The Decembrist. Prayer. Chapter 3

And by morning the blizzard had subsided, and the frost had bound the earth.

It was one of those rare, blessed frosts that occur in the Russian hinterland once every few winters—when the sky rings out its icy purity, and the air becomes almost visible: you could, it seems, take it in your hands like the finest linen and tear it with a crystalline snap. The sun, rising above the tops of the pines, did not warm, but shone with such prodigality that the hoarfrost-covered branches burst into a thousand sparks, and the whole world turned into one vast, dazzling hall built of ice and snow.

At the post station, where only yesterday the blizzard had raged, an extraordinary stillness now reigned. It was not a dead stillness, but a living one—that deep, primordial quiet that comes only on a frosty morning, when even the sound of one's own breathing seems too loud. The snow that had fallen overnight lay in an even, untrodden cover, and only by the porch did dark footprints show—yesterday's, already lightly powdered—where the guest and the stationmaster had stepped out. The windows of the station house were covered with fantastic patterns: palm leaves, unknown flowers, intricate curlicues such as only frost can draw—and perhaps the Lord Himself, adorning a poor peasant's window no less than a royal palace.

Inside the house, however, it was warm, even stuffy—the stove, stoked since evening, still held its heat, and the air smelled of bread, dried herbs, and that peculiar, cosy spirit of old wood that does not fade with years. On the table, covered with a coarse but clean cloth, the stationmaster had already set out a simple meal: yesterday's bread, salt in a wooden salt-cellar, a crock of milk covered with a linen rag. The samovar, not yet heated, stood on the ledge by the stove, gleaming with dull copper. The old clock on the wall, with painted roses on its face, showed half past seven.

The guest—that same traveller who had warmed himself by the stove the night before and listened to the stationmaster's tale—had woken early, though they had gone to bed well past midnight. He lay long on the bench, covered with a sheepskin coat, staring at the ceiling where the reflections of the icon-lamp danced. Sleep would not come—or rather, it came in fits and starts, troubled, full of fragments of the past: now the ballroom swam before his eyes, with crystal chandelier pendants tinkling in the draught; now a voice whispered the words of the oath; now suddenly a face appeared that he dared not name even in his thoughts. At last, when the first, still timid light broke through the frosty patterns on the windows, he rose, dressed noiselessly, threw on his greatcoat, and, trying not to wake the stationmaster, who slept on the stove with a measured snore, stepped out onto the porch.

The frost lashed his cheeks as only a Russian winter can—not painfully, but with a ringing sting, making the blood run faster through his veins. The guest drew a deep breath, and the air, pure and transparent, with a slight bitterness of wormwood, burned his nostrils, but pleasantly, refreshingly. The snow creaked underfoot so loudly that the sound seemed audible for a verst around. He descended from the porch, leaving behind a trail of dark footprints, and stopped in the middle of the yard, looking about.

The morning was solemn and severe. The trees that surrounded the station—old birches and a few pines on the knoll—stood in hoarfrost, as if robed in vestments. Every twig, every last year's cone dusted with snow, had acquired the significance that belongs only to things seen for the first time or after a long parting. The sun, still low, struck obliquely from behind, and the shadows fell long and blue, with sharp edges. From the chimney of the station house a thin wisp of smoke rose—straight, almost motionless—and this column of smoke, ascending into the infinitely high, pale-blue sky, seemed the only link between the earthly and the heavenly.

The guest walked slowly along the path that led from the yard to the well, and then lost itself in the snowdrifts, turning toward a grove that showed dark on the rise. He walked unhurriedly, stopping now and then, as if listening to something within himself. His thoughts, in the morning especially clear and merciless, flowed evenly, like water in a deep river beneath the ice.

He thought of love...

Strange, he thought, that this feeling obeys neither reason, nor utility, nor even human will. It comes unbidden, settles in the heart, and you drive it out—it will not be driven; you pray—it will not be prayed away; and if you try to explain it to yourself, you will lose yourself in words as in a thicket. Some say love is an attraction of souls, a heavenly kinship, a predestination from above. Others—that it is nothing more than a play of the imagination, reinforced by habit. But he, Alexander (for the reader has already guessed that this traveller, caught by the blizzard at a remote station, was that same lieutenant who in December 1825 had stood at the countess's ball and slipped the niello ring onto his finger)—he, Alexander, now no longer a lieutenant, no longer a member of a secret society, but merely a man who had survived exile, return, and long years of silence, thought of love more simply, yet more bitterly, than in his youth.

