From the gatehouse by the river to the convent was a steep walk up a forested mountain. Ulitin had heard that some pilgrims completed it on their knees. He left Nikita and the horses at the gatehouse and set out on foot with a young monk who gave every impression of expecting him.
It’s just a way they have, thought Ulitin. They like to make a mystery out of everything.
The young monk was excitable and garrulous and seemed unable to look Ulitin in the eye. His talk was trivial, at times almost hysterical. He reminded Ulitin of a child on the eve of a holiday.
Perhaps he’s simpleminded, he thought.
“You’ve come to see Father Amvrosy,” said the young monk, whose name was Brother Innokentiy. Although he was dressed only in a monastic cassock, he didn’t seem to feel the cold. He walked quickly, despite the deep snow and the treacherous path.
Ulitin frowned in annoyance and hurried to keep up.
Brother Innokentiy smiled enigmatically. “Why else would you come? There are many who have already made the pilgrimage. Every day someone arrives. You will have to wait your turn to see him.”
“I’m not a pilgrim. I’m here on official business. I’m an investigating magistrate.”
“He won’t see you. He’s not interested in earthly affairs.”
“It’s a very important matter. I have orders from St. Petersburg. From the police authorities. It is to do with a criminal investigation.”
“He won’t talk about it. He doesn’t care about such things now. The time has gone for him to talk about such things.” Brother Innokentiy flashed one of his questing, sly glances. “What is it about? Perhaps I can help you.” His smile was insinuating.
“I have been directed to talk to Father Amvrosy.”
“But he won’t see you, I tell you. Not about this. If it was about your soul, perhaps.” Brother Innokentiy giggled unpleasantly as if he had just made a very funny, though slightly risqué joke. “He may die any moment. What if he dies before we reach the convent? You’ll have to ask me then.” One side of the monk’s mouth snagged up in a leering grin.
Ulitin slowed his pace. He was tired. But he wanted to let the monk get ahead of him. He wanted a respite from his chatter.
Brother Innokentiy waited for him to catch up. His welcoming smile had a gloating edge.
Brother Innokentiy showed him into a room that was crowded with well-to-do pilgrims. Everyone seemed to be affected by the same talkative excitement that Ulitin had sensed in the monk. As they entered, every face turned to them expectantly, there was a momentary hush, and then the din picked up again.
Ulitin felt aggrieved on the old, dying monk’s behalf. They are expecting a miracle, he thought. They have come for a miracle, but they look like vultures.
A group of landowners, the men in immaculate frock coats, the women already in shining black, made straight for Brother Innokentiy. Their faces were set with sanctimony. “How is he now?” was the question they all wanted to know the answer to.
“I don’t know,” said Brother Innokentiy. “I’ve come from the gatehouse.” He seemed delighted not to have any news for them.
“The end is near though, isn’t it?” The middle-aged woman who spoke couldn’t keep the eagerness out of her question, though her face was a solemn mask. She scrutinized Brother Innokentiy through a lorgnette.
A stout red-faced man pushing a girl of about eighteen in a wheelchair forced his way to the front. “He must see her. He must see my Lana. Please, you must make him see her.” The girl blushed. She is quite beautiful when she blushes, thought Ulitin. Her eyes sought his, then looked away.
“He knows you are here. He knows you are all here. He asks for those he wants to see,” said Brother Innokentiy.
“It is not as if I haven’t been generous to the brothers,” insisted the stout man, short of breath.
“Daddy!” protested Lana.
“Your generosity has not gone unnoticed. But perhaps there are others in greater spiritual need. There is so little time left. He can’t see everyone.”
“He will see me,” said Yevgeny Nikolaevich Ulitin abruptly.
Brother Innokentiy looked Ulitin up and down thoroughly. “Perhaps he will,” he said at last, quietly, and left.
He is not simpleminded after all, thought Ulitin.
The stout landowner took hold of Ulitin’s arm. He had seen something in the young monk’s look. “Make him see my Lana, before it’s too late,” he pleaded.
For a moment Ulitin thought the man on the bed was already dead. His long white hair lay haloed about his head. The skin on his face was drawn back skeletally. His body was motionless, a minimal disruption in the blankets. It was hard to believe there really was a body under them. His eyes were open, but they didn’t seem to see anyone in the room. They were fixed on a point beyond the ceiling.
The small bedroom was filled with monks, all of them standing. Some were dressed imposingly in robes embroidered with scriptural passages. Every one of them was reciting from the gospel, their gentle murmurs lapping over the dying man, like a kind of final baptism of voices before death.
“He has moments of remarkable lucidity and long spells when he is lost to us,” explained Brother Innokentiy in an excited whisper. “The Lord is already calling to him. I was able to tell him about you. That an important magistrate has come on official business.”
“I am not important,” said Ulitin, and blushed. It was the last thing he would have thought he was going to say.
It is false, he thought. That’s why I blushed. Because it was false. I have been affected by all of this.
“But still he wouldn’t see you,” went on Brother Innokentiy gleefully. “It was only when I told him that you were a nonbeliever that he asked for you to be brought.”
“How do you know I’m a nonbeliever?”
“It’s in your eyes.” Brother Innokentiy smiled provokingly. “You must kneel beside his bed and wait for him to notice you. Do not speak until he speaks to you. If he closes his eyes, you must go.”
Ulitin did as he was directed. At the same time Brother Innokentiy leaned intimately close to the old monk’s face, as if he would kiss him, but instead whispered something in his ear. Brother Innokentiy moved away. Ulitin almost thought he winked at him.
Close to the dying man, Ulitin remembered how he had felt the day before when Nikita had left him alone on the sleigh, his rationalist certainties battered by the storm.
The old man’s eyes rolled heavily toward Ulitin. The expression was infinitely pleading. “What do you want to ask me?” The voice seemed to come from far away, and as the monk’s lips barely moved, it was tempting to believe that someone else was speaking for him.
Ulitin felt suddenly ashamed. “I am sorry to trouble you at this time,” he said uselessly.
Father Amvrosy closed his eyes. Ulitin’s heart sank. He did not want the audience to end, even though it was not important to him to ask the questions anymore. It was the privilege of the moment that he wanted to hold on to. He was about to get up when Father Amvrosy opened his eyes again.
“So you do not believe in God?”
“Not in God, not in the soul, not in eternal life.”
Ulitin thought he saw a gentle smile form beneath the monk’s massive beard. Perhaps it was a mild twinge of pain. “So why does it matter to you?”
“What?”
“Your investigation. If you don’t believe in God, what does it matter?”
“Because there must be laws. A legal framework. Men must respect one another’s rights. The right to life, for example. It is a question of social order. It is quite rational.” Ulitin paused and added, “But it is not my investigation. I’m under instruction from a magistrate in St. Petersburg.”