Through Russia
by
Maxim Gorky

Part 7 out of 7



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.



THE DEAD MAN

One evening I was sauntering along a soft, grey, dusty track
between two breast-high walls of grain. So narrow was the track
that here and there tar-besmeared cars were lying--tangled,
broken, and crushed--in the ruts of the cartway.

Field mice squeaked as a heavy car first swayed--then bent
forwards towards the sun-baked earth. A number of martins and
swallows were flitting in the sky, and constituting a sign of the
immediate proximity of dwellings and a river; though for the
moment, as my eyes roved over the sea of gold, they encountered
naught beyond a belfry rising to heaven like a ship's mast, and
some trees which from afar looked like the dark sails of a ship.
Yes, there was nothing else to be seen save the brocaded,
undulating steppe where gently it sloped away south-westwards.
And as was the earth's outward appearance, so was that of the
sky--equally peaceful.

Invariably, the steppe makes one feel like a fly on a platter.
Invariably, it inclines one to believe, when the centre of the
expanse is reached, that the earth lies within the compass of the
sky, with the sun embracing it, and the stars hemming it about
as, half-blinded, they stare at the sun's beauty.

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

Presently the sun's huge, rosy-red disk impinged upon the blue
shadows of the horizon before preparing to sink into a snow-white
cloud-bank; and as it did so it bathed the ears of grain around
me in radiance and caused the cornflowers to seem the darker by
comparison; and the stillness, the herald of night, to accentuate
more than ever the burden of the earth's song.

Fanwise then spread the ruddy beams over the firmament; and, in
so doing, they cast upon my breast a shaft of light like Moses'
rod, and awoke therein a flood of calm, but ardent, sentiments
which set me longing to embrace all the evening world, and to
pour into its ear great, eloquent, and never previously voiced,
utterances.

Now, too, the firmament began to spangle itself with stars; and
since the earth is equally a star, and is peopled with humankind,
I found myself longing to traverse every road throughout the
universe, and to behold, dispassionately, all the joys and
sorrows of life, and to join my fellows in drinking honey mixed
with gall.

Yet also there was upon me a feeling of hunger, for not since the
morning had my wallet contained a morsel of food. Which
circumstance hindered the process of thought, and intermittently
vexed me with the reflection that, rich though is the earth, and
much thence though humanity has won by labour, a man may yet be
forced to walk hungry. . . .

Suddenly the track swerved to the right, and as the walls of
grain opened out before me, there lay revealed a steppe valley,
with, flowing at its bottom, a blue rivulet, and spanning the
rivulet, a newly-constructed bridge which, with its reflection in
the water, looked as yellow as though fashioned of rope. On the
further side of the rivulet some seven white huts lay pressed
against a small declivity that was crowned with a cattle-fold,
and amid the silver-grey trunks of some tall black poplars whose
shadows, where they fell upon the hamlet, seemed as soft as down
a knee-haltered horse, was stumping with swishing tail. And though
the air, redolent of smoke and tar and hemp ensilage, was filled
with the sounds of poultry cackling and a baby crying during
the process of being put to bed, the hubbub in no way served to
dispel the illusion that everything in the valley was but part of
a sketch executed by an artistic hand, and cast in soft tints
which the sun had since caused, in some measure, to fade.

In the centre of the semi-circle of huts there stood a brick-
kiln, and next to it, a high, narrow red chapel which resembled a
one-eyed watchman. And as I stood gazing at the scene in general,
a crane stooped with a faint and raucous cry, and a woman who had
come out to draw water looked as though, as she raised bare arms
to stretch herself upwards-- cloud-like, and white-robed from
head to foot-- she were about to float away altogether.

Also, near the brick-kiln there lay a patch of black mud in the
glistening, crumpled-velvet blue substance of which two urchins
of five and three were, breechless, and naked from the waist
upwards, kneading yellow feet amid a silence as absorbed as
though their one desire in life had been to impregnate the mud
with the red radiance of the sun. And so much did this laudable
task interest me, and engage my sympathy and attention, that I
stopped to watch the strapping youngsters, seeing that even in
mire the sun has a rightful place, for the reason that the deeper
the sunlight's penetration of the soil, the better does that soil
become, and the greater the benefit to the people dwelling on its
surface.

