After a time I began to take interest in all that surrounded me. Titoff
was a silent man, tall in stature, with his head and cheeks shaved like
a soldier's, and he wore a long mustache. He spoke slowly and as if he
were afraid to say one word too many, or as if he were in doubt himself
of what he was saying. He held his hands in his pocket or crossed
them behind his back, as if he were ashamed of them. I knew that the
peasants of the village and even those of the neighboring district
hated him. Two years before, in the village of Mabina, they beat him
with a stake. They said that he always carried a revolver with him.
His wife, Nastasia, was handsome, tall and slender. Her face was
bloodless, with two feverish, large eyes. She was often sick. Her
daughter, Olga, who was three years my junior, was also pale and thin.
A great silence reigned about them. Their floor was covered with thick
carpet, and not a footstep could be heard. Even the clock on the wall
ticked inaudibly. The lamps, which were never extinguished, burned
before their holy images. There were prints stuck on the walls, showing
the Last Judgment and the Martyrdom of the Apostles and of Saint
Barbara. In one corner, on the low stove, a large cat, the color of
smoke, looked out of its green eyes on the surroundings and seemed to
guard the silence.
In the midst of this awful stillness it took me a long time to forget
the songs of Larion and his birds.
Titoff brought me to the office of the estate and showed me the books.
Thus I lived. It seemed to me that Titoff watched me and followed me
about in silence as if he expected something from me. I felt depressed
and unhappy. I was never gay, but now I became almost morose. I had no
one to speak to, and, moreover, I did not wish to speak to any one.
When Titoff or his wife asked me about Larion I did not answer, but
mumbled something. A feeling of unhappiness and sadness weighed upon
me. Titoff displeased me by the suspicious stillness of his life.
I went almost daily to the church to help the watchman, Vlassi, and
also the new sexton, a handsome young man, who had been a school
teacher. He was not interested in his work, but he was a great friend
of the priest, whose hand he always kissed and whom he followed about
like a dog. He continually reproved me, for which he was in the wrong,
because I knew the holy service better than he did and always did
everything according to rule.
It was at this time, when life became difficult for me, that I began to
love God. One day when I was placing the tapers in front of the image
of the Holy Virgin and her Child, before mass, I saw that they looked
at me with a grave and compassionate expression. I began to weep, and,
falling on my knees, I prayed for I do not know what--for Larion, no
doubt. I do not know how long I remained there, but I arose consoled,
my heart warm and animated. Vlassi was at the altar and he mumbled
something incomprehensible. I mounted the steps, and when I was near
him he looked at me.
"You look very happy," he said. "Have you found a kopeck?"
I knew why he asked that question, for I often found money on the
ground. But now these words left an unpleasant impression on me, as if
some one had hurt my heart.
"I was praying to God," I said.
"To which one?" he asked me. "We have more than a hundred here. And the
living One, the true One, who is not made of wood, where is He? Go and
find Him."
I knew the value to attach to his words. Nevertheless, they appeared
offensive to me at this time. Vlassi was a decrepit old man, who could
hardly walk. His limbs stuck out at the knees and he always tottered as
if he were walking on a rope. He had not a tooth in his mouth, and his
dark face looked like an old rag, from which two wild eyes stuck out.
He had lost his reason and had commenced to rave even some time before
Larion's death.
"I don't watch the church," he said. "I watch cattle. I was born a
shepherd and shall die a shepherd. Yes, soon I shall leave the church
for the fields."
Every one knew that he had never watched cattle.
"The church is a cemetery," he would say. "It is a dead place. I wish
to deal with something living. I must go and feed cattle. All my
ancestors have been shepherds, and I also up to my forty-second year."
Larion used to make fun of him. One day he said to him laughingly:
"In olden times there was a god of cattle who was called Voloss.
Perhaps he was your great-greatgrandfather."
Vlassi questioned him about Voloss; then he said:
"That's right. I have known that I was a god for a long time, only I am
afraid of the priest. Wait a little, sexton; don't you tell it to him.
When the right time comes I will tell him myself."
It was impossible to get the idea out of his head. I knew that he was
crazy, yet he worried me.
"Take care," I said to him. "God will punish you."
And he muttered: "I am a god myself."
Suddenly my foot caught on the carpet and I fell, and I interpreted
it as an omen. From that day I began to love passionately all that
pertained to the church. The ardor of my childish heart was so great
that everything became sacred for me--not only the images and the
gospels, but even the chandeliers and the censer, whose very coals
became precious in my eyes. I used to touch these objects with joy and
with a feeling of great respect. When I went up the steps of the altar
my heart would cease beating, and I could have kissed the flagstones.
I felt that I was under One who saw everything, directed my steps and
surrounded me with a supernatural force; who warmed my heart with a
dazzling and blinding light, and I saw only myself. At times I remained
alone in the darkness of the temple, but it was light in my heart; for
my God was there, and there was no place for childish troubles, nor
for the sufferings which surrounded me--that is to say, the human life
about me. The nearer one comes to God, the farther one is from man.
But, of course, I did not understand that at that time.
