after a prolonged silence--"how you got here. The gate's locked.
Did you climb over the wall? If you did climb over the wall, that's
the last thing you would expect of an old man."

"I don't know, friend, I don't know. I can't say myself how I got
here. It's a visitation. A chastisement of the Lord. Truly a
visitation, the evil one confounded me. So you are a watchman here,
friend?"

"Yes."

"The only one for the whole graveyard?"

There is such a violent gust of wind that both stop for a minute.
Waiting till the violence of the wind abates, the watchman answers:

"There are three of us, but one is lying ill in a fever and the
other's asleep. He and I take turns about."

"Ah, to be sure, friend. What a wind! The dead must hear it! It
howls like a wild beast! O-o-oh."

"And where do you come from?"

"From a distance, friend. I am from Vologda, a long way off. I go
from one holy place to another and pray for people. Save me and
have mercy upon me, O Lord."

The watchman stops for a minute to light his pipe. He stoops down
behind the traveller's back and lights several matches. The gleam