“Lord and Master of my life,” and bending forward, got off his chair, spreading his hands before his face:
“Do not judge me; my sins are not more grievous than yours.”
The samovar boiled and hissed, the old valuer spoke contemptuously, and the other continued, refusing to be stopped by his words:
“Only God knows who most befouls the source of the Holy Spirit. It may be your sin, you book-learned, literary people. As for me, I am neither book-learned nor literary; I am a man of simple life.”
“We know all about your simplicity — we have heard of it — more than we want to hear!”
“It is you who confuse the people; you break up the true faith, you scribes and Pharisees.
I— what shall I say? Tell me —”
“Heresy,” said Petr Vassilich. The man held his hands before his face, just as if he were reading something written on them, and said warmly:
“Do you think that to drive people from one hole to another is to do better than they?
But I say no!
I say: Let us be free, man!
What is the good of a house, a wife, and all your belongings, in the sight of God?
Let us free ourselves, man, from all that for the sake of which men fight and tear each other to pieces — from gold and silver and all kinds of property, which brings nothing but corruption and uncleannessi Not on earthly fields is the soul saved, but in the valleys of paradise!
Tear yourself away from it all, I say; break all ties, all cords; break the nets of this world. They are woven by antichrist.
I am going by the straight road; I do not juggle with my soul; the dark world has no part in me.”
“And bread, water, clothes — do you have any part in them?
They are worldly, you know,” said the valuer maliciously.
But these words had no effect on Aleksander. He talked all the more earnestly, and although his voice was so low, it had the sound of a brass trumpet.
“What is dear to you, man?
The one God only should be dear to you. I stand before Him, cleansed from every stain. Remove the ways of earth from your heart and see God; you alone — He alone!
So you will draw near to God; that is the only road to Him.
That is the way of salvation — to leave father and mother — to leave all, and even thine eye, if it tempts thee — pluck it out!
For God’s sake tear yourself from things and save your soul; take refuge in the spirit, and your soul shall live for ever and ever.”
“Well, it is a case with you, of the dog returning to his vomit,” said Petr Vassiliev, rising, “I should have thought that you would have grown wiser since last year, but you are worse than ever.”
The old man went swaying from the shop onto the terrace, which action disturbed Aleksander. He asked amazedly and hastily:
“Has he gone?
But — why?”
Kind Lukian, winking consolingly, said:
“That’s all right — that’s all right!”
Then Aleksander fell upon him:
“And what about you, worldling? You are also sewing rubbishy words, and what do they mean?
Well — a threefold alleluia — a double ”
Lukian smiled at him and then went out on the terrace also, and Aleksander, turning to the shopman, said in a tone of conviction:
“They can’t stand up to me, they simply can’t!
They disappear like smoke before a flame.”
The shopman looked at him from under his brows, and observed dryly:
“I have not thought about the matter.”
“What! Do you mean you have not thought about it?
This is a business which demands to be thought about.”
He sat for a moment in silence, with drooping head. Then the old men called him, and they all three went away.
This man had burst upon me like a bonfire in the night. He burned brightly, and when he was extinguished, left me feeling that there was truth in his refusal to live as other men.
In the evening, choosing a good time, I spoke about him excitedly to the head icon-painter. Quiet and kind Ivan Larionovich listened to what I had to say, and explained:
“He belongs to the Byegouns,11 a sort of sect; they acknowledge no authority.” 11 Byegouns, or wanderers, still another sect of Old Believers.
“How do they live?”
“Like fugitives they wander about the earth; that is why they have been given the name Byegoun.
They say that no one ought to have land, or property. And the police look upon them as dangerous, and arrest them.”
Although my life was bitter, I could not understand how any one could run away from everything pleasant.
In the life which went on around me at that time, there was much that was interesting and precious to me, and Aleksander Vassiliev soon faded from my mind.
But from time to time, in hours of darkness, he appeared to me. He came by the fields, or by the gray road to the forest, pushed his cap aside with a convulsive movement of his white hands, unsoiled by work, and muttered:
“I am going on the straight road; I have no part in this world; I have broken all ties.”