Numerous galleries diverged from this point in all directions, and their
darkness was pierced by little lights which ran hither and thither.
Sounds of voices were heard clearly as well as the noise of subterranean
explosions, but all other sounds were dominated by the roar of the
waters.

The old man re-lighted his little lamp, which had gone out, and stooping
forward, as though he were examining some mysterious footprints, he went
towards his gallery with unsteady steps.

III

The gallery in which the old man worked was fairly high. Here and there
beams sustaining the roof were visible, but their decrepit condition
testified to their age. Above these worm-eaten beams, the earth formed
protuberances bristling with pointed rocks. The ground was strewn with
fragments of rock which had fallen from the roof.

Old Ivan remembered having seen one day one of these fragments kill as
it fell a little boy who had been a great pet of his. This little boy
generally accompanied his father, and his gay bursts of careless
laughter animated a little the sepulchral silence of the mine. It seemed
but yesterday that the old man had seen the child running merrily along
the gallery. All at once a misshapen block protruded from the roof. The
child stopped, out of curiosity, raised his clear eyes to see what it
was, and the huge stone suddenly dropped, burying and crushing him
entirely. His father was in utter despair and the other miners could not
restrain their tears; as for Ivan, he persisted in prowling for a long
time round the great black stone, as though he were expecting to hear
from under the enormous block the well-known laugh of the little one.
But nothing came to awaken the melancholy silence of the gallery.

The old man now halted near this murderous rock and held his lamp near
it, lighting up the indistinct outlines of a cross rudely engraved in
the stone. After looking round, as though he were afraid of being seen,
he rapidly made the sign of the cross above the "tomb." If the miners
had been able to watch him just then, they would have been astonished to
his perpetually closed lips moving. But no one could have said whether
he only wished to speak or actually spoke, for none but himself heard
the vague murmur which issued from his lips.

On his left hand there was an extremely narrow passage; the old man
entered it, crawled through it, and stood upright again, for he had
reached the place where he worked, which was