CHAPTER VI.

[Contents]CHAPTER VI.CHAPTER VI.THEODORE AND ANNITA.In the year 1589 the number of monks in the monastery of Petschenga reached sixty, and there were more than two hundred lay-brothers. On account of the secular business in which the members of the monastery were engaged, some of them were always away, either attending to the mill, the shipbuilding, or the fisheries, or else they were travelling on business to Vardö or Kola. But on the great festivals they were all assembled in the monastery, and the services were conducted with full and impressive solemnity.The forms of worship in the Eastern Church, which the monks were bound to observe, are strictly observed at the great feasts, and also during the forty days of Advent and Lent. The daily offices of the Church are six, and sometimes seven, in number, according to Psa. cxix. 164: ‘Seven times a day do I praise Thee, O Lord.’ These offices are said partly during the night, and the following is the appointed order: At midnight what is called Mesonyktikon is said; this lasts for three hours. Then there come Matins, and then the lesser Hours. At seven in the morning the Liturgy itself is celebrated. This is the service in which the Eucharist is hallowed and administered. The Brethren usually receive the Sacrament four times a year. In the afternoon Vespers are said, and finally, at the close of the day, Compline. On fasts and great festivals ‘Apogrypnia’ is said after ten o’clock at night, and this is an office which requires that the night shall be passed in the church and spent in prayer. When ‘Apogrypnia’ is said, it[49]is usual to celebrate the Liturgy rather earlier, and then the monks go to rest till Vespers. There is never any sermon at these services, but on the festivals a portion of the lives of saints and martyrs is read.Ambrose was not as yet a full monk, but he had completed his novitiate, and it was decided that he should take the vow on Christmas Eve, 1589. The venerable and aged Superior, Gurij, had frequently discoursed with him, and had earnestly explained to him the unalterable nature of the vow which he was to take, and which would, for all his future life, bind him to the monastic life. Ambrose had declared that he was ready to take the vow, and with it to bid farewell to everything in the world which was not consistent with the strict, secluded life of a monastery.Nevertheless, old Gurij, who had attached himself more to this young man than to any of the other monks, had observed at times that there was an indication of something like suppressed anxiety in his pale face as the day approached nearer and nearer on which the solemn vow was to be taken. He fancied that at times there was in Ambrose’s features an expression as of a profound and unendurable anguish. Ambrose, who was usually very silent, had never told him much about his earlier career. It was not improbable, therefore, that in some deep recess of the man’s heart there lay hidden away memories of occurrences of which nobody had any knowledge.The old Superior made up his mind that he would once more speak to him privately, before he took the irrevocable vow, and he decided to do so after the first office for the day before Christmas Eve had been said. When therefore, Mesonyktikon, or the midnight office, was over—that is, about two o’clock in the morning on Christmas Eve—Gurij summoned Ambrose to his cell.‘To-day,’ he said, ‘you are to take the final vow and be one of us, and become a monk for the rest of your life.’‘Yes, Father.’‘You have no doubt as to your decision?’‘No.’‘There is nothing about which you wish to consult me?’‘No.’‘There is nothing you wish to confess to me or confide to[50]me?—you know that I am not only your brother, but an old friend too.’‘I have no confession to make.’‘Have you never done wrong? Is there nothing in your earlier career for which you need to obtain forgiveness or the intercession of the Church?’‘Indeed, Father, I have done wrong; but others have done more wrong to me than I have done to them.’‘You have no longer any ill feeling; you have forgiven them?’‘No,’ said Ambrose, after a moment’s reflection.‘But you must forgive; you will obtain no peace until you do, and you cannot take the vow while you bear malice in your heart. Before you bid the world farewell you must realize the calm peace of reconciliation.’‘I cannot.’‘Who is it that has wronged you so cruelly?’‘My father.’‘Your own father?’‘Yes, and my relations and friends.’‘There are also many things connected with the world with which your heart is still occupied, and on which your thoughts dwell, instead of being engaged in prayer and fasting.’‘No; there is nothing in the world in which I have lived that I look for. All is hidden, forgotten, buried and lost.’‘But it has left behind bitterness in your feelings. Have you never loved—loved some woman?’‘Certainly,’ exclaimed Ambrose, and he thereupon turned paler than ever. There suddenly arose from the innermost recess of his soul a form so lifelike, as it stood before him, that he covered his face with his hands and fell on his knees, and laid his head on the old man’s lap, while he slowly muttered the name ‘Annita, Annita.’The old man allowed him to remain thus for a while, as he perceived that this strong man was weeping like a child. There must, then, as he had suspected, be events which had taken place in his earlier career which were now revived with painful vividness.‘Brother,’ he said, ‘will you here, in the quiet of the night, open your heart to me, and tell me all about your previous career? I do not ask you from inquisitiveness, but tell me if you can; I will listen to you. You know that I am your friend.[51]Moreover, I have loved you, and will understand you, and sympathize with you.’‘Yes, Father,’ said Ambrose, ‘if you will listen to me, I will tell you everything. My name is not really Ambrose, but I bear the same name as our orthodox Czar, whose father conferred on this monastery its charter. My name is really, like his, Theodore Ivanovitsch, and I come of an old Russian boyar family. A pious mother taught me in my early youth to read the lives of the saints and martyrs, and to go to church. But as I am of noble birth, and at some period would have to serve the Czar, I also learned to ride and fence and hunt and shoot. I have been an officer. You see this scar which I have on my forehead? I received it in battle. There has, as you know, been variance for many years between the monastery of Solowetski and the Swedish Finns in heretical Finland. This variance still continues, and none the less now that there is war between the Czar and John III. of Sweden. The monastery of Solowetski was, as you know, founded in 1429, and obtained at length even greater privileges than our own monastery has done. But it was also bound to protect Karelstrand and the towns in that neighbourhood against attacks from Finnish pirates. For the protection of the monastery the Czar has now, as you also know, built a stone wall which is to have eight towers, and is to surround the churches and all the buildings. Meanwhile the Swedish Finns, out of their old hatred of the Russians, had been making piratical incursions into Karelen, attacking our orthodox people, and the Solowetski people did not hesitate to retaliate. In this way, about twelve years ago, I was sent as a young officer to Karelen with a troop of Cossacks to protect the inhabitants against these Swedish Finns. I must admit that the Cossacks whom I had to command were wild and cruel men. Young, and unused to the horrors of war, I often tried to restrain them from needlessly killing men and women, while they were plundering their dwellings. At times I was, fortunately, able to save the innocent; but on one occasion, when we had chased a crowd of Swedish Finns back out of Karelen, into which they had made a piratical incursion, and had pursued them right into the district of Kajana, it so happened that some of my men, who were in the van, had reached the farmstead of Kuolaniemi in Sotkamo before I came up. They had attacked[52]the farm people, and, as usual, had killed and plundered them. After this they had fired the houses. I saw the fire, and pressed on with my men. The farm was beautifully situated on a projecting promontory by the side of a large lake. The houses and tall spruce firs down by the lake were so clearly reflected in it, that it looked as if the smooth depths of the lake below, as well as the clouds in the sky above, were ablaze. As, in a state of indignation, I rode inside the burning farmstead, determined more strongly than before to remonstrate with the more bloodthirsty of my men, I caught sight of a woman, struggling desperately with a Cossack at the doorway and on the steps of the burning house. The master of the house they had already killed, but the mother was clinging, though mortally wounded, to the leg of a Cossack to save a child—a little girl—whom he was trying to drag away with him. Before I could reach him, I saw him lift a spear and plunge it into the mother’s breast, so that she swooned away and let go her hold of his leg, while at the same moment the child tore herself away and ran off towards the courtyard. Enraged, the monster threw his blood-stained spear after the child, and sprang aside to catch her. Fortunately, he only touched her flowing hair, and at that moment I and my men reached him.‘ “Monster!” I shouted. “Would you kill an innocent child?” and I placed my spear on the man’s breast so that he stopped.‘The child clung to my leg, and cried to me in mortal fear and with tears in its little eyes, “Save me! save me!” I took her in my arms and lifted her on to my horse. Poor child! she clung in her terror close to me, and hid herself under my large riding-coat.‘The farm continued to burn. No one seemed to think of putting out the fire, and the people belonging to the farm who had not been able to escape at once were lying dead in all directions in the burning house. I gave orders for a retreat within the boundary of Karelen; but what was I to do with the child whom I had beside me on my horse, a little girl some six or seven years old? She looked terrified at my men if any of them came near me, and with her little arms took tight hold of me.‘ “Hold me fast!” she cried; “don’t let go of me, dear, dear man! don’t let them kill me!”’[53]‘ “No, my child, no one shall touch you,” I said, to pacify her.‘The district was a lonely one, and the people all about had taken to flight. I could not, therefore, leave the child at the farm which had been burnt down. She would have perished of cold and hunger, as most likely people would not venture there again for some time. I took the child with me, therefore, to the camp. She was a pretty little girl. When we dismounted from our horses at the camp, she would not on any account let go my hand, which she grasped with both her own.‘ “What is your name?” I asked her, when we had entered my tent and her terror had somewhat subsided.‘ “Nita,” she replied, crying.‘ “Your parents are dead, my poor child,” I said. “Have you brothers and sisters?”‘ “No; father and mother had only me.”‘ “Have you any relations?”‘ “No; I don’t know of any.”‘ “I really don’t know what to do with you, my poor little Nita, or where to send you.”‘ “Don’t send me away!” she cried. “Can’t I stop with you? I am so frightened at all the men here. Can I keep with you? I will be a good girl, and I am called Annita, too. Annita is my proper name.”‘We talked for some time together, but I could not make out anything respecting her relatives. This much only was evident, that her parents had been ordinary farm-people, but apparently well-to-do folk, for the child was well dressed, well brought up, and, moreover, intelligent for her age.‘She slept in my tent at night, and could not be prevailed upon to leave me, so afraid was she of my rough men. So I came to the conclusion to take the little orphan home with me to my parents in Russia. I explained, therefore, on the next day to my men that for the future I should consider Annita as my child, and threatened with death the man who should do her any harm.‘As there was now not much probability that the Swedish Finns would soon make a fresh attack on Karelen, I returned to my home on the border of Lake Ladoga, close to Olonet, not far from Finland, where my father owned an estate and[54]several hundreds of serfs. My parents were very much surprised at my bringing home, as a trophy from the battlefield, a little girl, but when they heard further particulars they considered that I had done right, and they received the child kindly. Annita was both a pretty and an amiable child, and she soon became a favourite.‘At the end of a year she had learnt to speak Russian, only with me she preferred to speak Karelsk, her mother tongue, which I could also speak fairly fluently. It was natural that the child clung to me, and was not quite satisfied unless I was somewhere near. I had rescued her. She looked on me as another father. She could be merry, and happy, and boisterous, like other children, when we went about together, but if I were from home she used to be silent and quiet. Other people might praise her, pet her, or scold her, but she did not seem to care much about it. Only when the praise or blame came from me was she pleased or sorry. She was educated at my home, and in every respect brought up like a daughter of the house. Sometimes I used to teach her myself, and she then was always most diligent.‘In this way several years passed by. Annita grew up, and by degrees she began to look upon me as an elder brother. I was, moreover, ten years her senior. When she was fifteen years old she was sent to a convent, where she remained for two years. At the same time I was stationed at Moscow, in IvanWasilievitsch’sservice, and came to know personally both him and his son, the pious Theodore, as well as many other persons who were great and powerful at Ivan’s Court.‘I remember well that Annita had no wish whatever to go to the convent. I had to start first, and the day before my departure, when it was bedtime, I laid my hand on her little head, and said:‘ “Good-bye, Annita; God bless you!”‘But she only clung to me, and exclaimed:‘ “Take me with you! Can’t you take me with you?”‘She was simple enough to think that she could travel to Moscow with me, and that she could there keep house for me.‘ “I cannot take you with me, Annita,” I said; and I tried to take one hand out of hers.‘ “I won’t go to the convent,” she said with indignation, and she would not loosen her hold on my hand.[55]‘ “You must go,” I said. “It cannot be otherwise, Annita. I will come and see you, and look after you. Say good-bye, and be a reasonable little girl,” I replied, bending down to her.‘She threw her arms around my neck, sobbed bitterly, and again exclaimed:‘ “But why can’t you take me with you?”‘I gently disengaged her arms, kissed her on the forehead, and she went with my mother into her room.‘I said good-bye to my parents overnight, as I was to start very early in the morning. It was still quite dark when I got up and went down to the sitting-room. When I entered it, I saw Annita standing by a small table, where the cloth was laid for me.‘ “Annita;” I exclaimed, as she approached me; “are you here, child?”‘ “Yes,” she said; “I wanted to see you before you left.”‘ “But how did you manage to wake up so early?”‘ “I first tried to remain awake in my room, but I couldn’t. Then I went quietly to the maid’s room, and slept with her so as to be sure to wake up, and so contrive that you would not leave without my seeing you off. Are you angry with me?”‘ “No, my child; I am not angry with you. God bless you! Good-bye again, and be a good girl, and go and lie down again!”‘She went back again to her room in tears. She had to the very last, perhaps, entertained a slight hope that I would be prevailed upon to take her with me. I was sincerely sorry for the child, but it was altogether out of the question for me to think of taking her to Moscow.‘On Christmas Eve in 1584 we were both to be at home again. Theodore had come to the throne, and I obtained leave to go home and visit my parents. Annita arrived before me, and received me in company with my father and mother, as I came driving into the courtyard. Annita was in her nineteenth year, and had so grown that she was almost as tall as my mother. She was a delicately-made, slender girl, with glossy, fair hair, which curled slightly over her temples. She still wore her convent dress, and had during the three years she had been away become beautiful like a Madonna. But there were two things in particular which marked Annita out as[56]distinct from any other woman whom I had ever seen—her beautiful eyes and an engaging smile. When Annita smiled no mortal man or woman could resist her. I often observed that when she came into a room, where there were many people, it was as if a ray of sunshine had suddenly shone into the room. Even if it so happened that the company had been sitting in silence, Annita’s appearance seemed to cast a ray of friendliness and harmony over the faces of the company, and they soon became gay and lively.‘When I came home on this occasion Annita did not, as usual, spring wildly to me, and cling fast to my hand with both of hers; but she stood quite still, and only shook hands with me.‘ “Well, Annita,” I exclaimed, “aren’t you glad I’ve come home again?”‘ “Indeed I am,” she said; “I am very glad;” and she smiled as she looked at me. To look at those eyes was like looking into the clearest crystal well. There was no secret hidden at the bottom. No passion had as yet dimmed the lustre of that depth. Her look was childlike, pure, innocent, and decorous. And when she slowly opened her large eyes and gazed at me, it seemed as if I was folded in a wonderfully warm and enchanting light.‘I was much taller than she was, and a big, strong man. I had often, in earlier days, taken Annita in my arms and run off with her over the fields. She would then, in her wild joy, pull my hair, and call out, “Gallop, my horse! Gallop, quicker, quicker!”‘I thought of doing something of this kind again, and half made a sign of taking her up in my arms, but Annita laughed and jumped aside.‘“No, thank you,” she said; “I am too big now. You can’t lift me.”‘ “I can try,” I suggested.‘ “No, I won’t let you.”‘ “Am I never more to be allowed to lift you?”‘ “Perhaps, some other time.”‘The next day I had to go and visit one of our neighbours, a distant relative, who owned the adjoining estate. The only daughter of the house, a big, strong girl, was about my own age, and we had played together as children. It had also,[57]long before, been settled between our parents that we were to marry one another, so that the two properties might be united. She and I had quite accepted this arrangement, and it had never occurred to us to think of raising objections to our parents’ plans.‘You well know, Father Gurij, that a Russian master is a patriarch, and is despotic in his house and family. No person has any right to question his orders, not even the noblest in the town, not even the Czar. The house-father is above all written law. His house is not merely a castle, but a church as well, and whatever he does is sacred and holy. “Two wills in one house,” says the Russian proverb, “would be impossible; and would never do.” My father Ivan was a very strong man, and often he was cruelly severe with his serfs, whom he looked upon and treated as mere slaves. His will was the one thing which must be followed and obeyed. Not unfrequently they have felt the cat-o’-nine-tails, and he was dreaded both by his own servants and by the serfs in the village. He commanded, and nobody dared to offer the slightest opposition, whatever the matter might be. If it was his will that a young man and a girl should marry, then they must marry, and if any persons wanted to marry, my father had to be consulted, and his decision accepted.‘My mother was as weak as a reed, and she would not venture in the least degree to oppose my father’s will. If he were provoked, it might happen that he would beat his wife, like an ordinary Russian, who, as you are aware, does this pretty often—so frequently, indeed, that it once happened on our estate that the wife of one of our serfs came to my mother with tears in her eyes, bewailing the fact that her husband no longer thrashed her as before. She was afraid that it was a sign that he no longer cared for her.‘I believe that my mother was fond of Annita. It was impossible not to be. The servants also were all of them very much attached to her. On the other hand, my father seemed to be rather hard on her, and I noticed that at times there was a glance in his eye when he saw her which seemed to forbode no good. And she, on her part, was afraid of him.‘I was again absent at Novgorod for about a year. Some little time before I was to return I got a letter from my mother, and inside it was a short note from Annita.[58]‘ “Dear Brother,” she wrote, “come home soon. I am so terrified and frightened when you are not here. I have never before felt that you were so long away as this time. Your father has been kind to me, and has made me a present of a bracelet; but, all the same, I am afraid of him, as I always have been. How happy I shall be when you are here once more! I need not see you, but only know that you are here. I am so safe when I know that you are near me; then I can fly to you, and cling to you, as I did the first time, when you brought me here. I shall have no rest or peace until you return to your little sister,‘ “Nita.”‘This letter thoroughly opened my eyes. I clearly saw and realized what I had expected would come about.‘Father Gurij,’ said Ambrose, ‘you understand that I loved this young girl whom I had saved, and to whom I had been as a father and a brother. Now I could no longer think of her merely as a sister. The spark in my heart had caught fire, and was blazing forth into a strong flame. But you cannot well understand the depth of my feelings. I was, indeed, at this time a man of years, yet never before had I been in love with a woman. It was with a feeling of fear that I realized how strong my passion was, and how violent it would become, and how wretchedly unhappy I should be, if anyone deprived me of Annita, or did any harm to her. I was of a noble family, and a rich man’s only heir, and I was on intimate terms with many families of quality at Moscow. I had seen many women, and many women had smiled on me, but their smile was cold and cheerless, and nothing to that which, in my own home, beamed on me from Annita. I decided, therefore, at once to return home, and openly tell my parents that I loved Annita, and that I wished to haveherfor my wife, and nobody else.‘ “But what will Annita say?” I thought while I was on the way. “She has never heard any man whisper a word of love. Perhaps she will be frightened. Perhaps she will be as much afraid of me as of my father.”‘I returned home, and I was welcomed by these three on the stairs of the house. My father was reserved and undemonstrative, my mother was weeping when embracing me, and Annita looked very pale, as she reached out her hand to me. I took both her hands in mine, and looked into her pretty eyes,[59]but she cast them down directly. There must have been something in my look which she had not seen before, something of a lover’s look, which caused her to cast her beautiful eyes down to the ground, while a slight blush tinged her cheeks.‘The next day I said to Annita, “Come and let us go for a walk;” and we went together out into the park to her favourite place under a large oak, where there is a view over Lake Ladoga, which spreads out like an ocean. On previous occasions, when we had walked about together alone, she had always been full of fun, and asking questions, and like a child dragging me hither and thither. But this time she was silent and quiet.