“I see him in my dreams,” said Maxim Ivanovich.
“And what of it?”
But the man revealed no more, he sat and said nothing. The abbot wondered, but with that he left; there was nothing more to be done here.
And Maxim Ivanovich sent for the tutor, for Pyotr Stepanovich; they hadn’t seen each other since that occasion.
“Do you remember?” he says.
“I do,” he says.
“You’ve painted oil paintings for the tavern here,” he says, “and made a copy of the bishop’s portrait. Can you paint a picture for me?”
“I can do everything,” he says. “I,” he says, “have all talents and can do everything.”
“Then paint me a very big picture, over the whole wall, and first of all paint the river on it, and the landing, and the ferry, and so that all the people who were there will be in the picture. The colonel’s wife, and the little girl, and that hedgehog. And paint me the whole other bank as well, so that it’s seen as it was—the church, the square, the shops, and the cab stand—paint it all as it was. And there by the ferry, paint the boy, just over the river, on that very spot, and he must have his two fists pressed to his breast, to both nipples. That without fail! And open up the sky before him on the other side over the church, and have all the angels in the heavenly light come flying to meet him. Can you satisfy me or not?”
“I can do everything.”
“I could invite the foremost painter from Moscow, or even from London itself, instead of a bumpkin like you, only you remember his face. If it comes out not like or a little like, I’ll only give you fifty roubles, but if it comes out very much like, I’ll give you two hundred. Remember, blue eyes . . . And the painting should be very, very big.”
They prepared everything; Pyotr Stepanovich started painting, then suddenly he comes:
“No,” he says, “it’s impossible to paint it like that.”
“How so?”
“Because this sin, suicide, is the greatest of all sins. So how would angels come to meet him after such a sin?”
“But he’s a child, he’s not responsible.”
“No, he’s not a child, but already a boy; he was eight years old when this happened. He has to give at least some sort of answer.”
Maxim Ivanovich was still more terrified.
“But,” says Pyotr Stepanovich, “here’s what I’ve thought up: we won’t open the sky or paint the angels; but I’ll bring a ray of light down from the sky as if to meet him; one bright ray of light: it will be as if there’s something all the same.”
So they brought down the ray of light. And I myself saw this painting afterwards, much later, and that same ray, and the river stretched across the whole wall, all blue; and the dear young boy right there, both hands pressed to his breast, and the young miss, and the hedgehog—he did it all satisfactorily. Only Maxim Ivanovich didn’t show the painting to anybody then, but locked it up in his study, away from all eyes. And they really were eager to have a look at it in town. He ordered everybody to be chased away. There was a lot of talk. And Pyotr Stepanovich was as if out of his mind then: “I can do everything now,” he says, “it’s proper for me to be at the court in St. Petersburg.” He was a most amiable man, but he had an inordinate love of extolling himself. And fate caught up with him: as soon as he received all two hundred roubles, he immediately started drinking and showing the money to everybody, boasting; and he was killed during the night, drunk, by one of our tradesmen, whom he had been drinking with, and robbed of his money. All this became known the next morning.
And it all ended in such a way that even now it’s the first thing they remember. Suddenly Maxim Ivanovich turns up at that same widow’s: she rented in a tradeswoman’s cottage at the edge of town. This time he went into the yard, stood before her, and bowed to the ground. And since those events the woman had been sick, could scarcely move. “Dear heart,” he cried, “honest widow, marry me, monster that I am, let me live in the world!” She looks at him, more dead than alive. “I want,” he says, “another boy to be born to us, and if he gets born, it would mean that that boy has forgiven us both, you and me. The boy told me to do it.” She can see the man is not in his right mind, he’s as if in a frenzy, but still she can’t help herself.
“That’s all trifles,” she said, “and nothing but faintheartedness. On account of this faintheartedness, I lost all my little ones. I can’t even bear the sight of you before me, still less take such an everlasting torment on myself.”
Maxim Ivanovich drove off, but he didn’t calm down. The whole town rumbled at such a wonder. And Maxim Ivanovich sent matchmakers. He summoned two aunts of his from the provincial capital, tradeswomen. Aunts or no aunts, they were relations, meaning it was honest; they started persuading her, turning her head, wouldn’t leave the cottage. He sent women from the towns-folk, from the merchants, sent the archpriest’s wife, and some wives of officials; the whole town surrounded her, but she even scorns them: “If,” she says, “my orphans could come back to life, but now what? To take such a sin on myself before my little orphans?” He persuaded the abbot, and he blew it into her ear: “You,” he says, “can call up a new man in him.” She was horrified. And people are astonished at her: “How is it even possible that she refuses such happiness!” And here’s what he tamed her with: “After all,” he says, “he’s a suicide, and not as a child, but already as a boy, and owing to his years, he couldn’t be admitted to holy communion directly,13 and so he still has to give some sort of answer. If you marry me, I’ll make you a great promise: I’ll build a new church only for the eternal commemoration of his soul.” She couldn’t stand up against that, and accepted him. So they were married.
And it turned out to everyone’s amazement. They began to live from the first day in great and unfeigned harmony, carefully preserving their marriage and like one soul in two bodies. She conceived that same winter, and they started going around to the churches of God and trembling before the wrath of the Lord. They visited three monasteries and heard prophecies. He constructed the promised church and built a hospital and an almshouse for the town. He allotted capital for widows and orphans. And he remembered everyone he had injured, and wished to recompense them; he started giving money away without stint, so that his spouse and the abbot restrained his hands, for “this,” they said, “is already enough.” Maxim Ivanovich obeyed: “I cheated Foma that time.” Well, so they paid Foma back. And Foma even wept: “I,” he says, “I’m so . . . There’s so much I’m content with even without that, and I’m eternally bounden to pray to God for you.” So everyone was touched by it, and that means it’s true what they say, that man will live by a good example. And they’re good people there.
His wife began to manage the factory herself, and in such a way that people still remember it. He didn’t stop drinking, but she took care of him on those days, and then also tried to cure him. His speech became decorous, and his voice itself even changed. He became filled with boundless pity, even for animals: from his window he saw a peasant beating his horse outrageously on the head and at once sent to him and bought the horse for twice the price. And he received the gift of tears:14 someone would start talking to him, and he’d just dissolve in tears. When her time came, the Lord finally heeded their prayers and sent them a son, and Maxim Ivanovich brightened up for the first time since those events; he gave away a lot of alms, forgave many debts, invited the whole town for the baptism. He invited the town, but the next day he came out black as night. His wife saw something had happened to him, she went up to him with the newborn. “The boy,” she says, “has forgiven us, and heeded our tears and prayers for him.” And it must be said that they hadn’t said a word about the matter for that whole year, but had kept it to themselves. And Maxim Ivanovich looked at her black as night. “Wait,” he says, “just consider, for the whole year he hasn’t come, but last night I saw him in a dream again.” “Here, for the first time, terror also entered my heart, after those strange words,” she remembered later.
And it was not for nothing