He was an awkward boy, and he looked as if he were hacked out from an oak-tree with an ax. His head was large, one shoulder was higher than the other, his long arms were out of proportion, and his voice was sad. "Are you afraid?" I asked him. "Of what?" "That they will come and take you." "If they only don't find what I have hidden, I don't care what they do." He arranged the books with care in the pit, covered them over, smoothed the earth down and threw brush upon it. He sat down on the ground, and seeing that I was getting ready to go away, he said: "Some one will come with a note for you. Wait." "What kind of a note?" "I don't know." I looked out from the trees into the valley. The factory breathed heavily, like a strong man who is being choked. It seemed to me that men were being pursued in the streets and that in the darkness they ran after one another; they fought, they snarled in anger, ready to break each other's bones. And Ivan, without haste, was getting ready to go down. "Where are you going?" "Home." "They will take you." "I am not long in the movement, and they do not know me. And if they take me, there is no harm done. People come out wiser from prison." Here some one loudly and clearly asked me: "How is it, Matvei? You are not afraid of God, and yet you fear the gendarmes." I looked at Ivan. He was standing and gazing down thoughtfully. "What did you say?" I asked. "You read many books in prison." "Is that all?" "Isn't that enough?" There were several lies that were rotting within me, and shameful questions shot up with piercing sparks. The night was cold, but I burned. "I am going with you." "You must not," Ivan said sternly. "They will certainly arrest you. This whole trouble began on account of your speech." "How?" "A priest in Verkhotour gave it away." I sat down on the ground and said to myself: "Then I have to go." But fear took hold of me. "Some one is running," Ivan whispered low. I looked down from the mountain. Thick shadows were crawling over it. The sky was clouded, the moon in its last quarter now showed itself, now hid itself in the clouds. The whole earth about me moved, and from this noiseless movement something oppressive and fearful fell on me. I watched the torrents of shadows which flowed over the earth and which covered up the undergrowth and my soul with black veils. A head moved among the brush, jumping like a ball among the branches. Ivan whistled low and said: "It is Kostia!" I knew Kostia. He was a boy of about fifteen, blue-eyed, blond and weak. He had finished school two years ago. Mikhail was preparing him to be his assistant. I understood that I was thinking about these little details on purpose, for I wanted to put my thoughts aside and stifle my shame and my fear. Kostia arrived panting, his voice broken. "They have arrived. They have asked for you, Monk. Here, Uncle Peter wrote a note and told me to take you to the Lobanofsky monastery. Let us go."