"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.