I began to read all the religious works which fell into my hands. Thus
my heart became filled with the divine word. My soul drank avidly of
its exquisite sweetness, and a fountain of grateful tears opened within
me. Often I went to the church before the other faithful ones, and,
kneeling before the image of the Trinity, I wept lightly and humbly,
without thinking and without praying. I had nothing to ask of God and I
worshiped Him with complete self-forgetfulness. I remembered Larion's
words:
"When you pray with your lips you pray to the air and not to God. God
thinks of the thoughts, not the words, like man."
I did not even have thoughts. I knelt and sang in silence a joyful
song, happy in the thought that I was not alone in the world and that
God was near me and guarded me. That was a happy time for me, like a
calm and joyful holiday. I liked to remain alone in the church, when
the noise and the whisperings were over. Then I lost myself in the
stillness and rose up to the clouds, and from that height man and all
that pertained to man became more and more invisible to me.
But Vlassi bothered me. He dragged his feet on the flagstones, he
trembled like the shadows of a tree shaken by the wind, and he muttered
with his toothless mouth:
"I have nothing to do here. Is it my business? I am a god, the shepherd
of all earthly cattle. To-morrow I am going away into the fields. Why
have they exiled me here in these cold shadows? Is this my work?"
He troubled me with his blasphemies, for I imagined that his profanity
sullied the purity of the temple and that God was angry at his being in
His house.
People began to notice my piety and my religious zeal. When the priest
met me he grunted and blessed me in a special way, and I had to kiss
his hand, which was always cold and covered with sweat. Although I
envied his being initiated into the divine mysteries, I did not love
him and was even afraid of him.
Titoff's little, dull eyes, like buttons, followed me with increasing
vigilance. Every one treated me carefully, as if I were made of glass.
More than once little Olga would ask me, in a low voice:
"Will you be a saint?"
She was timid even when I was kind, when I told her religious stories.
On winter nights I read aloud the Prologue and the Minea. Gusts of snow
blew over the country, groaning and beating against the walls. In the
room silence reigned and no one stirred. Titoff sat with head bowed,
so that his face could not be seen. Nastasia, who was sleepy, sat with
her eyes fixed on me. When the frost crackled she trembled and glanced
about her, smiling gently. When she did not understand the meaning of a
Slavic word she would ask me. Her sweet voice resounded for an instant,
and then again there was quiet. Only the flying snow sang plaintively,
wandering over the fields seeking repose.
The holy martyrs, who fought for the Lord and celebrated His greatness
by their life and by their death, were especially dear to my soul.
I was touched also by the merciful and pious men who sacrificed
everything for love of their neighbors. But I did not understand those
who left the world in the name of God and went away to live in a desert
or in a cave. I felt that the devil was too powerful for the Anchorites
and the Stylites, that he made them flee before him. Larion had denied
the devil. Nevertheless, the life of the saints forced me to recognize
him. And, besides, the fall of man would be incomprehensible if one did
not admit the existence of the devil. Larion saw in God the one and
omnipotent Creator, but then from where came evil? According to the
life of the saints, the author of all evil is the devil. In this rôle
I accepted him. God, then, was the creator of cherries, and the devil
the creator of burrs; God the creator of nightingales and the devil
the creator of owls. However, although I accepted the devil, I did
not believe in him and was not afraid of him. He was useful to me in
explaining the existence of evil; but at the same time he bothered me,
for he lessened the majesty of God.
I forced myself not to think of this problem, but Titoff continually
made me think of sin and of the power of the devil. When I read, he
questioned me curtly, without raising his eyes.
"Matvei, what does that last word mean?"
And I explained it.
Then after a second of silence, he would say:
"Where can I hide before Thy countenance? Where can I flee before Thy
wrath?"
His wife would sigh deeply and look at him, still more frightened, as
if she expected something terrible. Olga blinked her blue eyes and
suggested:
"In the forest."
"Where can I flee before Thy wrath?" he repeated.
This time I remember he took his hands from his pockets and twirled his
long mustache, and his eyebrows trembled. He hid his hands and said:
"It was King David who asked, 'Where can I flee?' Yes, he was a king
and he was afraid. You see that the devil was stronger than he. He was
anointed of God and the devil conquered him. 'Where can I flee?' To
hell--that is certain. We lesser people, we have nothing to hope for if
the kings themselves go there."
He frequently returned to this subject. I did not always understand his
words; nevertheless, they produced a disagreeable impression upon me.
People began to speak more and more about my piety. One day Titoff said
to me:
"Pray zealously for my whole family, Matvei. I beg of you, pray for us.
You will thus repay me for having gathered you to me and treated you
like a son."
But what did that mean to me? My prayers were without object, like the
song of a bird which he pours out to the sun. Nevertheless, I began
to pray for him and for his family, and especially for little Olga,
who had become a very pretty young girl, sweet and tender. I borrowed
the words of the Psalms of David and all the other prayers which I
knew. I liked to repeat the sing-song and cadenced phrases, but from
the time when I said in praying for Titoff: "Lord, in Thy grace, have
pity on Thy servant, Yegor," my heart closed. The spring of my prayers
became dry, the serenity of my joys was disturbed. I was ashamed before
God and could not continue. Lowering my eyes before the countenances
of the holy saints I arose, overcome with a feeling of anger and
embarrassment. It troubled me. Why should I feel like that? I tried to
understand it, but could not, and I was sorry for the joy which had
been destroyed on account of this man.