Kilikeya’s shroud had caught fire, her hair was ablaze, surrounding her head like a crown of flames, she felt no pain and remained immovable; her eyes wide open; in the fire no doubt she saw the holy city, the New Jerusalem, descending from the heavens.
Petka Jisla stooped and running forward threw himself into the fire head foremost, like a gay swimmer diving.
Tichon also beheld something joyous and intoxicating in the terrible glare and noise. He remembered the song.
Green grass is growing at her feet,
Starred with florets blue and sweet.
He seemed to recognise these flowers in the transparent blue heart of the flames. Their celestial colour promised ineffable bliss, but the way to it lay through the Red Death.
The besiegers succeeded in removing several logs. The smoke escaped through the opening. Soldiers with the help of poles were hauling the victims out and pouring water over them. Mother Theodulia, a centenarian, was dragged out by her legs; Vitalia caught hold of her and was also rescued, but she died the next moment, her body was one wound. Father Spiridon, when pulled out, cut his throat. He lived four hours longer, crossed himself continually after the manner of the Raskolniks, reviled the Niconians and rejoiced, as the captain stated in his report, at having mortally wounded himself.
Others, after the first contact with the flames, of their own accord rushed to the opening, trampling upon one another, and climbing over the pile of bodies, cried to the soldiers:
“Help! help! we burn!”
Animal fear took the place of angelic ecstasy. Those who remained endeavoured to hold back the fleeing. An old man had clutched with both hands the edge of the opening, ready to jump out, but his grandson, a boy of seventeen, knocked a stick across his hands, so hard that he let go and the grandfather fell back into the flames. A woman was escaping with her little boy, but the father caught hold of the child’s legs, swung him in the air and dashed out his brains against a beam. The porter of the monastery, a stout man, who had fallen into a pool of burning pitch, writhed and leapt as in a dance. “Like a fish in a frying pan,” thought Tichon with sinister irony, and closed his eyes so as not to see.