“How long was he dictating?” the deacon said admiringly.  “Ten minutes, not more!  It would have taken someone else a month to compose such a letter.  Eh!  What a mind!  Such a mind that I don’t know what to call it!  It’s a marvel!  It’s really a marvel!”

“Education!” sighed Anastasy as he crossed the muddy street; holding up his cassock to his waist.  “It’s not for us to compare ourselves with him.  We come of the sacristan class, while he has had a learned education.  Yes, he’s a real man, there is no denying that.”

“And you listen how he’ll read the Gospel in Latin at mass to-day!  He knows Latin and he knows Greek. . . .  Ah Petrushka, Petrushka!” the deacon said, suddenly remembering.  “Now that will make him scratch his head!  That will shut his mouth, that will bring it home to him!  Now he won’t ask ‘Why.’  It is a case of one wit to outwit another!  Haha-ha!”

The deacon laughed gaily and loudly.  Since the letter had been written to Pyotr he had become serene and more cheerful.  The consciousness of having performed his duty as a father and his faith in the power of the letter had brought back his mirthfulness and good-humour.

“Pyotr means a stone,” said he, as he went into his house.  “My Pyotr is not a stone, but a rag.  A viper has fastened upon him and he pampers her, and hasn’t the pluck to kick her out.  Tfoo!  To think there should be women like that, God forgive me!  Eh?  Has she no shame?  She has fastened upon the lad, sticking to him, and keeps him tied to her apron strings. . . .  Fie upon her!”

“Perhaps it’s not she keeps hold of him, but he of her?”

“She is a shameless one anyway!  Not that I am defending Pyotr. . . .  He’ll catch it.  He’ll read the letter and scratch his head!  He’ll burn with shame!”

“It’s a splendid letter, only you know I wouldn’t send it, Father Deacon.  Let him alone.”

“What?” said the deacon, disconcerted.

“Why. . . .  Don’t send it, deacon!  What’s the sense of it?  Suppose you send it; he reads it, and . . . and what then?  You’ll only upset him.  Forgive him.  Let him alone!”

The deacon looked in surprise at Anastasy’s dark face, at his unbuttoned cassock, which looked in the dusk like wings, and shrugged his shoulders.

“How can I forgive him like that?” he asked.  “Why I shall have to answer for him to God!”

“Even so, forgive him all the same.  Really!  And God will forgive you for your kindness to him.”

“But he is my son, isn’t he?  Ought I not to teach him?”

“Teach him?  Of course—­why not?  You can teach him, but why call him a heathen?  It will hurt his feelings, you know, deacon. . . .”

The deacon was a widower, and lived in a little house with three windows.  His elder sister, an old maid, looked after his house for him, though she had three years before lost the use of her legs and was confined to her bed; he was afraid of her, obeyed her, and did nothing without her advice.  Father Anastasy went in with him.  Seeing his table already laid with Easter cakes and red eggs, he began weeping for some reason, probably thinking of his own home, and to turn these tears into a jest, he at once laughed huskily.