“Listen,” said he, “and remember. It is said: ‘the word of a desperate man flies on the wind.’ And remember, also, that even the angels of God are not perfect. But perfect and sinless is one only, our Lord Jesus Christ, and Him the angels serve. Moreover, thou didst not will the death of that child, but wast only without wisdom. But this,” said he, “is marvellous in my eyes. Thou hast committed many even worse iniquities. Many men thou hast ruined, many thou hast corrupted, many thou hast destroyed, no less than, if thou hadst slain them. And did not his sisters, all the four babes, die almost before thine eyes? Why has this one only confounded thee? For all these in the past thou hast not grieved, I dare say, but hast even forgotten to think of them. Why art thou so horror-stricken for this child for whom thou wast not greatly to blame?”
“I dream at night,” Maxim Ivanovitch said.
“And what?”
But he told nothing more. He sat mute. The archimandrite marvelled, but with that he went away. There was no doing anything with him.
And Maxim Ivanovitch sent for the teacher, for Pyotr Stepanovitch; they had not met since that day.
“You remember him?” says he.
“Yes.”
“You painted a picture with oil colours, here in the tavern,” said he, “and took a copy of the chief priest’s portrait. Could you paint me a picture?”
“I can do anything, I have every talent. I can do everything.”
“Paint me a very big picture, to cover the whole wall, and paint in it first of all the river, and the slope, and the ferry, and all the people who were there, the colonel’s wife, and her daughter and the hedgehog. And paint me the other bank too, so that one can see the church and the square and the shops, and where the cabs stand — paint it all just as it is. And the boy by the ferry, just above the river, at that very place, and paint him with his two little fists pressed to his little breast. Be sure to do that. And open the heavens above the church on the further side, and let all the angels of heaven be flying to meet him. Can you do it or not?”
“I can do anything.”
“I needn’t ask a dauber like you. I might send for the finest painter in Moscow, or even from London itself, but you remember his face. If it’s not like, or little like, I’ll only give you fifty roubles. But if it’s just like, I’ll give you two hundred. You remember his eyes were blue. . . . And it must be made a very, very big picture.”
It was prepared. Pyotr Stepanovitch began painting and then he suddenly went and said:
“No, it can’t be painted like that.”
“Why so?”
“Because that sin, suicide, is the greatest of all sins. And would the angels come to meet him after such a sin?”
“But he was a babe, he was not responsible.”
“No, he was not a babe, he was a youth. He was eight years old when it happened. He was bound to render some account.”
Maxim Ivanovitch was more terror-stricken than ever.
“But I tell you what, I’ve thought something,” said Pyotr Stepanovitch, “we won’t open the heaven, and there’s no need to paint the angels, but I’ll let a beam of light, one bright ray of light, come down from heaven as though to meet him. It’s all the same as long as there’s something.”
So he painted the ray. I saw that picture myself afterwards, and that very ray of light, and the river. It stretched right across the wall, all blue, and the sweet boy was there, both little hands pressed to his breast, and the little lady, and the hedgehog, he put it all in. Only Maxim Ivanovitch showed no one the picture at the time, but locked it up in his room, away from all eyes; and when the people trooped from all over the town to see it, he bade them drive every one away. There was a great talk about it. Pyotr Stepanovitch seemed as though he were beside himself. “I can do anything now,” said he. “I’ve only to set up in St. Petersburg at the court.” He was a very polite man, but he liked boasting beyond all measure. And his fate overtook him; when he received the full two hundred roubles, he began drinking at once, and showed his money to every one, bragging of it, and he was murdered at night, when he was drunk, and his money stolen by a workman with whom he was drinking, and it all became known in the morning.
And it all ended so that even now they remember it everywhere there. Maxim Ivanovitch suddenly drives up to the same widow. She lodged at the edge of the town in a working-woman’s hut; he stood before her and bowed down to the ground. And she had been ill ever since that time and could scarcely move.
“Good mother,” he wailed, “honest widow, marry me, monster as I am. Let me live again!”
She looks at him more dead than alive.
“I want us to have another boy,” said he. “And if he is born, it will mean that that boy has forgiven us both, both you and me. For so the boy has bidden me.”
She saw the man was out of his mind, and in a frenzy, but she could not refrain.
“That’s all nonsense,” she answered him, “and only cowardice. Through the same cowardice I have lost all my children. I cannot bear the sight of you before me, let alone accepting such an everlasting torture.”
Maxim Ivanovitch drove off, but he did not give in. The whole town was agog at such a marvel. Maxim Ivanovitch sent match-makers to her. He sent for two of his aunts, working women in the chief town of the province. Aunts they were not, but kinsfolk of some sort, decent people. They began trying to turn her, they kept persuading her and would not leave the cottage. He sent her merchants’ wives of the town too, and the wife of the head priest of the cathedral, and the wives of officials; she was besieged by the whole town, and she got really sick of it.
“If my orphans had been living,” she said, “but why should I now? Am I to be guilty of such a sin against my children?”
The archimandrite, too, tried to persuade her. He breathed into her ear:
“You will make a new man of him.”
She was horrified, and people wondered at her.
“How can you refuse such a piece of luck?”
And this was how he overcame her in the end.
“Anyway he was a suicide,” he said, “and not a babe, but a youth, and owing to his years he could not have been admitted to the Holy Communion, and so he must have been bound to give at least some account. If you enter into matrimony with me, I’ll make you a solemn promise, I’ll build a church of God to the eternal memory of his soul.”
She could not stand out against that, and consented. So they were married.
And all were in amazement. They lived from the very first day in great and unfeigned harmony, jealously guarding their marriage vow, and like one soul in two bodies. She conceived that winter, and they began visiting the churches, and fearing the wrath of God. They stayed in three monasteries, and consulted prophecy. He built the promised church, and also a hospital, and almshouses in the town. He founded an endowment for widows and orphans. And he remembered all whom he had injured, and desired to make them restitution; he began to give away money without stint, so that his wife and the archimandrite even had to restrain him; “for that is enough,” they said. Maxim Ivanovitch listened to them. “I cheated Foma of his wages that time,” said he. So they paid that back to Foma. And Foma was moved even to tears. “As it is I’m content . . .” says he, “you’ve given me so much without that.” It touched every one’s heart in fact, and it shows it’s true what they say that a living man will be a good example. And the people are good — hearted there.
His wife began to manage the factory herself, and so well that she’s remembered to this day. He did not give up drinking, but she looked after him at those times, and began to nurse him. His language became more decorous, and even his voice changed. He became merciful beyond all wont, even to animals. If he saw from the window a peasant shamelessly beating his horse on the head, he would send out at once, and buy the horse at double its value. And he received the gift of tears. If any one talked to him he melted into tears. When her time had come, God answered their prayers at last, and sent them a son, and for the first time Maxim Ivanovitch became glad; he gave alms freely, and forgave many debts, and invited the whole town to the christening. And next day he was black as night. His wife saw that something was wrong with him, and held up to him the new-born babe.