ART

A GLOOMY winter morning.

On the smooth and glittering surface of the river Bystryanka,

sprinkled here and there with snow, stand two peasants, scrubby

little Seryozhka and the church beadle, Matvey. Seryozhka, a

short-legged, ragged, mangy-looking fellow of thirty, stares angrily

at the ice. Tufts of wool hang from his shaggy sheepskin like a

mangy dog. In his hands he holds a compass made of two pointed

sticks. Matvey, a fine-looking old man in a new sheepskin and high

felt boots, looks with mild blue eyes upwards where on the high

sloping bank a village nestles picturesquely. In his hands there

is a heavy crowbar.

"Well, are we going to stand like this till evening with our arms

folded?" says Seryozhka, breaking the silence and turning his angry

eyes on Matvey. "Have you come here to stand about, old fool, or

to work?"

"Well, you . . . er . . . show me . . ." Matvey mutters, blinking

mildly.

"Show you. . . . It's always me: me to show you, and me to do it.

They have no sense of their own! Mark it out with the compasses,

that's what's wanted! You can't break the ice without marking it

out. Mark it! Take the compass."

Matvey takes the compasses from Seryozhka's hands, and, shuffling

heavily on the same spot and jerking with his elbows in all directions,

he begins awkwardly trying to describe a circle on the ice. Seryozhka

screws up his eyes contemptuously and obviously enjoys his awkwardness

and incompetence.

"Eh-eh-eh!" he mutters angrily. "Even that you can't do! The fact

is you are a stupid peasant, a wooden-head! You ought to be grazing

geese and not making a Jordan! Give the compasses here! Give them

here, I say!"

Seryozhka snatches the compasses out of the hands of the perspiring

Matvey, and in an instant, jauntily twirling round on one heel, he

describes a circle on the ice. The outline of the new Jordan is

ready now, all that is left to do is to break the ice. . .

But before proceeding to the work Seryozhka spends a long time in

airs and graces, whims and reproaches. . .

"I am not obliged to work for you! You are employed in the church,

you do it!"

He obviously enjoys the peculiar position in which he has been

placed by the fate that has bestowed on him the rare talent of

surprising the whole parish once a year by his art. Poor mild Matvey

has to listen to many venomous and contemptuous words from him.

Seryozhka sets to work with vexation, with anger. He is lazy. He

has hardly described the circle when he is already itching to go

up to the village to drink tea, lounge about, and babble. . .

"I'll be back directly," he says, lighting his cigarette, "and

meanwhile you had better bring something to sit on and sweep up,

instead of standing there counting the crows."

Matvey is left alone. The air is grey and harsh but still. The white

church peeps out genially from behind the huts scattered on the

river bank. Jackdaws are incessantly circling round its golden

crosses. On one side of the village where the river bank breaks off

and is steep a hobbled horse is standing at the very edge, motionless

as a stone, probably asleep or deep in thought.

Matvey, too, stands motionless as a statue, waiting patiently. The

dreamily brooding look of the river, the circling of the jackdaws,

and the sight of the horse make him drowsy. One hour passes, a

second, and still Seryozhka does not come. The river has long been

swept and a box brought to sit on, but the drunken fellow does not

appear. Matvey waits and merely yawns. The feeling of boredom is

one of which he knows nothing. If he were told to stand on the river

for a day, a month, or a year he would stand there.

At last Seryozhka comes into sight from behind the huts. He walks

with a lurching gait, scarcely moving. He is too lazy to go the

long way round, and he comes not by the road, but prefers a short

cut in a straight line down the bank, and sticks in the snow, hangs

on to the bushes, slides on his back as he comes--and all this

slowly, with pauses.

"What are you about?" he cries, falling on Matvey at once. "Why are

you standing there doing nothing! When are you going to break the

ice?"

Matvey crosses himself, takes the crowbar in both hands, and begins

breaking the ice, carefully keeping to the circle that has been

drawn. Seryozhka sits down on the box and watches the heavy clumsy

movements of his assistant.

"Easy at the edges! Easy there!" he commands. "If you can't do it

properly, you shouldn't undertake it, once you have undertaken it

you should do it. You!"

A crowd collects on the top of the bank. At the sight of the

spectators Seryozhka becomes even more excited.

"I declare I am not going to do it . . ." he says, lighting a

stinking cigarette and spitting on the ground. "I should like to

see how you get on without me. Last year at Kostyukovo, Styopka

Gulkov undertook to make a Jordan as I do. And what did it amount

to--it was a laughing-stock. The Kostyukovo folks came to ours

--crowds and crowds of them! The people flocked from all the

villages."

"Because except for ours there is nowhere a proper Jordan . . ."

"Work, there is no time for talking. . . . Yes, old man . . . you

won't find another Jordan like it in the whole province. The soldiers

say you would look in vain, they are not so good even in the towns.

Easy, easy!"

Matvey puffs and groans. The work is not easy. The ice is firm and

thick; and he has to break it and at once take the pieces away that

the open space may not be blocked up.

But, hard as the work is and senseless as Seryozhka's commands are,

by three o'clock there is a large circle of dark water in the

Bystryanka.

"It was better last year," says Seryozhka angrily. "You can't do

even that! Ah, dummy! To keep such fools in the temple of God! Go

and bring a board to make the pegs! Bring the ring, you crow! And

er . . . get some bread somewhere . . . and some cucumbers, or

something."

