I was alone now in the office, did all the work, and received a salary from Titoff of forty rubles a year. He gave me Olga as an assistant.
I had noticed for a long time that the peasants walked around the office as wolves around a trap. They see the trap, but they are hungry, and the bait tempts them, so they begin to eat.
When I was alone in the office and became acquainted with all the books and plans, I realized, even with my poor understanding, that our whole arrangement was nothing more than theft. The peasants were head over ears in debt and worked, not for themselves, but for Titoff. I cannot say that I was either very much surprised or ashamed at this discovery. And even if I did understand now why Savelko swore at me and insulted me, still I did not think it was right of him. Was it then I who had originated this stealing?
I saw that Titoff was not quite straight even with the landlord, and that he stuffed his pockets as much as he dared.
I became bolder toward him, for I realized that in some way I was necessary to him. And now I understood why. I had to hide him, the thief, from the Lord God. He now called me his "dear son," and his wife did so too. They dressed me well, for which, of course, I was grateful.
But my heart did not go out toward them, and my soul was not warmed by their goodness. I became more and more friendly with Olga, however. I liked her wistful smile, her low voice and her love of flowers.
Titoff and his wife walked before God with sunken heads, like a team of horses, and behind their timid glances seemed to be continually hiding something which must have been even greater than theft.
I did not like Titoff's hands. He always hid them in a manner which made me suspicious. Perhaps those hands had strangled some one; perhaps there was blood on them. They kept asking me, he as well as she:
"Pray for our sins, Motia."
One day I could stand it no longer. I asked them:
"Are you then more sinful than others?"
Nastasia sighed and went away, and he turned on his heel and did not answer.
In the house he was thoughtful and spoke very little, and then only on business. He never swore at the peasants, but he was always haughty with them, which was worse than swearing. He never conceded a point and stood his ground as firmly as if he were sunk to the waist in the earth.
"One should give in to them," I said to him once.
"Never," he answered. "Not an iota must you give in, or you are lost."
Another time he ordered me to count false, and I said to him:
"You can't do that."
"Why not?"
"It is a sin."
"It is not you who are forcing me to sin, but I you. Write as I tell you. No one will ask any account of you, you are only my hand. Your piety will not suffer by it; have no fear. For ten rubles a month neither I nor anybody else can live honorably. Do you understand that?"
"Oh, you scoundrel!" I said to myself. But aloud I said to him: "That is quite enough. Things must end right here. If you don't stop this swindling I will tell the village all about your deals."
He pulled his mustache up to his nose, lifted his shoulders to his ears, showed his teeth and stared at me with his round, bulging eyes. We measured each other.
"You will do that, really?" he said to me in a low voice.
"Yes."
Titoff burst out laughing, and it sounded as if some one had thrown silver pieces on the ground.
"All right, my holy one, that is all that I needed. From now on we will manage this affair differently. We won't bother any more with kopecks. We will deal with rubles. If the thief's dress is too tight, he becomes honest."
He went out, slamming the door so that the panes in the windows rattled.
It seemed to me that Titoff was a little more cross after that. Still I was not quite sure of it. But he left me in, peace from then on.
He was a terrible miser, and though he did not deny himself anything, nevertheless he knew how to value a penny. He ate well and was very fond of women, and as he had the power in his hands, there was not a woman in the village who dared to refuse him. He let the young girls alone, and only went to the married women. He made my blood hot once or twice.
"What is the matter, Matvei?" he asked. "Are you timid? To take a woman is like giving charity. In the country every woman yearns for love. But the men are weak and worn out, and what can the women expect from them? You are a strong, handsome young fellow; why not make love to the women? You would get some pleasure out of it yourself."
He followed every villainy, the low rascal. Once he asked me:
"Do you think, Matvei, that a pious man is of much value in the eyes of God?"
I did not like such questions. "I don't know," I answered.
He remained doubtful for a minute and then he said:
"God led Lot out of Sodom and saved Noah; but thousands perished by fire and water. Still it says, 'Thou shalt not kill.' Often it seems to me that these thousands perished because among them there were a few pious and virtuous people. God saw that despite the stringent laws which He gave, there were several who could lead a righteous life. If there had been no pious men in Sodom, God would have seen that it was impossible to observe His commandments and He might have lightened them without putting to death thousands of people. They call Him the All-merciful One. But where is His mercy?"
I did not understand then that this man was only seeking license to sin. Nevertheless, the words angered me.
"You are blaspheming," I said. "You are afraid of God, but you don't love Him."
He drew his hands out of his pockets, threw them behind his back, and his face turned gray. It was plain that he was in great wrath.
"Whether it is so or not, I don't know," he answered, "but it seems to me that you pious ones use God as a ruler by which you mark off the sins of others. Without such as you, God would have a hard time measuring sins."
He took no notice of me for a long time after that. But an insufferable hatred rose in my soul against this man. I avoided him even more than I did Savelko. If at night I mentioned his name in my prayers, an ungovernable anger possessed me. It was at this time that I said my first spontaneous prayer:
"I do not wish to seek grace for a thief, O Lord. I ask that he be punished. May he not rob the poor without being punished."
And I prayed to God so ardently that Titoff be punished that I grew frightened at the terrible fate that awaited him.
Soon after this I bad another encounter with Migun. He came to the office for lime-bast,[1]when I happened to be alone. I asked him:
"Why do you always make fun of me, Savel?"
He showed his teeth and stared at me with his piercing eyes.
"I haven't much business here," he said. "I only came for lime-bast."
My legs trembled beneath me and my hands clenched of themselves. I clutched his throat and shook him lightly.
"What have I done?"
He was not frightened, nor was he angry. He simply took my hand and pushed it from his throat as if it were he, not I, who was the stronger. "When you are choking some one, he cannot speak well," he said. "Let me alone," he continued; "I have received beatings enough, and I don't need yours. Besides, you mustn't strike any one. It is against the commandments."
He spoke quietly and mockingly, in a light tone. I shouted:
"What do you want here?"
"Some lime-bast."
I saw that I could make no headway with him by words, and my anger was already gone. I now only felt hurt and cold.
"You are all beasts," I said. "Can you make fun of a man because his parents abandoned him?"
He threw his words at me as if they were little stones:
"Don't be a hypocrite. We know you by your actions. You eat stolen bread and others suffer want."
"You lie!" I said. "I work for my bread."
"Without work you can't even steal a chicken. That is an old story."
