"Really? How many years have you been promising that? Are the examinations so hard? Or what?" "At the last examination, granny, he failed in his catechism. The priest asked him, 'What is God?' and he answered, 'God is Spirit--is Spirit--and Holy Spirit.'" "Oh, you poor thing! How is that? Look at those little orphans. I'm sure even they know that." "Why, certainly. God is invisible Spirit." Anninka hurried to show off her knowledge. "Whom none ever beheld," Lubinka put in. "Omniscient, most Gracious, Omnipotent, Omnipresent," Anninka continued. "Whither can I go from Thy spirit and whither can I flee from Thy face? Should I rise to Heaven, there wouldst Thou be, should I descend to Hell, there wouldst Thou be." "I wish you would have answered like that. You would have epaulets by this time. And how about you, Volodya, what are you going to do?" Volodya flushed and remained silent. "Apparently, you go no further than your brother with his 'Spirit--Holy Spirit,' Ah, children, children! You seem to be so bright and yet somehow you can't master your studies at all. I might understand if you had a father who spoiled you. Tell me, how does he treat you now?" "Still the same old way, granny." "Does he beat you? Didn't I hear he stopped thrashing you?" "A little bit, but--the worst is, he pesters us to death." "I must say, I don't understand. How can a father pester his children?" "He does though, grandma, awfully. We can't go out without permission, we can't take a thing. It couldn't be worse." "Well, then, ask permission. Your tongue wouldn't fall out in the effort, I imagine." "Impossible. You just begin to talk to him, then he doesn't let go of you. 'Don't hurry and wait a while. Gently, gently, take it easy.' Really, granny, his talk is too tiresome for words." "Granny, he listens to us on the sly behind our doors. Just the other day Piotr caught him in the act." "Oh, you rogues! Well, what did he say?" "Nothing. I said to him, 'It won't do, daddy, for you to eavesdrop at our doors. Some day you may get your nose squashed. And all he said was, 'Well, well, it's nothing, it's nothing. I, my child, am like a thief in the night, as it says in the Bible.'" "The other day, granny, he picked up an apple in the orchard, and put it away in a cupboard. I ate it up. So he hunted and hunted for it, and cross-examined everybody." "What do you mean? Has he become a miser?" "No, he's not exactly stingy, but--how shall I put it? He is just swamped head over heels in little things. He hides slips of paper, and he hunts for wind-fallen fruit." "Every morning he says mass in his study, and later he gives each of us a little piece of holy wafer, stale as stale can be." "But once we played a trick on him. We discovered where he keeps the wafers, made a cut in the bottom of them, took out the pulp, and stuck butter in." "Well, I must say you are regular cut-throats." "My, just imagine his surprise, next day. Wafers with butter!"