Kunin, a young man of thirty, who was a permanent member of the
Rural Board, on returning from Petersburg to his district, Borisovo,
immediately sent a mounted messenger to Sinkino, for the priest
there, Father Yakov Smirnov.
Five hours later Father Yakov appeared.
"Very glad to make your acquaintance," said Kunin, meeting him in
the entry. "I've been living and serving here for a year; it seems
as though we ought to have been acquainted before. You are very
welcome! But . . . how young you are!" Kunin added in surprise.
"What is your age?"
"Twenty-eight, . . ." said Father Yakov, faintly pressing Kunin's
outstretched hand, and for some reason turning crimson.
Kunin led his visitor into his study and began looking at him more
attentively.
"What an uncouth womanish face!" he thought.
There certainly was a good deal that was womanish in Father Yakov's
face: the turned-up nose, the bright red cheeks, and the large
grey-blue eyes with scanty, scarcely perceptible eyebrows. His long
reddish hair, smooth and dry, hung down in straight tails on to his
shoulders. The hair on his upper lip was only just beginning to
form into a real masculine moustache, while his little beard belonged
to that class of good-for-nothing beards which among divinity
students are for some reason called "ticklers." It was scanty and
extremely transparent; it could not have been stroked or combed,
it could only have been pinched. . . . All these scanty decorations
were put on unevenly in tufts, as though Father Yakov, thinking to
dress up as a priest and beginning to gum on the beard, had been
interrupted halfway through. He had on a cassock, the colour of
weak coffee with chicory in it, with big patches on both elbows.
"A queer type," thought Kunin, looking at his muddy skirts. "Comes
to the house for the first time and can't dress decently.
"Sit down, Father," he began more carelessly than cordially, as he
moved an easy-chair to the table. "Sit down, I beg you."
Father Yakov coughed into his fist, sank awkwardly on to the edge
of the chair, and laid his open hands on his knees. With his short
figure, his narrow chest, his red and perspiring face, he made from
the first moment a most unpleasant impression on Kunin. The latter
could never have imagined that there were such undignified and
pitiful-looking priests in Russia; and in Father Yakov's attitude,
in the way he held his hands on his knees and sat on the very edge
of his chair, he saw a lack of dignity and even a shade of servility.
"I have invited you on business, Father. . . ." Kunin began, sinking
back in his low chair. "It has fallen to my lot to perform the
agreeable duty of helping you in one of your useful undertakings.
. . . On coming back from Petersburg, I found on my table a letter
from the Marshal of Nobility. Yegor Dmitrevitch suggests that I
should take under my supervision the church parish school which is
being opened in Sinkino. I shall be very glad to, Father, with all
my heart. . . . More than that, I accept the proposition with
enthusiasm."
Kunin got up and walked about the study.
"Of course, both Yegor Dmitrevitch and probably you, too, are aware
that I have not great funds at my disposal. My estate is mortgaged,
and I live exclusively on my salary as the permanent member. So
that you cannot reckon on very much assistance, but I will do all
that is in my power. . . . And when are you thinking of opening the
school Father?"
"When we have the money, . . ." answered Father Yakov.
"You have some funds at your disposal already?"
"Scarcely any. . . . The peasants settled at their meeting that
they would pay, every man of them, thirty kopecks a year; but that's
only a promise, you know! And for the first beginning we should
need at least two hundred roubles. . . ."
"M'yes. . . . Unhappily, I have not that sum now," said Kunin with
a sigh. "I spent all I had on my tour and got into debt, too. Let
us try and think of some plan together."
Kunin began planning aloud. He explained his views and watched
Father Yakov's face, seeking signs of agreement or approval in it.
But the face was apathetic and immobile, and expressed nothing but
constrained shyness and uneasiness. Looking at it, one might have
supposed that Kunin was talking of matters so abstruse that Father
Yakov did not understand and only listened from good manners, and
was at the same time afraid of being detected in his failure to
understand.
