penetrated my soul; my eyes were opened. I listened, listened and
--burst into sobs! 'Be an ordinary man,' he said, 'eat and drink,
dress and pray like everyone else. All that is above the ordinary
is of the devil. Your chains,' he said, 'are of the devil; your
fasting is of the devil; your prayer-room is of the devil. It is
all pride,' he said. Next day, on Monday in Holy Week, it pleased
God I should fall ill. I ruptured myself and was taken to the
hospital. I was terribly worried, and wept bitterly and trembled.
I thought there was a straight road before me from the hospital to
hell, and I almost died. I was in misery on a bed of sickness for
six months, and when I was discharged the first thing I did I
confessed, and took the sacrament in the regular way and became a
man again. Osip Varlamitch saw me off home and exhorted me: 'Remember,
Matvey, that anything above the ordinary is of the devil.' And now
I eat and drink like everyone else and pray like everyone else
. . . . If it happens now that the priest smells of tobacco or vodka I
don't venture to blame him, because the priest, too, of course, is
an ordinary man. But as soon as I am told that in the town or in
the village a saint has set up who does not eat for weeks, and makes
rules of his own, I know whose work it is. So that is how I carried
on in the past, gentlemen. Now, like Osip Varlamitch, I am continually
exhorting my cousins and reproaching them, but I am a voice crying
in the wilderness. God has not vouchsafed me the gift."

Matvey's story evidently made no impression whatever. Sergey
Nikanoritch said nothing, but began clearing the refreshments off
the counter, while the policeman began talking of how rich Matvey's
cousin was.

"He must have thirty thousand at least," he said.