“What is your name?” the priest asks me, covering my head with the soft stole.
How light-hearted I am now, with joy in my soul!
I have no sins now, I am holy, I have the right to enter Paradise! I fancy that I already smell like the cassock. I go from behind the screen to the deacon to enter my name, and sniff at my sleeves. The dusk of the church no longer seems gloomy, and I look indifferently, without malice, at Mitka.
“What is your name?” the deacon asks.
“Fedya.”
“And your name from your father?”
“I don’t know.”
“What is your papa’s name?”
“Ivan Petrovitch.”
“And your surname?”