He opened the door cautiously, put his head into the darkness of the adjacent room and listened in an attitude of watchful expectation.
"My, I think I forgot to light the lamp before the ikon of the Holy Virgin, the Assuager of Our Sorrows," flashed through his mind.
Suddenly he heard quick footsteps in the corridor, and he darted back into his study, cautiously closing the door and mincing on tiptoe to the ikon.
A moment later he was already in "proper form," so that when the door opened wide and Ulita rushed into the room, she found him in a pose of prayer with folded hands.
"I am afraid Yevpraksia's life is in danger," said Ulita, not hesitating to interrupt Yudushka's prayers.
But Porfiry Vladimirych did not even turn his face; he began to move his lips faster than before, and instead of answering waved his hand in the air as if to chase away an annoying fly.
"What's the use of waving your hand? I say Yevpraksia is doing poorly. She may die any moment," Ulita insisted gruffly.
This time Yudushka turned toward her, but his face was as calm and unctuous as if he had just been in communion with the Deity, and had cast off all earthly cares, and did not even understand what could make people disturb him.
"Though it's sinful to chide after prayer, still as a human being I cannot keep from complaining. How many times have I not asked you not to disturb me when I say my prayers?" he said in a voice befitting his worshipful mood, and permitting himself only a shake of his head as a sign of Christian reproach. "Well, what has happened?"
"What could have happened? Yevpraksia is in labor and cannot give birth. As if you haven't heard it before. Oh, you! Go and look at her at least."
"What is there to look at? Am I a doctor? Can I give her advice, or what?
I don't know anything, I don't know any of your business.
I know there is a sick woman in the house, but why she is sick and what her sickness is, that, I confess, I never had the curiosity to find out.
Send for the priest if the patient is in danger. That's one piece of advice I can give you.
Send for the priest, pray with him, light the ikon lamps. And then I'll have tea with the parson."
Porfiry Vladimirych was glad that he expressed himself so well in this most decisive moment.
He looked at Ulita firmly as if he meant to say, "Well refute me, if you can."
Even she was baffled by his equanimity.
"Suppose you do come and take a look," she repeated.
"I will not go because I have nothing to do there.
If it were business, I would go without being called.
If I have to go five versts on business, I'll go five versts, and if ten versts, I'll go ten.
It may be in wind and storm, but I'll go.
For I know there is business to attend to and I've got to go whether I want to or not."
Ulita thought she was asleep and that in her sleep she saw Satan himself standing before her and discoursing.
"To send for the priest—that's business!
A prayer—do you know what the Scriptures say about a prayer?
'A prayer cures the afflicted.' That's what it says.
So see to it.
Send for the priest, pray together, and I, too, will pray in the meantime.
You will pray there, in the ikon room, and I will invoke God's mercy here in my study. By joint effort, you on one side, I on the other, we may after all succeed in making our prayers heard in Heaven."
The priest was sent for, but before he came, Yevpraksia, in agony, delivered herself of the child.
From the hurried steps and banging doors, Porfiry Vladimirych understood that something decisive had happened.
And, indeed, in a few minutes hurried steps were heard in the corridor, and Ulita rushed in holding a tiny creature wrapped up in linen.
"Here!
Look at it!" she exclaimed triumphantly, bringing the child close to the face of Porfiry Vladimirych.
For a moment it looked as if Yudushka were hesitating. His body swayed forward and a bright spark flashed in his eyes.
But only for a moment. The next instant he turned up his nose squeamishly and waved his hand.
"No, no! I am afraid. I don't like them. Go away, go away!" he began to stammer, with infinite aversion in his face.
"Why don't you at least ask if it's a boy or a girl?" Ulita pleaded with him.
"No, no! What for? It's none of my business.
It's your affair, and I don't know anything. I don't know anything, and I don't want to know either. Go away, for Christ's sake, be gone!"
Again Ulita felt as though she were in a nightmare with Satan standing in front of her. It exasperated her.
"I'll take him and put him on your sofa. Go nurse him!" That was a threat.
But Yudushka was not the man to be moved.
While Ulita was threatening, he was already facing the ikon, with hands stretched upward.
Evidently he was imploring God to forgive all people, those who sinned knowingly, and those who sinned unknowingly; those who sinned in word and those who sinned in deed; and he thanked the Lord that he himself was not a sinner or an adulterer, and that the Lord in His grace had led him in the righteous path.
Even his nose trembled with the solemnity of his feeling. Ulita observed him for some time, blew out her lips in disgust and left.
"God took one Volodka and gave another Volodka," flashed up in Yudushka's mind quite irrelevantly; but he at once became aware of this sudden play of thought and spat inwardly in annoyance.
Soon the priest came and chanted and burned incense.