Selected Stories of Anton Chekov - By Anton Chekhov Page 0,21

towards the other shore.

“Quick! Ieronym!” my peasant shouted. “A gentleman’s waiting!”

The ferry crept up to the bank, lurched, and creaked to a stop. On it, holding the cable, stood a tall man in a monk’s habit and a conical hat.

“Why so long?” I asked, jumping aboard the ferry.

“Forgive me, for the sake of Christ,” Ieronym said softly. “Is there anybody else?”

“Nobody …”

Ieronym took hold of the cable with both hands, curved himself into a question mark, and grunted. The ferry creaked and lurched. The silhouette of the peasant in the tall hat slowly began to recede from me—which meant that the ferry was moving. Soon Ieronym straightened up and began working with one hand. We were silent and looked at the bank towards which we were now moving. There the “lumination” which the peasant had been waiting for was already beginning. At the water’s edge, barrels of pitch blazed like huge bonfires. Their reflection, crimson as the rising moon, crept to meet us in long, wide stripes. The burning barrels threw light on their own smoke and on the long human shadows that flitted about the fire; but further to the sides and behind them, where the velvet ringing rushed from, was the same impenetrable darkness. Suddenly slashing it open, the golden ribbon of a rocket soared skywards; it described an arc and, as if shattering against the sky, burst and came sifting down in sparks. On the bank a noise was heard resembling a distant “hoorah.”

“How beautiful!” I said.

“It’s even impossible to say how beautiful!” sighed Ieronym. “It’s that kind of night, sir! At other times you don’t pay any attention to rockets, but now any vain thing makes you glad. Where are you from?”

I told him where I was from.

“So, sir … a joyful day this is …” Ieronym went on in a weak, gasping tenor, the way convalescents speak. “Heaven and earth and under the earth rejoice. The whole of creation celebrates. Only tell me, good sir, why is it that even amidst great joy a man can’t forget his griefs?”

It seemed to me that this unexpected question was an invitation to one of those “longanimous,” soul-saving conversations that idle and bored monks love so much. I was not in the mood for much talking and therefore merely asked:

“And what are your griefs, my good man?”

“Ordinary ones, like all people have, Your Honor, but this day a particular grief happened in the monastery: at the liturgy itself, during the Old Testament readings, the hierodeacon Nikolai died …”

“Then it’s God’s will!” I said, shamming a monkish tone. “We all must die. In my opinion you should even be glad … They say whoever dies on the eve of Easter or on Easter day will surely get into the Kingdom of Heaven.”

“That’s so.”

We fell silent. The silhouette of the peasant in the tall hat merged with the outline of the bank. The pitch barrels flared up more and more.

“And scripture clearly points out the vanity of grief and the need for reflection,” Ieronym broke the silence, “but what makes the soul grieve and refuse to listen to reason? What makes you want to weep bitterly?”

Ieronym shrugged his shoulders, turned to me, and began talking quickly:

“If it was I who died or somebody else, maybe it wouldn’t be so noticeable, but it was Nikolai who died! Nobody else but Nikolai! It’s even hard to believe he’s no longer in the world! I stand here on the ferry and keep thinking his voice will come from the bank any minute. He always came down to the bank and called out to me so that I wouldn’t feel scared on the ferry. He got out of bed in the middle of the night especially for that. A kind soul! God, what a kind and merciful soul! Some people’s mothers are not to them like this Nikolai was to me! Lord, save his soul!”

Ieronym took hold of the cable, but at once turned to me again.

“And such a bright mind, Your Honor!” he said in a sing-song voice. “Such sweet, good-sounding speech! Exactly like what they’re about to sing in the matins: ‘O how loving-kind! O how most sweet is thy word!’2 Besides all the other human qualities, he also had an extraordinary gift!”

“What gift?” I asked.

The monk looked me up and down and, as if having assured himself that I could be entrusted with secrets, laughed gaily.

“He had the gift of writing akathists3 …” he said. “A wonder, sir, and nothing but!