I loved the Holy Virgin. According to grandmother's stories it was she who sowed on the earth, for the consolation of the poor, all the flowers, all the joys, every blessing and beauty. And when the time came to salute her, without observing how the adults conducted themselves toward her, I kissed the icon palpitatingly on the face, the lips. Some one with powerful hands hurled me to the door. I do not remember seeing the monks go away, carrying the icon, but I remember very well how my employers sat on the floor around me and debated with much fear and anxiety what would become of me. "We shall have to speak to the priest about him and have him taught," said the master, who scolded me without rancor. "Ignoramus! How is it that you did not know that you should not kiss the lips? You must have been taught that at school." For several days I waited, resigned, wondering what actually would happen to me. I had touched the icon with dirty hands; I had saluted it in a forbidden manner; I should not be allowed to go unpunished. But apparently the Mother of God forgave the involuntary sin which had been prompted by sheer love, or else her punishment was so light that I did not notice it among the frequent punishments meted out to me by these good people. Sometimes, to annoy the old mistress, I said compunctiously: "But the Holy Virgin has evidently forgotten to punish me." "You wait," answered the old woman, maliciously. "We shall see." While I decorated the rafters of the attic with pink tea-wrappers, silver paper, leaves from trees, and all kinds of things, I used to sing anything that came into my head, setting the words to church melodies, as the Kalmucks do on the roads. "I am sitting in the attic With scissors in my hand, Cutting paper--paper. A dunce am I, and dull. If I were a dog, I could run where'er I wished; But now they all cry out to me: 'Sit down! Be silent, rogue, While your skin is whole!'" The old woman came to look at my work, and burst out laughing. "You should decorate the kitchen like that." One day the master came up to the attic, looked at my performance, and said, with a sigh: "You are an amusing fellow, Pyeshkov; the devil you are? I wonder what you will become, a conjurer or what? One can't guess." And he gave me a large Nikolaivski five-copeck piece. By means of a thin wire I fastened the coin in the most prominent position among my works of art. In the course of a few days it disappeared. I believe that the old woman took it. CHAPTER V