"Well, good-by, dear."
He bowed his head: "Good-by," he answered.
I went away, then looked back. He stood there among the trees following me with his eyes.
"Eh," he cried, "good-by!"
It pleased me that he said it with more tenderness this time.
[CHAPTER XXV]
Like one sick, I wandered for many days, full of heavy heartache. A fire raged in my soul, that quiet piece of land of mine, and lit it up like a meadow in the wood, and my thoughts now crawled ahead of me, together with my shadow; now dragged behind, like biting smoke. Was I ashamed or not? I do not remember and I cannot say. A black thought was born in my mind and fluttered about me like a bat. "They are Godless ones, not God-creators."
But heavier and broader than all my thoughts, was a hollow stillness in me, lazy and deep; a certain peace like a turbid pool, in the depths of whose heart dumb thoughts swam about with difficulty, like frightened fish who struggle but cannot rise to the light from out of the oppressive depths.
Little reached me from the outside, and I remember my meetings with men as through a dream. Somewhere near Omsk, at a village market, I woke up. A blind man sat on the road in the dust and sang a song. His guide knelt near him and accompanied him on his accordion. The old man looked up at heaven with his empty eyes and sang the words with a faraway, rusty voice, describing the past, under the reign of Ivan Vasilef, and the accordion gave out its hollow accompaniment, "U-u-u."