ONE day, when I was visiting a village on the steppes, I came upon a strange comedy very typical of Russian life. I went in to a bootmaker to get one of my boots sewn up, and I overheard the following conversation.  
“Marya Petrovna has seen the Anti-Christ,” says the cobbler’s wife.
 
“No,” says Jeremy, her husband, “it is God who has looked on her. God has been very pleased with Masha.”
 
“Yes,” rejoins his wife, “she seems very holy, but I don’t like it. Last Sunday at church she knelt so long that everyone thought she had fallen asleep. When the priest opened the door of the church she went in and knelt down on the stones before the blessed Ikon. All through the service she kneeled, and all through the Communion, and though she had bought her loaf and the priest called her she did not go up to the altar, but simply went on kneeling. Then, when the bells rang and we all went out, she still remained kneeling. And she didn’t cross herself. The priest himself had to come 244and lift her out of the church so that he could lock up. I think she’s under a curse. She has done some dreadful sin—has talked with wood spirits, perhaps.”
 
“The Squire’s son came on the Devil’s hoof marks in the forest last week, and saw a man with eight dead foxes shortly afterwards.”
 
The cobbler’s wife held up her hands with horror.
 
Katusha, a young woman from a neighbouring izba, has come in.
 
“You speak of Marya Petrovna,” says she. “We saw her last night, Tanya, Lida and I and a lot of us looking through the window. She was kneeling on her knees and praying to the samovar and calling it God. The priest went in and tried to talk with her, and he tried to raise her, but it was difficult, so he picked up the samovar instead and hid it away. Then poor Masha stood up, and we saw her look at the big black pot that has the cabbage soup in it, and she crossed herself as if it were an Ikon. Two days, they say, she hasn’t eaten, and Peter, her husband, has had to get his meals himself. She won’t do anything in the house, and directly she sees something new she goes down on her knees to it. The priest has been reasoning with her, and she says she sees God everywhere. God is everywhere, that is true, but Masha says He’s in the pots and pans and in the stove, and she won’t sit on a chair because she says it’s all God. You should have seen 245her last night, she looked a holy saint, and her eyes were full of light.”
 
“Lord save us!” exclaimed the cobbler’s wife.
 
“Permit me to go on. Her eyes were full of light, and she lifted up her hands to the roof, and sang strange music, so that we all felt terrified, and the priest wept. When we saw the priest weeping we didn’t know what to think, and prese............