Fables for Children, Stories for Children, Natural Science Stories Part 60

Efim's people heard that very day that Elisey had come back, and so they came to inquire about their old man. And Elisey told them the same story.

"You see," he said, "the old man started to walk briskly, and three days before St. Peter's day we lost each other. I wanted to catch up with him, but it happened that I spent all my money and could not go on, so I returned home."

The people marvelled how it was that such a clever man had acted so foolishly as to start and not reach the place and merely spend his money. They wondered awhile, and forgot about it. Elisey, too, forgot about it. He began to work about the house: he got the wood ready for the winter with his son, threshed the grain with the women, thatched the sheds, gathered in the bees, and gave ten hives with the young brood to his neighbour. When he got all the work done, he sent his son out to earn money, and himself sat down in the winter to plait bast shoes and hollow out blocks for the hives.

VIII.

All that day that Elisey pa.s.sed with the sick people, Efim waited for his companion. He walked but a short distance and sat down. He waited and waited, and fell asleep; when he awoke, he sat awhile,--but his companion did not turn up. He kept a sharp lookout for him, but the sun was going down behind a tree, and still Elisey was not there.

"I wonder whether he has not pa.s.sed by me," he thought. "Maybe somebody drove him past, and he did not see me while I was asleep. But how could he help seeing me? In the steppe you can see a long distance off. If I go back, he may be marching on, and we shall only get farther separated from each other. I will walk on,--we shall meet at the resting-place for the night."

When he came to a village, he asked the village officer to look out for an old man and bring him to the house where he stayed. Elisey did not come there for the night. Efim marched on, and asked everybody whether they had seen a bald-headed old man. No one had seen him. Efim was surprised and walked on.

"We shall meet somewhere in Odessa," he thought, "or on the boat," and then he stopped thinking about it.

On the road he fell in with a pilgrim. The pilgrim, in calotte, ca.s.sock, and long hair, had been to Mount Athos, and was now going for the second time to Jerusalem. They met at a hostelry, and they had a chat and started off together.

They reached Odessa without any accident. They waited for three days for a s.h.i.+p. There were many pilgrims there, and they had come together from all directions. Again Efim asked about Elisey, but n.o.body had seen him.

Efim provided himself with a pa.s.sport,--that cost five roubles. He had forty roubles left for his round trip, and he bought bread and herring for the voyage. The s.h.i.+p was loaded, then the pilgrims were admitted, and Tarasych sat down beside the pilgrim he had met. The anchors were weighed, they pushed off from the sh.o.r.e, and the s.h.i.+p sailed across the sea.

During the day they had good sailing; in the evening a wind arose, rain fell, and the s.h.i.+p began to rock and to be washed by the waves. The people grew excited; the women began to shriek, and such men as were weak ran up and down the s.h.i.+p, trying to find a safe place. Efim, too, was frightened, but he did not show it: where he had sat down on the floor on boarding the s.h.i.+p by the side of Tambov peasants, he sat through the night and the following day; all of them held on to their wallets and did not speak. On the third day it grew calmer. On the fifth day they landed at Constantinople.

Some of the pilgrims went ash.o.r.e there, to visit the Cathedral of St.

Sophia, which now the Turks hold; Tarasych did not go, but remained on board the s.h.i.+p. All he did was to buy some white bread. They remained there a day, and then again sailed through the sea. They stopped at Smyrna town, and at another city by the name of Alexandria, and safely reached the city of Jaffa. In Jaffa all pilgrims go ash.o.r.e: from there it is seventy versts on foot to Jerusalem. At the landing the people had quite a scare: the s.h.i.+p was high, and the people were let down into boats below; but the boats were rocking all the time, and two people were let down past the boat and got a ducking, but otherwise all went safely.

