"I was, I must tell you," Matvey was saying, "inclined to religion
from my earliest childhood. I was only twelve years old when I used
to read the epistle in church, and my parents were greatly delighted,
and every summer I used to go on a pilgrimage with my dear mother.
Sometimes other lads would be singing songs and catching crayfish,
while I would be all the time with my mother. My elders commended
me, and, indeed, I was pleased myself that I was of such good
behaviour. And when my mother sent me with her blessing to the
factory, I used between working hours to sing tenor there in our
choir, and nothing gave me greater pleasure. I needn't say, I drank
no vodka, I smoked no tobacco, and lived in chastity; but we all
know such a mode of life is displeasing to the enemy of mankind,
and he, the unclean spirit, once tried to ruin me and began to
darken my mind, just as now with my cousin. First of all, I took a
vow to fast every Monday and not to eat meat any day, and as time
went on all sorts of fancies came over me. For the first week of
Lent down to Saturday the holy fathers have ordained a diet of dry
food, but it is no sin for the weak or those who work hard even to
drink tea, yet not a crumb passed into my mouth till the Sunday,
and afterwards all through Lent I did not allow myself a drop of
oil, and on Wednesdays and Fridays I did not touch a morsel at all.
It was the same in the lesser fasts. Sometimes in St. Peter's fast
our factory lads would have fish soup, while I would sit a little
apart from them and suck a dry crust. Different people have different
powers, of course, but I can say of myself I did not find fast days
hard, and, indeed, the greater the zeal the easier it seems. You
are only hungry on the first days of the fast, and then you get
used to it; it goes on getting easier, and by the end of a week you
don't mind it at all, and there is a numb feeling in your legs as
though you were not on earth, but in the clouds. And, besides that,