Page 256 - The Mirror of My Soul. Vol. 1

Nicolai Levashov. The Mirror of My Soul. Vol. 1. Born in the USSR

understands it or not—at a subconscious level he scans the person at the centre of

attention.

That is why a person who is sensitive enough will feel as though he is mentally
“undressed” and rarely is this “undressing” related to sexual thoughts. We do not
understand that if we concentrate on someone mentally, we create a material mental
stream directed to the person we are interested in.

All this I understood much later, but then I felt this mental stream on my “hide”
very distinctly every time I appeared in the spotlight. Every time when this happened to
me, I always felt indignation and disappointment with myself, because I was not able to
control my feelings and therefore looked funny and clumsy; and like any normal person
I did not like it at all. Sometimes I was angry with myself, not with the situation. Maybe
other people did not see it this way and did not think me funny and clumsy, but this is
exactly how I thought.

My first victory was an ability to disconnect myself quickly from the outer world
and to concentrate on what I had to say. I still did not like to speak in public, but I could
then overcome that inexplicable, for me, state and convey my thoughts more or less

intelligibly. It does not mean that I stopped reacting to the mental blows of the audience,
I did. I always worried very much before every appearance in public, but necessity
obliged me to overcome this highly unpleasant state. However, all this concerned lessons
or school meetings, not my appearance on the stage.

I treated the stage with some kind of prejudice and did my best to avoid it. I
remember, when I was in my seventh or eighth year, we were all together in the school
assembly hall for an audition for the school choir. This procedure reminded me a little
of the situation from the legend of Ulysses, when he and his shipmates found themselves
shut in the cannibal Cyclops’s cave. When Cyclops, blinded by Ulysses, touched each
sheep before letting it out of the cave, Ulysses thought to put sheep-skins on himself and
his crew and thus they escaped his clutches.

So, the situation in the school assembly hall reminded me of this legend. The only
way to abandon this hall and go home was to do the audition. I did not want to, but had
no chance to avoid it. My schoolfellows left the assembly hall one after another. Some

were “rejected”, some enrolled. I did not want to get on the list and had to invent my
own “sheep-skin”.

When my turn came, I went to the piano with a sense of impending doom. The
young woman who carried out the audition played some chords and asked me to sing
notes. I did it and then the thought flashed through my mind! When she played next
chords higher in key than the previous ones and asked me to sing notes, I sang them in
the previous key. The young woman became a little upset and asked me to try once again
and sing in the right key. I again sang notes exactly like I did for the first time.

She made several attempts and then said with vexation in her voice that I had a very
strong bass, probably unique in its force in the country, and asked me to sing notes in
the right key for the last time. With a sad face I sang everything the same way and was
finally released. I was very pleased with my inventiveness and happily ran home. My
trick was, that although I could have repeated everything in the necessary key perfectly,
I had observed the process of the auditions and I understood that all those who could not

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