The pair reached Ládoga on rafts and went on board a small lake-vessel bound for Serdobal. On the way a storm overtook them. For a long time the vessel was tossed about by the waves and narrowly escaped being wrecked. At last they succeeded in entering the harbour of the Varlaam Monastery. The storm subsided towards morning, but the boat needed repairs.
Tichon went ashore.
The island was of granite, with high cliffs overhanging the water. The soil was so shallow that only small trees could grow there. On the other hand there was moss in abundance; it spread over the roots of the pines like cobwebs and hung down from the trunks in long green tufts.
The day was hot and misty. The sky, milky white, with the blue just peeping through it, merged with the glassy surface of the lake, so that it was impossible to tell where the water ended and sky began. The heavens appeared to be the lake, the lake the heavens. The quietness was absolute, even the birds were silent. Tichon’s soul was filled with infinite calm and peace by this gentle austere arctic paradise. He remembered the song he used to sing in the woods of the Banks of Mosses.
Wonderful Mother Solitude....
A monk of Varlaam had once told him: “Our island is a paradise. You might wander for three days in the woods without meeting any one, either wild beasts or outcasts! You are alone with God!”
Tichon wandered for a long time, further and further from the Monastery, till at last he lost his way. Evening came. He was afraid the boat would go without him.
To discover his whereabouts he climbed a hill. The slope was overgrown with pines. On the summit there was a round clearing, purple with heather. A black rock stood in the middle, shaped like a pillar.
Tichon was fatigued. He found at the end of the clearing between the pines a cavity in the rock covered with soft moss. He laid down in it, as in a cradle, and fell asleep.
When he awoke again it was night. It was almost as light as in daytime, only more peaceful still. The shores of the island were reflected in the mirror of the lake to the last cross of the pine-tree tips, so that it seemed a lower island, only reversed and joined to the upper and suspended between two skies. On the rock in the middle of the glade an old man was kneeling, perhaps some hermit who lived in the forest. His black profile against the golden dawn remained motionless, as if carved from the stone on which he knelt. His face expressed such pious ecstasy as Tichon had never yet seen in a human countenance. The silence around seemed as if due to this prayer, while the sweetness of the heather rose like the smoke of incense.