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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.”