"Love," he reflected, treading on the crunching snow, "is like this frosty air: you cannot see it, cannot grasp it with your hand, but it penetrates you through and through, and you cannot breathe without it. And like the air, it does not ask whether you need it—it simply is, or it is not. And woe to him who seeks gain in it, who weighs on the scales of reason whether it is worth surrendering to it, whether the price is too high. For love tolerates no bargaining. It demands all or nothing."

He remembered that evening—December, on the eve of the feast, when the countess's halls blazed with lights, and he, young, full of hopes and vague forebodings, had stood by the column and dared not take a step. She was there, a few sazhens away, in her ivory-coloured gown, with the brooch at her collar, and she looked at him—as he now understood—with the same hidden feeling that tormented him. And he had not approached. He had been afraid. He had thought: there is time, there will be another occasion, not now, when so many eyes are upon them, when tomorrow, perhaps, the fate of Russia will be decided, and then—a new life, and then... Then he would tell her everything.

But that other occasion never came. A week later came the Fourteenth of December, then arrests, interrogations, the casemates of the Peter and Paul Fortress, then the long road east, then years, years, years... And when he returned—returned not by imperial pardon, but by that special dispensation rarely granted to exiles—she was no longer in Petersburg. They said she had married some official and gone to the provinces, to Simbirsk or Penza, it seemed. Or had she not married? Or had she left with her father? He did not know for certain. There was no one to ask, and it would have been awkward—after all that had happened, after what he had been meant to do on the orders of the secret society...

At this thought he stopped. His heart, already beating unevenly from his brisk walk, ached with a dull, familiar pain. "I was meant to kill her father," he said to himself once again, and this thought, like a splinter, had lodged in him all these five years. "I put on the ring, I took the oath, and on that night when everything collapsed, I was freed from my promise only because I had not had time. Not had time! If the uprising had come a day later, if I had gone to that house..." He did not finish the thought, but he knew he carried it within him, as one carries an incurable disease under the heart.

And from this pain he longed to turn to something bright, pure, unsullied by conspiracy or blood. And such a brightness for him was Liza—Elizaveta Dmitrievna. Yes, he loved her. Loved her then, loved her now, though perhaps she had long forgotten his name, and he had no right to seek her out. But love, he thought, striding now toward the grove, does not ask for rights. It is. It lives in him as the roots of trees live underground—invisibly, but firmly—and no frost can kill them.

The grove was dim and solemn. The pines, old, two arm-spans thick, stood in white vestments, and the snow that covered their branches here and there slid down in heavy clods, baring the dark-green needles. The sun, breaking through the dense crowns, traced golden stripes on the snow—golden with a bluish sheen—and in these stripes myriads of icy sparks danced. The stillness here was even deeper than in the yard: not a sound, not a bird's cry, not a rustle—only now and then, high up in the thickest part, a branch would stir, and the snow would fall in dry, diamond dust.

Alexander walked slowly, absorbed in his thoughts, and noticed neither the cold nor the weariness. He thought of how one knows whether one is loved. Is there a sure sign? A glance? A word? An imprecise gesture? He remembered Liza: how she lowered her eyes when he entered, and how she then raised them slowly, as if with effort; how her fingers plucked the edge of her kerchief when they were alone; how once, at the theatre, she accidentally touched his hand and drew it back as if burned, blushing to the roots of her hair. He had taken that for girlish shyness, for innate modesty—but perhaps it had been love? Perhaps she had waited for a word, a step, a declaration from him? And he—he had given her only glances and long conversations about nothing, afraid to frighten what seemed to him too fragile, too precious.

"How does one distinguish a hint?" he thought, stopping by a huge pine on whose trunk transparent drops of resin had formed, frozen hard as amber. "How does one know that what you feel is not your own solitary delusion, but a responsive movement? Women know how to be silent so that their silence is more eloquent than any words. And I, fool that I was, waited for words, waited for a confession, waited for her to speak first, as in novels. And she did not. Could not. Dared not. Or perhaps she never loved me at all, and all this is only my fantasy, my longing for what never was?"

He passed his hand over the rough bark, brushing off the hoarfrost, and thought that now he would never know. Five years is no small span. Everything had changed: he himself had changed, and she, surely, had become another person. Or perhaps she had not changed? Perhaps there, in the depths of her soul, remained that evening, that ball, that unspoken conversation by the column, when they had stood close but had not dared to approach each other?

