e confounded me. So you are a watchman here,
friend?"

"Yes."

"The only one for the whole graveyard?"

There is such a violent gust of wind that both stop for a minute.
Waiting till the violence of the wind abates, the watchman answers:

"There are three of us, but one is lying ill in a fever and the
other's asleep. He and I take turns about."

"Ah, to be sure, friend. What a wind! The dead must hear it! It
howls like a wild beast! O-o-oh."

"And where do you come from?"

"From a distance, friend. I am from Vologda, a long way off. I go
from one holy place to another and pray for people. Save me and
have mercy upon me, O Lord."

The watchman stops for a minute to light his pipe. He stoops down
behind the traveller's back and lights several matches. The gleam
of the first match lights up for one instant a bit of the avenue
on the right, a white tombstone with an angel, and a dark cross;
the light of the second match, flaring up brightly and extinguished
by the wind, flashes like lightning on the left side, and from the
darkness nothing stands out but the angle of some sort of trellis;
the third match throws light to right and to left, revealing the
white tombstone, the dark cross, and the trellis round a child's
grave.

"The departed sleep; the dear ones sleep!" the stranger mutters,
sighing loudly. "They all sleep alike, rich and poor, wise and
foolish, good and wicked. They are of the same value now. And they
will sleep till the last trump. The Kingdom of Heaven and peace
eternal be theirs."

"Here we are walking along now, but the time will come when we shall
be lying here ourselves," says the watchman.

"To be sure, to be sure, we shall all. There is no man who will not
die. O-o-oh. Our doings are wicked, our thoughts are deceitful!
Sins, sins! My soul accursed, ever covetous, my belly greedy and
lustful! I have angered the Lord and there is no salvation for me
in this world and the next. I am deep in sins like a worm in the
earth."

"Yes, and you have to die."

"You are right there."

"Death is easier for a pilgrim than for fellows like us," says the
watchman.

"There are pilgrims of different sorts. There are the real ones who
are God-fearing men and watch over their own souls, and there are
such as stray about the graveyard at night and are a delight to the
devils. . . Ye-es! There's one who is a pilgrim could give you a
crack on the pate with an axe if he liked and knock the breath out
of