I jumped up, took the rope from my bird snare, hammered a nail into the beam of the roof, made a noose and fixed the chair. I had already taken off my coat and tom off my collar, when suddenly I saw a little face appear indistinctly and mysteriously on the wall. I could have screamed with fear, though I understood that it was my own face which looked back at me from Olga's round mirror. I looked insane--so distracted and wretched, with my hair wild, my cheeks sunken in, my nose sharp, my mouth half open as with asthma, and my eyes agonized, full of a deep, great pain. I pitied this human face; I pitied it for the beauty that had gone out of it, and I sat down on the bench and wept over myself, as a child who is hurt. After those tears the noose seemed something to be ashamed of, like a joke against myself. And in wrath I tore it down and threw it into the corner of the room. Death was also a riddle, but I had not yet answered the riddle of life! What should I do? Some more days passed. It was as if I were seeking peace. I must do penance, I thought, and I gritted my teeth and went to the priest. I visited him one Sunday evening, just as he and his wife were at table drinking tea. Four children sat around them. Drops of sweat shone on the dark face of the priest, as scales on a fish. "Sit down," he said, good-naturedly, "and drink some tea with us." The room was warm and dry; everything was clean and in order. It occurred to me how negligent this priest was in the performance of his church duties, and the thought came to me, "This, then, is his church." I was not sufficiently humble. "Well, Matvei, you suffer?" the priest asked. "Yes," I answered. "Ah, then you must say the Forty-Day prayers. Does she appear in dreams to you?" "Yes." "Then only the Forty-Day prayer will help you. That is certain." I remained silent. I could not speak before the wife of the priest. I did not like her. She was a large, stout, short-winded woman, with a broad, fat face. She lent money on interest. "Pray earnestly," the priest said to me. "And do not eat your heart. It is a sin against the Lord. He knows what He does." "Does He really know?" I asked. "Certainly. Oh, oh, my young man, I know well that you are proud toward people, but do not dare to carry your pride against the laws of God. You will be punished a hundredfold more severely. This sour stuff which ferments in you comes from the time of Larion, does it not? I know the heresies which he committed when he was drunk--remember this!" Here the priest's wife interrupted: "They should have sent that Larion to a monastery, but the father was too good and did not even complain about him." "That is not true," I answered. "He did complain, but not on account of his opinions, but because of his negligence, for which the father himself was to blame."