“On the other hand,” Boryna satirically remarked, “there is no lack of funerals.” “And what do funerals bring us? Nobody dies but poor people. A farmer’s burial, really worth something to us, comes only once or twice a year.” “And votive masses,” she added, “are ever more seldom, and people bargain for them like Jews!” “That,” Boryna explained, “is on account of present hard times, and poverty.” “Also because men now think less of their salvation, and of the duty to help poor souls in purgatory!” The organist here added: “And we get less from the manors as well. Formerly, when on our rounds at harvest-time, or offering wafers, or at Yule-tide, or with our lists of parishioners newly made up, we used to go straight to the manor, where they grudged us neither corn, nor money, nor flour for pastry. And now, good heavens! all have grown so stingy that, if one offers us a little sheaf of rye, it must have been gnawed by mice; and if a bushel of oats, it will be chaff for the greater part. Had we not a bit of land, we should have to beg our bread,” he concluded, holding out his snuff-box to Boryna. “True, true,” the latter replied, though under no delusion. He well knew the organist had money, some in the bank, some out at interest, and profitably lent to farm-hands. So he only smiled to hear his lamentations, and once more asked about Yanek. “Are you going to make a Government clerk of him?” “Of him? My Yanek—a Government official? I have not denied myself bread for him that the poor boy should have to finish his classes. No, no; he shall be a priest.” “What, a priest?” “Aye, why not? Shall he lose aught thereby? Whom does it hurt to become a priest?” “No one. No one, certainly,” he answered with deliberation, looking respectfully over his shoulder at the young fellow. “It is an honour. And also, as the saying is: ‘A priest’s kith and kin will never grow thin.’” “They said that Staho, the miller’s son, was to enter the seminary; but I hear he is now at a college, studying medicine.” “Ah! such an evil-liver, a priest! Why, my servant Magda is six months with child—and by him!” “By the miller’s man, they say.” “No. His mother says so, but it is only to screen him. Oh, such a profligate!... God forbid!... As a physician, he’ll do very well.” Boryna said: “Yes, yes, a priest’s vocation is by far the best,” and continued to humour her, tactfully listening to her gossip, while the organist would many a time lift his cap, answering “For ever!” to the greetings of those he passed by. They went at a good trot; Yanek drove splendidly, threading his way among the wagons and people and livestock upon the road, till they got to the forest, where the crush was not so great, and the road wider. There they came up with Dominikova, who was going with Yagna and Simon, and a cow tied by the horns to the cart, from which, hissing like so many adders, the white necks of some ganders protruded.