"But if I had approached then," he thought, "if I had taken her hand, asked for hers, carried her off to my village... What then? The Fourteenth of December would have come all the same. I would still have been there, on Senate Square, or on that night when they arrested us. She would have been left alone. Or perhaps"—here he winced—"perhaps, learning what I had plotted against her father, she would have cursed me. And she would have been right."

But these thoughts, though bitter, could not drown what was paramount. He loved. Loved not for any reason, not because she was kind or beautiful, but simply because she existed—and the world became bright. And now, as he walked through this snow-covered grove under the blue, icy sky, in utter solitude, it suddenly seemed to him that love was that very frosty air he was breathing. You cannot see it, cannot feel it by touch, but it pervades your whole being, and without it—death.

He stopped in a small clearing, where the sun had now gained strength and the snow sparkled so that it hurt the eyes. Before him, on a knoll, stood a solitary birch, all covered with hoarfrost, and its branches, bent by the weight of snow, formed something like an arch under which, it seemed, one could pass into another world. Alexander gazed at it a long time, and suddenly it came to him: one must try. One must take a step. One must give free rein to one's feelings, otherwise life will pass by, and only the ashes of the unfulfilled will remain.

He did not know where Liza had gone, did not know how to find her, but he resolved firmly: when this journey was over, when he had settled the matter with the little girl about whom, at this very moment, he also thought with tenderness and anxiety—he would find her. Seek her out at any cost. Ask her if she remembered that evening, remembered his gaze, remembered how they had stood by the column while the music played and the candles burned, and he had wanted but had not dared. And if she said "yes," if she said she had waited—then all was not lost. Then, perhaps, the Lord was giving him a second chance.

He crossed himself, gazing at the birch as at an icon, and turned back.

As he returned to the station, he felt that the morning, with its cold and light, had cleansed his soul like Epiphany water. Not everything was yet decided, much remained dark and wavering, but one thing had become clear: one cannot live halfway. One cannot hide one's feelings behind rational calculations, one cannot wait for a "convenient moment" that may never come. One must go and act while one has strength, while the heart has not grown cold.

The station appeared around the bend sooner than expected. The smoke above the chimney still curled into the sky, and on the porch, wrapped in an old sheepskin coat, stood the stationmaster. Seeing the guest, he threw up his hands and hurried to meet him.

"Good heavens, my dear sir!" he began, shaking his head so that the hoarfrost on his beard scattered like white grit. "Wherever have you gone off to so early in the morning, in such frost? I woke up—you were gone, your sheepskin was in place, you'd only taken your greatcoat. I thought something had happened. And breakfast will get cold! I've already put the samovar on, and shoved the pies in the oven—yesterday's, to be sure, but reheated—with potatoes and mushrooms. And buckwheat porridge is simmering in the pot. And you're out walking!"

Alexander smiled, feeling warmth spread through his chest from this simple concern.

"Forgive me, Andrei Petrovich," he said, "I grew restless. The morning was so fine, I could not resist going for a stroll. And the air—it is a blessing; God himself bids one breathe it."

"A blessing it is, a blessing," grumbled the stationmaster, ushering him into the house, "but you, I dare say, are not in a fur coat, only a greatcoat. That way you'll catch cold before you know it. I have it, thank God, stoked up warm; now some hot tea, and you'll soon recover."

In the hut it was indeed warm, even hot. The samovar, already humming loudly on the table, filled the room with steam; from the stove came the aroma of baked bread and porridge. The stationmaster, fussily but skilfully, began to set the table: he placed a clay bowl of porridge, took from the oven a cast-iron pot with melted milk, cut the pies, from which rose a thick, appetising steam. Alexander took off his greatcoat, hung it on a peg by the door, and sat down at the table, rubbing his chilled hands.

"Eat, my good sir, eat," urged the stationmaster, pushing the bowl toward him. "Buckwheat porridge, crumbly, with butter. And the pies are yesterday's, but never mind, they haven't gone stale. I warmed them in the oven—as good as fresh."

Alexander fell to with appetite. Several days on the road, scant fare at posting inns, and then last night's tea-drinking, which had stretched far past midnight—all this made itself felt. The porridge was tasty and hearty, the pies soft, with a filling of potato and dried mushrooms that spread a forest-like, spicy aroma throughout his mouth.

"Thank you, Andrei Petrovich," he said, pushing away the empty bowl and reaching for a second piece of pie. "You have warmed me and fed me. Truly they say: a Russian man on the road without a stationmaster is like a ship without a harbour."

"Come, come," the stationmaster said, embarrassed, but it was plain that the praise pleased him. "Our service is such: to warm everyone, to feed everyone. And if the man is one of our own, as you are, then all the more."

