Читать книгу Ivan Greet's Masterpiece - Allen Grant - Страница 18

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Next morning, in the little log shanty that served for chapel to the settlement, the Elders of the Church assembled in due form to carry out a solemn religious ceremony. Seven young men and five young women stood in line facing one another to right and left before the table that filled the place of an altar. Four of the young women were hard-faced stern-featured Russian Canadians, strong of build and bronzed by the sun, born drudges of the log-huts, with no souls above their slavery. The fifth was Karen. All the young men looked eagerly at her with longing in their eyes, but most of all Ivan Utovitch and Peter Verstoff.

The Elders, all burly men with bushy Russian beards, ranged themselves in a row beside the plain deal table. No smile seemed possible for those hard cold lips. The fanatical asceticism of the Muscovite mind, that speaks out on every page of Tolstoi’s or Dostoieffsky’s, had soured their faces. One had but to look at them to see at a glance that love, as we Westerns understand it, was to them a mere worldly toy, whose name was never so much as to be spoken among them. The will of the flesh was an enemy to be held resolutely at arm’s length, with all their force, for ever. The notion of marrying a woman merely because you loved her was a notion, to them, wafted straight from the devil.

The presiding Elder looked round, and held up his hand for silence. A deep hush fell at once upon the little assembly of believers. All felt only too profoundly the full importance of the moment. For the future of ten lives—nay, more, of ten thousand unborn souls—trembled that day in the balance.

“Friends,” the presiding Elder began, in fluent vulgar Russian, “we of the Lord’s folk have met in chapel this morning for the performance of a very solemn function. For the third time since we came here, to this lodge in the wilderness, our young men and maidens, by the Church’s desire, are to be joined together in holy wedlock. The Lord has prospered seven sons of our flock so that in due time they have become separate house-masters; and to these five of our daughters shall five of the seven be duly united. Not for the lust of the flesh or the pride of the eyes are they to be joined together, but for the godly upbringing of the lambs of the fold, in time to come, to fulfil our places. Therefore, according to the holy custom of the Church, to us Elders delivered, we do not permit that each man should choose for himself a wife, after the fashion of the world, according to his own carnal desires and longings. We bring our young men and maidens here bodily before the Lord, certain that He will choose for them of His Divine goodness more wisely than either they or we can. We will pray for His guidance on the lots that we cast; then we will proceed to assign husband to wife, in full confidence of right, after the wont of the Saints, under the heavenly benediction.”

The rude farmers and hard-worked housewifes in the body of the chapel fell on their knees in concert as he spoke these words. So did the Elders who stood by the table. The young men and women, whose fate was at issue, ranged still in their appointed place, bowing their heads silently.

The Elder prayed a long extempore prayer. The congregation listened, and answered “Amen.” Then the Elder said once more, “Our maidens will give praise.” The five girls, raising their heads, sang a favourite Russian hymn to a simple melody. Four of them sang like born drudges of the log-huts. But Karen’s voice, though untrained, was like the voice of the nightingale. When they had finished, the Elder placed seven slips of paper, with ostentatious openness, in a bag on his right, and five slips in a similar bag on his left. “Come up, Vera Rustoff!” he cried, singling a child with his eye from the congregation below. “For out of the mouths of babes and sucklings has He ordained praise. Come up, and be our minister.”

The child stood forward, half reluctant, and took her place with much trembling at the table beside him. She was a rosy, small girl, with fair hair, like one of Fra Angelico’s angels.

“Draw a paper!” the Elder said. The child drew one, and handed it to him.

“Nicolas Koscialkovski!” the Elder read out, unfolding it. “Draw another, Vera Rustoff.” And the child drew one. There was a deep pause of suspense. It was the name of a woman.

“Leopolda Sianojenska!” the Elder went on, still droning in the same business-like voice as before. “Nicolas and Leopolda, it is the Lord’s will. Stand forward, you two, and join hands for betrothal.”

Without a moment’s hesitation, without a word of reluctance, though with a painful twitching that he could not quite subdue at the corners of his mouth, one of the stalwart young men stepped forward, and accepted his destiny. At the same moment the least pleasing of the four born drudges stepped forward in turn, and took her future husband’s hand in hers with a certain stolid and honest uncomplaining indifference. It was the Lord’s doing. Who were they that they should repine at it?

“Draw yet a third,” the Elder went on, as those two clasped hands and stood aside from among the candidates. And the child, dipping her hand into the bag, drew one.