‘ “Annita,” I said, when we had seated ourselves under the oak, “can you remember twelve years ago?”‘ “Yes; I remember everything—my poor parents!”‘ “Can you remember when we came here—how frightened you were? how you clung to me?”‘ “Yes, I remember it distinctly. I remember the first night I would not sleep in the servant’s room, but that I cried so, and that I insisted on having my little bed moved into your room.”‘ “But can you remember what you once said, when we were walking about here together?”‘ “No; I don’t know what you refer to. I have no recollection of anything.”‘ “ButIremember it very well myself.”‘ “What was it, then? Was it some very silly thing?”‘ “No, it was not silly; but listen: while you held my hand, and skipped along by my side, you suddenly said to me, ‘Do you know what I am going to be?’‘ “ ‘No,’ I answered; ‘I don’t in the least know what.’‘ “ ‘Very well,’ you said very earnestly, ‘I mean to be your wife. You and I shall be man and wife.’‘ “ ‘Oh, of course,’ I said; ‘you shall be Madame Theodora.’ ”‘ “Yes; but I was a simple child then,” Annita said, “a child that played with dolls. I did not know what I was saying; besides that, my dolls were husband and wife, don’t you know.”‘ “No, you did not know what you said, that is certain enough; but now you are a grown-up young woman, Annita, you are no longer a child.”‘ “No, I am nearly twenty.”‘ “And sensible.”‘ “No, not particularly.”[60]‘ “And pretty.”‘ “Am I?”‘ “Yes, you certainly are; yes, so pretty that I cannot any longer be your brother.”‘ “Are you angry with me?”‘ “No, I am not angry with you; but there is something I want to tell you.”‘ “What is it?”‘ “A secret.”‘ “A secret! It will be nice to have a secret. I haven’t any.”‘ “I am not so sure that it is always nice.”‘ “What is the secret? Will you tell me?”‘ “Yes, I will tell you; but you must not be frightened. It is the greatest secret of my life, Annita, and the secret is this: that I love you, Annita, seriously and deeply. I am in love with you, and with no one else, for the rest of my life. Annita, I ask you now, will you be my wife? Look at me, Annita; what do you say? You care a little bit for me, Annita, don’t you?”‘Annita stooped to me in trepidation.‘ “Is it true, Theodore,” she whispered, “that you love me, and will have me for your wife? Say it once more.”‘ “Yes, Annita, I love you, and you alone, and no one but you in the whole world,” I said, pressing her to me, and kissing her pale face till the rosy colour came back in her cheeks.‘ “Theodore,” she whispered, “I have always loved you. I have always thought of nobody but you. All I have is yours, and has been yours for many years—heart, soul, and thought.”‘ “God bless you, Annita!” I exclaimed. “At the last minute I began to doubt. If you had not cared for me, Annita, I should have been very wretched; in fact, a miserable man, bad, morose, and full of hatred. But not now: you know what the saying is of catching a sunbeam.”‘ “Can one catch sunbeams?”‘ “Yes, the sunbeam is the smile on your lips, Annita; if I can catch that smile all my life, then I am saved, and will be a good man and a happy one.”‘ “You shall have it, Theodore; it shall be yours, and yours only.”‘The sun was just then setting. The evening was calm; there[61]came gentle breezes over us from the wind, which was going down. Never had it seemed to me that the sun set so brilliantly, or that Lake Ladoga ever looked so beautiful, as on that evening when Annita confessed her love. As the sun disappeared behind the waves of the lake, and darkness spread over the sky, I felt that even were the earthly sun to depart, yet an everlasting dawn of light and joy had arisen in my soul. We wandered back through the flower-garden to the house.‘ “But what will father and Theodora say?” exclaimed Annita as we approached the house.‘ “To-morrow I shall talk to my parents and Theodora’s parents,” I said calmly.‘The next day I went to my father, and told him that Annita and I were in love with each other.‘ “Just so,” said my father, “just as you like, as far as I am concerned.”‘ “Will you consent, then, to our marrying?”‘ “You marry Annita!” he exclaimed.‘ “Yes; I want no one else for my wife.”‘ “You have really thought of marrying the beggar-girl, Annita. Ha, ha, ha!” laughed my father in derision, and was on the point of breaking out in an uncontrollable passion, but I saw that he restrained himself; he very well knew that his beloved son was stubborn, too, and he considered that at the outset it would be best to proceed cautiously.‘ “Annita is poor,” I said quite quietly; “but she is no beggar, and she is prettier than any rich girl I have seen; and she has been, moreover, as well brought up as any Russian lady of rank.”‘ “Her bringing up I have nothing to do with, but you intend, do you? to break your promise to Theodora, and to set yourself against both my plans and those of Theodora’s parents.”‘ “I have never proposed to Theodora, neither have I made her any promise. It has all been arranged between you and her parents, without our being consulted or having given our consent to it.”‘ “Yes, just so, and just so is it to be. I will in no manner give my consent to your marriage with a beggar-girl. Your marriage with Theodora has been put off long enough; and on that account it will be best that it should take place as soon as possible. I will provide for Annita myself. There is no hurry[62]as regards her. I will provide a suitable husband for her in good time from among my serfs or servants—for example, Anthony Kudsk, or some other suitable youth.”‘ “Father,” I exclaimed in horror, “don’t do it! I ask you dutifully, and humbly, let me have Annita for my wife! I assure you, solemnly and truly, that I will marry no other girl.”‘ “Stuff and nonsense!” exclaimed my father; “when you are married to Theodora, and Annita has married Anthony, your romantic ideas will soon disperse, and later on you will be grateful to me.”‘ “Father, don’t joke, or rather make fun of us. Annita would die rather than marry Anthony, or any other serf. She has been brought up too well for that; and besides that, she admitted yesterday that she had always loved me since she was ten years old.”‘ “Leave that to me; I am master here.”‘ “Not over Annita,” I ventured to remark.‘ “Don’t you think so?”‘ “She is not your daughter, and neither a slave nor a serf.”‘ “Who has brought her up for the last twelve years?”‘ “You and my mother have.”‘ “Then I suppose we have something to say as to her future?”‘ “No; when Annita’s future has to be provided for, I have something to say. It was I who saved her life.”‘ “Ah, well! I have heard that story before now.”‘ “Father, have you anything to reproach Annita for?”‘ “No; but I will not have my son mix Finnish peasant blood with ours. I will have you marry a girl who is your equal in station and position, and that Theodora Petrovna is.”‘ “But if I won’t?” I made bold to say once more.‘ “You won’t! You can’t! you shall, though!” exclaimed my father in a rage.‘ “Will I, though?”‘ “Yes, you shall. I am master in my own house, and in my family. You are to marry Theodora, even if I have to lead you bound, and cudgelled, to the altar. In any case, I will never consent to your marriage with Annita. Now you know my answer, and we have no need to say anything more about it.”‘ “Just one word,” I said respectfully; “I am your only child[63]and your heir, and I may presume that you have some little affection for me. Why can’t you grant me my heart’s fondest wish? Annita would make me a more faithful and affectionate wife than any other woman I know. Why should we, who are both in a sense your children, be compelled to curse, instead of to bless you?”‘ “I see what is for your future good, better than you do yourself. The whole thing is nothing more than a passing romantic fancy, and it won’t be long before you yourself will give it up as a piece of folly.”‘ “No,” I exclaimed, “not before Annita or I am dead.” And with these words I left my father.‘In bad spirits I went to my mother, and related the whole story to her; and although she as well would have preferred that I should marry Theodora, I believe that she would have forgiven Annita and me, and have given us her blessing. A mother is always ready to pardon her only son, and I am pretty sure that my mother would have taken my part, even if I had turned into a brigand or murderer. But her opinion was not of the slightest weight, against that of my father.‘I told Annita that my father would not consent to our marrying, but I assured her, over and over again, that she, and nobody but she, should be my wife.‘ “And, Annita,” I asked, “what do you say?”‘ “I!” said Annita; “why, he may take my life before I consent to be married to any of his serfs. You may implicitly rely on me. Neither persuasion nor threat will ever influence me. I am yours, and never in this world will I belong to any other man.”‘In this way time slipped by. Annita and I were happy in the consciousness of our mutual affection for each other, but we were unhappy because our parents took no share with us in it. My father was gloomy, and severe with everybody, and I seldom spoke to him. Annita had a good voice, and sang our national Russian songs beautifully; but her singing seemed to give my father pain, and to jar on his ears, for he left the room as soon as he heard her voice.‘A short time afterwards, a letter came from a mercantile house at Novgorod, to say that I must go there to take part in arranging some complicated money matters connected with a patrimony which had come to me through the death of an[64]uncle. Annita was in despair at my having to leave her, but I endeavoured to console her with the thought that it would not be for long, and that I would hurry as much as possible, and return as soon as I could. I also tried to comfort her with the reflection that I had now come in for property of my own, so that we could marry as soon as we wished, independently of my father, and go where we liked, and even, perhaps, make a trip to the country of her own childhood.‘The business, however, took longer than I had expected, and six months elapsed before all was settled and I was able to return home. The nearer I approached my home, the more I hurried on, and at last I drove from station to station like a madman.‘Do you believe in omens, Father Gurij? I expected some mishap, and I was terribly apprehensive; the nearer I approached my home, the more my fears increased. I reached home in the afternoon. My father and mother came to receive me. I saluted them, but I saw nothing of Annita.‘ “Where is Annita?” I asked.‘ “She is not at home,” answered my father.‘ “Isn’t she at home? Didn’t she know that I was to be back to-day?”‘ “I don’t know. Perhaps she may come soon.”‘ “Has she gone out?”‘ “Probably.”‘ “Where has she gone?”‘ “I really don’t know; perhaps she has gone across to Theodora’s.”‘I went over there, but Annita had not been there. I ran back, and rushed in despair to my mother, and implored her to tell me where Annita was.‘ “I hope no misfortune has happened to her,” I exclaimed.‘ “I don’t know,” said my mother; “ask your father.”‘I went to my father, and I must have had a strange look, there must have been something alarming in my countenance, for he turned pale.‘ “Where is Annita? What have you done with her?”‘ “I don’t know. I have already told you so,” he replied evasively.‘ “You don’t know—‘don’t know,’ you all say. Who, then, does know where she is?”[65]‘ “Well, that is just what nobody does know.”‘ “If she is dead you may as well tell me at once.”‘ “No, so far as I know, she is not dead.”‘ “But where has she gone, then? In God’s name tell me what you know, and what has happened.”‘ “She has disappeared.”‘ “Disappeared! Why, in what way?”‘ “About a month ago she was missed, and since that time we have neither seen nor heard anything of her.”‘I was on the point of falling, but I collected myself, and went close up to my father, as pale as death, and with frenzied threatening gestures, so that he drew back.‘ “Surely you are not going to strike your father,” he exclaimed.‘ “No,” I said; “but I will know the truth. Where is Annita? What have you done with her? Have you murdered her?”‘ “As I tell you, she disappeared a month ago; nobody knows any more.”‘ “Father, that is not true. You are lying to your son. You hide things from me, but I will know the truth, even if I have to squeeze it from you like drops of blood.”‘ “You can do what you like.”‘ “Did you look for her?”‘ “Yes; your mother and the servants searched for her.”‘ “And found no trace?”‘ “No; none that I know of.”‘I rushed again to my mother, but she called heaven to witness that she knew nothing. I ran round to the servants, and asked them all the same question, but I got the same answer, that she had disappeared, and that no one knew anything as to how it had happened. I rushed to her room, but all the things were untouched, and the room was as if she had only just left it. Could she have gone out for a walk, and have been killed by some wild beast, or robbed and murdered?‘I couldn’t sleep that night. Overwhelming sorrow kept me wide awake. Half mad, I went the next day into the village, and made inquiries of everybody, but nobody had anything to relate except that she had disappeared. I again went to the house, and asked for Anthony, the coachman, whom I had not yet seen. I got the same answer from him, that she had[66]disappeared. Quite infuriated, I made for my father, and had forgotten myself so far as to grip him by the throat and dash him on the floor in order to get the real truth out of him.‘ “Lay a hand on your father!” he exclaimed; “you are a fine sort of son.”‘I was at once disarmed.‘ “If you have done some unworthy act, father,” I exclaimed, “then own to it, and make a clean breast of it. I don’t know what I shan’t do to you or to myself, but Iwillknow the truth.”‘ “I have tried to spare you,” my father said; “but when you go on in this fashion with violence and threats, then there is nothing to be done but to tell you exactly what has really happened. The matter is simply this, that Annita and Anthony Kudst disappeared on the same night. It pains me to tell you this; but the girl was originally of low birth, and Anthony has been making good use of the time while you were away to gain her affection. He was, too, a good-looking fellow, and from the same country as the girl, and I suppose the beggar-girl persuaded him to run away with her back to their dear old heretical fatherland.”‘ “That is not true,” I said; “it is a base, abominable lie, and I don’t believe it. If it were true I would go after them and murder them both; but it is not true.”‘I went down to the village again and threatened both grown-up people and children, but I could get hold of nothing from anybody. The only person who knew anything, they declared, must be my father himself. I never for a single moment yielded to the thought that Annita had gone off of her own accord with Anthony. I was so fully persuaded of the impossibility of her doing such a thing that it did not strike me that she would, in such a case, have taken various things with her, which I knew remained untouched in her room. If she had gone on account of her fear of my father, she would also have taken several things with her, and she could then have been traced, or something would have been heard of her. But had she been stolen, carried off by force, or kidnapped? If that were so I could surely find some trace of her. I did not at first think that she was dead, and this hope kept me going.‘I noticed that a dog which was very much attached to her, and which was called Karo, followed me about wherever I went,[67]and was evidently also trying to find her. This was a further sign to me that she had not voluntarily disappeared. The dog would have accompanied her. I took the dog with me, in the hope that it might possibly scent out her footprints, and we hunted through the house, the park, the village, and the neighbourhood, but all in vain. I could not find the slightest trace of her.‘ “Do you still refuse to tell me the truth?” I asked my father when I returned home. “Can you tell me if Annita is dead? because if I know that, then I know what to do.”‘ “I can’t tell you more than I know.”‘ “You are lying, father!” I exclaimed in anger; “but it is all the same; I will find her, or get to know about her. I will not rest, either day or night, till I find her, living or dead. But may God punish you with everlasting remorse if I find that you have driven her with blows to the altar to marry Anthony.”‘ “Unnatural son! go and ask the priest.”‘I went to the pope in the village. Like one demented, I rushed into his room and asked:‘ “Have you married Annita and Anthony?” As he hesitated with his answer I caught him by the throat, threw him on the ground and knelt on his chest.‘ “Out with the truth, you wretch!” I cried; “have you married Annita and Anthony?”‘He assured me, by all that was holy, that he had not married them, and that he knew nothing about it. I could not but believe him. If I had felt any doubt as to the truth of his word I believe that, in the desperate and frenzied state in which I was, I should have held my hand so long on his throat that I should have choked him.‘The next dayIalso disappeared and was away for a whole year. I wandered about from house to house, village to village, and inquired of everybody, and promised rewards if anyone would procure me tidings of Annita. But all in vain. I could find no trace of her. I went to Finland, to Annita’s homestead, and through Kuolaniemi, where I had rescued her. The farm-house had been rebuilt, and had a new proprietor, but nobody had heard anything of Annita.‘I returned home as ragged as a beggar, sick, haggard, hollow-eyed, and in despair. I was no longer as angry as[68]before, but dreadfully out of spirits and broken-hearted. I again begged my father to tell me the truth, or let me know for certain whether Annita was alive.‘ “I don’t know,” he replied as before. I went off again without even saying good-bye to my parents. I visited all the convents, but no nun bore her name, and no one had heard anything of her. I went to Moscow, to the Czar, to the pious Theodore, in whose service I had been, and I laid a charge against my father by telling him what I have now told you. He sent a judge to Olonets and had my father examined, but he denied, as before, that he knew anything about Annita; perhaps bribed the judge as well—he was rich enough to do it. After an absence of two years I returned to my saddened home.‘ “You have been complaining of me to the Czar,” said my father.‘ “Yes,” I replied.‘ “You wanted to have your own father punished as a criminal.”‘ “Yes; because you would not tell me the truth.”‘ “Well, then, I have now just one word to say to you, and that will be the last word spoken between us.”‘ “Say it, then.”‘ “If you don’t marry Theodora, I shall order my servants to remove you by force from the house, and then I disinherit you.”‘ “I will not marry Theodora.”‘ “Very well, then, you are no longer my son.”‘ “Be it so,” I said. “Nothing more can wound or grieve me. I am deaf and dead to all the feelings of a son towards his father, and to all his father’s threats. I, too, have made my decision.”‘ “And I should like to know what that may be?”‘ “I am going to be a monk, and shall enter a monastery. I renounce the estates and the property, and everything else in this world.”‘ “And all for the sake of a beggar-girl.”‘ “Yes, for the sake of a poor, harmless, forlorn girl—for the sake of the one woman whom I have loved, and whom I have lost, and of whom my own father has deprived me.”‘ “As you will,” said my father, but he hardly believed that I was in earnest. I made one more desperate journey to seek[69]for some trace of Annita. At a place in Karelen I was informed that one Sunday a young couple, who were travelling, had been at church there, and as they were driving off again, the young woman, when they were crossing a bridge, either threw herself, or fell into the river and was drowned. But who they were nobody knew. I called on the priest of the parish, and asked him, but he could not remember that he had heard the names of Annita or Anthony, and he had never married persons so named.‘I returned home, but I could not bring myself to live there. Wherever I went I was reminded of Annita. I went out in the park, where she used to play as a child, and where, as a grown-up woman, she had assured me of her love. I threw myself down on the ground with my face to the earth, and lay there a long time. I did not give way to tears, but I had a sense of vacuity about me and around me. A blow had fallen upon me from a cruel hand, and my life was cut in twain. So I bid farewell to my parents, and to my home, and I went to Solowetski to be a monk. But there was too much bustle and secular excitement in that huge monastery, and I did not find sufficient solitude there. I longed for solitude, and for a scenery as bare, bleak, and desolate as my own inner feelings. So I journeyed on foot to this dreary spot. Here, I will remain, and to-morrow I will take the vows. Annita must be dead, or, what is still worse, living as dead to me, for not a trace of her has been found, and it is now three years since anything has been heard of her. I also will die, therefore, from henceforth to the pleasures and sorrows of the world. I am weary of life, weary unto death, and I renounce everything.’‘Perhaps all this has been for your good, and for the saving of your soul,’ said old Gurij.‘No, no!’ Ambrose exclaimed passionately, and springing up from the place where he was reclining. ‘I could have been so happy in Annita’s love. You don’t know, nobody knows, what that child was to me. I have watched at night by her sick-bed, and have felt that were she to die, I should lose that which nothing could replace. I have carried her in my arms, and she was more precious to me than my own flesh and blood. I lived wholly and solely in her love. She was my all—my future was centred in her. She was my hope, my sanctuary, and my home.’[70]‘But, perhaps, in the course of time you might fall in love with some other woman, and be happy in her company?’‘Never! never! I was no mere lad, who, in the unruly passion of the passing moment, gave vent to vows, the meaning of which he had never reflected on. I was a full-grown man who, with my whole understanding, had pledged myself to that woman.’‘I can understand how hard it must have been to give up that earthly hope.’‘Yes, and you must not suppose either that I have patiently submitted to my hard fate. No, indeed; there were times when my heart rebelled at the thought that I was unloved by any human being. Shall I tell it to you—how I have murmured against Providence, how I have indulged rebellious thoughts against Providence, and how I dared to reproach the Divine decrees? But that state of rebellion within me is at an end, and so are all my hopes. I look for nothing more. I hope for nothing more. I have now only before my eyes a quiet resignation to my lot and a humble self-renunciation.’‘And as regards your father?’‘Yes, yes, my father.’‘Do you forgive him?’‘Yes; may God pardon him for the wrong he did to Annita and to me.’‘That is right, my son,’ said the old man. ‘Such should be your state of mind when you take the vows this night, and may it be that you will find peace within the Church’s fold; for the holy Church alone can offer balm to your wounded heart here on earth, and give to your soul everlasting bliss hereafter.’[71]

