“I have been for a ramble in the forest,” says he, “and there I met a certain little green old man, who talked a great deal with me, and gave me such savoury nuts!”

“What little green old man art thou talking about?” we ask him.

“I don’t know,” says he; “I never saw him before.  He was a little old man with a hump, and he kept shifting from one to the other of his little feet, and laughing—­and he was all green, just like a leaf.”

“What,” say we, “and was his face green also?”

“Yes, his face, and his hair, and even his eyes.”

Our son had never lied to us; but this time my wife and I had our doubts.

“Thou must have fallen asleep in the forest, in the heat of the day, and have seen that old man in thy dreams.”

“I wasn’t asleep at all,” says he.  “Why, don’t you believe me?” says he.  “See here, I have one of the nuts left in my pocket.”

Yakoff pulled the nut out of his pocket and showed it to us.—­The kernel was small, in the nature of a chestnut, and rather rough; it did not resemble our ordinary nuts.  I laid it aside, and intended to show it to the doctor ... but it got lost....  I did not find it again.

Well, sir, so we sent him to the seminary, and, as I have already informed you, he rejoiced us by his success.  So my spouse and I assumed that he would turn out a fine man!  When he came for a sojourn at home it was a pleasure to look at him; he was so comely, and there was no mischief about him;—­every one liked him, every one congratulated us.  Only he was still rather thin of body, and there was no real good rosiness in his face.  So then, he was already in his nineteenth year, and his education would soon be finished.  When suddenly we receive from him a letter.—­He writes to us:  “Dear father and mother, be not wroth with me, permit me to be a layman;[19] my heart does not incline to the ecclesiastical profession, I dread the responsibility, I am afraid I shall sin—­doubts have taken hold upon me!  Without your parental permission and blessing I shall venture on nothing—­but one thing I will tell you; I am afraid of myself, for I have begun to think a great deal.”

I assure you, my dear sir, that this letter made me very sad,—­as though a boar-spear had pricked my heart,—­for I saw that I should have no one to take my place![20] My eldest son was a monk; and this one wanted to abandon his vocation altogether.  I was also pained because priests from our family have lived in our parish for close upon two hundred years.  But I thought to myself:  “There’s no use in kicking against the pricks; evidently, so it was predestined for him.  What sort of a pastor would he be if he has admitted doubt to his mind?” I took counsel with my wife, and wrote to him in the following sense: