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EASTER EVE
By Chekhov, Anton Pavlovich, 1860-1904; Garnett, Constance Black, 1862-1946
I WAS Standing on the bank of the River Goltva,
waiting for the ferry-boat from the other side. At
ordinary times the Goltva is a humble stream of
moderate size, silent and pensive, gently glimmering
from behind thick reeds; but now a regular lake lay
stretched out before me. The waters of spring, run-
ning riot, had overflowed both banks and flooded
both sides of the river for a long distance, submerg-
ing vegetable gardens, hayfields and marshes, so that
it was no unusual thing to meet poplars and bushes
sticking out above the surface of the water and
looking in the darkness like grim solitary crags.
The weather seemed to me magnificent. It was
dark, yet I could see the trees, the water and the
people. . . . The world was lighted by the stars,
which were scattered thickly all over the sky. I
don't remember ever seeing so many stars. Liter-
ally one could not have put a finger in between them.
There were some as big as a goose's egg, others tiny
as hempseed. . . . They had come out for the festi-
val procession, every one of them, little and big,
washed, renewed and joyful, and every one of them
was softly twinkling its beams. The sky was re-
flected in the water; the stars were bathing in its
dark depths and trembling with the quivering eddies.
The air was warm and still. . . . Here and there,
far away on the further bank in the impenetrable
darkness, several bright red lights were gleam-
ing. . . .
A couple of paces from me I saw the dark
silhouette of a peasant in a high hat, with a thick
knotted stick in his hand.
" How long the ferry-boat is in coming! " I said.
" It is time it was here," the silhouette answered.
"You are waiting for the ferry-boat, too? "
"No, I am not," yawned the peasant — "I am
waiting for the illumination. I should have gone,
but, to tell you the truth, I haven't the five kopecks
for the ferry."
" I'll give you the five kopecks."
"No; I humbly thank you. . . . With that five
kopecks put up a candle for me over there in the
monastery. . . . That will be more interesting, and
I will stand here. What can it mean, no ferry-boat,
as though it had sunk in the water ! "
The peasant went up to the water's edge, took the
rope in his hands, and shouted: "leronim! leron
— im!
As though in answer to his shout, the slow peal
of a great bell floated across from the further bank.
The note was deep and low, as from the thickest
string of a double bass; it seemed as though the
darkness itself had hoarsely uttered it. At once
there was the sound of a cannon shot. It rolled
away in the darkness and ended somewhere in the
far distance behind me. The peasant took off his
hat and crossed himself.
" Christ is risen," he said.
Before the vibrations of the first peal of the bell
had time to die away in the air a second sounded,
after it at once a third, and the darkness was filled
with an unbroken quivering clamour. Near the red
lights fresh lights flashed, and all began moving to-
gether and twinkling restlessly.
" leron — im! " we heard a hollow prolonged
shout.
" They are shouting from the other bank," said
the peasant, " so there is no ferry there either. Our
leronim has gone to sleep."
The lights and the velvety chimes of the bell drew
one towards them. ... I was already beginning to
lose patience and grow anxious, but behold at last,
staring into the dark distance, I saw the outline of
something very much like a gibbet. It was the long-
expected ferry. It moved towards us with such de-
liberation that if it had not been that its lines grew
gradually more definite, one might have supposed
that it was standing still or moving to the other bank.
" Make haste! leronim! " shouted my peasant.
" The gentleman's tired of waiting! "
The ferry crawled to the bank, gave a lurch and
stopped with a creak. A tall man in a monk's
cassock and a conical cap stood on it, holding the
rope.
" Why have you been so long? " I asked, jumping
upon the ferry.
" Forgive me, for Christ's sake," leronim an-
swered gently. " Is there no one else ? "
" No one. . . ."
leronim took hold of the rope In both hands,
bent himself to the figure of a mark of interrogation,
and gasped. The ferry-boat creaked and gave a
lurch. The outline of the peasant in the high hat
began slowly retreating from me — so the ferry was
moving off. leronim soon drew himself up and
began working with one hand only. We were silent,
gazing towards the bank to which we were floating.
