his visitor take a biscuit from the cake-basket, nibble a little
bit off it, then turn it over in his hand and hurriedly stick it
in his pocket.

"Well, that's not at all clerical!" thought Kunin, shrugging his
shoulders contemptuously. "What is it, priestly greed or childishness?"

After giving his visitor another glass of tea and seeing him to the
entry, Kunin lay down on the sofa and abandoned himself to the
unpleasant feeling induced in him by the visit of Father Yakov.

"What a strange wild creature!" he thought. "Dirty, untidy, coarse,
stupid, and probably he drinks. . . . My God, and that's a priest,
a spiritual father! That's a teacher of the people! I can fancy the
irony there must be in the deacon's face when before every mass he
booms out: 'Thy blessing, Reverend Father!' A fine reverend Father!
A reverend Father without a grain of dignity or breeding, hiding
biscuits in his pocket like a schoolboy. . . . Fie! Good Lord, where
were the bishop's eyes when he ordained a man like that? What can
he think of the people if he gives them a teacher like that? One
wants people here who . . ."

And Kunin thought what Russian priests ought to be like.

"If I were a priest, for instance. . . . An educated priest fond
of his work might do a great deal. . . . I should have had the
school opened long ago. And the sermons? If the priest is sincere
and is inspired by love for his work, what wonderful rousing sermons
he might give!"