He sat down opposite, poured himself some tea into a tin mug, and, sipping from the saucer, looked at his guest with curiosity.

"And where, sir, are you bound, if it is not a secret?" he asked. "Yesterday you said Petersburg, but now it seems you are not heading there. And besides, one does not travel to Petersburg by such a road."

Alexander paused, gazing out the window where the frost was painting its patterns. Then he sighed and answered:

"It is no secret, Andrei Petrovich. I am going to Smolensk province, to an estate… Or rather, it is hard to call it an estate—just a little village, lost in the forests. There I have… business. A matter of the heart."

"A matter of the heart?" repeated the stationmaster, raising an eyebrow. "Not seeking a betrothed, God forgive me?"

"No," Alexander smiled, but the smile was sad. "Not a betrothed. A little girl. An orphan. I want to take her to myself."

The stationmaster set his saucer on the table and stared at the guest with surprise and sympathy.

"How so?" he asked. "One of God's children? A relative of yours, perhaps?"

"No, not a relative," said Alexander. "But her parents… we were acquainted once, not very closely. Before everything. Before…" he faltered, "before the known events. They died recently, both of them. The father of consumption, the mother of grief, soon after. And the little girl was left with strangers, in a remote village. I learned of it by chance, through mutual acquaintances, and so… I am going to fetch her. To adopt her, if God blesses it."

Something warm and moist kindled in the stationmaster's eyes.

"A good deed," he said quietly. "A very good deed. To take in an orphan—that will be counted before God. And how old is the little girl?"

"Eight," answered Alexander. "Her name is Sofia. Sonya. She was quite small when I last saw her. Now, perhaps, she will not even recognise me. And I…" he spread his hands, "I do not know what kind of father I shall make. I have never tried. And here—at once, ready-made."

"The Lord will teach you," the stationmaster said firmly. "He who comes to children with a kind heart, he is a father. And that they are strangers—that is no trouble. She will grow used to it. Only give her affection, warmth. And she will respond. Children, they feel these things."

Alexander nodded, and his heart grew a little lighter. He was about to tell more, when suddenly the screech of runners and the snorting of horses sounded outside the window. The stationmaster, attuned to every sound on the tract, grew alert, glanced out the window, and grunted.

"A courier," he said, "or someone from the neighbourhood. Eh, it's Fedka from Zakharyino," he recognised, peering closer. "What does he want so early?"

He went out onto the porch, and a minute later a young lad in a sheepskin coat appeared in the hut, with a frost-covered face and a red nose. He shook the snow from his cap, bowed to the guest and the master, and began speaking hurriedly, breathlessly:

"Andrei Petrovich! Andrei Petrovich! We have trouble there! The blizzard—it turns out it hasn't gone—it's swept everything beyond the village, at the bend! The road—the snow has drifted so overnight that you can neither walk nor drive. Yesterday, they say, a cart got stuck; the men barely dug themselves out. And this morning it has drifted again, so thick you can't see anything. I've come to you—maybe you could send to town for a cart, but you won't get out, and no one will get out, until the wind changes."

"Ah, Lord!" the stationmaster threw up his hands. "Again! What a scourge this is! And when will they clear the road now?"

"By evening, maybe, if the contractor sends the men out—or maybe tomorrow," Fedka replied. "It's piled up higher than a sleigh!"

The stationmaster, sighing, dismissed the messenger, bidding him convey greetings and, if there was a chance, bring fresh fish from the merchant, and returned to the table.

"Well, my good sir," he said, spreading his hands, "an ill wind has brought you here at such a time. You are stuck with me, and it seems not for an hour, but for a day, perhaps two. Do not take it amiss; stay as long as you need. There is room enough, and bread and salt are ours."

Alexander, though he was in a hurry (in his heart there already lived anxiety for Sonya, whether she was waiting, whether she was in need), understood that one cannot fight against nature.

"What is to be done, Andrei Petrovich?" he said. "It seems this is God's will. I shall stay, if you do not turn me out."

"Turn you out!" snorted the stationmaster. "I am glad! At such a time, to a lonely soul, a guest is like an angel. And you, sir, tell me more about the little girl. How is she, where is she, who has taken her in? Perhaps I know those people—the village is in our parts?"

And they sat down at the table again. Alexander, feeling that time now stretched slowly and there was no need to rush, poured himself more tea and began to tell.

