A PILGRIM'S DAY.
A pilgrim's day begins in the early morning, and lengthens late into
the night.
At two o'clock, when it has hardly yet grown dark in our cells, a monk
comes down the passage, tinkling his bell and droning out, "Rise and
come to prayer." Starting at his cry, we huddle on our clothes, and
rush from our hot rooms, heated by stoves, into the open air; men and
women, boys and girls, boatmen and woodmen, hurrying through the night
towards the Sacred Gates.
At half-past two the first matins commence in the new church--the
Miracle Church--dedicated to the Victress, Mother of God; in which lie
the bones of St. Savatie and St. Zosima, in the corner, as the highest
place. A hundred lamps are lit, and the wall-screen of pictured saints
glows richly in our sleepy eyes. Men and women, soldiers and peasants,
turn into that sacred corner where the saints repose, cross themselves
seven times, bow their foreheads to the ground, and kiss the pavement
before the shrine.
Falling into our places near the altar-screen; arranging ourselves in
files, rank behind rank, in open order, so that each can kneel and
kiss the ground without pushing against his neighbor; we stand erect,
uncovered, while the pope recites his office, and the monks respond
their chant. These matins are not over until four o'clock.
A second service opens in the old cathedral at half-past three, and
lasts until half-past five; and when the first pope has given his
blessing, some of the more ardent pilgrims rush from the Virgin's
church to the cathedral, where they stand in prayer, and kneel to kiss
the stones for ninety minutes more; at the end of which time they
receive a second benediction from a second pope.
An hour is now spent by the pilgrims in either praying at the tombs of
saints, or pacing a long gallery, so contrived as to connect the
several churches and other monastic buildings by a covered way. Along
the walls of this gallery rude and early Russian artists have painted
the joys of heaven, the pains of purgatory, and the pangs of hell.
These pictures seize the eyes of my fellow-pilgrims, though in quaint
and dramatic terror they sink below the level of such old work in the
Gothic cloisters of the Rhine. A Russian painter has no variety of
invention; a devil is to him a monkey with a spiked tail and a tongue
of flame; and hell itself is only a hot place in which sinners are
either fried by a fiend, or chawed up, flesh and bone, by a monstrous
bear. Yet, children sometimes swoon, and women go mad from fright, on
seeing these threats of a future state. My own poor time is given to
scanning a miraculous picture of Jerusalem, said to have been painted
on the staircase by a monk of Solovetsk, as a vision of the Holy City,
seen by him in a dream. After studying the details for a while, I
recognize in this vision of the holy man a plan of Olivet and Zion
copied from an old Greek print!
All this time the pilgrims are bound to fast.
At seven o'clock the bells announce early mass, and we repair to the
Miracle Church, where, after due crossings and prostration before the
tomb, we fall into rank as before, and listen for an hour and a half
to the sacred ritual, chanted with increasing fire.
When this first mass is over, the time being nearly nine o'clock, the
weaker brethren may indulge themselves with a cup of tea; but the
better pilgrim denies himself this solace, as a temptation of the Evil
Spirit; and even his weaker brother has not much time to dally with
the fumes of his darling herb. The great bell in the convent yard, a
gift of the reigning Emperor, and one more witness to the year of
wonders, warns us that the highest service of the day is close at
hand.
Precisely at nine o'clock the monks assemble in the cathedral to
celebrate high mass; and the congregation being already met, the
tapers are lit, the deacon begins to read, the clergy take up the
responses, and the officiating priest, arrayed in his shining cope and
cap, recites the old and mystical forms of Slavonic prayer and praise.
Two hours by the clock we stand in front of that golden shrine; stand
on the granite pavement--all uncovered, many unshod--listening with
ravished ears to what is certainly the noblest ceremonial music of the
Russian Church.
High mass being sung and said, we ebb back slowly from the cathedral
into the long gallery, where we have a few minutes more of purgatorial
fire, and then a monk announces dinner, and the devoutest pilgrim in
the band accepts his signal with a thankful look.
The dining-hall to which we adjourn with some irregular haste is a
vaulted chamber below the cathedral, and in any other country than
Russia would be called a crypt. But men must build according to their
clime. The same church would not serve for winter and summer, on
account of the cold and heat; and hence a sacred edifice is nearly
always divided into an upper and a lower church; the upper tier being
used in summer, the lower tier in winter. Our dining-hall at Solovetsk
is the winter church.
Long tables run down the room, and curl round the circular shaft which
sustains the cathedral floor. On these tables the first course is
already laid; a tin plate for each guest, in which lies a wooden
spoon, a knife and fork; and by the side of this tin platter a pound
of rye bread. The pilgrims are expected to dine in messes of four,
like monks. A small tin dish is laid between each mess, containing one
salted sprat, divided into four bits by a knife, and four small slices
of raw onion. To each mess is given a copper tureen of sour quass, and
a dish of salt codfish, broken into small lumps, boiled down, and left
to cool.
A bell rings briskly; up we start, cross ourselves seven times, bow
towards the floor, sit down again. The captain of each mess throws
pepper and salt into the dish, and stirs up our pottage with the ladle
out of which he drinks his quass. A second bell rings; we dip our
wooden ladles into the dish of cod. A reader climbs into the desk, and
drawls the story of some saint, while a youth carries round a basket
of white bread, already blessed by the priest and broken into bits.
