and the parched soil greedily drank it up and sucked away its
strength; but a little further on it must have mingled with another
rivulet, for a hundred paces away thick reeds showed green and
luxuriant along its course, and three snipe flew up from them with
a loud cry as the chaise drove by.

The travellers got out to rest by the stream and feed the horses.
Kuzmitchov, Father Christopher and Yegorushka sat down on a mat in
the narrow strip of shade cast by the chaise and the unharnessed
horses. The nice pleasant thought that the heat had imprinted in
Father Christopher's brain craved expression after he had had a
drink of water and eaten a hard-boiled egg. He bent a friendly look
upon Yegorushka, munched, and began:

"I studied too, my boy; from the earliest age God instilled into
me good sense and understanding, so that while I was just such a
lad as you I was beyond others, a comfort to my parents and preceptors
by my good sense. Before I was fifteen I could speak and make verses
in Latin, just as in Russian. I was the crosier-bearer to his
Holiness Bishop Christopher. After mass one day, as I remember it
was the patron saint's day of His Majesty Tsar Alexandr Pavlovitch
of blessed memory, he unrobed at the altar, looked kindly at me and
asked, 'Puer bone, quam appelaris?' And I answered, 'Christopherus
sum;' and he said, 'Ergo connominati sumus'--that is, that we
were namesakes. . . Then he asked in Latin, 'Whose son are you?'
To which I answered, also in Latin, that I was the son of deacon
Sireysky of the village of Lebedinskoe. Seeing my readiness and the
clearness of my answers, his Holiness blessed me and said, 'Write
to your father that I will not forget him, and that I will keep you
in view.' The holy priests and fathers who were standing round the