And, should one turn to glance up the defile, it could be seen to grow narrower and narrower as it ascended towards the mists, and the latter to grow thicker and thicker until the whole defile was swathed in a dark blue pall. Higher yet there could be discerned the brilliant gleam of blue sky. Higher yet one could distinguish the ice-capped peak of Kara Dagh, floating and dissolving amid the ( from here) invisible sunlight. Highest of all again brooded the serene, steadfast peace of heaven.
Also, everything was bathed in a strange tint of bluish grey: to which circumstance must have been due the fact that always one's soul felt filled with restlessness, one's heart stirred to disquietude, and fired as with intoxication, charged with incomprehensible thoughts, and conscious as of a summons to set forth for some unknown destination.
The foreman of the carpenters shaded his eyes to gaze in our direction; and as he did so, he drawled and rasped out in tedious fashion:
"Some shall to the left be sent,
And in the pit of Hell lie pent.
While others, holding palm in hand,
Shall on God's right take up their stand."
"DID you hear that?" the ex-soldier growled through clenched teeth. "'Palm in hand' indeed! Why, the fellow must be a Mennonite or a Molokan, though the two, really, are one, and absolutely indistinguishable, as well as equally foolish. Yes, 'palm in hand' indeed!"
Similarly could I understand the ex-soldier's indignation, for, like him, I felt that such dreary, monotonous singing was altogether out of place in a spot where everything could troll a song so delightful as to lead one to wish to hear nothing more, to hear only the whispering of the forest and the babbling of the stream. And especially out of place did the terms "palm" and "Mennonite" appear.
Yet I had no great love for the ex-soldier. Somehow he jarred upon me. Middle-aged, squat, square, and bleached with the sun, he had faded eyes, flattened-out features, and an expression of restless moroseness. Never could I make out what he really wanted, what he was really seeking. For instance, once, after reviewing the Caucasus from Khassav-Urt to Novorossisk, and from Batum to Derbent, and, during the review, crossing the mountain range by three different routes at least, he remarked with a disparaging smile:
"I suppose the Lord God made the country."
"You do not like it, then? How should I? Good for nothing is what I call it."