Kalinin / Maxim Gorky

Whistling from off the sea, the wind was charged with moist, salt

spray, and dashing foaming billows ashore with their white manes

full of snakelike, gleaming black ribands of seaweed, and causing

the rocks to rumble angrily in response, and the trees to rustle

with a dry, agitated sound as their tops swayed to and fro, and

their trunks bent earthwards as though they would fain reeve up

their roots, and betake them whither the mountains stood veiled

in a toga of heavy, dark mist.

Over the sea the clouds were hurrying towards the land as ever

and anon they rent themselves into strips, and revealed

fathomless abysses of blue wherein the autumn sun burned

uneasily, and sent cloud-shadows gliding over the puckered waste

of waters, until, the shore reached, the wind further harried the

masses of vapour towards the sharp flanks of the mountains, and,

after drawing them up and down the slopes, relegated them to

clefts, and left them steaming there.

There was about the whole scene a louring appearance, an

appearance as though everything were contending with everything,

as now all things turned sullenly dark, and now all things

emitted a dull sheen which almost blinded the eyes. Along the

narrow road, a road protected from the sea by a line of wave-

washed dykes, some withered leaves of oak and wild cherry were

scudding in mutual chase of one another; with the general result

that the combined sounds of splashing and rustling and howling

came to merge themselves into a single din which issued as a song

with a rhythm marked by the measured blows of the waves as they

struck the rocks.

"Zmiulan, the King of the Ocean, is abroad!" shouted my fellow

traveller in my ear. He was a tall, round-shouldered man of

childishly chubby features and boyishly bright, transparent eyes.

"WHO do you say is abroad?" I queried.

"King Zmiulan."

Never having heard of the monarch, I made no reply.

The extent to which the wind buffeted us might have led one to

suppose that its primary objective was to deflect our steps, and

turn them in the direction of the mountains. Indeed, at times its

pressure was so strong that we had no choice but to halt, to turn

our backs to the sea, and, with feet planted apart, to prise

ourselves against our sticks, and so remain, poised on three

legs, until we were past any risk of being overwhelmed with the

soft incubus of the tempest, and having our coats torn from our

shoulders.

At intervals such gasps would come from my companion that he

might well have been standing on the drying-board of a bath. Nor,

as they did so, was his appearance aught but comical, seeing that

his ears, appendages large and shaggy like a dog's, and

indifferently shielded with a shabby old cap, kept being pushed

forward by the wind until his small head bore an absurd

resemblance to a china bowl. And that, to complete the

resemblance, his long and massive nose, a feature grossly

disproportionate to the rest of his diminutive face, might

equally well have passed for the spout of the receptacle

indicated.

Yet a face out of the common it was, like the whole of his

personality. And this was the fact which had captivated me from

the moment when I had beheld him participating in a vigil service

held in the neighbouring church of the monastery of New Athos.

There, spare, but with his withered form erect, and his head

slightly tilted, he had been gazing at the Crucifix with a

radiant smile, and moving his thin lips in a sort of whispered,

confidential, friendly conversation with the Saviour. Indeed, so

much had the man's smooth, round features (features as beardless

as those of a Skopetz [A member of the Skoptzi, a non-Orthodox

sect the members of which "do make of themselves eunuchs for the

Lord's sake."], save for two bright tufts at the corners of the

mouth) been instinct with intimacy, with a consciousness of

actually being in the presence of the Son of God, that the

spectacle, transcending anything of the kind that my eyes had

before beheld, had led me, with its total absence of the

customary laboured, servile, pusillanimous attitude towards the

Almighty which I had generally found to be the rule, to accord

the man my whole interest, and, as long as the service had

lasted, to keep an eye upon one who could thus converse with God

without rendering Him constant obeisance, or again and again

making the sign of the cross, or invariably making it to the

accompaniment of groans and tears which had always hitherto

obtruded itself upon my notice.

Again had I encountered the man when I had had supper at the

workmen's barraque, and then proceeded to the monastery's guest-

chamber. Seated at a table under a circle of light falling from a

lamp suspended from the ceiling, he had gathered around him a

knot of pilgrims and their women, and was holding forth in low,

cheerful tones that yet had in them the telling, incisive note of

the preacher, of the man who frequently converses with his fellow

men.

"One thing it may be best always to disclose," he was saying,

"and another thing to conceal. If aught in ourselves seems harmful

or senseless, let us put to ourselves the question: 'Why is this

so?' Contrariwise ought a prudent man never to thrust himself

forward and say: 'How discreet am I!' while he who makes a parade

of his hard lot, and says, 'Good folk, see ye and hear how bitter

my life is,' also does wrong."

Here a pilgrim with a black beard, a brigand's dark eyes, and the

wasted features of an ascetic rose from the further side of the

table, straightened his virile frame, and said in a dull voice:

"My wife and one of my children were burnt to death through the

falling of an oil lamp. On THAT ought I to keep silence?"

No answer followed. Only someone muttered to himself:

"What? Again?": until the first speaker, the speaker seated

near the corner of the table, launched into the oppressive lull

the unhesitating reply:

"That of which you speak may be taken to have been a punishment

by God for sin."

"What? For a sin committed by one three years of age (for,

indeed, my little son was no more)? The accident happened of his

pulling down a lamp upon himself, and of my wife seizing him, and

herself being burnt to death. She was weak, too, for but eleven

days had passed since her confinement."

"No. What I mean is that in that accident you see a punishment

for sins committed by the child's father and mother."

This reply from the corner came with perfect confidence. The

black-bearded man, however, pretended not to hear it, but spread

out his hands as though parting the air before him, and proceeded

hurriedly, breathlessly to detail the manner in which his wife

and little one had met their deaths. And all the time that he was

doing so one had an inkling that often before had he recounted

his narrative of horror, and that often again would he repeat it.

His shaggy black eyebrows, as he delivered his speech, met in a

single strip, while the whites of his eyes

grew bloodshot, and their dull, black pupils never ceased their

nervous twitching.

Presently the gloomy recital was once more roughly,

unceremoniously broken in upon by the cheerful voice of the

Christ-loving pilgrim.

"It is not right, brother," the voice said, "to blame God for

untoward accidents, or for mistakes and follies committed by

ourselves."

"But if God be God, He is responsible for all things."

"Not so. Concede to yourself the faculty of reason."

"Pah! What avails reason if it cannot make me understand?"

"Cannot make you understand WHAT?"

"The main point, the point why MY wife had to be burnt rather

than my neighbour's?"

Somewhere an old woman commented in spitefully distinct tones:

"Oh ho, ho! This man comes to a monastery, and starts railing as

soon as he gets there!"

Flashing his eyes angrily, the black-bearded man lowered his head

like a bull. Then, thinking better of his position, and

contenting himself with a gesture, he strode swiftly, heavily

towards the door. Upon this the Christ-loving pilgrim rose with a

swaying motion, bowed to everyone present, and set about

following his late interlocutor.

"It has all come of a broken heart," he said with a smile as he

passed me. Yet somehow the smile seemed to lack sympathy.

With a disapproving air someone else remarked:

"That fellow's one thought is to enlarge and to enlarge upon his

tale."

"Yes, and to no purpose does he do so," added the Christ-loving

pilgrim as he halted in the doorway. "All that he accomplishes by

it is to weary himself and others alike. Such experiences are far

better put behind one."

