"The music," I explained.
"A likely tale! Be off now!"
I ran quickly round the houses and returned to my place under the window, but they were not playing now. From the fortochka proceeded sounds of revelry, and it was so unlike the sad music that I thought I must be dreaming. I got into the habit of running to this house every Saturday, but only once, and that was in the spring, did I hear the violoncello again, and then it played without a break till midnight. When I reached home I got a thrashing.
These walks at night beneath the winter sky through the deserted streets of the town enriched me greatly. I purposely chose streets far removed from the center, where there were many lamps, and friends of my master who might have recognized me. Then he would find out how I played truant from vespers. No "drunkards," "street-walkers," or policemen interfered with me in the more remote streets, and I could see into the rooms of the lower floors if the windows were not frozen over or curtained.
Many and diverse were the pictures which I saw through those windows. I saw people praying, kissing, quarreling, playing cards, talking busily and soundlessly the while. It was a cheap panoramic show representing a dumb, fish-like life.
I saw in one basement room two women, a young one and another who was her senior, seated at a table; opposite them sat a school-boy reading to them. The younger woman listened with puckered brows, leaning back in her chair; but the elder, who was thin, with luxuriant hair, suddenly covered her face with her hands, and her shoulders heaved. The school-boy threw down the book, and when the younger woman had sprung to her feet and gone away, he fell on his knees before the woman with the lovely hair and began to kiss her hands.
Through another window I saw a large, bearded man with a woman in a red blouse sitting on his knee. He was rocking her as if she had been a baby, and was evidently singing something, opening his mouth wide and rolling his eyes. The woman was shaking with laughter, throwing herself backward and swinging her feet. He made her sit up straight again, and again began to sing, and again she burst out laughing. I gazed at them for a long time, and went away only when I realized that they meant to keep up their merriment all night.
There were many pictures of this kind which will always remain in my memory, and often I was so attracted by them that I was late in returning home. This aroused the suspicions of my employers, who asked me:
"What church did you go to? Who was the officiating priest?"
They knew all the priests of the town; they knew what gospel would be read, in fact, they knew everything. It was easy for them to catch me in a lie.