Inexplicable & Unexplained Pt. VI

A few more memories of the “inexplicable” facts of my life, which is rich in them.

In the autumn of 1872, I don’t remember the date or month, my husband and I were sitting at the large dining table in the dining room at twelve o’clock in the evening, reading newspapers and magazines. A large lamp brightly illuminated this long, high room from the ceiling. There were no windows in it, but seven large doors, four of which were glass. I was sitting with my back to one of them, to my room; opposite me was the door to the room of my elder sons, and from there was a passage to the endless corridors of the school. My husband was sitting with his back to it, directly opposite me, engrossed in his newspapers. Three doors (to my right and to his left) were wide open—one into the garden, the other, opposite it, into the drawing-room, where there was no light, and in the transverse wall there was a door into the study, lit only by the light from the street and our lamp. It was a clear, warm, quiet night. The drawing-room was flooded with streams of moonlight through the wide-open windows. We hurried to finish reading, so as to have time to walk around the garden. The whole house was already asleep. Everything was so quiet that the conversation from the street reached us clearly through the empty drawing-room, and the measured steps of passers-by echoed along the pavement flags. But when they fell silent, complete silence reigned.

During one of these moments of calm, my husband and I suddenly looked at each other and jumped up at once.

“Alexander Borisovich!” we cried out together.

“Yes, it’s him! That’s right, he drove up to the entrance.”

“No, it seemed to me from the garden!”

“The garden is locked! Probably from the street.”

My husband rushed through his study into the hall to open the door. I ran to the closed window of the living room, from where our entrance was visible. My eyes immediately saw the entire moonlit street, the entire square between the gymnasium, and the palace—that’s all. Here and there the silhouettes of passers-by were visible, but the expected carriage at the porch with our dear visitor from the Stavropol Province was nowhere to be seen.

Still filled with the conviction that our friend A. B. Ivanitsky had arrived, I shouted to my husband who appeared at the entrance: “See! I told you he was in the garden!”

And he rushed from the window back into the dining room to the garden doors. In the garden, however, everything was quiet and deserted.
I peered intently into the shadow cast by the house on this side of the garden, wondering if Alexander Borisovich had walked from the garden straight through the kitchen. But if this were the case, he should have already walked up from the lower corridor to the stairs. Still confident of his arrival—could I doubt it when I heard his peculiar, loud, cheerful voice so clearly—I ran into the inner corridor, where there was a staircase, down to the kitchen, and into the entryway. The door to the garden was locked, a lamp dimly lit the corridor, but everyone was already asleep. I went back up to the dining room in great confusion. My husband was standing at the table, his eyes downcast, hands and head, deep in thought. We looked at each other in silence.

“Nowhere?” I finally said.

He shook his head.

“I walked around the garden and the yard. Everything is locked. Something isn’t right.”

“No. Tell me, what did you hear?”

“I clearly heard Ivanitsky’s voice: ‘Vladimir Ivanovich! Hello!’”

“Well, I heard: ‘Hello, Vera Petrovna!’”

“At the same time? This is very strange!”

“Yes, there are many strange things in the world. We will wait.”

We did not have to wait long. The next day Pyotr Borisovich, the brother of our old friend, came to us to ask that an official memorial service be held in the school church for his brother Alexander. A telegram had just been received that he had died the previous evening on his estate in Stavropol Province.

I have never seen ghosts, but several times I have seen some very distinct, clear, and strange shadows, which sometimes turned out to be prophetic. I will not talk about all of them, but I will tell you about one. It was in the winter of 1876. We had just moved from the gymnasium to a private apartment. Once, late in the evening, the children were already asleep, and Masha (long since renamed from maid to nanny and family member) were in a hurry to finish some work in the only large room not occupied by bedrooms, our living room. Suddenly I saw on opposite wall a strikingly clear silhouette of a dead child lying on the table with its chubby little hands folded. At first, I was scared. Then I quickly remembered that I no longer had such small children, and I began to look for what could have caused such a strange shadow? There was a lot of furniture in the room, so it was quite difficult to figure this out. Meanwhile, my frightened Masha earnestly asked me to destroy it, to spoil such a truly unpleasant sight. We began to diligently move the furniture, press down and rearrange things on the tables and destroyed this strange effect of light and shadow. But a few months later, in the spring of the same year, we saw it again. Only this time it did not form accidentally but fell from a child actually lying on the table. My sister Liza paid us a surprise visit with her husband and ten-month-old son, and the poor little thing, having fallen ill with diphtheria, died within a week. Quite by chance he was laid in such a way that, entering the room, I was struck by a memory—on the same wall I saw a repetition of the shadow that preceded the event.

