And the God of Sabaoth heard,
The Holy Mother heard,
These human sighs,
These Christians’ plaints.
And He said, the Lord of Sabaoth,
To the Holy Angel Michael,
‘Go thou, Michael,
Make the earth shake under Kitej;
Let Kitej sink into the lake!’
And there to this day The people do pray.
Never resting, and never weary
From matins to vespers.
Through all the holy offices.
Forever and evermore!”
At that time my head was full of grandmother’s poetry, as full as a beehive of honey. I used even to think in verse.
I did not pray in church. I felt ashamed to utter the angry prayers and psalms of lamentation of grandfather’s God in the presence of grandmother’s God, Who, I felt sure, could take no more pleasure in them than I did myself, for the simple reason that they were all printed in books, and of course He knew them all by heart, as did all people of education.
And this is why, when my heart was oppressed by a gentle grief or irritated by the petty grievances of every day, I tried to make up prayers for myself. And when I began to think about my uncongenial work, the words seemed to form themselves into a complaint without any effort on my part:
“Lord, Lord! I am very miserable!
Oh, let me grow up quickly.
For this life I can’t endure.
O Lord, forgive!
From my studies I get no benefit.
For that devil’s puppet. Granny Matrena, Howls at me like a wolf, And my life is very bitter!”
To this day I can remember some of these prayers. The workings of the brain in childhood leave a very deep impression; often they influence one’s whole life.
I liked being in church; I could rest there as I rested in the forests and fields.
My small heart, which was already familiar with grief and soiled by the mire of a coarse life, laved itself in hazy, ardent dreams.
But I went to church only during the hard frosts, or when a snow-storm swept wildly up the streets, when it seemed as if the very sky were frozen, and the wind swept across it with a cloud of snow, and the earth lay frozen under the snow-drifts as if it would never live again.
When the nights were milder I used to like to wander through the streets of the town, creeping along by all the darkest corners.
Sometimes I seemed to walk as if I had wings, flying along like the moon in the sky. My shadow crept in front of me, extinguishing the sparkles of light in the snow, bobbing up and down comically.
The night watchman patrolled the streets, rattle in hand, clothed in a heavy sheepskin, his dog at his side.
Vague outlines of people came out of yards and flitted along the streets, and the dog gave chase.
Sometimes I met gay young ladies with their escorts. I had an idea that they also were playing truant from vespers.
Sometimes through a lighted fortochka 2 there came a peculiar smell, faint, unfamiliar, suggestive of a kind of life of which I was ignorant. I used to stand under the windows and inhale it, trying to guess what it was to live like the people in such a house lived.
It was the hour of vespers, and yet they were singing merrily, laughing, and playing on a sort of guitar. The deep, stringy sound flowed through the fortochka. 2 A small square of glass in the double window which is set on hinges and serves as a ventilator.
Of special interest to me were the one-storied, dwarfed houses at the corners of the deserted streets, Tikhonovski and Martinovski.
I stood there on a moonlight night in mid-Lent and listened to the weird sounds — it sounded as if some one were singing loudly with his mouth closed — which floated out through the fortochka together with a warm steam. The words were indistinguishable, but the song seemed to be familiar and intelligible to me; but when I listened to that, I could not hear the stringy sound which languidly interrupted the flow of song.
I sat on the curbstone thinking what a wonderful melody was being played on some sort of insupportable violin — in supportable because it hurt me to listen to it.
Some — times they sang so loudly that the whole house seemed to shake, and the panes of the windows rattled.
Like tears, drops fell from the roof, and from my eyes also.
The night watchman had come close to me without my being aware of it, and, pushing me off the curbstone, said:
“What are you stuck here for?”
“The music,” I explained.
“A likely tale!
Be off now!”
I ran quickly round the houses and returned to my place under the window, but they were not playing now. From the fortochka proceeded sounds of revelry, and it was so unlike the sad music that I thought I must be dreaming.
I got into the habit of running to this house every Saturday, but only once, and that was in the spring, did I hear the violoncello again, and then it played without a break till midnight. When I reached home I got a thrashing.
These walks at night beneath the winter sky througn the deserted streets of the town enriched me greatly.
I purposely chose streets far removed from the center, where there were many lamps, and friends of my master who might have recognized me. Then he would find out how I played truant from vespers.
No “drunkards,” “street-walkers,” or policemen interfered with me in the more remote streets, and I could see into the rooms of the lower floors if the windows were not frozen over or curtained.
Many and diverse were the pictures which I saw through those windows. I saw people praying, kissing, quarreling, playing cards, talking busily and soundlessly the while. It was a cheap panoramic show representing a dumb, fish-like life.