The Russian Century: A Hundred Years of Russian Lives

its unusualness and grandeur. Tall Easter cakes covered with white napkins floated down the dark street; only they were visible; people seemed not to exist. In the dusky church, near the Plashchanitsa [a cloth representation of Christ’s funeral shroud] stood a line of people desirous of reading the Acts of the Apostles. I joined the group and was asked: “Do you know how to read?”

“I do.”

“Well, start reading then.”

I went up to the lectern and began pronouncing the syllables3 but stumbled over “Theophilios.” I just couldn’t get it out. I lost my confidence, stopped reading, and lowered my head in embarrassment. Someone came up to me and said: “If you can’t read, you have no business here.”

“I wanted to try it.”

“You’re better off trying Easter cakes,” and they moved me aside.

I couldn’t find a place to my liking in the church, so I went outside and sat on the steps.

“Where is Easter now?” I began to speculate. “Is it soaring in the heavens, or treading in the forest outside of town, through the marshes, on the fine needles of pine, on snowdrops, along the paths of heather and juniper, and what does it look like?”

I recalled a story that on the night of Christ’s luminous resurrection, a ladder descends from heaven and down it comes the Lord to us with the Holy Apostles, saints, passion-bearers, and martyrs. The Lord walks throughout the land, blessing the fields, forests, lakes, rivers, birds, mankind, beasts and all that was created through His holy will, and the saints sing, “Christ is risen from the dead . . .” The song of the saints scatters like seed along the ground, and from these seeds fine-scented lilies-of-the-valley sprout in the forests.

Midnight was approaching. The courtyard was thick with human voices. Someone came out of the church-keeper’s hut with a lantern.

“He’s coming! He’s coming!” the kids screamed madly, clapping their hands.

“Who’s coming?”

“’Leksandr, the bell ringer. He’s going to wham it now.”

And he did. A huge silver wheel seemed to roll along the earth after the first strike of the bell, and then another wheel, and then a third, and the paschal darkness spun in the silver ringing of all the city’s churches. Jacob, the beggar, noticed me in the darkness. “It’s a light-bearing ringing,” he said. “It’s the sound of enlightenment,” he said, and crossed himself several times.

The Matins service of Great Saturday began. Priests in white raiment raised up the Plashchanitsa and carried it into the sanctuary where it would lie on the altar until the feast of the Ascension. The heavy golden sepulchre was

Vasilii Nikiforov-Volgin, Presanctified Gifts

93

moved to its usual place with a rumbling sound. In that rumbling there was something paschal, significant. It was as if the heavy stone was being rolled away from the Lord’s tomb.

I noticed my father and mother. Going up to them I said, “I will never offend you.” And pressing myself to them, exclaimed, “What happiness!”

And the paschal joy kept rising like the Volga in flood, which father had described many times. The tall banners began to tremble like spring trees in a sunny breeze. People were getting ready for the procession around the church. The silver cross that stood behind the altar was brought out as was the gold-encased Gospel, and a great round bread—the artos.4 The uplifted icons began to smile, and everyone took up a red, lit paschal candle.

Silence was upon us. It was transparent and so light that, if one were to blow on it, it would tremble like gossamer. And in the midst of this silence the choir slowly began: “The angels in heaven, O Christ our Savior, sing thy resurrection.” And to this exalting song the procession began to stream in a sea of lights. My feet were stepped on; wax dripped on my head, but I hardly felt it, thinking, “That’s the way it’s supposed to be.” It’s Easter. The Lord’s Easter—little “sunspots” danced in my soul. Pressed tightly to each other, in the midnight darkness, on the streams of the resurrection song, showered by the pealing bells and warmed by flames of the candles, we circled the church lit white by hundreds of flames and stopped in anticipation before the tightly shut doors. The bells grew still. My heart suppressed its beating. My face was afire. The earth disappeared from underfoot—I seemed to be standing on a heavenly blue. And where was everybody? They had all been transformed into exultant paschal candles.

And now that enormous event, which I could not encompass at first, occurred. They sang, “Christ is risen from the dead.”