He looked at me with a devilish smile in his eyes and said pityingly:
"Oh, Matvei, what a good child you used to be. And now you have become learned, despite God, and like all thieves in our country, you found a religion based on God's truth that all men have not equally long fingers."
I threw him out of the office. I did not want to understand his play on words, for I considered myself a true servant of God and valued my own opinion more than any one else's.
I felt strange and fearful, as if the strength of my soul was vanishing. I had not sunk so low as to whine before God against man, for I was no Pharisee for all that I was a fool. I knelt before the holy Virgin of Abalatzk and looked up at her countenance and at her hands, which were uplifted to heaven. The little fire in the holy lamp flickered and a faint shadow spread over the ikon. The same shadow fell on my heart and something strange and invisible and oppressive rose up betwixt God and myself. I lost all joy in prayer, and I became wretched and even Olga was no longer a comfort to me.
But she looked at me all the more kindly. I was eighteen at this time, a well developed youth, with red curly hair and a pale face. I wanted to come nearer her, yet was embarrassed, for I was innocent before women then. The women in the village laughed at me for it, and it even seemed to me at times that Olga herself smiled at me in a queer way. More than once the enticing thought came to me: "There, that's my wife."
Day in, day out, I sat with her in the office in silence. When she asked me some questions about the business I answered, and in that lay our whole conversation.
She was slender and white, like a young birch, and her eyes were blue and thoughtful. To me she seemed pretty and tender in her quiet, mysterious wistfulness.
Once she asked me:
"What makes you so sad, Matvei?"
I had never spoken about myself with any one before, nor had ever wished to. But here suddenly my heart opened and I poured out all my misery to her. I told her of the shame of my birth, of the abuse that I suffered for it, and of the loneliness and wretchedness of my soul, and of her father. I told her everything. I did not do it to complain. It was only to unburden myself of my inmost thoughts, of which I had amassed quite a quantity—all worthless, I suppose.
"I had better enter a monastery," I ended.
She became depressed, hung her head and did not answer. I was pleased at her distress, but her silence hurt me. Three days later she said to me softly:
"It is wrong to watch people so much. Each one lives for himself. To be sure, now you are alone, but when you will have your own family, you will need no one and you will live like the rest, for yourself, in your own house and home. As for my father, don't judge him. I see that no one loves him, but I can't see wherein he is worse than the rest. Where does one see love anyway?"
Her words consoled me. I always did everything impetuously, and so here, too, I burst forth:
"Would you marry me?"
She turned and whispered:
"Yes."
[1]A vegetable fiber made from the bark of the lime tree.
[1]A vegetable fiber made from the bark of the lime tree.
It was done. The next day I told Titoff, just the way it happened.
He smiled, stroked his mustache and began again to torture me.
"You want to become my son. The way is open for you, Matvei; it is the will of God and I make no objections. You're a serious, modest, healthy young man. You pray for us, and in every way you are a treasure. I say that without flattery. But in order to have enough to live on, one must understand business, and your leanings that way are very weak. That's the first thing. The second, you will be called to military service in two years and you will have to go. Should you have some money saved up by then, say some five hundred rubles, you might buy yourself off. I could manage that for you. But without money you will have to go and Olga will remain here, neither wife nor widow."
He struck me in the heart with these dull words. His mustache trembled and a green fire burned in his eyes. I pictured military life to myself. It was terrible and antipathetic to me. What kind of a soldier would I make? The very fact that I would have to live with others in the barracks was enough, and then the drinking and the swearing and the brawls! Everything about the service seemed inhuman to me. Titoff's words crushed me.
"That means," I said to him, "that I become a monk."
Titoff laughed.
"It is too late. They don't make you a monk right away, and novices are recruited as well as laymen. No, Matvei, there is no way to bribe fate but with money."
"Then give me the money," I said to him; "you have enough."
"Aha," he said, "what a lucky thought of yours! Only, how would I fare by it? Perhaps I earned my money by heavy sins; perhaps I even sold my soul to the devil for it? While I wallow in sin you lead a righteous life. And you want to continue it at the expense of my sinning. It is easy for a righteous one to attain heaven if a sinner carry him in on his back. However, I refuse to be your horse. Better do your own sinning. God will forgive you, for you have already merited it."
I looked at Titoff and he seemed to have suddenly grown yards taller than I, and I was crawling somewhere at his feet. I understood that he was making fun of me, and I stopped the discussion.
In the evening I told Olga what her father said. Tears shone in the girl's eyes, and a little blue vein beat; near her ear. Its sad beating found an echo in my heart. Olga said, smiling: "So things aren't going as we want them to?"
"Oh, yes, they will go," I said.
I said these words thoughtlessly, but with them I gave my word of honor to her and to myself, and I could not break it.
That day an unclean life began for me. It was a dark, drunken period, and my soul flew hither and thither like a pigeon in a cloud of smoke. I was sorry about Olga and I wanted her for my wife, for I loved her. But above all I saw that Titoff was more powerful than I, and stronger-willed; and it was insufferable to my pride. I had despised his villainous ways and his wretched heart, when suddenly I discovered that something strong lived in him, which looked down on me and overpowered me.
It became known in the village that I had proposed and had been refused. The girls tittered, the women stared at me, and Savelko made new jokes. All this enraged me and my soul became dark within.
When I prayed I felt as if Titoff were behind me, breathing on the nape of my neck, and I prayed incoherently and irreverently. My joy in God left me and I thought only of my own affairs. What will become of me?
"Help me, O Lord," I prayed. "Teach me not to wander from Thy path and not to lose my soul in sin. Thou art strong and merciful. Deliver Thy servant from evil and strengthen him against temptation, that he may not succumb to the wiles of his enemies nor grow to doubt the strength of Thy love for Thy servant."
Thus I brought God down from the height of His indescribable beauty and made Him do service as a help in my petty affairs, and having lowered God, I myself sunk low.
Olga in her sorrow shrunk from day to day, like a burning wax candle. I tried to imagine her living with some one else, but could not place any one beside her except myself. By the strength of his love, man creates another in his image, and so I thought that the girl understood my soul, read my thoughts and was as indispensable to me as I to myself. Her mother became even more depressed than before. She looked at me with tears in her eyes and sighed. But Titoff hid his ugly hands, walked up and down the room and circled silently around me like a raven over a dying dog, who is about to pick out his eyes the moment death came.
A month passed and I was at the same point where I left off. I felt as if I were on the edge of a steep ravine which I did not know how to cross. I was disgusted and heavy-hearted. Once Titoff walked up to me in the office and said in a whisper:
"You have an opportunity now. Take it if you want to be a man."
