“Is there a Christ now?” continued Tichon, his heart sinking in anticipation of a mystery.
Mitka assented with a nod.
“Where is He?”
“Do not question. I dare not answer. You will see for yourself, if you are found worthy.”
Mitka would say no more.
“I will not deliver your secret to the enemy,” remembered Tichon.
A few days later he was busy at his account books. It was Saturday evening. The shop was closed. A train of waggons had come, and men were carrying in the flour bags. The cold white air rushed in through the open door, footsteps sounded on the snow, the church bells were ringing. The snow-covered roofs of the weather-beaten log-houses, flushed with the evening glow, stood out against the golden purple of the sky. It was quite dark in the shop; only at the end, amidst the towering flour sacks the darkness was relieved by a lamp glimmering before the icon of St. Nicholas.
Saphiannikoff, a fat, white-haired old man, a veritable Father Christmas, and the chief clerk, Yemelian Retivoi, a corpulent red-haired, bald man, with the ugly intelligent face of a faun, were drinking hot “sbiten” and listening to Tichon’s narrative about the settlers of Kerjenetz.
“And what is your opinion, Yemelian Ivanovitch?” asked Tichon, “where can salvation be found, in the old or the new books?”