“I’ll give you five kopecks.”
“No, thank you kindly … You use those five kopecks to light a candle for me in the monastery … That’ll be curiouser, and I’ll just stay here. Mercy me, no ferry! As if it sank!”
The peasant went right down to the water, took hold of the cable, and called out:
“Ieronym! Ierony-y-ym!”
As if in answer to his shout, the drawn-out tolling of a big bell came from the other side. The tolling was dense, low, as from the thickest string of a double bass: it seemed that the darkness itself had groaned. All at once a cannon shot rang out. It rolled through the darkness and ended somewhere far behind my back. The peasant took off his hat and crossed himself.
“Christ is risen!”1 he said.
Before the waves from the first stroke of the bell congealed in the air, a second was heard, and immediately after it a third, and the darkness was filled with an incessant, trembling sound. New lights flared up by the red fires, and they all started moving, flickering restlessly.
“Ierony-y-ym!” a muted, drawn-out call was heard.
“They’re calling from the other side,” said the peasant. “That means the ferry’s not there either. Our Ieronym’s asleep.”
The lights and the velvety ringing of the bell were enticing … I was beginning to lose patience and become agitated, but then, finally, as I peered into the dark distance, I saw the silhouette of something that looked very much like a gallows. It was the long-awaited ferry. It was moving so slowly that if it had not been for the gradual sharpening of its outline, one might have thought it was standing in place or moving towards the other shore.
“Quick! Ieronym!” my peasant shouted. “A gentleman’s waiting!”
The ferry crept up to the bank, lurched, and creaked to a stop. On it, holding the cable, stood a tall man in a monk’s habit and a conical hat.
“Why so long?” I asked, jumping aboard the ferry.
“Forgive me, for the sake of Christ,” Ieronym said softly. “Is there anybody else?”
“Nobody …”
Ieronym took hold of the cable with both hands, curved himself into a question mark, and grunted. The ferry creaked and lurched. The silhouette of the peasant in the tall hat slowly began to recede from me—which meant that the ferry was moving. Soon Ieronym straightened up and began working with one hand. We were silent and looked at the bank towards which we were now moving. There the “lumination” which the peasant had been waiting for was already beginning. At the water’s edge, barrels of pitch blazed like huge bonfires. Their reflection, crimson as the rising moon, crept to meet us in long, wide stripes. The burning barrels threw light on their own smoke and on the long human shadows that flitted about the fire; but further to the sides and behind them, where the velvet ringing rushed from, was the same impenetrable darkness. Suddenly slashing it open, the golden ribbon of a rocket soared skywards; it described an arc and, as if shattering against the sky, burst and came sifting down in sparks. On the bank a noise was heard resembling a distant “hoorah.”
“How beautiful!” I said.
“It’s even impossible to say how beautiful!” sighed Ieronym. “It’s that kind of night, sir! At other times you don’t pay any attention to rockets, but now any vain thing makes you glad. Where are you from?”
I told him where I was from.
“So, sir … a joyful day this is …” Ieronym went on in a weak, gasping tenor, the way convalescents speak. “Heaven and earth and under the earth rejoice. The whole of creation celebrates. Only tell me, good sir, why is it that even amidst great joy a man can’t forget his griefs?”
It seemed to me that this unexpected question was an invitation to one of those “longanimous,” soul-saving conversations that idle and bored monks love so much. I was not in the mood for much talking and therefore merely asked:
“And what are your griefs, my good man?”
“Ordinary ones, like all people have, Your Honor, but this day a particular grief happened in the monastery: at the liturgy itself, during the Old Testament readings, the hierodeacon Nikolai died …”
“Then it’s God’s will!” I said, shamming a monkish tone. “We all must die. In my opinion you should even be glad … They say whoever dies on the eve of Easter or on Easter day will surely get into the Kingdom of Heaven.”
“That’s so.”
We fell silent. The silhouette of the peasant in the tall hat merged with the outline of the bank. The pitch barrels flared up more and more.