When all were ash.o.r.e, they went on afoot; on the third day they reached Jerusalem at dinner-time. They stopped in a suburb, in a Russian hostelry; there they had their pa.s.sports stamped and ate their dinner, and then they followed a pilgrim to the holy places. It was too early yet to be admitted to the Sepulchre of the Lord, so they went to the Monastery of the Patriarch. There all the wors.h.i.+ppers were gathered, and the female s.e.x was put apart from the male. They were all ordered to take off their shoes and sit in a circle. A monk came out with a towel, and began to wash everybody's feet. He would wash, and rub them clean, and kiss them, and thus he went around the whole circle. He washed Efim's feet and kissed them. They celebrated vigils and matins, and placed a candle, and served a ma.s.s for the parents. There they were fed, and received wine to drink.

On the following morning they went to the cell of Mary of Egypt, where she took refuge. There they placed candles, and a ma.s.s was celebrated.

From there they went to Abraham's Monastery. They saw the Sebak garden, the place where Abraham wanted to sacrifice his son to G.o.d. Then they went to the place where Christ appeared to Mary Magdalene, and to the Church of Jacob, the brother of the Lord. The pilgrim showed them all the places, and in every place he told how much money they ought to give. At dinner they returned to the hostelry. They ate, and were just getting ready to lie down to sleep, when the pilgrim, who was rummaging through his clothes, began to sigh.

"They have pulled out my pocketbook with money in it," he said. "I had twenty-three roubles,--two ten-rouble bills, and three in change."

The pilgrim felt badly about it, but nothing could be done, and all went to sleep.

IX.

As Efim went to sleep, a temptation came over him.

"They have not taken the pilgrim's money," he thought, "he did not have any. Nowhere did he offer anything. He told me to give, but he himself did not offer any. He took a rouble from me."

As Efim was thinking so, he began to rebuke himself:

"How dare I judge the man, and commit a sin. I will not sin." The moment he forgot himself, he again thought that the pilgrim had a sharp eye on money, and that it was unlikely that they had taken the money from him.

"He never had any money," he thought. "It's only an excuse."

They got up before evening and went to an early ma.s.s at the Church of the Resurrection,--to the Sepulchre of the Lord. The pilgrim did not leave Efim's side, but walked with him all the time.

They came to the church. There was there collected a large crowd of wors.h.i.+ppers, Greeks, and Armenians, and Turks, and Syrians. Efim came with the people to the Holy Gate. A monk led them. He took them past the Turkish guard to the place where the Saviour was taken from the cross and anointed, and where candles were burning in nine large candlesticks.

He showed and explained everything to them. Efim placed a candle there.

Then the monks led Efim to the right over steps to Golgotha, where the cross stood; there Efim prayed; then Efim was shown the cleft where the earth was rent to the lowermost regions; then he was shown the place where Christ's hands and feet had been nailed to the cross, and then he was shown Adam's grave, where Christ's blood dropped on his bones. Then they came to the rock on which Christ sat when they put the wreath of thorns on his head; then to the post to which Christ was tied when he was beaten. Then Efim saw the stone with the two holes, for Christ's feet. They wanted to show him other things, but the people hastened away: all hurried to the grotto of the Lord's Sepulchre. Some foreign ma.s.s was just ended, and the Russian began. Efim followed the people to the grotto.

He wanted to get away from the pilgrim, for in thought he still sinned against him, but the pilgrim stuck to him, and went with him to ma.s.s at the Sepulchre of the Lord. They wanted to stand close to it, but were too late. There was such a crowd there that it was not possible to move forward or back. Efim stood there and looked straight ahead and prayed, but every once in awhile he felt his purse, to see whether it was in his pocket. His thoughts were divided; now he thought that the pilgrim had deceived him; and then he thought, if he had not deceived him, and the pocketbook had really been stolen, the same might happen to him.

X.

Efim stood there and prayed and looked ahead into the chapel where the Sepulchre itself was, and where over the Sepulchre thirty-six lamps were burning. Efim looked over the heads to see the marvellous thing: under the very lamps, where the blessed fire was burning, in front of all, he saw an old man in a coa.r.s.e caftan, with a bald spot s.h.i.+ning on his whole head, and he looked very much like Elisey Bodrov.

