“No, I must send it anyway; I must . . . bring him to his senses a little, all the same.  It’s just as well. . . .”

The deacon took an envelope from the table, but before putting the letter into it he sat down to the table, smiled and added on his own account at the bottom of the letter: 

“They have sent us a new inspector.  He’s much friskier than the old one.  He’s a great one for dancing and talking, and there’s nothing he can’t do, so that all the Govorovsky girls are crazy over him.  Our military chief, Kostyrev, will soon get the sack too, they say.  High time he did!” And very well pleased, without the faintest idea that with this postscript he had completely spoiled the stern letter, the deacon addressed the envelope and laid it in the most conspicuous place on the table.

EASTER EVE

I was standing on the bank of the River Goltva, waiting for the ferry-boat from the other side.  At ordinary times the Goltva is a humble stream of moderate size, silent and pensive, gently glimmering from behind thick reeds; but now a regular lake lay stretched out before me.  The waters of spring, running riot, had overflowed both banks and flooded both sides of the river for a long distance, submerging vegetable gardens, hayfields and marshes, so that it was no unusual thing to meet poplars and bushes sticking out above the surface of the water and looking in the darkness like grim solitary crags.

The weather seemed to me magnificent.  It was dark, yet I could see the trees, the water and the people. . . .  The world was lighted by the stars, which were scattered thickly all over the sky.  I don’t remember ever seeing so many stars.  Literally one could not have put a finger in between them.  There were some as big as a goose’s egg, others tiny as hempseed. . . .  They had come out for the festival procession, every one of them, little and big, washed, renewed and joyful, and everyone of them was softly twinkling its beams.  The sky was reflected in the water; the stars were bathing in its dark depths and trembling with the quivering eddies.  The air was warm and still. . . .  Here and there, far away on the further bank in the impenetrable darkness, several bright red lights were gleaming. . . .

A couple of paces from me I saw the dark silhouette of a peasant in a high hat, with a thick knotted stick in his hand.

“How long the ferry-boat is in coming!” I said.

“It is time it was here,” the silhouette answered.

“You are waiting for the ferry-boat, too?”

“No I am not,” yawned the peasant—­“I am waiting for the illumination.  I should have gone, but to tell you the truth, I haven’t the five kopecks for the ferry.”

“I’ll give you the five kopecks.”

“No; I humbly thank you. . . .  With that five kopecks put up a candle for me over there in the monastery. . . .  That will be more interesting, and I will stand here.  What can it mean, no ferry-boat, as though it had sunk in the water!”