Presently I followed the pair into the forecourt, and near the

entrance-gates heard a voice say quietly:

"Do not disturb yourself, good father."

"Nevertheless" (the second voice was that of the porter of the

monastery, Father Seraphim, a strapping Vetlugan) "a spectre

walks here nightly."

"Never mind if it does. As regards myself, no spectre would

touch me."

Here I moved in the direction of the gates.

"Who comes there?" Seraphim inquired as he thrust a hairy and

uncouth, but infinitely kindly, face close to mine. "Oh, it is

the young fellow from Nizhni Novgorod! You are wasting your time,

my good sir, for the women have all gone to bed."

With which he laughed and chuckled like a bear.

Beyond the wall of the forecourt the stillness of the autumn

night was the languid inertia of a world exhausted by summer, and

the withered grass and other objects of the season were exhaling

a sweet and bracing odour, and the trees looking like fragments

of cloud where motionless they hung in the moist, sultry air.

Also, in the darkness the half-slumbering sea could be heard

soughing as it crept towards the shore while over the sky lay a

canopy of mist, save at the point where the moon's opal-like blur

could be descried over the spot where that blur's counterfeit

image glittered and rocked on the surface of the dark waters.

Under the trees there was set a bench whereon I could discern

there to be resting a human figure. Approaching the figure, I

seated myself beside it.

"Whence, comrade?" was my inquiry.

"From Voronezh. And you?"

A Russian is never adverse to talking about himself. It would seem

as though he is never sure of his personality, as though he is

ever yearning to have that personality confirmed from some source

other than, extraneous to, his own ego. The reason for this must

be that we Russians live diffused over a land of such vastness

that, the more we grasp the immensity of the same, the smaller do

we come to appear in our own eyes; wherefore, traversing, as we

do, roads of a length of a thousand versts, and constantly losing

our way, we come to let slip no opportunity of restating

ourselves, and setting forth all that we have seen and thought

and done.

Hence, too, must it be that in conversations one seems to hear

less of the note of "I am I" than of the note of "Am I really

and truly myself?"

"What may be your name?" next I inquired of the figure on the

bench.

"A name of absolute simplicity--the name of Alexei Kalinin."

"You are a namesake of mine, then."

"Indeed? Is that so?"

With which, tapping me on the knee, the figure added:

"Come, then, namesake. 'I have mortar, and you have water, so

together let us paint the town.'"

Murmuring amid the silence could be heard small, light waves that

were no more than ripples. Behind us the busy clamour of the

monastery had died down, and even Kalinin's cheery voice seemed

subdued by the influence of the night--it seemed to have in it

less of the note of self-confidence.

"My mother was a wet-nurse," he went on to volunteer, and I her

only child. When I was twelve years of age I was, owing to my

height, converted into a footman. It happened thus. One day, on

General Stepan (my mother's then employer) happening to catch

sight of me, he exclaimed: 'Evgenia, go and tell Fedor' (the

ex-soldier who was then serving the General as footman) 'that he

is to teach your son to wait at table! The boy is at least tall

enough for the work.' And for nine years I served the General in

this capacity. And then, and then--oh, THEN I was seized with an

illness. . . . Next, I obtained a post under a merchant who was

then mayor of our town, and stayed with him twenty-one months.

And next I obtained a situation in an hotel at Kharkov, and held

it for a year. And after that I kept changing my places, for,

steady and sober though I was, I was beginning to lack taste for

my profession, and to develop a spirit of the kind which deemed

all work to be beneath me, and considered that I had been created

to serve only myself, not others."

Along the high road to Sukhum which lay behind us there were

proceeding some invisible travellers whose scraping of feet as

they walked proclaimed the fact that they were not over-used to

journeying on foot. Just as the party drew level with us, a

musical voice hummed out softly the line "Alone will I set forth

upon the road," with the word "alone" plaintively stressed.

Next, a resonant bass voice said with a sort of indolent

incisiveness:

"Aphon or aphonia means loss of speech to the extent of, to the

extent of--oh, to WHAT extent, most learned Vera Vasilievna?"

"To the extent of total loss of power of articulation," replied

a voice feminine and youthful of timbre.

Just at that moment we saw two dark, blurred figures, with a

paler figure between them, come gliding into view.

"Strange indeed is it that, that--"

"That what?"

"That so many names proper to these parts should also be so

suggestive. Take, for instance, Mount Nakopioba. Certainly folk

hereabouts seem to have " amassed " things, and to have known how

to do so." [The verb nakopit means to amass, to heap up.]

"For my part, I always fail to remember the name of Simon the

Canaanite. Constantly I find myself calling him 'the Cainite.'"

"Look here," interrupted the musical voice in a tone of

chastened enthusiasm. "As I contemplate all this beauty, and

inhale this restfulness, I find myself reflecting: 'How would it

be if I were to let everything go to the devil, and take up my

abode here for ever?'"

At this point all further speech became drowned by the sound of

the monastery's bell as it struck the hour. The only utterance

that came borne to my ears was the mournful fragment:

Oh, if into a single word

I could pour my inmost thoughts!

To the foregoing dialogue my companion had listened with his head

tilted to one side, much as though the dialogue had deflected it

in that direction: and now, as the voices died away into the

distance, he sighed, straightened himself, and said:

"Clearly those people were educated folk. And see too how, as

they talked of one thing and another, there cropped up the old

and ever-persistent point."

"To what point are you referring?"

My companion paused a moment before he replied. Then he said:

"Can it be that you did not hear it? Did you not hear one of

those people remark: 'I have a mind to surrender everything '?"

Whereafter, bending forward, and peering at me as a blind man

would do, Kalinin added in a half-whisper:

"More and more are folk coming to think to themselves: 'Now must

I forsake everything.' In the end I myself came to think it. For

many a year did I increasingly reflect: 'Why should I be a

servant? What will it ever profit me? Even if I should earn

twelve, or twenty, or fifty roubles a month, to what will such

earnings lead, and where will the man in me come in? Surely it

would be better to do nothing at all, but just to gaze into space

(as I am doing now), and let my eyes stare straight before me?'"

"By the way, what were you talking to those people about?"

"Which people do you mean?"

"The bearded man and the rest, the company in the guest-chamber?"

"Ah, THAT man I did not like--I have no fancy at all for fellows

who strew their grief about the world, and leave it to be

trampled upon by every chance-comer. For how can the tears of my

neighbour benefit me? True, every man has his troubles; but also

has every man such a predilection for his particular woe that he

ends by deeming it the most bitter and remarkable grief in the

universe--you may take my word for that."

Suddenly the speaker rose to his feet, a tall, lean figure.

"Now I must seek my bed," he remarked. "You see, I shall have

to leave here very early tomorrow."

"And for what point?"

"For Novorossisk."

Now, the day being a Saturday, I had drawn my week's earnings

from the monastery's pay-office just before the vigil service.

Also, Novorossisk did not really lie in my direction. Thirdly, I

had no particular wish to exchange the monastery for any other

lodging. Nevertheless, despite all this, the man interested me to

such an extent (of persons who genuinely interest one there never

exist but two, and, of them, oneself is always one) that

straightway I observed:

"I too shall be leaving here tomorrow."

"Then let us travel together."

