Page:Leskov - The Sentry and other Stories.djvu/238

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222
On the Edge of the World

Then I understood how God had settled all these things and began to cry. The examination was quite an easy one, so easy that it would have been child's play for me. It meant that I, little fool, did not know what I asked for but it had been nevertheless accomplished to make me wiser.

"Ah, Father Kiriak, Father Kiriak," said I, "you are an extraordinarily consoling man." I embraced him several times, dismissed him without asking him anything further, and ordered him to come to me from the next day to instruct me in in the Tangus and Yakut languages.