So many sins from his past accumulated – so many, in fact, that it was impossible to shrug them off or expiate them now – that even to ask for pardon was ridiculous.

As they drove up out of the ravine, Anisim kept looking back at the village. It was a fine warm day. For the first time that year, cattle had been led out to graze and young girls and women were walking round the herd in their holiday dresses. A brown bull bellowed, rejoicing in its freedom, and pawed the earth with its front hoofs. Larks were singing everywhere – on the ground and high up above. Anisim glanced back at the graceful church, which had recently been whitewashed, and he remembered that he had prayed there five days ago. And he looked back at the school, with its green roof, at the river where he once swam or tried to catch fish, and his heart thrilled with joy. He wanted a wall suddenly to rise up out of the ground to block his path, so that he could remain there, with only the past.