Each pilgrim takes his piece and eats it, crossing himself, time after
time, until the morsel gets completely down his throat.
A third bell rings. Hush of silence; sound of prayer. Serving-men
appear; our platters are swept away; a second course is served. The
boys who wait on us, with rosy cheeks, smooth chins, and hanging
locks, look very much like girls. This second course, consisting of a
tureen of cabbage-soup, takes no long time to eat. A new reader mounts
the desk, and gives us a little more life of saint. A fourth bell
jangles; much more crossing takes place; the serving-men rush in; our
tables are again swept clean.
Another course is served; a soup of fresh herrings, caught in the
convent bay; the fish very good and sweet. Another reader; still more
life of saint; and then a fifth bell rings.
A fourth and last course now comes in; a dainty of barley paste,
boiled rather soft, and eaten with sour milk. Another reader; still
more life of saint; and then sixth bell. The pilgrims rise; the reader
stops, not caring to finish his story; and our meal is done.
Our meal, but not the ritual of that meal. Rising from our bench, we
fall once more into rank and file; the women, who have dined in a room
apart, crowd back into the crypt; and we join our voices in a sacred
song. Then we stand for a little while in silence, each with his head
bent down, as humbling ourselves before the screen, during which a
pope distributes to each pilgrim a second morsel of consecrated bread.
Brisk bell rings again; the monks raise a psalm of thanksgiving; a
pope pronounces the benediction; and then the diners go their way
refreshed with the bread and fish.
It is now near twelve o'clock. The next church service will not be
held until a quarter to four in the afternoon. In the interval we have
the long cloister to walk in; the holy lake to see; the shrine of St.
Philip to inspect; the tombs of good monks to visit; the priestly
robes and monastic jewels to admire; with other distractions to devour
the time. We go off, each his own way; some into the country, which is
full of tombs and shrines of the lesser saints; others to lave their
limbs in the holy lake; not a few to the cells of monks who vend
crosses, amulets, and charms. A Russian is a believer in stones, in
rings, in rosaries, in rods; for he bears about him a hundred relics
of his ancient pagan creeds. His favorite amulet is a cross, which he
can buy in brass for a kopeck; one form for a man, a second form for a
woman; the masculine form being Nikon's cross, with a true Greek cross
in relief; the feminine form being a mixture of the two. Once tied
round the neck, this amulet is never to be taken off, on peril of
sickness and sudden death. To drop it is a fault, to lose it is a sin.
A second talisman is a bone ball, big as a pea, hollow, drilled and
fitted with a screw. A drop of mercury is coaxed into the hole, and
the screw being turned, the charm is perfect, and the ball is fastened
to the cross. This talisman protects the wearer from contagion in the
public baths.
Some pilgrims go in boats to the farther isles; to Zaet, where two
aged monks reside, and a flock of sheep browses on the herbage; to
Moksalma, a yet more secular spot, where the cattle feed, and the
poultry cluck and crow, in spite of St. Savatie's rule. These islets
supply the convent with milk and eggs--in which holy men rejoice, as a
relief from fish--in nature's own old-fashioned ways.
Not a few of the pilgrims, finding that a special pope has been
appointed to show things to their English guest, perceive that the way
to see sights is to follow that pope. They have to be told--in a
kindly voice--that they are not to follow him into the Archimandrite's
room. To-day they march in his train into the wardrobe of the convent,
where the copes, crowns, staffs and crosses employed in these church
services are kept; a rich and costly collection of robes, embroidered
with flowers and gold, and sparkling with rubies, diamonds and pearls.
Many of these robes are gifts of emperors and tsars. One of the
costliest is the gift of Ivan the Terrible; but even this splendid
garment pales before a gift of Alexander, the reigning prince, who
sent the Archimandrite--in remembrance of the Virgin's victory--a full
set of canonicals, from crown and staff to robe and shoe.
Exactly at a quarter before four o'clock, a bell commands us to
return; for vespers are commencing in the Miracle Church. Again we
kneel at the tombs and kiss the stones, the hangings, and the iron
rails; after which we fall in as before, and listen while the vespers
are intoned by monks and boys. This service concludes at half-past
four. Adjourning to the long gallery, we have another look at the
fires of purgatory and the abodes of bliss. Five minutes before six we
file into the cathedral for second vespers, and remain there standing
and uncovered--some of us unshod--until half-past seven.
At eight the supper-bell rings. Our company gathers at the welcome
sound; the monks form a procession; the pilgrims trail on; all moving
with a hungry solemnity to the crypt, where we find the long tables
groaning, as at dinner, with the pound of black bread, the salt sprat,
the onion parted into four small pieces with a knife, and the copper
tureen of quass. Our supper is the dinner served up afresh, with the
same prayers, the same bowing and crossing, the same bell-ringing, and
the same life of saint. The only difference is, that in the evening we
have no barley-paste and no stale milk.
When every one is filled and the fragments are picked up, we rise to
our feet, recite a thanksgiving, and join the fathers in their evening
song. A pope pronounces a blessing, and then we are free to go into
our cells.
A pilgrim who can read, and may happen to have good books about him,
is expected, on retiring to his cell, to read through a Psalm of
David, and to ponder a little on the Lives of Saints. The convent
gates are closed at nine o'clock; when it is thought well for the
pilgrim to be in bed.
At two in the morning a monk will come into his lobby, tinkle the
bell, and call him to the duties of another day.