er's.

The reader whose intuitive powers have been preternaturally sharpened by
a long course of sensation novels will probably leap to the conclusion
that Batushka was a mysterious individual, very different from what he
seemed--either the illegitimate son of some great personage, or a man of
high birth who had committed some great sin, and who now sought oblivion
and expiation in the humble duties of a parish priest. Let me dispel
at once all delusions of this kind. Batushka was actually as well as
legally the legitimate son of an ordinary parish priest, who was
still living, about twenty miles off, and for many generations all his
paternal and maternal ancestors, male and female, had belonged to the
priestly caste. He was thus a Levite of the purest water, and thoroughly
Levitical in his character. Though he knew by experience something about
the weakness of the flesh, he had never committed any sins of the heroic
kind, and had no reason to conceal his origin. The curious facts above
stated were simply the result of a peculiar custom which exists among
the Russian clergy. According to this custom, when a boy enters the
seminary he receives from the Bishop a new family name. The name may be
Bogoslafski, from a word signifying "Theology," or Bogolubof, "the love
of God," or some similar term; or it may be derived from the name of the
boy's native village, or from any other word which the Bishop thinks fit
to choose. I know of one instance where a Bishop chose two French words
for the purpose. He had intended to call the boy Velikoselski, after his
native place, Velikoe Selo, which means "big village"; but finding
that there was already a Velikoselski in the seminary, and being in a
facetious frame of mind, he called the new comer Grandvillageski--a word
that may perhaps sorely puzzle some philologist of the future.

My reverend teacher was a tall, muscular man of about forty years of
age, with a full dark-brown beard, and long lank hair falling over his
shoulders. The visible parts of his dress consisted of three articles--a
dingy-brown robe of coarse material buttoned closely at the neck and
descending to the ground, a wideawake hat, and a pair of large, heavy
boots. As to the esoteric parts of his attire, I refrained from making
investigations. His life had been an uneventful one. At an early age he
had been sent to the seminary in the chief town of the province, and had
made for himself the reputation of a good aver