Viewed from above, the scene lay, as it were, in the palm of
one's hand. True, by no manner of means could such lowly farm
cots provide me with a job, but at least should I, for that
evening, be able to enjoy the luxury of a chat with the cots'
kindly inhabitants. Hence, with, in my mind, a base and
mischievous inclination to retail to those inhabitants tales of
the marvellous kind of which I knew them to stand wellnigh as
much in need as of bread, I resumed my way, and approached the
bridge.

As I did so, there arose from the ground-level an animated clod of
earth in the shape of a sturdy individual. Unwashed and unshaven,
he had hanging on his frame an open canvas shirt, grey with dust,
and baggy blue breeches.

"Good evening," I said to the fellow.

"I wish you the same," he replied. "Whither are you bound?"

"First of all, what is the name of this river?"

"What is its name? Why, it is the Sagaidak, of course."

On the man's large, round head there was a shock of bristling,
grizzled curls, while pendent to the moustache below it were ends
like those of the moustache of a Chinaman. Also, as his small
eyes scanned me with an air of impudent distrust, I could detect
that they were engaged in counting the holes and dams in my
raiment. Only after a long interval did he draw a deep breath as
from his pocket he produced a clay pipe with a cane mouthpiece,
and, knitting his brows attentively, fell to peering into the
pipe's black bowl. Then he said:

"Have you matches?"

I replied in the affirmative.

"And some tobacco?"

For awhile he continued to contemplate the sun where that
luminary hung suspended above a cloud-bank before finally
declining. Then he remarked:

"Give me a pinch of the tobacco. As for matches, I have some."

So both of us lit up; after which he rested his elbows upon the
balustrade of the bridge, leant back against the central
stanchions, and for some time continued merely to emit and inhale
blue coils of smoke. Then his nose wrinkled, and he expectorated.

"Muscovite tobacco is it?" he inquired.

"No--Roman, Italian."

"Oh!" And as the wrinkles of his nose straightened themselves
again he added: "Then of course it is good tobacco."

To enter a dwelling in advance of one's host is a breach of
decorum; wherefore, I found myself forced to remain standing where
I was until my interlocutor's tale of questions as to my precise
identity, my exact place of origin, my true destination, and my
real reasons for travelling should tardily win its way to a
finish. Greatly the process vexed me, for I was eager, rather, to
learn what the steppe settlement might have in store for my
delectation.

"Work?" the fellow drawled through his teeth. "Oh no, there is
no work to be got here. How could there be at this season of the
year?"

Turning aside, he spat into the rivulet.

On the further bank of the latter, a goose was strutting
importantly at the head of a string of round, fluffy, yellow
goslings, whilst driving the brood were two little girls--the one
a child but little larger than the goose itself, dressed in a red
frock, and armed with a switch; and the other one a youngster
absolutely of a size with the bird, pale of feature, plump of
body, bowed of leg, and grave of expression.

"Ufim!" came at this moment in the strident voice of a woman
unseen, but incensed; upon which my companion bestowed upon me a
sidelong nod, and muttered with an air of appreciation:

"THERE'S lungs for you!"

Whereafter, he fell to twitching the toes of a chafed and
blackened foot, and to gazing at their nails. His next question
was:

"Are you, maybe, a scholar?"

"Why do you ask?"

"Because, if you are, you might like to read the Book over a
corpse."

And so proud, apparently, was he of the proposal that a faint
smile crossed his flaccid countenance.

"You see, it would be work," he added with his brown eyes
veiled, "whilst, in addition, you would be paid ten kopecks for
your trouble, and allowed to keep the shroud."

"And should also be given some supper, I suppose?"

"Yes--and should also be given some supper."

"Where is the corpse lying?"

"In my own hut. Shall we go there?"

Off we set. En route we heard once more a strident shout of:

"Ufi-i-im!"

As we proceeded, shadows of trees glided along the soft road to
meet us, while behind a clump of bushes on the further bank of
the rivulet some children were shouting at their play. Thus, what
with the children's voices, and the purling of the water, and the
noise of someone planing a piece of wood, the air seemed full of
tremulous, suspended sound. Meanwhile, my host said to me with a
drawl:

"Once we did have a reader here. An old woman she was, a regular
old witch who at last had to be removed to the town for
amputation of the feet. They might well have cut off her tongue
too whilst they were about it, since, though useful enough, she
could rail indeed!"

Presently a black puppy, a creature of about the size of a toad,
came ambling, three-legged fashion, under our feet. Upon that it
stiffened its tail, growled, and snuffed the air with its tiny
pink nose.

