And he would go away seeming comforted, and the next day he would suddenly come again, malicious, pale, and say mockingly:
“Each time I come in, you look at me with such curiosity: What, you still have not told?’ Wait, do not despise me so much. It is not as easy to do as you may think. Perhaps I shall not do it at all. You would not go and denounce me then, would you, eh?” Yet not only would I have been afraid to look at him with senseless curiosity, I was even afraid to glance at him. This torment made me ill, and my soul was full of tears. I was even unable to sleep at night.
“I have just now come from my wife,” he went on. “Do you understand what a wife is? My children, as I was leaving, called out to me: ‘Good-bye, papa, come back soon and read to us from The Children’s Reader.’ No, you do not understand that! No one is the wiser for another man’s troubles.”
His eyes flashed, his lips trembled. Suddenly he struck the table with his fist so that the things on it jumped—he was such a mild man, it was the first time he had done anything like that.
“But is there any need?” he exclaimed, “is there any necessity? No one was condemned, no one was sent to hard labor because of me, the servant died of illness. And I have been punished by my sufferings for the blood I shed. And they will not believe me at all, they will not believe one of my proofs. Is there any need to tell, is there any need? I am ready to suffer still, all my life, for the blood I have shed, only so as not to strike at my wife and children. Would it be just to ruin them along with myself? Are we not mistaken? Where is the truth here? And will people know this truth, will they appreciate it, will they respect it?”
“Lord!” I thought to myself, “he thinks about people’s respect at such a moment!” And I felt so much pity for him then that I believe I would have shared his lot if it would have made it easier for him. I could see that he was nearly in a frenzy. I was horrified, having understood by then, not with reason alone but with my living soul, how great was the cost of such a resolution.
“Decide my fate!” he exclaimed again.
“Go and tell,” I whispered to him. There was little voice left in me, but I whispered it firmly. Then I took the Gospel from the table, the Russian translation,[206] and showed him John, chapter 12, verse 24:
“Verily, verily, I say unto you, except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.” I had read this verse just before he came.
He read it.
“True,” he said, and smiled bitterly. “Yes, in these books,” he said, after a pause, “one finds all sorts of terrible things. It is easy to shove them under someone’s nose. Who wrote them, were they human beings?”
“The Holy Spirit wrote them,” I said.
“It’s easy for you to babble,” he smiled again, but this time almost hatefully. I again took the book, opened it to a different place, and showed him the Epistle to the Hebrews, chapter 10, verse 31. He read: “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.” He read it and threw the book aside. He even began trembling all over.
“A fearful verse,” he said. “You picked a good one, I must say.” He got up from his chair. “So,” he said, “farewell, I may not come again ... we’ll see each other in paradise. Well, it has been fourteen years since I ‘fell into the hands of the living God,’ that is the right way to describe these fourteen years. Tomorrow I shall ask those hands to let me go...”
I wanted to embrace him and kiss him, but I did not dare—so contorted was his face, and so heavy his expression. He left. “Lord,” I thought, “what awaits the man!” Then I threw myself on my knees before the icon and wept for him to the most holy Mother of God, our swift intercessor and helper. I spent half an hour praying in tears, and it was already late, about midnight. Suddenly I saw the door open, and he came in again. I was amazed.
“Where have you been?” I asked him.
“I seem to have forgotten something . .. ,” he said, “my handkerchief, I think ... Well, even if I have not forgotten anything, let me sit down...”
He sat down in a chair. I stood over him. “You sit down, too,” he said. I sat down. We sat for about two minutes; he looked at me fixedly and suddenly smiled—I remembered that—then got up, embraced me firmly, and kissed me . . .
“Remember, friend,” he said, “how I came back to you this time—do you hear? Remember it!”
It was the first time he had called me “friend.” Then he left. “Tomorrow,” I thought.
And so it happened. I had not even known that evening that his birthday was the very next day. For I had not gone out over the past few days, and therefore could not have found out from anyone. Each year on that day he gave a big party; the whole town would come to it. They came this time, too. And so, after dinner, he stepped into the middle of the room with a paper in his hand—a formal statement to the authorities. And since the authorities were right there, he read the paper right then to the whole gathering. It contained a full account of the entire crime in all its details. “As an outcast, I cast myself out from among people. God has visited me,” he concluded the paper, “I want to embrace suffering!” Right then he brought out and placed on the table all the things he fancied would prove his crime and had been keeping for fourteen years: the gold objects belonging to the murdered woman, which he had stolen to divert suspicion from himself; her locket and cross, taken from around her neck—the locket containing a portrait of her fiancé; a notebook, and, finally, two letters: one from her fiancé, informing her of his imminent arrival, and her unfinished reply to his letter, left on the table to be sent to the post office the next day. He had taken both letters—but why? Why had he kept them for fourteen years instead of destroying them as evidence? And what happened then: everyone was astonished and horrified, and no one wanted to believe it, though they listened with great curiosity, but as to a sick man, and a few days later it was all quite decided among them, the verdict being that the unfortunate man had gone mad. The authorities and the court could not avoid starting proceedings, but they also held back: though the articles and letters he produced did make them think, here, too, it was decided that even if the documents proved to be authentic, a final accusation could not be pronounced on the basis of these documents alone. And the articles he might have obtained from the woman herself, as her acquaintance and trustee. I heard, however, that the authenticity of the articles was later verified by many acquaintances and relatives of the murdered woman, and that there were no doubts about that. But, again, the case was destined to be left unfinished. Within five days everyone knew that the sufferer had become ill and that they feared for his life. What the nature of his illness was, I cannot explain; it was said that he had a heart ailment; but it became known that the attending physicians, at his wife’s insistence, also examined his psychological condition, and reached the verdict that madness was indeed present. I betrayed nothing, though they came running to question me, but when I wished to visit him, I was prohibited for a long time, mainly by his wife: “It was you who upset him,” she said to me, “he was gloomy anyway, and over the past year everyone noticed his unusual anxiety and strange actions; then you came along and ruined him, you and your endless reading at him did it; he never left you for a whole month. “ And then not only his wife but everyone in town fell upon me and accused me: “It is all your fault,” they said. I kept silent, and was glad in my soul, for I saw the undoubted mercy of God towards him who had risen against himself and punished himself. I could not believe in his madness. At last they allowed me to see him, he had demanded it insistently in order to say farewell to me. I went in and saw at once that not only his days but even his hours were numbered. He was weak, yellow, his hands trembled, he gasped for breath, but his look was tender and joyful.