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A thin partition separated Elena’s closet from a more spacious cell occupied by Cornelius and his disciple Tichon. Not a word did Tichon say during the conversation on the raft, yet he had followed it with greater interest than any one else. When the group had dispersed, Cornelius went ashore to confer with some other heretics about the approaching great self-burning, “the Red Death,” of thousands of persecuted people belonging to the old faith; a rite which was to take place in the woods beyond the Volga. Tichon had returned to his floating cell alone, and had gone to bed. Yet like Elena in the adjacent compartment, he could not sleep, but kept thinking over what he had heard that night about the Tsar. He felt that his future hung on these thoughts, that the moment was approaching which, like a sword, would cleave his life in twain. “It seems now as though I were on a knife’s edge,” he said to himself, “on whichever side I fall, in that direction will I go.”

Together with thoughts about the future rose memories of the past.