The world was still gray when Father Voynovski was clattering along through deep snow with a lantern to the doves, partridges, and rabbits which he kept in his granary in a special enclosure. A tame fox with bells on her neck followed his footsteps; at his side went a Spitz dog and a porcupine. Winter sleep did not deaden the latter in the warm room of the priest's house. The beasts and their master, when they had crossed the yard slowly, stopped under the out-jutting straw eaves of the granary, from which long icicles were hanging. The lantern swayed, the key was heard in the lock, the bolt whined, the door squeaked louder than the key, and the old man went in with his animals. After a while he took his seat on a block, placed his lantern on a second block, and put between his knees a linen bag holding grain and also cabbage leaves. He began then to yawn aloud and to empty the bag on the floor there in front of him. Before he had finished three rabbits advanced from dark corners jumping toward him; next were seen the eyes of doves, glittering and bead-like in the light of the lantern; then rust-colored partridges, moving their heads on lithe necks as they came on in close company. Being the most resolute, the pigeons fell straightway to hammering the floor with their bills, while the partridges moved with more caution, looking now at the falling grain, now at the priest, and now at the she fox; with her they had been acquainted a long time, since, taken as chicks the past summer and reared from being little, they saw the beast daily. The priest kept on throwing grain, muttering morning prayer as he did so: "_Pater noster, qui es in coelis, sanctificetur nomen_--" Here he stopped and turned to the fox, and she, while touching his side, trembled as if a fever were shaking her. "Ah, the skin on thee trembles as soon as thou seest them. It is the same every day. Learn to keep down thy inborn appetite, for thou hast good food at all seasons and sufferest no hunger. Where did I stop?" Here he closed his eyes as if waiting for an answer, and since he did not have it he began at the first words: "_Pater noster, qui es in coelis, sanctificetur nomen Tuum, adveniat regnum Tuum_." And again he halted.