There the illumination for which the peasant was
waiting had begun. At the water's edge barrels of
tar were flaring like huge camp fires. Their reflec-
tions, crimson as the rising moon, crept to meet us
in long broad streaks. The burning barrels lighted
up their own smoke and the long shadows of men
flitting about the fire; but further to one side and
behind them from where the velvety chime floated
there was still the same unbroken black gloom. All
at once, cleaving the darkness, a rocket zigzagged
in a golden ribbon up the sky; it described an arc
and, as though, broken to pieces against the sky, was
scattered crackling into sparks. There was a roar
from the bank like a far-away hurrah.
" How beautiful ! " I said.
" Beautiful beyond words ! " sighed leronim.
"Such a night, sir I Another time one would pay
no attention to the fireworks, but to-day one rejoices
in every vanity. Where do you come from? "
I told him where I came from.
" To be sure ... a joyful day to-day. . . ."
leronim went on in a weak sighing tenor like the
voice of a convalescent. " The sky is rejoicing and
the earth, and what is under the earth. All the
creatures are keeping holiday. Only tell me, kind
sir, why, even in the time of great rejoicing, a man
cannot forget his sorrows? "
I fancied that this unexpected question was to
draw me into one of those endless religious conversa-
tions which bored and Idle monks are so fond of.
I was not disposed to talk much, and so I only asked:
"What sorrows have you, father? "
" As a rule only the same as all men, kind sir,
but to-day a special sorrow has happened in the
monastery: at mass, during the reading of the Bible,
the monk and deacon Nikolay died."
"Well, it's God's will!" I said, falling Into the
monastic tone. " We must all die. To my mind,
you ought to rejoice Indeed. . . . They say if any-
one dies at Easter he goes straight to the kingdom of
heaven."
" That's true."
We sank into silence. The figure of the peasant
in the high hat melted into the lines of the bank.
The tar barrels were flaring up more and more.
" The Holy Scripture points clearly to the vanity
of sorrow, and so does reflection," said leronim,
breaking the silence; " but why does the heart grieve
and refuse to listen to reason? Why does one want
to weep bitterly? "
leronim shrugged his shoulders, turned to me and
said quickly:
" If I died, or anyone else. It would not be worth
notice, perhaps; but, you see, Nikolay Is dead! No
one else but Nikolay! Indeed, it's hard to believe
that he Is no more ! I stand here on my ferry-boat
and every minute I keep fancying that he will lift up
his voice from the bank. He always used to come
to the bank and call to me that I might not be afraid
on the ferry. He used to get up from his bed at
night on purpose for that. He was a kind soul.
My God! how kindly and gracious! Many a
mother Is not so good to her child as Nikolay was
to me ! Lord, save his soul I "
leronim took hold of the rope, but turned to me
again at once.
" And such a lofty intelligence, your honour," he
said in a vibrating voice. " Such a sweet and har-
monious tongue ! Just as they will sing immediately
at early matins: 'Oh lovely! oh sweet is Thy
Voice ! ' Besides all other human qualities, he had,
too, an extraordinary gift ! "
"What gift?" I asked.
The monk scrutinized me, and as though he had
convinced himself that he could trust me with a
secret, he laughed good-humouredly.
" He had a gift for writing hymns of praise," he
said. " It was a marvel, sir; you couldn't call it
anything else! You will be amazed if I tell you
about it. Our Father Archimandrite comes from
Moscow, the Father Sub-Prior studied at the Kazan
academy, we have wise monks and elders, but, would
you believe it, no one could write them; while Niko-
lay, a simple monk, a deacon, had not studied any-
where, and had not even any outer appearance of it,
but he wrote them! A marvel! a real marvel!"
leronim clasped his. hands and, completely forgetting
the rope, went on eagerly:
" The Father Sub-Prior has great difficulty in com-
posing sermons; when he wrote the history of the
monastery he worried all the brotherhood and drove
a dozen times to town, while Nikolay wrote canticles I
Hymns of praise! That's a very different thing
from a sermon or a history! "
" Is it difficult to write them? " I asked.