[Contents]CHAPTER VI.CHAPTER VI.THEODORE AND ANNITA.In the year 1589 the number of monks in the monastery of Petschenga reached sixty, and there were more than two hundred lay-brothers. On account of the secular business in which the members of the monastery were engaged, some of them were always away, either attending to the mill, the shipbuilding, or the fisheries, or else they were travelling on business to Vardö or Kola. But on the great festivals they were all assembled in the monastery, and the services were conducted with full and impressive solemnity.The forms of worship in the Eastern Church, which the monks were bound to observe, are strictly observed at the great feasts, and also during the forty days of Advent and Lent. The daily offices of the Church are six, and sometimes seven, in number, according to Psa. cxix. 164: ‘Seven times a day do I praise Thee, O Lord.’ These offices are said partly during the night, and the following is the appointed order: At midnight what is called Mesonyktikon is said; this lasts for three hours. Then there come Matins, and then the lesser Hours. At seven in the morning the Liturgy itself is celebrated. This is the service in which the Eucharist is hallowed and administered. The Brethren usually receive the Sacrament four times a year. In the afternoon Vespers are said, and finally, at the close of the day, Compline. On fasts and great festivals ‘Apogrypnia’ is said after ten o’clock at night, and this is an office which requires that the night shall be passed in the church and spent in prayer. When ‘Apogrypnia’ is said, it[49]is usual to celebrate the Liturgy rather earlier, and then the monks go to rest till Vespers. There is never any sermon at these services, but on the festivals a portion of the lives of saints and martyrs is read.Ambrose was not as yet a full monk, but he had completed his novitiate, and it was decided that he should take the vow on Christmas Eve, 1589. The venerable and aged Superior, Gurij, had frequently discoursed with him, and had earnestly explained to him the unalterable nature of the vow which he was to take, and which would, for all his future life, bind him to the monastic life. Ambrose had declared that he was ready to take the vow, and with it to bid farewell to everything in the world which was not consistent with the strict, secluded life of a monastery.Nevertheless, old Gurij, who had attached himself more to this young man than to any of the other monks, had observed at times that there was an indication of something like suppressed anxiety in his pale face as the day approached nearer and nearer on which the solemn vow was to be taken. He fancied that at times there was in Ambrose’s features an expression as of a profound and unendurable anguish. Ambrose, who was usually very silent, had never told him much about his earlier career. It was not improbable, therefore, that in some deep recess of the man’s heart there lay hidden away memories of occurrences of which nobody had any knowledge.The old Superior made up his mind that he would once more speak to him privately, before he took the irrevocable vow, and he decided to do so after the first office for the day before Christmas Eve had been said. When therefore, Mesonyktikon, or the midnight office, was over—that is, about two o’clock in the morning on Christmas Eve—Gurij summoned Ambrose to his cell.‘To-day,’ he said, ‘you are to take the final vow and be one of us, and become a monk for the rest of your life.’‘Yes, Father.’‘You have no doubt as to your decision?’‘No.’‘There is nothing about which you wish to consult me?’‘No.’‘There is nothing you wish to confess to me or confide to[50]me?—you know that I am not only your brother, but an old friend too.’‘I have no confession to make.’‘Have you never done wrong? Is there nothing in your earlier career for which you need to obtain forgiveness or the intercession of the Church?’‘Indeed, Father, I have done wrong; but others have done more wrong to me than I have done to them.’‘You have no longer any ill feeling; you have forgiven them?’‘No,’ said Ambrose, after a moment’s reflection.‘But you must forgive; you will obtain no peace until you do, and you cannot take the vow while you bear malice in your heart. Before you bid the world farewell you must realize the calm peace of reconciliation.’‘I cannot.’‘Who is it that has wronged you so cruelly?’‘My father.’‘Your own father?’‘Yes, and my relations and friends.’‘There are also many things connected with the world with which your heart is still occupied, and on which your thoughts dwell, instead of being engaged in prayer and fasting.’‘No; there is nothing in the world in which I have lived that I look for. All is hidden, forgotten, buried and lost.’‘But it has left behind bitterness in your feelings. Have you never loved—loved some woman?’‘Certainly,’ exclaimed Ambrose, and he thereupon turned paler than ever. There suddenly arose from the innermost recess of his soul a form so lifelike, as it stood before him, that he covered his face with his hands and fell on his knees, and laid his head on the old man’s lap, while he slowly muttered the name ‘Annita, Annita.’The old man allowed him to remain thus for a while, as he perceived that this strong man was weeping like a child. There must, then, as he had suspected, be events which had taken place in his earlier career which were now revived with painful vividness.‘Brother,’ he said, ‘will you here, in the quiet of the night, open your heart to me, and tell me all about your previous career? I do not ask you from inquisitiveness, but tell me if you can; I will listen to you. You know that I am your friend.[51]Moreover, I have loved you, and will understand you, and sympathize with you.’‘Yes, Father,’ said Ambrose, ‘if you will listen to me, I will tell you everything. My name is not really Ambrose, but I bear the same name as our orthodox Czar, whose father conferred on this monastery its charter. My name is really, like his, Theodore Ivanovitsch, and I come of an old Russian boyar family. A pious mother taught me in my early youth to read the lives of the saints and martyrs, and to go to church. But as I am of noble birth, and at some period would have to serve the Czar, I also learned to ride and fence and hunt and shoot. I have been an officer. You see this scar which I have on my forehead? I received it in battle. There has, as you know, been variance for many years between the monastery of Solowetski and the Swedish Finns in heretical Finland. This variance still continues, and none the less now that there is war between the Czar and John III. of Sweden. The monastery of Solowetski was, as you know, founded in 1429, and obtained at length even greater privileges than our own monastery has done. But it was also bound to protect Karelstrand and the towns in that neighbourhood against attacks from Finnish pirates. For the protection of the monastery the Czar has now, as you also know, built a stone wall which is to have eight towers, and is to surround the churches and all the buildings. Meanwhile the Swedish Finns, out of their old hatred of the Russians, had been making piratical incursions into Karelen, attacking our orthodox people, and the Solowetski people did not hesitate to retaliate. In this way, about twelve years ago, I was sent as a young officer to Karelen with a troop of Cossacks to protect the inhabitants against these Swedish Finns. I must admit that the Cossacks whom I had to command were wild and cruel men. Young, and unused to the horrors of war, I often tried to restrain them from needlessly killing men and women, while they were plundering their dwellings. At times I was, fortunately, able to save the innocent; but on one occasion, when we had chased a crowd of Swedish Finns back out of Karelen, into which they had made a piratical incursion, and had pursued them right into the district of Kajana, it so happened that some of my men, who were in the van, had reached the farmstead of Kuolaniemi in Sotkamo before I came up. They had attacked[52]the farm people, and, as usual, had killed and plundered them. After this they had fired the houses. I saw the fire, and pressed on with my men. The farm was beautifully situated on a projecting promontory by the side of a large lake. The houses and tall spruce firs down by the lake were so clearly reflected in it, that it looked as if the smooth depths of the lake below, as well as the clouds in the sky above, were ablaze. As, in a state of indignation, I rode inside the burning farmstead, determined more strongly than before to remonstrate with the more bloodthirsty of my men, I caught sight of a woman, struggling desperately with a Cossack at the doorway and on the steps of the burning house. The master of the house they had already killed, but the mother was clinging, though mortally wounded, to the leg of a Cossack to save a child—a little girl—whom he was trying to drag away with him. Before I could reach him, I saw him lift a spear and plunge it into the mother’s breast, so that she swooned away and let go her hold of his leg, while at the same moment the child tore herself away and ran off towards the courtyard. Enraged, the monster threw his blood-stained spear after the child, and sprang aside to catch her. Fortunately, he only touched her flowing hair, and at that moment I and my men reached him.‘ “Monster!” I shouted. “Would you kill an innocent child?” and I placed my spear on the man’s breast so that he stopped.‘The child clung to my leg, and cried to me in mortal fear and with tears in its little eyes, “Save me! save me!” I took her in my arms and lifted her on to my horse. Poor child! she clung in her terror close to me, and hid herself under my large riding-coat.‘The farm continued to burn. No one seemed to think of putting out the fire, and the people belonging to the farm who had not been able to escape at once were lying dead in all directions in the burning house. I gave orders for a retreat within the boundary of Karelen; but what was I to do with the child whom I had beside me on my horse, a little girl some six or seven years old? She looked terrified at my men if any of them came near me, and with her little arms took tight hold of me.‘ “Hold me fast!” she cried; “don’t let go of me, dear, dear man! don’t let them kill me!”’[53]‘ “No, my child, no one shall touch you,” I said, to pacify her.‘The district was a lonely one, and the people all about had taken to flight. I could not, therefore, leave the child at the farm which had been burnt down. She would have perished of cold and hunger, as most likely people would not venture there again for some time. I took the child with me, therefore, to the camp. She was a pretty little girl. When we dismounted from our horses at the camp, she would not on any account let go my hand, which she grasped with both her own.‘ “What is your name?” I asked her, when we had entered my tent and her terror had somewhat subsided.‘ “Nita,” she replied, crying.‘ “Your parents are dead, my poor child,” I said. “Have you brothers and sisters?”‘ “No; father and mother had only me.”‘ “Have you any relations?”‘ “No; I don’t know of any.”‘ “I really don’t know what to do with you, my poor little Nita, or where to send you.”‘ “Don’t send me away!” she cried. “Can’t I stop with you? I am so frightened at all the men here. Can I keep with you? I will be a good girl, and I am called Annita, too. Annita is my proper name.”‘We talked for some time together, but I could not make out anything respecting her relatives. This much only was evident, that her parents had been ordinary farm-people, but apparently well-to-do folk, for the child was well dressed, well brought up, and, moreover, intelligent for her age.‘She slept in my tent at night, and could not be prevailed upon to leave me, so afraid was she of my rough men. So I came to the conclusion to take the little orphan home with me to my parents in Russia. I explained, therefore, on the next day to my men that for the future I should consider Annita as my child, and threatened with death the man who should do her any harm.‘As there was now not much probability that the Swedish Finns would soon make a fresh attack on Karelen, I returned to my home on the border of Lake Ladoga, close to Olonet, not far from Finland, where my father owned an estate and[54]several hundreds of serfs. My parents were very much surprised at my bringing home, as a trophy from the battlefield, a little girl, but when they heard further particulars they considered that I had done right, and they received the child kindly. Annita was both a pretty and an amiable child, and she soon became a favourite.‘At the end of a year she had learnt to speak Russian, only with me she preferred to speak Karelsk, her mother tongue, which I could also speak fairly fluently. It was natural that the child clung to me, and was not quite satisfied unless I was somewhere near. I had rescued her. She looked on me as another father. She could be merry, and happy, and boisterous, like other children, when we went about together, but if I were from home she used to be silent and quiet. Other people might praise her, pet her, or scold her, but she did not seem to care much about it. Only when the praise or blame came from me was she pleased or sorry. She was educated at my home, and in every respect brought up like a daughter of the house. Sometimes I used to teach her myself, and she then was always most diligent.‘In this way several years passed by. Annita grew up, and by degrees she began to look upon me as an elder brother. I was, moreover, ten years her senior. When she was fifteen years old she was sent to a convent, where she remained for two years. At the same time I was stationed at Moscow, in IvanWasilievitsch’sservice, and came to know personally both him and his son, the pious Theodore, as well as many other persons who were great and powerful at Ivan’s Court.‘I remember well that Annita had no wish whatever to go to the convent. I had to start first, and the day before my departure, when it was bedtime, I laid my hand on her little head, and said:‘ “Good-bye, Annita; God bless you!”‘But she only clung to me, and exclaimed:‘ “Take me with you! Can’t you take me with you?”‘She was simple enough to think that she could travel to Moscow with me, and that she could there keep house for me.‘ “I cannot take you with me, Annita,” I said; and I tried to take one hand out of hers.‘ “I won’t go to the convent,” she said with indignation, and she would not loosen her hold on my hand.[55]‘ “You must go,” I said. “It cannot be otherwise, Annita. I will come and see you, and look after you. Say good-bye, and be a reasonable little girl,” I replied, bending down to her.‘She threw her arms around my neck, sobbed bitterly, and again exclaimed:‘ “But why can’t you take me with you?”‘I gently disengaged her arms, kissed her on the forehead, and she went with my mother into her room.‘I said good-bye to my parents overnight, as I was to start very early in the morning. It was still quite dark when I got up and went down to the sitting-room. When I entered it, I saw Annita standing by a small table, where the cloth was laid for me.‘ “Annita;” I exclaimed, as she approached me; “are you here, child?”‘ “Yes,” she said; “I wanted to see you before you left.”‘ “But how did you manage to wake up so early?”‘ “I first tried to remain awake in my room, but I couldn’t. Then I went quietly to the maid’s room, and slept with her so as to be sure to wake up, and so contrive that you would not leave without my seeing you off. Are you angry with me?”‘ “No, my child; I am not angry with you. God bless you! Good-bye again, and be a good girl, and go and lie down again!”‘She went back again to her room in tears. She had to the very last, perhaps, entertained a slight hope that I would be prevailed upon to take her with me. I was sincerely sorry for the child, but it was altogether out of the question for me to think of taking her to Moscow.‘On Christmas Eve in 1584 we were both to be at home again. Theodore had come to the throne, and I obtained leave to go home and visit my parents. Annita arrived before me, and received me in company with my father and mother, as I came driving into the courtyard. Annita was in her nineteenth year, and had so grown that she was almost as tall as my mother. She was a delicately-made, slender girl, with glossy, fair hair, which curled slightly over her temples. She still wore her convent dress, and had during the three years she had been away become beautiful like a Madonna. But there were two things in particular which marked Annita out as[56]distinct from any other woman whom I had ever seen—her beautiful eyes and an engaging smile. When Annita smiled no mortal man or woman could resist her. I often observed that when she came into a room, where there were many people, it was as if a ray of sunshine had suddenly shone into the room. Even if it so happened that the company had been sitting in silence, Annita’s appearance seemed to cast a ray of friendliness and harmony over the faces of the company, and they soon became gay and lively.‘When I came home on this occasion Annita did not, as usual, spring wildly to me, and cling fast to my hand with both of hers; but she stood quite still, and only shook hands with me.‘ “Well, Annita,” I exclaimed, “aren’t you glad I’ve come home again?”‘ “Indeed I am,” she said; “I am very glad;” and she smiled as she looked at me. To look at those eyes was like looking into the clearest crystal well. There was no secret hidden at the bottom. No passion had as yet dimmed the lustre of that depth. Her look was childlike, pure, innocent, and decorous. And when she slowly opened her large eyes and gazed at me, it seemed as if I was folded in a wonderfully warm and enchanting light.‘I was much taller than she was, and a big, strong man. I had often, in earlier days, taken Annita in my arms and run off with her over the fields. She would then, in her wild joy, pull my hair, and call out, “Gallop, my horse! Gallop, quicker, quicker!”‘I thought of doing something of this kind again, and half made a sign of taking her up in my arms, but Annita laughed and jumped aside.‘“No, thank you,” she said; “I am too big now. You can’t lift me.”‘ “I can try,” I suggested.‘ “No, I won’t let you.”‘ “Am I never more to be allowed to lift you?”‘ “Perhaps, some other time.”‘The next day I had to go and visit one of our neighbours, a distant relative, who owned the adjoining estate. The only daughter of the house, a big, strong girl, was about my own age, and we had played together as children. It had also,[57]long before, been settled between our parents that we were to marry one another, so that the two properties might be united. She and I had quite accepted this arrangement, and it had never occurred to us to think of raising objections to our parents’ plans.‘You well know, Father Gurij, that a Russian master is a patriarch, and is despotic in his house and family. No person has any right to question his orders, not even the noblest in the town, not even the Czar. The house-father is above all written law. His house is not merely a castle, but a church as well, and whatever he does is sacred and holy. “Two wills in one house,” says the Russian proverb, “would be impossible; and would never do.” My father Ivan was a very strong man, and often he was cruelly severe with his serfs, whom he looked upon and treated as mere slaves. His will was the one thing which must be followed and obeyed. Not unfrequently they have felt the cat-o’-nine-tails, and he was dreaded both by his own servants and by the serfs in the village. He commanded, and nobody dared to offer the slightest opposition, whatever the matter might be. If it was his will that a young man and a girl should marry, then they must marry, and if any persons wanted to marry, my father had to be consulted, and his decision accepted.‘My mother was as weak as a reed, and she would not venture in the least degree to oppose my father’s will. If he were provoked, it might happen that he would beat his wife, like an ordinary Russian, who, as you are aware, does this pretty often—so frequently, indeed, that it once happened on our estate that the wife of one of our serfs came to my mother with tears in her eyes, bewailing the fact that her husband no longer thrashed her as before. She was afraid that it was a sign that he no longer cared for her.‘I believe that my mother was fond of Annita. It was impossible not to be. The servants also were all of them very much attached to her. On the other hand, my father seemed to be rather hard on her, and I noticed that at times there was a glance in his eye when he saw her which seemed to forbode no good. And she, on her part, was afraid of him.‘I was again absent at Novgorod for about a year. Some little time before I was to return I got a letter from my mother, and inside it was a short note from Annita.[58]‘ “Dear Brother,” she wrote, “come home soon. I am so terrified and frightened when you are not here. I have never before felt that you were so long away as this time. Your father has been kind to me, and has made me a present of a bracelet; but, all the same, I am afraid of him, as I always have been. How happy I shall be when you are here once more! I need not see you, but only know that you are here. I am so safe when I know that you are near me; then I can fly to you, and cling to you, as I did the first time, when you brought me here. I shall have no rest or peace until you return to your little sister,‘ “Nita.”‘This letter thoroughly opened my eyes. I clearly saw and realized what I had expected would come about.‘Father Gurij,’ said Ambrose, ‘you understand that I loved this young girl whom I had saved, and to whom I had been as a father and a brother. Now I could no longer think of her merely as a sister. The spark in my heart had caught fire, and was blazing forth into a strong flame. But you cannot well understand the depth of my feelings. I was, indeed, at this time a man of years, yet never before had I been in love with a woman. It was with a feeling of fear that I realized how strong my passion was, and how violent it would become, and how wretchedly unhappy I should be, if anyone deprived me of Annita, or did any harm to her. I was of a noble family, and a rich man’s only heir, and I was on intimate terms with many families of quality at Moscow. I had seen many women, and many women had smiled on me, but their smile was cold and cheerless, and nothing to that which, in my own home, beamed on me from Annita. I decided, therefore, at once to return home, and openly tell my parents that I loved Annita, and that I wished to haveherfor my wife, and nobody else.‘ “But what will Annita say?” I thought while I was on the way. “She has never heard any man whisper a word of love. Perhaps she will be frightened. Perhaps she will be as much afraid of me as of my father.”‘I returned home, and I was welcomed by these three on the stairs of the house. My father was reserved and undemonstrative, my mother was weeping when embracing me, and Annita looked very pale, as she reached out her hand to me. I took both her hands in mine, and looked into her pretty eyes,[59]but she cast them down directly. There must have been something in my look which she had not seen before, something of a lover’s look, which caused her to cast her beautiful eyes down to the ground, while a slight blush tinged her cheeks.‘The next day I said to Annita, “Come and let us go for a walk;” and we went together out into the park to her favourite place under a large oak, where there is a view over Lake Ladoga, which spreads out like an ocean. On previous occasions, when we had walked about together alone, she had always been full of fun, and asking questions, and like a child dragging me hither and thither. But this time she was silent and quiet.