"The fellow is not one of the brightest, that's evident . . ."
thought Kunin. "He's rather shy and much too stupid."
Father Yakov revived somewhat and even smiled only when the footman
came into the study bringing in two glasses of tea on a tray and a
cake-basket full of biscuits. He took his glass and began drinking
at once.
"Shouldn't we write at once to the bishop?" Kunin went on, meditating
aloud. "To be precise, you know, it is not we, not the Zemstvo, but
the higher ecclesiastical authorities, who have raised the question
of the church parish schools. They ought really to apportion the
funds. I remember I read that a sum of money had been set aside for
the purpose. Do you know nothing about it?"
Father Yakov was so absorbed in drinking tea that he did not answer
this question at once. He lifted his grey-blue eyes to Kunin, thought
a moment, and as though recalling his question, he shook his head
in the negative. An expression of pleasure and of the most ordinary
prosaic appetite overspread his face from ear to ear. He drank and
smacked his lips over every gulp. When he had drunk it to the very
last drop, he put his glass on the table, then took his glass back
again, looked at the bottom of it, then put it back again. The
expression of pleasure faded from his face. . . . Then Kunin saw
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!"
Kunin shut his eyes and began mentally composing a sermon. A little
later he sat down to the table and rapidly began writing.
"I'll give it to that red-haired fellow, let him read it in church,
. . ." he thought.
The following Sunday Kunin drove over to Sinkino in the morning to
settle the question of the school, and while he was there to make
acquaintance with the church of which he was a parishioner. In spite
of the awful state of the roads, it was a glorious morning. The sun
was shining brightly and cleaving with its rays the layers of white
snow still lingering here and there. The snow as it took leave of
the earth glittered with such diamonds that it hurt the eyes to
look, while the young winter corn was hastily thrusting up its green
beside it. The rooks floated with dignity over the fields. A rook
would fly, drop to earth, and give several hops before standing
firmly on its feet. . . .
The wooden church up to which Kunin drove was old and grey; the
columns of the porch had once been painted white, but the colour
had now completely peeled off, and they looked like two ungainly
shafts. The ikon over the door looked like a dark smudged blur. But
its poverty touched and softened Kunin. Modestly dropping his eyes,
he went into the church and stood by the door. The service had only
just begun. An old sacristan, bent into a bow, was reading the
"Hours" in a hollow indistinct tenor. Father Yakov, who conducted
the service without a deacon, was walking about the church, burning
incense. Had it not been for the softened mood in which Kunin found
himself on entering the poverty-stricken church, he certainly would
have smiled at the sight of Father Yakov. The short priest was
wearing a crumpled and extremely long robe of some shabby yellow
material; the hem of the robe trailed on the ground.
The church was not full. Looking at the parishioners, Kunin was
struck at the first glance by one strange circumstance: he saw
nothing but old people and children. . . . Where were the men of
working age? Where was the youth and manhood? But after he had stood
there a little and looked more attentively at the aged-looking
faces, Kunin saw that he had mistaken young people for old. He did
not, however, attach any significance to this little optical illusion.
The church was as cold and grey inside as outside. There was not
one spot on the ikons nor on the dark brown walls which was not
begrimed and defaced by time. There were many windows, but the
general effect of colour was grey, and so it was twilight in the
church.
"Anyone pure in soul can pray here very well," thought Kunin. "Just
as in St. Peter's in Rome one is impressed by grandeur, here one
is touched by the lowliness and simplicity."
But his devout mood vanished like smoke as soon as Father Yakov
went up to the altar and began mass. Being still young and having
come straight from the seminary bench to the priesthood, Father
Yakov had not yet formed a set manner of celebrating the service.