Next there popped up from somewhere or another a barefooted young
woman. Clapping her hands, she bawled:

"Here, you Ufim, how I have been calling for you, and calling
for you!"

"Eh? Well, I never heard you."

"Where were you, then?"

By way of reply, my conductor silently pointed in my direction
with the stem of his pipe. Then he led me into the forecourt of
the hut next to the one whence the young woman had issued, whilst
she proceeded to project fresh volleys of abuse, and fresh
expressions of accentuated non-amiability.

In the little doorway of the dwelling next to hers, we found
seated two old women. One of them was as rotund and dishevelled
as a battered, leathern ball, and the other one was a woman bony
and crooked of back, swarthy of skin, and irritable of feature.
At the women's feet lay, lolling out a rag-like tongue, a shaggy
dog which, red and pathetic of eye, could boast of a frame nearly
as large as a sheep's.

First of all, Ufim related in detail how he had fallen in with
myself. Then he stated the purpose for which he conceived it
was possible that I might prove useful. And all the time that he
was speaking, two pairs of eyes contemplated him in silence;
until, on the completion of his recital, one of the old women
gave a jerk to a thin, dark neck, and the other old dame invited
me to take a seat whilst she prepared some supper.

Amid the tangled herbage of the forecourt, a spot overgrown with
mallow and bramble shoots, there was standing a cart which,
lacking wheels, had its axle-points dark with mildew. Presently a
herd of cattle was driven past the hut, and over the hamlet there
seemed to arise, drift, and float, a perfect wave of sound.
Also, as evening descended, I could see an ever-increasing number
of grey shadows come creeping forth from the forecourt's
recesses, and overlaying and darkening the turf.

"One day all of us must die," remarked Ufim, with empressement
as he tapped the bowl of his pipe against a wall.

The next moment the barefooted, red-cheeked young woman showed
herself at the gate, and asked in tones rather less vehement than
recently:

"Are you coming, or are you not?"

"Presently," replied Ufim. "One thing at a time."

For supper I was given a hunch of bread and a bowl of milk;
whereupon the dog rose, laid its aged, slobbering muzzle upon my
knee, and gazed into my face with its dim eyes as though it were
saying, "May I too have a bite?"

Next, like an eventide breeze among withered herbage, there
floated across the forecourt the hoarse voice of the crook-backed
old woman.

"Let us pray," she said. "Oh God, take away from us all sorrow,
and receive therefore requitement in twofold measure!"

As she recited the prayer with a mien as dark as fate, the
supplicant rolled her long neck from side to side, and nodded her
ophidian-shaped head in accordance with a sort of regular,
lethargic rhythm. Next I heard sink to earth, at my feet, some
senile words uttered in a sort of singsong.

"Some folk need work just as much as they wish, and others need
do no work at all. Yet OUR folk have to work beyond their
strength, and to work without any recompense for the toil which
they undergo."

Upon this the smaller of the old crones whispered:

"But the Mother of God will recompense them. She recompenses
everyone."

Then a dead silence fell--a weighty silence, a silence seemingly
fraught with matters of import, and inspiring in one an assurance
that presently there would be brought forth impressive
reflections-- there would reach the ear words of mark.

"I may tell you," at length the crook-backed old woman remarked
as she attempted to straighten herself, "that though my husband
was not without enemies, he also had a particular friend named
Andrei, and that when failing strength was beginning to make life
difficult for us in our old home on the Don, and folk took to
reviling and girding at my husband, Andrei came to us one day,
and said: 'Yakov, let not your hands fail you, for the earth is
large, and in all parts has been given to men for their use. If
folk be cruel, they are so through stupidity and prejudice, and
must not be judged for being so. Live your own life. Let theirs
be theirs, and yours yours, so that, dwelling in peace, while
yielding to none, you shall in time overcome them all.'"

"That is what Vasil too used to say. He used to say: 'Let theirs
be theirs, and ours ours.'"

"Aye, never a good word dies, but, wheresoever it be uttered,
flies thence through the world like a swallow."

Ufim corroborated this with a nod.

"True indeed!" he remarked. "Though also it has been said that
a good word is Christ's, and a bad word the priest's."

One of the old women shook her head vigorously at this, and
croaked:

"The badness lies not in any word of a priest, but in what you
yourself have just said. You are greyheaded, Ufim, yet often you
speak without thought."

Presently Ufim's wife reappeared, and, waving her hands as though
she were brandishing a sieve, began to vent renewed volleys of
virulent abuse.

