During Lent I was ordered to prepare for communion, and I went to confession to our neighbor Father Dorimedont Pokrovski. I regarded him as a hard man, and had committed many sins against him personally. I had thrown stones at the summer-house in his garden, and had quarreled with his children. In fact he might call to mind, if he chose, many similar acts annoying to him. This made me feel very uneasy, and when I stood in the poor little church awaiting my turn to go to confession my heart throbbed tremulously. But Father Dorimedont greeted me with a good-natured, grumbling exclamation. "Ah, it is my neighbor! Well, kneel down! What sins have you committed?" He covered my head with a heavy velvet cloth. I inhaled the odor of wax and incense. It was difficult to speak, and I felt reluctant to do so. "Have you been obedient to your elders?" "No." "Say, 'I have sinned.'" To my own surprise I let fall: "I have stolen." "How was that? Where?" asked the priest, thoughtfully and without haste. "At the church of the three bishops, at Pokrov, and at Nikoli." "Well, that is in all the churches. That was wrong, my child; it was a sin. Do you understand?" "I understand." "Say, 'I have sinned.' What did you steal for? Was it for something to eat?" "Sometimes and sometimes it was because I had lost money at play, and, as I had to take home some blessed bread, I stole it." Father Dorimedont whispered something indistinctly and wearily, and then, after a few more questions, suddenly inquired sternly: "Have you been reading forbidden books?" Naturally I did not understand this question, and I asked: "What books do you mean?" "Forbidden books. Have you been reading any?" "No; not one." "Your sins are remitted. Stand up!" I glanced at his face in amazement. He looked thoughtful and kind. I felt uneasy, conscience-stricken. In sending me to confession, my employers had spoken about its terrors, impressing on me to confess honestly even my slightest sins. "I have thrown stones at your summer-house," I deposed. The priest raised his head and, looking past me, said: "That was very wrong. Now go!" "And at your dog." "Next!" called out Father Dorimedont, still looking past me. I came away feeling deceived and offended. To be put to all that anxiety about the terrors of confession, and to find, after all, that it was not only far from terrible, but also uninteresting! The only interesting thing about it was the question about the forbidden books, of which I knew nothing. I remembered the school-boy reading to the women in that basement room, and "Good Business," who also had many black, thick books, with unintelligible illustrations.