After my day's work I went to the church, where Brother Nikodime opened the door for me and locked me in, disturbing the stillness of the temple with the loud rattle of iron. I waited at the door till the last reverberation died away on the flagstones, then walked up quietly to the Crucifix and sat down upon the floor before it, for I was too weak to stand. Every muscle in my body ached from toil, and I had no desire to read the Acathistus. I sat down, clasped my knees and gazed about me with sleepy eyes and thought about Grisha and about myself. It was summer, and the nights were hot and close, but here, in the semi-darkness of the church, it was pleasantly cool. The lamps under the holy pictures twinkled and winked at each other, and the little blue flames tugged upward as if they wished to fly toward the cupola, or higher still, to heaven itself, to the stars of the summer night. The quiet crackling of the wicks could be heard, each with its own peculiar sound, and half asleep, it seemed to me that the church was filled with a secret, unseen life, which, under the flickering of the lamps, held communion with itself. In the warm stillness and darkness the faces of the saints floated meditatively, as if something unsolved were before them. Ghost-like shadows passed before my face and the delicate, sweet odor of oil and cypress wood and incense surrounded me. The gold and the bronze of the holy images appeared duller and simpler, the silver shone warm and friendly, and everything melted and swam fusing into a torrent large and wide as in a dream. Like a thick, sweet-smelling cloud, the church swung and swam to the low whispering of an indistinct prayer. I swung with it in a row of shadows, until a soft drowsiness took me up from the ground. Before the ringing of the bell for early mass, the silent Brother Nikodime would enter and wake me, touching me lightly on the head. "Go, in God's name," he would say, and I would answer: "Pardon me, I have fallen asleep again." Then I would go out swaying, and Nikodime would support me and say hardly audibly: "God will pardon you, my benefactor." Nikodime was an insignificant looking little old man, who hid his face from all and called every one his "benefactor." Once I asked him: "Say, Nikodimushke, are you silent because of a vow?" "No," he answered; "but just so." Then he sighed. "If I had anything to say, I would say it." "Why did you leave the world?" "Because I left it." If you questioned him further, he did not answer at all, but looked into jour face with guilty eyes, and said in a whisper: "I don't know why, my benefactor." At times I thought to myself: "Perhaps this man, also, had sought an answer at one time." And I wanted to run away from the monastery.