Matvey goes off and soon afterwards comes back, carrying on his

shoulders an immense wooden ring which had been painted in previous

years in patterns of various colours. In the centre of the ring is

a red cross, at the circumference holes for the pegs. Seryozhka

takes the ring and covers the hole in the ice with it.

"Just right . . . it fits. . . . We have only to renew the paint

and it will be first-rate. . . . Come, why are you standing still?

Make the lectern. Or--er--go and get logs to make the cross . . ."

Matvey, who has not tasted food or drink all day, trudges up the

hill again. Lazy as Seryozhka is, he makes the pegs with his own

hands. He knows that those pegs have a miraculous power: whoever

gets hold of a peg after the blessing of the water will be lucky

for the whole year. Such work is really worth doing.

But the real work begins the following day. Then Seryozhka displays

himself before the ignorant Matvey in all the greatness of his

talent. There is no end to his babble, his fault-finding, his whims

and fancies. If Matvey nails two big pieces of wood to make a cross,

he is dissatisfied and tells him to do it again. If Matvey stands

still, Seryozhka asks him angrily why he does not go; if he moves,

Seryozhka shouts to him not to go away but to do his work. He is

not satisfied with his tools, with the weather, or with his own

talent; nothing pleases him.

Matvey saws out a great piece of ice for a lectern.

"Why have you broken off the corner?" cries Seryozhka, and glares

at him furiously. "Why have you broken off the corner? I ask you."

"Forgive me, for Christ's sake."

"Do it over again!"

Matvey saws again . . . and there is no end to his sufferings. A

lectern is to stand by the hole in the ice that is covered by the

painted ring; on the lectern is to be carved the cross and the open

gospel. But that is not all. Behind the lectern there is to be a

high cross to be seen by all the crowd and to glitter in the sun

as though sprinkled with diamonds and rubies. On the cross is to

be a dove carved out of ice. The path from the church to the Jordan

is to be strewn with branches of fir and juniper. All this is their

task.

First of all Seryozhka sets to work on the lectern. He works with

a file, a chisel, and an awl. He is perfectly successful in the

cross on the lectern, the gospel, and the drapery that hangs down

from the lectern. Then he begins on the dove. While he is trying

to carve an expression of meekness and humility on the face of the

dove, Matvey, lumbering about like a bear, is coating with ice the

cross he has made of wood. He takes the cross and dips it in the

hole. Waiting till the water has frozen on the cross he dips it in

a second time, and so on till the cross is covered with a thick

layer of ice. It is a difficult job, calling for a great deal of

strength and patience.

But now the delicate work is finished. Seryozhka races about the

village like one possessed. He swears and vows he will go at once

to the river and smash all his work. He is looking for suitable

paints.

His pockets are full of ochre, dark blue, red lead, and verdigris;

without paying a farthing he rushes headlong from one shop to

another. The shop is next door to the tavern. Here he has a drink;

with a wave of his hand he darts off without paying. At one hut he

gets beetroot leaves, at another an onion skin, out of which he

makes a yellow colour. He swears, shoves, threatens, and not a soul

murmurs! They all smile at him, they sympathise with him, call him

Sergey Nikititch; they all feel that his art is not his personal

affair but something that concerns them all, the whole people. One

creates, the others help him. Seryozhka in himself is a nonentity,

a sluggard, a drunkard, and a wastrel, but when he has his red lead

or compasses in his hand he is at once something higher, a servant

of God.

Epiphany morning comes. The precincts of the church and both banks

of the river for a long distance are swarming with people. Everything

that makes up the Jordan is scrupulously concealed under new mats.

Seryozhka is meekly moving about near the mats, trying to control

his emotion. He sees thousands of people. There are many here from

other parishes; these people have come many a mile on foot through

the frost and the snow merely to see his celebrated Jordan. Matvey,

who had finished his coarse, rough work, is by now back in the

church, there is no sight, no sound of him; he is already forgotten

. . . . The weather is lovely. . . . There is not a cloud in the sky.

The sunshine is dazzling.

The church bells ring out on the hill . . . Thousands of heads are

bared, thousands of hands are moving, there are thousands of signs

of the cross!

And Seryozhka does not know what to do with himself for impatience.

But now they are ringing the bells for the Sacrament; then half an

hour later a certain agitation is perceptible in the belfry and

among the people. Banners are borne out of the church one after the

other, while the bells peal in joyous haste. Seryozhka, trembling,

pulls away the mat . . . and the people behold something extraordinary.

The lectern, the wooden ring, the pegs, and the cross in the ice

are iridescent with thousands of colors. The cross and the dove

glitter so dazzlingly that it hurts the eyes to look at them.

Merciful God, how fine it is! A murmur of wonder and delight runs

through the crowd; the bells peal more loudly still, the day grows

brighter; the banners oscillate and move over the crowd as over the

waves. The procession, glittering with the settings of the ikons

and the vestments of the clergy, comes slowly down the road and

turns towards the Jordan. Hands are waved to the belfry for the

ringing to cease, and the blessing of the water begins. The priests

conduct the service slowly, deliberately, evidently trying to prolong

the ceremony and the joy of praying all gathered together. There

is perfect stillness.

But now they plunge the cross in, and the air echoes with an

extraordinary din. Guns are fired, the bells peal furiously, loud

exclamations of delight, shouts, and a rush to get the pegs. Seryozhka

listens to this uproar, sees thousands of eyes fixed upon him, and

the lazy fellow's soul is filled with a sense of glory and triumph.