He laughed and looked at me, and I listened to him as one who is lost in the wood at night and hears a far-off bell and is afraid that he made a mistake; that perhaps it is only the cry of an owl.
I understood that he had seen much; that he had overcome much in himself. But it seemed to me that he did not think much of me, that he was joking with me, and that his young eyes made fun of me. Since my experience with Anthony I seldom trust a man's smile any longer.
I asked him who he was.
"I am called Jehudiel. I am a cheerful idiot for others and a good friend to myself."
"Are you from the clergy?"
"I was a priest for some time, but was unfro'cked and was put in a monastery at Suzdal for six years. You want to know why? Because I preached sermons in church which the people, in the simplicity of their souls, interpreted too literally. They were whipped for it and I was convicted. And thus the affair ended. What did I preach? I don't remember now. It was a long time ago, eighteen years, and one can forget in that time. I have had various thoughts but none of them ever came to anything."
He laughed and in each wrinkle of his face the laughter played. He looked about him as if the mountains and the woods were created for him.
When it became cooler we went on farther together, and on the way he asked me about myself.
"Who are you?"
Again, like that time before Anthony, I wished to place my former days before my eyes and to look upon their checkered face. I spoke about my childhood, about Larion and Savelko, and the old man laughed and shouted.