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From time to time one caught among the heads and faces a glimpse of a horse's head motionless as though cast in copper. "They'll begin singing the Easter hymn directly, . . ." said Ieronim, "and Nikolay is gone; there is no one to appreciate it. . . . There was nothing written dearer to him than that hymn. He used to take in every word!
It seemed to me that Ieronim was looking in the woman's face for the soft and tender features of his dead friend. Kunin, a young man of thirty, who was a permanent member of the Rural Board, on returning from Petersburg to his district, Borisovo, immediately sent a mounted messenger to Sinkino, for the priest there, Father Yakov Smirnov. Five hours later Father Yakov appeared.
He would shut his cell, make me sit down beside him, and begin to read. . . ." Ieronim left the rope and came up to me. "We were dear friends in a way," he whispered, looking at me with shining eyes. "Where he went I would go. If I were not there he would miss me. And he cared more for me than for anyone, and all because I used to weep over his hymns. It makes me sad to remember.
With the help of a little peasant in a hat of reddish fur that looked like the little wooden tubs in which honey is sold, he threw his weight on the rope; they gasped simultaneously, and the ferry started. We floated across, disturbing on the way the lazily rising mist. Everyone was silent. Ieronim worked mechanically with one hand.
When they had vanished from sight the crowd squeezed me back to my former position. But ten minutes had not passed before a new wave burst on me, and again the deacon appeared. This time he was followed by the Father Sub-Prior, the man who, as Ieronim had told me, was writing the history of the monastery.
The outline of the peasant in the high hat began slowly retreating from me so the ferry was moving off. Ieronim soon drew himself up and began working with one hand only. We were silent, gazing towards the bank to which we were floating. There the illumination for which the peasant was waiting had begun. At the water's edge barrels of tar were flaring like huge camp fires.
"Ieron im!" we heard a hollow prolonged shout. "They are shouting from the other bank," said the peasant, "so there is no ferry there either. Our Ieronim has gone to sleep."
He always used to come to the bank and call to me that I might not be afraid on the ferry. He used to get up from his bed at night on purpose for that. He was a kind soul. My God! how kindly and gracious! Many a mother is not so good to her child as Nikolay was to me! Lord, save his soul!" Ieronim took hold of the rope, but turned to me again at once.
Another time one would pay no attention to the fireworks, but to-day one rejoices in every vanity. Where do you come from?" I told him where I came from. "To be sure . . . a joyful day to-day. . . ." Ieronim went on in a weak sighing tenor like the voice of a convalescent. "The sky is rejoicing and the earth and what is under the earth. All the creatures are keeping holiday.
Is there no one else?" asked a soft voice. I recognized the voice of Ieronim. There was no darkness now to hinder me from seeing the monk. He was a tall narrow-shouldered man of five-and-thirty, with large rounded features, with half-closed listless-looking eyes and an unkempt wedge-shaped beard. He had an extraordinarily sad and exhausted look. "They have not relieved you yet?"
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