He was a man of forty-five, dry, bald, with black, curly, gipsy-like hair, and large black brows which looked like mustaches. His pointed, thick beard was very ornamental to his fine, swarthy, un-Russian face, but under his protuberant nose stuck out ferocious-looking mustaches, superfluous when one took his brows into consideration. His blue eyes did not match, the left being noticeably larger than the right.
"Pashka," he cried in a tenor voice to my comrade, the apprentice, "come along now, start off: 'Praise—'Now people, listen!"
Wiping his hands on his apron, Pashka led off:
"Pr—a—a—ise—"
"The Name of the Lord," several voices caught it up, but Jikharev cried fussily:
"Lower, Evgen! Let your voice come from the very depths of the soul."
Sitanov, in a voice so deep that it sounded like the rattle of a drum, gave forth:
"R—rabi Gospoda (slaves of the Lord)—"
"Not like that! That part should be taken in such a way that the earth should tremble and the doors and windows should open of themselves!"
Jikharev was in a state of incomprehensible excitement. His extraordinary brows went up and down on his forehead, his voice broke, his fingers played on an invisible dulcimer.