“O Lord!  Holy Mother!  I was going along not meddling with anyone, and all at once such an affliction.”

“What may you be?” enquires the young man.  “Of the clergy?”

“No . . . no. . . .  I go from one monastery to another. . . .  Do you know Mi . . .  Mihail Polikarpitch, the foreman of the brickyard?  Well, I am his nephew. . . .  Thy will be done, O Lord!  Why are you here?”

“We are watching . . . we are told to.”

“Yes, yes . . .” mutters the man in the cassock, passing his hand over his eyes.  “And where did the deceased come from?”

“He was a stranger.”

“Such is life!  But I’ll . . . er . . . be getting on, brothers. . . .  I feel flustered.  I am more afraid of the dead than of anything, my dear souls!  And only fancy! while this man was alive he wasn’t noticed, while now when he is dead and given over to corruption we tremble before him as before some famous general or a bishop. . . .  Such is life; was he murdered, or what?”

“The Lord knows!  Maybe he was murdered, or maybe he died of himself.”

“Yes, yes. . . .  Who knows, brothers?  Maybe his soul is now tasting the joys of Paradise.”

“His soul is still hovering here, near his body,” says the young man.  “It does not depart from the body for three days.”

“H’m, yes! . . .  How chilly the nights are now!  It sets one’s teeth chattering. . . .  So then I am to go straight on and on? . . .”

“Till you get to the village, and then you turn to the right by the river-bank.”

“By the river-bank. . . .  To be sure. . . .  Why am I standing still?  I must go on.  Farewell, brothers.”

The man in the cassock takes five steps along the road and stops.

“I’ve forgotten to put a kopeck for the burying,” he says.  “Good orthodox friends, can I give the money?”

“You ought to know best, you go the round of the monasteries.  If he died a natural death it would go for the good of his soul; if it’s a suicide it’s a sin.”

“That’s true. . . .  And maybe it really was a suicide!  So I had better keep my money.  Oh, sins, sins!  Give me a thousand roubles and I would not consent to sit here. . . .  Farewell, brothers.”

The cassock slowly moves away and stops again.

“I can’t make up my mind what I am to do,” he mutters.  “To stay here by the fire and wait till daybreak. . . .  I am frightened; to go on is dreadful, too.  The dead man will haunt me all the way in the darkness. . . .  The Lord has chastised me indeed!  Over three hundred miles I have come on foot and nothing happened, and now I am near home and there’s trouble.  I can’t go on. . . .”

“It is dreadful, that is true.”

“I am not afraid of wolves, of thieves, or of darkness, but I am afraid of the dead.  I am afraid of them, and that is all about it.  Good orthodox brothers, I entreat you on my knees, see me to the village.”