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Half dazed, like someone surprised by an unknown joy, he started to walk out into the moorland which began behind the cloister, stretching toward the island's interior. His step was unsure, he stumbled over tussocks and the roots of trees. A fresh wind blew in from the lake, and the air above the moor's harsh landscape was filled with strong odors of forest and earth and water. He went through old gates, past garden plots and meadowlands, and at last entered the forest. The terrain grew rougher and gloomier, great moss-covered boulders were piled one upon the other, and dark spruces stood in impenetrable and menacing groves in the dank hollows between the stretches of rock. There were neither paths nor trails here. At times he had to creep along on his hands and knees, at times he was stopped by sudden precipices. As he gazed down into the magic depths, he had an intense sensation of joy. This nature's inaccessibility, the fact that it could not be tamed, lured him onward like some dark fate, and he let his soul have its fill of the wild ravines' melancholy. He often stood for a long time, leaning against a stone and gazing down into the glittering green of the mossy gloom beneath the trees. What spirits might have their abode here? What gods waited beneath the rocks for their resurrection? The primeval forest brooded over its secrets only a short distance from the Cross of Christ, and no one could know when lichen and moss would conquer   [p. 67]   the frail symbols of man, erasing the traces of his searching and formative spirit.

He was so lost in his thoughts that he did not notice the hermit's hut before he was directly upon it. It was not very different from the earth. It was as gray as the stone against which it leaned, and a scrubby old spruce sheltered it with its branches. A short distance from it, on a knoll in the open, there stood a little chapel, as grizzled and tumble-down as the cabin itself. There was something pathetic about the lonely settlement; it seemed defenseless against the powers which reigned here. He wondered to himself if the last hermit lay buried beneath the knoll. Soon, like the hermit, the cross on the church would rot in the woods. He clambered up onto the boulder beside the hut, seating himself there as if to observe the decline and fall. Then a monotonous and rhythmic sound reached his ear, a sound which could only be produced by a human being. It came from the chapel and in the midst of this wilderness moved him in a strange way. He listened enchanted to the rising and falling progressions of the ritual hymn, and he realized that a hermit still dwelt here and that he was just now performing his matutinal devotions in the chapel's closed chamber. It was a mysterious office in this lonely place.

The being who finally appeared was curious indeed: a misshapen cripple who could move only with great difficulty, in an endless and disgusting series of twists and jerks. His hair was long and straggling, and his face, sickly pale, was almost covered over with his beard and with dirt. The first glimpse of this wretched and neglected hermit's hut of a body was repulsive, and Myyriäinen had cause to think of what he had heard about the darker aspects of life among the Orthodox monks. But as soon as the monk had come forward to him, greeting him with a blessing and a   [p. 68]   friendly glance from his clear blue eyes, the unpleasant impression disappeared. He inspired trust. From the first moment on, something about him made one feel that nothing need to be kept secret from him, that he understood everything, that he wished one well. "He has a right to be called Father," Myyriäinen thought. The hermit did not seem to be at all surprised or in any way troubled by the unexpected visit. Going into the cabin, he returned with a piece of coarse black bread in his hand. He broke the bread, blessed it, and, jerking and nodding involuntarily, handed half of it to his guest. Myyriäinen reverently took the sweet-smelling bread, with its dark shine, from the hermit's trembling hand. It was not a piece of ordinary bread with which to fill his stomach. It was like a living being, a product of sun and earth and rain, an uncommon gift of nature. The hermit ate his part of the bread with a pious and concentrated repose, as if he were receiving a sacrament. "One should always eat that way," Myyriäinen thought to himself.

When the monk had finished eating, he broke the silence.

"My son," he said. "Have you noticed that the Angel of Death has returned to the earth? His shadow has been visible for two years now."

Myyriäinen looked at the hermit in surprise; it was as though the monk had read his most secret thoughts, and knew the springs of fear that rose within him.

"Every day at the morning mass I pray for those who fell in the World War," the hermit continued. "This is my mission in the world of the spirit. And when one consorts with the dead, one gets to know a great deal. Only this morning, at the rising of the sun, when I was about to recite my prayers, I heard a mighty roar which overwhelmed my soul and made me mute. I should have thought that my God   [p. 69]   had abandoned me, if I had not known that it was the Angel of Death, spreading out his wings."

He became lost in contemplation, and Myyriäinen did not dare to disturb him with a single question. He realized that, in his way, the hermit had knowledge of what was going on in the world; perhaps he had a clearer and broader view than those who were in its midst, aware of nothing other than their own obscure anxiety.

In a while the hermit began to tell modestly and simply of his own life. He had taken part in the World War himself, somewhere in the Carpathians. He was young then, not much more than a boy. Before the first year was over, the war had spat him out again, a human wreck. He found life and the men who lived it so loathsome that he felt he could overcome his disgust only in the seclusion of the cloister. He wished to find the most lonely place of all, and God prepared a refuge for him here. Even during his existence as a monk he had gone through many temptations. But the rigorous asceticism of his life, his prayers, and an utter submission to the will of the cloister's eldest member had helped him to win peace. And when God in His mercy had let him reach the highest stage of the ascetic, a hermit's life, he had finally got to taste the indescribable spiritual joy which complete renunciation can bestow.

"And now I also know more than I knew before about the task the Angel of Death has had placed before him. When he returns to the earth and spreads out his wings, a storm will go through the hearts of men. The spiritual man will loose himself from the straits of his living death, and be liberated unto a true life of joy."

He suddenly directed a piercing glance at the stranger.

"You shall not be afraid, my son," he said with a strong and sonorous tone altogether unlike his usual trembling voice. "Before you close your eyes, you will see how the   [p. 70]   whited sepulchres are opened, and how the living dead are resurrected to a new life. The people of the earth will cry: Praised be the Lord, Hallelujah!"

He said nothing more, but got up from his place and entered his hut, as if he had already forgotten that he had just been speaking with someone.

Myyriäinen remained sitting there, absorbed in his reflections. Somehow, Sanni's death and the great and gentle word she had wanted to say to him and the terror he had himself endured were interwoven with what the monk had said, and he got the feeling that not only he but all men, the whole of humanity, were about to be transformed by the radiance of a mystery, just as the blood in the holy chalice was transformed, becoming alive.

He arose in order to return to his friends.