" There's great difficulty! " leronim wagged his
head. " You can do nothing by wisdom and holiness
if God has not given you the gift. The monks who
don't understand argue that you only need to know
the life of the saint for whom you are writing the
hymn, and to make it harmonize with the other
hymns of praise. But that's a mistake, sir. Of
course, anyone who writes canticles must know the
life of the saint to perfection, to the least trivial de-
tail. To be sure, one must make them harmonize
with the other canticles and know where to begin
and what to write about. To give you an Instance,
the first response begins everywhere with ' the
chosen ' or ' the elect.' . . . The first line must al-
ways begin with the ' angel.' In the canticle of
praise to Jesus the Most Sweet, If you are Interested
In the subject, it begins like this: ' Of angels Cre-
ator and Lord of all powers! ' In the canticle to
the Holy Mother of God : ' Of angels the foremost
sent down from on high,' to Nikolay, the Wonder-
worker — ' an angel In semblance, though In sub-
stance a man,' and so on. Everywhere you begin
with the angel. Of course, it would be Im-
possible without making them harmonize, but the
lives of the saints and conformity with the others
is not what matters; what matters Is the beauty and
sweetness of It. Everything must be harmonious,
brief and complete. There must be in every line
softness, graciousness and tenderness; not one word
should be harsh or rough or unsuitable. It must be
written so that the worshipper may rejoice at heart
and weep, while his mind is stirred and he Is thrown
Into a tremor. In the canticle to the Holy Mother
are the words: 'Rejoice, O Thou too high for
human thought to reach ! Rejoice, O Thou too deep
for angels' eyes to fathom ! ' In another place in the
same canticle: 'Rejoice, O tree that bearest the
fair fruit of light that is the food of the faithful 1
Rejoice, O tree of gracious spreading shade, under
which there is shelter for multitudes!
leronim hid his face in his hands, as though fright-
ened at something or overcome with shame, and
shook his head.
" Tree that bearest the fair fruit of light . . .
tree of gracious spreading shade, . . ." he muttered.
" To think that a man should find words like those 1
Such a power is a gift from God! For brevity he
packs many thoughts into one phrase, and how
smooth and complete it all is ! ' Light-radiating
torch to all that be . . .' comes in the canticle to
Jesus the Most Sweet. ' Light-radiating! ' There
is no such word in conversation or in books, but you
see he invented it, he found it in his mind! Apart
from the smoothness and grandeur of language, sir,
every line must be beautified in every way; there
must be flowers and Hghtning and wind and sun and
all the objects of the visible world. And every ex-
clamation ought to be put so as to be smooth and
easy for the ear. ' Rejoice, thou flower of heavenly
growth ! ' comes in the hymn to Nikolay the Wonder-
worker. It's not simply ' heavenly flower,' but
' flower of heavenly growth.' It's smoother so and
sweet to the ear. That was just as Nikolay wrote
it I exactly like that ! I can't tell you how he used to
write ! "
"Well, in that case it Is a pity he is dead," I
said; "but let us get on, father, or we shall be
late."
leronim started and ran to the rope; they were
beginning to peal all the bells. Probably the pro-
cession was already going on near the monastery, for
all the dark space behind the tar barrels was now
dotted with moving lights.
" Did Nikolay print his hymns? " I asked leronim.
" How could he print them? " he sighed. " And,
indeed, it would be strange to print them. What
would be the object? No one in the monastery takes
any interest in them. They don't like them. They
knew Nikolay wrote them, but they let it pass un-
noticed. No one esteems new writings nowadays,
sir!"
" Were they prejudiced against him? "
*' Yes, indeed. If Nikolay had been an elder per-
haps the brethren would have been interested, but he
wasn't forty, you know. There were some who
laughed and even thought his writing a sin."
" What did he write them for? "
" Chiefly for his own comfort. Of all the broth-
erhood, I was the only one who read his hymns. I
used to go to him in secret, that no one else might
know of it, and he was glad that I took an Interest
in them. He would embrace me, stroke my head,
speak to me in caressing words as to a little child.
He would shut his cell, make me sit down beside him,
and begin to read. . . ."
leronim left the rope and came up to me.
*' We were dear friends in a way," he whispered,
looking at me with shining eyes. " Where he went
I would go. If I were not there he would miss me.
And he cared more for me than for anyone, and all
because I used to weep over his hymns. It makes
me sad to remember. Now I feel just like an orphan
or a widow. You know, in our monastery they are
all good people, kind and pious, but . . . there is no
one with softness and refinement, they are just like
peasants. They all speak loudly, and tramp heavily
when they walk; they are noisy, they clear their
throats, but Nikolay always talked softly, caress-
ingly, and if he noticed that anyone was asleep or
praying he would slip by hke a fly or a gnat. His
face was tender, compassionate. . . ."
leronim heaved a deep sigh and took hold of the
rope again. We were by now approaching the bank.