The opportunity was of such a nature that if it succeeded the peasants would lose much, the estate profit a bit and Titoff make about two hundred rubles. He explained it and asked:
"Well, you don't dare?"
Had he asked it in some other way, I might not have fallen into his clutches, but his words frenzied me.
"Not dare to steal? You don't need daring for that, but just meanness. All right, let's steal."
Here he laughed, the scoundrel, and asked:
"What about the sin?"
"I'll take care of my own sins," I answered.
"Good," he said, "and know that from now on each day brings you nearer the wedding."
He enticed me, fool that I was, like a wolf with a lamb in a trap.
And so it commenced. I wasn't stupid in business, and I had always had enough audacity in me. We began to rob the peasants as if we were playing a match. I followed each move he made with a bolder one. We said not a word, only looked at each other. There was mockery in his eyes and wrath burned in mine. He was the victor, and since I lost all to him, I did not want to be outdone in wickedness by him. I falsified the weights in measuring flax, I did not mark the fines when the peasants' cattle strayed on the landlord's pastures, and I cheated the peasants out of every kopeck I could. But I did not count the money nor gather in the rubles myself. I let everything go to Titoff, which, of course, did not make things easier either for me or the peasants.
In a word, I was as if possessed, and my heart was heavy and cold. When I thought of God I burned with shame. Nevertheless, I threw reproaches at Him more than once.
"Why dost Thou not keep me from falling with Thy strong arm? Why dost Thou try me beyond my strength? Dost Thou not see, O Lord, how my soul is being destroyed?"
There were times when Olga seemed strange to me, and when I looked at her and thought, of her hostilely.
"For your sake, unhappy one, I am selling my soul."
After such words I grew ashamed of myself before her and became kind and gentle—as gentle as possible.
But, of course, it was not out of pity for myself nor for the peasants that I suffered and gnashed my teeth in wrath; but for sheer chagrin that I could not conquer Titoff and that I had to act according to his will. When I remembered the words he often used against pious people, I became cold all over; and he saw the situation through and through and triumphed.
"Well, my holy one," he said, "it is time to begin thinking of your own nest. You will be too crowded here when you have a wife. You will have children, of course."
He called me "holy one." I did not answer. He called me that more and more often; but his daughter became all the more loving, all the more tender to me. She understood clearly how heavy my heart was.
Then Titoff begged from the landlord, Loseff, when he went to pay his respects to him, a little piece of land for me. They gave him a pretty place behind the manor building, and he began to build us a little house.
And I continued to oppress and to cheat.
Things began to move quickly. Our pockets swelled. The little house began to be built and shone bright in the sun, like a golden cage for Olga. Soon the roof was to be put on, and then the stove had to be built, and in the fall it would be finished for us to move into.
One evening I was going home from the village of Jakimoffka, where I had gone to take the cattle from some peasants for their debts. Just as I stepped out of the wood which lay before the village, I saw my house in the sunset burning like a torch. At first I thought it was the reflection of the sun surrounding it with red rays which reached up to heaven. But then I saw the people running and heard the fire crackle and snap, and my heart suddenly broke. I saw that God was my enemy. Had I had a stone then, I would have thrown it against heaven. I saw how my thievish work was going up in smoke and ashes, and saw myself as if on fire, and said:
"Thou desirest to show me, O Lord, that I have burnt my soul to dust and ashes. Thou desirest to show me that. I do not believe it; I do not wish Thy humiliation. It was not through Thy will that it burned but because the peasants through hatred of me and Titoff set fire to it. I do not wish to believe in Thy wrath, not because I am not worthy of it, but because this wrath is not worthy of Thee. Thou didst not wish to lend Thy help to the weak in the hour of his need, so that he could withstand sin. Thus, Thou art the guilty One, not I. As in a dark wood, which was already full grown, so I stepped into sin. How could I then have kept myself free from it?"
But these foolish words could neither console me nor make me right. They only awoke in my soul an evil obstinacy. My house burned down more quickly than my wrath. For a long time I stood on the edge of the wood, leaning against the trunk of a tree and haggled with God, while Olga's white face, bathed in tears and drawn with pain, rose up before my eyes. And I spoke to God boldly, as to one familiar:
"Thou art strong. So will I be also. Thus it should be for justice' sake."
The fire was quenched and all became quiet and dark. Only a few flames thrust their tongues out into the night, like the sobs of a child after it has stopped crying.
The night was cloudy and the river shone like a flaming sword which some one had lost in the field. I could have clutched at this sword and swung it high in the air to hear it ring over the earth.
Toward midnight I reached the village. At the door of the house were Olga and her father. They awaited me.
"Where were you?" Titoff asked.
"I stood on the hill and watched the fire."
"Why didn't you come to put it out?"
"Can I perform miracles? Would the fire have gone out if I had spat on it?"
Olga's eyes were swollen with tears and she was black with smoke and soot. I laughed when I saw her.
"You worked hard?" I asked.
Her eyes filled with tears. Titoff said gloomily:
"I don't know what will happen now."
"You must begin the building anew," I said.
Such wrath took possession of my soul then that I could have dragged the logs myself and have begun building unaided, until the house should be ready again. If it was not possible to go against the will of God, it was at least possible to find out whether God was for me or against me.
And again the roguery began. What ruses and wiles I thought out! Formerly I spent the nights in praying, but now I lay without sleep and worried how I could put one more ruble into my pocket. I threw myself entirely into these thoughts, although I knew how many tears flowed on account of me; how many times I stole the bread from the mouths of hungry ones; and how, perhaps, little children were starving to death on account of my avarice. Now, at the memory of it, I feel abhorrence and disgust and I laugh bitterly at my foolishness.
The faces of the saints no longer looked down at me with pity and goodness, as before. But instead they spied on me, as Olga's father did. Once I even stole a half ruble from the office of the village elder. So far had it gone with me.
Once something special happened to me. Olga went up to me, put her delicate arms on my shoulders, and said:
"Matvei, as surely as God's alive, I love you more than anything in the world."
She spoke these holy words wonderfully simply, as a child would say, "Mother." Like the hero in the fairy tale, I felt myself grow strong, and from that hour she became indescribably dear to me. It was the first time she had said she loved me, and it was the first time that I had embraced her and kissed her, so that I lost myself in her and forgot myself—as when I used to pray with all my heart.
