And he too was here, his rich enemy, bending low time and again, seeking to pray away the bitter tears of orphans he had wronged; repeatedly he was performing upon himself the sign of the cross, falling on his knees and touching the ground with his forehead.... And Mikheyich’s heart boiled over within him, while the dark faces of the ikons looked down severely from their walls upon human sorrow and human iniquity.
All that was past, all that behind him.... Now the entire world seemed to him like a dark bell-tower, where the wind blew in the dusk, stirring the bell-ropes.... “Let the Lord judge you!” whispered the old man, shaking his gray head, while tears silently ran down his cheeks.
“Mikheyich! Mikheyich!... You haven’t fallen asleep?” someone shouted up to him from below.
“Eh?” returned the old man, and quickly jumped to his feet. “Lord! Have I in truth fallen asleep? That never happened before!”
With an accustomed hand, Mikheyich quickly caught the ropes. Below him moved the peasant throng, a veritable ant-hill; the holy banners aglimmer with gold brocade fluttered in the wind.... The procession made a circuit of the church, and presently Mikheyich heard the joyous cry, “Christ has risen from the dead!”
Coming like a mighty wave, the cry whelmed the old man’s heart.... And it seemed to Mikheyich that brighter flared the lights of the waxen candles, and that stronger grew the agitation of the people; the holy banners seemed to become more alive; and the suddenly awakened wind caught up the waves of sound and with broad sweeps lifted them high, where they became one with the loud triumphant music of the bell.
Never before had old Mikheyich rung so well!
It was as if the old man’s brimming-over heart had passed into the inanimate bronze; and it seemed as if the reverberations at the same time sang and throbbed, laughed and wept, and, uniting in a rare harmony, rose higher and higher unto the starry sky. The stars themselves seemed to him to take on a new sparkle, to burst into flame, while the sounds trembled and flowed, and again came down to earth with a loving embrace.