*********************************

At dawn, therefore, we set forth to foot the road in company. At

times I mentally soared aloft, and viewed the scene from that

vantage-point. Whenever I did so, I beheld two tall men traversing

a narrow track by a seashore--the one clad in a grey military

overcoat and a hat with a broken crown, and the other in a drab

kaftan and a plush cap. At their feet the boundless sea was

splashing white foam, salt-dried ribands of seaweed were strewing

the path, golden leaves were dancing hither and thither, and the

wind was howling at, and buffeting, the travellers as clouds

sailed over their heads. Also, to their right there lay stretched

a chain of mountains towards which the clouds kept wearily,

nervelessly tending, while to their left there lay spread a

white-laced expanse over the surface of which a roaring wind kept

ceaselessly driving transparent columns of spray.

On such stormy days in autumn everything near a seashore looks

particularly cheerful and vigorous, seeing that, despite the

soughing of wind and wave, and the swift onrush of cloud, and the

fact that the sun is only occasionally to be seen suspended in

abysses of blue, and resembles a drooping flower, one feels that

the apparent chaos has lurking in it a secret harmony of mundane,

but imperishable, forces--so much so that in time even one's puny

human heart comes to imbibe the prevalent spirit of revolt, and,

catching fire, to cry to all the universe: " I love you! "

Yes, at such times one desires to taste life to the full, and so

to live that the ancient rocks shall smile, and the sea's white

horses prance the higher, as one's mouth acclaims the earth in

such a paean that, intoxicated with the laudation, it shall

unfold its riches with added bountifulness and display more and

more manifest beauty under the spur of the love expressed by one

of its creatures, expressed by a human being who feels for the

earth what he would feel for a woman, and yearns to fertilise the

same to ever-increasing splendour.

Nevertheless,words are as heavy as stones, and after felling

fancy to the ground, serve but to heap her grey coffin-lid, and

cause one, as one stands contemplating the tomb, to laugh in

sheer self-derision. . . .

Suddenly, plunged in dreams as I walked along, I heard through

the plash of the waves and the sizzle of the foam the unfamiliar

words:

"Hymen, Demon, Igamon, and Zmiulan. Good devils are these, not

bad."

"How does Christ get on with them?" I asked.

"Christ? He does not enter into the matter."

"Is He hostile to them?"

"Is He HOSTILE to them? How could He be? Devils of that kind are

devils to themselves-devils of a decent sort. Besides, to no one

is Christ hostile" .............................. . . . . . .

[In the Russian this hiatus occurs as marked.]

As though unable any longer to brave the assault of the billows,

the path suddenly swerved towards the bushes on our right, and,

in doing so, caused the cloud-wrapped mountains to shift

correspondingly to our immediate front, where the masses of

vapour were darkening as though rain were probable.

Kalinin's discourse proved instructive as with his stick he from

time to time knocked the track clear of clinging tendrils.

"The locality is not without its perils," once he remarked.

"For hereabouts there lurks malaria. It does so because long ago

Maliar of Kostroma banished his evil sister, Fever, to these

parts. Probably he was paid to do so, but the exact circumstances

escape my memory."

So thickly was the surface of the sea streaked with cloud-shadows

that it bore the appearance of being in mourning, of being decked

in the funeral colours of black and white. Afar off, Gudaout lay

lashed with foam, while constantly objects like snowdrifts kept

gliding towards it.

"Tell me more about those devils," I said at length.

"Well, if you wish. But what exactly am I to tell you about

them?"

"All that you may happen to know."

"Oh, I know EVERYTHING about them."

To this my companion added a wink. Then he continued:

"I say that I know everything about those devils for the reason

that for my mother I had a most remarkable woman, a woman

cognisant of each and every species of proverb, anathema, and

item of hagiology. You must know that, after spreading my bed

beside the kitchen stove each night, and her own bed on the top

of the stove (for, after her wet-nursing of three of the

General's children, she lived a life of absolute ease, and did no

work at all)--"

Here Kalinin halted, and, driving his stick into the ground,

glanced back along the path before resuming his way with firm,

lengthy strides.

"I may tell you that the General had a niece named Valentina

Ignatievna. And she too was a most remarkable woman."

"Remarkable for what?"

"Remarkable for EVERYTHING."

At this moment there came floating over our heads through the

damp-saturated air a cormorant--one of those voracious birds which

so markedly lack intelligence. And somehow the whistling of its

powerful pinions awoke in me an unpleasant reminiscent thought.

"Pray continue," I said to my fellow traveller.

And each night, as I lay on the floor (I may mention that never

did I climb on to the stove, and to this day I dislike the heat

of one), it was her custom to sit with her legs dangling over the

edge of the top, and tell me stories. And though the room would

be too dark for me to see her face, I could yet see the things of

which she would be speaking. And at times, as these tales came

floating down to me, I would find them so horrible as to be

forced to cry out, 'Oh, Mamka, Mamka, DON'T! . . .' To this hour

I have no love for the bizarre, and am but a poor hand at

remembering it. And as strange as her stories was my mother.

Eventually she died of an attack of blood-poisoning and, though

but forty, had become grey-headed. Yes, and so terribly did she

smell after her death that everyone in the kitchen was

constrained to exclaim at the odour."

"Yes, but what of the devils?"

"You must wait a minute or two."

Ever as we proceeded, clinging, fantastic branches kept closing

in upon the path, so that we appeared to be walking through a sea

of murmuring verdure. And from time to time a bough would flick

us as though to say: "Speed, speed, or the rain will be upon

you!"

If anything, however, my companion slackened his pace as in

measured, sing-song accents he continued:

"When Jesus Christ, God's Son, went forth into the wilderness to

collect His thoughts, Satan sent devils to subject Him to

temptation. Christ was then young; and as He sat on the burning

sand in the middle of the desert, He pondered upon one thing and

another, and played with a handful of pebbles which He had

collected. Until presently from afar, there descried Him the

devils Hymen, Demon, Igamon, and Zmiulan--devils of equal age with

the Saviour.

"Drawing near unto Him, they said, 'Pray suffer us to sport with

Thee.' Whereupon Christ answered with a smile: 'Pray be seated.'

Then all of them did sit down in a circle, and proceed to

business, which business was to see whether or not any member of

the party could so throw a stone into the air as to prevent it

from falling back upon the burning sand.

.............................. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

. . . . . . .

[In the original Russian this hiatus occurs as given.]

"Christ Himself was the first to throw a stone; whereupon His

stone became changed into a six-winged dove, and fluttered away

towards the Temple of Jerusalem. And, next, the impotent devils

strove to do the same; until at length, when they saw that Christ

could not in any wise be tempted, Zmiulan, the senior of the

devils, cried:

"'0h Lord, we will tempt Thee no more; for of a surety do we

avail not, and, though we be devils, never shall do so!'

"'Aye, never shall ye!' Christ did agree. 'And, therefore, I

will now fulfil that which from the first I did conceive. That ye

be devils I know right well. And that, while yet afar off, ye

did, on beholding me, have compassion upon me I know right well.

While also ye did not in any wise seek to conceal from me the

truth as concerning yourselves. Hence shall ye, for the remainder

of your lives, be GOOD devils; so that at the last shall matters

be rendered easier for you. Do thou, Zmiulan, become King of the

Ocean, and send the winds of the sea to cleanse the land of foul

air. And do thou, Demon, see to it that the cattle shall eat of

no poisonous herb, but that all herbs of the sort be covered with

prickles. Do thou, Igamon, comfort, by night, all comfortless

widows who shall be blaming God for the death of their husbands?

