nned my face with a breath
as of ice, while the flame of the candle flickered the more--as though
it too were seeking to wrest itself from the candlestick, and go
floating upwards to join the band of stars--a band of luminaries which
it might well have deemed to be of a brilliance as small and as pitiful
as its own. And I, for my part, since I had no wish to see what light
there was disappear, followed the struggles of the tiny flame with a
tense anxiety which made my eyes ache. Oppressed and uneasy all over as
I stood by the dead man's shoulder, I strained my ears and listened,
listened ever, to the silence encompassing the hut.

Eventually, drowsiness began to steal over me, and proved a feeling
hard to resist. Yet still with an effort did I contrive to recall the
beautiful prayers of Saints Makari Veliki, Chrysostom, and Damarkin,
while at the same time something resembling a swarm of mosquitos
started to hum in my head, the words wherein the Sixth Precept issues
its injunction to: "all persons about to withdraw to a couch of rest."

And next, to escape falling asleep, I fell to reciting the kondak [Hymn
for the end of the day] which begins:

"Oh Lord, refresh my soul thus grievously made feeble with wrong doing."

Still engaged in this manner, suddenly I heard something rustle outside
the door. Then a dry whisper articulated:

"Oh God of Mercy, receive unto Thyself also my soul!"

Upon that, the fancy occurred to me that probably the old woman's soul
was as grey and timid as a linnet, and that when it should fly up to
the throne of the Mother of God, and the Mother should extend to that
little soul her tender, white, and gracious hand, the newcomer would
tremble all over, and flutter her gentle wings until well nigh death
should supervene.

And then the Mother of God would say to Her Son:

"Son, pray see the fearfulness of Thy people on earth, and their
estrangement from joy! Oh Son, is that well?"

And He would make answer to Her--

He would make answer to Her, and say I know not what.

* * * * *

And suddenly, so I fancied, a voice answered mine out of the brooding
hush, as though it too were reciting a prayer. Yet so complete, so
profound, was the stillness, that the voice seemed far away, submerged,
unreal--a mere phantom of an echo, of the echo of my own voice. Until,
on my desisting from my recital, and straining my cars yet more, the
sound seemed to approach and grow cl