"Fellow-travellers that means. And now strike a match. I'm going to
smoke."
The matches had got damp>--impatiently, it took me a long time, I
struck them against the boards above my head. At last a tiny little
light spluttered forth, and from out of the darkness stared a pale face
with a thick black beard.
The big, sensible eyes looked at me with a smile, presently some white
teeth gleamed from beneath the moustaches, and the man said to me:
"Like a smoke?"
The match burnt out. We lit another, and by the light of it we stared
once more at each other, after which my fellow lodger observed
confidentially:
"Well, it seems to me we shan't clash ... take a cigarette."
Another cigarette was between his teeth and, brightening as he smoked
it, illuminated his face with a faint reddish glimmer. Around his eyes
and on the forehead of this man was a lot of deep and finely furrowed
wrinkles. Earlier, by the light of the same match, I had observed that
he was dressed in the remains of an old wadding paletot, girded with
a piece of string, and on his feet were shoes made of a whole piece of
leather--_porshni_ as we call them on the Don.
"A pilgrim?" I asked.
"Yes, I go on foot. And you?"
"Likewise."
He moved slightly, and there was a sort of metallic clank--evidently
a kettle or tea-pot, that indispensable accessory of the pilgrim
to holy places; but in his tone there was not a trace of that foxy
unction which always betrays the pilgrim; in _his_ tone there was
nothing of the pilgrim's obligatory thievish oiliness, and, so far, his
words were unaccompanied by any pious groans or quotations from "the
Scriptures." In general he did not at all resemble the professional
loafers at the holy places--that shoddy and endless variety of "Russian
Vagabondage," whose lies and superstitions have such an effect upon the
spiritually-hungry and starving rural population. Besides, he was going
to Nikolaiev, where there were neither shrines nor relics....
"And where are you coming from?" I inquired.
"From Astrakhan."
Now in Astrakhan also there are no relics. Then I asked him:
"Doesn't that mean you are going from sea to sea and not to the holy
places at all?"
"Nay, but I go to the holy places too. Why should I not go to the holy
places? I go with pleasure ... they always feed you well there ...
especially if you get intimate with the monks. Our brother Isaac[1] is
much respected by them, because he makes life a little less monotonous
for them. What are your views on the subject?"