_An Incident of My Travels_
I WAS on my way back from evening service. The clock in the belfry
of the Svyatogorsky Monastery pealed out its soft melodious chimes
by way of prelude and then struck twelve. The great courtyard of
the monastery stretched out at the foot of the Holy Mountains on
the banks of the Donets, and, enclosed by the high hostel buildings
as by a wall, seemed now in the night, when it was lighted up only
by dim lanterns, lights in the windows, and the stars, a living
hotch-potch full of movement, sound, and the most original confusion.
From end to end, so far as the eye could see, it was all choked up
with carts, old-fashioned coaches and chaises, vans, tilt-carts,
about which stood crowds of horses, dark and white, and horned oxen,
while people bustled about, and black long-skirted lay brothers
threaded their way in and out in all directions. Shadows and streaks
of light cast from the windows moved over the carts and the heads
of men and horses, and in the dense twilight this all assumed the
most monstrous capricious shapes: here the tilted shafts stretched
upwards to the sky, here eyes of fire appeared in the face of a
horse, there a lay brother grew a pair of black wings. . . . There
was the noise of talk, the snorting and munching of horses, the
creaking of carts, the whimpering of children. Fresh crowds kept
walking in at the gate and belated carts drove up.
The pines which were piled up on the overhanging mountain, one above
another, and leaned towards the roof of the hostel, gazed into the
courtyard as into a deep pit, and listened in wonder; in their dark
thicket the cuckoos and nightingales never ceased calling. . . .
Looking at the confusion, listening to the uproar, one fancied that
in this living hotch-potch no one understood anyone, that everyone
was looking for something and would not find it, and that this
multitude of carts, chaises and human beings could not ever succeed
in getting off.
More than ten thousand people flocked to the Holy Mountains for the
festivals of St. John the Divine and St. Nikolay the wonder-worker.
Not only the hostel buildings, but even the bakehouse, the tailoring
room, the carpenter's shop, the carriage house, were filled to
overflowing. . . . Those who had arrived towards night clustered
like flies in autumn, by the walls, round the wells in the yard,
or in the narrow passages of the hostel, waiting to be shown a
resting-place for the night. The lay brothers, young and old, were
in an incessant movement, with no rest or hope of being relieved.
By day or late at night they produced the same impression of men
hastening somewhere and agitated by something, yet, in spite of
their extreme exhaustion, their faces remained full of courage and
kindly welcome, their voices friendly, their movements rapid. . . .
For everyone who came they had to find a place to sleep, and to
provide food and drink; to those who were deaf, slow to understand,
or profuse in questions, they had to give long and wearisome
explanations, to tell them why there were no empty rooms, at what
o'clock the service was to be where holy bread was sold, and so on.
They had to run, to carry, to talk incessantly, but more than that,
they had to be polite, too, to be tactful, to try to arrange that
the Greeks from Mariupol, accustomed to live more comfortably than
the Little Russians, should be put with other Greeks, that some
shopkeeper from Bahmut or Lisitchansk, dressed like a lady, should
not be offended by being put with peasants. There were continual
cries of: "Father, kindly give us some kvass! Kindly give us some
hay!" or "Father, may I drink water after confession?" And the lay
brother would have to give out kvass or hay or to answer: "Address
yourself to the priest, my good woman, we have not the authority
to give permission." Another question would follow, "Where is the
priest then?" and the lay brother would have to explain where was
the priest's cell. With all this bustling activity, he yet had to
make time to go to service in the church, to serve in the part
devoted to the gentry, and to give full answers to the mass of
necessary and unnecessary questions which pilgrims of the educated
class are fond of showering about them. Watching them during the
course of twenty-four hours, I found it hard to imagine when these
black moving figures sat down and when they slept.
When, coming back from the evening service, I went to the hostel
in which a place had been assigned me, the monk in charge of the
sleeping quarters was standing in the doorway, and beside him, on
the steps, was a group of several men and women dressed like
townsfolk.
"Sir," said the monk, stopping me, "will you be so good as to allow
this young man to pass the night in your room? If you would do us
the favour! There are so many people and no place left--it is
really dreadful!"
And he indicated a short figure in a light overcoat and a straw
hat. I consented, and my chance companion followed me. Unlocking
the little padlock on my door, I was always, whether I wanted to
or not, obliged to look at the picture that hung on the doorpost
on a level with my face. This picture with the title, "A Meditation
on Death," depicted a monk on his knees, gazing at a coffin and at
a skeleton laying in it. Behind the man's back stood another skeleton,
somewhat more solid and carrying a scythe.
"There are no bones like that," said my companion, pointing to the
place in the skeleton where there ought to have been a pelvis.
"Speaking generally, you know, the spiritual fare provided for the
people is not of the first quality," he added, and heaved through
his nose a long and very melancholy sigh, meant to show me that I
had to do with a man who really knew something about spiritual fare.
While I was looking for the matches to light a candle he sighed
once more and said:
"When I was in Harkov I went several times to the anatomy theatre
and saw the bones there; I have even been in the mortuary. Am I not
in your way?"
My room was small and poky, with neither table nor chairs in it,
but quite filled up with a chest of drawers by the window, the stove
and two little wooden sofas which stood against the walls, facing
one another, leaving a narrow space to walk between them. Thin
rusty-looking little mattresses lay on the little sofas, as well
as my belongings. There were two sofas, so this room was evidently
intended for two, and I pointed out the fact to my companion.
"They will soon be ringing for mass, though," he said, "and I shan't
have to be in your way very long."
Still under the impression that he was in my way and feeling awkward,
he moved with a guilty step to his little sofa, sighed guiltily and
sat down. When the tallow candle with its dim, dilatory flame had
left off flickering and burned up sufficiently to make us both
visible, I could make out what he was like. He was a young man of
two-and-twenty, with a round and pleasing face, dark childlike eyes,
dressed like a townsman in grey cheap clothes, and as one could
judge from his complexion and narrow shoulders, not used to manual
labour. He was of a very indefinite type; one could take him neither
for a student nor for a man in trade, still less for a workman. But
looking at his attractive face and childlike friendly eyes, I was
unwilling to believe he was one of those vagabond impostors with
whom every conventual establishment where they give food and lodging
is flooded, and who give themselves out as divinity students,
expelled for standing up for justice, or for church singers who
have lost their voice. . . . There was something characteristic,
typical, very familiar in his face, but what exactly, I could not
remember nor make out.
For a long time he sat silent, pondering. Probably because I had
not shown appreciation of his remarks about bones and the mortuary,
he thought that I was ill-humoured and displeased at his presence.
Pulling a sausage out of his pocket, he turned it about before his
eyes and said irresolutely:
"Excuse my troubling you, . . . have you a knife?"