, he did not believe hypocrisy to be one of them. He was angry with the deacon. “Yes, I forgive,” he said to himself; “God be with him,” and he continued his prayers. The words, “Lead us not into temptation,” reminded him how he had felt when hot tea with rum had been handed to him the night before after vespers in the house of a rich landowner.