Maria for health. 
  Katerina for health. 
  Rheumatic Gregory for health. 
  Ivan for the peace of soul of his mother. 
  For the peace of soul of Prascovia.

And so on; and I sorted them into separate bundles—­those who wished prayers for health, and those who wanted peace of soul to the dead.

I, for my part, have walked many a thousand versts from village to village, and have been glad to live the peasant-pilgrim’s life.  Tramping was hard for me also, as also far from comfortless.  I saw sights which amply repaid me, if I wanted repayment, for every verst I tramped.  Often, and shamefully, have I looked back and sighed for the town that I had left—­its friends, its comforts and its pleasures; but I also found other men’s hospitality and the warmth of the stranger’s love.  Very sweet it was to sit in the strange man’s home, to play with his children on the floor, to eat and drink with him, to be blessed by him and by his wife, and sleep at last under the cottage ikons.  And though peasants knew the way was hard, “How fortunate you are!” they said.  I was more fortunate than they knew, for, being the voice of those who were without voice, I had a life by the way in communion with every common sight and sound.  I lived in communion with sunny and rainy days, with the form of mountain and valley, with the cornfield and the forest and the meadow.  Not only was man hospitable to the tramp, but Nature also.  The stars spoke of my pilgrimage, the sea murmured to me; wild fruit was my food.  I slept with the bare world as my house, the sky as my roof, and God as host.

I saw strange happenings in obscure little villages.  Wherever I went I saw little pictures, and not only great pageants; I knelt in little wooden churches as well as in the great cathedrals.  And I brought all that I met and all that I had experienced to Jerusalem, so that when the chorus of thanksgiving went up in the monastery on the day when we arrived, all my world was singing in it.

Sometimes I met pilgrims, especially at monasteries, and sometimes sojourned with one along the road, but it was not until we reached the pilgrim-boat that we found ourselves many and together.  For the greater part of the pilgrim life is necessarily in solitude.  A great number of pilgrims starting together and marching along the road is almost unthinkable.  The true desire to start takes one by oneself.  The pilgrim life is born like a river, far away apart, up in the mountains.  It is only when it is reaching its goal that it joins itself to others.  When we reached the port of embarkation we were a great band of pilgrims, but the paths by which we had come together were many and diverse, ramifying all over Russia.