Round him stood the invalided
soldiers.

"Blessed is our God," began the priest; "always, now and for ever and
ever."

"Amen!" said three sailors.

The soldiers and the crew crossed themselves and looked askance at the
waves. It was strange that a man should be sewn up in sail-cloth and
dropped into the sea. Could it happen to any one?

The priest sprinkled Goussiev with earth and bowed. A hymn was sung.

The guard lifted up the end of the board, Goussiev slipped down it; shot
headlong, turned over in the air, then plop! The foam covered him, for a
moment it looked as though he was swathed in lace, but the moment
passed--and he disappeared beneath the waves.

He dropped down to the bottom. Would he reach it? The bottom is miles
down, they say. He dropped down almost sixty or seventy feet, then began
to go slower and slower, swung to and fro as though he were thinking;
then, borne along by the current; he moved more sideways than downward.

But soon he met a shoal of pilot-fish. Seeing a dark body, the fish
stopped dead and sudden, all together, turned and went back. Less than a
minute later, like arrows they darted at Goussiev, zigzagging through
the water around him....

Later came another dark body, a shark. Gravely and leisurely, as though
it had not noticed Goussiev, it swam up under him, and he rolled over on
its back; it turned its belly up, taking its ease in the warm,
translucent water, and slowly opened its mouth with its two rows of
teeth. The pilot-fish were wildly excited; they stopped to see what was
going to happen. The shark played with the body, then slowly opened its
mouth under it, touched it with its teeth, and the sail-cloth was ripped
open from head to foot; one of the bars fell out, frightening the
pilot-fish and striking the shark on its side, and sank to the bottom.

And above the surface, the clouds were huddling up about the setting
sun; one cloud was like a triumphal arch, another like a lion, another
like a pair of scissors.... From behind the clouds came a broad green
ray reaching up to the very middle of the sky; a little later a violet
ray was flung alongside this, and then others gold and pink.... The sky
was soft and lilac, pale and tender. At first beneath the lovely,
glorious sky the ocean frowned, but soon the ocean also took on
colour--sweet, joyful, passionate colours, almost impossible to name in
human language.

MY LIFE

THE STORY OF A PROVINCIAL

The direc