“And scripture clearly points out the vanity of grief and the need for reflection,” Ieronym broke the silence, “but what makes the soul grieve and refuse to listen to reason? What makes you want to weep bitterly?”
Ieronym shrugged his shoulders, turned to me, and began talking quickly:
“If it was I who died or somebody else, maybe it wouldn’t be so noticeable, but it was Nikolai who died! Nobody else but Nikolai! It’s even hard to believe he’s no longer in the world! I stand here on the ferry and keep thinking his voice will come from the bank any minute. He always came down to the bank and called out to me so that I wouldn’t feel scared on the ferry. He got out of bed in the middle of the night especially for that. A kind soul! God, what a kind and merciful soul! Some people’s mothers are not to them like this Nikolai was to me! Lord, save his soul!”
Ieronym took hold of the cable, but at once turned to me again.
“And such a bright mind, Your Honor!” he said in a sing-song voice. “Such sweet, good-sounding speech! Exactly like what they’re about to sing in the matins: ‘O how loving-kind! O how most sweet is thy word!’2 Besides all the other human qualities, he also had an extraordinary gift!”
“What gift?” I asked.
The monk looked me up and down and, as if having assured himself that I could be entrusted with secrets, laughed gaily.
“He had the gift of writing akathists3 …” he said. “A wonder, sir, and nothing but! You’ll be amazed if I explain it to you! Our father archimandrite4 is from Moscow, our father vicar graduated from the Kazan theological academy, there are intelligent hieromonks and elders among us, and yet, just imagine, not a single one of them could write akathists, but Nikolai, a simple monk, a hierodeacon, never studied anywhere and even had no external appeal, and yet he wrote! A wonder. A real wonder!”
Ieronym clasped his hands and, forgetting all about the cable, went on enthusiastically:
“Our father vicar has difficulty composing sermons; when he was writing the history of the monastery, he got all the brothers into a sweat and went to town ten times, but Nikolai wrote akathists! Akathists! A sermon or a history is nothing next to that!”
“So it’s really difficult to write akathists?” I asked.
“There’s enormous difficulty…” Ieronym wagged his head. “Wisdom and holiness won’t do anything here, if God doesn’t give you the gift. Monks who don’t understand about it reckon you only need to know the life of the saint you’re writing to, and then follow the other akathists. But that’s not right, sir. Of course, a man who writes an akathist has to know the life extremely well, to the last little point. Well, and also to follow the other akathists, how to begin and what to write about. To give you an example, the first kontakion begins every time with ‘the victorious’ or ‘the chosen’ … The first ikos always has to begin with angels. In the akathist to the Most Sweet Jesus, if you’re interested, it begins like this: ‘Creator of angels and lord of hosts,’ in the akathist to the Most Holy Mother of God: ‘An angel was sent from heaven to stand before,’ to Saint Nicholas the Wonderworker:5 ‘An angel in appearance, but of earthly nature,’ and so on. There’s always an angel at the beginning. Of course, you can’t do without following, but the main thing is not in the life, not in the correspondence with the others, but in the beauty and sweetness. It all has to be shapely, brief, and thorough. There should be softness, gentleness, and tenderness in every little line, so that there’s not a single coarse, harsh, or uns
uitable word. It has to be written so that the one who is praying will rejoice and weep in his heart, but shake and be in awe in his mind. In the akathist to the Mother of God there are the words: ‘Rejoice, height unattainable to human reason; rejoice, depth invisible to the eyes of angels!’ In another place in the same akathist it says: ‘Rejoice, tree of the bright fruit on which the faithful feed, rejoice, tree of good-shading leaves in which many find shelter!’”
Ieronym, as if frightened or embarrassed at something, covered his face with his hands and shook his head.
