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I summoned up my courage and looked at the corner; there was nothing there.

“Why, good gracious, there is nothing there, Yakoff!”

“Thou dost not see him, but I do.”

Again I glanced round … again nothing. Suddenly there recurred to my mind the little old man in the forest who had given him the chestnut. “What does he look like?” I said…. “Is he green?”

“No, he is not green, but black.”

“Has he horns?”

“No, he is like a man,–only all black.”

As Yakoff speaks he displays his teeth in a grin and turns as pale as a corpse, and huddles up to me in terror; and his eyes seem on the point of popping out of his head, and he keeps staring at the corner.

“Why, it is a shadow glimmering faintly,” I say. “That is the blackness from a shadow, but thou mistakest it for a man.”

“Nothing of the sort!–And I see his eyes: now he is rolling up the whites, now he is raising his hand, he is calling me.”

“Yakoff, Yakoff, thou shouldst try to pray; this obsession would disperse. Let God arise and His enemies shall be scattered!”

“I have tried,” says he, “but it has no effect.”

“Wait, wait, Yakoff, do not lose thy courage. I will fumigate with incense; I will recite a prayer; I will sprinkle holy water around thee.”

Yakoff merely waved his hand. “I believe neither in thy incense nor in holy water; they don’t help worth a farthing. I cannot get rid of him now. Ever since he came to me last summer, on one accursed day, he has been my constant visitor, and he cannot be driven away, Understand this, father, and do not wonder any longer at my behaviour–and do not torment me.”

“On what day did he come to thee?” I ask him, and all the while I am making the sign of the cross over him. “Was it not when thou didst write about thy doubts?”

Yakoff put away my hand.

“Let me alone, dear father,” says he, “don’t excite me to wrath lest worse should come of it. I’m not far from laying hands on myself, as it is.”

You can imagine, my dear sir, how I felt when I heard that…. I remember that I wept all night. “How have I deserved such wrath from the Lord?” I thought to myself.

At this point Father Alexyei drew from his pocket a checked handkerchief and began to blow his nose, and stealthily wiped his eyes, by the way.

A bad time began for us then [he went on]. I could think of but one thing: how to prevent him from running away, or–which the Lord forbid!–of actually doing himself some harm! I watched his every step, and was afraid to enter into conversation.–And there dwelt near us at that time a neighbour, the widow of a colonel, Marfa Savishna was her name; I cherished a great respect for her, because she was a quiet, sensible woman, in spite of the fact that she was young and comely. I was in the habit of going to her house frequently, and she did not despise my vocation.[24] Not knowing, in my grief and anguish, what to do, I just told her all about it.–At first she was greatly alarmed, and even thoroughly frightened; but later on she became thoughtful. For a long time she deigned to sit thus, in silence; and then she expressed a wish to see my son and converse with him. And I felt that I ought without fail to comply with her wish; for it was not feminine curiosity which prompted it in this case, but something else.

FOOTNOTE:
[24] Ecclesiastics are regarded as plebeians by
the gentry or nobles in Russia.–TRANSLATOR.

On returning home I began to persuade Yakoff. “Come with me to see the colonel’s widow,” I said to him.

He began to flourish his legs and arms!

“I won’t go to her,” says he, “not on any account! What shall I talk to her about?” He even began to shout at me. But at last I conquered him, and hitching up my little sledge, I drove him to Marfa Savishna’s, and, according to our compact, I left him alone with her. I was surprised at his having consented so speedily. Well, never mind,–we shall see. Three or four hours later my Yakoff returns.