Two men with bundles over their shoulders were walking along the dusty high road that lies between Moscow and Toula. The younger man wore a short coat and velveteen trousers. Spectacles gleamed out from under the brim of his new peasant’s hat. The other was a man of about fifty, remarkably handsome, dressed in a monk’s frock, with a leather belt round his waist and a high round black cap, such as novices wear in monasteries. His long dark beard and dark hair were turning grey.
The younger man was pale and sallow, was covered with dust, and seemed scarcely able to drag one foot after the other. The old man walked cheerfully along, swinging his arms, his shoulders well thrown back. It seemed as though dust dared not settle on his handsome face nor his body feel fatigue.
The young man, Serge Vasilievich Borzin, was a doctor of science of Moscow University. The old man, Nicholas Petrovich Serpov, had been a sublieutenant in an infantry regiment during the reign of Alexander, then he had become a monk, but was expelled from the monastery for bad conduct. He had, however, retained the monastic garb. The men had come together in this wise. Borzin, after taking his doctor’s degree, and after writing several articles for the Moscow reviews, went to stay in the country, to plunge into the current of peasant life and to refresh himself in the waves of the popular stream, as he put it. After a month spent in the country in complete solitude, he wrote the following letter to a literary friend of his, who was editor of a journal:—
“ My Master and Friend Ivan Finogeich —It is not for us to predict—indeed we cannot—the ultimate solution of those problems which are solving themselves in the secrecy