to finish what he had to say, the sacristan began chanting his
response, or else long after Father Yakov had finished the old man
would be straining his ears, listening in the direction of the altar
and saying nothing till his skirt was pulled. The old man had a
sickly hollow voice and an asthmatic quavering lisp. . . . The
complete lack of dignity and decorum was emphasized by a very small
boy who seconded the sacristan and whose head was hardly visible
over the railing of the choir. The boy sang in a shrill falsetto
and seemed to be trying to avoid singing in tune. Kunin stayed a
little while, listened and went out for a smoke. He was disappointed,
and looked at the grey church almost with dislike.

"They complain of the decline of religious feeling among the people
. . ." he sighed. "I should rather think so! They'd better foist a
few more priests like this one on them!"

Kunin went back into the church three times, and each time he felt
a great temptation to get out into the open air again. Waiting till
the end of the mass, he went to Father Yakov's. The priest's house
did not differ outwardly from the peasants' huts, but the thatch
lay more smoothly on the roof and there were little white curtains
in the windows. Father Yakov led Kunin into a light little room
with a clay floor and walls covered with cheap paper; in spite of
some painful efforts towards luxury in the way of photographs in
frames and a clock with a pair of scissors hanging on the weight
the furnishing of the room impressed him by its scantiness. Looking
at the furniture, one might have supposed that Father Yakov had
gone from house to house and collected it in bits; in one place
they had given him a round three-legged table, in another a stool,
in a third a chair with a back bent violently backwards; in a fourth