"My God," she cried, "what sort of a man is that? Why, a man
who neither speaks nor listens, but for ever keeps baying at the
moon like a dog!"

"NOW she's started!" Ufim drawled.

Westward there were arising, and soaring skyward, clouds of such
a similarity to blue smoke and blood-red flame that the steppe
seemed almost to be in danger of catching fire thence. Meanwhile
a soft evening breeze was caressing the expanse as a whole, and
causing the grain to bend drowsily earthward as golden-red
ripples skimmed its surface. Only in the eastern quarter whence
night's black, sultry shadow was stealthily creeping in our
direction had darkness yet descended.

At intervals there came vented from the window above my head the
hot odour of a dead body; and, whenever that happened, the dog's
grey nostrils and muzzle would quiver, and its eyes would blink
pitifully as it gazed aloft. Glancing at the heavens, Ufim
remarked with conviction:

"There will be no rain tonight."

"Do you keep such a thing as a Psalter here?" I inquired.

"Such a thing as a what?"

"As a Psalter-- a book?"

No answer followed.

Faster and faster the southern night went on descending, and
wiping the land clean of heat, as though that heat had been dust.
Upon me there came a feeling that I should like to go and bury
myself in some sweet-smelling hay, and sleep there until sunrise.

"Maybe Panek has one of those things?" hazarded Ufim after a
long pause. "At any rate he has dealings with the Molokans."

After that, the company held further converse in whispers. Then
all save the more rotund of the old women left the forecourt,
while its remaining occupant said to me with a sigh:

"You may come and look at him if you wish."

Small and gentle looked the woman's meekly lowered head as,
folding her hands across her breast, she added in a whisper:

"Oh purest Mother of God! Oh Thou of spotless chastity!"

In contrast to her expression, that on the face of the dead man
was stem and, as it were, fraught with importance where thick
grey eyebrows lay parted over a large nose, and the latter curved
downwards towards a moustache which divided introspective,
partially closed eyes from a mouth that was set half-open.
Indeed, it was as though the man were pondering something of
annoyance, so that presently he would make shift to deliver
himself of a final and urgent injunction. The blue smoke of a
meagre candle quivered meanwhile, over his head, though the wick
diffused so feeble a light that the death blurs under the eyes
and in the cheek furrows lay uneffaced, and the dark hands and
wrists, disposed, lumplike, on the front of the greyish-blue
shroud, seemed to have had their fingers twisted in a manner
which even death had failed to rectify. And ever and anon,
streaming from door to window, came a draught variously fraught
with the odours of wormwood, mint, and corruption.

Presently the old woman's whispering grew more animated and
intelligible, while constantly, amid the wheezed mutterings,
sheet lightning cut the black square of the window space with
menacing flashes, and seemed, with their blue glare, as it shot
through the tomblike hut, to cause the candle's flickering flame
to undergo a temporary extinction, a temporary withdrawal, and
the grey bristles on the dead man's face to gleam like the scales
of a fish, and his features to gather themselves into a grim
frown. Meanwhile, like a stream of cold, bitter water dripping
upon my breast, the old woman's whispered soliloquy maintained
its uninterrupted flow.

At length there recurred, somehow, to my mind the words which,
impressive though they be, never can assuage sorrow--the words:

"Weep not for me, Martha, nor gaze into the tomb, for, lo, I am
risen!"

Nay, and never would THIS man rise again. . . .

Presently the bony old woman returned with a report that nowhere
among the huts could a Psalter be found, but only a book of
another kind. Would it do?

The other book turned out to be a grammar of the Church Slavonic
dialect, with the first pages torn out, and beginning with the
words, "Drug, drugi, druzhe." ["A friend, of a friend, O
friend."]

"What, then, are we to do? " vexedly asked the smaller of the
dames when I had explained to her that a grammar could work no
benefit to a corpse. As she put the query, her small, childlike
face quivered with disappointment, and her eyes swelled and
overflowed with tears.

"My man has lived his life," she said with a sob, "and now he
cannot even be given proper burial! "

And, similarly, when next I offered to recite over her husband
each and every prayer and psalm that I could contrive to recall
to my recollection, on condition that all present should
meanwhile leave the hut (for I felt that, since the task would be
one novel to me, the attendance of auditors might hinder me from
mustering my entire stock of petitions), she so disbelieved me,
or failed to understand me, that for long enough she could only
stand tottering in the doorway as, with twitching nose, she drew
her sleeve across her worn, diminutive features.