“Fedor Noross,” the old man read out, without one tinge of emotion. It was his own son’s name. He gazed at the lad blankly. Even he was interested now. What wife would be vouchsafed him?

“Again!”

And the child drew. Another deep pause.

“Sophie Alexandrovitch,” the Elder said, with a slight gasp. And silently a second pair stepped forward to the sacrifice.

The child drew again, this time unbidden. The Elder read out a name. “Peter Verstoff,” he said. Peter Verstoff’s face was rigid with suspense. The child’s hand plunged deep into the answering bag. “Karen Selistoff,” the Elder read out, unfolding the paper. A sigh of relief burst from many lips at once. Peter Verstoff’s face flushed crimson in a second. Karen’s grew white as the flowers at her bosom—the flowers that Ivan had placed there yesterday—two milky snow-blossoms backed with a spray of tamarack. There was a moment’s lull. Everybody felt the great event of the day was finished.

“Peter and Karen,” the presiding Elder said, breaking the solemn silence, “it is the Lord’s will. Come forward, you two, and join hands for betrothal.”

Peter Verstoff stepped forward—tremulous, ruddy, exultant. The Lord had indeed heard his earnest petition! The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much! He had won her! He had won her!

Karen hung back for a moment—pale, reluctant, uncertain. A terrible conflict was going on unseen in her breast. It was love against duty—duty as she conceived it. Nay, more, against conscience, religion, faith, authority, the express will of Heaven there openly revealed to her.

Ivan hung upon her movements with mute eagerness for a second. Would she obey or rebel? Oh, great heavens, what a sacrilege!

Then slowly, reluctantly, obeying, as she thought, the higher law, Karen stepped forward, and held out her hand, trembling. “It is the Lord’s will!” she said faintly, while two tears stole down her cheek. Her heart belied her words. But Religion had conquered.

At that second Ivan broke forth from the rank with an ashen face and quivering lips, held his hand up in warning, as if to forbid the betrothal. The revulsion of the moment had revealed many truths to him, hidden away till then behind the thick cloak of authority in the fanatical faith he had learnt from childhood to reverence. “It is not the Lord’s will!” he cried, with desperate energy, and with the wild force of helplessness, though the words half choked him. “It is not the Lord’s will! This thing is of Satan! Your lottery is a disgrace! We have guides with us far purer than any casting of paper lots—the voice of Nature, the voice of instinct, the voice of our own hearts, the voice of all that is most divine and most sacred within us. Let us listen to those, not to meaningless oracles. If we will not hear them, no lot will help us. This is heathenish divination, I tell you, not Christian worship. Is it for us to neglect the plain promptings of the good feelings that God has given us in favour of such chances as the tossing of names in a bag? Karen, Karen, hold forth your hand. It isn’t his. It is mine. I claim it! I claim it!”

Karen gazed up in his face, all aghast, with a thrill of wondering admiration. It was wrong of him; oh, how wrong! But still, she loved and admired him for it. Her cheek flushed red again. She clasped her hands hard for a moment over her heaving breast. Then she looked from Peter to Ivan, and from Ivan to Peter. Which of the two must she obey? Love or Religion?

But the presiding Elder, with the infinite quiet dignity of the Russian peasant, waving her aside to her place, took no notice of the brawler. “Karen Selistoff,” he said austerely, lifting her right hand in his, “the Lord has spoken. Disobey not His will for the will of the flesh, lest ill betide you. Resist the devil and he will flee from you! Take no heed of this apostate! Give your hand as the Lord ordains to Peter Verstoff.”

The colour fled suddenly from Karen’s face once more. She dared not turn her eyes for one glance at Ivan. The voice of the Elder was the voice of the Church. What woman could disregard it? With a deadly effort, she stretched forth that white marble hand. It was cold as ice. In a wild burst of delight, Peter Verstoff clasped it, for, in the eyes of the Church, they two were now finally married.

Ivan waited for no more; he could stand it no longer. Before the very faces of those harsh ascetics, he flung himself fiercely upon Karen’s neck; he kissed her on her lips; he strained her hard to his bosom. “Good-bye,” he said, in English, with hot tears on his cheek. “Good-bye, my darling! This is no place for me now; I will go to Toronto.”

And, shaking off the dust of the Mennonite faith from his feet, as it were, he strode forth alone, leaving the scandalized Church to rejoice at its leisure that it was so easily rid of so unworthy a member.

But Karen fell fainting into the arms of her betrothed husband.