During the first part of his journey he had passed as a commercial traveler; after leaving Irbite he was a workman seeking employment in the government establishments; but now he assumed the character of a pilgrim to the convent of Solovetsk on a holy island in the White Sea, near Archangel. For each change of part he had to change his manners, mode of speech, his whole personality, and always be probable and consistent in his account of himself. It was mid-April: he had been journeying on foot for two months. Easter was approaching, when these pious journeys were frequent, and not far from Veliki-Oustiog he fell in with several bands of men and women--_bohomolets_, as they are called--on their way to Solovetsk. There were more than two thousand in the town waiting for the frozen Dwina to open, that they might proceed by water to Archangel. It being Holy Week, Piotrowski was forced to conform to the innumerable observances of the Greek ritual--prayers, canticles, genuflexions, prostrations, crossings and bowings, as manifold as in his own, but different. His inner consciousness suffered from this hypocrisy, but it was necessary to his part. They were detained at Veliki-Oustiog a mortal month, during which these acts of devotion went on with almost unabated zeal among the _boholomets._ At length the river was free, and they set out. Their vessel was a huge hulk which looked like a floating barn: it was manned by twenty or thirty rowers, and to replenish his purse a little the fugitive took an oar. The agent who had charge of the expedition required their passports: among the number the irregularity of Piotrowski's escaped notice. The prayers and prostrations went on during the voyage, which lasted a fort-night. One morning the early sunshine glittered on the gilded domes of Archangel: the vessel soon touched the shore, and his passport was returned to him uninspected, with the small sum he had earned by rowing.