When I was four I was taken by the sexton Larion, a very strange and lonely man; he took me because of his loneliness. He was short of stature, round like a toy balloon and had a round face. His hair was red, his voice thin like a woman's, and his heart was also like a woman's, gentle to everybody. He liked to drink wine and drank much of it; when sober he was silent, his eyes always half-closed, and he had an air of being guilty before all, but when drunk, he sang psalms and hymns in a loud voice, held his head high and smiled at every one.
He remained apart from people, living in poverty, for he had given away his share to the priest, while he himself fished both summer and winter. And for fun he caught singing birds, teaching me to do the same. He loved birds and they were not afraid of him; it is touching to recall how even the most timid of little birds would run over his red head and get mixed up in his fiery hair. Or the bird would settle on his shoulder and look into his mouth, bending its wise little head to the side. Then again Larion would lie on a bench and sprinkle hempseed in his head and beard, and canaries, goldfinches, tomtits and bullfinches would collect around him, hunting through his hair, creeping over his cheeks, picking his ears, settling on his nose while he lay there roaring with laughter, squinting his eyes and conversing tenderly with them. I envied him for this—of me, the birds were afraid.
Larion was a man of tender soul and all animals recognized it; I can't say the same for men, though I don't mean to blame them for I know man isn't fed by caresses.
It used to be rather difficult for him in winter; he had no wood and he had nothing to buy it with, having drunk up the money. His little hut was as cold as a cellar, except that the birds chirped and sang, and the two of us would lie on the cold stove, wrapped in everything possible, listening to the singing of the birds. Larion would whistle to them—he could whistle well—looking like a grossbeak, with his large nose, his hooked bill and his red head. Often he would say to me: "Well, listen, Motka" (I was baptized Matvei). "Listen!"
He would lie on his back, his hands under his head, squinting his eyes and singing something from the funeral Liturgy in his thin voice. The birds would then become quiet, stopping to listen, then they themselves would begin to sing one after the other. Larion would try to sing louder than they and they would exert themselves, especially the canaries and goldfinches, or the thrushes and starlings. He would often sing himself up to such a point that the tears from his eyes would trickle from out his lids, wetting his cheeks and washing his face gray.
This singing sometimes frightened me, and once I said to him in a whisper:
"Uncle, why do you always sing about death?" He stopped, looked at me and said, smiling,
"Don't get frightened, silly. It doesn't matter if it is about death; it is pretty. Of the whole church service the funeral mass is the most beautiful. It offers tenderness to man and pity for him. Among us, no one has pity except for the dead." These words I remember very well, as I do all his words, but of course at that time I could not understand them. The things of childhood are only understood on the eve of old age, for these are the wisest years of man.
I remember also that I asked him once, "Why does God help man so little?"
"It's none of His business," he explained to me. "Help yourself, that's why reason was given to you. God is here so that it won't be so terrible to die, but just how to live, that is your affair."