Page:Tolstoy - Tales from Tolstoi.djvu/245

Rh Efim went through the barn, through the gate, to the hives of Elisyei. He went up to the bee-hives to see, and there stood Elisyei, without a net, without gloves, in a grey kaftan, beneath a young birch-tree. He was extending his hands and looking upwards, and his baldness shone over his whole head, just as he had stood in Jerusalem at the Sepulchre of the Lord; and above him, as at Jerusalem, through the birch-trees, like fire that burns, played the sun, and around his head the golden bees circled in swarms like an aureola, and lit upon him without hurting him. Efim stood still.

Elisyei's old woman called to her husband: "Our cousin has come," said she.

Elisyei looked around, and was glad, went to meet his neighbour, and gently stroked a bee out of his beard.

"Health to thee, neighbour; health, dear soul. Didst thou reach thy goal?"

"My feet did indeed get thither, and I have brought thee a little water from the Jordan—but whether God has accepted my offering"

"Now glory to God! Lord and Christ be praised that we have thee back!"

Then Efim was silent for a time.

"My feet were indeed there," he resumed, "but whether my spirit was there, or rather the spirit of another"

"That's God's business, neighbour, God's business."

"On my return journey I looked in at the hut where you stayed."

Elisyei was frightened and embarrassed. "God's 195