I did not,
I remember, pay the event any especial attention. I went with Anna
Petrovna to the cholera village that is on the outskirts of the
forest, and I recollect that we hastened back because that evening we
were to celebrate the conclusion of the first six months' work of our
Otriad. Of my entrance into the forest I remember absolutely nothing;
it seemed, I suppose, an ordinary enough forest to me. Of the
festivities in the evening I have a very clear recollection. I
remember that it was the loveliest summer weather, not too hot, with a
little breeze coming up from the river, and the green glittering on
every side of us with the quiver of flashing water. In the little
garden outside our house a table had been improvised and on this were
a large gilt ikon, a vase of flowers in a hideous purple jar, and two
tall candles whose flames looked unreal and thin in the sunlight.
There was the priest, a fine stout man with a long black beard and
hair falling below his shoulders, clothed in silk of gold and purple,
waving a censer, monotoning the prayers in a high Russian tenor, with
one eye on the choir of sanitars, one eye on the candles blown by the
wind, the breeze meanwhile playing irreverent jests on his splendid
skirts of gold.
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