It was said that some extraordinary swimmer came swimming towards the palace from the direction of the Peter-and-Paul Fortress,8 that one of the sentries standing watch by the palace shot at the swimmer and wounded him, and that a passing invalid officer threw himself into the water and saved him, for which they received, the one his due reward, the other his deserved punishment. This absurd rumor even reached patriarchal quarters, where at that time a certain bishop was living, a cautious man and not indifferent to “secular events,” who was benevolently disposed towards the pious Moscow family of the Svinyins.9
To the perspicacious bishop the story of the shot seemed unclear. What was this night swimmer? If he was an escaped prisoner, why had they punished the sentry, who had only done his duty by shooting at him as he swam across the Neva from the fortress? If, however, he was not a prisoner, but some other mysterious person who had had to be saved from the waves of the Neva, then why should the sentry have known about him? And then again, it cannot be that it was the way the idle talk of the world had it. In the world there is a great deal of light-mindedness and “idle talk,” but those who live in cloisters and in church precincts treat everything much more seriously and know the very truth about secular matters.
XVII
Once, when Svinyin happened to be at the bishop’s to receive his blessing, his reverend host began talking with him “incidentally about that shot.” Svinyin told him the whole truth, in which, as we know, there was nothing resembling the story made up “incidentally about that shot.”
The bishop heard out the true story in silence, slightly moving his white prayer beads and not taking his eyes off the storyteller. When Svinyin finished, the bishop uttered in softly burbling speech:
“Wherefore it is incumbent upon us to conclude that not always and everywhere has this affair been set forth in accordance with the full truth?”
Svinyin faltered and then answered evasively that the report was made not by him, but by General Kokoshkin.
The bishop ran his beads through his waxen fingers several times in silence, and then said:
“A distinction must be made between what is a lie and what is an incomplete truth.”
Again the beads, again the silence, and, finally, the softly flowing speech:
“An incomplete truth is not a lie. But the less said …”
“That is indeed so,” began the encouraged Svinyin. “For me, of course, the most disturbing thing is that I had to subject that soldier to punishment, for, though he violated his duty …”
The beads and then a softly flowing interruption:
“The duties of the service must never be violated.”
“Yes, but he did it out of magnanimity, out of compassion, and with such a struggle and such danger besides: he realized that, by saving another man’s life, he was destroying himself … This was a lofty, a holy feeling!”
“The holy is known to God, while punishment of the flesh is never injurious for the simple man and contradicts neither national custom nor the spirit of the Scriptures. The rod is far easier for the coarse body to bear than refined suffering is for the soul. In this justice has not suffered from you in the least.”
“But he was also deprived of the reward for saving a life.”
“Saving a life is not a merit, but rather a duty. He who could save a life and does not is punishable by law, and he who does has performed his duty.”
A pause, the beads, and the soft flow:
“For a soldier to suffer humiliation and wounds for his exploit may be far more salutary than to be exalted by some mark. But the major thing here is—to observe caution about this whole affair and by no means mention anywhere those to whom by some chance or other it has been recounted.”
Evidently the bishop was also pleased.
XVIII
If I had the daring of those lucky ones chosen by heaven, to whom, for the greatness of their faith, it is given to penetrate the mysteries of divine providence, I might be so bold as to allow myself to suppose that God himself was probably pleased with the behavior of Postnikov’s humble soul, which He created. But I have little faith; it does not give my mind the power to contemplate such loftiness: I am of the earth, earthy.10 I am thinking of those mortals who love the good simply for the sake of the good itself and expect no reward for it anywhere. These straightforward and reliable people, it seems to me, should also be perfectly pleased by the holy impulse of love and the no less holy patience of the humble hero of my faithful and artless story.
* The dots on the i’s. Trans.
A Robbery
I
The conversation got onto the embezzlement in the Orel bank, the case of which was tried in the fall of 1887. It was said that this one was a good man, and that one seemed like a good man, but, nevertheless, they all turned out to be thieves.
An old Orel merchant, who happened to be in the company, said:
“Ah, gentlemen, when the thieves’ time comes, even honest people turn robber.”
“Well, there you’re joking.”
“Not in the least. Otherwise why is it said: ‘With the pure thou wilt show thyself pure; and with the froward thou wilt show thyself froward’?1 I know of an occasion when an honest man robbed another man in the street.”
“That can’t be.”
“On my word of honor—he robbed him, and if you like, I can tell you about it.”
“Please be so kind.”
Then the merchant told us the following story, which had taken place some fifty years ago in that same Orel, not long before the famous fires that devastated the town. It happened under the late governor of Orel, Prince Pyotr Ivanovich Trubetskoy.2
Here is how he told it.
II
I’m an Orel old-timer. Our whole family—we weren’t among the least of people. We had our own house on Nizhnaya Street, by the Plautin Well, and our own granaries, and our own barges; we kept a fulling works, traded in hemp, and handled the grain collection. Our fortune wasn’t desperately big, but we never pinched pennies, and we passed for being honest people.
My father died when I was going on sixteen. The business was managed by my mother, Arina Leontyevna, and an old clerk, and at the time I only looked on. In everything, by paternal will, I was totally obedient to my mother. I never got up to any mischief or naughtiness, and I was zealous and fearful towards the Church of the Lord. Mama’s sister, my aunt, the venerable widow Katerina Leontyevna, also lived with us. She was a most pious, saintly woman. We were of churchly faith, as father had been, and belonged to the parish of the Protection, served by the reverend Father Efim, but Aunt Katerina Leontyevna adhered to the old ways: she drank from her own special glass and went to the Old Believers in the fish market to pray.3 My mama and aunt were from Elets, and there, in Elets and in Livny, they had very good kin, but they rarely saw them, because the Elets merchants like to boast before the Orel merchants and often get belligerent in company.
Our house by the Plautin Well wasn’t big, but it was very well appointed, merchant-style, and our way of life was the strictest. Having lived in the world for nineteen years, I knew my way only to the granaries or the barges on the riverbank, when they were being loaded, and on Sundays to the early service in the Protection—and from the service straight back home, so as to give proof to my mama by telling her what the Gospel reading was about and whether Father Efim gave any sermon; and Father Efim had a degree in divinity, and when he applied himself to a sermon, there was no understanding it. After Kamensky, our theater was kept by Turchaninov and then by Molotkovsky,4 but not for anything would mama allow me to go to the theater, or even to the Vienna tavern to drink tea. “You’ll hear nothing good there in the Vienna,” she’d say. “You’d better sit at home and eat pickled apples.” Only once or twice a winter was a full pleasure allowed me: to go out and see how Constable Bogdanov and the archdeacon turned their fighting geese loose or how the townsfolk and seminarians got into fistfights.