Ieronim heaved a deep sigh and took hold of the rope again.  We were by now approaching the bank.  We floated straight out of the darkness and stillness of the river into an enchanted realm, full of stifling smoke, crackling lights and uproar.  By now one could distinctly see people moving near the tar barrels.  The flickering of the lights gave a strange, almost fantastic, expression to their figures and red faces.  From time to time one caught among the heads and faces a glimpse of a horse’s head motionless as though cast in copper.

“They’ll begin singing the Easter hymn directly, . . .” said Ieronim, “and Nikolay is gone; there is no one to appreciate it. . . .  There was nothing written dearer to him than that hymn.  He used to take in every word!  You’ll be there, sir, so notice what is sung; it takes your breath away!”

“Won’t you be in church, then?”

“I can’t; . . .  I have to work the ferry. . . .”

“But won’t they relieve you?”

“I don’t know. . . .  I ought to have been relieved at eight; but, as you see, they don’t come! . . .  And I must own I should have liked to be in the church. . . .”

“Are you a monk?”

“Yes . . . that is, I am a lay-brother.”

The ferry ran into the bank and stopped.  I thrust a five-kopeck piece into Ieronim’s hand for taking me across and jumped on land.  Immediately a cart with a boy and a sleeping woman in it drove creaking onto the ferry.  Ieronim, with a faint glow from the lights on his figure, pressed on the rope, bent down to it, and started the ferry back. . . .

I took a few steps through mud, but a little farther walked on a soft freshly trodden path.  This path led to the dark monastery gates, that looked like a cavern through a cloud of smoke, through a disorderly crowd of people, unharnessed horses, carts and chaises.  All this crowd was rattling, snorting, laughing, and the crimson light and wavering shadows from the smoke flickered over it all . . . .  A perfect chaos!  And in this hubbub the people yet found room to load a little cannon and to sell cakes.  There was no less commotion on the other side of the wall in the monastery precincts, but there was more regard for decorum and order.  Here there was a smell of juniper and incense.  They talked loudly, but there was no sound of laughter or snorting.  Near the tombstones and crosses people pressed close to one another with Easter cakes and bundles in their arms.  Apparently many had come from a long distance for their cakes to be blessed and now were exhausted.  Young lay brothers, making a metallic sound with their boots, ran busily along the iron slabs that paved the way from the monastery gates to the church door.  They were busy and shouting on the belfry, too.

“What a restless night!” I thought.  “How nice!”