And I've been punished by my sufferings for the blood I shed.
And I shan't be believed, they won't believe my proofs.
Need I confess, need I?
I am ready to go on suffering all my life for the blood I have shed, if only my wife and children may be spared.
Will it be just to ruin them with me?
Aren't we making a mistake?
What is right in this case?
And will people recognise it, will they appreciate it, will they respect it?"
"Good Lord!" I thought to myself, "he is thinking of other people's respect at such a moment!"
And I felt so sorry for him then, that I believe I would have shared his fate if it could have comforted him.
I saw he was beside himself.
I was aghast, realising with my heart as well as my mind what such a resolution meant.
"Decide my fate!" he exclaimed again.
"Go and confess," I whispered to him.
My voice failed me, but I whispered it firmly.
I took up the New Testament from the table, the Russian translation, and showed him the Gospel of St. 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 just been reading that verse when he came in.
He read it.
"That's true," he said, he smiled bitterly. "It's terrible the things you find in those books," he said, after a pause.
"It's easy enough to thrust them upon one.
And who wrote them? Can they have been written by men?"
"The Holy Spirit wrote them," said I.
"It's easy for you to prate," he smiled again, this time almost with hatred.
I took the book again, opened it in another 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 simply flung down the book.
He was trembling all over.
"An awful text," he said. "There's no denying you've picked out fitting ones." He rose from the chair. "Well!" he said, "good-bye, perhaps I shan't come again... we shall meet in heaven.
So I have been for fourteen years 'in the hands of the living God,' that's how one must think of those fourteen years.
To-morrow I will beseech those hands to let me go."
I wanted to take him in my arms and kiss him, but I did not dare- his face was contorted add sombre.
He went away.
"Good God," I thought, "what has he gone to face!"
I fell on my knees before the ikon and wept for him before the Holy Mother of God, our swift defender and helper.
I was half an hour praying in tears, and it was late, about midnight.
Suddenly I saw the door open and he came in again.
I was surprised.
Where have you been?" I asked him.
"I think," he said, "I've forgotten something... my handkerchief, I think.... Well, even if I've not forgotten anything, let me stay a little."
He sat down.
I stood over him.
"You sit down, too," said he.
I sat down.
We sat still for two minutes; he looked intently at me and suddenly smiled. I remembered that- then he got up, embraced me warmly and kissed me.
"Remember," he said, "how I came to you a second time.
Do you hear, remember it!"
And he went out.
"To-morrow," I thought.