homesickness had passed into resignation. The whole world began now and
ended for Skavinski on his island. He had grown accustomed to the
thought that he would not leave the tower till his death, and he simply
forgot that there was anything else besides it. Moreover, he had become
a mystic; his mild blue eyes began to stare like the eyes of a child,
and were as if fixed on something at a distance. In presence of a
surrounding uncommonly simple and great, the old man was losing the
feeling of personality; he was ceasing to exist as an individual, was
becoming merged more and more in that which inclosed him. He did not
understand anything beyond his environment; he felt only unconsciously.
At last it seems to him that the heavens, the water, his rock, the
tower, the golden sand-banks, and the swollen sails, the sea-mews, the
ebb and flow of the tide,--all form a mighty unity, one enormous
mysterious soul; that he is sinking in that mystery, and feels that soul
which lives and lulls itself. He sinks and is rocked, forgets himself;
and in that narrowing of his own individual existence, in that half-
waking, half-sleeping, he has discovered a rest so great that it nearly
resembles half-death.




CHAPTER III.


But the awakening came.

On a certain day, when the boat brought water and a supply of
provisions, Skavinski came down an hour later from the tower, and saw
that besides the usual cargo there was an additional package. On the