People began to speak more and more about my piety. One day Titoff said to me:
"Pray zealously for my whole family, Matvei. I beg of you, pray for us. You will thus repay me for having gathered you to me and treated you like a son."
But what did that mean to me? My prayers were without object, like the song of a bird which he pours out to the sun. Nevertheless, I began to pray for him and for his family, and especially for little Olga, who had become a very pretty young girl, sweet and tender. I borrowed the words of the Psalms of David and all the other prayers which I knew. I liked to repeat the sing-song and cadenced phrases, but from the time when I said in praying for Titoff: "Lord, in Thy grace, have pity on Thy servant, Yegor," my heart closed. The spring of my prayers became dry, the serenity of my joys was disturbed. I was ashamed before God and could not continue. Lowering my eyes before the countenances of the holy saints I arose, overcome with a feeling of anger and embarrassment. It troubled me. Why should I feel like that? I tried to understand it, but could not, and I was sorry for the joy which had been destroyed on account of this man.
The people about me began to notice me, and I took notice of them, too.
On holidays when I walked through the streets I was stared at with much curiosity. Some greeted me earnestly while others mocked, but all looked after me.
"Here goes our prayer-book," was heard. "Say, Matvei, are you going to become a saint?"
"Don't laugh at him, friends; he is not a priest and he does not believe in God for the sake of the money."
"Have there not been peasants who became saints?"
"Oh, we have all kinds of men, but that does not help us much."
"Who said he is a peasant? He has got gentleman's blood in him--but that's a secret."
And thus they calked, and some praised and some jeered.
As for myself, I was then in a peculiar state of mind. I wished to be at peace with all and wanted all to love me. However, try as I would to live up to it, their insults prevented me.
Of all who persecuted me, Savelko Migun was the worst. He fell on his knees when he saw me and prostrated himself, declaiming aloud:
"Your Holiness, I bow to the ground before you. Pray for Savelko, I beg of you. God may do the right thing by him then. Teach me how to please the Lord God. Must I stop stealing, or must I steal more and burn him a wax candle?"
