Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - XV. Later Sects
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prayers and listened to the singing in the church, in vain he
knelt for hours, bowing his head repeatedly to the damp earth.
He was dissatisfied with himself, for it seemed as if he could
never fulfil his Christian duties, and he felt that his Heavenly
Father was dissatisfied with him too.
While yet a boy an incident occurred that made a deep and
lasting impression upon him. He was acquainted with a
young girl named Paraska, a poor orphan in the service of
a Jewish saloon-keeper in the village. According to
Tchaika’s account, though handsome and clever, she was
yet “a little strange.” Her look was always pensive, and
her eyes seemed ever filled with tears. She never laughed
loudly like the other village girls, but mildly, with a peculiar
silvery tone in her voice that at a distance would be taken
for sobbing rather than laughter. Often she would start
without a cause, and was always frightened if accosted from
behind. She disliked hard and coarse work, and in the
village was known as “the noble young girl,” a reference
to her mother’s intimacy with a nobleman.
Late one evening Ivan came to his Paraska. The moon
was shining, and the stars shed a pale twinkling light over
the calm sky. As Ivan approached the Jew’s house he heard
Paraska’s voice, as if talking with some one in the saloon.
Silently drawing near, he found Paraska kneeling before the
picture of the Holy Virgin, and her voice had in it the ring
of real conversation rather than of prayer. And how she
spoke! It seemed at first to Tchaika that every hair was
standing on end and his whole body tingled; but soon his
eyes filled with tears as he listened to her sincere confession,
her earnest prayers, her sad voice, and saw that beautiful
figure bathed in the pale light of the moon. The words he
heard remained engraven indelibly upon his heart: “O thou
most Holy Virgin, Mother of God, have mercy, have mercy
on me, poor orphan girl! Let me not perish, let me not be
ruined! O Lord! how shall I live in this world, without
parents, without relatives, without friends? O Mother of
God, see how weak I am!” Finally she burst out, “O Mother
of God! I am perishing—perishing!”
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