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And, thrusting the book into my stomach, he sank his head upon his breast, and fell to swaying it ponderously up and down.

“Folk die,” was his next utterance, “and the world remains as full of grief as ever. Yes, folk die even before they have seen a little good accrue to themselves.”

“I see that your book is not a Psalter,” here I interposed after an inspection of the volume.

“You are wrong.”

“Then look for yourself.”

He grabbed the book by its cover, and, by dint of holding the candle close to its pages, discovered, eventually, that matters were as I had stated.

This took him aback completely.

“What can the fact mean?” he exclaimed. “Oh, I know what has happened. The mistake has come of my being in such a hurry. The other book, the true Psalter, is a fat, heavy volume, whereas this one is–“

For a moment he seemed sobered by the shock. At all events, he rose and, approaching the corpse, said, as he bent over the bed with his beard held back:

“Pardon me, Vasil, but what is to be done?”

Then he straightened himself again, threw back his curls, and, drawing a bottle from his pocket, and thrusting the neck of the bottle into his mouth, took a long draught, with a whistling of his nostrils as he did so.

“Well?” I said.

“Well, I intend to go to bed–my idea is to drink and enjoy myself awhile.”

“Go, then.”

“And what of the reading?”

“Who would wish you to mumble words which you would not be comprehending as you uttered them?”

The deacon reseated himself upon the bench, leaned forward, buried his face in his hands and remained silent.

Fast the July night was waning. Fast its shadows were dissolving into corners, and allowing a whiff of fresh dewy morningtide to enter at the window. Already was the combined light of the two candles growing paler, with their flames looking like the eyes of a frightened child.

“You have lived your life, Vasi,” at length the deacon muttered, “and though once I had a place to which to resort, now I shall have none. Yes, my last friend is dead. Oh Lord– where is Thy justice?”

For myself, I went and took a seat by the window, and, thrusting my head into the open air, lit a pipe, and continued to listen with a shiver to the deacon’s wailings.

“Folk used to gird at my wife,” he went on, “and now they are gnawing at me as pigs might gnaw at a cabbage. That is so, Vasil. Yes that is so.”

Again the bottle made its appearance. Again the deacon took a draught. Again he wiped his beard. Then he bent over the dead man once more, and kissed the corpse’s forehead.

“Good-bye, friend of mine!” he said. Then to myself he added with unlooked-for clarity and vigour:

“My friend here was but a plain man–a man as inconspicuous among his fellows as a rook among a flock of rooks. Yet no rook was he. Rather, he was a snow-white dove, though none but I realised the fact. And now he has been withdrawn from the ‘grievous bondage of Pharaoh.’ Only I am left. Verily, after my passing, shall my soul torment and vomit spittle upon his adversaries!”

“Have you known much sorrow?”

The deacon did not reply at once. When he did so he said dully:

“All of us have known much sorrow. In some cases we have known more than was rightfully our due. I certainly, have known much. But go to sleep, for only in sleep do we recover what is ours.”

And he added as he tripped over his own feet, and lurched heavily against me:

“I have a longing to sing something. Yet I feel that I had best not, for song at such an hour awakens folk, and starts them bawling . . . But beyond all things would I gladly sing.”

With which he buzzed into my ear:

“To whom shall I sing of my grief?
To whom resort for relief?
To the One in whose ha-a-and–“