“Tree of the bright fruit … tree of good-shading leaves …” he murmured. “He really finds such words! The Lord gave him that ability! He puts many words and thoughts into one brief phrase, and it all comes out so smooth and thorough! ‘Light-proffering lamp to those …’ he says in the akathist to the Most Sweet Jesus. ‘Light-proffering!’ There’s no such word in our speech, or in our books, and yet he thought it up, he found it in his mind! Besides smoothness and eloquence, sir, it’s necessary that every little line be adorned in all ways, to have flowers in it, and lightning, and wind, and sun, and all things of the visible world. And every exclamation should be composed so that it’s smooth and easy on the ear. ‘Rejoice, lily of paradisal blossoming!’ it says in the akathist to Nicholas the Wonderworker. It doesn’t say simply ‘lily of paradise,’ but ‘lily of paradisal blossoming’! It’s sweeter and smoother on the ear. And that’s precisely how Nikolai wrote! Precisely like that! I can’t even express to you how he wrote!”
“In that case, it’s a pity he died,” I said. “However, my good man, let’s get moving, otherwise we’ll be late …”
Ieronym recovered himself and rushed to the cable. On the bank all the bells were ringing away. Probably the procession was already going around the monastery, because the whole dark space behind the pitch barrels was now strewn with moving lights.6
“Did Nikolai publish his akathists?” I asked Ieronym.
“Where could he publish them?” he sighed. “And it would be strange to publish them. What for? In our monastery nobody’s interested in them. They don’t like it. They knew Nikolai wrote them, but they paid no attention. Nowadays, sir, nobody respects new writings!”
“Are they prejudiced against them?”
“Exactly so. If Nikolai had been an elder, the brothers might have been curious, but he wasn’t even forty years old. There were some who laughed and even considered his writings a sin.”
“Then why did he write?”
“More for his own delight. Of all the brothers, I was the only one who read his akathists. I used to come to him on the quiet, so that the others wouldn’t see, and he was glad I was interested. He embraced me, stroked my head, called me tender words as if I were a little child. He would close the door, sit me down next to him, and start reading …”
Ieronym left the cable and came over to me.
“We were like friends, he and I,” he whispered, looking at me with shining eyes. “Wherever he went, I went, too. He missed me when I wasn’t there. And he loved me more than the others, and all because I wept from his akathists. It moves me to remember it! Now I’m like an orphan or a widow. You know, in our monastery the people are all good, kind, pious, but … there’s no softness and delicacy in any of them, they’re all like low-class people. They talk loudly, stamp their feet when they walk, make noise, cough, but Nikolai always spoke quietly, gently, and if he noticed that anyone was asleep or praying, he would pass by like a gnat or a mosquito. His face was tender, pitiful …”
Ieronym sighed deeply and took hold of the cable. We were nearing the bank. Out of the darkness and silence of the river we gradually floated into an enchanted kingdom, filled with suffocating smoke, sputtering lamps, and tumult. People could be seen clearly moving about the pitch barrels. The flashing of the fire lent their red faces and figures a strange, almost fantastic expression. Occasionally, among the heads and faces, horses’ muzzles appeared, motionless, as if cast in red copper.
“They’re about to start the Easter canon …” said Ieronym, “and Nikolai isn’t here, there’s no one to grasp it … For him there was no writing sweeter than this canon. He used to grasp every word of it! You’ll be there, sir, try to grasp what they sing: it will take your breath away!”
“And you won’t be in church?”
“I can’t be, sir … I have to take people across.”
“But won’t they relieve you?”
“I don’t know … I should have been relieved between eight and nine, but as you see, I haven’t been! … And, to tell the truth, I’d like to be in church …”
“Are you a monk?”
“Yes, sir … that is, I’m a novice.”
The ferry ran into the bank and stopped. I gave Ieronym a five-kopeck piece for the ride and jumped onto dry land. At once a cart with a boy and a sleeping woman drove creaking onto the ferry. Ieronym, faintly colored by the lights, leaned on the cable, curved his body, and pushed the ferry off…
I took a few steps through the mud, but further on I had to follow a soft, freshly trampled path. This path led to the dark, cave-like gates of the monastery, through clouds of smoke, through a disorderly crowd of people, unharnessed horses, carts, britzkas. It was all creaking, snorting, laughing, and over it all flashed crimson light and wavy shadows of smoke … A veritable chaos! And in this turmoil they still found room to load the little cannon and sell gingerbreads!
