She clasps me with the one arm, and with the other makes the sign of the cross, adding:
"Good-bye, dear friend, and may Christ requite you for all your words, for all your sympathy!"
"Then shall we travel together?"
At the words she frees herself, and says firmly, nay, sternly:
"Not so. Never would I consent to such a plan. Of course, had you been a muzhik—but no. Even then what would have been the use of it, seeing that life is to be measured, not by a single hour, but by years?"
And, quietly smiling me a farewell, she moves away towards the hut, whilst I, remaining seated, lose myself in thoughts of her. Will she ever overtake her quest in life? Shall I ever behold her again?
The bell for early Mass begins, though for some time past the hamlet has been astir, and humming in a sedate and non-festive fashion.
I enter the hut to fetch my wallet, and find the place empty. Evidently the whole party has left by the gap in the broken-down wall.
I repair, next, to the Ataman's office, where I receive back my passport before setting out to look for my companions in the square.
In similar fashion to yesterday those "folk from Russia" are lolling alongside the churchyard wall, and also have seated among them, leaning his back against a log, the fat-jowled youth from Penza, with his bruised face looking even larger and uglier than before, for the reason that his eyes are sunken amid purple protuberances.