Toward October our house was finished. It looked like a plaid where the logs showed blackened by the fire. Soon we celebrated the wedding, and my father-in-law became duly drunk and laughed with a full throat, like Satan at some success. My mother-in-law was silent and smiled at us through her tears.
"Stop crying!" Titoff roared at her. "What a son-in-law we have! Such a righteous one!"
Then he swore at her thoroughly.
We had important guests—the priest was there, of course, and the land commissioner, and two district elders, and various other pike among the carp. The village people had assembled under our windows, and among them Savelko made himself popular, for he was gay up to his last days. I sat at the window and heard the jingling of his balalaika and his thin voice pierced my ear. For though he was afraid to make his jokes too loud, still I heard him sing distinctly:
"Hurry and drink till you burst,Eat yourself full till you split."
His jokes amused me, though I had something else to think about then. Olga nestled up to me and whispered:
"If only all this eating and drinking were over!"
The gluttony went against her, and to me, too, the sight of it was disgusting.
When we were alone we burst into tears, sitting and embracing each other on the bed; we wept and laughed together at our great unforeseen happiness in our marriage. All night we did not sleep, but kissed each other and planned how we would live with each other. We lit the candle in order to see each other better.
"We will live so that all will love us. It is good to be with you, Matvei."
We were drunk with our unutterable happiness, and I said to Olga:
"May the Lord strike me dead, Olga, if on account of me you should weep other tears."
But she said to me:
"I will bear everything from you. I will be your mother and your sister, my lonely one."
We lived together in a dream. I worked automatically, saw nothing and did not wish to see anything. I hurried home to my wife and walked with her in the fields and in the woods.
My past came back to me. I caught birds and our home became light and airy with the cages which were hung on the walls and the singing of the birds. My gentle wife loved them, and when I came home she told me how the tomtit behaved and how the client-finch sang.
In the evening I read Minea or the Prologue, but more often I spoke to my wife of my childhood and of Larion and Savelko; how they sang songs to the Lord and how they talked about Him. I told her about crazy old Vlassi, who was dead by this time. I told her everything that I knew, and it seemed that I knew very much about man and birds and fish. I cannot describe my happiness in words, for a man who has never known happiness and only enjoys it for a little time, never can describe it.
We went together to church and stood next to each other in a corner and prayed in unison. I offered prayers of thanks to God in order to praise Him, though not without secret pride, for it seemed to me that I had conquered God's might and forced Him, against His will, to make me happy. He had given in to me and I praised Him for it:
"Thou hast done well, O Lord," I said, "but it is only just and right, what Thou hast done."
Oh, the miserable paganism of it!
The winter passed like one long day of joy. One day Olga confided to me that she was to become a mother. It was a new happiness for us. My father-in-law murmured something indistinctly and my mother-in-law looked with pity at my wife.
I began to think of bettering my condition a little; I decided to have a beehive, and I called it "Larion's Garden," so that it should bring me luck. Also, I planned to have a vegetable garden, and to breed song-birds, and I thought of doing things which would bring no harm to man. One day Titoff said to me, quite harshly:
"You have become so sugar-coated, Matvei; see that you do not get sour. You will have a child in the summer. Have you forgotten that?"
I had already wished to tell him the truth as I understood it then, so I said to him:
"I have sinned as much as I wished. I have become like you in sins—just as you desired. But to become worse than you, that I will not."
"I do not understand what you mean," he answered. "I only want to explain to you that seventy-two rubles a year for a man and a family is not much; and I will not permit you to squander my daughter's dowry. You must consider things well. Your wisdom is in reality hatred of me because I am more clever than you. But that will help neither you nor me. Each one is a saint just so long as the devil doesn't catch him."
I could have beaten him well, but out of consideration for Olga I restrained myself.
In the village it was known that I did not get on well with my father-in-law, and the people began to look at me in a friendlier way. As for myself, happiness had made me more gentle, and Olga, too, was mild and good of heart.
In order to save the peasants from loss I began to give in to them here and there; helped one and spoke up for another. The village is like a glass house, where every one can look in, and so pretty soon Titoff said to me:
"You again wish to bribe God."
I decided to drop my work in the office and said to my wife:
"I earn six rubles a month, and with my birds I can make more."
But the poor child became sad. "Do whatever you want," she answered, "only let us not become beggars. I am sorry for my father," she added. "He wanted to do the best by us, and has taken many sins upon his soul for our sakes."
"Ah, my dear one," I thought, "his well-wishing weighs heavily enough on me."
Some days later I told my father-in-law that I was going to leave the office.
"To become a soldier?" he asked, smiling ironically.
I was hurt to the quick. I felt that he was ready to do anything against me, and it would not be difficult for him to harm me, considering who his acquaintances were. If I became a soldier I would be lost. Even for the love he bore his daughter he would not save me.
My hands became more and more tied. My wife wept in secret and went about with red eyes.
"What is the matter, Olga?" I asked her.
And she answered: "I do not feel well."
I remembered the oath I had made to her, and I became ashamed and embarrassed. One step and my problem would be settled, but I pitied the beloved woman. Had I not had Olga on my hands I would have even become a soldier to get out of Titoff's clutches.
Toward the end of June a son was born to us, and again for some time I was as if dazed. The travail was difficult, Olga screamed, and my heart almost burst with fear. Titoff looked into the room gloomily, though most of the time he stood in the court and trembled. He leaned against the staircase, wrung his hands, let his head hang and muttered to himself:
"She will die. My whole life was useless. O Lord, have mercy! When you shall have children, Matvei, then you will know my pain and you will understand my life; and you will cease to curse others for their sins."
At this moment I really pitied him. I walked up and down the court and thought:
"Again Thou threatenest me, O Lord. Again Thy hand is raised against me. Thou shouldst give me time to better myself and to find the straight path. Why art Thou so miserly with Thy grace? Is it not in Thy goodness that all Thy strength and power lie?"
When I remember these words now I grow ashamed at my foolishness.
My child was born and my wife became changed. Her voice was louder, her body taller, and in her attitude toward me there was a change, too. She counted every bite she gave me, although she was not exactly stingy. She gave alms less and less often and always reminded me of the peasants' debts to us. Even if it were only five rubles, she thought it worth while to remind me of it. At first I thought, "that will pass."
I became more and more interested in the breeding of my birds. I went twice a month to town with my cages and brought five rubles or more each time I returned. We had a cow and a dozen hens. What more did we want?