We floated straight out of the darkness and stillness
of the river into an enchanted realm, full of stifling
smoke, crackling lights and uproar. By now one
could distinctly see people moving near the tar
barrels. The flickering of the lights gave a strange,
almost fantastic, expression to their figures and red
faces. From time to time one caught among the
heads and faces a glimpse of a horse's head motion-
less as though cast in copper.
" They'll begin singing the Easter hymn directly,
. . ." said leronim, " and Nikolay is gone; there is
no one to appreciate It. . . . There was nothing
written dearer to him than that hymn. He used to
take in every word! You'll be there, sir, so notice
what is sung; it takes your breath away! "
" Won't you be in church, then? "
"I can't; ... I have to work the ferry. . . ."
" But won't they relieve you? "
" I don't know. ... I ought to have been re-
lieved at eight; but, as you see, they don't come! . . .
And I must own I should have liked to be in the
church. . . ."
" Are you a monk? "
"Yes . . . that is, I am a lay brother."
The ferry ran into the bank and stopped. I thrust
a five kopeck piece into leronim's hand for taking me
across, and jumped on land. Immediately a cart
with a boy and a sleeping woman in it drove creaking
onto the ferry, leronim, with a faint glow from the
lights on his figure, pressed on the rope, bent down to
it, and started the ferry back. . . .
I took a few steps through mud, but a little farther
walked on a soft freshly trodden path. This path
led to the dark monastery gates, that looked like a
cavern through a cloud of smoke, through a dis-
orderly crowd of people, unharnessed horses, carts
and chaises. All this crowd was rattling, snorting,
laughing, and the crimson light and wavering
shadows from the smoke flickered over it all. . . .
A perfect chaos ! And in this subbub the people yet
found room to load a little cannon and to sell cakes.
There was no less commotion on the other side of the
wall in the monastery precincts, but there was more
regard for decorum and order. Here there was a
smell of juniper and incense. They talked loudly,
but there was no sound of laughter or snorting.
Near the tombstones and crosses people pressed close
to one another with Easter cakes and bundles in their
arms. Apparently many had come from a long dis-
tance for their cakes to be blessed and now were
exhausted. Young lay brothers, making a metallic
sound with their boots, ran busily along the iron slabs
that paved the way from the monastery gates to
the church door. They were busy and shouting on
the belfry, too.
"What a restless night!" I thought. "How
nice!"
One was tempted to see the same unrest and sleep-
lessness in all nature, from the night darkness to the
iron slabs, the crosses on the tombs and the trees
under which the people were moving to and fro.
But nowhere was the excitement and restlessness so
marked as in the church. An unceasing struggle
was going on in the entrance between the inflowing
stream and the outflowing stream. Some were going
in, others going out and soon coming back again to
stand still for a little and begin moving again.
People were scurrying from place to place, lounging
about as though they were looking for something.
The stream flowed from the entrance all round the
church, disturbing even the front rows, where per-
sons of weight and dignity were standing. There
could be no thought of concentrated prayer. There
were no prayers at all, but a sort of continuous, child-
ishly irresponsible joy, seeking a pretext to break out
and vent itself in some movement, even in senseless
jostling and shoving.
The same unaccustomed movement is striking in
the Easter service itself. The altar gates are flung
wide open, thick clouds of incense float in the air
near the candelabra; wherever one looks there are
lights, the gleam and splutter of candles. . . .
There is no reading; restless and light-hearted sing-
ing goes on to the end without ceasing. After each
hymn the clergy change their vestments and come out
to burn incense, which is repeated every ten min-
utes.
I had no sooner taken a place, when a wave rushed
from in front and forced me back. A tall thick-set
deacon walked before me with a long red candle; the
grey-headed archimandrite in his golden mitre hur-
ried after him with the censer. When they had
vanished from sight the crowd squeezed me back to
my former position. But ten minutes had not passed
before a new wave burst on me, and again the deacon
appeared. This time he was followed by the Father
Sub-Prior, the man who, as leronim had told me,
was writing the history of the monastery.
