Russian Literature – Children Books – Russian Poetry – Leo Tolstoy – The Two Old Men – Contents
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X.
Efím 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. Efím 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 coarse caftan, with a bald spot shining on his whole head, and he looked very much like Eliséy Bodróv.
“He resembles Eliséy,” he thought. “But how can it be he? He could not have got here before me. The previous ship started a week ahead of us. He could not have been on that ship. On our ship he was not, for I saw all the pilgrims.”
Just as Efím was thinking this, the old man began to pray, and made three bows: once in front of him, to God, and twice to either side, to all the Orthodox people. And as the old man turned his head to the right, Efím recognized him. Sure enough, it was Bodróv: 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, Eliséy Bodróv.
Efím was glad that he had found his companion, and he marvelled how Eliséy could have got there ahead of him.
“How in the world did Bodróv 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.”
Efím kept an eye on Eliséy, so as not to lose him. When the masses were over, the people began to stir. As they went up to kiss the Sepulchre, they crowded and pushed Efím 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 Eliséy, 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 Eliséy was not to be found. Efím 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 Efím. So Efím was left alone.
On the following day Efím went again to the Sepulchre of the Lord with a Tambóv peasant, with whom he had journeyed on the ship. 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 Eliséy. He had extended his hands, like a priest at the altar, and his bald spot shone over his whole head.
“Now,” thought Efím, “I will not miss him.”
He made his way to the front, but Eliséy was not there. Evidently he had left. On the third day he again went to the Sepulchre of the Lord, and there he saw Eliséy 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 Efím, “I will certainly not miss him; I will go and stand at the entrance, and then he cannot escape me.”
Efím went out and stood there for a long time. He stood until after noon: all the people had passed out, but Eliséy was not among them.
Efím passed six weeks in Jerusalem, and visited all the places, Bethlehem, and Bethany, and the Jordan, and had a stamp put on a new shirt 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 mass 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 ship, landed at Odessa, and walked toward his home.
Russian Literature – Children Books – Russian Poetry – Leo Tolstoy – The Two Old Men – Contents
Copyright holders – Public Domain Book
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