All Sorts/Holy Fire
I
HOLY FIRE
I
The voice filled the stillness as an organ fills a vast and empty cathedral. It rolled out over the wide and misty fields. It rose sonorously into the pale dome of the morning.
"... for the abundance of the fruits of the earth and for peaceful times, let us beseech the Lord!"
The two peasants answered "Lord have mercy upon us!" They were sturdy and heavy-browed, and in their dull coloured blouses they seemed part of the patient earth which murmured under their tread. But the white-bearded priest who towered between them was a mighty man. His shoulders were broad and terribly strong, and the deep-set eyes were brilliant as a hawk's. His golden vestments shone in the early sunlight; they threw a radiance about him as he moved.
"... let us beseech the Lord!" he chanted splendidly.
They went on down the long furrow. The censer clashed softly as it swung to and fro, and a sweet-scented cloud mingled with the quiet air. Behind them the sower kept solemn pace, flinging out a rhythmic hand and a shower of peed over the blessed soil. At first there seemed nothing else but these four figures moving up and down the furrows—no other sound but the priest's voice and the crunch of the earth under his feet. As the sun threw off its misty morning veil the endless space was broken by little things—by a river that was wide and swift and treacherous, and yet flowed between its steep red banks like a silver thread. And a village, a toy village, thrown down by a careless child, lay scattered amidst the fields; and a tiny church, glistening white, bravely lifted its bright green cupolas an inch or two nearer God. From an invisible belfry a sheep bell tinkled.
In the flat, tireless immensity, and under the empty vaulted sky, these were just little things.
But the priest was like a moving column of gold, and his voice was like the voice of the impregnated earth itself.
"... for this land, and for the fruits that it shall bear, and for those faithful, who in due course shall partake of them, let us beseech the Lord..."
They came at last to the road. It was broad and the deep ruts that lay half-hidden under the brown dust made hard travelling. Yet it was a wonderful road. It led to another village fourteen versts away, and beyond that again to the horizon—to Warsaw—to the end of the earth—to the end of unending Russia. When the villagers crossed it going to their fields they were wont to stop a moment, and their eyes would travel along its length to the horizon. It troubled and menaced them. They feared and loved it, as a child fears and loves fairy enchantment. It was life—unresting, dangerous and lonely, for ever seeking, for ever pressing forward towards the unknown.
The priest's voice died into silence. He, too, was looking along the road, and the hawk's eyes had the rapt, mystic look of youth. A puff of wind arose and blew the Jong hair to a silver aureole about his head.
"God has been good to us," he said. "He has heard our prayer. We have had peace. Our good soil has not suffered. The enemy has not come"
"May God curse him!" the elder of the two men answered bitterly. "God curse him!"
The priest shook his head.
"Sin is God's curse. We must pray for God's blessing on our enemy, Dmitri."
"Yes, Holy Father, that is so."
But they were puzzled. He made the sign of the Cross over the uncovered heads, and went his way, and they gazed after him wonderingly. Though they did not understand his words, they knew that they were righteous. He was not like the priest of the neighbouring village who drank and blasphemed. He was pitying and just to others, and to himself merciless. He was a good man.
Dmitri uncrossed his hands.
"So now we must pray for our enemy, brother," Ivan nodded stolidly.
"Yes. The Holy Father is right. We must pray."
They went back over the fields to the sower, who sang, as he flung his seed to the hungry furrows:—
"Over Holy Russia the cocks are crowing.
Soon the dawn will come to Holy Russia."
II
The day was wide awake when the priest reached the village. The doors of the untidy wooden houses stood open and women's faces peered out at him. A knot of fair-haired children, who tumbled about the street in pursuit of an errant pig, stood still and gazed solemnly but without fear. He smiled at them, and raised his hand in blessing. But now he seemed less big, less terribly strong. The full sunlight fell unkindly on the golden vestments, and showed up stains and faded, tarnished threads and the dust about the hem. Once they had been really splendid; but that was long ago, when the priest had been young and ardent and full of hope. He had stood in his new vestments before the altar, and the people had looked at him as at a vision. Now only in the tender dawn, or in the dim twilight of his church did he reach up again to that first splendour. In the hard, garish daylight he was just an old man making his way wearily homewards along a squalid street in a poverty-stricken village, where none of the wonderful things he bad dreamed of had ever happened. He knew now that they would never happen. He himself had grown dim and shabby.