And do thou, Hymen, as the youngest devil of the band, choose for

thyself wherein shall lie thy charge.'

"'0h Lord,' replied Hymen, 'I do love but to laugh.'

"And the Saviour replied:

"'Then cause thou folk to laugh. Only, mark thou, see to it

that they laugh not IN CHURCH.'

"'Yet even in church would I laugh, 0h Lord,' the devil objected.

" 'Jesus Christ Himself laughed.

" 'God go with you!' at length He said. 'Then let folk laugh even

in church--but QUIETLY.'

"In such wise did Christ convert those four evil devils into

devils of goodness."

Soaring over the green, bushy sea were a number of old oaks. On

them the yellow leaves were trembling as though chilled; here

and there a sturdy hazel was doffing its withered garments, and

elsewhere a wild cherry was quivering, and elsewhere an almost

naked chestnut was politely rendering obeisance to the earth.

"Did you find that story of mine a good one?" my companion

inquired.

"I did, for Christ was so good in it."

"Always and everywhere He is so," Kalinin proudly rejoined. "But

do you also know what an old woman of Smolensk used to sing

concerning Him?"

" I do not."

Halting, my strange traveller chanted in a feignedly senile and

tremulous voice, as he beat time with his foot:

In the heavens a flow'r doth blow,

It is the Son of God.

From it all our joys do flow,

It is the Son of God.

In the sun's red rays He dwells

He, the Son of God.

His light our every ill dispels.

Praised be the Son of God!

Each successive line seemed to inspire Kalinin's voice with added

youthfulness, until, indeed, the concluding words-- "The One and

Only God"-- issued in a high, agreeable tenor.

Suddenly a flash of lightning blazed before us, while dull

thunder crashed among the mountains, and sent its hundred-voiced

echoes rolling over land and sea. In his consternation, Kalinin

opened his mouth until a set of fine, even teeth became bared to

view. Then, with repeated crossings of himself, he muttered.

"0h dread God, 0h beneficent God, 0h God who sittest on high, and

on a golden throne, and under a gilded canopy, do Thou now punish

Satan, lest he overwhelm me in the midst of my sins!"

Whereafter, turning a small and terrified face in my direction,

and blinking his bright eyes, he added with hurried diction:

"Come, brother! Come! Let us run on ahead, for thunderstorms are

my bane. Yes, let us run with all possible speed, run ANYWHERE,

for soon the rain will be pouring down, and these parts are full

of lurking fever."

Off, therefore, we started, with the wind smiting us behind, and

our kettles and teapots jangling, and my wallet, in particular,

thumping me about the middle of the body as though it had been

wielding a large, soft fist. Yet a far cry would it be to the

mountains, nor was any dwelling in sight, while ever and anon

branches caught at our clothes, and stones leapt aloft under our

tread, and the air grew steadily darker, and the mountains seemed

to begin gliding towards us.

Once more from the black cloud-masses, heaven belched a fiery dart

which caused the sea to scintillate with blue sapphires in

response, and, seemingly, to recoil from the shore as the earth

shook, and the mountain defiles emitted a gigantic scrunching

sound of their rock-hewn jaws.

"0h Holy One! 0h Holy One! 0h Holy One!" screamed Kalinin as he

dived into the bushes.

In the rear, the waves lashed us as though they had a mind to

arrest our progress; from the gloom to our front came a sort of

scraping and rasping; long black hands seemed to wave over our

heads; just at the point where the mountain crests lay swathed in

their dense coverlet of cloud ,there rumbled once more the

deafening iron chariot of the thunder-god; more and more

frequently flashed the lightning as the earth rang, and rifts

cleft by the blue glare disclosed, amid the obscurity, great

trees that were rustling and rocking and, to all appearances,

racing headlong before the scourge of a cold, slanting rain.

The occasion was a harassing but bracing one, for as the fine

bands of rain beat upon our faces, our bodies felt filled with a

heady vigour of a kind to fit us to run indefinitely--at all

events to run until this storm of rain and thunder should be

outpaced, and clear weather be reached again.

Suddenly Kalinin shouted: "Stop! Look!"

This was because the fitful illumination of a flash had just

shown up in front of us the trunk of an oak tree which had a

large black hollow let into it like a doorway. So into that

hollow we crawled as two mice might have done--laughing aloud in

our glee as we did so.

"Here there is room for THREE persons," my companion remarked.

"Evidently it is a hollow that has been burnt out--though rascals

indeed must the burners have been to kindle a fire in a living

tree!"

However, the space within the hollow was both confined and

redolent of smoke and dead leaves. Also, heavy drops of rain

still bespattered our heads and shoulders, and at every peal of

thunder the tree quivered and creaked until the strident din

around us gave one the illusion of being afloat in a narrow

caique. Meanwhile at every flash of the lightning's glare, we

could see slanting ribands of rain cutting the air with a network

of blue, glistening, vitreous lines.

Presently, the wind began to whistle less loudly, as though now it

felt satisfied at having driven so much productive rain into the

ground, and washed clean the mountain tops, and loosened the

stony soil.

"U-oh! U-oh!" hooted a grey mountain owl just over our heads.

"Why, surely it believes the time to be night!" Kalinin

commented in a whisper.

"U-oh! U-u-u-oh!" hooted the bird again, and in response my

companion shouted:

"You have made a mistake, my brother!"

By this time the air was feeling chilly, and a bright grey fog

had streamed over us, and wrapped a semi-transparent veil about

the gnarled, barrel-like trunks with their outgrowing shoots and

the few remaining leaves still adhering.

Far and wide the monotonous din continued to rage--it did so until

conscious thought began almost to be impossible. Yet even as one

strained one's attention, and listened to the rain lashing the

fallen leaves, and pounding the stones, and bespattering the

trunks of the trees, and to the murmuring and splashing of

rivulets racing towards the sea, and to the roaring of torrents

as they thundered over the rocks of the mountains, and to the

creaking of trees before the wind, and to the measured thud-thud

of the waves; as one listened to all this, the thousand sounds

seemed to combine into a single heaviness of hurried clamour, and

involuntarily one found oneself striving to disunite them, and to

space them even as one spaces the words of a song.

Kalinin fidgeted, nudged me, and muttered:

"I find this place too close for me. Always I have hated

confinement."

Nevertheless he had taken far more care than I to make himself

comfortable, for he had edged himself right into the hollow, and,

by squatting on his haunches, reduced his frame to the form of a

ball. Moreover, the rain-drippings scarcely or in no wise touched

him, while, in general, he appeared to have developed to the full

an aptitude for vagrancy as a permanent condition, and for the

allowing of no unpleasant circumstance to debar him from

invariably finding the most convenient vantage-ground at a given

juncture. Presently, in fact, he continued:

"Yes; despite the rain and cold and everything else, I consider

life to be not quite intolerable."

"Not quite intolerable in what?"

"Not quite intolerable in the fact that at least I am bound to

the service of no one save God. For if disagreeablenesses have to

be endured, at all events they come better from Him than from

one's own species."