I had a dear friend. A man such as one rarely meets in life. Kind, intelligent, honest to the point of pedantry; indulgent to everyone except himself; straightforward to the extreme, sensitive to everything, morbidly developed. It is clear that life could not be a gentle mother to such a person. However, he himself never considered himself offended by it, and good-naturedly took from it with gratitude the little that it gave him. He was far from an atheist, even strictly observed all the ritual aspects of Orthodoxy—but he was not a completely steadfast person in matters of faith itself. Excessive conscientiousness in official work finally undermined his poor health. By the age of forty, Dmitry Ilyich was already, as they say, “not a long-lived man.” There was a close relationship between him and my husband; we saw each other every day, and sometimes when he had an easier day, he would come to us himself and loved, especially in the last period of his life, to start abstract conversations with me, as he would jokingly call them: “about Byron and about important matters!”

“You are a lucky lady!” he would usually say at the end of a conversation. And then, catching himself, he would add skeptically. “If only you are sincere!”

I never took the trouble to assure him of this. I only smiled in response to such insult, knowing very well that Dmitry Ilyich cannot consider me a hypocrite.

But once, two days before his death, he was already lying in bed, and I was sitting next to him, he again seriously repeated his question.

“Tell me the truth—do you really think and feel the way you say? You have no doubts? Do you firmly believe in all this?”

The moment was solemn.

We were alone with him. His wife and eldest daughter, tired from sleepless nights, were lying down. There were no younger children in the house; all the household had gone to the all-night vigil. (It was Passion Week.) That morning, having gathered his last strength, the poor sick man confessed, and even went out to his living room for this purpose, where, sitting in an armchair, he took communion. In such circumstances, rash answers are not given. I tried to concentrate, to think, to go deep into myself, and a minute later I answered according to my best understanding.

“It seems to me that I can no longer be afraid of doubts. I hope so! I would feel too unhappy and completely helpless against life if this support were taken away from me!”

“Would it reassure you if you were sent a certificate? Something that would be clear and would confirm your hopes for the future life and everything that you expect in it?”

“Yes, of course! Although I am already sure.”

“Okay. If you are right, I give you my word that I will try to give you confirmation. You know, there is no point in us being hypocritical, both you and I know very well that I have only a few days left to live.”

“First of all,” I interrupted, “no one knows their day or hour! And secondly,” I tried to smile, “you know what a coward I am! I don’t want you to come and scare me. Please don’t worry!”

But I couldn’t strike a joking tone. The patient interrupted seriously:

“Stop it! What nonsense? As if I won’t be able to protect you? Don’t be afraid—I’ll find a way to remind you of this conversation without frightening you. If only I remain myself there, I promise to give you an answer to our three main questions!”

Okay. I’ll wait!” I agreed, smiling so as not to cry.

“No! You better not wait—maybe they’ll interfere!” he added, good-naturedly. “But…I’ll try!” He took my hand. “It would be nice. I would be glad myself! Am I not such a sinful person as to be afraid of the future life?”

“We must think that even those more sinful than you are better off in that life than here!” I said.

“Well…God grant it! To tell the truth, it’s difficult! I’m tired of this struggle. The eternal struggle to get humanity a ‘certificate of maturity into unknown, higher courses!’” he said with a smile, parodying my words and opinions about the inevitability of all life’s trials.

I will not, and cannot, tell you about our previous and subsequent conversations—my last heart-to-heart talk with this heart-to-heart man! Suffice it to say, for the sake of clarity, that what he called “our three main questions,” about which we often talked together, sitting up late at night, the three of us—me, my husband, and he—were, of course, the future life, the preservation of individuality beyond the grave, the immortality of love from the Christian point of view, and the great meaning of the redemption of mankind on the cross.

At night, on Maundy Thursday, Dmitry Ilyich died. My husband and I lost a lot, morally, with the death of this man. His family lost everything! There were small, unattached children, and a sick wife. The situation was difficult, especially since, like all people of the highest moral character, he left nothing to his family except his pension.

