DENYING THE FAITH
FOR the next two days, Michael was busy delivering messages his father
had sent by him to the brethren living in Kovylsk. He told no one how
he had received these messages, for fear of betraying the warder, and
thus closing the channel of communication between the prisoners and
their friends outside. He could not help suspecting that someone made
it worth while to Pafnutitch, though it was against the tenets and the
customs of the Stundists to give bribes. Pafnutitch himself declared he
ran the risks solely for love.
Now and then Michael met Sergius in the streets, but the boys took no
notice of one another, thinking it safer not to appear acquainted.
They imagined they saw a spy in every man and woman who happened to be
walking in the same direction; and Markovin deepened this impression
by his gloomy forebodings. He had no suspicion that Michael had been
smuggled into the prison. The mere thought would have killed him. He
was exceedingly glad when Michael bade him farewell, though he had
shown him every kindness in his power. The old man kissed the boy on
the forehead, with a profound sigh, and prayed that God's blessing
might rest upon them both, "Me as well as him, O Lord!" he said in a
trembling voice.
Michael and Sergius had much to say to one another as they drove
homewards. Sergius had less to tell, for though he had been pitied and
sympathised with as the son of Khariton Kondraty, who had been so long
in prison for his faith, his father was not a well-known and beloved
presbyter, as Alexis Ivanoff was. His arrest had been a blow to a score
or more of little Stundist churches. Then there was Michael's adventure
in the jail, and his stolen interview with his father, a secret which
he confided to Sergius under a solemn vow of inviolable secrecy. There
must not be a hint or a whisper of such an event, for fear of getting
Pafnutitch into disgrace or danger, if he was found out.
They left their old sledge among the reeds growing along the margin of
the river, and led their tired horse at nightfall by a narrow by-path
to Ostron. Paraska hailed their arrival with a gladness the boys had
never before seen on her joyless face. The news of their return soon
spread, and before midnight, one woman after another stole in to ask if
there was any news of their husbands, and any hope of their liberation.
The wife of Nicolas Pavilovitch came amongst them, but Michael did not
say a word to her that it was rumoured her husband was about to recant,
and bear witness against the other Stundists. It seemed too shameful
and too treacherous a thing for him to put into words.
It was not many weeks, however, before Nicolas himself arrived in a
police-sledge. Every man and woman in Knishi ran into the frost-bound
street to watch its progress. The sledge was driven straight to Father
Cyril's house. Nicolas had been ordered to make his submission to
his parish priest. When he entered the house under the eye of the
policeman, he bowed profoundly to the icon, and with a tremulous voice
asked for the priest's blessing, and humbly kissed his hand.
"Nicolas Pavilovitch, you desire to come back to the Orthodox Church?"
said Father Cyril, after reading the order from the consistory.
"I do," answered Nicolas.
"Is this from conviction before God?" he asked. "Or from fear of man?"
Father Cyril's voice was stern, and his gaze penetrating. The
miserable-looking man only bowed his head, he could not utter a word.
"You will have your children restored to you," continued Father Cyril;
"and I am to see that they are carefully brought up in the sacred
rites and doctrines of our holy religion. I am also to report to
the consistory how frequently you and your wife come to mass and to
confession. Go home now. To-morrow I will come and bless your house."
The driver of the sledge had already spread the news. And when Nicolas
left the church-house he found he had to pass through groups of
unsympathetic neighbours, most of whom jeered at him or hailed him with
mock applause. Pale and haggard, enfeebled by long confinement and
prison fare, he could not hurry homewards out of their way, but crawled
along with bowed-down head and eyes almost blinded with tears. Was it
for this he had belied his conscience and turned renegade and traitor?
The veriest drunkard did not believe in his conversion. What were those
words repeated again and again in his brain? "Seeing he has crucified
to himself 'the Son of God afresh, and put Him to an open shame.'" Oh,
terrible words!
His house was the peasant's hut next to Khariton Kondraty's, and
Sergius, seeing his arrival, rushed in, after giving him a few minutes
to greet his wife and children, to ask how it was he had been released.
Surely his father would be set free too, and perhaps Alexis himself,
though as presbyter he was least likely to escape exile.
Nicolas had thrown himself breathless and exhausted on the bench
beside the stove, and his wife was standing before him speechless and
bewildered.
"Is my father coming?" cried Sergius. "Are the others let off? Oh,
Nicolas Pavilovitch, tell me quickly!"
"They could all come home if they'd do as I've done," answered Nicolas
in a muffled voice.
"He has denied the faith," sobbed his wife. "He was a miserable
drunkard before he joined the brethren, and now he is a lost soul."
"But you'll do as I do," said Nicolas.
"Never!" she cried. "Never! I'll throw myself into the river first!"
Sergius stole away quickly and silently. If that was the price to pay
for liberty, he knew well his father would not give it. No, not to gain
the whole world.
The recantation of Nicolas was a great shock to the little community of
Stundists in Knishi, consisting now only of a few desolate women and
their children. Father Cyril ordered the children of Nicolas to be sent
home, notwithstanding his wife's persistent refusal to join her husband
in abjuring her faith. The three little ones, all under ten years of
age, were very dear to her, and to hold them again in her arms, or to
work from dawn to dark for them, was a great consolation, but nothing
would induce her to go to mass with them and their father. When she
heard that her husband had given evidence, mostly false, against
his fellow-prisoners, she refused to quit the house, or to hold any
intercourse with her old friends and neighbours. Her tribulation was
greater than that of the other women.
The winter wore slowly away; and the women's hearts grew heavier as
they heard nothing of the liberation of their husbands. They were
wanted sorely at home. As soon as the thaw came, the numerous labours
on a farm, so necessary in the spring, must be done. They had patiently
borne many hardships through the winter, but if their breadwinners did
not come home soon, starvation would stare them in the face. Okhrim,
the Starosta, exacted the taxes as if the men were at their usual work;
and already some of the stock had been sold at low prices to meet his
demands.
The snow melted away, and the fine blades of corn sown in the autumn
began to push upwards through the rich, moist soil. Michael and Serge
toiled from the first streak of dawn to the last gleam of light in the
western sky, scarcely snatching time enough for food. But what could
two boys do unaided? Besides, there were houses where there was not one
child big enough for heavy work; and the women could not do it all.
Even if they had possessed the means to hire labourers, they could not
have done so; for it had been made illegal for a Stundist to have an
Orthodox servant in any capacity.