rowing weaker every
hour), she went up to him with a very resolute air.

"Stepan Trofimovitch, one must be prepared for anything. I've sent for a
priest. You must do what is right...."

Knowing his convictions, she was terribly afraid of his refusing. He
looked at her with surprise.

"Nonsense, nonsense!" she vociferated, thinking he was already refusing.
"This is no time for whims. You have played the fool enough."

"But... am I really so ill, then?"

He agreed thoughtfully. And indeed I was much surprised to learn from
Varvara Petrovna afterwards that he showed no fear of death at all.
Possibly it was that he simply did not believe it, and still looked upon
his illness as a trifling one.

He confessed and took the sacrament very readily. Every one, Sofya
Matveyevna, and even the servants, came to congratulate him on taking
the sacrament. They were all moved to tears looking at his sunken and
exhausted face and his blanched and quivering lips.

"_Oui, mes amis,_ and I only wonder that you... take so much trouble. I
shall most likely get up to-morrow, and we will... set off.... _Toute
cette ceremonie_... for which, of course, I feel every proper respect...
was..."

"I beg you, father, to remain with the invalid," said Varvara Petrovna
hurriedly, stopping the priest, who had already taken off his vestments.
"As soon as tea has been handed, I beg you to begin to speak of
religion, to support his faith."

The priest spoke; every one was standing or sitting round the sick-bed.

"In our sinful days," the priest began smoothly, with a cup of tea in
his hand, "faith in the Most High is the sole refuge of the race of man
in all the trials and tribulations of life, as well as its hope for that
eternal bliss promised to the righteous."

Stepan Trofimovitch seemed to revive, a subtle smile strayed on his
lips.

_"Mon pere, je vous remercie et vous etes bien bon, mais..."_

"No _mais_ about it, no _mais_ at all!" exclaimed Varvara Petrovna,
bounding up from her chair. "Father," she said, addressing the priest,
"he is a man who... he is a man who... You will have to confess him
again in another hour! That's the sort of man he is."

Stepan Trofimovitch smiled faintly.

"My friends," he said, "God is necessary to me, if only because He is
the only being whom one can love eternally."

Whether he was really converted, or whether the stately ceremony of
the administration of the sacrament had impressed him and stirred