But Olga's eyes had an unpleasant light in them. When I brought her a gift from town she reproached me:
"Why did you do that? You should rather have saved the money."
It was hard to bear, and in order to get over it, I worked the harder among my birds. I went into the woods, laid the net and the snares, stretched myself out on the ground, whistled low and thought. My soul was quiet; not a wish stirred in me. A thought arose, moved my heart and vanished again into the unknown, as a stone sinks into the sea. It left ripples on my soul; they were feelings about God.
At such times I looked upon the clear sky, the blue space, the woods clothed in golden autumn garments or in silvery winter treasure, and the river, the fields and the hills, the stars and the flowers, and saw them as God. All that was beautiful was of God and all that was of God was related to the soul.
But when I thought of man, my heart started as a bird does when frightened in its sleep. I was perplexed and I thought about life. I could not unite the great beauty of God with the dark, poverty-stricken life of man. The luminous God was somewhere far off, in His own strength, in His own pride. And man, separated from Him, lived in wretchedness and want.
Why were the children of God sacrificed to misery and hunger—Why were they lowered and dragged to the earth as worms in the mud? Why did God permit it? How could it give Him joy to see this degradation of His own work?
Where was the man who saw God and His beauty? The soul of man is blinded through the black misery of the day. To be satisfied is considered a joy; to be rich a happiness. Man looks for the freedom to sin; but to be free from sin, that is unknown to him. Where is there in him the strength of fatherly love, where the beauty of God? Does God exist? Where is the God-like?
Suddenly I felt a hazy intuition, a slight thought. It encircled and hid everything. My soul became empty and cold, like a field in winter. At this time, I did not dare express my thoughts in words, but even if they did not appear before me clothed in words, still I felt their power and dreaded them, and was afraid, as a little child in a dark cave. I jumped up, took my hunting traps with me, and hurried from the house. To rid myself of my sickly fear, I sang as I hurried along.
The people in the village laughed at me. A catcher of birds is not especially respected in the country, and Olga sighed heavily many times; for it seemed to her, too, that my occupation was something to be ashamed of. My father-in-law gave me long lectures, but I did not answer. I waited for autumn. Perhaps I would draw a lucky number and not have to serve in the military, and so escape this terrible abyss.
My wife became with child again, and her sadness increased.
"What is the matter, Olga?" I asked.
At first she evaded the question and made believe that nothing was troubling her. But one day she embraced me and said:
"I shall die, Matvei—I shall die in childbirth."
I knew that women often talk thus, still I was frightened. I tried to comfort her, but she would not listen to me.
"You will remain alone again," she said, "beloved by none. You are so difficult and so haughty toward all. I ask you for the sake of the children, don't be so proud. We are all sinners, before God, and you also."
She spoke this way often to me, and I was wretched with pity and fear for her.
As to my father-in-law, I had made a sort of truce with him, and he immediately made use of it in his own way:
"Here, Matvei, sign this," or "Do not write that."
Things were coming to a climax. We were, close to the recruiting time, and a second child was soon expected. The recruits were making holiday in the village. They called me out, but I refused to go, and they broke my windows for me.
The day came when I had to go to town to draw my lot. Olga was already afraid at this time to leave the house, and my father-in-law accompanied me and during the whole way he impressed it upon me what trouble he had taken for me, how much money he had spent and how everything had been arranged for my benefit.
"Perhaps it is all in vain," I said.
And so it was. My number came along the last, and I was free. Titoff could hardly believe my luck and he laughed at me gloomily.
"It seems really that God is with you."
I did not answer, but I was unspeakably happy. My freedom meant everything to me—everything that oppressed my soul. And above all, it meant freedom from my dear father-in-law.
At home Olga's joy was great. She wept and laughed, the dear one; praised and caressed me as if I had killed a bear.
"God be praised," she said; "now I can die in peace."
I poked fun at her, but at the bottom of my heart I felt badly, for I knew that she believed in her death—a ruinous belief, which destroys the life force in man.
Three days later her travail began. For two long days she suffered horrible agony, and on the third day it was ended, after giving birth to a still-born child—ended as she had believed, my dear, sweet one.
I do not remember the burial, for I was as if blind and deaf for some time afterward. It was Titoff who woke me. I was at Olga's grave, and I can see him now as he stood before me and looked into my face, and said:
"So, Matvei, it is for the second time that we meet near the dead. Here our friendship was born. Here it should be strengthened anew."
I looked about me as if I had found myself on earth for the first time. The rain drizzled, a mist surrounded everything, in which the bare trees swayed and the crosses on the tombstones swam and vanished. Everything looked dressed, garbed in cold, and in a piercing dampness which was difficult to breathe, as if the rain and the mist had sucked up all the air.
"What do you want? Go away from here," I said to Titoff.
"I want you to understand my pain. Perhaps because I hindered you from living out your own life God has now punished me by taking away my daughter."
The earth under my feet was melting and turned into sticky mud, which seemed to drag down my feet. I clutched him, threw him on the ground as if he were a sack of bran.
"Damn you!" I shouted.
A mad, wild period began for me. I could not hold my head up. I was as if struck down by some strong hand and lay stretched out powerless on the ground. My heart was full of pain and I was outraged with God. I looked up at the holy images and hurried away as fast as I could, for I wanted to quarrel, not to repent. I knew that according to the law I had to do penance and should have said:
"Thy will be done, O Lord. Thy hand is heavy, but righteous; Thy wrath is great yet beneficent."
My conscience did not let me say such words. I remained standing, lost in my thoughts, and was unable to find myself.
"Has this blow fallen upon me," I thought, "because I doubted Thy existence in secret?"
This thought terrified me and I found excuses for myself:
"It was not Thy existence that I doubted, but Thy mercy; for it seemed to me that we are all abandoned by Thee without help and without guidance."
My soul was unbearably tortured; I could not sleep; I could do nothing. At night dark shadows tried to strangle me. Olga appeared before me. My heart was overcome with fear and I had no more strength to live.
I decided to hang myself.
It was night. I lay dressed on my bed. I glanced about me. I could see my poor, innocent wife before me, her blue eyes shining with a quiet light and calling me. The moon shone through the window and its bright reflection lay upon the floor and only increased the darkness in my soul.
I jumped up, took the rope from my bird snare, hammered a nail into the beam of the roof, made a noose and fixed the chair. I had already taken off my coat and tom off my collar, when suddenly I saw a little face appear indistinctly and mysteriously on the wall. I could have screamed with fear, though I understood that it was my own face which looked back at me from Olga's round mirror. I looked insane—so distracted and wretched, with my hair wild, my cheeks sunken in, my nose sharp, my mouth half open as with asthma, and my eyes agonized, full of a deep, great pain.
