I was going to Lubin, to the sitting Aphanasia, and he followed me silently, leaning on his white staff. I asked him, "Have you been wandering long, Uncle?"
He grew happy, shook his head and tittered.
"Nine years already, my boy, nine years."
"You must be carrying a great sin," I said.
"Where is there measure or weight for sin? Only God knows my sins."
"Nevertheless, what have you done?" I laughed and he smiled.
"Nothing," he answered. "I have lived on the whole as every one else. I am a Siberian from beyond Tobolsk. I was a driver in my youth and later had an inn with a saloon and also kept a store."
"You've robbed some one." The old man started.
"Why, what is the matter with you? God save me from it."
"I was only joking," I said. "I saw a little man trotting along, and I thought to myself, how could such a little man commit a big sin." The old man stopped and shook his head.
"All souls have the same size," he answered, "and they are all equally acceptable to the devil. But tell me, what do you think about death? You have spoken in the shelters about life, always about life. But where is death?"
He threatened me with his finger jokingly and said: "It is here. That's it, it is always here."
"It is here," and rising on his tiptoes he whispered into my ear, "Death is all powerful. Even Christ could not escape it. 'Let this cup pass from me,' He said, but the Heavenly Father did not let it pass. He could not. There is a saying, 'Death appears and the sun disappears,' you see."
The little, old man began to talk like a stream rushing down a mountain. "Death circles around us all and man walks along as if he were crossing a precipice on a tightrope; one push with Death's wing and man is no more. O Lord, by Thy force Thou hast strengthened the world, but how has He strengthened it if death is placed above everything? You can be bold in thought, steeped in learning, but you will only live as long as death permits you." He smiled, but his eyes were full of tears.
What could I say to him? I had never thought of death and now I had no time.
He skipped along beside me, looking into my face with his faded eyes, his beard trembling and his left hand hid in the bosom of his cloak. He kept looking about him as if he expected death to jump out from some bush and catch him by the hand and throw him into hell.