“And must it go on like this always?” asked the priest, and his words sounded listless and distant like the thud of the earth thrown into the grave upon the lowered coffin.
“And must it go on like this always?” repeated Mossyagin listening to the sound of his own words. And all that had passed in his life rose before him again: the hungry faces of the children, the reproaches, the killing toil, the dull heartache that makes one long to drink and fight; and so it must go on, for a long time, all through life—until death steps in. Blinking his white eyelashes, Mossyagin cast a teardimmed misty glance upon the priest and met his sharp and blazing gaze—and in this exchange of glances they recognized an intimate sorrowful kinship. An instinctive movement drew them together, and Father Vassily laid his hand on the peasant’s shoulder: lightly and gently it rested upon it like a cobweb in autumn time. Mossyagin’s shoulder quivered affectionately, he lifted up his eyes trustingly, and pitifully smiling with a corner of his mouth he said:
“But like as not it may ease up!”
The priest removed his hand imperceptibly and was silent. The peasant’s white eyelashes blinked faster and faster, the little hairs in the blazing red beard danced ever more merrily, while his tongue babbled something unintelligible and incoherent:
“No. I dare say it won’t ease up. You’re right.”
But the priest did not suffer him to finish. He stamped his foot with repressed emotion, scared the peasant with a wrathful, hostile glance, and hissed at him like an angry adder:
“Don’t weep! Don’t dare to weep. Oh, why do they blubber like senseless calves? What can I do?” he prodded his chest with his finger. “What can I do? Am I God, am I? Ask HIM! Ask HIM! Ask HIM! I tell thee.”
He pushed the peasant’s shoulder.
“Down on thy knees.”
Mossyagin knelt.