Seiobo There Below (18 page)

The influence of Byzantium and Constantinople was immeasurable, but of course that statement needs to be amended, for without Byzantium and Constantinople not even the Slavs themselves would have assumed Christianity across such a vast area, so, of course, it is natural that, on the subject of icon-painting, everything goes back to Byzantine origins, everything points in that direction, to the Byzantine Greek Orthodoxy; from there the first miracle-working images emerged, and from these the first miracle-working icon painters emerged; the Russians went to study with them in Byzantium, to the unprecedentedly wealthy and powerful city of Constantinople, preparing for immortality — it was from here that the stern outlines on the motionless face of the mighty Pantokrator that were painted onto the arches and cupolas originated, from here it was transmitted, before anywhere else, to Kiev, then to Novgorod, Pskov, Vladimir and Suzdal, to Radonezh, Pereslavl, Rostov and Yaroslavl, then to Kostroma, and finally to Moscow, to Moscow — all these countless chastising glances, these countless somber Virgin Mothers in mourning, those fierce rhythms, those immobile judgmental colors, and that extraordinary tautness and finality and steadfastness and unshakeable spirit and eternal life, but the Russians created something utterly different, something that was replete with gentle affection, reassurance, peace, sympathy, and reverence; that of course reached consummation only in the fifteenth century, because there — at least in the historical sense, from Kievan Rus’ to the Grand Duchy of Moscow, a long road had to be traversed, which moreover should not be envisaged as one unbroken line but as a kind of sketch, the main direction of which is indisputable but which stops from time to time at a certain point, like islands flashing in all directions, radiating outward like stars, leaving a trace on the map of the first five centuries of ancient Russian art, which at last culminates in the icon-painting of Moscow, and creates that tradition which renders it unmistakable, binding together Vladimir’s Mother of God and the Virgin of Volokolamsk, and so with that the ancient Russian art of icon painting could come into being — that which did not require time to be born, but immersion, which did not come about in one single process — time, therefore, was not the central element, but rather it was the glimpse, the sudden comprehension, the lightning-quick recognition, the sight of which was incomprehensible, unrecognizable, unseeable — this was the thinking of every saint — from the two sons of the Grand Duke of Kievan Rus’, Boris and Gleb, to the igumen of Pecherskaya Lavra, Feodosiy, to the abbot Saint Sergey of the immortal Monastery of the Trinity of Radonezh; truly everyone, the named and the nameless, who took part in this immersion — even those among them already able to feel the wonders of Creation — were aided in this magical atmosphere created by the icon painter, almost always working in complete obscurity; drawing closer, in his own tortuous way to the incomprehensible and the unrecognizable, and the invisible; for the icons explained to them clearly that the world was at an end, and that this world had an end; and that if they kissed the icon and looked
into
it, then they would be assured that something exists more miraculous than the miraculous itself, that there is mercy and there is forgiveness and there is hope, and there is strength in faith, and then there were the shrines of Desyatinnaya and Sofiya, created on the model of the Byzantine cruciform chapel, there was the Uspensky Cathedral of Kiev, and the Spas chapel of Neredica and the Paraskeva Pyatnitsa temple of Chernigov, there was the Pecherskaya Lavra and the Temple of the Gate, and the church of Berestovo and the monastery of Vidubitsky, but these were still the first wave of the glorious shrines, monasteries, and churches built in the joy of the new faith, as this was followed by the renowned Moscow Period with the Uspensky, the Andronikov, and the Troitskaya-Sergieva Lavra, so that the newer shrines and monasteries and churches were built one after the other to the north, as far north as Vologda and Ferapontov, and everywhere icons were created in the hundreds and thousands, the iconostases were raised, and the walls and the columns and the ceilings covered in frescoes, and the people were immersed in faith, and they stepped into the narthex and from there into the naos, and holding three fingers together, in a wide arc they made the sign of the cross, once in the middle of the forehead, once below the navel, then once to the right, finally to the left, then they bowed, and after a brief supplication they went forward to the analogion, the icon-stand, making the sign of the cross twice in front of it, and they kissed the edge of the icon, then again they made the sign of the cross once and they kneeled, and they bought a bundle of sacred candles and they lit the candles in the candelabra placed at certain points in the church, and here, after reciting the mandatory prayers and all the while crossing themselves again, they