“From a distance, friend.  I am from Vologda, a long way off.  I go from one holy place to another and pray for people.  Save me and have mercy upon me, O Lord.”

The watchman stops for a minute to light his pipe.  He stoops down behind the traveller’s back and lights several matches.  The gleam of the first match lights up for one instant a bit of the avenue on the right, a white tombstone with an angel, and a dark cross; the light of the second match, flaring up brightly and extinguished by the wind, flashes like lightning on the left side, and from the darkness nothing stands out but the angle of some sort of trellis; the third match throws light to right and to left, revealing the white tombstone, the dark cross, and the trellis round a child’s grave.

“The departed sleep; the dear ones sleep!” the stranger mutters, sighing loudly.  “They all sleep alike, rich and poor, wise and foolish, good and wicked.  They are of the same value now.  And they will sleep till the last trump.  The Kingdom of Heaven and peace eternal be theirs.”

“Here we are walking along now, but the time will come when we shall be lying here ourselves,” says the watchman.

“To be sure, to be sure, we shall all.  There is no man who will not die.  O-o-oh.  Our doings are wicked, our thoughts are deceitful!  Sins, sins!  My soul accursed, ever covetous, my belly greedy and lustful!  I have angered the Lord and there is no salvation for me in this world and the next.  I am deep in sins like a worm in the earth.”

“Yes, and you have to die.”

“You are right there.”

“Death is easier for a pilgrim than for fellows like us,” says the watchman.

“There are pilgrims of different sorts.  There are the real ones who are God-fearing men and watch over their own souls, and there are such as stray about the graveyard at night and are a delight to the devils. . .  Ye-es!  There’s one who is a pilgrim could give you a crack on the pate with an axe if he liked and knock the breath out of you.”

“What are you talking like that for?”

“Oh, nothing . . .  Why, I fancy here’s the gate.  Yes, it is.  Open it, good man.”

The watchman, feeling his way, opens the gate, leads the pilgrim out by the sleeve, and says: 

“Here’s the end of the graveyard.  Now you must keep on through the open fields till you get to the main road.  Only close here there will be the boundary ditch—­don’t fall in. . . .  And when you come out on to the road, turn to the right, and keep on till you reach the mill. . . .”

“O-o-oh!” sighs the pilgrim after a pause, “and now I am thinking that I have no cause to go to Mitrievsky Mill. . . .  Why the devil should I go there?  I had better stay a bit with you here, sir. . . .”

“What do you want to stay with me for?”

“Oh . . . it’s merrier with you! . . . .”

“So you’ve found a merry companion, have you?  You, pilgrim, are fond of a joke I see. . . .”