“_Legato!_ Hold the note.... Break off! Basses, _crescendo_.... Ivàn Pàvlovich, as loud as you can. ‘_By whom all things were made._’... What do you stop for? Oh, dear, oh, dear; what _am_ I to do with you? Look this way, I tell you; look this way! I didn’t tell you to look at _me_; there’s nothing written on me!” cried the choir-master desperately, tapping the music. The singers looked at him in a languid, careless way, and he began to lose his temper. Suddenly one of the trebles pulled another’s ear, which instantly resulted in a quarrel. “Ivàn Stepànych,” said one of the most troublesome, “I can’t sing with Mìtka; he keeps on snuffling all the time.” “Mìtka!” “Yes, sir!” “What are you doing?” “I haven’t done nothing,” replied the injured alto. “Nothing! I’ll give you what for, my lad! Come and stand over here; I won’t put up with much nonsense, I can tell you! Oh, good Lord! what a dog’s life! What do you come here for, if you please? To dance and sing comic songs, eh? Oh, heavens, how much more of it?... Pètka, find my pipe!” Here the choir-master began tramping up and down the room, ruffling up his hair in front. The trebles all scrambled to pick up the pipe, and, of course, got fighting again; the rest of the choir broke into little groups and talked. “Confounded idiot!” muttered the stubbly-haired bass, rolling up a bit of music-paper into a cigarette. “He’s a regular brute, that’s what he is!” In a corner sat two basses and a thin, consumptive tenor. “I’ve sung through four services this blessed day,” one of the basses was saying, “and I’m downright tired of it; my throat’s quite sore. First I sang at the early service, then in another church at high mass, then at vespers at the Holy Virgin’s church, and then at a funeral. I got Kouznetzòv to come to the Holy Virgin’s, and we had a rare lark with the deacon;—I told him we would! I tell you, that deacon won’t forget us in a hurry—the way we put him out! When he started on one note, we got on to another. You know, he always tries to take ‘_Give ear_’ as high as he can, so as not to have to take the octave—his voice is fit for nothing;—so when we started ‘_Glory be to Thee_’ a whole tone lower, he was just done for. ‘_For ever and ev_——’ and there he stuck—couldn’t get a word out for the life of him. And that scamp Kouznetzòv, there he stood saying his prayers as if it wasn’t his doing a bit; bowing and crossing himself, as pious as you please. I nearly died of laughing. Oh, and what a rage the priest is in—my word! After service the deacon came up to the chancel, and says he: ‘Wait a bit, my fine fellow; I’ll serve you a trick.’... But that’s all nonsense. What can he do to him?” “But what did the priest say?” asked the consumptive tenor. “What’s it to him? He said, ‘I’m not going to take that deacon’s part.’ So you see, we can do as we like.” “Get to your places; make haste,” interrupted the choir-master’s voice. “Koulìkov! ‘_We sing to Thee._’ Trebles hold your tongues!”