‘ “Annita,” I said, when we had seated ourselves under the oak, “can you remember twelve years ago?”‘ “Yes; I remember everything—my poor parents!”‘ “Can you remember when we came here—how frightened you were? how you clung to me?”‘ “Yes, I remember it distinctly. I remember the first night I would not sleep in the servant’s room, but that I cried so, and that I insisted on having my little bed moved into your room.”‘ “But can you remember what you once said, when we were walking about here together?”‘ “No; I don’t know what you refer to. I have no recollection of anything.”‘ “ButIremember it very well myself.”‘ “What was it, then? Was it some very silly thing?”‘ “No, it was not silly; but listen: while you held my hand, and skipped along by my side, you suddenly said to me, ‘Do you know what I am going to be?’‘ “ ‘No,’ I answered; ‘I don’t in the least know what.’‘ “ ‘Very well,’ you said very earnestly, ‘I mean to be your wife. You and I shall be man and wife.’‘ “ ‘Oh, of course,’ I said; ‘you shall be Madame Theodora.’ ”‘ “Yes; but I was a simple child then,” Annita said, “a child that played with dolls. I did not know what I was saying; besides that, my dolls were husband and wife, don’t you know.”‘ “No, you did not know what you said, that is certain enough; but now you are a grown-up young woman, Annita, you are no longer a child.”‘ “No, I am nearly twenty.”‘ “And sensible.”‘ “No, not particularly.”[60]‘ “And pretty.”‘ “Am I?”‘ “Yes, you certainly are; yes, so pretty that I cannot any longer be your brother.”‘ “Are you angry with me?”‘ “No, I am not angry with you; but there is something I want to tell you.”‘ “What is it?”‘ “A secret.”‘ “A secret! It will be nice to have a secret. I haven’t any.”‘ “I am not so sure that it is always nice.”‘ “What is the secret? Will you tell me?”‘ “Yes, I will tell you; but you must not be frightened. It is the greatest secret of my life, Annita, and the secret is this: that I love you, Annita, seriously and deeply. I am in love with you, and with no one else, for the rest of my life. Annita, I ask you now, will you be my wife? Look at me, Annita; what do you say? You care a little bit for me, Annita, don’t you?”‘Annita stooped to me in trepidation.‘ “Is it true, Theodore,” she whispered, “that you love me, and will have me for your wife? Say it once more.”‘ “Yes, Annita, I love you, and you alone, and no one but you in the whole world,” I said, pressing her to me, and kissing her pale face till the rosy colour came back in her cheeks.‘ “Theodore,” she whispered, “I have always loved you. I have always thought of nobody but you. All I have is yours, and has been yours for many years—heart, soul, and thought.”‘ “God bless you, Annita!” I exclaimed. “At the last minute I began to doubt. If you had not cared for me, Annita, I should have been very wretched; in fact, a miserable man, bad, morose, and full of hatred. But not now: you know what the saying is of catching a sunbeam.”‘ “Can one catch sunbeams?”‘ “Yes, the sunbeam is the smile on your lips, Annita; if I can catch that smile all my life, then I am saved, and will be a good man and a happy one.”‘ “You shall have it, Theodore; it shall be yours, and yours only.”‘The sun was just then setting. The evening was calm; there[61]came gentle breezes over us from the wind, which was going down. Never had it seemed to me that the sun set so brilliantly, or that Lake Ladoga ever looked so beautiful, as on that evening when Annita confessed her love. As the sun disappeared behind the waves of the lake, and darkness spread over the sky, I felt that even were the earthly sun to depart, yet an everlasting dawn of light and joy had arisen in my soul. We wandered back through the flower-garden to the house.‘ “But what will father and Theodora say?” exclaimed Annita as we approached the house.‘ “To-morrow I shall talk to my parents and Theodora’s parents,” I said calmly.‘The next day I went to my father, and told him that Annita and I were in love with each other.‘ “Just so,” said my father, “just as you like, as far as I am concerned.”‘ “Will you consent, then, to our marrying?”‘ “You marry Annita!” he exclaimed.‘ “Yes; I want no one else for my wife.”‘ “You have really thought of marrying the beggar-girl, Annita. Ha, ha, ha!” laughed my father in derision, and was on the point of breaking out in an uncontrollable passion, but I saw that he restrained himself; he very well knew that his beloved son was stubborn, too, and he considered that at the outset it would be best to proceed cautiously.‘ “Annita is poor,” I said quite quietly; “but she is no beggar, and she is prettier than any rich girl I have seen; and she has been, moreover, as well brought up as any Russian lady of rank.”‘ “Her bringing up I have nothing to do with, but you intend, do you? to break your promise to Theodora, and to set yourself against both my plans and those of Theodora’s parents.”‘ “I have never proposed to Theodora, neither have I made her any promise. It has all been arranged between you and her parents, without our being consulted or having given our consent to it.”‘ “Yes, just so, and just so is it to be. I will in no manner give my consent to your marriage with a beggar-girl. Your marriage with Theodora has been put off long enough; and on that account it will be best that it should take place as soon as possible. I will provide for Annita myself. There is no hurry[62]as regards her. I will provide a suitable husband for her in good time from among my serfs or servants—for example, Anthony Kudsk, or some other suitable youth.”‘ “Father,” I exclaimed in horror, “don’t do it! I ask you dutifully, and humbly, let me have Annita for my wife! I assure you, solemnly and truly, that I will marry no other girl.”‘ “Stuff and nonsense!” exclaimed my father; “when you are married to Theodora, and Annita has married Anthony, your romantic ideas will soon disperse, and later on you will be grateful to me.”‘ “Father, don’t joke, or rather make fun of us. Annita would die rather than marry Anthony, or any other serf. She has been brought up too well for that; and besides that, she admitted yesterday that she had always loved me since she was ten years old.”‘ “Leave that to me; I am master here.”‘ “Not over Annita,” I ventured to remark.‘ “Don’t you think so?”‘ “She is not your daughter, and neither a slave nor a serf.”‘ “Who has brought her up for the last twelve years?”‘ “You and my mother have.”‘ “Then I suppose we have something to say as to her future?”‘ “No; when Annita’s future has to be provided for, I have something to say. It was I who saved her life.”‘ “Ah, well! I have heard that story before now.”‘ “Father, have you anything to reproach Annita for?”‘ “No; but I will not have my son mix Finnish peasant blood with ours. I will have you marry a girl who is your equal in station and position, and that Theodora Petrovna is.”‘ “But if I won’t?” I made bold to say once more.‘ “You won’t! You can’t! you shall, though!” exclaimed my father in a rage.‘ “Will I, though?”‘ “Yes, you shall. I am master in my own house, and in my family. You are to marry Theodora, even if I have to lead you bound, and cudgelled, to the altar. In any case, I will never consent to your marriage with Annita. Now you know my answer, and we have no need to say anything more about it.”‘ “Just one word,” I said respectfully; “I am your only child[63]and your heir, and I may presume that you have some little affection for me. Why can’t you grant me my heart’s fondest wish? Annita would make me a more faithful and affectionate wife than any other woman I know. Why should we, who are both in a sense your children, be compelled to curse, instead of to bless you?”‘ “I see what is for your future good, better than you do yourself. The whole thing is nothing more than a passing romantic fancy, and it won’t be long before you yourself will give it up as a piece of folly.”‘ “No,” I exclaimed, “not before Annita or I am dead.” And with these words I left my father.‘In bad spirits I went to my mother, and related the whole story to her; and although she as well would have preferred that I should marry Theodora, I believe that she would have forgiven Annita and me, and have given us her blessing. A mother is always ready to pardon her only son, and I am pretty sure that my mother would have taken my part, even if I had turned into a brigand or murderer. But her opinion was not of the slightest weight, against that of my father.‘I told Annita that my father would not consent to our marrying, but I assured her, over and over again, that she, and nobody but she, should be my wife.‘ “And, Annita,” I asked, “what do you say?”‘ “I!” said Annita; “why, he may take my life before I consent to be married to any of his serfs. You may implicitly rely on me. Neither persuasion nor threat will ever influence me. I am yours, and never in this world will I belong to any other man.”‘In this way time slipped by. Annita and I were happy in the consciousness of our mutual affection for each other, but we were unhappy because our parents took no share with us in it. My father was gloomy, and severe with everybody, and I seldom spoke to him. Annita had a good voice, and sang our national Russian songs beautifully; but her singing seemed to give my father pain, and to jar on his ears, for he left the room as soon as he heard her voice.‘A short time afterwards, a letter came from a mercantile house at Novgorod, to say that I must go there to take part in arranging some complicated money matters connected with a patrimony which had come to me through the death of an[64]uncle. Annita was in despair at my having to leave her, but I endeavoured to console her with the thought that it would not be for long, and that I would hurry as much as possible, and return as soon as I could. I also tried to comfort her with the reflection that I had now come in for property of my own, so that we could marry as soon as we wished, independently of my father, and go where we liked, and even, perhaps, make a trip to the country of her own childhood.‘The business, however, took longer than I had expected, and six months elapsed before all was settled and I was able to return home. The nearer I approached my home, the more I hurried on, and at last I drove from station to station like a madman.‘Do you believe in omens, Father Gurij? I expected some mishap, and I was terribly apprehensive; the nearer I approached my home, the more my fears increased. I reached home in the afternoon. My father and mother came to receive me. I saluted them, but I saw nothing of Annita.‘ “Where is Annita?” I asked.‘ “She is not at home,” answered my father.‘ “Isn’t she at home? Didn’t she know that I was to be back to-day?”‘ “I don’t know. Perhaps she may come soon.”‘ “Has she gone out?”‘ “Probably.”‘ “Where has she gone?”‘ “I really don’t know; perhaps she has gone across to Theodora’s.”‘I went over there, but Annita had not been there. I ran back, and rushed in despair to my mother, and implored her to tell me where Annita was.‘ “I hope no misfortune has happened to her,” I exclaimed.‘ “I don’t know,” said my mother; “ask your father.”‘I went to my father, and I must have had a strange look, there must have been something alarming in my countenance, for he turned pale.‘ “Where is Annita? What have you done with her?”‘ “I don’t know. I have already told you so,” he replied evasively.‘ “You don’t know—‘don’t know,’ you all say. Who, then, does know where she is?”[65]‘ “Well, that is just what nobody does know.”‘ “If she is dead you may as well tell me at once.”‘ “No, so far as I know, she is not dead.”‘ “But where has she gone, then? In God’s name tell me what you know, and what has happened.”‘ “She has disappeared.”‘ “Disappeared! Why, in what way?”‘ “About a month ago she was missed, and since that time we have neither seen nor heard anything of her.”‘I was on the point of falling, but I collected myself, and went close up to my father, as pale as death, and with frenzied threatening gestures, so that he drew back.‘ “Surely you are not going to strike your father,” he exclaimed.‘ “No,” I said; “but I will know the truth. Where is Annita? What have you done with her? Have you murdered her?”‘ “As I tell you, she disappeared a month ago; nobody knows any more.”‘ “Father, that is not true. You are lying to your son. You hide things from me, but I will know the truth, even if I have to squeeze it from you like drops of blood.”‘ “You can do what you like.”‘ “Did you look for her?”‘ “Yes; your mother and the servants searched for her.”‘ “And found no trace?”‘ “No; none that I know of.”‘I rushed again to my mother, but she called heaven to witness that she knew nothing. I ran round to the servants, and asked them all the same question, but I got the same answer, that she had disappeared, and that no one knew anything as to how it had happened. I rushed to her room, but all the things were untouched, and the room was as if she had only just left it. Could she have gone out for a walk, and have been killed by some wild beast, or robbed and murdered?‘I couldn’t sleep that night. Overwhelming sorrow kept me wide awake. Half mad, I went the next day into the village, and made inquiries of everybody, but nobody had anything to relate except that she had disappeared. I again went to the house, and asked for Anthony, the coachman, whom I had not yet seen. I got the same answer from him, that she had[66]disappeared. Quite infuriated, I made for my father, and had forgotten myself so far as to grip him by the throat and dash him on the floor in order to get the real truth out of him.‘ “Lay a hand on your father!” he exclaimed; “you are a fine sort of son.”‘I was at once disarmed.‘ “If you have done some unworthy act, father,” I exclaimed, “then own to it, and make a clean breast of it. I don’t know what I shan’t do to you or to myself, but Iwillknow the truth.”‘ “I have tried to spare you,” my father said; “but when you go on in this fashion with violence and threats, then there is nothing to be done but to tell you exactly what has really happened. The matter is simply this, that Annita and Anthony Kudst disappeared on the same night. It pains me to tell you this; but the girl was originally of low birth, and Anthony has been making good use of the time while you were away to gain her affection. He was, too, a good-looking fellow, and from the same country as the girl, and I suppose the beggar-girl persuaded him to run away with her back to their dear old heretical fatherland.”‘ “That is not true,” I said; “it is a base, abominable lie, and I don’t believe it. If it were true I would go after them and murder them both; but it is not true.”‘I went down to the village again and threatened both grown-up people and children, but I could get hold of nothing from anybody. The only person who knew anything, they declared, must be my father himself. I never for a single moment yielded to the thought that Annita had gone off of her own accord with Anthony. I was so fully persuaded of the impossibility of her doing such a thing that it did not strike me that she would, in such a case, have taken various things with her, which I knew remained untouched in her room. If she had gone on account of her fear of my father, she would also have taken several things with her, and she could then have been traced, or something would have been heard of her. But had she been stolen, carried off by force, or kidnapped? If that were so I could surely find some trace of her. I did not at first think that she was dead, and this hope kept me going.‘I noticed that a dog which was very much attached to her, and which was called Karo, followed me about wherever I went,[67]and was evidently also trying to find her. This was a further sign to me that she had not voluntarily disappeared. The dog would have accompanied her. I took the dog with me, in the hope that it might possibly scent out her footprints, and we hunted through the house, the park, the village, and the neighbourhood, but all in vain. I could not find the slightest trace of her.‘ “Do you still refuse to tell me the truth?” I asked my father when I returned home. “Can you tell me if Annita is dead? because if I know that, then I know what to do.”‘ “I can’t tell you more than I know.”‘ “You are lying, father!” I exclaimed in anger; “but it is all the same; I will find her, or get to know about her. I will not rest, either day or night, till I find her, living or dead. But may God punish you with everlasting remorse if I find that you have driven her with blows to the altar to marry Anthony.”‘ “Unnatural son! go and ask the priest.”‘I went to the pope in the village. Like one demented, I rushed into his room and asked:‘ “Have you married Annita and Anthony?” As he hesitated with his answer I caught him by the throat, threw him on the ground and knelt on his chest.‘ “Out with the truth, you wretch!” I cried; “have you married Annita and Anthony?”‘He assured me, by all that was holy, that he had not married them, and that he knew nothing about it. I could not but believe him. If I had felt any doubt as to the truth of his word I believe that, in the desperate and frenzied state in which I was, I should have held my hand so long on his throat that I should have choked him.‘The next dayIalso disappeared and was away for a whole year. I wandered about from house to house, village to village, and inquired of everybody, and promised rewards if anyone would procure me tidings of Annita. But all in vain. I could find no trace of her. I went to Finland, to Annita’s homestead, and through Kuolaniemi, where I had rescued her. The farm-house had been rebuilt, and had a new proprietor, but nobody had heard anything of Annita.‘I returned home as ragged as a beggar, sick, haggard, hollow-eyed, and in despair. I was no longer as angry as[68]before, but dreadfully out of spirits and broken-hearted. I again begged my father to tell me the truth, or let me know for certain whether Annita was alive.‘ “I don’t know,” he replied as before. I went off again without even saying good-bye to my parents. I visited all the convents, but no nun bore her name, and no one had heard anything of her. I went to Moscow, to the Czar, to the pious Theodore, in whose service I had been, and I laid a charge against my father by telling him what I have now told you. He sent a judge to Olonets and had my father examined, but he denied, as before, that he knew anything about Annita; perhaps bribed the judge as well—he was rich enough to do it. After an absence of two years I returned to my saddened home.‘ “You have been complaining of me to the Czar,” said my father.‘ “Yes,” I replied.‘ “You wanted to have your own father punished as a criminal.”‘ “Yes; because you would not tell me the truth.”‘ “Well, then, I have now just one word to say to you, and that will be the last word spoken between us.”‘ “Say it, then.”‘ “If you don’t marry Theodora, I shall order my servants to remove you by force from the house, and then I disinherit you.”‘ “I will not marry Theodora.”‘ “Very well, then, you are no longer my son.”‘ “Be it so,” I said. “Nothing more can wound or grieve me. I am deaf and dead to all the feelings of a son towards his father, and to all his father’s threats. I, too, have made my decision.”‘ “And I should like to know what that may be?”‘ “I am going to be a monk, and shall enter a monastery. I renounce the estates and the property, and everything else in this world.”‘ “And all for the sake of a beggar-girl.”‘ “Yes, for the sake of a poor, harmless, forlorn girl—for the sake of the one woman whom I have loved, and whom I have lost, and of whom my own father has deprived me.”‘ “As you will,” said my father, but he hardly believed that I was in earnest. I made one more desperate journey to seek[69]for some trace of Annita. At a place in Karelen I was informed that one Sunday a young couple, who were travelling, had been at church there, and as they were driving off again, the young woman, when they were crossing a bridge, either threw herself, or fell into the river and was drowned. But who they were nobody knew. I called on the priest of the parish, and asked him, but he could not remember that he had heard the names of Annita or Anthony, and he had never married persons so named.‘I returned home, but I could not bring myself to live there. Wherever I went I was reminded of Annita. I went out in the park, where she used to play as a child, and where, as a grown-up woman, she had assured me of her love. I threw myself down on the ground with my face to the earth, and lay there a long time. I did not give way to tears, but I had a sense of vacuity about me and around me. A blow had fallen upon me from a cruel hand, and my life was cut in twain. So I bid farewell to my parents, and to my home, and I went to Solowetski to be a monk. But there was too much bustle and secular excitement in that huge monastery, and I did not find sufficient solitude there. I longed for solitude, and for a scenery as bare, bleak, and desolate as my own inner feelings. So I journeyed on foot to this dreary spot. Here, I will remain, and to-morrow I will take the vows. Annita must be dead, or, what is still worse, living as dead to me, for not a trace of her has been found, and it is now three years since anything has been heard of her. I also will die, therefore, from henceforth to the pleasures and sorrows of the world. I am weary of life, weary unto death, and I renounce everything.’‘Perhaps all this has been for your good, and for the saving of your soul,’ said old Gurij.‘No, no!’ Ambrose exclaimed passionately, and springing up from the place where he was reclining. ‘I could have been so happy in Annita’s love. You don’t know, nobody knows, what that child was to me. I have watched at night by her sick-bed, and have felt that were she to die, I should lose that which nothing could replace. I have carried her in my arms, and she was more precious to me than my own flesh and blood. I lived wholly and solely in her love. She was my all—my future was centred in her. She was my hope, my sanctuary, and my home.’[70]‘But, perhaps, in the course of time you might fall in love with some other woman, and be happy in her company?’‘Never! never! I was no mere lad, who, in the unruly passion of the passing moment, gave vent to vows, the meaning of which he had never reflected on. I was a full-grown man who, with my whole understanding, had pledged myself to that woman.’‘I can understand how hard it must have been to give up that earthly hope.’‘Yes, and you must not suppose either that I have patiently submitted to my hard fate. No, indeed; there were times when my heart rebelled at the thought that I was unloved by any human being. Shall I tell it to you—how I have murmured against Providence, how I have indulged rebellious thoughts against Providence, and how I dared to reproach the Divine decrees? But that state of rebellion within me is at an end, and so are all my hopes. I look for nothing more. I hope for nothing more. I have now only before my eyes a quiet resignation to my lot and a humble self-renunciation.’‘And as regards your father?’‘Yes, yes, my father.’‘Do you forgive him?’‘Yes; may God pardon him for the wrong he did to Annita and to me.’‘That is right, my son,’ said the old man. ‘Such should be your state of mind when you take the vows this night, and may it be that you will find peace within the Church’s fold; for the holy Church alone can offer balm to your wounded heart here on earth, and give to your soul everlasting bliss hereafter.’[71]