As he read he seemed to be vacillating between a high tenor and a
thin bass; he bowed clumsily, walked quickly, and opened and shut
the gates abruptly. . . . The old sacristan, evidently deaf and
ailing, did not hear the prayers very distinctly, and this very
often led to slight misunderstandings. Before Father Yakov had time
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
a chair with an upright back, but the seat smashed in; while in a
fifth they had been liberal and given him a semblance of a sofa
with a flat back and a lattice-work seat. This semblance had been
painted dark red and smelt strongly of paint. Kunin meant at first
to sit down on one of the chairs, but on second thoughts he sat
down on the stool.
"This is the first time you have been to our church?" asked Father
Yakov, hanging his hat on a huge misshapen nail.
"Yes it is. I tell you what, Father, before we begin on business,
will you give me some tea? My soul is parched."
Father Yakov blinked, gasped, and went behind the partition wall.
There was a sound of whispering.
"With his wife, I suppose," thought Kunin; "it would be interesting
to see what the red-headed fellow's wife is like."
A little later Father Yakov came back, red and perspiring and with
an effort to smile, sat down on the edge of the sofa.
"They will heat the samovar directly," he said, without looking at
his visitor.
"My goodness, they have not heated the samovar yet!" Kunin thought
with horror. "A nice time we shall have to wait."
"I have brought you," he said, "the rough draft of the letter I
have written to the bishop. I'll read it after tea; perhaps you may
find something to add. . . ."
"Very well."
A silence followed. Father Yakov threw furtive glances at the
partition wall, smoothed his hair, and blew his nose.
"It's wonderful weather, . . ." he said.
"Yes. I read an interesting thing yesterday. . . . the Volsky Zemstvo
have decided to give their schools to the clergy, that's typical."
Kunin got up, and pacing up and down the clay floor, began to give
expression to his reflections.
"That would be all right," he said, "if only the clergy were equal
to their high calling and recognized their tasks. I am so unfortunate
as to know priests whose standard of culture and whose moral qualities
make them hardly fit to be army secretaries, much less priests. You
will agree that a bad teacher does far less harm than a bad priest."
Kunin glanced at Father Yakov; he was sitting bent up, thinking
intently about something and apparently not listening to his visitor.
"Yasha, come here!" a woman's voice called from behind the partition.
Father Yakov started and went out. Again a whispering began.
Kunin felt a pang of longing for tea.
"No; it's no use my waiting for tea here," he thought, looking at
his watch. "Besides I fancy I am not altogether a welcome visitor.
My host has not deigned to say one word to me; he simply sits and
blinks."
Kunin took up his hat, waited for Father Yakov to return, and said
good-bye to him.
"I have simply wasted the morning," he thought wrathfully on the
way home. "The blockhead! The dummy! He cares no more about the
school than I about last year's snow. . . . No, I shall never get
anything done with him! We are bound to fail! If the Marshal knew
what the priest here was like, he wouldn't be in such a hurry to
talk about a school. We ought first to try and get a decent priest,
and then think about the school."
By now Kunin almost hated Father Yakov. The man, his pitiful,
grotesque figure in the long crumpled robe, his womanish face, his
manner of officiating, his way of life and his formal restrained
respectfulness, wounded the tiny relic of religious feeling which
was stored away in a warm corner of Kunin's heart together with his
nurse's other fairy tales. The coldness and lack of attention with
which Father Yakov had met Kunin's warm and sincere interest in
what was the priest's own work was hard for the former's vanity to
endure. . . .
On the evening of the same day Kunin spent a long time walking about
his rooms and thinking. Then he sat down to the table resolutely
and wrote a letter to the bishop. After asking for money and a
blessing for the school, he set forth genuinely, like a son, his
opinion of the priest at Sinkino.
"He is young," he wrote, "insufficiently educated, leads, I fancy,
an intemperate life, and altogether fails to satisfy the ideals
which the Russian people have in the course of centuries formed of
what a pastor should be."
After writing this letter Kunin heaved a deep sigh, and went to bed
with the consciousness that he had done a good deed.
