At the church entrance was a picture, which depicted a saint who had caught the devil and was beating him; the saint, a tall, dark, sinewy fellow with long hands, the devil, a reddish, lean wizened creature of stunted growth resembling a little goat. At first Yevsey did not look at the devil; he had a desire to spit at him surreptitiously; but then he began to pity the unfortunate little fiend, and when nobody was around he tenderly stroked the goat-like little chin disfigured by dread and pain. Thus, for the first time a sense of pity sprang up in the boy's heart. Yevsey liked the church for another reason: here all the people, even the notorious ruffians, dropped their boisterousness, and conducted themselves quietly and submissively. For loud talk frightened Yevsey. He ran away from excited faces and shouts, and hid himself, owing to the fact that once on a market-day he had seen a brawl between a number of muzhiks, which began by their talking to one another in very loud voices. Then they shouted and pushed; next someone seized a pole, waved it about, and struck another man. A terrible howl ensued, many started to run. They knocked the Old Man off his feet, and he fell face downward in a puddle. When he jumped up he saw a huge muzhik coming toward him waving his hands, with a quivering, gory blotch instead of a face. This was so terrible that Yevsey yelled, and suddenly felt as if he were being precipitated into a black pit. He had to be sprinkled with water to bring him to his senses. Yevsey was also afraid of drunken men. His mother had told him that a demon takes up his abode in the body of a drunkard. The Old Man imagined this demon prickly as a hedgehog and moist as a frog, with a reddish body and green eyes, who settles in a man's stomach, stirs about there, and turns the man into an evil fiend. There were many other good things about the church. Besides the quiet and tender twilight, Yevsey liked the singing. When he sang without notes, he closed his eyes firmly, and letting his clear plaintive soprano blend with the general chorus in order it should not be heard above the others, he hid himself deliciously somewhere, as if overcome by a sweet sleep. In this drowsy state it seemed to him he was drifting away from life, approaching another gentle, peaceful existence. A thought took shape in his mind, which he once expressed to his uncle in these words: "Can a person live so that he can go everywhere and see everything, but be seen by nobody?" "Invisibly?" asked the blacksmith, and thought a while. "I should suppose it would be impossible." He turned his black face to his nephew, and added seriously, "Yes, of course, it would be very nice if you could do it, Orphan."