Page:Leskov - The Sentry and other Stories.djvu/258

 242 that are so full of fancies, turning towards spiritualism? Only, of course, it is being accomplished more quietly, because now, although the chosen idol is but a puny one, nobody wants to overthrow it. But then such cold-blooded tolerance was wanting in many, and I, poor sinner, was among that number. I could not look with indifference on my poor baptizers, who came wandering on foot out of the deserts, back to me for protection. In the whole district there was not one old nag for them, not one reindeer, not a single dog, and God only knows how they had crawled back on foot through the snow drifts. They arrived dirty and in tatters—certainly not like the priests of God Almighty, but more like real wandering cripples. The officials and the whole of the ordinary administration protected the lamas without the slightest pricks of conscience. I had almost to fight the Governor in order to persuade that Christian boyard to check his assistants from quite openly providing for Buddhism. The Governor, as usual, was offended, and we had a violent quarrel. I complained to him about his officials; he wrote to me, that nobody interfered with my missionaries, but that they were idle and unskilful. My deserter-missionaries in their turn whined that, although their mouths had not actually been gagged, they could