"Then you have no great love for your own species?"

"One loves one's neighbour as the dog loves the stick." To

which, after a pause, the speaker added:

For WHY should I love him?"

It puzzled me to cite a reason off-hand, but, fortunately,

Kalinin did not wait for an answer--rather, he went on to ask:

"Have you ever been a footman?"

"No," I replied.

"Then let me tell you that it is peculiarly difficult for a

footman to love his neighbour."

"Wherefore?"

"Go and be a footman; THEN you will know. In fact, it is never

the case that, if one serves a man, one can love that man. . . .

How steadily the rain persists!"

Indeed, on every hand there was in progress a trickling and a

splashing sound as though the weeping earth were venting soft,

sorrowful sobs over the departure of summer before winter and its

storms should arrive.

"How come you to be travelling the Caucasus?" I asked at

length.

"Merely through the fact that my walking and walking has brought

me hither," was the reply. "For that matter, everyone ends by

heading for the Caucasus."

"Why so?"

"Why NOT, seeing that from one's earliest years one hears of

nothing but the Caucasus, the Caucasus? Why, even our old General

used to harp upon the name, with his moustache bristling, and his

eyes protruding, as he did so. And the same as regards my mother,

who had visited the country in the days when, as yet, the General

was in command but of a company. Yes, everyone tends hither. And

another reason is the fact that the country is an easy one to live

in, a country which enjoys much sunshine, and produces much food,

and has a winter less long and severe than our own winter, and

therefore presents pleasanter conditions of life."

"And what of the country's people?"

"What of the country's people? Oh, so long as you keep yourself

to yourself they will not interfere with you."

"And why will they not?"

Kalinin paused, stared at me, smiled condescendingly, and,

finally, said:

"What a dullard you are to ask about such simple things! Were

you never given any sort of an education? Surely by this time you

ought to be able to understand something?"

Then, with a change of subject, and subduing his tone to one of

snuffling supplication, he added in the sing-song chant of a

person reciting a prayer:

"'0h Lord, suffer me not to become bound unto the clergy the

priesthood, the diaconate, the tchinovstvo, [The official class]

or the intelligentsia!' This was a petition which my mother used

often to repeat."

The raindrops now were falling more gently, and in finer lines

and more transparent network, so that one could once more descry

the great trunks of the blackened oaks, with the green and gold

of their leaves. Also, our own hollow had grown less dark, and

there could be discerned its smoky, satin-bright walls. From

those walls Kalinin picked a bit of charcoal with finger and

thumb, saying:

"It was shepherds that fired the place. See where they dragged

in hay and dead leaves! A shepherd's fife hereabouts must be a

truly glorious one!"

Lastly, clasping his head as though he were about to fall asleep,

he sank his chin between his knees, and relapsed into silence.

Presently a brilliant, sinuous little rivulet which had long been

laving the bare roots of our tree brought floating past us a red

and fawn leaf.

"How pretty," I thought, "that leaf will look from a distance

when reposing on the surface of the sea! For, like the sun when

he is in solitary possession of the heavens, that leaf will stand

out against the blue, silky expanse like a lonely red star."

After awhile my companion began, catlike, to purr to himself a

song. Its melody, the melody of "the moon withdrew behind a

cloud," was familiar enough, but not so the words, which ran:

0h Valentina, wondrous maid,

More comely thou than e'er a flow'r!

The nurse's son doth pine for thee,

And yearn to serve thee every hour!

"What does that ditty mean?" I inquired.

Kalinin straightened himself, gave a wriggle to a form that was

as lithe as a lizard's, and passed one hand over his face.

"It is a certain composition," he replied presently. "It is a

composition that was composed by a military clerk who afterwards

died of consumption. He was my friend his life long, and my only

friend, and a true one, besides being a man out of the common."

"And who was Valentina?"

"My one-time mistress," Kalinin spoke unwillingly.

"And he, the clerk--was he in love with her?"

"Oh dear no!"

Evidently Kalinin had no particular wish to discuss the subject,

for he hugged himself together, buried his face in his hands, and

muttered:

"I should like to kindle a fire, were it not that everything in

the place is too damp for the purpose."

The wind shook the trees, and whistled despondently, while the

fine, persistent rain still whipped the earth.

"I but humble am, and poor,

Nor fated to be otherwise,"

sang Kalinin softly as, flinging up his head with an unexpected

movement, he added meaningly:

"Yes, it is a mournful song, a song which could move to tears.

Only to two persons has it ever been known; to my friend the

clerk and to myself. Yes, and to HER, though I need hardly add

that at once she forgot it."

And Kalinin's eyes flashed into a smile as he added:

"I think that, as a young man, you had better learn forthwith

where the greatest danger lurks in life. Let me tell you a

story."

And upon that a very human tale filtered through the silken

monotonous swish of the downpour, with, for listeners to it, only

the rain and myself.

"Lukianov was NEVER in love with her," he narrated. "Only I was

that. All that Lukianov did in the matter was to write, at my

request, some verses. When she first appeared on the scene (I

mean Valentina Ignatievna) I was just turned nineteen years of

age; and the instant that my eyes fell upon her form I realised

that in her alone lay my fate, and my heart almost stopped

beating, and my vitality stretched out towards her as a speck of

dust flies towards a fire. Yet all this I had to conceal as best

I might; with the result that in the company's presence I felt

like a sentry doing guard duty in the presence of his commanding

officer. But at last, though I strove to pull myself together, to

steady myself against the ferment that was raging in my breast,

something happened. Valentina Ignatievna was then aged about

twenty-five, and very beautiful--marvellous, in fact! Also, she

was an orphan, since her father had been killed by the

Chechentzes, and her mother had died of smallpox at Samarkand. As

regards her kinship with the General, she stood to him in the

relation of niece by marriage. Golden-locked, and as skin-fair as

enamelled porcelain, she had eyes like emeralds, and a figure

wholly symmetrical, though as slim as a wafer. For bedroom she

had a little corner apartment situated next to the kitchen (the

General possessed his own house, of course), while, in addition,

they allotted her a bright little boudoir in which she disposed

her curios and knickknacks, from cut-glass bottles and goblets to

a copper pipe and a glass ring mounted on copper. This ring, when

turned, used to emit showers of glittering sparks, though she was

in no way afraid of them, but would sing as she made them dance:

"Not for me the spring will dawn!

Not for me the Bug will spate!

Not for me love's smile will wait!

Not for me, ah, not for me!

"Constantly would she warble this.

"Also, once she flashed an appeal at me with her eyes, and said:

"'Alexei, please never touch anything in my room, for my things

are too fragile.'

"Sure enough, in HER presence ANYTHING might have fallen from my

hands!

"Meanwhile her song about 'Not for me' used to make me feel

sorry for her. 'Not for you? ' I used to say to myself. 'Ought

not EVERYTHING to be for you? ' And this reflection would cause

my heart to yearn and stretch towards her. Next, I bought a

guitar, an instrument which I could not play, and took it for

instruction to Lukianov, the clerk of the Divisional Staff, which

had its headquarters in our street. In passing I may say that

Lukianov was a little Jewish convert with dark hair, sallow

features, and gimlet-sharp eyes, but beyond all things a fellow

with brains, and one who could play the guitar unforgettably.

