That morning early, in the assembly room, Mitya Krinin asked Shura:
“Well, have you brought it?”
Shura recalled that he had promised to bring Krinin a book of popular
songs. He replied: “Just a moment. I’ve left it in my overcoat.”
He ran into the dressing-room. The bells suddenly rang out in all parts
of the building, calling the students to prayer, without which the
lessons could hardly be expected to begin.
Shura made haste. He put his hand in the overcoat pocket, found
nothing; then, on discovering that it was some one else’s overcoat, he
exclaimed in vexation:
“There now, that’s something new—my hand in another boy’s overcoat!”
And he began to search in his own.
There was an outburst of derisive laughter. He looked around, startled,
to find there the mischievous Dutikov, who called out in his unpleasant
voice: “So, my boy, you’re going through other people’s pockets!”
Shura growled back angrily: “It’s not your affair. Anyway, I’m not
going through yours.”
He found his book and ran back to the assembly room, where the students
were already ranging themselves for the service, forming into long
rows, according to height. The smaller students stood in front, near to
the ikons, the taller behind; and in each row, in gradation, the lads
on the right were taller than those on the left. The school faculty
considered it necessary for them to pray in rows, and according to
height; otherwise the prayer might come to nothing. Apart from them,
there was a group of boys more proficient in chanting, and the leader
of these, at the beginning of each chant, changed his voice several
times—this was called “setting the tone.” The singing was loud, rapid,
expressionless; they might have all been beating drums. The head
student was reading in the prayer book the prayers which it was
customary to read and not to sing—and his reading was just as loud,
just as expressionless. In a word, it was the same as ever.
But after prayers something happened.