I knew why he asked that question, for I often found money on the ground. But now these words left an unpleasant impression on me, as if some one had hurt my heart.
"I was praying to God," I said.
"To which one?" he asked me. "We have more than a hundred here. And the living One, the true One, who is not made of wood, where is He? Go and find Him."
I knew the value to attach to his words. Nevertheless, they appeared offensive to me at this time. Vlassi was a decrepit old man, who could hardly walk. His limbs stuck out at the knees and he always tottered as if he were walking on a rope. He had not a tooth in his mouth, and his dark face looked like an old rag, from which two wild eyes stuck out. He had lost his reason and had commenced to rave even some time before Larion's death.
"I don't watch the church," he said. "I watch cattle. I was born a shepherd and shall die a shepherd. Yes, soon I shall leave the church for the fields."
Every one knew that he had never watched cattle.
"The church is a cemetery," he would say. "It is a dead place. I wish to deal with something living. I must go and feed cattle. All my ancestors have been shepherds, and I also up to my forty-second year."
Larion used to make fun of him. One day he said to him laughingly:
"In olden times there was a god of cattle who was called Voloss. Perhaps he was your great-greatgrandfather."
Vlassi questioned him about Voloss; then he said: