concept
Clean Monday
also: чистый понедельник, chisty ponedelnik
The first day of Great Lent in the Orthodox calendar, traditionally marked by especially strict fasting and household cleaning; Matvei falls seriously ill on the Clean Monday following Osip Varlamych's reproof of his self-declared sainthood, an illness he reads as divine intervention that finally breaks his religious mania.
Reading notes
- The Murder §34 Clean Monday
Чистый понедельник (Clean Monday), the first day of Great Lent, follows immediately on Forgiveness Sunday; Matvei's collapse into serious illness on this specific day is framed, in his own retrospective telling, as providential -- God's confirmation of Osip Varlamych's reproof.