Babiński followed the melody of each ballad or song, and rattled it out like a barrel organ, merely repeating two very discordant syllables innumerable times: "Dyna, dyna, dyna, dyna." He sang with the greatest enthusiasm, however; strong as he always was and burning with inward fire, he was terrible now with his wordless songs, into which he put all the sufferings and sorrows he had never expressed in words.
At last we had exhausted all the songs we knew, and sung them to the end; no one could recall any more. But since the frenzy which had seized us had now reached its height, it was necessary to find some new song giving ample outlet by its words and motifs to the emotions already aroused, and answering to our present state of feeling.
Among the songs of our nation which give an outlet to its longings, the greatest are the religious songs; for whether sad or joyous, mournful or festive, they are always noble in their deep and calm feeling. The people who can hear and find nothing in these songs are poor indeed. The Lenten, Easter, and Christmas songs are the greatest artistic inheritance handed down to us from the past. It is the one sphere of artistic creativeness not produced by separate epochs and classes, but to which the whole nation has contributed throughout the centuries of its existence, giving to it all its earthly joys and griefs—all its soul.
And therefore we possess a treasury of melodies which are as deep as the soul of the nation—indifferent to superficial or cheap sentiment—and as great as existence itself, obscured by the veil of ages.
Cast into this depth any amount of the blackest sorrow or the most exuberant joy, its surface will never even be ruffled. It replies to the greatest cataclysms with a ripple, and its smooth current scarcely even suggests any troubling of its waters.
From this treasury, as yet insufficiently prized, the great artists of the future will draw inspiration, as those in real suffering do to-day.
Who does not know the favourite carol, "Star of the Sea"? Yet it is probably sung in few churches as we sang it there. Both words and melody corresponded to our feelings. The simple words of the song might have been written for us; its solemn, grand melody soothed our hearts, which were suffering so terribly from self-inflicted wounds. Bartek was the first to fall on his knees. The rest of us followed his example, and earnest, ardent prayers flowed from our lips. But when we came to the words, "Turn from us hunger and grievous plague, protect us from bloodshed and war," we prayed with so much fervour that hearing we did not hear, and seeing we did not see Bartek rise weeping. "Oh, the merciful Father won't hear such a great prayer from this den of infection! We must pray to the God of the heavens in the open!" he cried, and went out of the room dressed as he was.
But our strength was now nearly exhausted. Even Babiński stopped singing now and then, showing only by his open mouth and hand beating time that he was still singing on in his heart. Suddenly, electrifying us afresh, a strong voice sounded outside the door: "God is born, power trembles"; and Bartek, led in by Eudoxia from the "open," in which he would infallibly have been frozen, started the carol in his bass voice.