A great fan of glittery pomp and festivity in general, Warden F— — gave word that the church should absolutely be completed by Easter. Construction on the main structure was halted in favor of carving the iconostasis. The warden ran to our ward daily and urged on poor K. The young artist got angry but, aware of his dependent position, had to simplify his sketches and hurry his work.

One day, the warden expressed a desire that one of us form a choir. The students proved to be unfamiliar with church singing. I’d always loved music, and as a boy had happened to sing in a choir; but now, save for a theoretical understanding of notes, I could not offer a choir anything. My voice was hoarse, my hearing significantly dulled. However, I didn't want to accept a complete loss of singing ability, and began strenuously to exercise using those scraps of notation the choirmaster F. Iv. Gennisaretskii gave me.

Services were being held in one of the barracks. Half of it was occupied by penal laborers, the rest had for the moment been turned into a pathetic church. The iconostasis consisted of tightly framed canvasses; there were vestments on a throne and on an altar of calico; and wooden candlesticks and handmade objects. As such, everything was there. The priest himself seemed to complete this picture of an impoverished church. He was a semiliterate Buriat in monastic wear, with terrible intonation and a broad Asiatic face. Yet, for all this, one felt surprisingly cozy inside this little church. Later, when services transferred to the richly appointed cathedral, many recalled with fondness the first, impoverished, church, where “the praying was warmer.”

With copying out notations for the church choir and frequent singing, I gradually began leaving the carpentry job behind. As a rule, I only did it before noon.

Learning to use a hatchet had somehow popped into my head. “What sort of carpenter would I be if I can't use a hatchet!” I told myself, and decided to hook logs using the axe-notch. On the first log, I sliced through my shoe and stuck the blade into the sole of my foot. They bandaged me up and I didn't work for a while.