The apprentice, Pashka Odintzov, threw aside his work of pouring off the yolks of the eggs, and holding the shells in his hand, led the chorus in a masterly manner.
Intoxicated by the sounds, they all forgot them — selves, they all breathed together as if they had but one bosom, and were full of the same feelings, looking sideways at the Cossack.
When he sang, the workshop acknowledged him as its master; they were all drawn to him, followed the brief movements of his hands; he spread his arms out as if he were about to fly.
I believe that if he had suddenly broken off his song and cried,
“Let us smash up everything,” even the most serious of the workmen would have smashed the workshop to pieces in a few moments.
He sang rarely, but the power of his tumultuous songs was always irresistible and all-conquering. It was as if these people were not very strongly made, and he could lift them up and set them on fire; as if everything was bent when it came within the warm influence of that mighty organ of his.
As for me, these songs aroused in me a hot feeling of envy of the singer, of his admirable power over people. A painful emotion flowed over my heart, making it feel as if it would burst. I wanted to weep and call out to the singers:
“I love you!”
Consumptive, yellow Davidov, who was covered with tufts of hair, also opened his mouth, strangely resembling a young jackdaw newly burst out of the
These happy, riotous songs were only sung when the Cossack started them. More often they sang the sad, drawn-out one about the depraved people, and another about the forests, and another about the death of Alexander I,
“How our Alexander went to review his army.”
Sometimes at the suggestion of our best face painter, Jikharev, they tried to sing some church melodies, but it was seldom a success.
Jikharev always wanted one particular thing; he had only one idea of harmony, and he kept on stopping the song.
He was a man of forty-five, dry, bald, with black, curly, gipsy-like hair, and large black brows which looked like mustaches.
His pointed, thick beard was very ornamental to his fine, swarthy, unRussian face, but under his protuberant nose stuck out ferocious-looking mustaches, superfluous when one took his brows into consideration.
His blue eyes did not match, the left being noticeably larger than the right.
“Pashka,” he cried in a tenor voice to my comrade, the apprentice, “come along now, start off: Traise — ‘ Now people, listen!”
Wiping his hands on his apron, Pashka led off:
“Pr — a — a — ise — ”
“The Name of the Lord,” several voices caught it up, but Jikharev cried fussily:
“Lower, Evgen!
Let your voice come from the very depths of the soul.”
Sitanov, in a voice so deep that it sounded like the rattle of a drum, gave forth:
“R— rabi Gospoda (slaves of the Lord) — ”
“Not like that!
That part should be taken in such a way that the earth should tremble and the doors and windows should open of themselves!”
Jikharev was in a state of incomprehensible excitement. His extraordinary brows went up and down on his forehead, his voice broke, his fingers played on an invisible dulcimer.
“Slaves of the Lord — do you understand?” he said importantly. “You have got to feel that right to the kernel of your being, right through the shell.
Slaves, praise the Lord!
How is it that you — living people — do not understand that?”
“We never seem to get it as you say it ought to be,” said Sitanov quietly.
“Well, let it alone then!”
Jikharev, offended, went on with his work.
He was the best workman we had, for he could paint faces in the Byzantine manner, and artistically, in the new Italian style.
When he took orders for iconostasis, Larionovich took counsel with him. He had a fine knowledge of all original image-paintings; all the costly copies of miraculous icons, Theodorovski, Kazanski, and others, passed through his hands.
But when he lighted upon the originals, he growled loudly:
“These originals tie us down; there is no getting away from that fact.”
In spite of his superior position in the workshop, he was less conceited than the others, and was kind to the apprentices — Pavl and me. He wanted to teach us the work, since no one else ever bothered about us.
He was difficult to understand; he was not usually cheerful, and sometimes he would work for a whole week in silence, like a dumb man. He looked on every one as at strangers who amazed him, as if it were the first time he had come across such people. And although he was very fond of singing, at such times he did not sing, nor did he even listen to the songs.
All the others watched him, winking at one another.
He would bend over the icon which stood sideways, his tablet on his knees, the middle resting on the edge of the table, while his fine brush diligently painted the dark, foreign face. He was dark and foreign-looking himself.
Suddenly he would say in a clear, offended tone:
“Forerunner — what does that mean?
Tech means in ancient language ‘to go.’
A forerunner is one who goes before, — and that is all.”
The workshop was very quiet; every one was glancing askance at Jikharev, laughing, and in the stillness rang out these strange words:
“He ought to be painted with a sheepskin and wings.”
“Whom are you talking to?” I asked.
He was silent, either not hearing my question or not caring to answer it. Then his words again fell into the expectant silence:
“The lives of the saints are what we ought to know!