But once, perhaps in his earliest childhood, he had heard a few words which had filled him with palpitating emotion and which remained during all his life enwrapped with tender poetry.

These words were: "The joy of all the afflicted..." It had happened, during painful periods in his life, that he whispered to himself, not in prayer, without being definitely conscious of it, these words: "The joy of all the afflicted"-- and suddenly he would feel relieved and a desire would come over him to go to some dear friend and question gently: "Our life--is this life?
Eh, my dearest, is this life ?" And then suddenly it would appear laughable to him and he would feel like mussing up his hair, putting forth his knee and thrusting out his chest as though to receive heavy blows; saying: "Here, strike!" He did not tell anybody, not even his nearest comrades, about his "joy of all the afflicted" and it was as though he himself did not know about it,--so deeply was it hidden in his soul.

He recalled it but rarely and cautiously.
Now when the terror of the insoluble mystery, which appeared so plainly before him, enveloped him completely, even as the water in high-flood covers the willow twigs on the shore,--a desire came upon him to pray.

He felt like kneeling, but he was ashamed of the soldier and, folding his arms on his chest, he whispered softly: "The joy of all the afflicted!" And he repeated tenderly, in anguish: "Joy of all the afflicted, come to me, help Vaska Kashirin." "Long ago, while he was yet in his first term at the university and used to go off on a spree sometimes, before he had made the acquaintance of Werner and before he had entered the organization, he used then to call himself half-boastingly, half-pityingly, "Vaska Kashirin,"-- and now for some reason or other he suddenly felt like calling himself by the same name again.

But the words had a dead and toneless sound.