I pitied this human face; I pitied it for the beauty that had gone out of it, and I sat down on the bench and wept over myself, as a child who is hurt. After those tears the noose seemed something to be ashamed of, like a joke against myself. And in wrath I tore it down and threw it into the corner of the room. Death was also a riddle, but I had not yet answered the riddle of life!
What should I do? Some more days passed. It was as if I were seeking peace. I must do penance, I thought, and I gritted my teeth and went to the priest.
I visited him one Sunday evening, just as he and his wife were at table drinking tea. Four children sat around them. Drops of sweat shone on the dark face of the priest, as scales on a fish.
"Sit down," he said, good-naturedly, "and drink some tea with us."
The room was warm and dry; everything was clean and in order. It occurred to me how negligent this priest was in the performance of his church duties, and the thought came to me, "This, then, is his church."
I was not sufficiently humble.
"Well, Matvei, you suffer?" the priest asked.
"Yes," I answered.
"Ah, then you must say the Forty-Day prayers. Does she appear in dreams to you?"
"Yes."
"Then only the Forty-Day prayer will help you. That is certain."
I remained silent. I could not speak before the wife of the priest. I did not like her. She was a large, stout, short-winded woman, with a broad, fat face. She lent money on interest.
"Pray earnestly," the priest said to me. "And do not eat your heart. It is a sin against the Lord. He knows what He does."
"Does He really know?" I asked.
"Certainly. Oh, oh, my young man, I know well that you are proud toward people, but do not dare to carry your pride against the laws of God. You will be punished a hundredfold more severely. This sour stuff which ferments in you comes from the time of Larion, does it not? I know the heresies which he committed when he was drunk—remember this!"
Here the priest's wife interrupted:
"They should have sent that Larion to a monastery, but the father was too good and did not even complain about him."
"That is not true," I answered. "He did complain, but not on account of his opinions, but because of his negligence, for which the father himself was to blame."
We began to quarrel. First he reproached me for my insolence, and then he began talking about things which I knew just as well as he, but the meaning of which, in his anger, he changed. And then they both began, he as well as his wife, to insult me.
"You are both rascals," they cried, "you and your father-in-law! You have robbed the church. The swampy field belonged to the church from time immemorial, and that is why God has punished you."
"You are right," I said. "The swampy field was taken from you unjustly. But you yourself had taken it away from the peasants."
I rose and wanted to go.
"Stop!" cried the priest, "and the money for the Forty-Day prayer?"
"It is not necessary," I answered.
I went out and thought: "Here you have found comfort for your soul, Matvei."
Three days later, Sasha, my little son, died. He had mistaken arsenic for sugar, and eaten it.
His death made no impression on me. I had become cold and indifferent to everything.
I decided to go to a town, where an arch-bishop lived—a pious, learned man, who disputed continually with the Old Believers about the true faith and was renowned for his wisdom. I told my father-in-law that I was going away and that he could have my house and all that I possessed for a hundred rubles.
"No," he answered, "that is not the way to do business. You must sign me a note for half a year for three hundred rubles."
I signed it, ordered my passport and began my trip. I walked on foot, for I thought that thus the confusion in my soul would subside. But although I walked to do penance, still my thoughts were not with God. I was afraid and angry with myself. My thoughts were distorted and they fell apart like worn-out cloth. The sky was dark above me.
With great difficulty I reached the Archbishop. A servant, a pretty, delicate youngster, who received the visitors, would not let me enter. Four times he sent me back, saying:
"I am the secretary. You must give me three rubles."
"I won't give you a three-kopeck piece," I said.
"Then I won't let you in."
"All right. Then I'll go in myself."
He saw that I was determined not to give in to him.
"Well, then, come in," he said. "I was only joking. You are a funny fellow."
He led me into a little room, where a gray old man sat coughing in a corner of a divan, dressed in a green cassock. His face was wrinkled and his eyes were very stern and set deep in his forehead.
"Well," I thought, "he can tell me something."
"What do you want?" he asked me.
"My soul is troubled, father."
The secretary stood behind me and whispered:
"You must say 'your reverence.'"
"Send the servant away," I said. "It is difficult for me to speak when he is here."
The Archbishop looked at me, bit his lip and ordered:
"Go behind the door, Alexei. Well, what have you done?"
"I doubt God's mercy," I answered.
He put his hand on his forehead, looked at me for some time and then muttered in a singing voice: "What? What's that? You fool!"
There was no need to insult me, and perhaps he did not mean it in that way. Our superiors insult people more out of habit and foolishness than from ill will. I said to him:
"Hear me, your reverence."
I sat down on a chair. But the old man motioned with his hands and shouted:
"Stand up! Stand up! You should kneel before me, impious one!"
"Why should I kneel? If I am guilty, I should kneel before God, not before you."
He became enraged. "Who am I? What am I to you? What am I to God?"
I was ashamed to quarrel with him on account of a bagatelle, so I knelt. He threatened me with his finger and said:
"I will teach you to respect the clergy!"
I lost my desire to talk with him, but still, before the desire had entirety gone, I began to speak, and I forgot his presence. For the first time in my life I expressed my thoughts in words, and I was astonished at myself. Suddenly I heard the old man cry out:
"Keep still, wretched one!"
I felt as if I had suddenly come up against a wall while running. He stood over me, shaking his hands threateningly at me, and muttered:
"Do you know what you are saying, you crazy fool? Do you appreciate your blasphemies, wretched one? You lie, heretic! You did not come to do penance. You came as a messenger from the devil to tempt me!"
I saw that it was not wrath, but fear that played in his face. He trembled, and his beard and his hands, which were held out to me, were shaking. I, too, was frightened.
"What is your reverence saying?" I asked. "I believe in God."
"You lie, you mad dog!"
He threatened me with the wrath and the vengeance of God, but he spoke in a low tone, and his whole body trembled so that his cassock flowed like green waves. He placed before my spirit a threatening, gruesome God, severe in countenance, wrathful in spirit, poor in mercy, and like the old God Jehovah in sternness. I said to the archbishop:
"Now you, yourself, have fallen into heresies. Is this then the Christian God? Where have you hidden Christ? Why do you place before man the stern Judge instead of the Friend and the Helper?" He clutched my hair and shook me to and fro, saying, haltingly:
"Who are you, crazy one? You should be brought to the police, to prison, to a monastery, to Siberia!"