"Sonya," he said, "is the daughter of old acquaintances of mine, Pavel Ivanovich and Natalya Sergeyevna. Pavel Ivanovich was..." he paused for a second, choosing his words, "he was a military man, like myself. He served in the same regiment, even the same company, in that time... in that time when we were all young and full of hope. Later, after... after the known events, he left the service, went to the country, married. I had not seen him for many years. And recently, in Petersburg, I met a mutual acquaintance who told me that Pavel Ivanovich had died, and his wife soon after, leaving little Sonya, aged eight. She lives in some village near Smolensk, with the local deacon, I think, or a townsman—I do not quite recall. I wrote down the address and here... I am going."

The stationmaster listened, nodding, and in his wrinkled, kind eyes there kindled something like respect.

"It must be hard for you," he said. "You have none of your own, and here is another's blood... But clearly you have a kind soul, to have undertaken such a thing. Are you not afraid she will not accept you? That you will seem a stranger?"

"I am afraid," Alexander confessed, and for the first time in his voice there sounded that vulnerability which he usually kept carefully hidden. "Very afraid. I am not her father, not her uncle, not even her godfather. Simply an acquaintance of her parents, almost a stranger. She does not remember me. And suddenly I arrive, take her away from people to whom she has grown accustomed, carry her off to I know not where... How will she take it? What will she think? Perhaps it would be better for her to stay where she is, among her own? But those people are strangers—they took her out of charity, or perhaps for the small inheritance her parents left. I do not know. I was told she lives in poverty, goes about in rags, and her hosts, though they do not mistreat her, do not spoil her either. I cannot leave her there. I cannot."

He fell silent, and in the stillness that followed his words, one could hear the samovar humming and the firewood crackling in the stove. The stationmaster thoughtfully tugged at his beard, then said:

"You are right, sir. You cannot. And how she will receive you—that is as God gives. Open your soul to her, show affection, and she, the child, will understand. A child's heart is wiser than ours; it does not believe words, but eyes. If she sees that you are kind—she will accept you."

Alexander nodded gratefully, then, as if remembering something, rose from the table and went to his travelling trunk, which stood in the corner by the stove. He lifted the lid, rummaged inside, and brought out several parcels, carefully tied with twine.

"Here," he said, returning to the table and unwrapping one of the parcels. "I have prepared a few things for her. I thought I would bring them, give them when... when we meet. Advise me, Andrei Petrovich—is it too fine for a country girl? I have no skill in such matters."

He unfolded the stout paper, and the stationmaster saw a little dress—made of good, but not showy, cloth, of dark cherry colour, with black velvet trim at the collar and cuffs. It had been made to order, in Petersburg, by a good dressmaker, and though without excess luxury, it was clear the craftswoman knew her work. Beside it lay a silk ribbon—blue, with silver thread—and a small brooch: silver, with turquoise, modest but elegant. In another parcel there was a book—*Children's Reading for Heart and Mind*, in leather binding, with pictures.

The stationmaster carefully, as if afraid to soil it, took the dress in his hands, stroked the cloth, turned the brooch in the light.

"A fine thing," he said at last. "Fine, without vulgarity. And as for richness... Eh, sir, what is richness to an orphan? Perhaps she has never seen such things. But do not fear—what comes from a pure heart is all to the good. She will tie the ribbon, and read the book. And the dress—she will wear it on holidays, and go to church with you. Only mind, do not give everything at once, or you will dazzle and frighten her. First—affection, and then the gifts."

"You are right," said Alexander, folding the things back. "I thought so myself. First—acquaintance, talk, and then, when she grows used to it…"

"She will grow used to it," the stationmaster repeated confidently. "The main thing is to be a father to her. And a father—he can caress, and scold, and give gifts. All in good time."

Meanwhile the day dragged on slowly. The sun, risen high, peered in through the windows, and on the frosty patterns rainbow tints began to play. In the hut it grew still brighter, and one could make out every crack in the logs, every fold in the curtain. The stationmaster, having finished with the dishes, sat down at the table and, looking at his guest, said:

"Would you like me, sir, to finish telling you about the colonel? We stopped at the most interesting part yesterday. Do you remember, I spoke of that night when he came to me after everything, to say goodbye... We have time, the road is blocked anyway, and perhaps it is all for the best that we are delayed. Let all that bygone matter come out, and it will be easier for me, an old man."

Alexander, though his thoughts were occupied with his coming journey and with the image of Liza, which would not let him go, nodded. He felt that the stationmaster too needed to speak out, and that in this tale, perhaps, he might find an answer to some of his own doubts.