A little old woman came down the street towards him. She was bent almost double under her invisible burden, and the faded eyes that peered so anxiously into the sunlight were wide and blank. A child led her, but when he saw who it was who came to meet them he flung off the clutching bony hand and ran like a young hare and caught the old priest by the gold cloak with irreverent, grubby fingers.
"Dyed! Dyed!" he cried in his shrill boy's soprano, and looked up, laughing and afraid and triumphant all in one.
But the old woman stood alone and helpless, tapping about her with her stick and muttering piteously.
The priest lifted the boy and kissed him on each ruddy cheek.
"That was wrong, Stefan. See how you have frightened her! That was not kind."
"She is so slow!" The child pressed close, panting and eager. "Granny is so slow. She said I was to find you and I have found you, haven't I, Dyed? So you musn't let her scold me. And besides, I couldn't wait—father has written!" He drew his round face into comical lines of importance. "The schoolmaster read the letter to her—and they both cried," he said.
The priest set the boy down again. He went to the old woman and took her hand, and as he touched her the wrinkled, troubled face lit up with an inward fire, and the sunken mouth had an odd, tremulous sweetness.
"Is that you, Michael Gregorovitch?"
"Yes, wife, it is I. Stefan saw me and ran to fetch me. He did not mean to leave you. He was excited—he said you had had a letter."
"Yes—yes, from Alexis—our son." She turned her head away. "Boris Andrief read it to me—and then I, too, could not wait."
"He is well—Alexis?"
"I do not know."
"Yet he wrote"
"It was not a letter—not an ordinary letter. It did not come by the Government. A soldier brought it. He belongs to a village near by. And he was wounded and they sent him home. Alexis had given him the letter" Her voice quavered and broke. "Father, we shall not see our son again!" she wailed.
He looked down at her. She was old and broken. He had a sudden vision of her as she had been years back, when she had carried Alexis in her arms. He saw her in a frame of green foliage, laughing at him, her eyes bright and her cheeks ruddy as apples. He felt his own hands tremble with the years as he lifted them in protest.
"Why do you say that, wife? Why shall we not see him again?"
"They came!" she whispered, and now the sentences flew from her shaking lips. "They came to his village, and they killed and killed and killed. They burnt down his church. And he took off his priest's dress, and he shaved his hair, and dressed himself in the uniform of a dead soldier. He was not a priest any more, Father. He went with the armies of Russia"
The old man drew himself up.
"He did wrong. He sinned. He was a priest He belonged to God."
"Father, they killed women and children"
"He could have prayed for them—as God bade him."
The little Stefan clapped his hands.
"I would rather be a soldier than a priest. I am glad my father is a soldier. Priests can only pray. Soldiers can kill wicked people."
"Soldiers put out the light that God kindled," was the answer. "A priest keeps the lamp fed."
The little Stefan stood still a moment, pensive.
"Like the lamp, before the altar, Dyed?"
"Yes, like the lamp, before the altar."
They went on slowly, little Stefan between them, holding their hands and kicking up the dust with his bare feet. But even he was sobered. Something had happened; the hands that held his trembled, and on his grandfather's face was a strange look. The something that had happened was worse than anything the little Stefan had ever known—worse, even, than when they had come to fetch his mother, who lay so still and silent in her long, narrow box.
At the bottom of the street stood the priest's house and the white church. The priest's house was no different from all the other houses in the street—sordid and broken down; but the church sparkled in the bright sunlight like a crown of diamonds. And the four green cupolas were like great shining emeralds.
The priest stopped, still holding little Stefan by the hand.
"I was growing old/' he said, "but now I must be young again. I waited for Alexis. But he will never come. It will be many years before Stefan can take my place."
The old woman's ghostly hands were clasped piteously.
"But you will pray for him, Father—you will pray for Alexis?"
"I pray for all men."
"He was our son."
"He has thrown aside his heritage."
"He did right," she cried fiercely.
"God will judge."
"He has judged," she almost screamed. "Our son is dead!"
The priest crossed himself with a steady hand.
