“I agreed because I was frightened, Little Father. I thought that Mistress would die, but she was well again in three days; why then should I make the long journey?”
“Yes, there is no short road to Kiev. If you had no inclination to go you should not have registered the vow.”
“The inclination is there, but strength fails me. I suffer from want of breath even when I go to church. I am already in my seventh decade, Father. It would be different if Mistress had been three months in bed, if she had received the sacraments and the last unction, and then had been restored to health by God in answer to my prayer; then I would have gone to Kiev on my hands and knees.”
“Well, what is to be done?” asked Father Vassili, smiling.
“Now I should like to promise something different. I will lay a fast on myself, never to eat another bit of meat until I die.”
“Do you like meat?”
“I can’t bear the sight of it, and have weaned myself from eating it.”
“A difficult vow,” said Father Vassili with another smile, “must be replaced by something as difficult or more difficult, but you have chosen the easiest. Isn’t there anything that it would be hard for you to carry out? Think again!”
Vassilissa thought, and said there was nothing.
“Very well then, you must go to Kiev.”