Otherwise all your love and compassion will just burn up and turn to smoke over dinner. Tales, they write. Short stories!’ he added, after a brief pause. ‘Ah, the scribes! The accursed Pharisees! I can guarantee you they never let themselves get carried away. They’re afraid of choking on all that mealy stuff. But anyway, it’s just as well they don’t let themselves get carried away,’ he added, after a short silence.

‘Why so?’

‘Because it’s as I tell you: they’d choke on their mealy stuff, and then they’d have to be slapped on the back to give them their wind back, and they’d shout: “We’re being beaten up!” Are those the sort of people to trust? No, what you ought to do,’ he said, sitting up on his makeshift bed, ‘is to try living the way I do, without coming to grief; try living on bread and water, keeping a stiff upper lip and never suffering fools gladly: then people will trust you. Curse your own soul so that others may see what sort of a soul you have, and stop playing around with paltry lies. People, my people! What would I not do for you? … People, my people! What would I not sacrifice for your sake?’ Vasily Petrovich reflected for a moment, then raised himself to his full height and, stretching out his arms towards Chelnovsky and myself, said: ‘My good fellows! Troubled days are approaching, troubled days! The hour cannot be far off, for the false prophets come, and I hear their accursed and hateful voices. In the people’s name they will endeavour to lay snares for you and undo you. But do not fear their command and, if you feel not the strength of oxen in your backs, accept not the yoke upon them. It is not a question of numbers. You won’t catch a flea with five fingers, but with one you will. I do not expect much of you. That isn’t your fault – the flesh is willing, but the spirit is weak. I beg you, though, follow my one brotherly commandment: “Do not tell lies!” For I tell you, there is great harm therein. Yea, harm! Wherever you set your feet, you will pay the price – but for us Musk-Oxen,’ he said, striking his breast, ‘that is not enough. The retribution of Heaven will fall upon us if we rest content with that. “We are our own men, and our own will recognize us.” ’

Vasily Petrovich spoke powerfully and at length. Never before had he said so much, or expressed himself with such clarity. The dawn was already beginning to glimmer in the sky, and the room was noticeably acquiring a grey luminescence; but Vasily Petrovich was not done yet. His stocky figure was making energetic movements, and through the tears in his old cotton shirt we could see the prominent thrust of his hairy chest.

At around four we finally got to sleep. We awoke at nine. Musk-Ox had already gone, and we were not to see him again for three years to the day. The strange fellow set out that morning for a part of the world which had been recommended to him by his friend, the innkeeper at Pogodovo.

4

There are in our province a good many monasteries, which are situated in the forests and are known as ‘hermitages’. My grandmother was a very religious old lady. A woman who belonged to an earlier age, she was inordinately fond of travelling around these hermitages. Not only did she know by heart the history of each one of these secluded monasteries – she was also familiar with all the legends associated with them, the history of their icons, the miracles which had been reported in them, the means commanded by each, what type of sacristy it had, and so on. She was a decrepit, but living guide to the ecclesiastical heritage of our part of the world. Everyone in the monasteries was likewise familiar with the old lady, and they would welcome her with unusual cordiality, in spite of the fact that she never made any donations more valuable than her patens, the embroidery of which would take her an entire autumn and winter, seasons when the weather prevented her from travelling. In the hospices of the hermitages at P— and L—1 two rooms were always put at her disposal during the feasts of St Peter and the Assumption.