Nevertheless she did, at last, take her departure.

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

Low over the steppe, stray flashes of summer lightning still
gleamed against the jet black sky as they flooded the hut with
their lurid shimmer; and each time that the darkness of the
sultry night swept back into the room, the candle flickered, and
the corpse's prone figure seemed to open its half-closed eyes
and glance at the shadows which palpitated on its breast, and
danced over the white walls and ceiling.

Similarly did I glance from time to time at HIM, yet glance with
a guarded eye, and with a feeling in me that when a corpse is
present anything may happen; until finally I rallied conscience
to my aid, and recited under my breath:

"Pardon Thou all who have sinned, whether they be men, or
whether they, being not men, do yet stand higher than the beasts
of the field."

However, the only result of the recitation was to bring to my
mind a thought directly at variance with the import of the words,
the thought that "it is not sin that is hard and bitter to
ensue, but righteousness."

"Sins wilful and of ignorance," I continued. "Sins known and
unknown. Sins committed through imprudence and evil example. Sins
committed through forwardness and sloth."

"Though to YOU, brother," mentally I added to the corpse, "none
of this, of course, applies."

Again, glancing at the blue stars, where they hung glittering in
the fathomless obscurity of the sky, I reflected:

"Who in this house is looking at them save myself?"

Presently, with a pattering of claws over the beaten clay of the
floor, there entered the dog. Once or twice it paced the length
of the room. Then, with a sniff at my legs, and a grumble to
itself, it departed as it had come. Perhaps the creature felt too
old to bay a dirge to its master after the manner of its kind. In
any case, as it vanished through the doorway, the shadows- -so I
fancied--sought to slip out after it, and, floating in that
direction, fanned my face with a breath as of ice, while the
flame of the candle flickered the more-- as though it too were
seeking to wrest itself from the candlestick, and go floating
upwards to join the band of stars-- a band of luminaries which it
might well have deemed to be of a brilliance as small and as
pitiful as its own. And I, for my part, since I had no wish to
see what light there was disappear, followed the struggles of the
tiny flame with a tense anxiety which made my eyes ache.
Oppressed and uneasy all over as I stood by the dead man's
shoulder, I strained my ears and listened, listened ever, to the
silence encompassing the hut.

Eventually, drowsiness began to steal over me, and proved a
feeling hard to resist. Yet still with an effort did I contrive
to recall the beautiful prayers of Saints Makari Veliki,
Chrysostom, and Damarkin, while at the same time something
resembling a swarm of mosquitos started to hum in my head, the
words wherein the Sixth Precept issues its injunction to: " all
persons about to withdraw to a couch of rest."

And next, to escape falling asleep, I fell to reciting the kondak
[Hymn for the end of the day] which begins:

"Oh Lord, refresh my soul thus grievously made feeble with wrong
doing."

Still engaged in this manner, suddenly I heard something rustle
outside the door. Then a dry whisper articulated:

"Oh God of Mercy, receive unto Thyself also my soul!"

Upon that, the fancy occurred to me that probably the old woman's
soul was as grey and timid as a linnet, and that when it should
fly up to the throne of the Mother of God, and the Mother should
extend to that little soul her tender, white, and gracious hand,
the newcomer would tremble all over, and flutter her gentle wings
until well nigh death should supervene.

And then the Mother of God would say to Her Son:

"Son, pray see the fearfulness of Thy people on earth, and their
estrangement from joy! Oh Son, is that well?"

And He would make answer to Her--

He would make answer to Her, and say I know not what.

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

And suddenly, so I fancied, a voice answered mine out of the
brooding hush, as though it too were reciting a prayer. Yet so
complete, so profound, was the stillness, that the voice seemed
far away, submerged, unreal--a mere phantom of an echo, of the
echo of my own voice. Until, on my desisting from my recital, and
straining my cars yet more, the sound seemed to approach and grow
clearer as shuffling footsteps also advanced in my direction, and
there came a mutter of:

"Nay, it CANNOT be so!"

"Why is it that the dogs have failed to bark?" I reflected,
rubbing my eyes, and fancying as I did so that the dead man's
eyebrows twitched, and his moustache stirred in a grim smile.

Presently a deep, hoarse, rasping voice vociferated in the
forecourt:

"What do you say, old woman? Yes, that he must die-- I knew all
along,--so you can cease your chattering? Men like him keep up to
the last, then lay them down to rise to more... WHO is with him? A
stranger? A-ah!"

