own in the twinkling of an eye."

The windlass creaked, the rusty chain groaned plaintively, and the
bucket began to descend by jerks, knocking against the wooden lining of
the shaft with a metallic echo. Ivan raised his eyes; above him the
pit-mouth looked like a greyish patch, round him was impenetrable
darkness. The bucket turned with the chain and descended slowly. The
little lamp fastened to his waist cast trembling gleams on the damp
walls, and its light flickered timidly, hardly making visible the drops
of water which trickled across the wooden lining of the shaft; in fact
it seemed on the point of going out. Any one unused to such a descent
would at once have become giddy, but to old Ivan it seemed a mere
trifle. How often already he had thus descended and come up!

The walls of the shaft became more and more damp. Above, the grey patch
shrank and shrank. It seemed as though the day staring fixedly into the
darkness of the pit gradually closed its grey eye, baffled at its depth.

"Yes, this shaft is very old," thought the miner to himself; "I remember
the day it was sunk, and it must be quite sixty years ago, if I
recollect right. It is quite time to repair the lining; the wood has
decayed till it is black. I wonder how it can still hold together. Jesus
must certainly be watching over us. I am getting old too; they say I am
eighty-four. It is a lucky thing that they don't dismiss me, and only
give me easy work; otherwise I should starve, or at any rate be obliged
to beg."

Thoughts of all kinds passed through the old man's head. He was
accustomed to think much but never spoke. It was a long time since any
one had heard the sound of his voice, and it was thought that he had
forgotten how to speak because he had always lived surrounded by the
silence of the mine. The fact was that, hearing nothing but the sound
of his pickaxe, the noise of the ore being crushed, etc., he had lost
the habit of replying to questions. When any one spoke to him, he
quickly removed his leather cap, and answered by a bow so low that one
could see the top of his head adorned only by two locks of yellow hair.
People finished by leaving him in peace.

No one went so far as to ridicule him. He was, so to speak, one of the
curiosities of the mine, for it was known that he had been present at
its opening. The proprietors of the mine knew that in former days he was
always the first to go down, and that it was he who had loosened the
first