"Tell on, Andrei Petrovich," he said. "I am listening."

The stationmaster cleared his throat, adjusted the icon-lamp before the image, as if about to speak of something sacred, and began:

"Well then, my good sir. I told you how the colonel and I went through the year twelve together, how afterwards, after the war, we went our separate ways but remained close in spirit. And in twenty-five, just before..."

And he continued his tale—of how the colonel had come to him in October, agitated, resolute, saying that "delay was no longer possible," that "Russia was waiting," that "they must go forward." Of how they had argued all night, and how the stationmaster, mindful of his oath and his loyalty to the sovereign, could not bring himself to endorse what his friends were plotting. But the colonel did not condemn him: "You, Andrei, stay here," he said, "perhaps it is for the best. But I shall go. And if anything happens—remember me as you knew me."

Alexander listened, and in this tale he heard echoes of his own fate, his own choice. And he understood that the stationmaster's story, begun yesterday, would be long, and that perhaps by evening they would not reach its end. But this was good. The time that had once seemed wasted now acquired weight and meaning, like the frosty air outside the window—transparent, cold, yet full of life.

Unnoticed, evening came during their talk. The sun had set behind the pine forest, and the hut grew dim. The stationmaster lit candles, placed them on the table, and the little flames, reflected in the copper sides of the samovar, played with a soft, warm glow. Outside the window the wind began to rise again—not the furious gale of yesterday, but a steady, dragging wind, such as comes before a heavy snowfall. It droned in the chimney, groaned under the eaves, and from this drone the hut seemed even cosier.

"Late," said the stationmaster, breaking off his tale at the point where the colonel had embraced him in farewell for the last time, and added: "And I am tired, my dear sir. My eyes are closing. Do not take it amiss—I will finish tomorrow, if the blizzard does not start up again."

"Go to rest, Andrei Petrovich," said Alexander. "Sleep. I will sit a while longer and think."

The stationmaster, grunting, climbed onto the stove, covered himself with his sheepskin, and within a minute was snoring evenly, occasionally sighing in his sleep.

Alexander remained alone. He sat at the table, propping his head on his hand, and gazed at the flame of the icon-lamp that flickered before the image of the Saviour Not Made by Hands. His thoughts, tired from the long day and the stationmaster's tale, flowed slowly, tangled, and returned again and again to the same things. Liza. Sonya. December 1825. The ring, which he had taken off and hidden at the bottom of his trunk, but which seemed still to burn on his finger. He thought that perhaps the Lord was sending him this journey, this delay on the road, this old soldier with his confession, so that he, Alexander, might at last sort himself out. So that he might understand what true love was, and what false duty; what faith was, and what fanaticism; what prayer was, and what only words.

The lamp flickered, casting elusive shadows on the walls. Outside the window the wind droned louder, and the snow, it seemed, was beginning to fall again, but now it did not frighten; on the contrary, it soothed. In this drone, in this steady, monotonous murmur, there was something native, eternal, like Russia herself.

Alexander felt his eyelids growing heavy. He tried to shake himself, raised his head, but everything swam before his eyes. And now, through his drowsiness, images began to appear: the ballroom, the crystal chandelier pendants tinkling in the draught; Liza in her ivory-coloured gown looking at him, her lips whispering something he could not hear; then—a dark room, rings with niello, a voice: "I swear"; then—Senate Square, empty, covered with snow, and he alone on it, without his greatcoat, without his weapon, the wind whistling in his ears; then—the face of a little girl, Sonya, with big frightened eyes, reaching out her hands to him and saying: "Papa."

He wanted to answer, but his tongue would not obey. And suddenly everything vanished. Only the steady light of the lamp remained, the quiet snoring of the stationmaster on the stove, and the even drone of the wind beyond the window.

Alexander, without noticing it himself, lowered his head onto his folded arms and fell asleep. And he slept deeply, without dreams, for the first time in a long while—that saving, profound sleep that comes to a weary traveller when the blizzard howls outside and the house is warm, and the Lord, invisibly, guards his rest.

The candles on the table burned down, and only the lamp, faithful and unquenchable, continued to glow before the icon, casting a soft, golden light upon the sleeping man's face. Outside the frost grew sharper, and the stars that had appeared in the sky seemed so close that, were they not stars but lamps, their light could be reached by hand. A temporary peace descended upon the station, upon the forest, upon all the snow-covered countryside, and in this peace, as in a mother's womb, something new was ripening—not yet revealed to the world, but already predestined.

End of Chapter Three