Page:Leskov - The Sentry and other Stories.djvu/319

 Rh have a broader and clearer conception of his Creator? Why, O God, is he deprived of the possibility of thanking Thee for enlightening him with Thy Holy Gospel? Why have not I the means in my hands to regenerate him with a new and solemn birth in Thy Son Christ? All this must be in accordance with Thy Will; if in his miserable condition Thou wishest to enlighten him with some divine light from above, then, I believe, that this enlightenment of his mind will be Thy gift. O Lord, how am I to understand it: let me not displease Thee by what I do; nor injure this Thy simple-hearted servant?"

Lost in these reflections, I did not notice the brightness that suddenly flamed up in the sky and bathed us in an enchanted light; again everything took on huge fantastic dimensions, and my sleeping savage appeared to me like a powerful enchanted fairy knight. I bent over him and began to examine him as if I had never seen him before, and what do you think?—he appeared to be beautiful. I imagined that this was he "in whose neck remained strength, he whose mortal foot never trod the path which no fowl knoweth, he before whom the horror fleeth," which had reduced me to impotence, and had caught me as in a noose, in my own projects. His speech is poor—therefore he cannot console a sorrowful heart with his lips,