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! You’ll be amazed if I explain it to you! Our father archimandrite4 is from Moscow, our father vicar graduated from the Kazan theological academy, there are intelligent hieromonks and elders among us, and yet, just imagine, not a single one of them could write akathists, but Nikolai, a simple monk, a hierodeacon, never studied anywhere and even had no external appeal, and yet he wrote! A wonder. A real wonder!”

Ieronym clasped his hands and, forgetting all about the cable, went on enthusiastically:

“Our father vicar has difficulty composing sermons; when he was writing the history of the monastery, he got all the brothers into a sweat and went to town ten times, but Nikolai wrote akathists! Akathists! A sermon or a history is nothing next to that!”

“So it’s really difficult to write akathists?” I asked.

“There’s enormous difficulty…” Ieronym wagged his head. “Wisdom and holiness won’t do anything here, if God doesn’t give you the gift. Monks who don’t understand about it reckon you only need to know the life of the saint you’re writing to, and then follow the other akathists. But that’s not right, sir. Of course, a man who writes an akathist has to know the life extremely well, to the last little point. Well, and also to follow the other akathists, how to begin and what to write about. To give you an example, the first kontakion begins every time with ‘the victorious’ or ‘the chosen’ … The first ikos always has to begin with angels. In the akathist to the Most Sweet Jesus, if you’re interested, it begins like this: ‘Creator of angels and lord of hosts,’ in the akathist to the Most Holy Mother of God: ‘An angel was sent from heaven to stand before,’ to Saint Nicholas the Wonderworker:5 ‘An angel in appearance, but of earthly nature,’ and so on. There’s always an angel at the beginning.