"Once he said: 'In life all things are attainable--nothing need

we lose for want of trying. For whence does everything come? From

the plainest of mankind. A man may not be BORN in the rank of a

general, but at least he may attain to that position. Also, the

beginning and ending of all things is woman. All that she

requires for her captivation is poetry. Hence, let me write you

some verses, that you may tender them to her as an offering.'

"These, mind you, were the words of a man in whom the heart was

absolutely single, absolutely dispassionate."

Until then Kalinin had told his story swiftly, with animation;

but thereafter he seemed, as it were, to become extinguished.

After a pause of a few seconds he continued--continued in slower,

to all appearances more unwilling, accents--

"At the time I believed what Lukianov said, but subsequently I

came to see that things were not altogether as he had

represented--that woman is merely a delusion, and poetry merely

fiddle-faddle; and that a man cannot escape his fate, and that,

though good in war, boldness is, in peace affairs, but naked

effrontery. In this, brother, lies the chief, the fundamental law

of life. For the world contains certain people of high station,

and certain people of low; and so long as these two categories

retain their respective positions, all goes well; but as soon as

ever a man seeks to pass from the upper category to the inferior

category, or from the inferior to the upper, the fat falls into

the fire, and that man finds himself stuck midway, stuck neither

here nor there, and bound to abide there for the remainder of his

life, for the remainder of his life. . . . Always keep to your

own position, to the position assigned you by fate.. . . . Will

the rain NEVER cease, think you?"

By this time, as a matter of fact, the raindrops. were falling

less heavily and densely than hitherto, and the wet clouds were

beginning to reveal bright patches in the moisture-soaked

firmament, as evidence that the sun was still in existence.

"Continue," I said.

Kalinin laughed.

"Then you find the story an interesting one," he remarked.

Presently he resumed:

"As I have said, I trusted Lukianov implicitly, and begged of

him to write the verses. And write them he did--he wrote them the

very next day. True, at this distance of time I have forgotten

the words in their entirety, but at least I remember that there

occurred in them a phrase to the effect that 'for days and weeks

have your eyes been consuming my heart in the fire of love, so

pity me, I pray.' I then proceeded to copy out the poem, and

tremblingly to leave it on her table.

"The next morning, when I was tidying her boudoir, she made an

unexpected entry, and, clad in a loose, red dressing-gown, and

holding a cigarette between her lips, said to me with a kindly

smile as she produced my precious paper of verses:

"'Alexei, did YOU write these?'

"'Yes,' was my reply. 'And for Christ's sake pardon me for the

same.'

"'What a pity that such a fancy should have entered your head!

For, you see, I am engaged already--my uncle is intending to marry

me to Doctor Kliachka, and I am powerless in the matter.'

"The very fact that she could address me with so much sympathy

and kindness struck me dumb. As regards Doctor Kliachka, I may

mention that he was a good-looking, blotchy-faced, heavy-jowled

fellow with a moustache that reached to his shoulders, and lips

that were for ever laughing and vociferating. 'Nothing has

either a beginning or an end. The only thing really existent is

pleasure.'

"Nay, even the General could, at times, make sport of the

fellow, and say as he shook with merriment:

"'A doctor-comedian is the sort of man that you are.'

"Now, at the period of which I am speaking I was as straight as

a dart, and had a shock of luxuriant hair over a set of ruddy

features. Also, I was living a life clean in every way, and

maintaining a cautious attitude towards womenfolk, and holding

prostitutes in a contempt born of the fact that I had higher

views with regard to my life's destiny. Lastly, I never indulged

in liquor, for I actually disliked it, and gave way to its

influence only in days subsequent to the episode which I am

narrating. Yes, and, last of all, I was in the habit of taking a

bath every Saturday.

"The same evening Kliachka and the rest of the party went out to

the theatre (for, naturally, the General had horses and a

carriage of his own), and I, for my part, went to inform Lukianov

of what had happened.

"He said: 'I must congratulate you, and am ready to wager you

two bottles of beer that your affair is as good as settled. In a

few seconds a fresh lot of verses shall be turned out, for poetry

constitutes a species of talisman or charm.'

"And, sure enough, he then and there composed the piece about

'the wondrous Valentina.' What a tender thing it is, and how full

of understanding! My God, my God!"

And, with a thoughtful shake of his bead, Kalinin raised his

boyish eyes towards the blue patches in the rain-washed sky.

"Duly she found the verses," he continued after a while, and

with a vehemence that seemed wholly independent of his will. "And

thereupon she summoned me to her room.

"'What are we to do about it all?' she inquired.

"She was but half-dressed, and practically the whole of her

bosom was visible to my sight. Also, her naked feet had on them

only slippers, and as she sat in her chair she kept rocking one

foot to and fro in a maddening way.

"'What are we to do about it all?' she repeated.

"'What am I to say about it, at length I replied, 'save that I

feel as though I were not really existing on earth?'

"'Are you one who can hold your tongue?' was her next question.

"I nodded--nothing else could I compass, for further speech had

become impossible. Whereupon, rising with brows puckered, she

fetched a couple of small phials, and, with the aid of

ingredients thence, mixed a powder which she wrapped in paper,

and handed me with the words:

"'Only one way of escape offers from the Plagues of Egypt. Here

I have a certain powder. Tonight the doctor is to dine with us.

Place the powder in his soup, and within a few days I shall be

free!--yes, free for you!'

"I crossed myself, and duly took from her the paper, whilst a

mist rose, and swam before my eyes, as I did so, and my legs

became perfectly numb. What I next did I hardly know, for

inwardly I was swooning. Indeed, until Kliachka's arrival the

same evening I remained practically in a state of coma."

Here Kalinin shuddered--then glanced at me with drawn features and

chattering teeth, and stirred uneasily.

"Suppose we light a fire?" he ventured. "I am growing shivery

all over. But first we must move outside."

The torn clouds were casting their shadows wearily athwart the

sodden earth and glittering stones and silver-dusted herbage.

Only on a single mountain top had a blur of mist settled like an

arrested avalanche, and was resting there with its edges

steaming. The sea too had grown calmer under the rain, and was

splashing with more gentle mournfulness, even as the blue patches

in the firmament had taken on a softer, warmer look, and stray

sunbeams were touching upon land and sea in turn, and, where they

chanced to fall upon herbage, causing pearls and emeralds to

sparkle on every leaf, and kaleidoscopic tints to glow where the

dark-blue sea reflected their generous radiance. Indeed, so

goodly, so full of promise, was the scene that one might have

supposed autumn to have fled away for ever before the wind and

the rain, and beneficent summer to have been restored.

Presently through the moist, squelching sound of our footsteps,

and the cheerful patter of the rain-drippings, Kalinin's

narrative resumed its languid, querulous course:

"When, that evening, I opened the door to the doctor I could not

bring myself to look him in the face--I could merely hang my head;

whereupon, taking me by the chin, and raising it, he inquired:

"Why is your face so yellow? What is the matter with you?'

"Yes, a kind-hearted man was he, and one who had never failed to

tip me well, and to speak to me with as much consideration as

though I had not been a footman at all.

"'I am not in very good health,' I replied. 'I, I--'

"'Come, come!' was his interjection. 'After dinner I must look

you over, and in the meanwhile, do keep up your spirits.'