CHAPTER VI.CHAPTER VI.THEODORE AND ANNITA.

CHAPTER VI.

In the year 1589 the number of monks in the monastery of Petschenga reached sixty, and there were more than two hundred lay-brothers. On account of the secular business in which the members of the monastery were engaged, some of them were always away, either attending to the mill, the shipbuilding, or the fisheries, or else they were travelling on business to Vardö or Kola. But on the great festivals they were all assembled in the monastery, and the services were conducted with full and impressive solemnity.The forms of worship in the Eastern Church, which the monks were bound to observe, are strictly observed at the great feasts, and also during the forty days of Advent and Lent. The daily offices of the Church are six, and sometimes seven, in number, according to Psa. cxix. 164: ‘Seven times a day do I praise Thee, O Lord.’ These offices are said partly during the night, and the following is the appointed order: At midnight what is called Mesonyktikon is said; this lasts for three hours. Then there come Matins, and then the lesser Hours. At seven in the morning the Liturgy itself is celebrated. This is the service in which the Eucharist is hallowed and administered. The Brethren usually receive the Sacrament four times a year. In the afternoon Vespers are said, and finally, at the close of the day, Compline. On fasts and great festivals ‘Apogrypnia’ is said after ten o’clock at night, and this is an office which requires that the night shall be passed in the church and spent in prayer. When ‘Apogrypnia’ is said, it[49]is usual to celebrate the Liturgy rather earlier, and then the monks go to rest till Vespers. There is never any sermon at these services, but on the festivals a portion of the lives of saints and martyrs is read.Ambrose was not as yet a full monk, but he had completed his novitiate, and it was decided that he should take the vow on Christmas Eve, 1589. The venerable and aged Superior, Gurij, had frequently discoursed with him, and had earnestly explained to him the unalterable nature of the vow which he was to take, and which would, for all his future life, bind him to the monastic life. Ambrose had declared that he was ready to take the vow, and with it to bid farewell to everything in the world which was not consistent with the strict, secluded life of a monastery.Nevertheless, old Gurij, who had attached himself more to this young man than to any of the other monks, had observed at times that there was an indication of something like suppressed anxiety in his pale face as the day approached nearer and nearer on which the solemn vow was to be taken. He fancied that at times there was in Ambrose’s features an expression as of a profound and unendurable anguish. Ambrose, who was usually very silent, had never told him much about his earlier career. It was not improbable, therefore, that in some deep recess of the man’s heart there lay hidden away memories of occurrences of which nobody had any knowledge.The old Superior made up his mind that he would once more speak to him privately, before he took the irrevocable vow, and he decided to do so after the first office for the day before Christmas Eve had been said. When therefore, Mesonyktikon, or the midnight office, was over—that is, about two o’clock in the morning on Christmas Eve—Gurij summoned Ambrose to his cell.‘To-day,’ he said, ‘you are to take the final vow and be one of us, and become a monk for the rest of your life.’‘Yes, Father.’‘You have no doubt as to your decision?’‘No.’‘There is nothing about which you wish to consult me?’‘No.’‘There is nothing you wish to confess to me or confide to[50]me?—you know that I am not only your brother, but an old friend too.’‘I have no confession to make.’‘Have you never done wrong? Is there nothing in your earlier career for which you need to obtain forgiveness or the intercession of the Church?’‘Indeed, Father, I have done wrong; but others have done more wrong to me than I have done to them.’‘You have no longer any ill feeling; you have forgiven them?’‘No,’ said Ambrose, after a moment’s reflection.‘But you must forgive; you will obtain no peace until you do, and you cannot take the vow while you bear malice in your heart. Before you bid the world farewell you must realize the calm peace of reconciliation.’‘I cannot.’‘Who is it that has wronged you so cruelly?’‘My father.’‘Your own father?’‘Yes, and my relations and friends.’‘There are also many things connected with the world with which your heart is still occupied, and on which your thoughts dwell, instead of being engaged in prayer and fasting.’‘No; there is nothing in the world in which I have lived that I look for. All is hidden, forgotten, buried and lost.’‘But it has left behind bitterness in your feelings. Have you never loved—loved some woman?’‘Certainly,’ exclaimed Ambrose, and he thereupon turned paler than ever. There suddenly arose from the innermost recess of his soul a form so lifelike, as it stood before him, that he covered his face with his hands and fell on his knees, and laid his head on the old man’s lap, while he slowly muttered the name ‘Annita, Annita.’The old man allowed him to remain thus for a while, as he perceived that this strong man was weeping like a child. There must, then, as he had suspected, be events which had taken place in his earlier career which were now revived with painful vividness.‘Brother,’ he said, ‘will you here, in the quiet of the night, open your heart to me, and tell me all about your previous career? I do not ask you from inquisitiveness, but tell me if you can; I will listen to you. You know that I am your friend.[51]Moreover, I have loved you, and will understand you, and sympathize with you.’‘Yes, Father,’ said Ambrose, ‘if you will listen to me, I will tell you everything. My name is not really Ambrose, but I bear the same name as our orthodox Czar, whose father conferred on this monastery its charter. My name is really, like his, Theodore Ivanovitsch, and I come of an old Russian boyar family. A pious mother taught me in my early youth to read the lives of the saints and martyrs, and to go to church. But as I am of noble birth, and at some period would have to serve the Czar, I also learned to ride and fence and hunt and shoot. I have been an officer. You see this scar which I have on my forehead? I received it in battle. There has, as you know, been variance for many years between the monastery of Solowetski and the Swedish Finns in heretical Finland. This variance still continues, and none the less now that there is war between the Czar and John III. of Sweden. The monastery of Solowetski was, as you know, founded in 1429, and obtained at length even greater privileges than our own monastery has done. But it was also bound to protect Karelstrand and the towns in that neighbourhood against attacks from Finnish pirates. For the protection of the monastery the Czar has now, as you also know, built a stone wall which is to have eight towers, and is to surround the churches and all the buildings. Meanwhile the Swedish Finns, out of their old hatred of the Russians, had been making piratical incursions into Karelen, attacking our orthodox people, and the Solowetski people did not hesitate to retaliate. In this way, about twelve years ago, I was sent as a young officer to Karelen with a troop of Cossacks to protect the inhabitants against these Swedish Finns. I must admit that the Cossacks whom I had to command were wild and cruel men. Young, and unused to the horrors of war, I often tried to restrain them from needlessly killing men and women, while they were plundering their dwellings. At times I was, fortunately, able to save the innocent; but on one occasion, when we had chased a crowd of Swedish Finns back out of Karelen, into which they had made a piratical incursion, and had pursued them right into the district of Kajana, it so happened that some of my men, who were in the van, had reached the farmstead of Kuolaniemi in Sotkamo before I came up. They had attacked[52]the farm people, and, as usual, had killed and plundered them. After this they had fired the houses. I saw the fire, and pressed on with my men. The farm was beautifully situated on a projecting promontory by the side of a large lake. The houses and tall spruce firs down by the lake were so clearly reflected in it, that it looked as if the smooth depths of the lake below, as well as the clouds in the sky above, were ablaze. As, in a state of indignation, I rode inside the burning farmstead, determined more strongly than before to remonstrate with the more bloodthirsty of my men, I caught sight of a woman, struggling desperately with a Cossack at the doorway and on the steps of the burning house. The master of the house they had already killed, but the mother was clinging, though mortally wounded, to the leg of a Cossack to save a child—a little girl—whom he was trying to drag away with him. Before I could reach him, I saw him lift a spear and plunge it into the mother’s breast, so that she swooned away and let go her hold of his leg, while at the same moment the child tore herself away and ran off towards the courtyard. Enraged, the monster threw his blood-stained spear after the child, and sprang aside to catch her. Fortunately, he only touched her flowing hair, and at that moment I and my men reached him.‘ “Monster!” I shouted. “Would you kill an innocent child?” and I placed my spear on the man’s breast so that he stopped.‘The child clung to my leg, and cried to me in mortal fear and with tears in its little eyes, “Save me! save me!” I took her in my arms and lifted her on to my horse. Poor child! she clung in her terror close to me, and hid herself under my large riding-coat.‘The farm continued to burn. No one seemed to think of putting out the fire, and the people belonging to the farm who had not been able to escape at once were lying dead in all directions in the burning house. I gave orders for a retreat within the boundary of Karelen; but what was I to do with the child whom I had beside me on my horse, a little girl some six or seven years old? She looked terrified at my men if any of them came near me, and with her little arms took tight hold of me.‘ “Hold me fast!” she cried; “don’t let go of me, dear, dear man! don’t let them kill me!”’[53]‘ “No, my child, no one shall touch you,” I said, to pacify her.‘The district was a lonely one, and the people all about had taken to flight. I could not, therefore, leave the child at the farm which had been burnt down. She would have perished of cold and hunger, as most likely people would not venture there again for some time. I took the child with me, therefore, to the camp. She was a pretty little girl. When we dismounted from our horses at the camp, she would not on any account let go my hand, which she grasped with both her own.‘ “What is your name?” I asked her, when we had entered my tent and her terror had somewhat subsided.‘ “Nita,” she replied, crying.‘ “Your parents are dead, my poor child,” I said. “Have you brothers and sisters?”‘ “No; father and mother had only me.”‘ “Have you any relations?”‘ “No; I don’t know of any.”‘ “I really don’t know what to do with you, my poor little Nita, or where to send you.”‘ “Don’t send me away!” she cried. “Can’t I stop with you? I am so frightened at all the men here. Can I keep with you? I will be a good girl, and I am called Annita, too. Annita is my proper name.”‘We talked for some time together, but I could not make out anything respecting her relatives. This much only was evident, that her parents had been ordinary farm-people, but apparently well-to-do folk, for the child was well dressed, well brought up, and, moreover, intelligent for her age.‘She slept in my tent at night, and could not be prevailed upon to leave me, so afraid was she of my rough men. So I came to the conclusion to take the little orphan home with me to my parents in Russia. I explained, therefore, on the next day to my men that for the future I should consider Annita as my child, and threatened with death the man who should do her any harm.‘As there was now not much probability that the Swedish Finns would soon make a fresh attack on Karelen, I returned to my home on the border of Lake Ladoga, close to Olonet, not far from Finland, where my father owned an estate and[54]several hundreds of serfs. My parents were very much surprised at my bringing home, as a trophy from the battlefield, a little girl, but when they heard further particulars they considered that I had done right, and they received the child kindly. Annita was both a pretty and an amiable child, and she soon became a favourite.‘At the end of a year she had learnt to speak Russian, only with me she preferred to speak Karelsk, her mother tongue, which I could also speak fairly fluently. It was natural that the child clung to me, and was not quite satisfied unless I was somewhere near. I had rescued her. She looked on me as another father. She could be merry, and happy, and boisterous, like other children, when we went about together, but if I were from home she used to be silent and quiet. Other people might praise her, pet her, or scold her, but she did not seem to care much about it. Only when the praise or blame came from me was she pleased or sorry. She was educated at my home, and in every respect brought up like a daughter of the house. Sometimes I used to teach her myself, and she then was always most diligent.‘In this way several years passed by. Annita grew up, and by degrees she began to look upon me as an elder brother. I was, moreover, ten years her senior. When she was fifteen years old she was sent to a convent, where she remained for two years. At the same time I was stationed at Moscow, in IvanWasilievitsch’sservice, and came to know personally both him and his son, the pious Theodore, as well as many other persons who were great and powerful at Ivan’s Court.‘I remember well that Annita had no wish whatever to go to the convent. I had to start first, and the day before my departure, when it was bedtime, I laid my hand on her little head, and said:‘ “Good-bye, Annita; God bless you!”‘But she only clung to me, and exclaimed:‘ “Take me with you! Can’t you take me with you?”‘She was simple enough to think that she could travel to Moscow with me, and that she could there keep house for me.‘ “I cannot take you with me, Annita,” I said; and I tried to take one hand out of hers.‘ “I won’t go to the convent,” she said with indignation, and she would not loosen her hold on my hand.[55]‘ “You must go,” I said. “It cannot be otherwise, Annita. I will come and see you, and look after you. Say good-bye, and be a reasonable little girl,” I replied, bending down to her.‘She threw her arms around my neck, sobbed bitterly, and again exclaimed:‘ “But why can’t you take me with you?”‘I gently disengaged her arms, kissed her on the forehead, and she went with my mother into her room.‘I said good-bye to my parents overnight, as I was to start very early in the morning. It was still quite dark when I got up and went down to the sitting-room. When I entered it, I saw Annita standing by a small table, where the cloth was laid for me.‘ “Annita;” I exclaimed, as she approached me; “are you here, child?”‘ “Yes,” she said; “I wanted to see you before you left.”‘ “But how did you manage to wake up so early?”‘ “I first tried to remain awake in my room, but I couldn’t. Then I went quietly to the maid’s room, and slept with her so as to be sure to wake up, and so contrive that you would not leave without my seeing you off. Are you angry with me?”‘ “No, my child; I am not angry with you. God bless you! Good-bye again, and be a good girl, and go and lie down again!”‘She went back again to her room in tears. She had to the very last, perhaps, entertained a slight hope that I would be prevailed upon to take her with me. I was sincerely sorry for the child, but it was altogether out of the question for me to think of taking her to Moscow.‘On Christmas Eve in 1584 we were both to be at home again. Theodore had come to the throne, and I obtained leave to go home and visit my parents. Annita arrived before me, and received me in company with my father and mother, as I came driving into the courtyard. Annita was in her nineteenth year, and had so grown that she was almost as tall as my mother. She was a delicately-made, slender girl, with glossy, fair hair, which curled slightly over her temples. She still wore her convent dress, and had during the three years she had been away become beautiful like a Madonna. But there were two things in particular which marked Annita out as[56]distinct from any other woman whom I had ever seen—her beautiful eyes and an engaging smile. When Annita smiled no mortal man or woman could resist her. I often observed that when she came into a room, where there were many people, it was as if a ray of sunshine had suddenly shone into the room. Even if it so happened that the company had been sitting in silence, Annita’s appearance seemed to cast a ray of friendliness and harmony over the faces of the company, and they soon became gay and lively.‘When I came home on this occasion Annita did not, as usual, spring wildly to me, and cling fast to my hand with both of hers; but she stood quite still, and only shook hands with me.‘ “Well, Annita,” I exclaimed, “aren’t you glad I’ve come home again?”‘ “Indeed I am,” she said; “I am very glad;” and she smiled as she looked at me. To look at those eyes was like looking into the clearest crystal well. There was no secret hidden at the bottom. No passion had as yet dimmed the lustre of that depth. Her look was childlike, pure, innocent, and decorous. And when she slowly opened her large eyes and gazed at me, it seemed as if I was folded in a wonderfully warm and enchanting light.‘I was much taller than she was, and a big, strong man. I had often, in earlier days, taken Annita in my arms and run off with her over the fields. She would then, in her wild joy, pull my hair, and call out, “Gallop, my horse! Gallop, quicker, quicker!”‘I thought of doing something of this kind again, and half made a sign of taking her up in my arms, but Annita laughed and jumped aside.‘“No, thank you,” she said; “I am too big now. You can’t lift me.”‘ “I can try,” I suggested.‘ “No, I won’t let you.”‘ “Am I never more to be allowed to lift you?”‘ “Perhaps, some other time.”‘The next day I had to go and visit one of our neighbours, a distant relative, who owned the adjoining estate. The only daughter of the house, a big, strong girl, was about my own age, and we had played together as children. It had also,[57]long before, been settled between our parents that we were to marry one another, so that the two properties might be united. She and I had quite accepted this arrangement, and it had never occurred to us to think of raising objections to our parents’ plans.‘You well know, Father Gurij, that a Russian master is a patriarch, and is despotic in his house and family. No person has any right to question his orders, not even the noblest in the town, not even the Czar. The house-father is above all written law. His house is not merely a castle, but a church as well, and whatever he does is sacred and holy. “Two wills in one house,” says the Russian proverb, “would be impossible; and would never do.” My father Ivan was a very strong man, and often he was cruelly severe with his serfs, whom he looked upon and treated as mere slaves. His will was the one thing which must be followed and obeyed. Not unfrequently they have felt the cat-o’-nine-tails, and he was dreaded both by his own servants and by the serfs in the village. He commanded, and nobody dared to offer the slightest opposition, whatever the matter might be. If it was his will that a young man and a girl should marry, then they must marry, and if any persons wanted to marry, my father had to be consulted, and his decision accepted.‘My mother was as weak as a reed, and she would not venture in the least degree to oppose my father’s will. If he were provoked, it might happen that he would beat his wife, like an ordinary Russian, who, as you are aware, does this pretty often—so frequently, indeed, that it once happened on our estate that the wife of one of our serfs came to my mother with tears in her eyes, bewailing the fact that her husband no longer thrashed her as before. She was afraid that it was a sign that he no longer cared for her.‘I believe that my mother was fond of Annita. It was impossible not to be. The servants also were all of them very much attached to her. On the other hand, my father seemed to be rather hard on her, and I noticed that at times there was a glance in his eye when he saw her which seemed to forbode no good. And she, on her part, was afraid of him.‘I was again absent at Novgorod for about a year. Some little time before I was to return I got a letter from my mother, and inside it was a short note from Annita.[58]‘ “Dear Brother,” she wrote, “come home soon. I am so terrified and frightened when you are not here. I have never before felt that you were so long away as this time. Your father has been kind to me, and has made me a present of a bracelet; but, all the same, I am afraid of him, as I always have been. How happy I shall be when you are here once more! I need not see you, but only know that you are here. I am so safe when I know that you are near me; then I can fly to you, and cling to you, as I did the first time, when you brought me here. I shall have no rest or peace until you return to your little sister,‘ “Nita.”‘This letter thoroughly opened my eyes. I clearly saw and realized what I had expected would come about.‘Father Gurij,’ said Ambrose, ‘you understand that I loved this young girl whom I had saved, and to whom I had been as a father and a brother. Now I could no longer think of her merely as a sister. The spark in my heart had caught fire, and was blazing forth into a strong flame. But you cannot well understand the depth of my feelings. I was, indeed, at this time a man of years, yet never before had I been in love with a woman. It was with a feeling of fear that I realized how strong my passion was, and how violent it would become, and how wretchedly unhappy I should be, if anyone deprived me of Annita, or did any harm to her. I was of a noble family, and a rich man’s only heir, and I was on intimate terms with many families of quality at Moscow. I had seen many women, and many women had smiled on me, but their smile was cold and cheerless, and nothing to that which, in my own home, beamed on me from Annita. I decided, therefore, at once to return home, and openly tell my parents that I loved Annita, and that I wished to haveherfor my wife, and nobody else.‘ “But what will Annita say?” I thought while I was on the way. “She has never heard any man whisper a word of love. Perhaps she will be frightened. Perhaps she will be as much afraid of me as of my father.”‘I returned home, and I was welcomed by these three on the stairs of the house. My father was reserved and undemonstrative, my mother was weeping when embracing me, and Annita looked very pale, as she reached out her hand to me. I took both her hands in mine, and looked into her pretty eyes,[59]but she cast them down directly. There must have been something in my look which she had not seen before, something of a lover’s look, which caused her to cast her beautiful eyes down to the ground, while a slight blush tinged her cheeks.‘The next day I said to Annita, “Come and let us go for a walk;” and we went together out into the park to her favourite place under a large oak, where there is a view over Lake Ladoga, which spreads out like an ocean. On previous occasions, when we had walked about together alone, she had always been full of fun, and asking questions, and like a child dragging me hither and thither. But this time she was silent and quiet.