He beheld a small white-haired old man, whose head was inclined in such a way as to make it impossible for Alexis to discern his features. The old man partly resembled Father John, the Sacristan of the Church of the Annunciation at Moscow, and in some way also the centenarian beekeeper, whom Alexis had once met in the depth of the Novgorod woods, who used to spend his days among the hives, basking in the sun, his hair white as snow, and bearing ever about himself the scent of honey and wax. His name, too, was John.
“Are you Father John, or the old greybeard?” asked the Tsarevitch.
“I am John, yes John,” said the old man kindly with a gentle smile, and his voice was low and murmuring like the humming of bees or the sound of distant chimes. The Tsarevitch felt awed and yet soothed by this voice. He tried to see the old man’s face but could not.
“Fear not, fear not, my child!” continued the voice in yet sweeter and lower tones. “The Lord hath sent me to you! He will Himself soon be here!”
The old man raised his head and thereupon the Tsarevitch saw a face full of the grace of celestial youth, and recognised John, the Son of Thunder.
“Christ is risen, Aliósha!”
“Truly, he is risen!” answered the Tsarevitch, and a great and strange radiance of joy filled his soul as on that night in Trinity church during the celebration of the Easter Matins.
John seemed to hold the sun in his hands: it was the chalice containing the Body and Blood of Christ.
“In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit!”
He it was who administered the communion to the Tsarevitch. The sun became light within him, and he felt there was neither grief nor fear, neither pain nor death, but only eternal life, eternal Light—the Christ.