Yudushka heard the drawl of the sexton as he was chanting,
"Oh, Zealous Protectress!" and gladly chimed in.
Soon Ulita came running to the door again and shouted,
"He was christened Volodimir!"
Yudushka was moved by the strange coincidence of this circumstance and his recent aberration of mind.
He saw the will of God in it, and this time he did not spit, but said to himself:
"Well, then, thank God! He took one Volodka and gave another.
That's what God can do.
You lose something in one place and you think it's gone, but God, if He wishes, rewards you for it a hundredfold."
At last it was announced that the samovar was on the table and the priest was waiting in the dining-room.
Porfiry Vladimirych became quite peaceful and solemn.
The Golovliovo priest, Father Aleksandr, was a polite man, and he endeavored to give his intercourse with Yudushka a worldly tone.
In the landlord's manor there were all-night vigils every week and on the eve of every principal holiday, in addition to the ceremonial services performed every first of the month. That meant an income of over a hundred rubles a year.
Father Aleksandr was not unmindful of this, nor of the fact that the landmarks between the church lands and Yudushka's lands had not yet been settled upon, and Yudushka, on passing the church meadows, would many times exclaim,
"My, what fine meadows!"
So the priest's worldly behavior toward Yudushka was tempered by fear, which came out every time the priest visited the manor. He would work himself up into gay spirits, though he really had no occasion to feel happy. And when Porfiry Vladimirych gave expression to heresies concerning the ways of Providence, the after-life, and so forth, the priest, though not quite approving of the heresies, still did not consider them sacrilegious and blasphemous, but ascribed them to the temerity of spirit characteristic of the gentry.
When Yudushka entered, the priest hurriedly gave him his blessing and just as hurriedly pulled his hand back as if afraid the Bloodsucker would bite it.
He wanted to congratulate his spiritual son on the birth of the new little Vladimir, but uncertain how Yudushka was taking the matter, he decided not to congratulate him.
"It's misty outdoors," the priest began. "By popular signs, in which one may say there seems to be a great deal of superstition, such a state of the atmosphere signifies that thawing weather is near."
"And maybe it will turn out to be a frost. We are foretelling thawing weather and God will go ahead and send us a frost," retorted Yudushka, with a bustling; air of gaiety, and seated himself at the table, this time attended by the butler Prokhor.
"It is true that man in his aspirations strives to attain the unattainable and to gain access to the inaccessible; and as a consequence he incurs cause for penance, or even veritable grief."
"That is why we ought to refrain from guessing and foretelling and be satisfied with what God sends us.
If He sends us warm weather, we ought to be satisfied with warm weather; if He send us frost, let us welcome the frost.
We'll order the stoves heated more than usual, and those who travel will wrap themselves tight in fur coats, and there you are—we're all warm."
"Quite true."
"There are many nowadays who go circling round. They don't like this and they are dissatisfied with that, and the other thing is not after their heart, but I don't approve.
I don't make forecasts myself, and I don't care for it in others.
It is haughtiness of spirit—that's what I call it."
"That's true, too."
"We are all pilgrims here, that's how I look at it.
Well, as to having a glass of tea, or a light bite, or something, we are allowed to do that, for God gave us our body and limbs. Even the government would not forbid us that. 'You can eat, if you want to,' it says, 'but hold your tongue.'"
"Also perfectly true," exclaimed the priest, tapping the saucer with the bottom of his empty tea-glass in exultation over the harmony between them.
"As I understand it, God gave man reason not to explore the unknown, but to refrain from sin.
If I, for instance, feel a craving of the flesh or a temptation of some kind, I call my reason to the rescue and say, 'Show me, forsooth, the ways by which I may overcome this craving,' and I am quite right, for in such cases reason can really be of great use."
"Still, faith is superior, in a way," the priest offered in slight correction.
"Faith is one thing and reason is another.
Faith points out the goal, and reason finds the way.
It goes searching in every direction till at last it finds something.
Take, for instance, all these drugs and plasters and healing herbs and potions—all of them have been invented by reason.
But we ought to see to it that such invention is in accordance with faith, to our salvation and not to our ruin."
"I cannot disagree with you in this, either."
"There is a certain book, father, that I read some time ago. It says that one must not disdain the offices of reason if the latter is guided by faith, for a man without reason soon becomes the plaything of passion; and I even think that the first downfall of man came about because the devil in the shape of the serpent beclouded the human reason."
The reverend father did not object to this either, though he refrained from assent, since it was not yet clear to him what Yudushka had up his sleeve.
"We often see that people not only fall into sinful thought, but even commit crimes, all because of lack of reason.
The flesh tempts, and if there is no reason, man falls into the abyss.
Man craves something sweet, he craves gaiety and pleasure, especially when it comes through women. How will you preserve yourself without the aid of reason?
And if, let's say, for instance, I do possess reason, I'll take some camphor and rub it in where necessary, and put some in other parts, and before you know, the craving is over as if it had never been there."
Yudushka became silent as if waiting to hear what the priest had to say in response, but the priest was still uncertain what Yudushka was driving at and therefore he only coughed and said quite irrelevantly:
"There are hens in my yard—very restless on account of the change of season. They run and jump about, and can't find a place for themselves."
"All because neither birds nor beasts nor reptiles possess reason.