‘ “Annita,” I said, when we had seated ourselves under the oak, “can you remember twelve years ago?”‘ “Yes; I remember everything—my poor parents!”‘ “Can you remember when we came here—how frightened you were? how you clung to me?”‘ “Yes, I remember it distinctly. I remember the first night I would not sleep in the servant’s room, but that I cried so, and that I insisted on having my little bed moved into your room.”‘ “But can you remember what you once said, when we were walking about here together?”‘ “No; I don’t know what you refer to. I have no recollection of anything.”‘ “ButIremember it very well myself.”‘ “What was it, then? Was it some very silly thing?”‘ “No, it was not silly; but listen: while you held my hand, and skipped along by my side, you suddenly said to me, ‘Do you know what I am going to be?’‘ “ ‘No,’ I answered; ‘I don’t in the least know what.’‘ “ ‘Very well,’ you said very earnestly, ‘I mean to be your wife. You and I shall be man and wife.’‘ “ ‘Oh, of course,’ I said; ‘you shall be Madame Theodora.’ ”‘ “Yes; but I was a simple child then,” Annita said, “a child that played with dolls. I did not know what I was saying; besides that, my dolls were husband and wife, don’t you know.”‘ “No, you did not know what you said, that is certain enough; but now you are a grown-up young woman, Annita, you are no longer a child.”‘ “No, I am nearly twenty.”‘ “And sensible.”‘ “No, not particularly.”[60]‘ “And pretty.”‘ “Am I?”‘ “Yes, you certainly are; yes, so pretty that I cannot any longer be your brother.”‘ “Are you angry with me?”‘ “No, I am not angry with you; but there is something I want to tell you.”‘ “What is it?”‘ “A secret.”‘ “A secret! It will be nice to have a secret. I haven’t any.”‘ “I am not so sure that it is always nice.”‘ “What is the secret? Will you tell me?”‘ “Yes, I will tell you; but you must not be frightened. It is the greatest secret of my life, Annita, and the secret is this: that I love you, Annita, seriously and deeply. I am in love with you, and with no one else, for the rest of my life. Annita, I ask you now, will you be my wife? Look at me, Annita; what do you say? You care a little bit for me, Annita, don’t you?”‘Annita stooped to me in trepidation.‘ “Is it true, Theodore,” she whispered, “that you love me, and will have me for your wife? Say it once more.”‘ “Yes, Annita, I love you, and you alone, and no one but you in the whole world,” I said, pressing her to me, and kissing her pale face till the rosy colour came back in her cheeks.‘ “Theodore,” she whispered, “I have always loved you. I have always thought of nobody but you. All I have is yours, and has been yours for many years—heart, soul, and thought.”‘ “God bless you, Annita!” I exclaimed. “At the last minute I began to doubt. If you had not cared for me, Annita, I should have been very wretched; in fact, a miserable man, bad, morose, and full of hatred. But not now: you know what the saying is of catching a sunbeam.”‘ “Can one catch sunbeams?”‘ “Yes, the sunbeam is the smile on your lips, Annita; if I can catch that smile all my life, then I am saved, and will be a good man and a happy one.”‘ “You shall have it, Theodore; it shall be yours, and yours only.”‘The sun was just then setting. The evening was calm; there[61]came gentle breezes over us from the wind, which was going down. Never had it seemed to me that the sun set so brilliantly, or that Lake Ladoga ever looked so beautiful, as on that evening when Annita confessed her love. As the sun disappeared behind the waves of the lake, and darkness spread over the sky, I felt that even were the earthly sun to depart, yet an everlasting dawn of light and joy had arisen in my soul. We wandered back through the flower-garden to the house.‘ “But what will father and Theodora say?” exclaimed Annita as we approached the house.‘ “To-morrow I shall talk to my parents and Theodora’s parents,” I said calmly.‘The next day I went to my father, and told him that Annita and I were in love with each other.‘ “Just so,” said my father, “just as you like, as far as I am concerned.”‘ “Will you consent, then, to our marrying?”‘ “You marry Annita!” he exclaimed.‘ “Yes; I want no one else for my wife.”‘ “You have really thought of marrying the beggar-girl, Annita. Ha, ha, ha!” laughed my father in derision, and was on the point of breaking out in an uncontrollable passion, but I saw that he restrained himself; he very well knew that his beloved son was stubborn, too, and he considered that at the outset it would be best to proceed cautiously.‘ “Annita is poor,” I said quite quietly; “but she is no beggar, and she is prettier than any rich girl I have seen; and she has been, moreover, as well brought up as any Russian lady of rank.”‘ “Her bringing up I have nothing to do with, but you intend, do you? to break your promise to Theodora, and to set yourself against both my plans and those of Theodora’s parents.”‘ “I have never proposed to Theodora, neither have I made her any promise. It has all been arranged between you and her parents, without our being consulted or having given our consent to it.”‘ “Yes, just so, and just so is it to be. I will in no manner give my consent to your marriage with a beggar-girl. Your marriage with Theodora has been put off long enough; and on that account it will be best that it should take place as soon as possible. I will provide for Annita myself. There is no hurry[62]as regards her. I will provide a suitable husband for her in good time from among my serfs or servants—for example, Anthony Kudsk, or some other suitable youth.”‘ “Father,” I exclaimed in horror, “don’t do it! I ask you dutifully, and humbly, let me have Annita for my wife! I assure you, solemnly and truly, that I will marry no other girl.”‘ “Stuff and nonsense!” exclaimed my father; “when you are married to Theodora, and Annita has married Anthony, your romantic ideas will soon disperse, and later on you will be grateful to me.”‘ “Father, don’t joke, or rather make fun of us. Annita would die rather than marry Anthony, or any other serf. She has been brought up too well for that; and besides that, she admitted yesterday that she had always loved me since she was ten years old.”‘ “Leave that to me; I am master here.”‘ “Not over Annita,” I ventured to remark.‘ “Don’t you think so?”‘ “She is not your daughter, and neither a slave nor a serf.”‘ “Who has brought her up for the last twelve years?”‘ “You and my mother have.”‘ “Then I suppose we have something to say as to her future?”‘ “No; when Annita’s future has to be provided for, I have something to say. It was I who saved her life.”‘ “Ah, well! I have heard that story before now.”‘ “Father, have you anything to reproach Annita for?”‘ “No; but I will not have my son mix Finnish peasant blood with ours. I will have you marry a girl who is your equal in station and position, and that Theodora Petrovna is.”‘ “But if I won’t?” I made bold to say once more.‘ “You won’t! You can’t! you shall, though!” exclaimed my father in a rage.‘ “Will I, though?”‘ “Yes, you shall. I am master in my own house, and in my family. You are to marry Theodora, even if I have to lead you bound, and cudgelled, to the altar. In any case, I will never consent to your marriage with Annita. Now you know my answer, and we have no need to say anything more about it.”‘ “Just one word,” I said respectfully; “I am your only child[63]and your heir, and I may presume that you have some little affection for me. Why can’t you grant me my heart’s fondest wish? Annita would make me a more faithful and affectionate wife than any other woman I know. Why should we, who are both in a sense your children, be compelled to curse, instead of to bless you?”‘ “I see what is for your future good, better than you do yourself. The whole thing is nothing more than a passing romantic fancy, and it won’t be long before you yourself will give it up as a piece of folly.”‘ “No,” I exclaimed, “not before Annita or I am dead.” And with these words I left my father.‘In bad spirits I went to my mother, and related the whole story to her; and although she as well would have preferred that I should marry Theodora, I believe that she would have forgiven Annita and me, and have given us her blessing. A mother is always ready to pardon her only son, and I am pretty sure that my mother would have taken my part, even if I had turned into a brigand or murderer. But her opinion was not of the slightest weight, against that of my father.‘I told Annita that my father would not consent to our marrying, but I assured her, over and over again, that she, and nobody but she, should be my wife.‘ “And, Annita,” I asked, “what do you say?”‘ “I!” said Annita; “why, he may take my life before I consent to be married to any of his serfs. You may implicitly rely on me. Neither persuasion nor threat will ever influence me. I am yours, and never in this world will I belong to any other man.”‘In this way time slipped by. Annita and I were happy in the consciousness of our mutual affection for each other, but we were unhappy because our parents took no share with us in it. My father was gloomy, and severe with everybody, and I seldom spoke to him. Annita had a good voice, and sang our national Russian songs beautifully; but her singing seemed to give my father pain, and to jar on his ears, for he left the room as soon as he heard her voice.‘A short time afterwards, a letter came from a mercantile house at Novgorod, to say that I must go there to take part in arranging some complicated money matters connected with a patrimony which had come to me through the death of an[64]uncle. Annita was in despair at my having to leave her, but I endeavoured to console her with the thought that it would not be for long, and that I would hurry as much as possible, and return as soon as I could. I also tried to comfort her with the reflection that I had now come in for property of my own, so that we could marry as soon as we wished, independently of my father, and go where we liked, and even, perhaps, make a trip to the country of her own childhood.‘The business, however, took longer than I had expected, and six months elapsed before all was settled and I was able to return home. The nearer I approached my home, the more I hurried on, and at last I drove from station to station like a madman.‘Do you believe in omens, Father Gurij? I expected some mishap, and I was terribly apprehensive; the nearer I approached my home, the more my fears increased. I reached home in the afternoon. My father and mother came to receive me. I saluted them, but I saw nothing of Annita.‘ “Where is Annita?” I asked.‘ “She is not at home,” answered my father.‘ “Isn’t she at home? Didn’t she know that I was to be back to-day?”‘ “I don’t know. Perhaps she may come soon.”‘ “Has she gone out?”‘ “Probably.”‘ “Where has she gone?”‘ “I really don’t know; perhaps she has gone across to Theodora’s.”‘I went over there, but Annita had not been there. I ran back, and rushed in despair to my mother, and implored her to tell me where Annita was.‘ “I hope no misfortune has happened to her,” I exclaimed.‘ “I don’t know,” said my mother; “ask your father.”‘I went to my father, and I must have had a strange look, there must have been something alarming in my countenance, for he turned pale.‘ “Where is Annita? What have you done with her?”‘ “I don’t know. I have already told you so,” he replied evasively.‘ “You don’t know—‘don’t know,’ you all say. Who, then, does know where she is?”[65]‘ “Well, that is just what nobody does know.”‘ “If she is dead you may as well tell me at once.”‘ “No, so far as I know, she is not dead.”‘ “But where has she gone, then? In God’s name tell me what you know, and what has happened.”‘ “She has disappeared.”‘ “Disappeared! Why, in what way?”‘ “About a month ago she was missed, and since that time we have neither seen nor heard anything of her.”‘I was on the point of falling, but I collected myself, and went close up to my father, as pale as death, and with frenzied threatening gestures, so that he drew back.‘ “Surely you are not going to strike your father,” he exclaimed.‘ “No,” I said; “but I will know the truth. Where is Annita? What have you done with her? Have you murdered her?”‘ “As I tell you, she disappeared a month ago; nobody knows any more.”‘ “Father, that is not true. You are lying to your son. You hide things from me, but I will know the truth, even if I have to squeeze it from you like drops of blood.”‘ “You can do what you like.”‘ “Did you look for her?”‘ “Yes; your mother and the servants searched for her.”‘ “And found no trace?”‘ “No; none that I know of.”‘I rushed again to my mother, but she called heaven to witness that she knew nothing. I ran round to the servants, and asked them all the same question, but I got the same answer, that she had disappeared, and that no one knew anything as to how it had happened. I rushed to her room, but all the things were untouched, and the room was as if she had only just left it. Could she have gone out for a walk, and have been killed by some wild beast, or robbed and murdered?‘I couldn’t sleep that night. Overwhelming sorrow kept me wide awake. Half mad, I went the next day into the village, and made inquiries of everybody, but nobody had anything to relate except that she had disappeared. I again went to the house, and asked for Anthony, the coachman, whom I had not yet seen. I got the same answer from him, that she had[66]disappeared. Quite infuriated, I made for my father, and had forgotten myself so far as to grip him by the throat and dash him on the floor in order to get the real truth out of him.‘ “Lay a hand on your father!” he exclaimed; “you are a fine sort of son.”‘I was at once disarmed.‘ “If you have done some unworthy act, father,” I exclaimed, “then own to it, and make a clean breast of it. I don’t know what I shan’t do to you or to myself, but Iwillknow the truth.”‘ “I have tried to spare you,” my father said; “but when you go on in this fashion with violence and threats, then there is nothing to be done but to tell you exactly what has really happened. The matter is simply this, that Annita and Anthony Kudst disappeared on the same night. It pains me to tell you this; but the girl was originally of low birth, and Anthony has been making good use of the time while you were away to gain her affection. He was, too, a good-looking fellow, and from the same country as the girl, and I suppose the beggar-girl persuaded him to run away with her back to their dear old heretical fatherland.”‘ “That is not true,” I said; “it is a base, abominable lie, and I don’t believe it. If it were true I would go after them and murder them both; but it is not true.”‘I went down to the village again and threatened both grown-up people and children, but I could get hold of nothing from anybody. The only person who knew anything, they declared, must be my father himself. I never for a single moment yielded to the thought that Annita had gone off of her own accord with Anthony. I was so fully persuaded of the impossibility of her doing such a thing that it did not strike me that she would, in such a case, have taken various things with her, which I knew remained untouched in her room. If she had gone on account of her fear of my father, she would also have taken several things with her, and she could then have been traced, or something would have been heard of her. But had she been stolen, carried off by force, or kidnapped? If that were so I could surely find some trace of her. I did not at first think that she was dead, and this hope kept me going.‘I noticed that a dog which was very much attached to her, and which was called Karo, followed me about wherever I went,[67]and was evidently also trying to find her. This was a further sign to me that she had not voluntarily disappeared. The dog would have accompanied her. I took the dog with me, in the hope that it might possibly scent out her footprints, and we hunted through the house, the park, the village, and the neighbourhood, but all in vain. I could not find the slightest trace of her.‘ “Do you still refuse to tell me the truth?” I asked my father when I returned home. “Can you tell me if Annita is dead? because if I know that, then I know what to do.”‘ “I can’t tell you more than I know.”‘ “You are lying, father!” I exclaimed in anger; “but it is all the same; I will find her, or get to know about her. I will not rest, either day or night, till I find her, living or dead. But may God punish you with everlasting remorse if I find that you have driven her with blows to the altar to marry Anthony.”‘ “Unnatural son! go and ask the priest.”‘I went to the pope in the village. Like one demented, I rushed into his room and asked:‘ “Have you married Annita and Anthony?” As he hesitated with his answer I caught him by the throat, threw him on the ground and knelt on his chest.‘ “Out with the truth, you wretch!” I cried; “have you married Annita and Anthony?”‘He assured me, by all that was holy, that he had not married them, and that he knew nothing about it. I could not but believe him. If I had felt any doubt as to the truth of his word I believe that, in the desperate and frenzied state in which I was, I should have held my hand so long on his throat that I should have choked him.‘The next dayIalso disappeared and was away for a whole year. I wandered about from house to house, village to village, and inquired of everybody, and promised rewards if anyone would procure me tidings of Annita. But all in vain. I could find no trace of her. I went to Finland, to Annita’s homestead, and through Kuolaniemi, where I had rescued her. The farm-house had been rebuilt, and had a new proprietor, but nobody had heard anything of Annita.‘I returned home as ragged as a beggar, sick, haggard, hollow-eyed, and in despair. I was no longer as angry as[68]before, but dreadfully out of spirits and broken-hearted. I again begged my father to tell me the truth, or let me know for certain whether Annita was alive.‘ “I don’t know,” he replied as before. I went off again without even saying good-bye to my parents. I visited all the convents, but no nun bore her name, and no one had heard anything of her. I went to Moscow, to the Czar, to the pious Theodore, in whose service I had been, and I laid a charge against my father by telling him what I have now told you. He sent a judge to Olonets and had my father examined, but he denied, as before, that he knew anything about Annita; perhaps bribed the judge as well—he was rich enough to do it. After an absence of two years I returned to my saddened home.‘ “You have been complaining of me to the Czar,” said my father.‘ “Yes,” I replied.‘ “You wanted to have your own father punished as a criminal.”‘ “Yes; because you would not tell me the truth.”‘ “Well, then, I have now just one word to say to you, and that will be the last word spoken between us.”‘ “Say it, then.”‘ “If you don’t marry Theodora, I shall order my servants to remove you by force from the house, and then I disinherit you.”‘ “I will not marry Theodora.”‘ “Very well, then, you are no longer my son.”‘ “Be it so,” I said. “Nothing more can wound or grieve me. I am deaf and dead to all the feelings of a son towards his father, and to all his father’s threats. I, too, have made my decision.”‘ “And I should like to know what that may be?”‘ “I am going to be a monk, and shall enter a monastery. I renounce the estates and the property, and everything else in this world.”‘ “And all for the sake of a beggar-girl.”‘ “Yes, for the sake of a poor, harmless, forlorn girl—for the sake of the one woman whom I have loved, and whom I have lost, and of whom my own father has deprived me.”‘ “As you will,” said my father, but he hardly believed that I was in earnest. I made one more desperate journey to seek[69]for some trace of Annita. At a place in Karelen I was informed that one Sunday a young couple, who were travelling, had been at church there, and as they were driving off again, the young woman, when they were crossing a bridge, either threw herself, or fell into the river and was drowned. But who they were nobody knew. I called on the priest of the parish, and asked him, but he could not remember that he had heard the names of Annita or Anthony, and he had never married persons so named.‘I returned home, but I could not bring myself to live there. Wherever I went I was reminded of Annita. I went out in the park, where she used to play as a child, and where, as a grown-up woman, she had assured me of her love. I threw myself down on the ground with my face to the earth, and lay there a long time. I did not give way to tears, but I had a sense of vacuity about me and around me. A blow had fallen upon me from a cruel hand, and my life was cut in twain. So I bid farewell to my parents, and to my home, and I went to Solowetski to be a monk. But there was too much bustle and secular excitement in that huge monastery, and I did not find sufficient solitude there. I longed for solitude, and for a scenery as bare, bleak, and desolate as my own inner feelings. So I journeyed on foot to this dreary spot. Here, I will remain, and to-morrow I will take the vows. Annita must be dead, or, what is still worse, living as dead to me, for not a trace of her has been found, and it is now three years since anything has been heard of her. I also will die, therefore, from henceforth to the pleasures and sorrows of the world. I am weary of life, weary unto death, and I renounce everything.’‘Perhaps all this has been for your good, and for the saving of your soul,’ said old Gurij.‘No, no!’ Ambrose exclaimed passionately, and springing up from the place where he was reclining. ‘I could have been so happy in Annita’s love. You don’t know, nobody knows, what that child was to me. I have watched at night by her sick-bed, and have felt that were she to die, I should lose that which nothing could replace. I have carried her in my arms, and she was more precious to me than my own flesh and blood. I lived wholly and solely in her love. She was my all—my future was centred in her. She was my hope, my sanctuary, and my home.’[70]‘But, perhaps, in the course of time you might fall in love with some other woman, and be happy in her company?’‘Never! never! I was no mere lad, who, in the unruly passion of the passing moment, gave vent to vows, the meaning of which he had never reflected on. I was a full-grown man who, with my whole understanding, had pledged myself to that woman.’‘I can understand how hard it must have been to give up that earthly hope.’‘Yes, and you must not suppose either that I have patiently submitted to my hard fate. No, indeed; there were times when my heart rebelled at the thought that I was unloved by any human being. Shall I tell it to you—how I have murmured against Providence, how I have indulged rebellious thoughts against Providence, and how I dared to reproach the Divine decrees? But that state of rebellion within me is at an end, and so are all my hopes. I look for nothing more. I hope for nothing more. I have now only before my eyes a quiet resignation to my lot and a humble self-renunciation.’‘And as regards your father?’‘Yes, yes, my father.’‘Do you forgive him?’‘Yes; may God pardon him for the wrong he did to Annita and to me.’‘That is right, my son,’ said the old man. ‘Such should be your state of mind when you take the vows this night, and may it be that you will find peace within the Church’s fold; for the holy Church alone can offer balm to your wounded heart here on earth, and give to your soul everlasting bliss hereafter.’[71]