There was no less bustle on the other side of the wall, in the churchyard, but there was more ceremoniousness and order to be observed. Here there was a smell of juniper and incense. There was loud talk, but no laughter or snorting. People with kulichi7 and bundles huddled together among the tombstones and crosses. Obviously many of them had come a long way to have their kulichi blessed and were now tired. Over the cast-iron slabs that lay in a strip from the gates to the church door, busy young novices ran, loudly stamping their boots. In the bell tower there was also scurrying and shouting.
“What a restless night!” I thought. “How good!”
One would have liked to see this restlessness and sleeplessness in all of nature, beginning with the night’s darkness and ending with the slabs, the graveyard crosses, and the trees, under which people bustled about. But nowhere did the excitement and restlessness tell so strongly as in the church. At the entrance an irrepressible struggle went on between ebb and flow. Some went in, others came out and soon went back again, to stand for a little while and then move again. People shuttle from place to place, loiter, and seem to be looking for something. The wave starts at the entrance and passes through the whole church, even disturbing the front rows where the solid and weighty people stand. To concentrate on prayer is out of the question. There are no prayers, but there is a sort of massive, childishly instinctive joy that is only seeking an excuse to burst and pour itself out in some sort of movement, be it only an unabashed swaying and jostling.
The same extraordinary mobility strikes one’s eye in the paschal service itself. The royal doors8 in all the chapels are wide open, dense clouds of incense smoke float in the air around the big candle stand; everywhere one looks there are lights, brilliance, the sputtering of candles … There are no readings in this service; the busy and joyful singing goes on till the very end; after every ode of the canon the clergy change vestments and come out to cense the church, and this is repeated every ten minutes.
I had just managed to take my place when a wave surged from the front and threw me back. Before me passed a tall, sturdy deacon with a long red candle; behind him the gray-haired archimandrite in a golden mitre hurried with a censer. When they disappeared from view, the crowd pushed me back to my former place. But ten minutes had not gone by before a new wave surged and the deacon appeared again. This time he was followed by the father vicar, the one who, according to Ieronym, was writing a history of the monastery.
As I merged with the crowd and became infected with the general joyful excitement, I felt unbearably pained for Ier
onym. Why did they not relieve him? Why did someone less sensitive and impressionable not go to the ferry?
“Cast thine eyes about thee, O Zion, and behold …” sang the choir, “for lo! from the West and from the North, and from the sea, and from the East, as to a light by God illumined, have thy children assembled unto thee …”9
I looked at the faces. They all bore lively, festive expressions; but not one person listened to or tried to grasp what was being sung, and no one had their “breath taken away.” Why did they not relieve Ieronym? I could picture this Ieronym to myself, humbly standing somewhere near the wall, bending forward and eagerly seizing upon the beauty of the holy phrase. All that was now slipping past the hearing of the people standing about me, he would be eagerly drinking in with his sensitive soul, he would get drunk to the point of ecstasy, of breathlessness, and there would be no happier man in the whole church. But now he was going back and forth across the dark river and pining for his dead brother and friend.
A wave surged from behind. A stout, smiling monk, playing with his beads and glancing over his shoulder, squeezed past me sideways, making way for some lady in a hat and velvet coat. In the lady’s wake came a monastery server, holding a chair up over our heads.
I left the church. I wanted to look at the dead Nikolai, the unknown writer of akathists. I strolled near the churchyard fence where a row of monks’ cells stretched along the wall, peered through several windows and, seeing nothing, went back. Now I do not regret not having seen Nikolai; God knows, perhaps if I had seen him I would have lost the image my imagination now paints for me. This sympathetic, poetic man, who came at night to call out to Ieronym and who strewed his akathists with flowers, stars, and rays of sunlight, lonely and not understood, I picture to myself as timid, pale, with gentle, meek, and sad features. In his eyes, alongside intelligence, tenderness should shine, and that barely restrained, childlike exaltation I could hear in Ieronym’s voice when he quoted the akathists to me.