I moved away at this point and left the cricketer putting his watch to his ear to see if it was going. I had promised to meet Shura and Nicholas and go up into the steeple with them. I found them on one of the stone galleries where the little bells of the church nestle together. They had a collection of squibs and crackers and coloured lights which they were letting off so as to allow girl students below to pretend to be terrified.
“The priests have come out,” said Nicholas, all at once pointing to a little procession just proceeding from the Uspensky. “Christos Voskrece, Christos Voskrece,” we heard all around us, and everyone was kissing one another. Then all the little bells of the churches began to tinkle, first a few and then more and more in confused ecstatic jangling. Moscow bells do not sound in the least like English bells, the chime is not musical or solemn. Our bells chant, their bells cheer. On Easter Night it is ten thousand bells, the voice of a thousand churches praising God. A wild, astonishing clamour, and then suddenly came one sound greater in itself than all the little sounds put together, the appalling boom of the great bell of St John Veleeky:
“Ting a ling, ling, ling, ling,
Dong, dong, dong, dong, dong,
Ding, ding, dong a dong, ding,
Dang, dang, dang,
Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding,
DOOM . . m . m m!”
Suddenly Katia passed me—the girl I took to the theatre.
“Christos Voskrece,” said I, “Christ is risen.”