"I never heard anything like that in our parts. Maybe you're speaking of the land of Canaan. It is said that was really the case there," drily responded Arina Petrovna.
"Yes, yes, yes," said Yudushka, as if he had not heard his mother's remark, "they don't believe in God, they don't believe in the immortality of the soul, but they want to eat all the same."
"That's just it—all they want is to eat and drink," repeated the Father Provost, rolling up the sleeves of his cassock to reach a piece of the funeral pie and put it on his plate.
Everybody attacked the soup. For a while nothing was heard but the clink of the spoons on the plates and the puffing of the priests as they blew upon the hot liquid.
"Now as for the Roman Catholics," continued Yudushka, stopping to eat, "although they do not deny the immortality of the soul, yet they claim the soul does not land straight in hell or in heaven, but stays for a while in a sort of middle place."
"That, too, is preposterous."
"To tell you the truth, Father," said Porfiry Vladimirych, deep in thought, "if we take the point of view of——"
"There is no use discussing nonsense. How goes the song of our Holy Church? It says, 'In a grassy place, in a cool place, in which there is neither sighing nor sorrow.' So of what use is it to talk of a 'middle' place?"
Yudushka did not fully agree and wanted to make some sort of objection, but Arina Petrovna, growing annoyed at the conversation, stopped him.
"Well, eat, eat, you theologian. I guess your soup is cold by now," she said, and to change the topic she turned to the Father Provost. "Have you gathered in the rye yet, Father?"