ld do,
Kalinin added in a half-whisper:

"More and more are folk coming to think to themselves: 'Now must I
forsake everything.' In the end I myself came to think it. For many a
year did I increasingly reflect: 'Why should I be a servant? What will
it ever profit me? Even if I should earn twelve, or twenty, or fifty
roubles a month, to what will such earnings lead, and where will the
man in me come in? Surely it would be better to do nothing at all, but
just to gaze into space (as I am doing now), and let my eyes stare
straight before me?'"

"By the way, what were you talking to those people about?"

"Which people do you mean?"

"The bearded man and the rest, the company in the guest-chamber?"

"Ah, THAT man I did not like--I have no fancy at all for fellows who
strew their grief about the world, and leave it to be trampled upon by
every chance-comer. For how can the tears of my neighbour benefit me?
True, every man has his troubles; but also has every man such a
predilection for his particular woe that he ends by deeming it the most
bitter and remarkable grief in the universe--you may take my word for
that."

Suddenly the speaker rose to his feet, a tall, lean figure.

"Now I must seek my bed," he remarked. "You see, I shall have to leave
here very early tomorrow."

"And for what point?"

"For Novorossisk."

Now, the day being a Saturday, I had drawn my week's earnings from the
monastery's pay-office just before the vigil service. Also, Novorossisk
did not really lie in my direction. Thirdly, I had no particular wish
to exchange the monastery for any other lodging. Nevertheless, despite
all this, the man interested me to such an extent (of persons who
genuinely interest one there never exist but two, and, of them, oneself
is always one) that straightway I observed:

"I too shall be leaving here tomorrow."

"Then let us travel together."

* * * * *

At dawn, therefore, we set forth to foot the road in company. At times
I mentally soared aloft, and viewed the scene from that vantage-point.
Whenever I did so, I beheld two tall men traversing a narrow track by a
seashore--the one clad in a grey military overcoat and a hat with a
broken crown, and the other in a drab kaftan and a plush cap. At their
feet the boundless sea was splashing white foam, salt-dried ribands of
seaweed were strewing the path, golden leaves were dancing hither and
thither, and the wind was howling at, and