On Monday morning, while he was still in bed, he was informed that
Father Yakov had arrived. He did not want to get up, and instructed
the servant to say he was not at home. On Tuesday he went away to
a sitting of the Board, and when he returned on Saturday he was
told by the servants that Father Yakov had called every day in his
absence.
"He liked my biscuits, it seems," he thought.
Towards evening on Sunday Father Yakov arrived. This time not only
his skirts, but even his hat, was bespattered with mud. Just as on
his first visit, he was hot and perspiring, and sat down on the
edge of his chair as he had done then. Kunin determined not to talk
about the school--not to cast pearls.
"I have brought you a list of books for the school, Pavel Mihailovitch,
. . ." Father Yakov began.
"Thank you."
But everything showed that Father Yakov had come for something else
besides the list. Has whole figure was expressive of extreme
embarrassment, and at the same time there was a look of determination
upon his face, as on the face of a man suddenly inspired by an idea.
He struggled to say something important, absolutely necessary, and
strove to overcome his timidity.
"Why is he dumb?" Kunin thought wrathfully. "He's settled himself
comfortably! I haven't time to be bothered with him."
To smoothe over the awkwardness of his silence and to conceal the
struggle going on within him, the priest began to smile constrainedly,
and this slow smile, wrung out on his red perspiring face, and out
of keeping with the fixed look in his grey-blue eyes, made Kunin
turn away. He felt moved to repulsion.
"Excuse me, Father, I have to go out," he said.
Father Yakov started like a man asleep who has been struck a blow,
and, still smiling, began in his confusion wrapping round him the
skirts of his cassock. In spite of his repulsion for the man, Kunin
felt suddenly sorry for him, and he wanted to soften his cruelty.
"Please come another time, Father," he said, "and before we part I
want to ask you a favour. I was somehow inspired to write two sermons
the other day. . . . I will give them to you to look at. If they
are suitable, use them."
"Very good," said Father Yakov, laying his open hand on Kunin's
sermons which were lying on the table. "I will take them."
After standing a little, hesitating and still wrapping his cassock
round him, he suddenly gave up the effort to smile and lifted his
head resolutely.
"Pavel Mihailovitch," he said, evidently trying to speak loudly and
distinctly.
"What can I do for you?"
"I have heard that you . . . er . . . have dismissed your secretary,
and . . . and are looking for a new one. . . ."
"Yes, I am. . . . Why, have you someone to recommend?"
"I. . . er . . . you see . . . I . . . Could you not give the post
to me?"
"Why, are you giving up the Church?" said Kunin in amazement.
"No, no," Father Yakov brought out quickly, for some reason turning
pale and trembling all over. "God forbid! If you feel doubtful,
then never mind, never mind. You see, I could do the work between
whiles, . . so as to increase my income. . . . Never mind, don't
disturb yourself!"
"H'm! . . . your income. . . . But you know, I only pay my secretary
twenty roubles a month."
"Good heavens! I would take ten," whispered Father Yakov, looking
about him. "Ten would be enough! You . . . you are astonished, and
everyone is astonished. The greedy priest, the grasping priest,
what does he do with his money? I feel myself I am greedy, . . .
and I blame myself, I condemn myself. . . . I am ashamed to look
people in the face. . . . I tell you on my conscience, Pavel
Mihailovitch. . . . I call the God of truth to witness. . . ."
Father Yakov took breath and went on:
"On the way here I prepared a regular confession to make you, but
. . . I've forgotten it all; I cannot find a word now. I get a
hundred and fifty roubles a year from my parish, and everyone wonders
what I do with the money. . . . But I'll explain it all truly. . . .
I pay forty roubles a year to the clerical school for my brother
Pyotr. He has everything found there, except that I have to provide
pens and paper."
"Oh, I believe you; I believe you! But what's the object of all
this?" said Kunin, with a wave of the hand, feeling terribly oppressed
by this outburst of confidence on the part of his visitor, and not
knowing how to get away from the tearful gleam in his eyes.
