Inexplicable & Unexplained Pt. V

I must now return to a very remarkable incident that happened to me earlier. In the spring of 1867, I went to Petersburg to bring my sister Liza, who had finished her course at the institute. Of course, I did not fail to stop in my eternally dear Pskov, where, despite all the life I had lived through in separation, I would still have friends. There were still many of them then!

I considered the Palchikov family—consisting of four sisters, of whom one was a widow and three old maids—the dearest of them all. What sweet, intelligent, educated and friendly women they were! Like many others, I knew of no greater pleasure than to visit their village of Shchiglitsy, about 25 miles from Pskov, at the mouth of the Velikaya River. What a beautiful place, what views from the wide terrace and from the garden, running down the steep bank to the river onto Lake Pskov, along which steamships and sailboats smoothly glide! Their light, cozy, spacious house always hospitably accommodated many friends and visitors. In this, it was similar to the hearts of its owners, who knew how to accommodate many honest feelings and many ardent affections.

How sincerely I was saddened to learn that my elder sister Anna Petrovna had recently died! It was somehow strange to imagine the Shchiglitsy house and its mistresses without her! It seemed that, having become orphans, they should have represented something like a beautiful building without a roof—a temple without a dome! And so, it was. Despite the joyful greetings with which I was greeted at the entrance, the cheerful, lively talk of the three sisters, I immediately saw that the whole house still bore the stamp of mourning, that great grief, a sorrow that had not yet had time to dull, was weighing down on everyone and everything!

Not even ten minutes had passed when the conversation itself turned to the eternal theme of memories of the dear, unforgettable departed. Without hiding their tears, my dear old ladies began to tell me about her last days on earth. Then they moved on to her life, eternally active for the benefit of others, pure as the azure of that Great River on which she had passed! I myself sincerely cried with them. And I myself was ready to remember and ask endlessly about her last years. Thus, we talked tirelessly until midnight. It was a late hour for the early-rising sisters. We said goodbye.

“We didn’t even ask you!” the eldest widow suddenly remembered. “Will you be uncomfortable sleeping in Anyuta’s room? Everything is still as it was, cozy and comfortable.”

“Oh, not at all!” I answered with conviction. “What could possibly be unpleasant for me in this? You know what friends we were.”

“Yes, but you wrote to us, remember, that you sometimes experienced spiritual phenomena?” another sister noticed.

“Does anything like that happen there?” I asked, not entirely pleasantly surprised.

“Oh, no! Never!” they hastened to assure me. “Our late sister’s maid said that she once heard a knock there…just like the one your sister used to have.”

“But that’s nothing new to you!” Ekaterina Petrovna, the youngest, added conscientiously. “You won’t be scared?”

“I won’t be scared—but I hope it is not so loud that it interferes with my sleep.”

To tell the truth, the sisters counted too much on my “habit.” Tired from the journey and tears, a sleepless night did not appeal to me at all. However, the two older sisters began to vie with each other to reproach Ekaterina Petrovna for her trust in the servants’ chatter and to assure me that nothing of the sort existed—and could not exist—in the room where their dear departed sister had lived so sacredly and where she prayed so much. We said goodbye, but Ekaterina Petrovna came in with me, and we talked for another half hour.

“If anything happens,” she said to me as she left, “please don’t stand on ceremony. My room, you know, is next door. Knock on it and we’ll swap bedrooms.”

She left, but soon afterwards an old maid, whom I had known for a long time, entered the room.

“Are you awake, Agrafena?” I said. “It is already late! Go, please! I don’t need you for anything.”

But to my surprise, Agrafena announced that since the death of the “old lady” she always slept here, behind the partition on the sofa.

“If you don’t mind, madam, I will sleep here tonight.”

I hastened to say that, on the contrary, I was very glad. I was, in fact, pleased that there would be a living creature next to me behind the chintz curtain.

And so, she lay down. For a while, while I was undressing, we talked about something, recalling the past. The hour struck. Agrafena yawned sweetly and I fell silent. Around me, all the deceased’s things and furniture stood in exactly the same order as when she was alive. The hours I spent here with her were still so vivid in my memory that it seemed to me that at any moment she would come in, or I would hear her kind, cheerful voice. That’s what I thought, washing myself, combing my hair, taking some things out of my toiletry bag that I couldn’t do without, and among other things my little, cherished Bible, which had been here in previous years. I put it on the night stand, on her night stand, getting ready before going to bed to her bed, to pray at her shrine. “What? Would I be afraid if I saw her?” I suddenly thought. “I don’t think so.”