I came to myself. It was clear to me that if man called in the police to protect his God, then neither he nor his God could have much strength, and much less beauty. I arose and said:
"Let me go."
The old man fell back and spoke breathlessly.
"What are you going to do?"
"I will go away, I can learn nothing here. Your words are dead and you kill God with them."
He began to speak about the police again; but it was all the same to me. The police could not do anything worse than what he had already done. "Angels serve for the glory of God, not the police," I said; "but if your faith teaches you something else, then stick to your faith."
His face became green, and he jumped at me. "Alexei," he called, "throw him out!"
And Alexei threw me out on the street with great vigor.
It was evening. I had spent fully two hours talking with the old archbishop. The streets were in semi-darkness, and the picture was not joyful. Everywhere there were noisy crowds, talk and laughter. It was holiday time, the feast of the Three Wise Men. Weakly I walked along and looked into the faces of the people. They angered me and I felt like shouting out to them:
"Hey, you people, what areyouso satisfied about? They are murdering your God. Take care!"
I walked along in my misery as one drunk, and did not know where I was going. I did not want to go to my inn, for there there was noise and drinking. I went out into the farthest suburb. Little houses stood there, whose yellow windows looked out upon the fields, and the winds played with the snow about them, and whistled and covered them up.
I wanted to drink—to get very drunk; but alone, without people. I was a stranger to all and was guilty before all. "I will cross this field," I thought, "and see where it leads to."
Suddenly a woman came out of a gate, dressed in a light dress and with a shawl as her only protection against the cold. She looked into my face and asked:
"What is your name?"
I understood that she was guessing her future husband.
"I will not tell you my name. I am an unhappy man."
"Unhappy?" she asked, laughing. "Now, in the holiday season?"
I did not like her gaiety.
"Is there no inn here in the neighborhood?" I asked. "I would like to rest and warm myself a bit. It is cold."
She looked at me searchingly and said in a friendly tone:
"There, farther on, you will find an inn. But if you wish, you can come to us and get a glass of tea."
Indifferently and without thinking, I followed her. I came to the room. On the wall in the comer burned a little lamp, and under the holy images sat a stout old woman, chewing something. A samovar was on the table; everything seemed cozy and warm.
The woman asked me to sit down at the table. She was young, with red cheeks and a high bosom. The old woman looked at me from her corner and sniffed. She had a large, withered face, almost, it seemed, without eyes.
I was embarrassed. What was I doing here? Who were they? I asked the young woman:
"What do you do?"
"I make lace."
True. On the wall were hung bunches of bobbins. Suddenly she laughed boldly and looked me straight in the face, and added:
"And then, I walk some."
The old woman laughed coarsely: "What a shameless hussy you are, Tanka!"
Had the old woman not said that, I would not have understood Tatiana's words. Now I knew what she meant, and became ill at ease. It was the first time in my life I had seen a loose girl, near-to, and naturally I did not think well of such women. Tatiana laughed.
"See, Petrovna, he blushes," she said.
I became angry. "And so I have fallen in here—from penance right into sin," I thought. I said to the girl:
"Does one boast of such an occupation?"
She answered boldly: "I boast of it."
The old woman began to sniff again: "Oh, Tatiana, Tatiana!"
I did not know what to say or how to go away from them. No excuse came to me.
I sat there silent. The wind rattled on the windows, the samovar sang and Tatiana began to tempt me.
"Oh, it's hot," she said, and unbuttoned the collar of her waist.
She had a pretty face and her eyes attracted me in spite of her bold expression. The old woman put vodka on the table, a bottle of "ordinary," and also some cherry brandy.
"That's good," I thought to myself. "I will drink some, pay and then go."
"Why are you so miserable?" Tatiana asked suddenly.
I could not restrain myself and answered:
"My wife is dead."
Then she asked very low: "When did she die?"
"Only five weeks ago."
The girl buttoned her waist and became more reserved. It pleased me. I looked into her face and said to myself:
"Thank you."
Though my heart was heavy, yet I was young and was used to women. I had two years of married life behind me. But the old woman said, gasping:
"Your wife is dead—that is nothing much. You are young and there are women enough. The streets are full of them."
Here Tatiana said to her sternly:
"Go to bed, Petrovna. I will escort our guest and will lock up."
When the old woman was gone, she asked me earnestly and in a friendly way:
"Have you relatives?"
"None."
"And friends?"
"No friends."
"What are you going to do then?"
"I do not know."
She became thoughtful, stood up and said:
"Listen. I see that you are in despair. I advise you, don't go out alone. You followed me in here at my first word. You might have fallen in somewhere where you could not get out so easily. Better remain here over night. There is a bed here. Spend the night here, in heaven's name. If you do not wish to do it for nothing, give something to Petrovna—as much as you wish; and if I am in your way, then say so frankly and I will go."
I liked her words and also her eyes. I could not suppress a feeling of joy and I said to' myself, smiling:
"Oh, that archbishop!"
"What archbishop?" Tatiana asked, surprised.
I was confused and did not know what to say.
"That is just an expression of mine," I answered. "That is, not really an expression; only very often there is an archbishop who appears in my dreams."
"Well, good night," she said.
"Not yet," I answered quickly. "Don't go away, I beg of you. Remain here a little longer, if it is no trouble to you."
She took her place again and smiled.
"Very gladly. It is no trouble."
She asked me if I would drink a glass of vodka or tea, and whether I wished to eat. Her sincere friendliness brought the tears to my eyes, and my heart became as happy as a bird on a spring morning when the sun rises.
"Excuse me for my plain words," I said, "but I would like to know if it is true what you told me about yourself a little while ago? Or did you wish to joke with me?"
She frowned and answered: "Yes, I am one of them. Why do you ask?"
"It is the first time in my life that I have seen such a girl, and I am ashamed."
"What are you ashamed of? I am not sitting naked." And she laughed low and caressingly.
"Not on your account," I answered. "I am ashamed on my own account—because of my stupidity."
And I told her frankly my opinion of her class of girls. She listened quietly and attentively.
"There are various kinds among us," she said. "There may be some who are even worse than you think. You believe people altogether too readily."
I could not get the thought out of my head how such a girl could sell herself, and I asked her again: "Do you do it from necessity?"
"At first," she answered, "I was deceived by a handsome young fellow. To spite him I got another one, and so I fell into the play. And now it happens many times that I do it for the sake of a piece of bread."