As I mingled with the crowd and caught the in-
fection of the universal joyful excitement, I felt un-
bearably sore on leronim's account. Why did they
not send someone to relieve him? Why could not
someone of less feeling and less susceptibility go on
the ferry? *' Lift up thine eyes, O Sion, and look
around," they sang in the choir, " for thy children
have come to thee as to a beacon of divine light from
north and south, and from east and from the
sea. . . ."
I looked at the faces; they all had a lively expres-
sion of triumph, but not one was listening to what
was being sung and taking it in, and not one was
" holding his breath." Why was not leronim re-
leased? I could fancy leronim standing meekly
somewhere by the wall, bending forward and hun-
grily drinking in the beauty of the holy phrase. All
this that ghded by the ears of people standing by
me he would have eagerly drunk in with his delicately
sensitive soul, and would have been spell-bound to
ecstasy, to holding his breath, and there would not
have been a man happier than he in all the church.
Now he was plying to and fro over the dark river
and grieving for his dead friend and brother.
The wave surged back. A stout smiling monk,
playing with his rosary and looking round behind
him, squeezed sideways by me, making way for a
lady in a hat and velvet cloak. A monastery servant
hurried after the lady, holding a chair over our
heads.
I came out of the church. I wanted to have a
look at the dead Nikolay, the unknown canticle
writer. I walked about the monastery wall, where
there was a row of cells, peeped into several windows,
and, seeing nothing, came back again. I do not
regret now that I did not see Nikolay; God knows,
perhaps if I had seen him I should have lost the
picture my imagination paints for me now. I
imagine that lovable poetical figure, solitary and not
understood, who went out at nights to call to leronim
over the water, and filled his hymns with flowers,
stars and sunbeams, as a pale timid man with soft,
mild, melancholy features. His eyes must have
shone, not only with intelligence, but with kindly
tenderness and that hardly restrained childlike en-
thusiasm which I could hear in leronim's voice when
he quoted to me passages from the hymns.
When we came out of church after mass it was
no longer night. The morning was beginning.
The stars had gone out and the sky was a morose
greyish blue. The iron slabs, the tombstones and
the buds on the trees were covered with dew. There
was a sharp freshness in the air. Outside the pre-
cincts I did not find the same animated scene as I
had beheld in the night. Horses and men looked
exhausted, drowsy, scarcely moved, while nothing
was left of the tar barrels but heaps of black ash.
When anyone is exhausted and sleepy he fancies that
nature, too, is in the same condition. It seemed to
me that the trees and the young grass were asleep.
It seemed as though even the bells were not pealing
so loudly and gaily as at night. The restlessness was
over, and of the excitement nothing was left but a
pleasant weariness, a longing for sleep and warmth.
Now I could see both banks of the river; a faint
mist hovered over it in shifting masses. There was
a harsh cold breath from the water. When I
jumped on to the ferry, a chaise and some two dozen
men and women were standing on it already. The
rope, wet and as I fancied drowsy, stretched far away
across the broad river and in places disappeared in
the white mist.
" Christ is risen! Is there no one else? " asked a
soft voice.
I recognized the voice of leronim. There was no
darkness now to hinder me from seeing the monk.
He was a tall narrow-shouldered man of five-and-
thirty, with large rounded features, with half-closed
listless-looking eyes and an unkempt wedge-shaped
beard. He had an extraordinarily sad and ex-
hausted look.
"They have not relieved you yet?" I asked in
surprise.
"Me?" he answered, turning to me his chilled
and dewy face with a smile. " There is no one to
take my place now till morning. They'll all be going
to the Father Archimandrite's to break the fast di-
rectly."
With the help of a little peasant in a hat of reddish
fur that looked like the little wooden tubs in which
honey is sold, he threw his weight on the rope; they
gasped simultaneously, and the ferry started.
We floated across, disturbing on the way the lazily
rising mist. Everyone was silent. leronim worked
mechanically with one hand. He slowly passed his
mild lustreless eyes over us; then his glance rested on
the rosy face of a young merchant's wife with black
eyebrows, who was standing on the ferry beside me
silently shrinking from the mist that wrapped her
about. He did not take his eyes off her face all the
way.
There was little that was masculine In that pro-
longed gaze. It seemed to me that leronim was
looking in the woman's face for the soft and tender
features of his dead friend.
Finish