purified their hearts, at last they took their places in the shrines, the monasteries, and the churches, the women on the left side, the men on the right side, namely, the women in the narthex and the men in the naos, and they heard the voice of the priest leading the ceremony, that in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, Amin, have mercy upon me, a sinner, our Lord Jesus Christ, The Son of God, for the sake of the prayers of Thy most pure Mother, the Saintly Ones, our Godly Fathers, of every Saint, have mercy on us, and Glory to Thee, Our Lord, Glory to Thee, O Heavenly King, Bringer of Comfort, Soul of Truth, Who art everywhere present and fillest all things, Treasury of all the Good, and Giver of Life, come abide within us, and cleanse us of all sins, and redeem, O Benevolence, our souls, and they heard the reverberations of the choir, the polyphony growing ever richer, constructed on the basis of the diatonic, chromatic, and enharmonic scales, they gave themselves over to the ikos, sounded in the scale of eight voices and its forty modulations, and they said the Amin if the time came in the liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, and made the sign of the cross, as if scattering crosses, flinging one cross after another for hours, while this great Liturgy was taking place, until the priest kissed the cross and after the distribution of the prosfora, called upon them to leave; and they believed in God, because they saw the icons, because these icons demonstrated to them, and proved definitively to their impressionable souls that what stood before them on the icon-stand or what they could see hanging on the wall before them, the icon, was truly that
place
where they might glimpse into another world, a world above all else, so that their lives passed in one single prayer, or if that was not entirely the case, as in the midst of writhing struggle between the lesser and greater sins, committed over and over, it was difficult to maintain the intensity of the concentration demanded by constant prayer; yet there still remained wonder, the sincere rapturous wonder of those for whom this state of continuous prayer was not a superhuman task but was itself the only single imaginable form of this worldly life — truly one long uninterrupted prayer — for this was the case of those who chose the sacred path, of every cropped-headed votary of the subjects of Orthodox devotion, who following one of the twofold traditions of Byzantium, chose to pass their lives in that which the Lord had meted out for them: either a strict kinovion or a more free-spirited idiorhythmic type of monastery; nonetheless they lived in both places in this state of continual prayer, if not explicitly confined within this prayer, as were the most constant heroes of the faith, the Hesychasts; well, perhaps these monks couldn’t even have done otherwise, as for them anything else would have been unimaginable; therefore they lived as an inner mute prayer, immersed in perfect reticence, in a silence where no worldly sound was ever heard, not even the faint murmur of the prayers of the other monks, not even the murmur that could be heard from the whole of the Russian lands, which in accordance with the so-called spirit of history was slowly moving in a turbulent swirl toward union, for in the meantime the Russians had become enamored with Christ and the Virgin Mother, and with sincere murmuring fear in their hearts paid tribute to Our Lord the Creator, who looked down upon them as the Pantokrator from the heights of the church cupolas, they were enchanted by the dazzling beauty of the churches, by the endless riches that rained down upon them on Sundays and during every mandatory prayer on the church holidays; under the weight of their sins, they took part with the most profound trust — with the promise of redemption — in the long ceremonies, which in and of themselves were prayers; all the seven Byzantine synods of the Orthodox faith wanted this and ordered it as such, where everything, including the smallest details of life, was regulated, and thus everything could accordingly serve the everlasting sustenance of the Church in the enormous territory of Russia, emerging as a great power, everything could serve the everlasting sustenance of the buildings of its faith — polished, intricate, and infinitely refined — so that every object and every hymn and every supplication and every movement would conjure up amazement and preserve the sense in the believer, with his wretched existence, that here he was close to Paradise, close to Our Lord, close to Christ and the Holy Mother of God, close to the Unseeable, to that which was more Miraculous than the Miraculous, so that he would be filled with the heart-wrenching reverberations of the choir’s chant and the Word; his soul would be, after sorrow, penetrated with infinite joy, so that he would believe, truly believe, that his wretched life was nothing; for everything was above, was there in the beyond, was there if he looked, before kissing the icon’s edge, in the incomprehensible spectacle opening within the gates of the icon, it was there . . . there . . . somewhere.

