very poor people and all with cleft palates...

yes.

Then I got up in the morning, and put on my rags, lifted up my hands to heaven and set off to his excellency Ivan Afanasyvitch.

His excellency Ivan Afanasyvitch, do you know him?
No?
Well, then, it's a man of God you don't know.

He is wax...
wax before the face of the Lord; even as wax melteth!...