‘They have the right to appeal for mercy.’
‘But it’s on my account that they’re being executed,’ said Natalya Ivanovna, who was not very intelligent. ‘And I forgive them.’
The district superintendent burst out laughing.
‘Well then, why don’t you lodge an appeal?’
‘Can I do that?’
‘Certainly you can.’
‘But won’t it be too late to get it to him now?’
‘You could send it by telegram.’
‘To the Tsar?’
‘Of course, you can send a telegram even to the Tsar.’
The discovery that the executioner had refused to do his duty and was ready to suffer rather than kill anybody brought about a sudden upheaval in Natalya Ivanovna’s soul, and the feeling of sympathy and horror which had come close to breaking out on several occasions, now burst its way into the open and took possession of her.
‘Filipp Vasilyevich my dear, please write the telegram for me. I want to ask the Tsar to show mercy to them.’
The district superintendent shook his head. ‘What if we were to get into trouble over this?’
‘But I’ll be the one responsible. I won’t say anything about you at all.’
‘What a kind woman she is,’ thought the district superintendent, ‘a good-hearted woman. If only my wife was like that, it would be heaven – quite different from the way things are.’
And so the district superintendent composed a telegram to the Tsar: ‘To His Imperial Majesty the Sovereign Emperor. Your Imperial Majesty’s loyal subject, widow of the Collegiate Assessor Pyotr Nikolayevich Sventitsky who was murdered by peasants, prostrating herself at Your Imperial Majesty’s sacred feet’ (the district superintendent was particularly pleased with this bit of the telegram he had composed) ‘begs You to have mercy on the men condemned to death, the peasants so-and-so and so-and-so, of such-and-such a province, region, district and village.’
The district superintendent sent off the telegram in person, and Natalya Ivanovna’s soul was filled with joy and happiness. It seemed to her that if she, the widow of the murdered man, was ready to forgive and to ask for mercy, then the Tsar could not fail to show mercy too.
XII
Liza Yeropkina was living on a plateau of continuous exaltation. The further she travelled along the Christian way of life which had been revealed to her, the more certain was she that this way was the true one, and the more jubilant did her soul become.
Now she had two immediate objectives in view. The first was to convert Makhin, or rather, as she expressed it to herself, to return him to his true self, to his own good and beautiful nature. She loved him, and by the light of her love she was able to perceive the divine element in his soul, common to all human beings, yet she saw in this fundamental element of life shared by all men and women a goodness, a tenderness and a distinction which were his alone. Her other objective was to cease to be rich. She had wanted to get free of her property in order to put Makhin to the test, but beyond that she desired to do this for her own sake, for the sake of her soul – and she wanted to do it according to the principles of the Gospel. She started the process by planning to give away her land, but she was thwarted in putting this idea into practice first by her father, and then even more so by the flood of suppliants who applied to her in person or in writing. Then she decided to turn to an elder, a man well known for the holiness of his life, and to ask him to take her money and to use it in whatever way he thought fitting. On hearing of this her father was very angry, and in a furious exchange he called her a madwoman and a psychopath, and announced his intention of taking steps to protect her from herself, as a person of unsound mind.
Her father’s irritable, exasperated tone of voice affected her powerfully and she lost control of herself, bursting into angry tears and calling him a despot, and even a monster of selfishness.
She asked her father’s forgiveness and he said that he was not angry with her, but she could see that he was hurt and that inwardly he had not really forgiven her. She was unwilling to talk to Makhin about any of this. Her sister was jealous of her attachment to Makhin and had become quite estranged from her. Thus Liza had no one to share her feelings with, no one she could confide in.
‘God is the one I should be confiding in,’ she told herself, and as it was now Lent she decided that she would observe the Lenten fast and make her confession, telling her confessor everything and asking his advice about what she should do next.
Not far from the city there was a monastery where the elder lived who had become famous for his way of life, his teaching, his prophecies, and the healings which were attributed to him.
The elder had received a letter from Yeropkin senior, warning him of his daughter’s visit and of her abnormal, hysterical state and expressing his confidence that the elder would put her back on the right path – the path of the golden mean and the good Christian life lived in harmony with the existing order of things.
Tired out from his regular session of receiving visitors, the elder nonetheless agreed to see Liza and gently counselled her to behave with moderation and to submit to the existing circumstances of her life, and to her parents. Liza said nothing, merely blushed and perspired, but when he had finished she began to speak meekly, with tears in her eyes, about the words of Christ who had said ‘Leave thy father and thy mother, and follow me’; then, becoming more and more animated, she began to explain to him her whole conception of what Christianity really meant. At first the elder smiled slightly and brought out some conventional points of teaching, but then he fell silent and began to sigh, repeating to himself ‘O Lord, O Lord’.
‘Very well then, come to me tomorrow and make your confession,’ he said, blessing her with his wrinkled hand.
The next day he heard her confession, and without continuing their conversation of the previous day, sent her away, having briefly refused to take upon himself the disposal of her property.
This young woman’s purity, her utter devotion to the will of God, her fervour, impressed the elder deeply. He had long wanted to renounce the world, but the monastery needed his activities, which were a source of income for the community. And he had accepted this, although he was vaguely aware of the falsity of his position. People were turning him into a saint, a miracle-worker, but in reality he was a weak man carried along by the current of his own success. And the soul of this young woman which had just been opened to him had revealed to him the truth about his own soul. And he had seen just how far he was from what he wanted to be and from the goal towards which his heart was drawing him.
Soon after Liza’s visit he withdrew to his cell, and it was only after three weeks had gone by that he emerged again into the church to conduct a service; and after the service he preached a sermon in which he reproached himself and denounced the wickedness of the world and called it to repentance.
He took to delivering a sermon every two weeks. And more and more people came to hear these sermons. And his fame as a preacher spread further and further. There was something special, bold and sincere in his sermons. And this was why he had such a powerful effect upon other people.
XIII
Meanwhile Vasily had been carrying out his plans as he had intended. One night he and some companions got into the house of a rich man named Krasnopuzov. He knew that Krasnopuzov was a miser and a man of depraved character, and he broke into his writing-desk and stole thirty thousand roubles in cash. And Vasily did with it as he pleased. He actually stopped drinking, and gave money to poor girls so that they could get married. He financed weddings, paid off people’s debts, and lay low himself. His only concern was how best to distribute the money. He even gave some to the police. And they stopped looking for him.