“I chased her away, you know, with the child.” He was silent for a time. “One day Ossip came to see me. ‘Ossip Nikiforovitch?’ I said. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘it’s me. Your father is sick, Yegor. He can’t sing anymore. It is very quiet in the village, as if there wasn’t a soul in it, our village. Nothing makes a noise, nothing moves, nobody cries anymore, and there’s no real reason to laugh either.’

“I thought this over. What should be done? Then I called for my wife. ‘Ustyenka,’ I say, ‘I have to go home, otherwise there will be nobody to sing there. It’s my turn now. My father is sick.’

“‘Fine,’ says Ustyenka.

“‘But I can’t take you along,’ I explain to her; ‘my father, as you know, doesn’t want you around. And also I probably won’t come back to you once I’m there and singing.’ Ustyenka understands me.

“‘So then, God be with you. There are many pilgrims here now, and so there are alms aplenty. God will help, Yegor.’ And so I set out. And now, father, tell me all your songs.”

The word spread that Yegor was back and that old Timofei was singing again. But that autumn the wind blew so fiercely through the village that no one who passed by could say for sure if there was singing going on in Timofei’s house or not. And the door was opened to no one who knocked. The two of them wanted to be alone. Yegor sat on the edge of the stove his father was lying on and from time to time would bring his ear right up to the old man’s mouth. For the old man was truly singing. His old voice, faltering and quaking a little, carried to Yegor all the most beautiful songs, and the son from time to time rocked his head back and forth or swung his legs hanging down over the side of the stove just as though he were singing himself.

For many days it went on like this. Timofei kept finding a more beautiful song in his memory. Often at night he woke his son, and making vague movements with his withered, restless hands, he would sing a little song and then another and then another—till sluggish morning reluctantly began to stir. Shortly after the most beautiful song, he died. During the last days he had sorely complained again and again that he still had an untold number of songs in him but no longer had the time to share them all with his son. He lay there with furrowed brow, in the throes of strenuous, anxious reflection, and his lips quivered with anticipation. From time to time he sat up, rocked his head back and forth for a while, moved his lips, and then finally some faint song came through. But now for the most part he sang the same stanzas of Duke Stepanovitch that were his favorites, and his son, in order to keep him from getting angry, had to let on that he was surprised and that he was hearing them for the first time.