"It is God's will."
"Will you not curse those who killed him?"
"No, no, wife. I can't do that."
"Is that all you say, Michael Gregorovitch? They call you a good man—they say that God loves you because you are so good; but I say that you are bad—I say that you are hard and pitiless." She clung to him with frantic hands. "No, no, it is not true. Don't leave me—where are you going? Don't leave me."
He freed himself tenderly.
"The lamp must be trimmed before vespers, dear wife. Stefan shall come with me so that he shall see how it is done and why, and then when his time comes he will understand."
So they went on together, and the old woman stood alone by the door, listening to the fading footsteps—to the big, firm tread and the childish patter. And the tears rolled down from the blank eyes, and fell on the folded, withered hands.
And little Stefan looked back along the sunny road and whimpered.
"I want to play—I'd rather play robbers with Ivanovitch. I hate the lamp. What does the lamp matter?"
III
But inside the church little Stefan did not whimper any more. It was always like that. Outside in the sunshine he might be laughing, or crying, or quarrelling, but once the black wooden doors closed behind him, he would grow still as a mouse, and stare with big, solemn eyes, and cross himself like a small saint. The church was so full of shadow. High up in the plain white walls were two little windows, which threw a hushed twilight over the emptiness. For there was nothing splendid and wonderful in the church, no relics, no fine altars, or shining gold mosaic. The stone floor had been worn smooth by generation after generation of villagers. The old Dyed himself had been young once and had stood where little Stefan stood, and had stared awestruck as his father had done before him, and so on—right back into the dimness of things. Once the paintings on the wooden ikonostasis, which separated the Holy of Holies from the congregation, had been bright with colour. But now, one could hardly recognise the saintly figures that they represented. Stefan knew that St. Mark stood on the left, and St Nicholas on the right, because Dyed had told him so, but they were pale as dreams.
Only one thing had never changed.
A lamp burnt before the altar. It hung by a chain from the vaulted roof, and its red light fell on the pale, tender face of the sacred ikon. From where little Stefan stood he could only see its reflection rising above the closed doors of the screen, like the afterglow of the sun when it has gone down behind the end of the earth. But when the doors were thrown open he saw the lamp itself.
For two hundred years it had burnt there. Two hundred years, night and day. The world outside had gone on along its mysterious road; men had loved and killed one another; great wonders had been revealed to them; there had been revolutions and wars; victors and vanquished had poured through the village, and their dead lay beneath the church's cross. But in the church itself nothing had changed. The shadows were realities. At night they grew blacker and stronger, but night and day they were there—servants of the red lamp, whose flame burnt up to God in unceasing worship. Two high brass candlesticks kept guard at the entrance of the sanctuary, but they had never been lit. They were dead—the lamp was a living presence.
When men came before its light, their hearts grew big with a strange grief; the ghosts of all the years laid their finger upon their lips.
The little Stefan awoke as if from a dream, and heard his grandfather's voice speaking to him. The voice was deep and solemn as at vespers. It seemed to rise up from the stones.
"And so the Prince set out on his long journey. He went on foot to the end of Russia, and then in a little boat over a terrible sea. And he suffered storm and tribulation. But at last he came to Jerusalem, and there he lit his lamp at the Sacred Fire, and turned homewards. And again there were great storms, and often the Prince was near death, but through it all he kept his lamp alight. And at last his pilgrimage was over. He hung the lamp before the altar, as he had promised the Blessed Mother, and gave it into the keeping of the priest, and of those who should come after him until the Last Day. And when that was done the Prince knelt down before the altar and gave up his spirit to God."
"And he was forgiven?" little Stefan whispered.
"Yes. God forgave him."
"Is God pleased that the lamp has been kept alight so long."
The old man's gnarled hands were clasped against his breast, so that the veins stood out in dark swollen lines.
"It is the fire of God," he answered. "It is the little flame that God lights in the heart of every man when he is born. And once in his life every man feels the light burning in his own breast, and knows that he must choose whether it shall burn more brightly or die out And for those who let their lamp grow dim there is a long pilgrimage, for those who put out the light there is no forgiveness. They go out into the darkness and are no more seen." The deep splendid voice shook in a sudden gust of grief. "My father, and his father before him, have fed God's lamp by night and day," he cried, "and I too have kept faith. I have grown old—I waited for my son—and my son will never come."
