Today I’ve read Tolstoy’s short story The Three Hermits

A bishop was sailing from Archangel to the Solovétsk Monastery; and on the same vessel were a number of pilgrims on their way to visit the shrines at that place. The tale thus describes a Bishop's voyage across the White Sea. During his journey, a sailor  on deck tells the Bishop how he once crashed a boat into a small island in the distance, where he was rescued by three hermits. The sailor describes the hermits as humble and holy men who “do everything in silence,” communicating through gestures and glances rather than words. Intrigued by the sailor's tale, the Bishop asks the ship's captain to take him to the hermits' island. The captain tries to dissuade the Bishop, informing him that the hermits “are foolish old fellows, who understand nothing, and never speak a word,” but the Bishop is persistent, and the captain acquiesces.

The Bishop is rowed ashore, and he introduces himself to the hermits: “I have heard,” he tells them, “that you, godly men, live here saving your own souls, and praying to our Lord Christ . . . . I wished to see you, servants of God, and to do what I can to teach you,.” When the Bishop asks how the hermits pray, one answers, “We pray in this way . . . .'Three are ye, three are we, have mercy upon us.'” The Bishop scolds the hermits, telling them that they  “do not pray aright,” and he proceeds to spend the remainder of the afternoon  teaching his unwitting disciples the Lord's Prayer. When at last he is confident the hermits have memorized the Prayer, he returns to his ship to continue his journey. Long into the night, the Bishop fixes his eyes on the horizon where the hermits' island drifted out of sight, until that spot turns into a white light. The light approaches the boat, until the Bishop realizes that the light is coming from the three hermits, who are running upon the water.

The passengers hearing him, jumped up, and crowded to the stern. They saw the hermits coming along hand in hand, and the two outer ones beckoning the ship to stop. All three were gliding along upon the water without moving their feet. Before the ship could be stopped, the hermits had reached it, and raising their heads, all three as with one voice, began to say: 'We have forgotten your teaching, servant of God. As long as we kept repeating it we remembered, but when we stopped saying it for a time, a word dropped out, and now it has all gone to pieces. We can remember nothing of it. Teach us again.'

The Bishop crossed himself, and leaning over the ship's side, said: 'Your own prayer will reach the Lord, men of God. It is not for me to teach you. Pray for us sinners. And the Bishop bowed low before the old men; and they turned and went back across the sea. And a light shone until daybreak on the spot where they were lost to sight.The Bishop thus realizes that he cannot teach the hermits anything about the Holy Spirit. The Bishop begs God for forgiveness, the hermits return to their island, and the story concludes.

Sources: Douglas Duhaime, Reading Wittgenstein Reading Tolstoy - Saying and Showing in ''The Three Hermits” <http://www.academia.edu/1334740/Reading_Wittgenstein_Reading_Tolstoy_-_Saying_and_Showing_in_The_Three_Hermits>30.04.2017.

Leo Tolstoy, Three Hermits,  <http://www.online-literature.com/tolstoy/2896/ >30.04.2017.