"I know." The peasant moistened his finger as he turned over the leaves, and there was left a dark finger-print where he had touched them. The shopman, gazing with an evil expression at the back of his head, said: "The Holy Scriptures are all of the same age; the word of God does not change." "We know all about that; we have heard that! God did not change it, but Nikon[1] did." Closing the book, he went out in silence. [Footnote 1: The Nikonites are the followers of Nikon, patriarch of Moscow, who objected to the innovation of Peter the Great in suppressing the patriarchate of Moscow, and establishing a State Church upon the lines of the old patriarchal church. They are also termed the Old Believers, who are split up into several extraordinary schisms which existed before and after the suppression of the patriarchate, but who, in the main, continue their orthodoxy.] Sometimes these forest people disputed with the shopman, and it was evident to me that they knew more about the sacred writings than he did. "Outlandish heathen!" grumbled the shopman. I saw also that, although new books were not to the taste of the peasants, they looked upon a new book with awe, handling it carefully, as if it were a bird which might fly out of their hands. This was very pleasant to me to see, because a book was a miracle to me. In it was inclosed the soul of the writer, and when I opened it, I set this soul free, and it spoke to me in secret. Often old men and women brought books to sell printed in the old characters of the pre-Nikonovski period, or copies of such books, beautifully made by the monks of Irgiz and Kerjentz. They also brought copies of missals uncorrected by Dmitry Rostovski, icons with ancient inscriptions, crosses, folding icons with brass mountings, and silver, eucharist spoons given by the Muscovite princes to their hosts as keepsakes. All these were offered secretly, from their hoards under the floor. Both my shopman and his neighbor kept a very sharp lookout for such vendors, each trying to take them away from the other. Having bought antiques for anything up to ten rubles, they would sell them on the market-place to rich Old Ritualists for hundreds of rubles. "Mind you look out for those were-wolves, those wizards! Look for them with all your eyes; they bring luck with them." When a vendor of this kind appeared, the shopman used to send me to fetch the valuer, Petr Vassilich, a connoisseur in old books, icons, and all kind of antiques.