"My friend here was but a plain man--a man as inconspicuous among his fellows as a rook among a flock of rooks. Yet no rook was he. Rather, he was a snow-white dove, though none but I realised the fact. And now he has been withdrawn from the 'grievous bondage of Pharaoh.' Only I am left. Verily, after my passing, shall my soul torment and vomit spittle upon his adversaries!" "Have you known much sorrow?" The deacon did not reply at once. When he did so he said dully: "All of us have known much sorrow. In some cases we have known more than was rightfully our due. I certainly, have known much. But go to sleep, for only in sleep do we recover what is ours." And he added as he tripped over his own feet, and lurched heavily against me: "I have a longing to sing something. Yet I feel that I had best not, for song at such an hour awakens folk, and starts them bawling... But beyond all things would I gladly sing." With which he buzzed into my ear: "To whom shall I sing of my grief? To whom resort for relief? To the One in whose ha-a-and--" At this point the sharp bristles of his beard so tickled my neck as to cause me to edge further away. "You do not like me?" he queried. "Then go to sleep, and to the devil too!" "It was your beard that was tickling me." "Indeed? Ought I to have shaved for your benefit before I came?" He reflected awhile--then subsided on to the floor with a sniff and an angry exclamation of: "Read, you, whilst I sleep. And see to it that you do not make off with the book, for it belongs to the church, and is very valuable. Yes. I know you hard-ups! Why do you go roaming about as you do--what is it you hope to gain by your tramping?... However, tramp as much as you like. Yes, be off, and tell people that a deacon has come by misfortune, and is in need of some good person to take pity upon his plight.... Diomid Kubasov my name is--that of a man lost beyond recall." With which he fell asleep. Opening the book at random, I read the words: "A land unapportioned that shall produce a nourisher of humanity, a being that shall put forth the bounty of his hand to feed every creature."