Page:The Russian Review Volume 1.djvu/173

Rh of memorizing church canons and quotations from the Fathers of the Church, had developed his memory wonderfully. In order to memorize a whole page of the complicated works of such dialecticians as Augustine, Tertullian, Origen, and Basil the Great, all he had to do was to read the lines, and they would become firmly fixed in his memory. Books for reading were supplied by his friends, Smirnov, a student at the Academy. The book he had just read was a beautiful story of life in the Caucasus, where soldiers, Cossacks, and Chechens killed each other, drank wine, married, and hunted wild beasts.

The book aroused the archdeacon's adventurous soul. He read it over three times, and during each reading he cried and laughed with joy, doubled his fists, and turned his huge body from side to side. Of course, it would have been much better if he were a hunter, a fisherman, a horseman; certainly, his place was not in the clergy.

He always came to the church a little later than was necessary; just like the famous baritone at the opera. Approaching the southern gate of the altar, he tested his voice for the last time.

"Hm, hm Sounds like D, and that rascal of a regent will be sure to strike C-sharp. But I don't care. I'll get the choir to sing my tone, anyway."

The pride of the popular favorite awoke in him. He knew that the whole city adored him, and that even boys in the streets gathered in crowds to gaze at him, as they did upon the gaping mouth of the enormous trumpet in the military orchestra that played in the public square.

The archbishop came in and was solemnly led to his place. His mitre was tilted a little to the left. Two subdeacons were standing on each side, swaying the censers rhythmically. The clergy, in bright holiday vestments, surrounded the archbishop's seat. Two clergymen brought the images of the Saviour and the Virgin Mary from the altar.

The church was an old one, and, like Catholic churches, it had a little elevated platform in one corner, with a carved oak railing around it, and a flight of narrow, winding steps leading up to it.

Slowly, feeling each step and carefully supporting himself by the hand rail, as he was always afraid to break something through his awkwardness, the archdeacon mounted the platform, coughed, spit over the railing, touched his tuning-fork, went from C to D, and began the service.

"Bless me, your most gracious Eminence!"

"Oh no, Mr. Regent. You won't dare to change the pitch as long as the bishop is here," he thought. He felt with pleasure at that moment that his voice sounded better than ever, went easily from note to note, and made the air of the whole church tremble with its soft, deep sighs.

It was Quadragesima Sunday, in the first week of Lent. At first there was very little work for Father Olympy. The reader