IN the little town of Lupiskory, after the funeral of widow Kaliksta, there were vespers, and after vespers old women, between ten and twenty in number, remained in the church to finish the hymn. It was four o’clock in the afternoon; but, since twilight comes in winter about that hour, it was dark in the church. The great altar, especially, was sunk in deep shade. Only two candles were burning at the ciborium; their flickering flames barely lighted a little the gilding of the doors, and the feet of Christ, hanging on a cross higher up. Those feet were pierced with an enormous nail, and the head of that nail seemed a great point gleaming on the altar.
From other candles, just quenched, streaks of smoke were waving, filling the places behind the stalls with a purely church odor of wax.