"Then I have not yet paid up all that I owe to the consistory for
my place here. They charged me two hundred roubles for the living,
and I was to pay ten roubles a month. . . . You can judge what is
left! And, besides, I must allow Father Avraamy at least three
roubles a month."
"What Father Avraamy?"
"Father Avraamy who was priest at Sinkino before I came. He was
deprived of the living on account of . . . his failing, but you
know, he is still living at Sinkino! He has nowhere to go. There
is no one to keep him. Though he is old, he must have a corner, and
food and clothing--I can't let him go begging on the roads in his
position! It would be on my conscience if anything happened! It
would be my fault! He is. . . in debt all round; but, you see, I
am to blame for not paying for him."
Father Yakov started up from his seat and, looking frantically at
the floor, strode up and down the room.
"My God, my God!" he muttered, raising his hands and dropping them
again. "Lord, save us and have mercy upon us! Why did you take such
a calling on yourself if you have so little faith and no strength?
There is no end to my despair! Save me, Queen of Heaven!"
"Calm yourself, Father," said Kunin.
"I am worn out with hunger, Pavel Mihailovitch," Father Yakov went
on. "Generously forgive me, but I am at the end of my strength
. . . . I know if I were to beg and to bow down, everyone would help,
but . . . I cannot! I am ashamed. How can I beg of the peasants?
You are on the Board here, so you know. . . . How can one beg of a
beggar? And to beg of richer people, of landowners, I cannot! I
have pride! I am ashamed!"
Father Yakov waved his hand, and nervously scratched his head with
both hands.
"I am ashamed! My God, I am ashamed! I am proud and can't bear
people to see my poverty! When you visited me, Pavel Mihailovitch,
I had no tea in the house! There wasn't a pinch of it, and you know
it was pride prevented me from telling you! I am ashamed of my
clothes, of these patches here. . . . I am ashamed of my vestments,
of being hungry. . . . And is it seemly for a priest to be proud?"
Father Yakov stood still in the middle of the study, and, as though
he did not notice Kunin's presence, began reasoning with himself.
"Well, supposing I endure hunger and disgrace--but, my God, I
have a wife! I took her from a good home! She is not used to hard
work; she is soft; she is used to tea and white bread and sheets
on her bed. . . . At home she used to play the piano. . . . She is
young, not twenty yet. . . . She would like, to be sure, to be
smart, to have fun, go out to see people. . . . And she is worse
off with me than any cook; she is ashamed to show herself in the
street. My God, my God! Her only treat is when I bring an apple or
some biscuit from a visit. . . ."
Father Yakov scratched his head again with both hands.
"And it makes us feel not love but pity for each other. . . . I
cannot look at her without compassion! And the things that happen
in this life, O Lord! Such things that people would not believe
them if they saw them in the newspaper. . . . And when will there
be an end to it all!"
"Hush, Father!" Kunin almost shouted, frightened at his tone. "Why
take such a gloomy view of life?"
"Generously forgive me, Pavel Mihailovitch . . ." muttered Father
Yakov as though he were drunk, "Forgive me, all this . . . doesn't
matter, and don't take any notice of it. . . . Only I do blame
myself, and always shall blame myself . . . always."
Father Yakov looked about him and began whispering:
"One morning early I was going from Sinkino to Lutchkovo; I saw a
woman standing on the river bank, doing something. . . . I went up
close and could not believe my eyes. . . . It was horrible! The
wife of the doctor, Ivan Sergeitch, was sitting there washing her
linen. . . . A doctor's wife, brought up at a select boarding-school!
She had got up you see, early and gone half a mile from the village
that people should not see her. . . . She couldn't get over her
pride! When she saw that I was near her and noticed her poverty,
she turned red all over. . . . I was flustered--I was frightened,
and ran up to help her, but she hid her linen from me; she was
afraid I should see her ragged chemises. . . ."
