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"No; I humbly thank you. . . . With that five kopecks put up a candle for me over there in the monastery. . . . That will be more interesting, and I will stand here. What can it mean, no ferry-boat, as though it had sunk in the water!" The peasant went up to the water's edge, took the rope in his hands, and shouted; "Ieronim! Ieron im!"
A tall man in a monk's cassock and a conical cap stood on it, holding the rope. "Why have you been so long?" I asked jumping upon the ferry. "Forgive me, for Christ's sake," Ieronim answered gently. "Is there no one else?" "No one. . . ." Ieronim took hold of the rope in both hands, bent himself to the figure of a mark of interrogation, and gasped. The ferry-boat creaked and gave a lurch.
Ieronim started and ran to the rope; they were beginning to peal all the bells. Probably the procession was already going on near the monastery, for all the dark space behind the tar barrels was now dotted with moving lights. "Did Nikolay print his hymns?" I asked Ieronim. "How could he print them?" he sighed. "And indeed, it would be strange to print them. What would be the object?
Rejoice, O Thou too deep for angels' eyes to fathom! In another place in the same canticle: 'Rejoice, O tree that bearest the fair fruit of light that is the food of the faithful! Rejoice, O tree of gracious spreading shade, under which there is shelter for multitudes!" Ieronim hid his face in his hands, as though frightened at something or overcome with shame, and shook his head.
It moved towards us with such deliberation that if it had not been that its lines grew gradually more definite, one might have supposed that it was standing still or moving to the other bank. "Make haste! Ieronim!" shouted my peasant. "The gentleman's tired of waiting!" The ferry crawled to the bank, gave a lurch and stopped with a creak.
"That's true." We sank into silence. The figure of the peasant in the high hat melted into the lines of the bank. The tar barrels were flaring up more and more. "The Holy Scripture points clearly to the vanity of sorrow and so does reflection," said Ieronim, breaking the silence, "but why does the heart grieve and refuse to listen to reason? Why does one want to weep bitterly?"
All at once, cleaving the darkness, a rocket zigzagged in a golden ribbon up the sky; it described an arc and, as though broken to pieces against the sky, was scattered crackling into sparks. There was a roar from the bank like a far-away hurrah. "How beautiful!" I said. "Beautiful beyond words!" sighed Ieronim. "Such a night, sir!
Ieronim clasped his hands and, completely forgetting the rope, went on eagerly: "The Father Sub-Prior has great difficulty in composing sermons; when he wrote the history of the monastery he worried all the brotherhood and drove a dozen times to town, while Nikolay wrote canticles! Hymns of praise! That's a very different thing from a sermon or a history!" "Is it difficult to write them?" I asked.
"Yes . . . that is, I am a lay-brother." The ferry ran into the bank and stopped. I thrust a five-kopeck piece into Ieronim's hand for taking me across and jumped on land. Immediately a cart with a boy and a sleeping woman in it drove creaking onto the ferry. Ieronim, with a faint glow from the lights on his figure, pressed on the rope, bent down to it, and started the ferry back. . . .
They all speak loudly, and tramp heavily when they walk; they are noisy, they clear their throats, but Nikolay always talked softly, caressingly, and if he noticed that anyone was asleep or praying he would slip by like a fly or a gnat. His face was tender, compassionate. . . ." Ieronim heaved a deep sigh and took hold of the rope again. We were by now approaching the bank.
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