Page:The way of Martha and the way of Mary (1915).djvu/168

146 society, where there is less reading, life itself gives the terms of this outlook. So the coffin-maker in Tchekhof's story—"Rothschild's Fiddle"—has a ledger in which he notes down at the end of each day the losses of the day. All life expresses itself to him in losses, terrible, terrible losses. Smerdyakof, Dostoieffsky's most morbid conception, catches cats and hangs them at midnight with a ceremony and ritual of his own invention.

The old beggar pilgrim sings with cracked voice as he trudges through wind and rain:

I will go up on the hi-igh mounta-ain

And look into the mi-ighty de-ep,

A-and see about me a-all the earth

Where I fre-et and ve-ex my soul.

Ah, Eternity, it is but The-e I se-ek,

Little gra-ave, my little gra-a-a-a-ve,

You are my e-everla-asting ho-ome.

Yellow sand my be-ed,

Stones my ne-eigh-bours,

Wo-orms my fri-ends,

The da-amp earth my mo-other,

Mo-other, my mo-other.

Take me to e-e-ternal re-est.

O Lord have me-e-e-e-ercy!

Indeed, many such examples might be adduced to show the pre-occupation of the Russian with the idea of death. The funeral service music is favourite popular music. In the procession of moods in the soul of the young man he comes comparatively rapidly to "worms my neighbours." The excessive number of suicides in Russia may be explained by