On the first afternoon of possession, I laid myself down to enjoy a nap, out of which I awakened by a weird, softly-sustained, very deep and melancholy sounds. Floating upwards, these seemingly unearthly voices continued–ill and nervous as I was–to astonish and agitate me. Was I out of my senses, or had I passed into the Unknown during sleep? If so, these low B flats were certainly not of an angelic kind. "And hark! I hear a singing; yet, in sooth, I cannot of that music rightly say whether I hear, or touch, or taste the tones!" Thus the Soul in Gerontius. Presently, the information that my bedroom was situated immediately above the Chiesa Russa, and that the choir was at practice, relived my perplexity. But this introduction to Russian Church music, and the phenomenal depths to which the singers can descend, was decidedly a fearsome experience. << less