He took off his brocaded vestment at the altar, kissed his stole with emotion, crossed himself before the altar ikon, and went out of the church. He went out, a whole head taller than the people round him, immense, majestic, solemn. And the people involuntarily made way for him, looking at him with a strange timorousness. His look was adamant as he passed the bishop’s chair, and without turning his eyes that way he strode out into the vestibule.
In the open space before the church his little wife caught him up, and weeping and pulling his cassock by the sleeve, she gasped:
“What have you gone and done, idiot, cursed one! Been guzzling vodka all the morning, disgraceful drunkard! You’ll be in luck’s way if you only get sent to a monastery for this, and given a scavenger’s job. Booh! You, Cossack of Cherkask! How many people’s doorsteps shall I have to wear out to get you out of this? Herod! Oh, you stupid bungler!”
“It doesn’t matter,” whispered the deacon to himself, with his eyes on the ground. “I will go and carry bricks or be a signalman or a sledge driver or a house porter; but, anyhow, I shall give up my post. Yes, to-morrow—I don’t want to go on; I can’t any longer. My soul won’t stand it. I firmly believe in the Creed and in Christ, and in the Apostolic Church. But I can’t assent to malice. ‘God has made the world to be a joy to man,’” he quoted suddenly the beautiful, familiar words.
“You’re a fool, a blockhead,” cried his wife. “I’ll have to put you in an asylum. I’ll go to the governor—to the Tsar himself. You’ve drunk yourself into a fever, you wooden-head!”
Father Olympus stood still, turned to her, and opening wide his wrathful eyes, said impressively and harshly:
“Well?!”
At that the deaconess became timidly silent, walked a little way from her husband, covered her face with her handkerchief, and began to weep.
And the deacon continued his way, an immense figure, dark, majestical, like a man carved out of stone.