A powerful bass loudly proclaimed: “Christ has risen!”
While two tenor voices, constantly atremble from the repeated blows of the iron hearts, mingled with the bass joyously and resonantly: “Christ has risen!”
And, again, two most slender soprano voices, seemingly in haste not to be left behind, stole in among the more powerful ones, little children, as it were, and sang in emulation: “Christ has risen!”
The entire belfry seemed to tremble and to shake; and the wind blowing in the face of the bell-ringer appeared to flap its mighty wings and to repeat: “Christ has risen!”
The old heart forgot about life, full of cares and wrongs. The old bell-ringer forgot that life for him had become a thing shut up in a melancholy and crowded tower; he forgot that he was alone in the world—like an old stump, weather-beaten and broken.... He intercepted these singing and weeping sounds, fleeting higher towards the skies and falling again to the poor earth, and it seemed to him that he was surrounded by his sons and his grandsons; that these joyous voices, of old and young, had flowed together into one great chorus, and that they sang to him of happiness and joyousness, which he had not tasted in his life.... And the old man continued to tug at the ropes, while tears ran down his face, and his heart beat tremulously with the illusion of happiness.
And below the people were listening and saying to each other that never had old Mikheyich rung so marvellously.
Then all of a sudden the large bell trembled violently and grew silent.... The smaller ones, as if confused, rang an unfinished tone; and then too stopped, as if to drink in the prolonged, sadly droning note, which trembled and flowed and wept, gradually dying away in the air....
The old bell-ringer fell back exhausted on the bench, and his last two tears trickled silently down his pale face.