He decided to leave, that was all he needed, to give himself over to this weakness, to the glutinous substance of a sadness that had precipitously descended upon him, all he needed now was to give in, especially in this place that was not for him, merely because the pictures on the wall here looked at him with such illumination; it was out of the question, get out now, the whole thing was totally absurd, he could not allow himself this, he had nothing at all, neither proper accommodation nor money nor work; not only did he have to be strong inside but he had to feel that way, facing whomever he would encounter on Monday while searching again for work; wandering around in here was pure lunacy, I’m out of here, to hell with it, and he was already going, that is to say backward, because one could not be certain, as he was not, that there was, at the opposite end of the series of rooms arranged like a labyrinth, an exit; he recognized this already, he did not have to ruminate: well, which way now, this way, he said to himself, and he went, backward, to where he had come from; he didn’t look at the pictures now, he was very angry at himself and felt it had been idiotic to sneak in here; he retreated from one room to the next, and he had already reached the first room, and was already below on the eight steps, and he was about to walk through the door that opened wide onto the corridor so he could then run down the crazy staircase and outside, out of this crazy building, once again into the crowd and then into the Carrer de Provença, and from there quickly toward a district suitable for him, so he could eat in some cheap buffet to hold out until tomorrow when, in the first room through which he had blindly hurried through when he first came in, yes, now he remembered clearly, that here in this first room he hadn’t really looked at anything at all, he hadn’t even seen anything, as if he’d had to shut his eyes; for the life of him, he didn’t remember anything of what was here, he had, in a word, headed inside unseeing, yet now, on his way out, he cast a glance at a picture of much larger dimensions than the others, altogether one glance, and he had already turned his head away, and he had already raised his leg to step across the threshold, yet he stopped, somehow he faltered in his movement, he could not complete it and because of this he nearly stumbled clumsily in front of the eight steps — almost, for at the last moment he was able to pull his leg back, and he was even able to keep his balance, he only clutched at the door frame and looked back once again, and, well, there would not have actually been any particular reason for him to be so troubled, for in this first room there was only one picture to be seen; true, it had been positioned differently, and it was also true that apart from this picture, nothing else had been placed there — an easel, a kind of painter’s easel had been set up in this first room, and on this, obliquely, that is at a slight backward tilt, and much bigger than the others — a painting nearly life sized had been placed, and, because the easel was high above the floor level, it so to speak welcomed the visitor, and if already from the beginning it would have been hard for him to explain why he had slipped into here, and what the hell he was looking for here, then now he knew even less why he had come to a dead halt before this picture, so that he nearly fell on his nose from the sudden stop, that is, in any event, how it occurred: he braked, he came to a dead halt, he leaned against the door frame, he regained his balance, and he turned in the direction of the large picture, and in the picture he saw three mighty, delicate, supplicant men, as these three men sat around a table; that was what he saw first, but he quickly discovered that these three men, each of them, had wings, it was not, moreover, easy to discover this as the painting was in fairly bad condition, it was immediately visible that many parts that had once been painted in were missing, but the three figures who, due to their wings, were obviously angels, had remained relatively intact, only a scar extended all the way down the middle of the picture, as if the wood on which it had been painted had split, and as if after this fissure had occurred, something else had been spilled there, resulting in a thick streak where some of the color was lost; but then he determined that there was, to the right, a similar though thinner streak where the same thing might have occurred; aha, he realized suddenly, these fissures occur in the two places where so long ago the boards were fitted to each other, there is a problem with the join, he thought worriedly, the material is warping and had already warped a bit, in other words it had cupped, as people who work with wood are wont to say, and in that first minute he didn’t even know why the hell he was interested, and what had made him anxious and why he wasn’t moving on already, what the hell was he doing standing around here and why was it so important to him, to him of all people, that there were two scars on this picture and what they were from, when he awoke to the realization that these angels . . . it was as if they had stopped him, it seemed like pure lunacy but there had to be something in it, he perceived that he was now staring only at the background, perhaps even more terrifyingly shining and golden than the previous ones, and that he wasn’t taking his eyes off of it, his eyes were dazzled from the illumination, just so he didn’t have to look at the angels — but already, he was well aware that he
did not dare
to look at the angels — so, this really takes the cake, have I gone crazy as well?! and he looked at the angels and almost immediately at the sight he collapsed, for he knew right away, as he looked at them, that these angels were real.