A man with a wooden leg went round as nimbly as the rest. Tichon was told afterwards that his name was Captain Smoorigin; he had lost his leg at the storming of Azov.
A short fat lady with dignified gray curls, Princess Khovánsky, spun round like a ball. Next to her a loose-limbed cobbler was prancing, throwing his feet and arms about; he twisted and twirled himself like a huge gnat, a “Daddy-long-legs,” ejaculating from time to time:—
Dancing and burning,
On we go to Zion’s hill!
By this time nearly all had joined the dance, not only singly but in pairs and groups representing “walls,” “corners,” “crosses,” “David’s ship,” and “flowers,” etc.
“The various figures,” explained Yemelian to Tichon, “represent the dances of the heavenly hosts of angels and archangels round the throne of God; the waving of arms imitates the beating of angel’s wings. The heavens and the earth are one; what happens there is enacted here also.”
The dance grew more and more rapid; it seemed as if a whirlwind filled the room, and they were no longer dancing themselves, but some external power was whirling them round with such rapidity that their faces could no longer be discerned; the hair on the head stood upright, the tunics blew out like funnels, and men were transformed into white spinning columns. Some hissed, others cackled, others again screamed in frenzy, and again it seemed that not they themselves, but some external power was screaming through their mouths.
He has filled us, He has filled us,
Holy, Holy Spirit,