Suddenly, as if in response to my thought, three sharp, distinct knocks were clearly heard on Anna Petrovna’s night stand, as if someone had tapped hard with a fingernail. I knew what it meant: “Yes! Yes! Yes!” I wasn’t scared, but I stepped back from the table, amazed, perplexed.
“Could this really be…her answer?”

At that very second, negative, double knocks were heard from several sides at once: “No-no! No-no!”

At that very moment, I heard Agrafena rise from behind the partition. It was as if the invisible agents had been waiting for this! Knocks began to be heard throughout the room and even beyond its walls, on the shutters, on the window panes, everywhere and from all sides. The knocks were not loud, but sharp, as if someone was beating out a drumbeat with small sticks in all corners and in all keys.

“Hey! This is bad! They won’t let me sleep!”

As if in response to my thought, the maid whispered: “What a disaster! What is this?”

“What? Hasn’t this happened before?” I asked.

“It happened once. Then nothing was heard. And what is this? This is not good at all!” Agrafena stood up. She looked at all the walls, felt the windows and tables, and looked in on me. “Aren’t you afraid, madam?”

“Afraid, yes, but scared or not, I can’t sleep!”

“That’s the whole point! What can I do about it? Should I run into the garden and have a look? See how it’s beating on the shutters. What a wonder!”

“It’s a wonder, indeed—truly a wonder—but it’s pointless going out into the garden, you won’t see anything! Maybe it will calm down. Let’s pray instead, and lie down, Agrafenushka, maybe we’ll fall asleep! So that’s just what we did. I myself did not pray—I could not yet collect my thoughts, but I clearly heard how Agrafena fervently crossed herself, bowing and whispering: “May the Lord arise again, and may His enemies be scattered.”

But the “enemies,” as if trying to prove that they were not at all the evil spirit to which Agrafena mentally attributed them, did not even think of disappearing. On the contrary! As if to mock her, they began drumming even louder and, if it can be said, more cheerfully! So, the poor thing whispered a prayer and finally fell asleep under their drumming and trilling.

But I couldn’t sleep!

Thousands of thoughts filled my head. I stood before the images, bathed in the quiet radiance of the unquenchable lamp, and thought and thought. What is this? Why is this? Who is this for? Where is this coming from? Usually when they call, there is a medium, and it’s for some purpose, with meaning—to convince someone about something or to warn them. But in this case, there seemed to be no reason at all? Interfering with sleep, frightening others—annoying everyone! Why was this allowed?

And suddenly I became indignant in spirit.

“This can’t be her. It can’t be that she—so kind, reasonable, tactful—was behind this or consented to this! No, no! But if this isn’t her, if she does not know what is going on in this place where she spent her entire earthly life—I want her to hear! I want her to see! So that by her will, this noise will stop!”

I stood up, inspired by an extraordinary surge of will and began to pray fervently. I was sure that this “unworthy commotion” must immediately cease!

And it really began to subside. The blows became weaker and weaker, as if they were moving into the distance, and finally died away. I prayed as always, perhaps a little more fervently than usual, and thought again. I was deep in thought, fixing my gaze on the illuminated icons, wavering in light, completely forgetting about the time and the fact that I was standing in prayer. I cannot convey my thoughts! I only know that they all boiled down to one thing: “Does love really survive everything? Do those who have passed away see, understand, love us, the living?”

I was so deep in my thoughts that I was not immediately distracted from them by the rustling sound behind me. Hearing it, not only was I not frightened, but I did not even pay attention to it for the first minute. The rustling sound was heard again, more clearly. It seemed to me that behind my back someone was opening a book, rustling the pages. As soon as I came to my senses, I turned back from the icon case to the bed and saw that the Gospel was already open on the night table. In amazement, with a strongly beating heart, I approached the night stand, looked at the open page of the Bible, and the first line that caught my eye served as a direct answer to my thoughts. “He is not the God of the dead, but of the living!”

I fell asleep late that night but slept peacefully. My last thought before going to bed was: “This is her doing. She did this!” And I still think so and firmly believe in it. At the time I told this incident to all my relatives. The Palchikov sisters learned about it that same morning. Even before I got up, Agrafena’s story about the strange knocks at night greatly disturbed the God-fearing old women; but when I told them the final details of this remarkable night, they calmed down a little, fully sharing my view of the whole incident.

The full text of “Inexplicable And Unexplained” is available as a free PDF here: The Inexpliable And Unexplained

Inexplicable & Unexplained Pt. V

Who was the younger brother of Moses?