Several months passed. Under the influence of personal sorrows, I completely forgot everything, not only the words of Dmitry Ilyich, but almost he, himself, faded into the background of my thoughts. Summer was ending, and we were already preparing to return to the city from the Manglis dacha, especially since it was raining incessantly, preventing us from enjoying walks in the lovely forests and mountains. It was a sad summer in general! I had barely put off my mourning for my father; my husband was getting sick more often, and it was already clear that his illness was taking on a serious, threatening character. At the end of the summer there were several especially hard, dreary days! I was tormented by fears and felt all the more unhappy because of all my loved ones, relatives and friends, none of them were near me! My family on my mother’s side left Tiflis completely after the death of my grandfather and uncle. My brother and both sisters were also far away. The friends somehow wandered away. Some died, some left, some simply distanced themselves, as people usually distance themselves from those whose red days have passed! Good people always instinctively guess such turns in the lives of their neighbors and imperceptibly avoid them. The happier, more cheerful, more hospitable these “neighbors” were, the more “good people” were accustomed to enjoying the warmth and light of life from them—the more surely everyone will recoil from them when the twilight thickens around them! The more fully those who fell “under the strong hand of God” will feel the sudden change and their complete loneliness in the hour of trials. In a word, I was completely alone! The children were still too young, and around me I saw no one with whom I could unburden my soul, ease my grief! For the sake of the peace of the family, and especially for the sake of my husband’s health, I tried, as much as I could, to hide everything within myself, to do bonne mine à mauvais jeu, but at times it was beyond my strength to wage a constant external struggle with life, with our enemies (people whom my husband, in his kindness, pulled out of the mud and who, as always happens, turned their snake stings on him!) and at the same time to struggle internally with myself! As always in great and, as it seems to us, undeserved trials, it is difficult, submitting to them against our will, to come to terms with our own outraged feelings! Like tormenting ghosts, like eternally gnawing leeches in the form of black question marks, painful questions arose in my clouded thoughts: “Why?! For what?! Will there be an end?! Will the sun of truth rise? Will God’s mercy ever shine upon us again?!”

Yes! Those were hard days for me. Afterwards, it became easier—it settled down! But at first, out of habit, it was so hard at times to the point that I didn’t know what to do with myself! Where could I get the strength for arguments against myself?

Several days were especially dreary. My husband, being ill, was terribly depressed, and nature along with him frowned, pouring out streams of rain, enveloping us in impenetrable fogs, like a shroud. One night I went to bed late, irritated, indignant to the depths of my soul; but as soon as my head touched the pillow, I fell asleep at once.

The transition from consciousness to deep sleep was so fast that it seemed to me as if I was not sleeping at all, but suddenly found myself at some glass door, pressing my face against it. Looking closely, I recognized where I was—it was the glass door in our former school apartment, where the best years of my life were spent! The very door from my bedroom to the dining room, near which I heard the voice of the late Ivanitsky four years earlier. “Good! But why am I here again?!” I remember very well that I asked myself this question in my sleep and immediately felt an irresistible curiosity to look into our former dining room. I lifted the familiar green curtain and pressed myself against the glass. “What a miracle. This is not our dining room at all. It’s a completely different room, but…how familiar!” I looked closely, thought, and suddenly remembered. “Bah! Yes, this is the room of the late Dmitry Ilyich. Only the bed on which he died is missing, but his table, his straw chair, the portraits on the wall, even the little things on the table, the papers…but no, they are gone! His desk is clean and the cloth on it looks like it is new, bright green, and… what is this?!”

I looked and could not believe my eyes. I was keenly aware that he was dead, and yet there he was! He was standing at his desk and looking at me intently and tenderly. As if in reality, I felt my heart begin to beat strongly and quickly. Was I really afraid of him? Oh, no! I quickly opened the door and rushed to him. But he stretched out his hand and commandingly said: “Don’t come near!”

I stopped, not taking my eyes off him.

He slowly raised his other hand from the table and just as slowly, sadly and deeply looking at me with his gaze, he lowered it onto the clean cloth of the table.

“Here…here…everything!” I heard.

The ghost began to slowly move away, not moving a single limb and continuing to look at me tenderly, as if he was going into the wall, turning pale…fading away. As he moved away, I approached the table on which something was lying.

“It’s true! It’s true!” I heard his dying voice. “Tell Vladimir…so he knows!”

The voice, his voice, fell silent, and he himself was gone! He was no longer visible, but he was here, next to me. I am as sure of this as I am that he will confirm this to me himself someday.

I quickly rushed to the table, to the things he had left for me.

It was a small green (the color of hope) palm, and in it were three things, three symbols: an anchor; a heart inside the ring of a snake biting its tail; a cross with a crucifix on it.

Hope, love in eternity, faith in the crucified Christ. ” Everyone is here!” he said.

Yes, it was all there! Three clear answers he promised to our three “main questions.” For me, this meant that he said to me from beyond the grave: “Hope for eternal love and immortality through faith in the Savior who gave them to you.” That’s how I interpreted this dream. And how fitting it was for me! How gratifying it is for me to think that it expressed concern for me, an understanding of my spiritual condition. Living love for me of this dead friend! Only this dream reminded me how long it had been since I had seen Dmitri Ilyich’s family. They also lived in Manglis, but at the other end of the Settlement, far from us. Despite the mud and rain, I decided to go and see them that same morning. I went, and I found them so upset that I was afraid that someone was sick? It turned out that it was the birthday of the late Dmitri Ilyich.

“Don’t you remember that you always spent this day with us?” his wife said to me.

“So that’s how he himself reminded me of his day!” I thought.

“You know that I never remember any days or numbers,” I answered in my own defense. And it was the absolute truth. I forgot about him, but he remembered me. May the Kingdom of Heaven be his!