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.