The priest’s wife⁠—a short, stout woman, dressed in a quilted jacket, with a shawl over her head and felt boots on her feet⁠—came out and began to speak in an angry, hoarse voice.

“What evil spirit has brought you here?”

“I have come for the priest.”

“What are you servants thinking about? You haven’t lit the fire yet.”

“Is it time yet?”

“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.