"All this is positively incredible," said Kunin, sitting down and
looking almost with horror at Father Yakov's pale face.
"Incredible it is! It's a thing that has never been! Pavel Mihailovitch,
that a doctor's wife should be rinsing the linen in the river! Such
a thing does not happen in any country! As her pastor and spiritual
father, I ought not to allow it, but what can I do? What? Why, I
am always trying to get treated by her husband for nothing myself!
It is true that, as you say, it is all incredible! One can hardly
believe one's eyes. During Mass, you know, when I look out from the
altar and see my congregation, Avraamy starving, and my wife, and
think of the doctor's wife--how blue her hands were from the cold
water--would you believe it, I forget myself and stand senseless
like a fool, until the sacristan calls to me. . . . It's awful!"
Father Yakov began walking about again.
"Lord Jesus!" he said, waving his hands, "holy Saints! I can't
officiate properly. . . . Here you talk to me about the school, and
I sit like a dummy and don't understand a word, and think of nothing
but food. . . . Even before the altar. . . . But . . . what am I
doing?" Father Yakov pulled himself up suddenly. "You want to go
out. Forgive me, I meant nothing. . . . Excuse . . ."
Kunin shook hands with Father Yakov without speaking, saw him into
the hall, and going back into his study, stood at the window. He
saw Father Yakov go out of the house, pull his wide-brimmed
rusty-looking hat over his eyes, and slowly, bowing his head, as
though ashamed of his outburst, walk along the road.
"I don't see his horse," thought Kunin.
Kunin did not dare to think that the priest had come on foot every
day to see him; it was five or six miles to Sinkino, and the mud
on the road was impassable. Further on he saw the coachman Andrey
and the boy Paramon, jumping over the puddles and splashing Father
Yakov with mud, run up to him for his blessing. Father Yakov took
off his hat and slowly blessed Andrey, then blessed the boy and
stroked his head.
Kunin passed his hand over his eyes, and it seemed to him that his
hand was moist. He walked away from the window and with dim eyes
looked round the room in which he still seemed to hear the timid
droning voice. He glanced at the table. Luckily, Father Yakov, in
his haste, had forgotten to take the sermons. Kunin rushed up to
them, tore them into pieces, and with loathing thrust them under
the table.
"And I did not know!" he moaned, sinking on to the sofa. "After
being here over a year as member of the Rural Board, Honorary Justice
of the Peace, member of the School Committee! Blind puppet, egregious
idiot! I must make haste and help them, I must make haste!"
He turned from side to side uneasily, pressed his temples and racked
his brains.
"On the twentieth I shall get my salary, two hundred roubles. . . .
On some good pretext I will give him some, and some to the doctor's
wife. . . . I will ask them to perform a special service here, and
will get up an illness for the doctor. . . . In that way I shan't
wound their pride. And I'll help Father Avraamy too. . . ."
He reckoned his money on his fingers, and was afraid to own to
himself that those two hundred roubles would hardly be enough for
him to pay his steward, his servants, the peasant who brought the
meat. . . . He could not help remembering the recent past when he
was senselessly squandering his father's fortune, when as a puppy
of twenty he had given expensive fans to prostitutes, had paid ten
roubles a day to Kuzma, his cab-driver, and in his vanity had made
presents to actresses. Oh, how useful those wasted rouble, three-rouble,
ten-rouble notes would have been now!
"Father Avraamy lives on three roubles a month!" thought Kunin.
"For a rouble the priest's wife could get herself a chemise, and
the doctor's wife could hire a washerwoman. But I'll help them,
anyway! I must help them."
Here Kunin suddenly recalled the private information he had sent
to the bishop, and he writhed as from a sudden draught of cold air.
This remembrance filled him with overwhelming shame before his inner
self and before the unseen truth.
So had begun and had ended a sincere effort to be of public service
on the part of a well-intentioned but unreflecting and over-comfortable
person.