At 5:30 the black limousine stopped in front of the unlit entrance of the church. The archpriest Chelyustnikov raised the skirts of his robe; for a moment there was a flash of his shiny raspberry-colored boots, "Do you get it now, you fool?*' Chelyustnikov asked Alyosha, who was gaping in bewilderment first at his beard and then at his boots. “Now do you get it?"
THE CENSER
"The service began a few minutes before seven", writes Chelyustnikov, who actually gives us a detailed account of the ceremony. (But a certain creative need to add to the living document some possibly unnecessary color, sound, and smell-this decadent Holy Trinity of the moderns-urges me to imagine what is not in Chelyustnikov’s text: the flickering and crackling of the candles In sliver candelabras brought from the treasury of the Kiev museum-and here again, the document becomes intertwined with our imagined picture; the reflection of the flames on the saints’ ghostly faces in the arched apse, on the folds of the long robe of the Virgin Mother in the mosaic, and on the purple cloak with three blazing white crosses; the shimmer of black and gold on the halos and frames of the icons, on the church — vessels, the chalice, and the crown, and on the censer swung in halfdarkness to the accompaniment of its squeaking chains, while the smell of incense, the soul of the evergreen, merged with the sour smell of hops and malt.) "The minute Comrade Rilsky ran into the church," continues Chelyustnikov, “and began to cross himself, I picked up the censer and began to swing it over the heads of our congregation. I pretended not to notice the arrival of the new believers, although in the half-darkness, through the incense smoke, I could clearly make out the bald spot of Comrade M. and the bristly hair of Citizen Herriot. Quietly, on tiptoe, they walked to the middle of the church, and stopped there. The stage fright I had felt when they suddenly entered had left me and, still swinging the censer, I moved toward them, mumbling. Citizen Herriot's hands were folded, not as in prayer, but one fist in the other near the groin, tightly squeezing his Basque beret. After I swung the censer over them, I continued another few steps and turned around: Citizen Herriot looked at the ceiling, then leaned over toward his interpreter, who was leaning toward Comrade Pyasnikov. Then I swung the censer over Nastasia Fedotevna, who knelt down and lowered her head, which was covered with a black kerchief. Without moving, she threw me a quick glance full of encouragement, which erased the last traces of my anxiety. (Not a shadow left on her face from this morning's fear.) Zhelma Chavchavadze, her hands folded in prayer and her head also wrapped In a black kerchief, was kneeling beside Nastasia Fedotevna. She was the wife of Comrade Pyasnikov, and herself an old Party member. Her eighteen-year-old daughter, Heva, a member of the Komsomol, was kneeling beside her mother. Except for an old woman whose face I didn’t know and whose presence I couldn't explain, all the faces were familiar: next to Comrade Alya, who brought us tea that morning in Comrade Pyasnikov's office, sat the editorial staff and the secretaries of the Provincial Committee, while some of the women, those I couldn't place, were without a doubt the wives of comrades from the Cheka.[6] I have to admit that without exception all played their roles with discipline and dedication. Along with the above-mentioned, here ate the names of the rest of the comrades, since, as I said, I believe that their contribution is no less important than my own,” (There follow forty names, interspersed here and there with the comment "with wife") “With twelve workers from the cultural brigade and their two bodyguards, this makes a total of sixty believers." After listing the names, Chelyustnikov concludes: “Comrade Herriot and his retinue stayed in the church for only five minutes, although it seemed to me they stayed a full fifteen."
THE EXPLANATION Of THE CIRCUS
The frozen ritual of the liturgy was still in progress as in a fresco-where in the ecstasy of prayer believers first lower their gaze toward earth, the mother of hell, and then raise it to heaven, the seat of Paradise-when Herriot and his entourage tiptoed out to look at the famous frescoes painted along the circular staircases. An art historian, Lydia Krupenick, engaged for this occasion, explained to Herriot in impeccable French (on which he sincerely congratulated her) the presence of profane scenes in the temple of God-an enigma that could not escape the attention of the curious visitor, “Although the circular staircases are some distance from the shrine, a fact Comrade Herriot can verify for himself, they are nevertheless an integral part of the church and in this light, as we see it, the presence of circus scenes in the temple of God should have astonished and scandalized the priests. Mais ce sont Ia des scrupules tout modernes", continued Lydia Krupenick, "aussi etrangers aux Byzantins du onzieme siecle qu'aux imagiers et aux huchiers de vos сathedrales gothiques. Just as the piety of your ancestors was not in the least offended by the obscene and often grotesque carvings of gargoyles and on misericords, so the introduction of secular painting into churches did not seem in the least scandalous in the eyes of our pious ancestors. It is known", continued Lydia Krupenick, as Comrade Herriot nodded his head, staring at the frescoes, particularly drawn to the musical instruments, "it is known that in Constantinople, during the reign of the iconoclasts, the faces of Christ and the saints were replaced with various Satanic scenes: horse races and bloody spectacles of hunts for wild beasts and human beings" (Comrade Herriot nodded his head, turning his beret in his hands like a schoolboy.) "While making this comparison, we shouldn't forget", Lydia Krupenick continued in her charming voice, which nevertheless seemed to conceal a certain anger, “other cultural monuments in the West with similar motifs-for example, the ceiling of the palatine chapel in Palermo, which depicts the same profane motifs as Saint Sophia of Kiev: the fighting of athletes, and slaves playing flutes and reed pipes. And finally, we shouldn't lose sight of the fact that Saint Sophia of Kiev was, tout camme les chapelles de vos rois normands, a palatine church, and that the circular staircases led to the apartments of the princes. Seen in this light, the profane themes were perfectly appropriate, n'est-ce pas?"
Comrade Herriot, whose feet were cold,[7] looked at the frescoes silently, sunk in contemplation.
THE MECHANICAL LIONS
The next day, still fresh from the impact of the trip, sitting in a warm compartment of the Kiev-Riga-Konigsberg sleeping car, feverish and wrapped in blankets, Edouard Herriot recorded his first impressions in his notebook: Only one fact (one that relates to our story) marred the purity of his observations: the presence of beggars in front of Saint Sophia. He formulated his perplexity in the following way: "These beggars in front of the church, most of them lame and old, but some very young and seemingly healthy, who flocked around us as we left the splendid Saint Sophia, are no doubt that tenacious race of Russian paupers and idiots who gave old Russia its bizarre fauna," (There follow comments on the tasks awaiting the young nation.)
That same detail about beggars (and this is the only reason we mention it) we find also in Chelyustnikov: "As we left the church, we arrested a bunch of parasites who had swooped down on us from our of nowhere, probably attracted by the smell of incense.”
7
It is a known fact that Herriot returned ill from this trip, and that he barely survived. One malicious contributor to Charivari wrote in this connection that Herriot doubtless became ill "while visiting cold churches and overheated palaces". This allusion provoked much vehement commentary at the time.