The Gentle Axe

The Holiest Man in Russia

As the day began, eight hundred versts south of St. Petersburg, in the town of Kaluga, a young deputy investigating magistrate pulled himself up into the box seat of an open sleigh. Yevgeny Nikolaevich Ulitin settled next to the driver and carelessly arranged a sheepskin over his legs. He was already wearing two fur coats, thick fur mittens, and a heavy ushanka. His blue eyes were bleary from lack of sleep, and his face was shimmeringly pale. He had been up half the night discussing zemstvo politics, the freedom of the press, the existence (or otherwise) of the soul, insanity (from both a legal and a strictly psychiatric point of view), ignorance, education, the church, the state of the peasantry, the emancipation of the serfs, the legal reforms, the tsar, the tsarina, the woman problem, the comparative beauty of two sisters, actresses both in the Kaluga Provincial Theater, beauty in the abstract, art, literature, architecture, St. Petersburg…

His partner in these often circular and invariably unsatisfying debates was Dr. Artemy Vsevolodovich Drozdov, whom Ulitin frequently declared to be the only other civilized being in Kaluga. Ulitin licked a metallic taste from his teeth. The fine wisps of his beard were plastered crustily around his mouth, and he resisted the temptation to send his tongue out to test the whiskers of his mustache. A vague memory of champagne-how many bottles had they opened? — prompted him to clamp one mittened hand over his mouth, as if he had just let slip an indiscretion. Whatever subjects they touched upon in their discussions, the two friends always returned to the same eternal theme. St. Petersburg. It was a mystery to each of them how he came to be rotting away in this provincial backwater when all his friends and associates from university days were undoubtedly carving out glorious careers for themselves, close to the heart of all that was worthwhile and invigorating. Sometimes these discussions lapsed into mere recitals of the streets and place-names of the great capital, culminating in a rapturous chorus of “Nevsky Prospect! Ah, the Nevsky Prospect!” There would then follow a meditative silence, during which the evening’s opened bottles would stare back at them sullenly. The night would break up soon after that, as memories of the pressing duties of the following day came back to claim them.

Nikita, his driver, was busy lighting a pipe. When this was securely completed, he turned stiffly toward Ulitin, at the same time leaning away from the younger man. It was a complicated posture, not without condescension. “Where are we going today, your honor?” asked Nikita as he took up the reins. Ulitin thought he detected an ironic tone in the peasant’s deference.

“Optina Pustyn.”

“Optina Pustyn?” Nikita threw the name back with astonishment. He put the reins down again.

“Yes.”

“It’s a long way.”

“I know. Which is why we should not waste another moment.”

“We may not make it before nightfall.”

“I think we will.”

“We may not make it at all, if there is a storm.”

“So what do you suggest, my friend? That we stay here? I have official business at the monastery. Should I telegram back to the authorities in St. Petersburg who have instructed me in this commission that I cannot go there because Nikita says it is a long way?”

“But if we get caught in a snowstorm and we lose the road, you will not thank me.”

“I will thank you if you get me to Optina Pustyn safely. I have to speak to Father Amvrosy on a very important matter.”

“Father Amvrosy?”

“Yes.”

“The holy man?”

“They say he is holy.”

“He is holy. There was this girl. The daughter of one of my wife’s relatives. Her sister’s mother-in-law’s brother’s daughter, or some such. Or perhaps it was someone else. Anyhow, he cured her.”

“Yes. I have heard similar stories.”

“The doctors couldn’t do a thing for her. She was just wasting away before their eyes. She couldn’t keep anything down, you see.” Nikita mimed vomiting. Ulitin closed his eyes and turned away. “They say he’s dying,” added Nikita. “Father Amvrosy. Doesn’t have long left in this world. Ah well, he is sure to be going to a better one.”

“All the more reason to hasten our journey,” said Ulitin.

Nikita stared at the deputy investigating magistrate for a long time, as if he had just said something incomprehensibly stupid. He then shrugged and took up the reins again. He shook his head and allowed the energy of his bewilderment to pass down the reins. The two horses shouldered heavily into the day, snorting their own reluctance back to their driver.

When the first flakes touched their faces, Nikita turned briefly in the same stiff, backward-leaning way toward Ulitin. But he said nothing. Neither of them had spoken for a long time.

Before long the air was filled with swirling flakes. They looped and spiraled but most of all fell, with a frantic and dizzying insistence. First the woods on either side disappeared from view. Then the posts that marked the road. Now all that Ulitin could see, apart from the teeming rush of the blizzard, was the back of the trace horse.

Nikita pulled on the reins, and they slid to a halt.

“We’ve lost the road,” he said, shielding his eyes and peering through the constantly shifting layers.

Ulitin said nothing.

Without warning Nikita jumped down from the box seat. He clapped his hands, nodded, then bustled off into the storm. In a moment he had vanished from sight.

Ulitin felt suddenly very alone. He heard the horses shift and shiver uneasily. Last night, with Drozdov, he had talked of the soul and of the question of its survival after death. With the abstract confidence of young men, they had resolved the issue beyond dispute. Drozdov was a doctor. He had vouched for the physiological basis of personality. The argument was irrefutable. If a subject’s personality could become changed through morbid disease, as in the case of dementia praecox, it was logical to argue that it did not have its basis in anything eternal and immutable. And if disease can mutate the subjective self, it is also logical to conclude that death will terminate it.

