CHAPTER XIX

COMMUNING WITH THE RUTHENIANS

I hear the tale of the divine life and the bloody death of the
beautiful God, the Christ.--WALT WHITMAN.

This is my first visit to Mundare, on the Canadian Northern Railway,
and to the Ruthenian Church--the church with glittering domes, the
foundation stone of which was laid by the great Laurier himself. "Who
is this Sir Laurier?" I ask. "Ach! I cannot tell you. He a great man
is," says Michael Veranki, "his hair is like to the wild cotton in
August, and his face is beautiful, even like the face of the great
Archbishop Syptikyi, who is a soldier and a prince, and the like of
whom there never was. Believe me, Messus, he has seven feet high and
has seven tongues wherein to speak."

"About this Laurier? Ya! Ya! almost I forget. He the stone of the
church placed in the corner, and we drew him in a wagon with six
bullocks. He the King's man is, and a smile in his eyes there comes,
quick, quick, like the wind comes on the wheat. Ya! Ya! we much like
this King's man."

Nearly all the people are gone into the church and I follow. There are
no seats, so all of us stand, the sexes separated like the sheep from
the goats.

One's eyes become riveted on the large globe of cut crystals that hangs
from the ceiling near the centre of the church, and the hard white
lights from it strike sharply on my eyeballs like dagger points. All
the people are making reverences and placing something on their
foreheads like oil, but it may be holy water. Know all men by these
presents that I, even I, am the poor ignorant wife of a Protestant
person, and understand not the meaning of these obeisances, nor of this
beautiful fete to which all the Austrian folk of the countryside have
come with not so much as one mouthful of bread to break their fast.
Neither shall one drop of liquid moisten their parched lips for these
three hours unless--Holy Mother and all the Blessed Saints, pray for
our presumption--unless indeed, it might fall to the lot of a woman to
take into her lips the sacred blood from the golden spoon which the
priest dips into the chalice, the holy chalice that is surmounted with
something dazzling like a star, so that no woman may even look thereon.

Feeling all the while like wild oats amid the wheat, I take my stand by
a pillar close to the door and pretend not to stare. Ere long, a young
girl touches me and tells me she is inquested to bring me to the
sisters.