prayers and cried: "Think what you are doing, brother! Repent,
brother!" These words threw Yakov into a fury, while Aglaia could
not refrain from beginning to scold; or at night Matvey would steal
into the prayer-room and say softly: "Cousin, your prayer is not
pleasing to God. For it is written, First be reconciled with thy
brother and then offer thy gift. You lend money at usury, you deal
in vodka--repent!"

In Matvey's words Yakov saw nothing but the usual evasions of
empty-headed and careless people who talk of loving your neighbour,
of being reconciled with your brother, and so on, simply to avoid
praying, fasting and reading holy books, and who talk contemptuously
of profit and interest simply because they don't like working. Of
course, to be poor, save nothing, and put by nothing was a great
deal easier than being rich.

But yet he was troubled and could not pray as before. As soon as
he went into the prayer-room and opened the book he began to be
afraid his cousin would come in and hinder him; and, in fact, Matvey
did soon appear and cry in a trembling voice: "Think what you are
doing, brother! Repent, brother!" Aglaia stormed and Yakov, too,
flew into a passion and shouted: "Go out of my house!" while Matvey
answered him: "The house belongs to both of us."

Yakov would begin singing and reading again, but he could not regain
his calm, and unconsciously fell to dreaming over his book. Though
he regarded his cousin's words as nonsense, yet for some reason it
had of late haunted his memory that it is hard for a rich man to
enter the kingdom of heaven, that the year before last he had made
a very good bargain over buying a stolen horse, that one day when