Little Stefan knew now, for the first time, that his own father was dead. But he did not cry. His thin clear voice was like the first timid notes of a bird, when the winter snows have melted.
"I will keep the lamp burning, Dyed. I won't be a soldier. I'll be a priest too. And I'll grow up quickly, Dyed—I promise you I will—I'll begin now."
The old man nodded gently. He went on alone, and threw open the doors of the screen, and the red glow flooded out on the stone flags. Little Stefan saw the lamp and the altar, and the sacred face of the ikon. He saw his grandfather take a silver vessel and fill the lamp so carefully that the flame scarcely flickered. But it was not his grandfather any more. It was one of the figures on the screen grown bright again—someone mysterious and wonderful, who kept God's fire alight, and whom God loved—a splendid glowing Being, such as little Stefan might see in Heaven.
And little Stefan crossed himself and knelt down with his forehead to the cold stones as he had many times seen the peasants do.
But the priest stood upright before the altar. His hands were clenched upon his breast, and the tears glistened on the white beard. But the lamp burnt steadily, immutably. Its glow lit a pale life in the gentle faded face of the ikon, who looked down in still compassion and tender eternal knowledge of grief. And the old priest's eyes grew clear, and the tears were dried. For the veil was lifting that had blinded him. He saw in a vision the men who had stood there before him—a long line of shadowy souls who had brought their burden of life and sorrow to this place. He saw their ghostly, trembling hands feed the lamp for the last time, and the young hands stretched out in eager faith to take on the task. They too withered. The swift-turning wheel of the years carried them into darkness. But the lamp had burnt before the altar, and the pitying face had poured down its unchanging comfort upon the changing griefs of men.
"My son—my son!" The old priest groaned aloud.
But suddenly the limits of his narrow humdrum world were broken down. His life was glorified. Sorrow and death and weariness were little things—like the village lying in the plain, like the river that was so broad and swift and terrible when one stood upon the brink, and was really a thread of silver in the vast tapestry of the world. Death was just a shadow that faded in the steady light of God. And he, Michael Gregorovitch, had kept that light burning as it had been given him. Those unseen ones who had gone before him would give him their comfort. They would make him strong. They would hold up his failing hands, as Aaron had held up the hands of Moses—until Stefan came.
He knelt, and his eyes burnt with the fire of youth, and the faded golden vestments shone with their first splendour.
In the twilight of the church behind him little Stefan lay with his forehead to the stones and slept.
IV
The springtime of the year came, and the peasants looked along the great road and waited. They knew that the vague thing which they had always known and feared was coming to them at last. They heard its tread beyond the horizon—it came pounding over the plain, and the dust rose in strange white clouds under its feet.
For three nights and days the retreating army poured through the little village. There was not a moment's cease in the dragging sound of the soldiers' feet, and in the rattle and bang of artillery over the cobbles and the clank of hoofs. It was an unending river slushing between slimy broken banks. The soldiers were not like men. They were unshaven and black with mud, and when they tried to speak they made strange and dreadful noises in their throats like tortured animals.
Some of the peasants picked up what they could carry and went with the stream, but the greater part remained. For their wooden houses and their scrap of field were all they had, and without them there was no life. So they waited, and on Good Friday the storm broke upon them.
There were casks of forgotten vodka in the Government storehouse, and the army had had a hard march. And they were embittered by the long fruitless pursuit. And all that day the village floated in a fiery burning lake of hell.
It was still enough in the priest's house. The old woman lay on her bed staring up at the ceiling with her unseeing eyes. She had had a stroke in the early morning, when old Boris Sonieff had been shot coming out of his house, and now there was no world for her but the world of sound. Little Stefan sat close by her side and held her hand. He looked very small and white, but he had not once cried. His grandfather bent over him and kissed him.
"You must stay here quietly, Stefan. Keep the door shut, and if anyone should come, try and run over to the church and let me know. They will not hurt a child. You must not be afraid, Stefan—you must be brave and take care of your grandmother."
Outside, a man burst into a shout of drunken laughter, and the wooden door groaned under the impact of a reeling body. The inmates did not move, they stood there like statues—frozen with fear. But the hoarse voice faded amidst the everlasting thud and clash of passing troops.