Now, sitting lost and abandoned in the middle of a furious snowstorm, Ulitin was not so sure. Or rather, he wished he had not been so sure.

He closed his eyes. It was as if he did not wish to catch himself in the act of saying a prayer.

The sleigh shook. Nikita clambered up next to him. Ulitin had never been so pleased to see another human.

“Stavrogin’s Copse. If we keep that to our right, we should find Kozelsk.”

Ulitin peered in the direction Nikita indicated. But all he could see was the maddening dance of snowflakes in front of his eyes.

They got tea and something to eat at the zemstvo hut in Kozelsk.

As they ate, they kept a close eye on the window, watching the storm intensify its rage. Ulitin became suddenly depressed and could bear it no longer. He looked away from the window and took out the telegram he had received the previous day.

GO TO OPTINA PUSTYN QUESTION F AMVROSY VERIFY OSIP MAXIMOVICH SIMONOV AT OPT PUST 29 NOV TO 11 DEC INC STOP

Ulitin handled the flimsy paper forlornly. The telegram had been sent by one Porfiry Petrovich, an investigating magistrate with the Department of the Investigation of Criminal Causes in St. Petersburg. As he touched the words, he seemed to feel a direct contact with the city, or at least with the dreams of his that it represented. His heart had quickened when he’d received it. He had seen it as an opportunity to impress important personages in the capital. Perhaps a transfer would follow. But now his ambitions had been swallowed up by the snow, and he was trapped in the zemstvo hut in Kozelsk.

He tried to imagine Porfiry Petrovich. When this proved impossible, he imagined himself walking down the Nevsky in summer.

“Well, your honor, will you look at that!”

Ulitin looked up. Nikita was pointing at the window. The storm had stopped. The sky was clear.

“Get the horses ready!”

“You’re not thinking of going now?”

“We have no time to lose,” cried Ulitin, rising to his feet.

Nikita shook his head regretfully. “No, no, no, your honor. It will be dark before I have a chance to get the sleigh out. It would be as well to wait until the morning. We will see how it is in the morning.”

Remembering how he had felt when Nikita had come back to him in the storm, Ulitin did not insist. He looked down at the telegram and felt a lump of self-pity in his throat. He blinked away the threat of tears.

They approached the monastery on the frozen river Zhidra.

Ulitin saw the gold crosses floating in the sky, the clear winter sunlight exulting on them. His heart leaped and he reproached it. They are only painted crossbeams of wood! But he could not deny that at first he had stared in amazement. For just an instant their appearance had seemed miraculous. How can that be? There was some trick, there had to be…Then they drew nearer. As the course of the river twisted their path, the crosses bobbed from one side to the other as if engaged in stately dance. And of course, it became clear. The crosses were mounted on cupolas, the blue of which had, from a distance, been indistinguishable from the sky. Gradually the domes had appeared, like a slow solidifying of the sky, forming beneath the crosses.

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.”

“A higher authority?”

“Yes.”

“What does he want to know, this higher authority of yours?”

“He wants to know if one Osip Maximovich Simonov was here at Optina Pustyn from the twenty-ninth of November to the eleventh of December.”

“You could have asked Brother Innokentiy that. It was he who looked after the gentleman. He took him his food every day and talked to him.”

“I was ordered to ask you.”

The elder’s eyes rolled away from Ulitin, it seemed in disappointment. Ulitin feared he had pushed the monk too far. “Someone by that name was here.”

“Between those dates?”

The old monk gave a barely perceptible nod. “The convent register will confirm it.”

“Thank you.” Ulitin made to rise. The eyes came back to hold him. These little movements of the eyes seemed to require every last calorie of energy the dying man possessed. They had to be important to him. Any one might be his last.

“Is there nothing else you wish to ask me?”

Ulitin hesitated. “Why did you agree to see me?”

Father Amvrosy swallowed epically. “I wanted to be sure,” he said at last, when the swallowing was finally done. “I wanted to look an atheist in the eye one last time.” As he spoke, the elder was staring fixedly into Ulitin’s eyes. His gaze was as tender and consoling as a lover’s.

“What do you see?” asked Ulitin, hardly daring to breathe.

“Fear,” said Father Amvrosy. With that he closed his eyes. After a moment he murmured something that sounded like “I’m not afraid.”

Ulitin felt himself raised and led from the bedroom. “But I am a believer!” he cried in sudden protest, and the outburst did not seem to surprise anyone.

Back in the room with the wealthy devout, Ulitin guiltily avoided the eyes of the girl in the wheelchair. He felt as though there was something between them, and he had betrayed her.

Her father accosted him. “Did you mention Lana to the elder? Did you tell him he has to see her?”

Ulitin shook his head.

Brother Innokentiy came in. The smile that occupied his lips now transcended all the others Ulitin had seen there. “Father Amvrosy is at peace,” he called, his voice cracking with emotion.

All around Ulitin people fell to their knees and began praying. Yevgeny Nikolaevich Ulitin did the same. The girl in the wheelchair was weeping.