The church service--so dear to many people not in its words and ceremonies but in its innermost appeal--was incomprehensible to Peredonov. That is why it frightened him. The swinging of the censers frightened him as if it had been a mysterious incantation. "What's he swinging it so hard for?" he thought. The vestments of those serving the Mass seemed to him coarse, vari-coloured rags--and when he looked at the array of priests he felt malignant, and he wanted to tear the vestments and break the sacred vessels. The church ceremonies and mysteries seemed to him an evil witchcraft, intended to subject the common people. "He's crumbled the wafer into the communion cup," he thought angrily of the priest. "It's cheap wine. They deceive the people to get more money for their church celebrations." The mystery of the eternal transformation of inert matter into a force breaking the fetters of death was for ever hidden from him. A walking corpse! The absurd mingling of unbelief in a living God and His Messiah, with his absurd belief in sorcery! The people were leaving the church. The village schoolmaster, Machigin, a simple young man, was standing near the girls, smiling and conversing freely with them. Peredonov thought that it was not quite becoming for him to conduct himself so freely before the future inspector. Machigin wore a straw hat. But Peredonov remembered that in the summer he had seen him just outside the town wearing an official cap with a badge. Peredonov decided to complain about it. As it happened, Inspector Bogdanov was also present. Peredonov walked up to him and said: "Your Machigin has been wearing a cap with a badge. He's trying to look like a gentleman." Bogdanov was alarmed, trembled, and his grey Adam's apple quivered. "He has no right! No right whatever!" he exclaimed anxiously, blinking his red-rimmed eyes. "He has no right, but he's been wearing it," complained Peredonov. "He ought to be stopped--I told you that long ago. Or else any boor of a muzhik can wear a badge; and what will come of it?" Bogdanov, who had been frightened by Peredonov before, was even more alarmed. "How does he dare, eh?" he wailed. "I will call him up at once, at once. And I'll reprimand him most severely." He left Peredonov and quickly ran off home. Volodin walked at Peredonov's side and said in a reproachful, bleating voice: "He's wearing a badge. What do you think of that! As if he had an official rank! Why is it allowed!" "You mustn't wear a badge either," said Peredonov. "I mustn't and I don't want to," said Volodin. "Still I sometimes put on a badge--only I know where and when one can do it. I go out of the town and I put it on there. It gives me great pleasure, and there's no one to stop me. And when you meet a muzhik you get more respect----" "A badge doesn't become your mug, Pavloushka," said Peredonov; "and keep farther off, you're making me dusty with your hoofs."