"Then I realised that poison him I could not, but that the

powder must be swallowed by myself--yes, by myself! Aye, over my

heart a flash of lightning had gleamed, and shown me that now I

was no longer following the road properly assigned me by fate.

"Rushing away to my room, I poured out a glass of water, and

emptied into it the powder; whereupon the water thickened,

fizzed, and became topped with foam. Oh, a terrible moment it

was! . . . Then I drank the mixture. Yet no burning sensation

ensued, and though I listened to my vitals, nothing was to be

heard in that quarter, but, on the contrary, my head began to

lighten, and I found myself losing the sense of self-pity which

had brought me almost to the point of tears. . . . Shall we

settle ourselves here?"

Before us a large stone, capped with green moss and climbing

plants, was good-humouredly thrusting upwards a broad, flat face

beneath which the body had, like that of the hero Sviatogov,

sunken into the earth through its own weight until only the face,

a visage worn with aeons of meditation, was now visible. On every

side, also, had oak-trees overgrown and encompassed the bulk of

the projection, as though they too had been made of stone, with

their branches drooping sufficiently low to brush the wrinkles of

the ancient monolith. Kalinin seated himself on his haunches

under the overhanging rim of the stone, and said as he snapped

some twigs in half:

"This is where we ought to have been sitting whilst the rain was

coming down."

"And so say I," I rejoined. "But pray continue your story."

"Yes, when you have put a match to the fire."

Whereafter, further withdrawing his spare frame under the stone,

so that he might stretch himself at full length, Kalinin

continued:

"I walked to the pantry quietly enough, though my legs were

tottering beneath me, and I had a cold sensation in my breast.

Suddenly I heard the dining-room echo to a merry peal of

laughter from Valentina Ignatievna, and the General reply to that

outburst:

"'Ah, that man! Ah, these servants of ours! Why, the fellow would

do ANYTHING for a piatak '[A silver five-kopeck piece, equal in

value to 2 1/4 pence.]

"To this my beloved one retorted:

"'Oh, uncle, uncle! Is it only a piatak that I am worth?

And then I heard the doctor put in:

"'What was it you gave him?'

"'Merely some soda and tartaric acid. To think of the fun that we

shall have!'"

Here, closing his eyes, Kalinin remained silent for a moment,

whilst the moist breeze sighed as it drove dense, wet mist

against the black branches of the trees.

"At first my feeling was one of overwhelming joy at the thought

that at least not DEATH was to be my fate. For I may tell you

that, so far from being harmful, soda and tartaric acid are

frequently taken as a remedy against drunken headache. Then the

thought occurred to me: 'But, since I am not a tippler, why

should such a joke have been played upon ME?' However, from that

moment I began to feel easier, and when the company had sat down

to dinner, and, amid a general silence, I was handing round the

soup, the doctor tasted his portion, and, raising his head with a

frown, inquired:

"'Forgive me, but what soup is this? '

"' Ah!' I inwardly reflected. 'Soon, good gentlefolk, you will

see how your jest has miscarried.'

"Aloud I replied--replied with complete boldness:

"'Do not fear, sir. I have taken the powder myself.'

Upon this the General and his wife, who were still in ignorance

that the jest had gone amiss, began to titter, but the others

said nothing, though Valentina Ignatievna's eyes grew rounder and

rounder, until in an undertone she murmured:

"'Did you KNOW that the stuff was harmless?'

"'I did not,' I replied. 'At least, not at the moment of my

drinking it.'

"Whereafter falling headlong to the floor, I lost

consciousness."

Kalinin's small face had become painfully contracted, and grown

old and haggard-looking. Rolling over on to his breast before the

languishing fire, he waved a hand to dissipate the smoke which

was lazily drifting slant-wise.

"For seventeen days did I remain stretched on a sick-bed, and

was attended by the doctor in person. One day, when sitting by my

side, he inquired:

"'I presume your intention was to poison yourself, you foolish

fellow?'

"Yes, merely THAT was what he called me--a 'foolish fellow.' Yet

indeed, what was I to him? Only an entity which might become food

for dogs, for all he cared. Nor did Valentina Ignatievna herself

pay me a single visit, and my eyes never again beheld her. Before

long she and Dr. Kliachka were duly married, and departed to

Kharkov, where he was assigned a post in the Tchuguerski Camp.

Thus only the General remained. Rough and ready, he was,

nevertheless, old and sensible, and for that reason, did not

matter; wherefore I retained my situation as before. On my

recovery, he sent for me, and said in a tone of reproof:

"'Look here. You are not wholly an idiot. What has happened is

that those vile books of yours have corrupted your mind' (as a

matter of fact, I had never read a book in my life, since for

reading I have no love or inclination). 'Hence you must have seen

for yourself that only in tales do clowns marry princesses. You

know, life is like a game of chess. Every piece has its proper

move on the board, or the game could not be played at all.'"

Kalinin rubbed his hands over the fire (slender, non-workmanlike

hands they were), and winked and smiled.

"I took the General's words very seriously, and proceeded to ask

myself: 'To what do those words amount? To this: that though I

may not care actually to take part in the game, I need not waste

my whole existence through a disinclination to learn the best use

to which that existence can be put.'

With a triumphant uplift of tone, Kalinin continued:

"So, brother, I set myself to WATCH the game in question; with

the result that soon I discovered that the majority of men live

surrounded with a host of superfluous commodities which do but

burden them, and have in themselves no real value. What I refer

to is books, pictures, china, and rubbish of the same sort.

Thought I to myself: 'Why should I devote my life to tending and

dusting such commodities while risking, all the time, their

breakage? No more of it for me! Was it for the tending of such

articles that my mother bore me amid the agonies of childbirth?

Is it an existence of THIS kind that must be passed until the

tomb be reached? No, no--a thousand times no! Rather will I, with

your good leave, reject altogether the game of life, and subsist

as may be best for me, and as may happen to be my pleasure.'"

Now, as Kalinin spoke, his eyes emitted green sparks, and as he

waved his hands over the fire, as though to lop off the red

tongues of flame, his fingers twisted convulsively.

"Of course, not all at a stroke did I arrive at this conclusion;

I did so but gradually. The person who finally confirmed me in my

opinion was a friar of Baku, a sage of pre-eminent wisdom,

through his saying to me: 'With nothing at all ought a man to

fetter his soul. Neither with bond-service, nor with property,

nor with womankind, nor with any other concession to the

temptations of this world ought he to constrain its action.

Rather ought he to live alone, and to love none but Christ. Only

this is true. Only this will be for ever lasting.'

"And," added Kalinin with animation and inflated cheeks and

flushed, suppressed enthusiasm, "many lands and many peoples

have I seen, and always have I found (particularly in Russia)

that many folk already have reached an understanding of

themselves, and, consequently, refused any longer to render

obeisance to absurdities. 'Shun evil, and you will evolve good.'

That is what the friar said to me as a parting word--though long

before our encounter had I grasped the meaning of the axiom. And

that axiom I myself have since passed on to other folk, as I hope

to do yet many times in the future."

At this point the speaker's tone reverted to one of querulous

anxiety.

"Look how low the sun has sunk!" he exclaimed.

True enough, that luminary, large and round, was declining into--

rather, towards--the sea, while suspended between him and the

water were low, dark, white-topped cumuli.