In the year 1589 the number of monks in the monastery of Petschenga reached sixty, and there were more than two hundred lay-brothers. On account of the secular business in which the members of the monastery were engaged, some of them were always away, either attending to the mill, the shipbuilding, or the fisheries, or else they were travelling on business to Vardö or Kola. But on the great festivals they were all assembled in the monastery, and the services were conducted with full and impressive solemnity.

The forms of worship in the Eastern Church, which the monks were bound to observe, are strictly observed at the great feasts, and also during the forty days of Advent and Lent. The daily offices of the Church are six, and sometimes seven, in number, according to Psa. cxix. 164: ‘Seven times a day do I praise Thee, O Lord.’ These offices are said partly during the night, and the following is the appointed order: At midnight what is called Mesonyktikon is said; this lasts for three hours. Then there come Matins, and then the lesser Hours. At seven in the morning the Liturgy itself is celebrated. This is the service in which the Eucharist is hallowed and administered. The Brethren usually receive the Sacrament four times a year. In the afternoon Vespers are said, and finally, at the close of the day, Compline. On fasts and great festivals ‘Apogrypnia’ is said after ten o’clock at night, and this is an office which requires that the night shall be passed in the church and spent in prayer. When ‘Apogrypnia’ is said, it[49]is usual to celebrate the Liturgy rather earlier, and then the monks go to rest till Vespers. There is never any sermon at these services, but on the festivals a portion of the lives of saints and martyrs is read.

Ambrose was not as yet a full monk, but he had completed his novitiate, and it was decided that he should take the vow on Christmas Eve, 1589. The venerable and aged Superior, Gurij, had frequently discoursed with him, and had earnestly explained to him the unalterable nature of the vow which he was to take, and which would, for all his future life, bind him to the monastic life. Ambrose had declared that he was ready to take the vow, and with it to bid farewell to everything in the world which was not consistent with the strict, secluded life of a monastery.

Nevertheless, old Gurij, who had attached himself more to this young man than to any of the other monks, had observed at times that there was an indication of something like suppressed anxiety in his pale face as the day approached nearer and nearer on which the solemn vow was to be taken. He fancied that at times there was in Ambrose’s features an expression as of a profound and unendurable anguish. Ambrose, who was usually very silent, had never told him much about his earlier career. It was not improbable, therefore, that in some deep recess of the man’s heart there lay hidden away memories of occurrences of which nobody had any knowledge.

The old Superior made up his mind that he would once more speak to him privately, before he took the irrevocable vow, and he decided to do so after the first office for the day before Christmas Eve had been said. When therefore, Mesonyktikon, or the midnight office, was over—that is, about two o’clock in the morning on Christmas Eve—Gurij summoned Ambrose to his cell.

‘To-day,’ he said, ‘you are to take the final vow and be one of us, and become a monk for the rest of your life.’

‘Yes, Father.’

‘You have no doubt as to your decision?’

‘No.’

‘There is nothing about which you wish to consult me?’

‘No.’

‘There is nothing you wish to confess to me or confide to[50]me?—you know that I am not only your brother, but an old friend too.’

‘I have no confession to make.’

‘Have you never done wrong? Is there nothing in your earlier career for which you need to obtain forgiveness or the intercession of the Church?’

‘Indeed, Father, I have done wrong; but others have done more wrong to me than I have done to them.’

‘You have no longer any ill feeling; you have forgiven them?’

‘No,’ said Ambrose, after a moment’s reflection.

‘But you must forgive; you will obtain no peace until you do, and you cannot take the vow while you bear malice in your heart. Before you bid the world farewell you must realize the calm peace of reconciliation.’

‘I cannot.’

‘Who is it that has wronged you so cruelly?’

‘My father.’

‘Your own father?’

‘Yes, and my relations and friends.’

‘There are also many things connected with the world with which your heart is still occupied, and on which your thoughts dwell, instead of being engaged in prayer and fasting.’

‘No; there is nothing in the world in which I have lived that I look for. All is hidden, forgotten, buried and lost.’

‘But it has left behind bitterness in your feelings. Have you never loved—loved some woman?’

‘Certainly,’ exclaimed Ambrose, and he thereupon turned paler than ever. There suddenly arose from the innermost recess of his soul a form so lifelike, as it stood before him, that he covered his face with his hands and fell on his knees, and laid his head on the old man’s lap, while he slowly muttered the name ‘Annita, Annita.’

The old man allowed him to remain thus for a while, as he perceived that this strong man was weeping like a child. There must, then, as he had suspected, be events which had taken place in his earlier career which were now revived with painful vividness.

‘Brother,’ he said, ‘will you here, in the quiet of the night, open your heart to me, and tell me all about your previous career? I do not ask you from inquisitiveness, but tell me if you can; I will listen to you. You know that I am your friend.[51]Moreover, I have loved you, and will understand you, and sympathize with you.’

‘Yes, Father,’ said Ambrose, ‘if you will listen to me, I will tell you everything. My name is not really Ambrose, but I bear the same name as our orthodox Czar, whose father conferred on this monastery its charter. My name is really, like his, Theodore Ivanovitsch, and I come of an old Russian boyar family. A pious mother taught me in my early youth to read the lives of the saints and martyrs, and to go to church. But as I am of noble birth, and at some period would have to serve the Czar, I also learned to ride and fence and hunt and shoot. I have been an officer. You see this scar which I have on my forehead? I received it in battle. There has, as you know, been variance for many years between the monastery of Solowetski and the Swedish Finns in heretical Finland. This variance still continues, and none the less now that there is war between the Czar and John III. of Sweden. The monastery of Solowetski was, as you know, founded in 1429, and obtained at length even greater privileges than our own monastery has done. But it was also bound to protect Karelstrand and the towns in that neighbourhood against attacks from Finnish pirates. For the protection of the monastery the Czar has now, as you also know, built a stone wall which is to have eight towers, and is to surround the churches and all the buildings. Meanwhile the Swedish Finns, out of their old hatred of the Russians, had been making piratical incursions into Karelen, attacking our orthodox people, and the Solowetski people did not hesitate to retaliate. In this way, about twelve years ago, I was sent as a young officer to Karelen with a troop of Cossacks to protect the inhabitants against these Swedish Finns. I must admit that the Cossacks whom I had to command were wild and cruel men. Young, and unused to the horrors of war, I often tried to restrain them from needlessly killing men and women, while they were plundering their dwellings. At times I was, fortunately, able to save the innocent; but on one occasion, when we had chased a crowd of Swedish Finns back out of Karelen, into which they had made a piratical incursion, and had pursued them right into the district of Kajana, it so happened that some of my men, who were in the van, had reached the farmstead of Kuolaniemi in Sotkamo before I came up. They had attacked[52]the farm people, and, as usual, had killed and plundered them. After this they had fired the houses. I saw the fire, and pressed on with my men. The farm was beautifully situated on a projecting promontory by the side of a large lake. The houses and tall spruce firs down by the lake were so clearly reflected in it, that it looked as if the smooth depths of the lake below, as well as the clouds in the sky above, were ablaze. As, in a state of indignation, I rode inside the burning farmstead, determined more strongly than before to remonstrate with the more bloodthirsty of my men, I caught sight of a woman, struggling desperately with a Cossack at the doorway and on the steps of the burning house. The master of the house they had already killed, but the mother was clinging, though mortally wounded, to the leg of a Cossack to save a child—a little girl—whom he was trying to drag away with him. Before I could reach him, I saw him lift a spear and plunge it into the mother’s breast, so that she swooned away and let go her hold of his leg, while at the same moment the child tore herself away and ran off towards the courtyard. Enraged, the monster threw his blood-stained spear after the child, and sprang aside to catch her. Fortunately, he only touched her flowing hair, and at that moment I and my men reached him.

‘ “Monster!” I shouted. “Would you kill an innocent child?” and I placed my spear on the man’s breast so that he stopped.

‘The child clung to my leg, and cried to me in mortal fear and with tears in its little eyes, “Save me! save me!” I took her in my arms and lifted her on to my horse. Poor child! she clung in her terror close to me, and hid herself under my large riding-coat.

‘The farm continued to burn. No one seemed to think of putting out the fire, and the people belonging to the farm who had not been able to escape at once were lying dead in all directions in the burning house. I gave orders for a retreat within the boundary of Karelen; but what was I to do with the child whom I had beside me on my horse, a little girl some six or seven years old? She looked terrified at my men if any of them came near me, and with her little arms took tight hold of me.

‘ “Hold me fast!” she cried; “don’t let go of me, dear, dear man! don’t let them kill me!”’[53]

‘ “No, my child, no one shall touch you,” I said, to pacify her.

‘The district was a lonely one, and the people all about had taken to flight. I could not, therefore, leave the child at the farm which had been burnt down. She would have perished of cold and hunger, as most likely people would not venture there again for some time. I took the child with me, therefore, to the camp. She was a pretty little girl. When we dismounted from our horses at the camp, she would not on any account let go my hand, which she grasped with both her own.

‘ “What is your name?” I asked her, when we had entered my tent and her terror had somewhat subsided.

‘ “Nita,” she replied, crying.

‘ “Your parents are dead, my poor child,” I said. “Have you brothers and sisters?”

‘ “No; father and mother had only me.”

‘ “Have you any relations?”

‘ “No; I don’t know of any.”

‘ “I really don’t know what to do with you, my poor little Nita, or where to send you.”

‘ “Don’t send me away!” she cried. “Can’t I stop with you? I am so frightened at all the men here. Can I keep with you? I will be a good girl, and I am called Annita, too. Annita is my proper name.”

‘We talked for some time together, but I could not make out anything respecting her relatives. This much only was evident, that her parents had been ordinary farm-people, but apparently well-to-do folk, for the child was well dressed, well brought up, and, moreover, intelligent for her age.

‘She slept in my tent at night, and could not be prevailed upon to leave me, so afraid was she of my rough men. So I came to the conclusion to take the little orphan home with me to my parents in Russia. I explained, therefore, on the next day to my men that for the future I should consider Annita as my child, and threatened with death the man who should do her any harm.

‘As there was now not much probability that the Swedish Finns would soon make a fresh attack on Karelen, I returned to my home on the border of Lake Ladoga, close to Olonet, not far from Finland, where my father owned an estate and[54]several hundreds of serfs. My parents were very much surprised at my bringing home, as a trophy from the battlefield, a little girl, but when they heard further particulars they considered that I had done right, and they received the child kindly. Annita was both a pretty and an amiable child, and she soon became a favourite.

‘At the end of a year she had learnt to speak Russian, only with me she preferred to speak Karelsk, her mother tongue, which I could also speak fairly fluently. It was natural that the child clung to me, and was not quite satisfied unless I was somewhere near. I had rescued her. She looked on me as another father. She could be merry, and happy, and boisterous, like other children, when we went about together, but if I were from home she used to be silent and quiet. Other people might praise her, pet her, or scold her, but she did not seem to care much about it. Only when the praise or blame came from me was she pleased or sorry. She was educated at my home, and in every respect brought up like a daughter of the house. Sometimes I used to teach her myself, and she then was always most diligent.

‘In this way several years passed by. Annita grew up, and by degrees she began to look upon me as an elder brother. I was, moreover, ten years her senior. When she was fifteen years old she was sent to a convent, where she remained for two years. At the same time I was stationed at Moscow, in IvanWasilievitsch’sservice, and came to know personally both him and his son, the pious Theodore, as well as many other persons who were great and powerful at Ivan’s Court.

‘I remember well that Annita had no wish whatever to go to the convent. I had to start first, and the day before my departure, when it was bedtime, I laid my hand on her little head, and said:

‘ “Good-bye, Annita; God bless you!”

‘But she only clung to me, and exclaimed:

‘ “Take me with you! Can’t you take me with you?”

‘She was simple enough to think that she could travel to Moscow with me, and that she could there keep house for me.

‘ “I cannot take you with me, Annita,” I said; and I tried to take one hand out of hers.

‘ “I won’t go to the convent,” she said with indignation, and she would not loosen her hold on my hand.[55]

‘ “You must go,” I said. “It cannot be otherwise, Annita. I will come and see you, and look after you. Say good-bye, and be a reasonable little girl,” I replied, bending down to her.

‘She threw her arms around my neck, sobbed bitterly, and again exclaimed:

‘ “But why can’t you take me with you?”

‘I gently disengaged her arms, kissed her on the forehead, and she went with my mother into her room.

‘I said good-bye to my parents overnight, as I was to start very early in the morning. It was still quite dark when I got up and went down to the sitting-room. When I entered it, I saw Annita standing by a small table, where the cloth was laid for me.

‘ “Annita;” I exclaimed, as she approached me; “are you here, child?”

‘ “Yes,” she said; “I wanted to see you before you left.”

‘ “But how did you manage to wake up so early?”

‘ “I first tried to remain awake in my room, but I couldn’t. Then I went quietly to the maid’s room, and slept with her so as to be sure to wake up, and so contrive that you would not leave without my seeing you off. Are you angry with me?”

‘ “No, my child; I am not angry with you. God bless you! Good-bye again, and be a good girl, and go and lie down again!”

‘She went back again to her room in tears. She had to the very last, perhaps, entertained a slight hope that I would be prevailed upon to take her with me. I was sincerely sorry for the child, but it was altogether out of the question for me to think of taking her to Moscow.

‘On Christmas Eve in 1584 we were both to be at home again. Theodore had come to the throne, and I obtained leave to go home and visit my parents. Annita arrived before me, and received me in company with my father and mother, as I came driving into the courtyard. Annita was in her nineteenth year, and had so grown that she was almost as tall as my mother. She was a delicately-made, slender girl, with glossy, fair hair, which curled slightly over her temples. She still wore her convent dress, and had during the three years she had been away become beautiful like a Madonna. But there were two things in particular which marked Annita out as[56]distinct from any other woman whom I had ever seen—her beautiful eyes and an engaging smile. When Annita smiled no mortal man or woman could resist her. I often observed that when she came into a room, where there were many people, it was as if a ray of sunshine had suddenly shone into the room. Even if it so happened that the company had been sitting in silence, Annita’s appearance seemed to cast a ray of friendliness and harmony over the faces of the company, and they soon became gay and lively.

‘When I came home on this occasion Annita did not, as usual, spring wildly to me, and cling fast to my hand with both of hers; but she stood quite still, and only shook hands with me.

‘ “Well, Annita,” I exclaimed, “aren’t you glad I’ve come home again?”

‘ “Indeed I am,” she said; “I am very glad;” and she smiled as she looked at me. To look at those eyes was like looking into the clearest crystal well. There was no secret hidden at the bottom. No passion had as yet dimmed the lustre of that depth. Her look was childlike, pure, innocent, and decorous. And when she slowly opened her large eyes and gazed at me, it seemed as if I was folded in a wonderfully warm and enchanting light.

‘I was much taller than she was, and a big, strong man. I had often, in earlier days, taken Annita in my arms and run off with her over the fields. She would then, in her wild joy, pull my hair, and call out, “Gallop, my horse! Gallop, quicker, quicker!”

‘I thought of doing something of this kind again, and half made a sign of taking her up in my arms, but Annita laughed and jumped aside.

‘“No, thank you,” she said; “I am too big now. You can’t lift me.”

‘ “I can try,” I suggested.

‘ “No, I won’t let you.”

‘ “Am I never more to be allowed to lift you?”

‘ “Perhaps, some other time.”

‘The next day I had to go and visit one of our neighbours, a distant relative, who owned the adjoining estate. The only daughter of the house, a big, strong girl, was about my own age, and we had played together as children. It had also,[57]long before, been settled between our parents that we were to marry one another, so that the two properties might be united. She and I had quite accepted this arrangement, and it had never occurred to us to think of raising objections to our parents’ plans.

‘You well know, Father Gurij, that a Russian master is a patriarch, and is despotic in his house and family. No person has any right to question his orders, not even the noblest in the town, not even the Czar. The house-father is above all written law. His house is not merely a castle, but a church as well, and whatever he does is sacred and holy. “Two wills in one house,” says the Russian proverb, “would be impossible; and would never do.” My father Ivan was a very strong man, and often he was cruelly severe with his serfs, whom he looked upon and treated as mere slaves. His will was the one thing which must be followed and obeyed. Not unfrequently they have felt the cat-o’-nine-tails, and he was dreaded both by his own servants and by the serfs in the village. He commanded, and nobody dared to offer the slightest opposition, whatever the matter might be. If it was his will that a young man and a girl should marry, then they must marry, and if any persons wanted to marry, my father had to be consulted, and his decision accepted.

‘My mother was as weak as a reed, and she would not venture in the least degree to oppose my father’s will. If he were provoked, it might happen that he would beat his wife, like an ordinary Russian, who, as you are aware, does this pretty often—so frequently, indeed, that it once happened on our estate that the wife of one of our serfs came to my mother with tears in her eyes, bewailing the fact that her husband no longer thrashed her as before. She was afraid that it was a sign that he no longer cared for her.

‘I believe that my mother was fond of Annita. It was impossible not to be. The servants also were all of them very much attached to her. On the other hand, my father seemed to be rather hard on her, and I noticed that at times there was a glance in his eye when he saw her which seemed to forbode no good. And she, on her part, was afraid of him.

‘I was again absent at Novgorod for about a year. Some little time before I was to return I got a letter from my mother, and inside it was a short note from Annita.[58]

‘ “Dear Brother,” she wrote, “come home soon. I am so terrified and frightened when you are not here. I have never before felt that you were so long away as this time. Your father has been kind to me, and has made me a present of a bracelet; but, all the same, I am afraid of him, as I always have been. How happy I shall be when you are here once more! I need not see you, but only know that you are here. I am so safe when I know that you are near me; then I can fly to you, and cling to you, as I did the first time, when you brought me here. I shall have no rest or peace until you return to your little sister,‘ “Nita.”

‘ “Dear Brother,” she wrote, “come home soon. I am so terrified and frightened when you are not here. I have never before felt that you were so long away as this time. Your father has been kind to me, and has made me a present of a bracelet; but, all the same, I am afraid of him, as I always have been. How happy I shall be when you are here once more! I need not see you, but only know that you are here. I am so safe when I know that you are near me; then I can fly to you, and cling to you, as I did the first time, when you brought me here. I shall have no rest or peace until you return to your little sister,

‘ “Nita.”

‘This letter thoroughly opened my eyes. I clearly saw and realized what I had expected would come about.

‘Father Gurij,’ said Ambrose, ‘you understand that I loved this young girl whom I had saved, and to whom I had been as a father and a brother. Now I could no longer think of her merely as a sister. The spark in my heart had caught fire, and was blazing forth into a strong flame. But you cannot well understand the depth of my feelings. I was, indeed, at this time a man of years, yet never before had I been in love with a woman. It was with a feeling of fear that I realized how strong my passion was, and how violent it would become, and how wretchedly unhappy I should be, if anyone deprived me of Annita, or did any harm to her. I was of a noble family, and a rich man’s only heir, and I was on intimate terms with many families of quality at Moscow. I had seen many women, and many women had smiled on me, but their smile was cold and cheerless, and nothing to that which, in my own home, beamed on me from Annita. I decided, therefore, at once to return home, and openly tell my parents that I loved Annita, and that I wished to haveherfor my wife, and nobody else.

‘ “But what will Annita say?” I thought while I was on the way. “She has never heard any man whisper a word of love. Perhaps she will be frightened. Perhaps she will be as much afraid of me as of my father.”

‘I returned home, and I was welcomed by these three on the stairs of the house. My father was reserved and undemonstrative, my mother was weeping when embracing me, and Annita looked very pale, as she reached out her hand to me. I took both her hands in mine, and looked into her pretty eyes,[59]but she cast them down directly. There must have been something in my look which she had not seen before, something of a lover’s look, which caused her to cast her beautiful eyes down to the ground, while a slight blush tinged her cheeks.

‘The next day I said to Annita, “Come and let us go for a walk;” and we went together out into the park to her favourite place under a large oak, where there is a view over Lake Ladoga, which spreads out like an ocean. On previous occasions, when we had walked about together alone, she had always been full of fun, and asking questions, and like a child dragging me hither and thither. But this time she was silent and quiet.

‘ “Annita,” I said, when we had seated ourselves under the oak, “can you remember twelve years ago?”

‘ “Yes; I remember everything—my poor parents!”

‘ “Can you remember when we came here—how frightened you were? how you clung to me?”

‘ “Yes, I remember it distinctly. I remember the first night I would not sleep in the servant’s room, but that I cried so, and that I insisted on having my little bed moved into your room.”

‘ “But can you remember what you once said, when we were walking about here together?”

‘ “No; I don’t know what you refer to. I have no recollection of anything.”

‘ “ButIremember it very well myself.”

