Surrounded by the foe on every side, I wave my sword, and kill one of
them and wound another--then a third,--then a fourth. At last, exhausted
with loss of blood and fatigue, I fall to the ground and cry, 'Victory!'
The general comes to look for me, asking, 'Where is our saviour?'
whereupon I am pointed out to him. He embraces me, and, in his turn,
exclaims with tears of joy, 'Victory!' I recover and, with my arm in a
black sling, go to walk on the boulevards. I am a general now. I meet
the Emperor, who asks, 'Who is this young man who has been wounded?' He
is told that it is the famous hero Nicolas; whereupon he approaches me
and says, 'My thanks to you! Whatsoever you may ask for, I will grant
it.' To this I bow respectfully, and, leaning on my sword, reply, 'I am
happy, most august Emperor, that I have been able to shed my blood
for my country. I would gladly have died for it. Yet, since you are
so generous as to grant any wish of mine, I venture to ask of you
permission to annihilate my enemy, the foreigner St. Jerome' And then I
step fiercely before St. Jerome and say, 'YOU were the cause of all my
fortunes! Down now on your knees!'
Unfortunately this recalled to my mind the fact that at any moment the
REAL St. Jerome might be entering with the cane; so that once more I
saw myself, not a general and the saviour of my country, but an unhappy,
pitiful creature.
Then the idea of God occurred to me, and I asked Him boldly why He had
punished me thus, seeing that I had never forgotten to say my prayers,
either morning or evening. Indeed, I can positively declare that it was
during that hour in the store-room that I took the first step towards
the religious doubt which afterwards assailed me during my youth (not
that mere misfortune could arouse me to infidelity and murmuring, but
that, at moments of utter contrition and solitude, the idea of the
injustice of Providence took root in me as readily as bad seed takes
root in land well soaked with rain). Also, I imagined that I was
going to die there and then, and drew vivid pictures of St. Jerome's
astonishment when he entered the store-room and found a corpse there
instead of myself! Likewise, recollecting what Natalia Savishna had told
me of the forty days during which the souls of the departed must hover
around their earthly home, I imagined myself flying through the rooms
of Grandmamma's house, and seeing Lubotshka's bitter tears, and hearing
Grandmamma's lamentations, and listening to Papa and St. Jerome talking
together. 'He was a fine boy,' Papa would say with tears in his
eyes. 'Yes,' St. Jerome would reply, 'but a sad scapegrace and
good-for-nothing.' 'But you should respect the dead,' would expostulate
Papa. 'YOU were the cause of his death; YOU frightened him until he
could no longer bear the thought of the humiliation which you were about
to inflict upon him. Away from me, criminal!' Upon that St. Jerome would
fall upon his knees and implore forgiveness, and when the forty
days were ended my soul would fly to Heaven, and see there something
wonderfully beautiful, white, and transparent, and know that it was
Mamma.
And that something would embrace and caress me. Yet, all at once, I
should feel troubled, and not know her. 'If it be you,' I should say
to her, 'show yourself more distinctly, so that I may embrace you in
return.' And her voice would answer me, 'Do you not feel happy thus?'
