Baffled and hopeless, he turned his back on the town, not knowing
where to go. To retrace his steps would be madness. He followed the
shore of the White Sea to Onega, a natural direction for pilgrims
returning from Solovetsk to take. His lonely way lay through a land of
swamp and sand, with a sparse growth of stunted pines; the midnight
sun streamed across the silent stretches; the huge waves of the White
Sea, lashed by a long storm, plunged foaming upon the desolate beach.
Days and nights of walking brought him to Onega: there was no way of
getting to sea from there, and after a short halt he resumed his
journey southward along the banks of the river Onega, hardly knowing
whither or wherefore he went. The hardships of his existence at
midsummer were fewer than at midwinter, but the dangers were greater:
the absence of a definite goal, of a distinct hope which had supported
him before, unnerved him physically. He had reached the point when he
dreaded fatigue more than risk. In spite of his familiarity with the
minutiae of Russian customs, he was nearly betrayed one day by his
ignorance of _tolokno_, a national dish. On another occasion he
stopped at the cabin of a poor old man to ask his way: the gray-beard
made him come in, and after some conversation began to confide his
religious grievances to him, which turned upon the persecutions to
which a sect of religionists is exposed in Russia for adhering to
certain peculiarities in the forms of worship. Happily, Piorowski was
well versed in these subjects. The poor old man, after dwelling long
and tearfully on the woes of his fellow-believers, looked cautiously
in every direction, locked the door, and after exacting an oath of
secresy drew from a hiding-place a little antique brass figure of
Byzantine origin, representing our Saviour in the act of benediction
with two fingers only raised, according to the form cherished by the
dissenters.