ng into the carriages. The party set
off in complete silence and only the deacon was left by the _duhan_.

"Come to the _duhan_, drink tea," he said to Kerbalay. "Me wants
to eat."

Kerbalay spoke good Russian, but the deacon imagined that the Tatar
would understand him better if he talked to him in broken Russian.
"Cook omelette, give cheese. . . ."

"Come, come, father," said Kerbalay, bowing. "I'll give you everything
. . . . I've cheese and wine. . . . Eat what you like."

"What is 'God' in Tatar?" asked the deacon, going into the _duhan_.

"Your God and my God are the same," said Kerbalay, not understanding
him. "God is the same for all men, only men are different. Some are
Russian, some are Turks, some are English--there are many sorts
of men, but God is one."

"Very good. If all men worship the same God, why do you Mohammedans
look upon Christians as your everlasting enemies?"

"Why are you angry?" said Kerbalay, laying both hands on his stomach.
"You are a priest; I am a Mussulman: you say, 'I want to eat'--I
give it you. . . . Only the rich man distinguishes your God from
my God; for the poor man it is all the same. If you please, it is
ready."

While this theological conversation was taking place at the _duhan_,
Laevsky was driving home thinking how dreadful it had been driving
there at daybreak, when the roads, the rocks, and the mountains
were wet and dark, and the uncertain future seemed like a terrible
abyss, of which one could not see the bottom; while now the raindrops
hanging on the grass and on the stones were sparkling in the sun
like diamonds, nature was smiling joyfully, and the terrible future
was left behind. He looked at Sheshkovsky's sullen, tear-stained
face, and at the two carriages ahead of them in which Von Koren,
his seconds, and the doctor were sitting, and it seemed to him as
though they were all coming back from a graveyard in which a
wearisome, insufferable man who was a burden to others had just
been buried.

"Everything is over," he thought of his past, cautiously touching
his neck with his fingers.

On the right side of his neck was a small swelling, of the length
and breadth of his little finger, and he felt a pain, as though
some one had passed a hot iron over his neck. The bullet had bruised
it.

Afterwards, when he got home, a strange, long, sweet day began for
him, misty as forgetfulness. Like a man released from prison or
from hospital, he stared at the long-fam