‘ “What was it, then? Was it some very silly thing?”

‘ “No, it was not silly; but listen: while you held my hand, and skipped along by my side, you suddenly said to me, ‘Do you know what I am going to be?’

‘ “ ‘No,’ I answered; ‘I don’t in the least know what.’

‘ “ ‘Very well,’ you said very earnestly, ‘I mean to be your wife. You and I shall be man and wife.’

‘ “ ‘Oh, of course,’ I said; ‘you shall be Madame Theodora.’ ”

‘ “Yes; but I was a simple child then,” Annita said, “a child that played with dolls. I did not know what I was saying; besides that, my dolls were husband and wife, don’t you know.”

‘ “No, you did not know what you said, that is certain enough; but now you are a grown-up young woman, Annita, you are no longer a child.”

‘ “No, I am nearly twenty.”

‘ “And sensible.”

‘ “No, not particularly.”[60]

‘ “And pretty.”

‘ “Am I?”

‘ “Yes, you certainly are; yes, so pretty that I cannot any longer be your brother.”

‘ “Are you angry with me?”

‘ “No, I am not angry with you; but there is something I want to tell you.”

‘ “What is it?”

‘ “A secret.”

‘ “A secret! It will be nice to have a secret. I haven’t any.”

‘ “I am not so sure that it is always nice.”

‘ “What is the secret? Will you tell me?”

‘ “Yes, I will tell you; but you must not be frightened. It is the greatest secret of my life, Annita, and the secret is this: that I love you, Annita, seriously and deeply. I am in love with you, and with no one else, for the rest of my life. Annita, I ask you now, will you be my wife? Look at me, Annita; what do you say? You care a little bit for me, Annita, don’t you?”

‘Annita stooped to me in trepidation.

‘ “Is it true, Theodore,” she whispered, “that you love me, and will have me for your wife? Say it once more.”

‘ “Yes, Annita, I love you, and you alone, and no one but you in the whole world,” I said, pressing her to me, and kissing her pale face till the rosy colour came back in her cheeks.

‘ “Theodore,” she whispered, “I have always loved you. I have always thought of nobody but you. All I have is yours, and has been yours for many years—heart, soul, and thought.”

‘ “God bless you, Annita!” I exclaimed. “At the last minute I began to doubt. If you had not cared for me, Annita, I should have been very wretched; in fact, a miserable man, bad, morose, and full of hatred. But not now: you know what the saying is of catching a sunbeam.”

‘ “Can one catch sunbeams?”

‘ “Yes, the sunbeam is the smile on your lips, Annita; if I can catch that smile all my life, then I am saved, and will be a good man and a happy one.”

‘ “You shall have it, Theodore; it shall be yours, and yours only.”

‘The sun was just then setting. The evening was calm; there[61]came gentle breezes over us from the wind, which was going down. Never had it seemed to me that the sun set so brilliantly, or that Lake Ladoga ever looked so beautiful, as on that evening when Annita confessed her love. As the sun disappeared behind the waves of the lake, and darkness spread over the sky, I felt that even were the earthly sun to depart, yet an everlasting dawn of light and joy had arisen in my soul. We wandered back through the flower-garden to the house.

‘ “But what will father and Theodora say?” exclaimed Annita as we approached the house.

‘ “To-morrow I shall talk to my parents and Theodora’s parents,” I said calmly.

‘The next day I went to my father, and told him that Annita and I were in love with each other.

‘ “Just so,” said my father, “just as you like, as far as I am concerned.”

‘ “Will you consent, then, to our marrying?”

‘ “You marry Annita!” he exclaimed.

‘ “Yes; I want no one else for my wife.”

‘ “You have really thought of marrying the beggar-girl, Annita. Ha, ha, ha!” laughed my father in derision, and was on the point of breaking out in an uncontrollable passion, but I saw that he restrained himself; he very well knew that his beloved son was stubborn, too, and he considered that at the outset it would be best to proceed cautiously.

‘ “Annita is poor,” I said quite quietly; “but she is no beggar, and she is prettier than any rich girl I have seen; and she has been, moreover, as well brought up as any Russian lady of rank.”

‘ “Her bringing up I have nothing to do with, but you intend, do you? to break your promise to Theodora, and to set yourself against both my plans and those of Theodora’s parents.”

‘ “I have never proposed to Theodora, neither have I made her any promise. It has all been arranged between you and her parents, without our being consulted or having given our consent to it.”

‘ “Yes, just so, and just so is it to be. I will in no manner give my consent to your marriage with a beggar-girl. Your marriage with Theodora has been put off long enough; and on that account it will be best that it should take place as soon as possible. I will provide for Annita myself. There is no hurry[62]as regards her. I will provide a suitable husband for her in good time from among my serfs or servants—for example, Anthony Kudsk, or some other suitable youth.”

‘ “Father,” I exclaimed in horror, “don’t do it! I ask you dutifully, and humbly, let me have Annita for my wife! I assure you, solemnly and truly, that I will marry no other girl.”

‘ “Stuff and nonsense!” exclaimed my father; “when you are married to Theodora, and Annita has married Anthony, your romantic ideas will soon disperse, and later on you will be grateful to me.”

‘ “Father, don’t joke, or rather make fun of us. Annita would die rather than marry Anthony, or any other serf. She has been brought up too well for that; and besides that, she admitted yesterday that she had always loved me since she was ten years old.”

‘ “Leave that to me; I am master here.”

‘ “Not over Annita,” I ventured to remark.

‘ “Don’t you think so?”

‘ “She is not your daughter, and neither a slave nor a serf.”

‘ “Who has brought her up for the last twelve years?”

‘ “You and my mother have.”

‘ “Then I suppose we have something to say as to her future?”

‘ “No; when Annita’s future has to be provided for, I have something to say. It was I who saved her life.”

‘ “Ah, well! I have heard that story before now.”

‘ “Father, have you anything to reproach Annita for?”

‘ “No; but I will not have my son mix Finnish peasant blood with ours. I will have you marry a girl who is your equal in station and position, and that Theodora Petrovna is.”

‘ “But if I won’t?” I made bold to say once more.

‘ “You won’t! You can’t! you shall, though!” exclaimed my father in a rage.

‘ “Will I, though?”

‘ “Yes, you shall. I am master in my own house, and in my family. You are to marry Theodora, even if I have to lead you bound, and cudgelled, to the altar. In any case, I will never consent to your marriage with Annita. Now you know my answer, and we have no need to say anything more about it.”

‘ “Just one word,” I said respectfully; “I am your only child[63]and your heir, and I may presume that you have some little affection for me. Why can’t you grant me my heart’s fondest wish? Annita would make me a more faithful and affectionate wife than any other woman I know. Why should we, who are both in a sense your children, be compelled to curse, instead of to bless you?”

‘ “I see what is for your future good, better than you do yourself. The whole thing is nothing more than a passing romantic fancy, and it won’t be long before you yourself will give it up as a piece of folly.”

‘ “No,” I exclaimed, “not before Annita or I am dead.” And with these words I left my father.

‘In bad spirits I went to my mother, and related the whole story to her; and although she as well would have preferred that I should marry Theodora, I believe that she would have forgiven Annita and me, and have given us her blessing. A mother is always ready to pardon her only son, and I am pretty sure that my mother would have taken my part, even if I had turned into a brigand or murderer. But her opinion was not of the slightest weight, against that of my father.

‘I told Annita that my father would not consent to our marrying, but I assured her, over and over again, that she, and nobody but she, should be my wife.

‘ “And, Annita,” I asked, “what do you say?”

‘ “I!” said Annita; “why, he may take my life before I consent to be married to any of his serfs. You may implicitly rely on me. Neither persuasion nor threat will ever influence me. I am yours, and never in this world will I belong to any other man.”

‘In this way time slipped by. Annita and I were happy in the consciousness of our mutual affection for each other, but we were unhappy because our parents took no share with us in it. My father was gloomy, and severe with everybody, and I seldom spoke to him. Annita had a good voice, and sang our national Russian songs beautifully; but her singing seemed to give my father pain, and to jar on his ears, for he left the room as soon as he heard her voice.

‘A short time afterwards, a letter came from a mercantile house at Novgorod, to say that I must go there to take part in arranging some complicated money matters connected with a patrimony which had come to me through the death of an[64]uncle. Annita was in despair at my having to leave her, but I endeavoured to console her with the thought that it would not be for long, and that I would hurry as much as possible, and return as soon as I could. I also tried to comfort her with the reflection that I had now come in for property of my own, so that we could marry as soon as we wished, independently of my father, and go where we liked, and even, perhaps, make a trip to the country of her own childhood.

‘The business, however, took longer than I had expected, and six months elapsed before all was settled and I was able to return home. The nearer I approached my home, the more I hurried on, and at last I drove from station to station like a madman.

‘Do you believe in omens, Father Gurij? I expected some mishap, and I was terribly apprehensive; the nearer I approached my home, the more my fears increased. I reached home in the afternoon. My father and mother came to receive me. I saluted them, but I saw nothing of Annita.

‘ “Where is Annita?” I asked.

‘ “She is not at home,” answered my father.

‘ “Isn’t she at home? Didn’t she know that I was to be back to-day?”

‘ “I don’t know. Perhaps she may come soon.”

‘ “Has she gone out?”

‘ “Probably.”

‘ “Where has she gone?”

‘ “I really don’t know; perhaps she has gone across to Theodora’s.”

‘I went over there, but Annita had not been there. I ran back, and rushed in despair to my mother, and implored her to tell me where Annita was.

‘ “I hope no misfortune has happened to her,” I exclaimed.

‘ “I don’t know,” said my mother; “ask your father.”

‘I went to my father, and I must have had a strange look, there must have been something alarming in my countenance, for he turned pale.

‘ “Where is Annita? What have you done with her?”

‘ “I don’t know. I have already told you so,” he replied evasively.

‘ “You don’t know—‘don’t know,’ you all say. Who, then, does know where she is?”[65]

‘ “Well, that is just what nobody does know.”

‘ “If she is dead you may as well tell me at once.”

‘ “No, so far as I know, she is not dead.”

‘ “But where has she gone, then? In God’s name tell me what you know, and what has happened.”

‘ “She has disappeared.”

‘ “Disappeared! Why, in what way?”

‘ “About a month ago she was missed, and since that time we have neither seen nor heard anything of her.”

‘I was on the point of falling, but I collected myself, and went close up to my father, as pale as death, and with frenzied threatening gestures, so that he drew back.

‘ “Surely you are not going to strike your father,” he exclaimed.

‘ “No,” I said; “but I will know the truth. Where is Annita? What have you done with her? Have you murdered her?”

‘ “As I tell you, she disappeared a month ago; nobody knows any more.”

‘ “Father, that is not true. You are lying to your son. You hide things from me, but I will know the truth, even if I have to squeeze it from you like drops of blood.”

‘ “You can do what you like.”

‘ “Did you look for her?”

‘ “Yes; your mother and the servants searched for her.”

‘ “And found no trace?”

‘ “No; none that I know of.”

‘I rushed again to my mother, but she called heaven to witness that she knew nothing. I ran round to the servants, and asked them all the same question, but I got the same answer, that she had disappeared, and that no one knew anything as to how it had happened. I rushed to her room, but all the things were untouched, and the room was as if she had only just left it. Could she have gone out for a walk, and have been killed by some wild beast, or robbed and murdered?

‘I couldn’t sleep that night. Overwhelming sorrow kept me wide awake. Half mad, I went the next day into the village, and made inquiries of everybody, but nobody had anything to relate except that she had disappeared. I again went to the house, and asked for Anthony, the coachman, whom I had not yet seen. I got the same answer from him, that she had[66]disappeared. Quite infuriated, I made for my father, and had forgotten myself so far as to grip him by the throat and dash him on the floor in order to get the real truth out of him.

‘ “Lay a hand on your father!” he exclaimed; “you are a fine sort of son.”

‘I was at once disarmed.

‘ “If you have done some unworthy act, father,” I exclaimed, “then own to it, and make a clean breast of it. I don’t know what I shan’t do to you or to myself, but Iwillknow the truth.”

‘ “I have tried to spare you,” my father said; “but when you go on in this fashion with violence and threats, then there is nothing to be done but to tell you exactly what has really happened. The matter is simply this, that Annita and Anthony Kudst disappeared on the same night. It pains me to tell you this; but the girl was originally of low birth, and Anthony has been making good use of the time while you were away to gain her affection. He was, too, a good-looking fellow, and from the same country as the girl, and I suppose the beggar-girl persuaded him to run away with her back to their dear old heretical fatherland.”

‘ “That is not true,” I said; “it is a base, abominable lie, and I don’t believe it. If it were true I would go after them and murder them both; but it is not true.”

‘I went down to the village again and threatened both grown-up people and children, but I could get hold of nothing from anybody. The only person who knew anything, they declared, must be my father himself. I never for a single moment yielded to the thought that Annita had gone off of her own accord with Anthony. I was so fully persuaded of the impossibility of her doing such a thing that it did not strike me that she would, in such a case, have taken various things with her, which I knew remained untouched in her room. If she had gone on account of her fear of my father, she would also have taken several things with her, and she could then have been traced, or something would have been heard of her. But had she been stolen, carried off by force, or kidnapped? If that were so I could surely find some trace of her. I did not at first think that she was dead, and this hope kept me going.

‘I noticed that a dog which was very much attached to her, and which was called Karo, followed me about wherever I went,[67]and was evidently also trying to find her. This was a further sign to me that she had not voluntarily disappeared. The dog would have accompanied her. I took the dog with me, in the hope that it might possibly scent out her footprints, and we hunted through the house, the park, the village, and the neighbourhood, but all in vain. I could not find the slightest trace of her.

‘ “Do you still refuse to tell me the truth?” I asked my father when I returned home. “Can you tell me if Annita is dead? because if I know that, then I know what to do.”

‘ “I can’t tell you more than I know.”

‘ “You are lying, father!” I exclaimed in anger; “but it is all the same; I will find her, or get to know about her. I will not rest, either day or night, till I find her, living or dead. But may God punish you with everlasting remorse if I find that you have driven her with blows to the altar to marry Anthony.”

‘ “Unnatural son! go and ask the priest.”

‘I went to the pope in the village. Like one demented, I rushed into his room and asked:

‘ “Have you married Annita and Anthony?” As he hesitated with his answer I caught him by the throat, threw him on the ground and knelt on his chest.

‘ “Out with the truth, you wretch!” I cried; “have you married Annita and Anthony?”

‘He assured me, by all that was holy, that he had not married them, and that he knew nothing about it. I could not but believe him. If I had felt any doubt as to the truth of his word I believe that, in the desperate and frenzied state in which I was, I should have held my hand so long on his throat that I should have choked him.

‘The next dayIalso disappeared and was away for a whole year. I wandered about from house to house, village to village, and inquired of everybody, and promised rewards if anyone would procure me tidings of Annita. But all in vain. I could find no trace of her. I went to Finland, to Annita’s homestead, and through Kuolaniemi, where I had rescued her. The farm-house had been rebuilt, and had a new proprietor, but nobody had heard anything of Annita.

‘I returned home as ragged as a beggar, sick, haggard, hollow-eyed, and in despair. I was no longer as angry as[68]before, but dreadfully out of spirits and broken-hearted. I again begged my father to tell me the truth, or let me know for certain whether Annita was alive.

‘ “I don’t know,” he replied as before. I went off again without even saying good-bye to my parents. I visited all the convents, but no nun bore her name, and no one had heard anything of her. I went to Moscow, to the Czar, to the pious Theodore, in whose service I had been, and I laid a charge against my father by telling him what I have now told you. He sent a judge to Olonets and had my father examined, but he denied, as before, that he knew anything about Annita; perhaps bribed the judge as well—he was rich enough to do it. After an absence of two years I returned to my saddened home.

‘ “You have been complaining of me to the Czar,” said my father.

‘ “Yes,” I replied.

‘ “You wanted to have your own father punished as a criminal.”

‘ “Yes; because you would not tell me the truth.”

‘ “Well, then, I have now just one word to say to you, and that will be the last word spoken between us.”

‘ “Say it, then.”

‘ “If you don’t marry Theodora, I shall order my servants to remove you by force from the house, and then I disinherit you.”

‘ “I will not marry Theodora.”

‘ “Very well, then, you are no longer my son.”

‘ “Be it so,” I said. “Nothing more can wound or grieve me. I am deaf and dead to all the feelings of a son towards his father, and to all his father’s threats. I, too, have made my decision.”

‘ “And I should like to know what that may be?”

‘ “I am going to be a monk, and shall enter a monastery. I renounce the estates and the property, and everything else in this world.”

‘ “And all for the sake of a beggar-girl.”

‘ “Yes, for the sake of a poor, harmless, forlorn girl—for the sake of the one woman whom I have loved, and whom I have lost, and of whom my own father has deprived me.”

‘ “As you will,” said my father, but he hardly believed that I was in earnest. I made one more desperate journey to seek[69]for some trace of Annita. At a place in Karelen I was informed that one Sunday a young couple, who were travelling, had been at church there, and as they were driving off again, the young woman, when they were crossing a bridge, either threw herself, or fell into the river and was drowned. But who they were nobody knew. I called on the priest of the parish, and asked him, but he could not remember that he had heard the names of Annita or Anthony, and he had never married persons so named.

‘I returned home, but I could not bring myself to live there. Wherever I went I was reminded of Annita. I went out in the park, where she used to play as a child, and where, as a grown-up woman, she had assured me of her love. I threw myself down on the ground with my face to the earth, and lay there a long time. I did not give way to tears, but I had a sense of vacuity about me and around me. A blow had fallen upon me from a cruel hand, and my life was cut in twain. So I bid farewell to my parents, and to my home, and I went to Solowetski to be a monk. But there was too much bustle and secular excitement in that huge monastery, and I did not find sufficient solitude there. I longed for solitude, and for a scenery as bare, bleak, and desolate as my own inner feelings. So I journeyed on foot to this dreary spot. Here, I will remain, and to-morrow I will take the vows. Annita must be dead, or, what is still worse, living as dead to me, for not a trace of her has been found, and it is now three years since anything has been heard of her. I also will die, therefore, from henceforth to the pleasures and sorrows of the world. I am weary of life, weary unto death, and I renounce everything.’

‘Perhaps all this has been for your good, and for the saving of your soul,’ said old Gurij.

‘No, no!’ Ambrose exclaimed passionately, and springing up from the place where he was reclining. ‘I could have been so happy in Annita’s love. You don’t know, nobody knows, what that child was to me. I have watched at night by her sick-bed, and have felt that were she to die, I should lose that which nothing could replace. I have carried her in my arms, and she was more precious to me than my own flesh and blood. I lived wholly and solely in her love. She was my all—my future was centred in her. She was my hope, my sanctuary, and my home.’[70]

‘But, perhaps, in the course of time you might fall in love with some other woman, and be happy in her company?’

‘Never! never! I was no mere lad, who, in the unruly passion of the passing moment, gave vent to vows, the meaning of which he had never reflected on. I was a full-grown man who, with my whole understanding, had pledged myself to that woman.’

‘I can understand how hard it must have been to give up that earthly hope.’

‘Yes, and you must not suppose either that I have patiently submitted to my hard fate. No, indeed; there were times when my heart rebelled at the thought that I was unloved by any human being. Shall I tell it to you—how I have murmured against Providence, how I have indulged rebellious thoughts against Providence, and how I dared to reproach the Divine decrees? But that state of rebellion within me is at an end, and so are all my hopes. I look for nothing more. I hope for nothing more. I have now only before my eyes a quiet resignation to my lot and a humble self-renunciation.’

‘And as regards your father?’

‘Yes, yes, my father.’

‘Do you forgive him?’

‘Yes; may God pardon him for the wrong he did to Annita and to me.’

‘That is right, my son,’ said the old man. ‘Such should be your state of mind when you take the vows this night, and may it be that you will find peace within the Church’s fold; for the holy Church alone can offer balm to your wounded heart here on earth, and give to your soul everlasting bliss hereafter.’

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