And, the next moment, a bulk so large and shapeless that it might
well have been the darkness of the night embodied, stumbled
against the outer side of the door, grunted, hiccuped, and
lurching head foremost into the hut, grew wellnigh to the
ceiling. Then it waved a gigantic hand, crossed itself in the
direction of the candle, and, bending forward until its forehead
almost touched the feet of the corpse, queried under its breath:

"How now, Vasil?"

Thereafter, the figure vented a sob whilst a strong smell of
vodka arose in the room, and from the doorway the old woman said
in an appealing voice:

"Pray give HIM the book, Father Demid."

"No indeed! Why should I? I intend to do the reading myself."

And a heavy hand laid itself upon my shoulder, while a great
hairy face bent over mine, and inquired:

"A young man, are you not? A member of the clergy, too, I
suppose?"

So covered with tufts of auburn hair was the enormous head above
me--tufts the sheen of which even the semi-obscurity of the pale
candlelight failed to render inconspicuous--that the mass, as a
whole, resembled a mop. And as its owner lurched to and fro, he
made me lurch responsively by now drawing me towards himself, now
thrusting me away. Meanwhile he continued to suffuse my face with
the hot, thick odour of spirituous liquor.

"Father Demid!" again essayed the old woman with an imploring
wail, but he cut her short with the menacing admonition:

"How often have I told you that you must not address a deacon as
'Father'? Go to bed! Yes, be off with you, and let me mind my
affairs myself! GO, I say! But first light me another candle, for
I cannot see a single thing in front of me."

With which, throwing himself upon a bench, the deacon slapped his
knee with a book which he had in his hands, and put to me the
query:

"Should you care to have a dram of gorielka? [Another name for
vodka.]

"No," I replied. "At all events, not here."

"Indeed?" the deacon cried, unabashed. "But come, a bottle of
the stuff is here, in my very pocket."

"This is no place in which to be drinking."

For a moment the deacon said nothing. Then he muttered:

"True, true. So let us adjourn to the forecourt. . . . Yes, what
you say is no more than the truth."

"Had you not better remain seated where you are, and begin the
reading? "

"No, I am going to do no such thing. YOU shall do the reading.
Tonight I, I--well I am not very well, for I have been drinking a
little."

And, thrusting the book into my stomach, he sank his head upon
his breast, and fell to swaying it ponderously up and down.

"Folk die," was his next utterance, "and the world remains as
full of grief as ever. Yes, folk die even before they have seen a
little good accrue to themselves."

"I see that your book is not a Psalter," here I interposed after
an inspection of the volume.

"You are wrong."

"Then look for yourself."

He grabbed the book by its cover, and, by dint of holding the
candle close to its pages, discovered, eventually, that matters
were as I had stated.

This took him aback completely.

"What can the fact mean?" he exclaimed. "Oh, I know what has
happened. The mistake has come of my being in such a hurry. The
other book, the true Psalter, is a fat, heavy volume, whereas
this one is--"

For a moment he seemed sobered by the shock. At all events, he
rose and, approaching the corpse, said, as he bent over the bed
with his beard held back:

"Pardon me, Vasil, but what is to be done?"

Then he straightened himself again, threw back his curls, and,
drawing a bottle from his pocket, and thrusting the neck of the
bottle into his mouth, took a long draught, with a whistling of
his nostrils as he did so.

"Well?" I said.

"Well, I intend to go to bed--my idea is to drink and enjoy
myself awhile."

"Go, then."

"And what of the reading?"

"Who would wish you to mumble words which you would not be
comprehending as you uttered them?"

The deacon reseated himself upon the bench, leaned forward,
buried his face in his hands and remained silent.

Fast the July night was waning. Fast its shadows were dissolving
into corners, and allowing a whiff of fresh dewy morningtide to
enter at the window. Already was the combined light of the two
candles growing paler, with their flames looking like the eyes of
a frightened child.

"You have lived your life, Vasi," at length the deacon
muttered, "and though once I had a place to which to resort, now
I shall have none. Yes, my last friend is dead. Oh Lord-- where is
Thy justice?"

For myself, I went and took a seat by the window, and, thrusting
my head into the open air, lit a pipe, and continued to listen
with a shiver to the deacon's wailings.

"Folk used to gird at my wife," he went on, "and now they are
gnawing at me as pigs might gnaw at a cabbage. That is so, Vasil.
Yes that is so."

