The elder hesitated, but Mikhaíl Seménovich commanded him to tell the whole truth.
"Tell everything! You are not going to tell me your words, but theirs. If you tell me the truth, I will reward you; and if you shield them, look out, I will have you flogged. O Kátyusha, give him a glass of vódka to brace him up!"
The cook went and brought the elder the vódka. The elder saluted, drank the vódka, wiped his mouth, and began to speak. "I cannot help it," he thought, "it is not my fault if they do not praise him; I will tell him the truth, if he wants it." And the elder took courage and said:
"They murmur, Mikhaíl Seménovich, they murmur."
"What do they say? Speak!"
"They keep saying that you do not believe in God."
The clerk laughed.
"Who said that?"
"All say so. They say that you are submitting to the devil."