Father Sergius (this was the hermit’s name) to judge by the greyness of his black hair was probably about fifty. Yet his walk and all his movements were as brisk and nimble as those of a young man. His face, dry and austere, was nevertheless young. His brown, short-sighted eyes were always screwed up, as though smiling with an irrepressible smile, almost frolicsome, slightly cunning: it looked as if he knew of something amusing which others did not know, and was just going to tell it and make every one laugh. But at the same time in the gaiety there was that air of assured peace Tichon had noticed during the prayer.
They came to an abrupt rocky cliff. Beds planted with vegetables were visible through a dilapidated wattle fence. On three sides the walls of the cliff here formed a natural habitation. The fourth, or front, was of wood. Logs had been placed across the entrance and provided with a window and door. Over the latter an icon of the holy patrons of Varlaam, St. Sergius and St. Herman. The roof between the cliff walls was of turf, covered with bark and overgrown with moss, surmounted by an octagonal cross. The valley ended in a sandbank which had been deposited on the shore of the lake by the stream flowing into it at this place. Nets stretched on sticks were drying in the sun. Another old monk, clothed in a patched cassock made of coarse stuff, his naked legs up to the knees in water, was mending and tarring an overturned boat. He was a robust, square-shouldered man with a weather-beaten face and white scanty hair. “A real Apostle Peter,” thought Tichon. The air was filled with a smell of pine chips, fish and tar.
“Hilarionoushka,” Father Sergius called out. The old man turned round, left off his work, approached them and silently prostrated himself before Tichon.
“Don’t be alarmed, child,” said Father Sergius with a smile, noticing Tichon’s confusion. “He salutes everybody in this manner, even little children. He is so humble!” Continuing “Will you prepare our supper, Hilarionoushka? We must give this pilgrim of God some food.”
Father Hilarion rose and closely examined Tichon. His “humble” gaze did not lack severity. His look expressed that saying of St. Arsenius, the hermit of Thebaid, “Love all men, and flee from the face of any man.”
The cell was divided into two. The front portion, quite small, resembled the interior of a peasant’s hut; the other at the back had its walls covered with icons, which were cheerful, like Father Sergius himself. There was an icon of the Holy Virgin of the Merciful, one of the Odoriferous Flower, one of the Blessed Womb, one of the Bestower of Life, one of the Unhoped-for Joy. Before this last one, specially beloved by Father Sergius, a lamp was burning. In this part of the cave, dark and narrow as the grave, lay two coffins with stone pillows therein. In these the old men used to sleep.
They sat down to the meal. A board laid on a moss-covered pine trunk served as a table, Father Hilarion brought bread and salt, wooden bowls with sour cabbage, salted cucumbers, mushroom soup, and a dish prepared of sweet-smelling herbs.
Father Sergius and Tichon ate in silence while Father Hilarion recited a Psalm:—
“The eyes of all wait upon thee, O Lord, and thou givest them their meat in due season.”