She said it quite simply and there was no pity for herself in her words.
"Do you go to church?" I asked.
She started and became red all over. "The way to the church is forbidden to no one."
I felt that I had offended her and added hurriedly:
"You misunderstood me. I know the gospels; I know of Mary Magdalene and of the sinner through whom the Pharisees tempted Christ. I only wished to ask you whether you were not angered against God for the life that you were leading; whether you did not doubt His goodness."
She frowned again, remained thoughtful, and said, surprised:
"I do not know what God has to do with it."
"How then?" I asked. "Is He not our Shepherd and our Father in whose mighty hand the destiny of man rests?"
And she answered: "I do no harm to people. What am I guilty of? And whom can it hurt that I lead an unclean life? Only myself."
I felt that she wished to say something good and true, but I could not understand her.
"I alone am responsible for my sins," she said, bowing to me and her whole face lighting up in a smile. "Besides, my sins do not appear so great. Perhaps what I am saying is not quite right, but I am speaking the truth. I go to church gladly. Our church has just been built, and it is so bright and sweet. And how our choir sings! Sometimes they touch the heart, so that I must weep. In the church the soul gets a rest from all worries."
She remained silent for some time, and then added:
"Of course, there are other reasons. The men see you there."
I was so astounded by what she said that she told me I had drops of sweat standing on my temples. I could not understand how all these things came together in her so simply and harmoniously.
"Did you love your wife very much?" she asked me.
"Yes, very much," I answered, and her naïveté? pleased me more and more.
I began to tell her of my spiritual state, of my wrath against God, because he did not hold me back from sins and then unjustly punished me by the death of Olga. She became now pale and depressed, now red all over with eyes on fire, so that she excited me. For the first time in my life I let my thoughts sweep over the whole circle of human life as I saw it, and it appeared to me as something incoherent and wasteful, shameful in its evil and helplessness, its groaning and moaning and wailing.
"Where are the Godlike?" I asked. "People sit on each other's backs, suck each other's blood, and everywhere there is the brutal struggle for a piece of bread. Where is there room for the Godlike? Where is there room for goodness and love, strength and beauty? Although I am young, I was not born blind. Who is Christ, the God-child? Who has trampled the flowers which His pure heart has sown? Who has stolen the wisdom of His love?"
I told her of the archbishop and how he had threatened me with his black God and how he, to protect his God, wanted to call in the police to help him.
Tatiana laughed. I, too, found the archbishop quite laughable now. He looked to me like a green grasshopper who chirps and jumps about as if he were doing something, heaven knows how important, but when one examines more closely, then one sees that he himself does not believe in the truth of his work.
She laughed at my words. Then the brow of the good girl became clouded.
"I did not understand everything," she said. "Still, some of the things you said were terrible. You think so boldly about God."
"One cannot live without seeing God," I said.
"True," she answered. "But you seem to be having a hand-to-hand fight with Him. Is that allowed? That the life of man is difficult is true enough. I myself have thought at times, 'Why should it be?' But listen to what I am going to tell you. Right here in the neighborhood is a nunnery where a hermitess, a very wise old woman, lives. She speaks beautifully about God. You ought to visit her."
"Why not?" I asked. "I will go to her. I am going everywhere—to all righteous people, to seek peace."
"And I will go to sleep," she said, giving me her hand. "You, too, go to bed."
I pressed her hand, shook it warmly, and said to her from the fulness of my heart:
"I thank you; what you have given me I do not yet know how to value, still I feel that you are a good girl, and I thank you."
"For heaven's sake, what are you saying?" she asked. She became embarrassed and blushed all over. "I am so glad," she went on, "that you feel better."
I saw that she was truly pleased. What was I to her? And yet, she was happy for having made a stranger feel better.
I put out the lamp, lay down on the bed, and said to myself:
"I fell into a real holiday celebration quite unexpectedly."
Though my heart was not much lighter, nevertheless I felt that something new and good was born within me. I saw Tatiana's eyes, which now looked enticingly, now earnestly, but from which there spoke more of the human heart than of the woman, and I thought of her in pure joy. And to think so about any one—is it not to make holiday?
I decided that to-morrow I would buy her a gold ring with a blue stone, but later I forgot about it. Thirteen years have passed since that day, and when I think of the girl I always regret that I did not buy her the ring.
In the morning she knocked on the door.
"Time to get up."
We met as old friends and sat down to drink tea together. She urged me to go to the hermitess and I promised to do so. Saying farewell to each other heartily, we went together as far as the gate.
I felt as alone in the city as in the wide steppes.
There were thirty-three versts to the monastery, and I immediately started on my way to it and on the next day I said early mass there.
Around me were nuns, a whole black crowd, as if a mountain had fallen apart and its broken pieces were lying about in the church.
The monastery was rich. There were many sisters, all rather heavy, with fat, white, soft faces, as if made of dough. The priest said mass energetically, but a little too hurriedly. He had a good bass, was large and broad and seemed well fed.
The nuns in the choir were every one of them pretty, and sang wonderfully. The tapers wept their white tears and their flames trembled with pity for men.
"My soul struggles to reach Thy temple, Thy holy temple," their young voices sang out humbly.
Out of habit I repeated the words of the litany, but my eyes wandered and I tried to pick out the hermitess. There was no reverence in my heart, and it hurt me to admit it, for I had not come here to play. My soul was empty and I tried to collect myself. Everything in me was confused and my thoughts wandered, one after the other. I saw a few emaciated faces, half-dead old women, who stared at the holy images and whose lips moved but made no sound.
After mass I walked around the church. The day was bright and the white snow reflected the glistening rays of the sun, while on the branches the tit-mice piped and sent the hoar-frost from the twigs. I walked to the churchyard wall and looked out into the distance. The monastery stood on the mountain, and before it Mother Earth was spread out, richly dressed in its silvery blue snow. The little villages on the horizon looked sad, the wood was cut through by streams, and the pathways wound in and out like ribbons which some one had lost. Over all, the sun sent its slanting winter rays and stillness, peace and beauty were everywhere.
A little later I stood in the cell of Mother Fevronia. I saw a little old woman with browless eyes, who wept constantly. On her face, with its myriad wrinkles, a good-natured, unchanging smile trembled. She spoke low, almost in a whisper, and in a singsong tone.
"Do not eat apples before the day of the Lord. Wait till the Lord in His love has made them ripe; until the seeds are black."
"What does she mean by that?" I thought to myself.