sister?”
“It is,” Pelagia said shyly. “Today is the Festival of our Lord’s Transfiguration; the rules allow it.”
She pretended to be raising the ham to her mouth. Zakidai indignantly thrust his face against her knee to remind her not to forget her place. Pelagia dropped her hand without anyone noticing, thrust the ham into the extortionist’s mouth, and patted her hand gently against the cold, wet nose: That’s it, there’s no more. Zakidai instantly disappeared.
“One thing I really love about the prescriptions of our Orthodox Church,” said Krasnov, “are its well-thought-out dietary arrangements. From a medical point of view, the entire system of fasts and the first meals that follow them regulates the working of the stomach and the intestines in an ideal fashion. No, really, why are you laughing, I’m serious! The autumn and winter periods when meat is allowed are designed to maintain the necessary level of nutrition during the cold part of the year, and the Lenten fast provides excellent cleansing of the intestines before the largely vegetable diet of spring and summer. Timely evacuation of the intestines is the cornerstone of intellectual and spiritual life! I, for instance, compensate for my non-observance of the fasts by taking enemas of infusion of chamomile every evening and I recommend everyone do the same. I have even composed a quatrain on the subject:
Sleep not, sweet maid, tarry a while,
Or you may err in your confusion,
Omitting to take your infusion
Of purifying chamomile.”
“Why, get away with you, Kirill Nifontovich,” exclaimed Marya Afanasievna, gesturing with a laugh. “Don’t you listen to him, holy mother, he’s our local agent of progress. He rides around the meadow on a bicycle, frightening the cows. And don’t you ever think of visiting him without advance warning; he often sits up on the roof naked—taking sunbaths. Bah, for shame! And you see that hedgehog stubble around his bald patch? At the beginning of every summer he shaves all his hair off; that way he lets the back of his head breathe, you see. Just recently he remortgaged his estate to have a telegraph wire installed from Zavolzhsk to his house. And why, do you think? So that he can play checkers with the postmaster. It wouldn’t be so bad if only he were a good player, but he keeps losing all the time.”
“And what of it?” asked Kirill Nifontovich, not in the least offended. “I don’t play out of vanity, but to teach our Zavolzhsk savages a thing or two. Let them know what progress is. Why, in Europe there are new discoveries and inventions every day. In America they build houses that reach right up to the clouds, but our two-fingered reactionaries in long coats even shy away from a steam engine, they close their eyes when they see a gas lamp in the street, to avoid being defiled by Satan’s flame.”
“It’s true that our Old Believers are mistrustful of things that are new, but not all of them,” said Sytnikov, intervening on behalf of his own. “When the young ones grow up, everything around here will change. Why, only a few days ago a merchant from the priestless Old Believers, Avvakum Silych Vonifatiev, came around to see me and made a deal to sell me some forest. Surely you should remember it—just before I went to meet him, we were having tea here and I was telling you how he was married off to a bride of thirty at the age of fifteen. You weren’t here, Pyotr Georgievich, you’d gone into Zavolzhsk.”
Stepan Trofimovich nodded.
“Of course, a picturesque story in the spirit of the local customs. Bubentsov also said that the reason the authorities wish to eradicate your wild schismatic ways is to put an end to that kind of barbarism. And you, Donat Abramovich, quarreled with him.”
“Yes, that’s it—it was that Vonifatiev.”
“Well, then, did he sell you the forest?” asked Shiryaev. “What kind is it? How many acres?”
“Good forest, nothing but pine. Very
“It is,” Pelagia said shyly. “Today is the Festival of our Lord’s Transfiguration; the rules allow it.”
She pretended to be raising the ham to her mouth. Zakidai indignantly thrust his face against her knee to remind her not to forget her place. Pelagia dropped her hand without anyone noticing, thrust the ham into the extortionist’s mouth, and patted her hand gently against the cold, wet nose: That’s it, there’s no more. Zakidai instantly disappeared.
“One thing I really love about the prescriptions of our Orthodox Church,” said Krasnov, “are its well-thought-out dietary arrangements. From a medical point of view, the entire system of fasts and the first meals that follow them regulates the working of the stomach and the intestines in an ideal fashion. No, really, why are you laughing, I’m serious! The autumn and winter periods when meat is allowed are designed to maintain the necessary level of nutrition during the cold part of the year, and the Lenten fast provides excellent cleansing of the intestines before the largely vegetable diet of spring and summer. Timely evacuation of the intestines is the cornerstone of intellectual and spiritual life! I, for instance, compensate for my non-observance of the fasts by taking enemas of infusion of chamomile every evening and I recommend everyone do the same. I have even composed a quatrain on the subject:
Sleep not, sweet maid, tarry a while,
Or you may err in your confusion,
Omitting to take your infusion
Of purifying chamomile.”
“Why, get away with you, Kirill Nifontovich,” exclaimed Marya Afanasievna, gesturing with a laugh. “Don’t you listen to him, holy mother, he’s our local agent of progress. He rides around the meadow on a bicycle, frightening the cows. And don’t you ever think of visiting him without advance warning; he often sits up on the roof naked—taking sunbaths. Bah, for shame! And you see that hedgehog stubble around his bald patch? At the beginning of every summer he shaves all his hair off; that way he lets the back of his head breathe, you see. Just recently he remortgaged his estate to have a telegraph wire installed from Zavolzhsk to his house. And why, do you think? So that he can play checkers with the postmaster. It wouldn’t be so bad if only he were a good player, but he keeps losing all the time.”
“And what of it?” asked Kirill Nifontovich, not in the least offended. “I don’t play out of vanity, but to teach our Zavolzhsk savages a thing or two. Let them know what progress is. Why, in Europe there are new discoveries and inventions every day. In America they build houses that reach right up to the clouds, but our two-fingered reactionaries in long coats even shy away from a steam engine, they close their eyes when they see a gas lamp in the street, to avoid being defiled by Satan’s flame.”
“It’s true that our Old Believers are mistrustful of things that are new, but not all of them,” said Sytnikov, intervening on behalf of his own. “When the young ones grow up, everything around here will change. Why, only a few days ago a merchant from the priestless Old Believers, Avvakum Silych Vonifatiev, came around to see me and made a deal to sell me some forest. Surely you should remember it—just before I went to meet him, we were having tea here and I was telling you how he was married off to a bride of thirty at the age of fifteen. You weren’t here, Pyotr Georgievich, you’d gone into Zavolzhsk.”
Stepan Trofimovich nodded.
“Of course, a picturesque story in the spirit of the local customs. Bubentsov also said that the reason the authorities wish to eradicate your wild schismatic ways is to put an end to that kind of barbarism. And you, Donat Abramovich, quarreled with him.”
“Yes, that’s it—it was that Vonifatiev.”
“Well, then, did he sell you the forest?” asked Shiryaev. “What kind is it? How many acres?”
“Good forest, nothing but pine. Very
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