"They act as though they said, '_Après vous, s'il en reste_,'" he thought, awkwardly making side obeisances; this awkwardness was due to the fact that he was trying to find that mean in which there would be neither disrespect, nor hypocrisy. Finally the doors were opened. He said the prayer after the priest, repeating the words, "As a robber;" his neckerchief was covered with the chalice cloth, and he received his communion and the lukewarm water in the ancient dipper, having put new silver twenty-kopek pieces on ancient plates; after hearing the last prayers, he kissed the cross and, putting on his fur coat left the church, receiving congratulations and experiencing the pleasant sensation of having everything over. As he left the church, he again fell in with Iván Fedótov. "Thank you, thank you!" he replied to his congratulations. "Well, are you going to plough soon?" "The boys have gone out, the boys have," replied Iván Fedótov, more timidly even than before. He supposed that Iván Petróvich knew whither the Izlegóshcha peasants had gone out to plough. "It is damp, though. Damp it is. It is early yet, early it is." Iván Petróvich went up to his parents' monument, bowed to it, and went back to be helped into his six-in-hand with an outrider. "Well, thank God," he said to himself, swaying on the soft, round springs and looking at the vernal sky with the scattering clouds, at the bared earth and the white spots of unmelted snow, and at the tightly braided tail of a side horse, and inhaling the fresh spring air, which was particularly pleasant after the air in the church. "Thank God that I have been through the communion, and thank God that I now may take a pinch of snuff." And he took out his snuff-box and for a long time held the pinch between his fingers, smiling and, without letting the pinch out of the hand, raising his cap in response to the low bows of the people on the way, especially of the women, who were washing the tables and chairs in front of their houses, just as the carriage at a fast trot of the large horses of the six-in-hand plashed and clattered through the mud of the street of the village of Izlegóshcha. Iván Petróvich held the pinch of snuff, anticipating the pleasure of snuffing, not only down the whole village, but even until they got out of a bad place at the foot of a hill, toward which the coachman descended not without anxiety: he held up the reins, seated himself more firmly, and shouted to the outrider to go over the ice. When they went around the bridge, over the bed of the river, and scrambled out of the breaking ice and mud, Iván Petróvich, looking at two plovers that rose from the hollow, took the snuff and, feeling chilly, put on his glove, wrapped himself in his fur coat, plunged his chin into the high neckerchief, and said to himself, almost aloud, "Glorious!" which he was in the habit of saying secretly to himself whenever he felt well.