Little Stefan steadied his white lips.
"I'm not afraid. I will take care of grandmother. I am not a bit afraid."
But the old woman cried out. Her words were thick and almost unrecognisable.
"Don't leave me—for the love of God stay with us—something dreadful will happen—I feel it coming—"
"I must go, wife, the lamp must be filled. And there is the midnight service. You would not have me forget God?"
But it seemed that her mind, too, was dulled—that she could hear nothing but these sounds outside. Her lips kept up an incessant agonised murmur. "Don't go! Don't go!" and the stillness of her body was horrible.
The priest made the sign of the cross over her. His face was livid, and he went towards the door trembling and stumbling, like a broken old man. The child followed him, with a funny stiff little smile on his lips. It was almost a grin, as though someone were pulling at the muscles of his face. But when the door closed, he ran to the ikon against the wall and lit the lamp and crouched down before it, burying his head in his arms.
A group of soldiers saw the black-frocked priest come out of the house, and raised a howl of laughter, one of them pointed his gun and his inflamed eye glared maliciously along the barrel.
The old man went on his way. He was not trembling any more. He carried his great height nobly, and his answering gaze was serene and gentle—without scorn or anger. So that the men stood still, staring after him till he had reached the steps of the church. Then they shook themselves and were ashamed that they had been ashamed. A fair-faced tipsy boy bent down and gathered up a handful of wet mud, and flung it with all his strength. The chance aim was good. The filthy missile struck the priest on the cheek, and spread out in an ugly ludicrous smear. He turned an instant and looked back at them, and he was smiling through the mire and blood—with the same unfaltering compassion. And his raised hand blessed them.
He went on unhindered. But inside the church he stumbled and lurched against the cold wall. For there had been a stone in that chance handful of dirt, and the blood was dripping fast on to the white beard. A man who had been waiting in the shadow, crept towards him.
"Father—have they hurt you?"
"Is that you, Dmitri? It is nothing—a ball of mud—it was not meant to harm."
"The swine! The accursed swine!"
"No—just children—foolish excited children; they do not know what they do. One day they will be sorry. We must be patient. Will you give me your arm, my son? I am a little shaken, and there is much to do to-night; to-night we must rejoice more than we have ever done. For we know better now how God suffered, and how dark it was in the world whilst the stone lay before His sepulchre. But to-morrow the light rises again—we know that it can never be put out."
The peasant did not speak till they had reached the steps before the screen, and then he stood still peering about him.
"Father—there will be only women at the service to-night...."
"Why should that be, Dmitri?"
"... but they will have drunk themselves helpless. We have shown them where Boris kept his stores. And we have news. A man crept through last night. Our armies are safe. They are making a stand. They will attack—in a few hours, they may be here again." He clutched nervously at the priest's arm. "Ivan has buried ammunition and guns. Father—each man will be at his post to-night We shall wait—for your signal."
"What signal?"
"From the belfry." He pointed back into the shadow. "After the service—the tocsin, Father—and (hen we shall know. And we shall have your blessing. We shall cut their throats like pigs."
The priest stood there staunching the wound on his cheek.
"But we are not soldiers, Dmitri. We have yielded to the enemy. It would be a massacre."
"Have they not massacred our people?"
The priest murmured to himself:—
"But I say unto you, resist not evil—bless them that curse you."
"Father, God has delivered them into our hands."
"Thou shalt do no murder!"
The peasant seemed to shrink together, to bend under a sudden burden of despair.
"You know God's will, Father. You are a holy man. We trust you. But we shall wait at midnight and if you signal..."
But there was no answer, and Dmitri slipped away into the shadow. The door opened and closed again upon the sudden rush of tumult.
The priest stood alone before the altar.
Dusk came on, and night. Within the village a murmur was rising like the first notes of a tempest. There was a wind of voices; there were sharp lightning flashes of sound.
The priest knelt before the altar, praying.
The lamp shone like a red stain on the darkness.
