He does not even appear to see me and swings the censor close, close to my head, over and over again, with the same free-handed gesture of Millet's sower. He swings it out and about, hither and yon, till all my garments smell of myrrh and aloes and cassia; until, like Solomon's spouse, my hands dropped myrrh.
Sometimes it is a rude Slavic peasant who swings the censer or lays the spice on the live coals—a rough-necked man with red-brown hands and face. He wears a caftan, or long cloak of skin, upon which red leather is cunningly appliqued in pleasing designs. I doubt not he is from Bukowina, or "the beech-woods," for the women of that province are skilled craftswomen. He swings the censer with such deftness, that were I not benumbed by the languourous odour of the smoke-thick air, I would be wondering how this queer shock-headed acolyte with his bovine stolidity came to acquire the revolver wrist in such a high state of development. Surely it is well I am stupefied, for it might be irreverent so to wonder.
But for that matter, all this service belongs to the people and not to any stilted crucifers or superior choristers smacking of professional piety. As occasion may demand, an older woman comes forward and snuffs a candle with her fingers and replaces it with a fresh one. The women even carry the candles through the church when the ritual so requires it. They do not appear to have any self-consciousness, but perform their part gladly and naturally. This may arise from the fact that they have been accustomed in Austria to taking part in religious dramas such as The Nativity, which drama they once staged at Edmonton. I did not see it, but Sister Josephat at the Ruthenian Monastery gave me a picture of the dramatis personæ taken during a rehearsal.
"See! See! Madame Lady. See! See!" said Sister Josephat. "Et ees ver' fonny. De tree wise men are womens, womens I tell you. Yes! the black one too! She is Alma Knapf."
This drama was vastly appreciated, especially by the younger fry of the community, who enjoyed seeing the devil carry a Jew off the scene with a pitchfork and cast him into hell with certitude and great vigour. The older folk considered this treatment unduly drastic and an unwarranted loss of useful material. Here in the North, we do not believe in killing Jews—no, nor even bank-managers—where we are not infrequently pared to the quick to provide money for real-estate payments or to margin up against the bad news the ticker-tape has spelled out. Yes! it would be highly unreasonable to allow the Ruthenian folk to kill off the Jews and bankers and it would make us uncommonly sorry.
... I like to watch these farmer-women carry the tall, white candles under the dome. It seems like a vision picture or some sense memory that has filtered down to me through the ages, but what the memory is I cannot say. Indeed, once I read of a strange country where men used to run races with lighted candles, and the victor was he whose flame was found burning at the goal.
I think the memory which troubles me must be of Jacob's rods which he made into "white strakes." He performed his rite under the libneh, or white poplar-tree, even as we perform them under the white poplars of Alberta.
And while the women march, they chant a weird harmony, the men's voices coming in at intervals like pedal points. There is no organ, or any tyrannous baton, but only, "They sang one to another," as the Jews did at the building of their temple.
I am strangely, inexpressibly moved by this tone-sweetness. Sometimes it is massive, triumphal, and inspiring as though the singers carried naked swords in their upraised hands; or again, it seems to be the sullen angry diapason of distant thunder in the hills.
But mostly they sing a pæan or lamentation of the cross, heavy with unspeakable weariness and the ache of unshed tears. Surely this is the strangest story ever told. It is as though they sing to a dead god in a dead world.