KASSYAN OF FAIR SPRINGS
forests; I am alone at night in the fields, in the thickets; there the curlews call and the hares squeak and the wild ducks lift up their voices. . . . I note them at evening; at morning I give ear to them; at daybreak I cast my net over the bushes. . . . There are nightingales that sing so pitifully sweet . . . yea, pitifully.'
'And do you sell them?'
'I give them to good people.'
'And what are you doing now?'
'What am I doing?'
'Yes, how are you employed?'
The old man was silent for a little.
'I am not employed at all. . . . I am a poor workman. But I can read and write.'
'You can read?'
'Yes, I can read and write. I learnt, by the help of God and good people.'
'Have you a family?'
'No, not a family.'
'How so? . . . Are they dead, then?'
'No, but . . . I have never been lucky in life. But all that is in God's hands; we are all in God's hands; and a man should be righteous—that is all! Upright before God, that is it.'
'And you have no kindred?'
'Yes . . . well. . . .'
The old man was confused.
'Tell me, please,' I began: 'I heard my coachman ask you why you did not cure Martin? You cure disease?'
185