V
It was all still in the village—quite still. The lurid glow in the high windows of the church had burnt itself out The hushed, sobbing breath of the women who knelt, Middled together on the stone floor, mingled with the silver clash of the censers as they threw their grey clouds towards the altar. Two surpliced boys sang the antiphon, but their voices were shaken and tuneless, and their eyes never left three tall shadows that stood by the church door watching.
"Like as the smoke vanisheth let them vanish, and like as wax melteth before the fire...."
"Christ has risen!"
"... So shall the ungodly perish at the presence of God, but let the righteous rejoice...."
"Christ has risen!"
"Christos Vorkrece!" murmured the women.
The priest sat on his wooden throne before the altar. In the light of the lamp his vestments shone with a smouldering splendour. Theirs was a red gold—red like the stain upon the white beard. He sat motionless, looking over the heads of the worshippers towards the door. He was like a dead man set out in state.
"Rejoice! Rejoice! Christ has risen!"
The women embraced one another furtively, cringingly, as though a raised, unseen hand waited to strike them down. Then one by one they rose and crept up the steps of the altar, and gave the priest their Easter kiss. And each one, as they bent down, whispered to him.
One of the shadows laughed.
"Christ is risen!"
The old man stared out into the darkness.
"Yes—He is risen!"
"Father, they have trampled on the young corn."
The old man stirred to sudden life.
"Blessed are those that hunger...."
"Father, two days since Marie Olenorf was happy—and she was to have been married—and now she is raving mad!"
"Blessed are the pure in heart...."
"Father, they have shot old Boris and burnt down his farm."
"Blessed are those that are persecuted for righteousness' sake...."
"Father, your house is in ashes."
"Blessed are the poor in spirit...."
"Father, your wife could not move—she could not escape."
The old face was a distorted mask.
"Blessed are those that mourn...."
"Father, Little Stefan is dead—he is lying in the road outside the church."
The sweat on the livid cheeks glittered in blood-red drops.
"Blessed are ye that weep now...."
"Father, they are waiting! Give the signal"
He stood up. The high mitre blotted out the lamp behind him, and the light shone about his head.
"Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God!"
They stood in a little cowering group, staring at him as at a vision. Then one by one they quietly slunk out into the night.
But the three shadows remained. They came forward, and a soft jangle of steel accompanied the heavy, insolent tread. The priest stood waiting.
"Well, holy sir, that was a most interesting ceremony—quite charming! I'm glad I kept myself sober for it. If the women hadn't been so deuced ugly I should have been glad to join in. But perhaps they wouldn't have accepted enemies, eh?"
The priest's grey lips moved twice without sound.
"The festival is for you also—for all men. There are no enemies here."
Their uproarious laughter echoed through the empty church.
"Is that so? Prove it. Give us the Easter kiss, old man!"
"Yes, the kiss of brotherhood!"
Their red, grinning faces shone as they come into the light. The priest's great hands were clenched across his breast, and their vodka-laden breath fanned his cheek.
"That's a nasty cut—faugh! All bloody, too! One of our fine fellows did that, I wager."
"Yes."
"Little things like that are bound to happen. You can't blame them. War's war. You don't bear a grudge, do you? You're a real Christian, aren't you, Father?"
"A Christian ..." He seemed to be striving after some dark thought. "Seventy times seven," he muttered.
They stood close about him, and their inflamed eyes were evil, inquisitive, impatient. They were like beasts of prey hesitating before the attack. One of them pointed suddenly.
"Someone told me about that lamp—a queer story—a sort of relic. It has burned two hundred years—or something."
The priest turned slightly. It was very still.
"Two hundred years."
"Not been out once? Well"—he bent forward, with a laugh—"it's out now."
It was almost pitch dark. The priest went stumbling down the steps. His great hands wound themselves round the stem of one of the giant candlesticks. It stood six feet high, and was made of solid brass. There was a queer sound of something splitting, and a thud; then oaths—the rasp of swords dragged from their scabbards—shuffling, stumbling footsteps—the clash of steel groping along the walls—the sudden shrill turn of a key in a rusty lock.
It was five minutes before the two men found the door by which the priest had escaped.
It was old and strong and iron-studded.
They beat against it with the hilt of their swords.
Somewhere overhead the bells jangled hideously.
The peasants cowering on their naked fields crossed themselves, and felt for their secret weapons.
"The tocsin!..."