"Soon nightfall will be overtaking us," continued Kalinin as he

fumbled in his kaftan. "And in these parts jackals howl when

darkness is come."

In particular did I notice three clouds that looked like Turks in

white turbans and robes of a dusky red colour. And as these cloud

Turks bent their heads together in private converse, suddenly

there swelled up on the back of one of the figures a hump, while

on the turban of a second there sprouted forth a pale pink

feather which, becoming detached from its base, went floating

upwards towards the zenith and the now rayless, despondent,

moonlike sun. Lastly the third Turk stooped forward over the sea

to screen his companions, and as he did so, developed a huge red

nose which comically seemed to dip towards, and sniff at, the

waters.

"Sometimes," continued Kalinin's even voice through the

crackling and hissing of the wood fire, "a man who is old and

blind may cobble a shoe better than cleverer men than he, can

order their whole lives."

But no longer did I desire to listen to Kalinin, for the threads

which had drawn me, bound me, to his personality had now parted.

All that I desired to do was to contemplate in silence the sea,

while thinking of some of those subjects which at eventide never

fail to stir the soul to gentle, kindly emotion. Bombers,

Kalinin's words continued dripping into my ear like belated

raindrops.

"Nowadays everybody is a busybody. Nowadays everyone inquires of

his fellow-man, 'How is your life ordered?' To which always

there is added didactically, 'But you ought not to live as you

are doing. Let me show you the way.' As though anyone can tell me

how best my life may attain full development, seeing that no one

can possibly have such a matter within his knowledge! Nay, let

every man live as best he pleases, without compulsion. For

instance, I have no need of you. In return, it is not your

business either to require or to expect aught of me. And this I

say though Father Vitali says the contrary, and avers that

throughout should man war with the evils of the world."

In the vague, wide firmament a blood-red cluster of clouds was

hanging, and as I contemplated it there occurred to me the

thought, "May not those clouds be erstwhile righteous world-folk

who are following an unseen path across that expanse, and dyeing

it red with their good blood as they go, in order that the earth

may be fertilised?"

To right and left of that strip of living flame the sea was of a

curious wine tint, while further off, rather, it was as soft and

black as velvet, and in the remote east sheet-lightning was

flashing even as though some giant hand were fruitlessly

endeavouring to strike a match against the sodden firmament.

Meanwhile Kalinin continued to discourse with enthusiasm on the

subject of Father Vitali, the Labour Superintendent of the

monastery of New Athos, while describing in detail the monk's

jovial, clever features with their pearly teeth and contrasting

black and silver beard. In particular he related how

once Vitali had knitted his fine, almost womanlike eyes, and said

in a bass which stressed its "o's":

"On our first arrival here, we found in possession only

prehistoric chaos and demoniacal influence. Everywhere had

clinging weeds grown to rankness; everywhere one found one's feet

entangled among bindweed and other vegetation of the sort. And

now see what beauty and joy and comfort the hand of man has

wrought!"

And, having thus spoken, the monk had traced a great circle with

his eye and doughty hand, a circle which had embraced as in a

frame the mount, and the gardens fashioned and developed by

ridgings of the rock, and the downy soil which had been beaten

into those ridgings, and the silver streak of waterfall playing

almost at Vitali's feet, and the stone-hewn staircase leading to

the cave of Simeon the Canaanite, and the gilded cupolas of the

new church where they had stood flashing in the noontide sun, and

the snow-white, shimmering blocks of the guesthouse and the

servants' quarters, and the glittering fishponds, and the trees

of uniform trimness, yet a uniformly regal dignity.

"Brethren," the monk had said in triumphant conclusion,

"wheresoever man may be, he will, as he so desires, be given power

to overcome the desolation of the wilds."

"And then I pressed him further," Kalinin added. " Yes, I said

to him: 'Nevertheless Christ, our Lord, was not like you, for He

was homeless and a wanderer. He was one who utterly rejected your

life of intensive cultivation of the soil'" (as he related the

incident Kalinin gave his head sundry jerks from side to side

which made his ears flap, to and fro). "'Also neither for the

lowly alone nor for the exalted alone did Christ exist. Rather,

He, like all great benefactors, was one who had no particular

leaning. Nay, even when He was roaming the Russian Land in

company with Saints Yuri and Nikolai, He always forbore to

intrude Himself into the villages' affairs, just as, whenever His

companions engaged in disputes concerning mankind, He never

failed to maintain silence on the subject.' Yes, thus I plagued

Vitali until he shouted at my head, 'Ah, impudence, you are a

heretic!'"

By this time, the air under the lee of the stone was growing smoky

and oppressive, for the fire, with its flames looking like a

bouquet compounded of red poppies or azaleas and blooms of an

aureate tint, had begun fairly to live its beautiful existence,

and was blazing, and diffusing warmth, and laughing its bright,

cheerful, intelligent laugh. Yet from the mountains and the

cloud-masses evening was descending, as the earth emitted

profound gasps of humidity, and the sea intoned its vague,

thoughtful, resonant song.

"I presume we are going to pass the night here?" Kalinin at

length queried.

"No, for my intention is, rather, to continue my journey."

"Then let us make an immediate start."

"But my direction will not be the same as yours, I think?"

Previously to this, Kalinin had squatted down upon his haunches,

and taken some bread and a few pears from his wallet; but now, on

hearing my decision, he replaced the viands in his receptacle,

snapped--to the lid of it with an air of vexation-- and asked:

"Why did you come with me at all?"

"Because I wanted to have a talk with you--I had found you an

interesting character."

"Yes. At least I am THAT; many like me do not exist."

"Pardon me; I have met several."

"Perhaps you have." After which utterance, doubtfully drawled,

the speaker added more sticks to the fire.

Eventide was falling with tardy languor, but, as yet, the sun,

though become a gigantic, dull, red lentil in appearance, was not

hidden, and the waves were still powerless to besprinkle his

downward road of fire. Presently, however, he subsided into a

cloud bank; whereupon darkness flooded the earth like water

poured from an empty basin, and the great kindly stars shone

forth, and the nocturnal profundity, enveloping the world, seemed

to soften it even as a human heart may be rendered gentle.

"Good-bye!" I said as I pressed my companion's small, yielding

hand: whereupon he looked me in the eyes in his open, boyish way,

and replied:

"I wish I were going with you!"

"Well, come with me as far as Gudaout."

"Yes, I will."

So we set forth once more to traverse the land which I, so alien

to its inhabitants, yet so at one with all that it contained,

loved so dearly, and of which I yearned to fertilise the life in

return for the vitality with which it had filled my own

existence.

For daily, the threads with which my heart was bound to the world

at large were growing more numerous; daily my heart was storing

up something which had at its root a sense of love for life, of

interest in my fellow-man.

And that evening,as we proceeded on our way, the sea was

singing its vespertinal hymn, the rocks were rumbling as the

water caressed them, and on the furthermost edge of the dark void

there were floating dim white patches where the sunset's glow had

not yet faded-- though already stars were glowing in the zenith.

Meanwhile every slumbering treetop was aquiver, and as I

stepped across the scattered rain-pools, their water gurgled

dreamily, timidly under my feet.

Yes, that night I was a torch unto myself, for in my breast a red

flame was smouldering like a living beacon, and leading me to

long that some frightened, belated wayfarer should, as it were,

sight my little speck of radiancy amid the darkness.