“I thank you, holy fathers. As ye have received the stranger and fed the hungry....”
Suddenly noticing in the crack of the gate the mustache and nose of the porter, he said in a different tone:
“What are you looking at? Did you recognize me?”
“I thought ... yes ... I thought you were familiar,” said the porter.
“Of course, of course!... We’re old friends! We ran off together to the Mordvin women of Sviridov.... Do you remember now?”
The porter spat loudly and angrily, closed the gate, and threw the bolt. But his feet, with their rough boots, could still be seen beneath the gate.
“Don’t you remember Fenka, father?”
The feet disappeared as if ashamed.
The stranger straightened his muddy cloak and again looked around. Attracted by the unusual conversation, some six peasants had strolled towards the gate. They were the nearest neighbors to the monastery, Old Believers from the villages in the vicinity, who had come to the bazaar with an air of indifferent and even hostile curiosity. Despite its influence at a distance, the monastery was surrounded by a ring of the “most venomous” sectarians, as the monks expressed it. The inhabitants of the region were positive that in the near future the monastery would be threatened with the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah. But still it continued and attracted thousands of people to its festivals. On such days the figures of the Old Believers furnished a grim contrast to the rejoicing multitudes and their faces reflected their hostility and disgust. Like the Prophet Jonah, they murmured because the Lord delayed in inflicting the promised doom upon the accursed Nineveh.