Collected Shorter Fiction, Volume 2

XVIII

In the prison at Suzdal there were fourteen clergymen who were there primarily for having deviated from Orthodox teaching; and this was where Isidor too had been sent. Father Misail admitted Isidor in accordance with the written instructions he had received and, without interviewing him, gave the order that he should be placed in a solitary cell, as befitted a serious offender. In the third week of Isidor’s stay in the prison Father Misail was making the rounds of the inmates. Going into Isidor’s cell, he asked whether there was anything he needed.

‘There is a great deal that I need, but I cannot talk about it in the presence of other people. Please allow me the opportunity to speak to you on your own.’

They looked at one another, and Father Misail realized that he had nothing to fear from this man. He ordered that Isidor should be brought to his cell in the monastery, and as soon as they were left alone he said:

‘Well, tell me what you have to say.’

Isidor fell to his knees.

‘Brother!’ said Isidor, ‘what are you doing? Have mercy on yourself. There cannot be a villain alive worse than you, you have profaned everything that is holy …’

*

A month later Father Misail sent in applications for the release, on the grounds of repentance, not only of Isidor, but of seven of the other prisoners, together with a request that he himself should be allowed to withdraw from the world in another monastery.

XIX

Ten years went by.

Mitya Smokovnikov had long since graduated from the technical institute and was now working as an engineer on a large salary in the Siberian gold-mines. He was due to go on a prospecting trip in a certain area. The mine director recommended that he should take with him the convict Stepan Pelageyushkin.

‘But why should I take a convict with me? Won’t that be dangerous?’

‘There’s nothing dangerous about him. He’s a holy man. Ask anyone you like.’

‘So why is he here?’

The director smiled.

‘He murdered six people, but he’s a holy man. I’ll vouch for him absolutely.’

And so Mitya agreed to take Stepan, now bald, thin and weather-beaten, and they set off together.

On the journey Stepan looked after everybody’s needs as far as he could, and he looked after Mitya Smokovnikov as if Mitya had been his own offspring; and as they travelled on he told Smokovnikov his whole story. And he told him how, and why, and on what lines he was living now.

And it was a very strange thing. Mitya Smokovnikov, who until that time had lived only to eat and drink, to play cards, and to enjoy wine and women, fell to thinking for the first time about his own life. And these thoughts of his would not leave him, in fact they started an upheaval in his soul which spread out wider and wider. He was offered a job which would have brought him great benefits. He turned it down and decided to settle for what he had, to buy an estate, to get married, and to serve the common people as best he could.

XX

And so he did. But first he went to see his father, with whom his relations were strained on account of his father’s new wife and family. Now, however, he had decided to make things up with his father. And so he did. And his father was quite astonished, and ridiculed him at first, but then he stopped criticizing his son and recalled the many, many occasions when he had been at fault with regard to him.

¹ A detachable voucher issued with government bonds and exchangeable for interest payments.

² Gentlemanly, respectable.

³ A card game resembling bridge.

⁴Sazhen: a measure equivalent to 2.13 metres (here cubic).

⁵ An educational and cultural centre for working people.

⁶ One desyatin = 1.09 hectares or 2.7 acres.

⁷ An elected district council which functioned in Russia from 1864 to 1917.

⁸ The raised platform from which the Scriptures were read and sermons preached.

⁹ I should like nothing better than to release the poor little girl, but you know how it is – one must stick to one’s duty.

¹⁰ The traditional names for a, b, v – the first letters of the Russian alphabet. Tolstoy promoted a more phonetic method of learning, and wrote several reading books.

¹¹ It is extremely nice of her.

¹² Have him sent for. He can preach at the cathedral.

¹³ He grew more and more aggressive.

ALYOSHA GORSHOK

ALYOSHKA was the youngest boy in his family. People started calling him ‘Gorshok’ because his mother once sent him to fetch some water for the deacon’s wife, and he tripped up and smashed the pot [gorshók] he was carrying it in. His mother beat him, and the children took to mocking him by calling him ‘Pot’. So ‘Alyoshka Gorshok’ – Alyoshka the Pot – became his nickname.