"He resembles Elisey," he thought. "But how can it be he? He could not have got here before me. The previous s.h.i.+p started a week ahead of us.

He could not have been on that s.h.i.+p. On our s.h.i.+p he was not, for I saw all the pilgrims."

Just as Efim was thinking this, the old man began to pray, and made three bows: once in front of him, to G.o.d, and twice to either side, to all the Orthodox people. And as the old man turned his head to the right, Efim recognized him. Sure enough, it was Bodrov: it was his blackish, curly beard, and the gray streak on his cheeks, and his brows, his eyes, his nose, and full face,--all his. Certainly it was he, Elisey Bodrov.

Efim was glad that he had found his companion, and he marvelled how Elisey could have got there ahead of him.

"How in the world did Bodrov get to that place in front?" he thought.

"No doubt he met a man who knew how to get him there. When all go out, I will hunt him up, and I will drop the pilgrim in the colette, and will walk with him. Maybe he will take me to the front place."

Efim kept an eye on Elisey, so as not to lose him. When the ma.s.ses were over, the people began to stir. As they went up to kiss the Sepulchre, they crowded and pushed Efim to one side. He was frightened lest his purse should be stolen. He put his hand to his purse and tried to make his way out into the open. When he got out, he walked and walked, trying to find Elisey, both on the outside and in the church. In the church he saw many people in the cells: some ate, and drank wine, and slept there, and read their prayers. But Elisey was not to be found. Efim returned to the hostelry, but he did not find his companion there either. On that evening the pilgrim, too, did not come back. He was gone, and had not returned the rouble to Efim. So Efim was left alone.

On the following day Efim went again to the Sepulchre of the Lord with a Tambov peasant, with whom he had journeyed on the s.h.i.+p. He wanted to make his way to the front, but he was again pushed back, and so he stood at a column and prayed. He looked ahead of him, and there in front, under the lamps, at the very Sepulchre of the Lord, stood Elisey. He had extended his hands, like a priest at the altar, and his bald spot shone over his whole head.

"Now," thought Efim, "I will not miss him."

He made his way to the front, but Elisey was not there. Evidently he had left. On the third day he again went to the Sepulchre of the Lord, and there he saw Elisey standing in the holiest place, in sight of everybody, and his hands were stretched out, and he looked up, as though he saw something above him. And his bald spot shone over his whole head.

"Now," thought Efim, "I will certainly not miss him; I will go and stand at the entrance, and then he cannot escape me."

Efim went out and stood there for a long time. He stood until after noon: all the people had pa.s.sed out, but Elisey was not among them.

Efim pa.s.sed six weeks in Jerusalem, and visited all the places, Bethlehem, and Bethany, and the Jordan, and had a stamp put on a new s.h.i.+rt at the Lord's Sepulchre, to be buried in it, and filled a bottle of Jordan water, and got some earth, and candles with blessed fire, and in eight places inscribed names for the ma.s.s of the dead. He spent all his money and had just enough left to get home on, and so he started for home. He reached Jaffa, boarded a s.h.i.+p, landed at Odessa, and walked toward his home.

XI.

Efim walked by himself the same way he had come out. As he was getting close to his village, he began to worry again about how things were going at his house without him. In a year, he thought, much water runs by. It takes a lifetime to get together a home, but it does not take long to ruin it. He wondered how his son had done without him, how the spring had opened, how the cattle had wintered, and whether the hut was well built. Efim reached the spot where the year before he had parted from Elisey. It was not possible to recognize the people. Where the year before they had suffered want, now there was plenty. Everything grew well in the field. The people picked up again and forgot their former misery. In the evening Efim reached the very village where the year before Elisey had fallen behind. He had just entered the village, when a little girl in a white s.h.i.+rt came running out of a hut.

"Grandfather, grandfather! Come to our house!"

Efim wanted to go on, but the girl would not let him. She took hold of his coat and laughed and pulled him to the hut. A woman with a boy came out on the porch, and she, too, beckoned to him:

"Come in, grandfather, and eat supper with us and stay overnight!"

Efim stepped in.