Here the priest's wife interrupted:
"They should have sent that Larion to a monastery, but the father was too good and did not even complain about him."
"That is not true," I answered. "He did complain, but not on account of his opinions, but because of his negligence, for which the father himself was to blame."
We began to quarrel. First he reproached me for my insolence, and then he began talking about things which I knew just as well as he, but the meaning of which, in his anger, he changed. And then they both began, he as well as his wife, to insult me.
"You are both rascals," they cried, "you and your father-in-law! You have robbed the church. The swampy field belonged to the church from time immemorial, and that is why God has punished you."
"You are right," I said. "The swampy field was taken from you unjustly. But you yourself had taken it away from the peasants."
I rose and wanted to go.
"Stop!" cried the priest, "and the money for the Forty-Day prayer?"
"It is not necessary," I answered.
I went out and thought: "Here you have found comfort for your soul, Matvei."