Page 257 - The Mirror of My Soul. Vol. 1

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

sing in key were rejected. I did not want to let out a squeak intentionally, because it
would look ridiculous, and I disliked looking ridiculous. Therefore, I decided to sing

everything in one and the same key—nobody laughed and I obtained the result I wanted.

I always tried everything in my power to avoid any situation where I would be
obliged to ap-pear on stage. However, sometimes I failed, for example, when I was a
student in my first year at the Kharkov University. Funnily enough, the situation was
almost the same as it was at school.

This time I was “caught” and the reason for that was that I had given my word. If I
gave my word to anyone—I always kept my promises, no matter at what cost to me. I
gave my mother my word not to take off the corrective glasses and I paid for it with a
split muscle in my right eye. Certainly, I tried to give my word prudently, knowing that
I had to keep it. Therefore, I usually did not give my word or make a decision in a hurry,

but tried estimate all positive and negative sides of my decision beforehand. Here is an
example.

I was very fond of reading in my childhood. When I came from school, I did my
home-work very quickly, took the next enthralling book and plunged into an adventure
or a fantastic novel (I also read a lot books on history, biology, geography, etc.).
Certainly, I was especially carried away with science fiction! So, I very much liked
reading books and also cracking sunflower seeds.

Certainly, when I did these two things at the same time half the husk would get

eaten. Once, my mother told me that if I continued to swallow the husks, my appendix
would soon be blocked up and would have to be removed. I did not want to lose my
appendix and decided to find a way out of this problem. At first I tried shelling all the
seeds in order to eat them when reading.

I honestly did it several times, but, when I began to read, the seeds were gone almost
instantly. I racked my brain a little and made a decision. If books and seeds are
incompatible or I could not make them compatible, then I chose books. Since that day
on I have never cracked sunflower seeds! And not only when reading books—I stopped
eating them at all! I do not know, whether that is bad or good—such is my character.

However, sometimes it let me down.
Once a young woman came into our lecture-room and informed us that we were to
come to the room she indicated after our lectures. We had all become students quite
recently, knew little and navigated the corridors of the enormous Kharkov University
with certain difficulty. That is why we all came to the place she indicated, blissfully
unaware. There was a piano, but this fact meant nothing to us. The young woman
appeared with a gentleman. She introduced him to us as the master of the university
choir who would now audition us to select new members for the choir. We all under-
stood that we had “got into a mess”, but had no place to hide.

I had by then made friends with one fellow from our group, Michael Tiomny.
Neither he nor I wanted to be the first on stage. When the audition began, we wanted it

even less, as we heard the “warbles” produced by the fellows from our group when they
“sang”; almost everyone roared with laughter. It is bad to laugh at other people, but it is
even worse when someone laughs at you.

Well, soon there was only me and Michael left and the girls from our group stared
at us with a question in their eyes. I had no choice but do an audition for the second time

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