“Run, the church-bells are ringing! Be a good boy in church and don’t
play! If you do, God will punish you!”
My mother slipped a few copper coins into my hand and then forgot all
about me, as she ran into the kitchen with an iron that was growing
cold. I knew I should not be allowed to eat or drink after confession,
so before leaving home I choked down a crust of bread and drank two
glasses of water. Spring was at its height. The street was a sea of
brown mud through which ruts were already in process of being worn; the
housetops and sidewalks were dry, and the tender young green of
springtime was pushing up through last year’s dry grass under the fence
rows. Muddy rivulets were babbling and murmuring down the gutters in
which the sun did not disdain to lave its rays. Chips, bits of straw,
and nutshells were floating swiftly down with the current, twisting and
turning and catching on the dirty foam flakes. Whither, whither were
they drifting? Would they not be swept from the gutter into the river,
from the river into the sea, and from the sea into the mighty ocean? I
tried to picture to myself the long and terrible journey before them,
but my imagination failed even before reaching the river.
A cab drove by. The cabman was clucking to his horse and slapping the
reins, unaware of two street-urchins hanging from the springs of his
little carriage. I wanted to join these boys, but straightway remembered
that I was on my way to confession, whereupon the boys appeared to me to
be very wicked sinners indeed.
“God will ask them on the Last Judgment Day why they played tricks on a
poor cabman,” I thought. “They will begin to make excuses, but the devil
will grab them and throw them into eternal fire. But if they obey their
fathers and mothers and give pennies and bread to the beggars, God will
have mercy on them and will let them into Paradise.”
The church porch was sunny and dry. Not a soul was there; I opened the
church door irresolutely and entered the building. There, in the dim
light more fraught with melancholy and gloom for me than ever before, I
became overwhelmed by the consciousness of my wickedness and sin. The
first object that met my sight was a huge crucifixion with the Virgin
and St. John the Baptist on either side of the cross. The lustres and
shutters were hung with mourning black, the icon lamps were glimmering
faintly, and the sun seemed to be purposely avoiding the church windows.
The Mother of God and the favourite Disciple were depicted in profile
silently gazing at that unutterable agony upon the cross, oblivious of
my presence. I felt that I was a stranger to them, paltry and vile; that
I could not help them by word or deed; that I was a horrid, worthless
boy, fit only to chatter and be naughty and rough. I called to mind all
my acquaintances, and they all seemed to me to be trivial and silly and
wicked, incapable of consoling one atom the terrible grief before me.
The murky twilight deepened, the Mother of God and John the Baptist
seemed very lonely.
Behind the lectern where the candles were sold stood the old soldier
Prokofi, now churchwarden’s assistant.
His eyebrows were raised and he was stroking his beard and whispering to
an old woman.
“The service will begin directly after vespers this evening. There will
be prayers after matins to-morrow at eight o’clock. Do you hear me? At
eight o’clock.”
Between two large pillars near the rood-screen the penitents were
standing in line waiting their turn for confession. Among them was
Mitka, a ragged little brat with an ugly, shaven head, protruding ears,
and small, wicked eyes. He was the son of Nastasia the washerwoman, and
was a bully and a thief who filched apples from the fruit-stalls and had
more than once made away with my knuckle-bones. He was now staring
crossly at me and seemed to be exulting in the fact that he was going to
confession before me. My heart swelled with rage and I tried not to look
at him. From the bottom of my soul I was furious that this boy’s sins
were about to be forgiven.
In front of him stood a richly dressed lady with a white plume in her
hat. Clearly she was deeply agitated and tensely expectant, and one of
her cheeks was burning with a feverish flush.
I waited five minutes, ten minutes—then a well-dressed young man with a
long, thin neck came out from behind the screen. He had on high rubber
goloshes, and I at once began dreaming of the day when I should buy a
pair of goloshes like his for myself. I decided that I would certainly
do so. And now came the lady’s turn. She shuddered and went behind the
screen.
Through a crack I could see her approach the altar, prostrate herself,
rise, and bow her head expectantly without looking at the priest. The
priest’s back was turned toward the screen, and all I could see of him
was his broad shoulders, his curly grey hair, and the chain around his
neck from which a cross was suspended. Sighing, without looking at the
lady, he began nodding his head and whispering rapidly, now raising, now
lowering his voice. The lady listened meekly, guiltily almost, with
downcast eyes, and answered him in a few words.
“What can be her sin?” I wondered, looking reverently at her beautiful,
gentle face. “Forgive her, God, and make her happy!”
But now the priest was covering her head with the stole.
“I, Thy unworthy servant,” his voice rang out, “by the power vouchsafed
me, forgive this woman and absolve her from sin——”
The lady prostrated herself once more, kissed the cross, and retired.
Both her cheeks were flushed now, but her face was calm, and unclouded,
and joyous.
“She is happy now,” I thought, my eye wandering from her to the priest
pronouncing the absolution. “But how happy he must be who is able to
forgive sin!”
It was Mitka’s turn next, and my heart suddenly boiled over with hatred
for the little thief. I wanted to go behind the screen ahead of him, I
wanted to be first. Mitka noticed the movement, and hit me on the head
with a candle. I paid him back in his own coin, and for a moment sounds
of panting and the breaking of candles were heard in the church. We were
forcibly parted, and my enemy nervously and stiffly approached the altar
and bowed to the ground, but what happened after that I was unable to
see. All I could think of was that I was going next, after Mitka, and at
that thought the objects around me danced and swam before my eyes.
Mitka’s protruding ears grew larger than ever and melted into the back
of his neck, the priest swayed, and the floor rocked under my feet.
The priest’s voice rang out:
“I, Thy unworthy servant——”
I found myself moving toward the screen. My feet seemed to be treading
on air. I felt as if I were floating. I reached the altar, which was
higher than my head. The weary, dispassionate face of the priest flashed
for a moment across my vision, but after that I saw only his blue-lined
sleeves and one corner of the stole. I felt his near presence, smelled
the odour of his cassock, and heard his stern voice, and the cheek that
was turned toward him began to burn. I lost much of what he said from
excitement, but I answered him earnestly, in a voice that sounded to me
as if it were not my own. I thought of the lonely Mother of God, and the
Disciple, and the crucifixion, and my mother, and wanted to cry and ask
for forgiveness.
“What is your name?” asked the priest, laying the stole over my head.
How relieved I now felt, and how light of heart! My sins were gone, I
was sanctified. I could enter into Paradise. It seemed to me that I
exhaled the same odour as the priest’s cassock, and I sniffed my sleeve
as I came out from behind the screen and went to the deacon to register.
The dim half-light of the church no longer struck me as gloomy, and I
could now look calmly and without anger at Mitka.
“What is your name?” asked the deacon.
“Fedia.”
“Fedia, what?”
“I don’t know.”
“What is your daddy’s name?”
“Ivan.”
“And his other name?”