Again the bottle made its appearance. Again the deacon took a
draught. Again he wiped his beard. Then he bent over the dead man
once more, and kissed the corpse's forehead.

"Good-bye, friend of mine!" he said. Then to myself he added
with unlooked-for clarity and vigour:

"My friend here was but a plain man--a man as inconspicuous among
his fellows as a rook among a flock of rooks. Yet no rook was he.
Rather, he was a snow-white dove, though none but I realised the
fact. And now he has been withdrawn from the 'grievous bondage of
Pharaoh.' Only I am left. Verily, after my passing, shall my soul
torment and vomit spittle upon his adversaries!"

"Have you known much sorrow?"

The deacon did not reply at once. When he did so he said dully:

"All of us have known much sorrow. In some cases we have known
more than was rightfully our due. I certainly, have known much.
But go to sleep, for only in sleep do we recover what is ours."

And he added as he tripped over his own feet, and lurched heavily
against me:

"I have a longing to sing something. Yet I feel that I had best
not, for song at such an hour awakens folk, and starts them
bawling . . . But beyond all things would I gladly sing."

With which he buzzed into my ear:

"To whom shall I sing of my grief?
To whom resort for relief?
To the One in whose ha-a-and--"

At this point the sharp bristles of his beard so tickled my neck
as to cause me to edge further away.

"You do not like me?" he queried. "Then go to sleep, and to
the devil too!"

"It was your beard that was tickling me."

"Indeed? Ought I to have shaved for your benefit before I came?"

He reflected awhile--then subsided on to the floor with a sniff
and an angry exclamation of:

"Read, you, whilst I sleep. And see to it that you do not make
off with the book, for it belongs to the church, and is very
valuable. Yes. I know you hard-ups! Why do you go roaming about
as you do--what is it you hope to gain by your tramping? . . .
However, tramp as much as you like. Yes, be off, and tell people
that a deacon has come by misfortune, and is in need of some good
person to take pity upon his plight. . . . Diomid Kubasov my name
is--that of a man lost beyond recall."

With which he fell asleep. Opening the book at random, I read the
words:

"A land unapportioned that shall produce a nourisher of
humanity, a being that shall put forth the bounty of his hand to
feed every creature."

"A nourisher of humanity." Before my eyes that "nourisher" lay
outspread, a nourisher overlaid with dry and fragrant herbage.
And as I gazed, in the haze of a vision, upon that nourisher's
dark and enigmatical face, I saw also the thousands of men who
have seamed this earth with furrows, to the end that dead things
should become things of life. And in particular, there uprose
before me a picture strange indeed. In that picture I saw
marching over the steppe, where the expanse lay bare and void--yes,
marching in circles that increasingly embraced a widening area--a
gigantic, thousand-handed being in whose train the dead steppe
gathered unto itself vitality, and became swathed in juicy,
waving verdure, and studded with towns and villages. And ever, as
the being receded further and further into the distance, could I
see him sowing with tireless hands that which had in it life, and
was part of himself, and human as, with thoughts intent upon the
benefiting of humanity, he summoned all men to put forth the
mysterious force that is in them, and thus to conquer death, and
eternally and invincibly to convert, dead things into things of
life, while traversing in company the road of death towards that
which has no knowledge of death, and ensuring that, in swallowing
up mankind, the jaws of death should not close upon death's
victims.

And this caused my heart to beat with emotions the pulsing wings
of which at once gladdened me, and cooled my fervour... And how
greatly, at that moment, did I feel the need of someone able to
respond to my questions without passion, yet with truth, and in
the language of simplicity! For beside me there lay but a man
dead and a man drunken, while without the threshold there was
stationed one who had far outlived her span of years. No matter,
however. If not today, then tomorrow, should I find a fellow-
creature with whom my soul might commune.

Mentally I left the hut, and passed on to the steppe, that I
might contemplate thence the little dwelling in which alone,
though lost amid the earth's immensity, the windows were not
blind and black as in its fellow huts, but showed, burning over
the head of a dead human being, the fire which humanity had
conquered for humanity's benefit.

And that heart which had ceased to beat in the dead man--had
everything conceived in life by that heart found due expression
in a world poverty, stricken of heart-conceived ideas? I knew that
the man just passed away had been but a plain and insignificant
mortal, yet as I reflected upon even the little that he had done,
his labour loomed before me as greater than prowess of larger
magnitude. Yes, to my mind there recurred the immature, battered
ears of corn lying in the ruts of the steppe track, the swallows
traversing the blue sky above the golden, brocaded grain, the
kite hovering in the void over the landscape's vast periphery.. .
. .

