But Tolstoy had said:
“God has made the world to be a joy to man. There is no sin anywhere, not even in the life of a beast. He lives in one place, lives in another. Where he is there is his home. What God gives he takes. But we say that for such things we shall have to suffer. I think that is all one big falsehood....”
The deacon stopped suddenly, and let his ancient missal fall with a bang. Still more dreadful curses were to come, words which could only have been imagined by the narrow minds of monks in the early centuries of Christianity.
His face had become purple, almost black; his lingers convulsively grasped the rail of the desk. For a moment he felt that he must swoon. But he recovered, and straining the whole might of his tremendous voice, he burst forth triumphantly with new words, wrong words:
“The joy of our earth, the ornament and the flower of life, the true servant and fellow-soldier of Christ, Count Leo....”
He was silent for a second. In the crowded church there was not a cough, not a whisper nor a shuffle of the foot. There was a terrible silence, the silence of hundreds of people dominated by one will, overcome by one feeling. The eyes of the deacon were burning and brimming over with tears, his face became suddenly beautiful as the face of a man in an ecstasy of inspiration. He cleared his throat once more, tried an octave, and then suddenly filling the enormous cathedral with the tones of his terrible voice, he roared out:
“Mno-ga-ya lye-e-e-ta-a-a. Ma-any ye-e-ears.” And instead of turning the candle upside down, according to the rite of anathema, he raised it high in the air.
It was in vain that the leader of the choir whispered to his boys, to knock the deacon’s head with the tuning-fork, or to put their hands over his mouth. Joyfully, as if an archangel were blowing a trumpet with silver tones, the deacon lifted his voice over the whole congregation: “Mnogaya, mnogaya, mnogaya lyeta.”
The prior, a monk, an official, the psalm-reader and the deaconess rushed up to him.
“Leave me alone ... leave me alone,” said Father Olympus in an angry whisper, roughly pushing away the monk’s arm. “I’ve spoilt my voice, but it has been for the glory of God. Go away!...”