And along with these thoughts, there struck upon my ears a
whistling of pinions as the shadow of a bird flitted across the
brilliant, dew-bespangled green of the forecourt, and five cocks
crowed in succession, and a flock of geese announced the fact of
their awakening, and a cow lowed, and the gate of the cattle-pen
creaked.

And with that I fell to thinking how I should like really to go
out on to the steppe, and there to fall asleep under a warm, dry
bank.

As for the deacon, he was still slumbering at my feet--slumbering
with his breast, the breast of a prize-fighter, turned uppermost,
and his fine, golden shock of hair falling like a nimbus around
his head, and hot, fat, flushed red features and gaping mouth and
ceaselessly twitching moustache. In passing, I had noticed that
his hands were long, and that they were set upon shovel-shaped
wrists.

Next I found myself imagining the scene as the powerful figure of
this man embraced a woman. Probably her face would become lost to
sight in his beard, until nothing of her features remained
visible. Then, when the beard began to tickle her, she would
throw back her head, and laugh. And the children that such a man
might have begotten!

All this only made it the more painful and disagreeable to me to
reflect that the breast of a human being of such a type should be
bearing a burden of sorrow. Surely naught but joy should have
been present therein!

Meanwhile, the old woman's gentle face was still peering at me
through the doorway, and presently the first beam of sunlight
came glancing through the window-space. Above the rivulet's silky
glimmer, a transparent mist lay steaming, while trees and herbage
alike were passing through that curiously inert stage when at any
moment (so one fancied) they might give themselves a shake, and
burst into song, and in keys intelligible to the soul alone, set
forth the wondrous mystery of their existence.

"What a good man he is!" the old woman whispered plaintively as
she gazed at the deacon's gigantic frame. Whereafter, as though
reading aloud from a book invisible to my sight, she proceeded
quietly and simply to relate the story of his wife.

"You see," she went on "his lady committed a certain sin with a
certain man; and folk remarked this, and, after setting the
husband on to the couple, derided him--yes, him, our Demid!--for
the reason that he persisted in forgiving the woman her fault. At
length the jeers made her take to her room and him to liquor,
and for two years past he has been drinking, and soon is going to
be deprived of his office. One who scarcely drank at all, my poor
husband, used to say: 'Ah, Demid, yield not to these folk, but
live your own life, and let theirs be theirs, and yours, yours.'"

With the words, tears welled from the old woman's dim, small eyes,
and became merged with the folds and wrinkles on her grief-
stained cheeks. And in the presence of that little head, a head
shaking like a dead leaf in the autumn time, and of those kindly
features so worn with age and sorrow, my eyes
fell, and I felt smitten with shame to find that, on searching my
soul for at least a word of consolation to offer to the poor
fellow-mortal before me, I could discover none that seemed
suitable.

But at length there recurred to my mind some strange words which
I had encountered in I know not what antique volume --words which
ran:

"Let not the servants of the Gods lament but, rather, rejoice,
in that weeping and lamentation grieve both the Gods and
mankind."

Thereafter, I muttered confusedly:

"It is time that I was going."

"What?" was her hasty exclamation, an exclamation uttered as
though the words had affrighted her. Whereafter, with quivering
lips, she began hesitantly and uncertainly to fumble in her
bodice.

"No, I have no need of money," I interposed. "Only, if you
should be so willing, give me a piece of bread."

"You have no need of money? " she re-echoed dubiously.

"No, none. For that matter, of what use could it be to me?"

"Well, well!" she said after a thoughtful pause. "Then be it
as you wish, and--and I thank you."

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

The sun, as he rose and ascended towards the blue of the
firmament, was spreading over the earth a braggart, peacock-like
tail of beams. And as he did so, I winked at him, for by
experience I knew that some two hours later his smiles would be
scorching me with fire. Yet for the time being he and I had no
fault to find with one another. Wherefore, I set myself to search
for a bank whence I might sing to him, as to the Lord of Life:

0h Thou of intangible substance,
Reveal now that substance to me!
Enwrap me within the great vestment
Of light which encompasseth Thee!
That with Thy uprising, my substance
May Come all-prevailing to be!

**

"Let us live our lives unto ourselves. Let theirs be theirs, and
ours, ours."







 


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