And at that very moment, when even the teachers standing in the distance had started laughing, something resembling a small commotion began on the field.
"What's wrong with you, Golubev?!" Jerome Creighton's voice was heard.
"I sprained it... I think..." Valentin's voice was thin and uncertain, as if his leg had suddenly become embarrassed by the attention. He sat on the edge of the field, holding his ankle and squinting, as if he was about to cry.
"Well, great!" barked Jerome, who looked especially important today: his brand new boots sparkled as if they had been polished with English shoe polish itself, and there was not a single spot on his white shirt. "No replacement, then? That's it, we can disband the teams!
"Hey, let's..." one of the boys began, looking around.
And then the red-haired Petrov, always the first to shout something sarcastic, pointed his finger behind his back:
"Out! Let this one go! This... This ladies' man, he-he!" He laughed, looking at Xander, still standing a little to the side, behind the schoolgirls.
Xander shuddered. His hand twitched involuntarily - either to hide, or, on the contrary, to step forward. He didn't know.
"Are you crazy?" Jerome said with disgust, looking at him as if someone had suggested playing with a doormat. "He's the cook's son. From the house of York. Her errand boy!"
Some of the boys gasped. The girls froze as if on command, and one, especially curious, even stood up to get a better look at the "cook's son." Xander felt his ears burn, as if they had been peppered.
"According to the rules," Smirnov, well-groomed and wearing glasses, interjected, "only high school students participate. Only. It's written down."
"It's written where? On your forehead?" drawled the lanky Yermolov, lazily rocking back and forth on his heels. He always had an expression on his face as if he were laughing at something known only to him. "By the way, the Gospel says something completely different."
"In what other Gospel?" Jerome muttered.
"In the one you apparently read backwards", answered Yermolov, not without pleasure. "Judge not, lest ye be judged. And if the boy can run, let him run. The ball is round, it does not recognize castes.
Some of the boys exchanged glances. Delia lifted her chin slightly, as if she had heard everything but was not showing it. And Xander stood there, feeling how the ground beneath his feet had suddenly ceased to be so solid: either he wanted to fall through, or, on the contrary, to run as fast as he could.
Then a squabble began.
"How can you!" one of the well-fed and confident ones was indignant. "Cooks' children in football are like a frog in tea: the moisture is the same, but everything is spoiled!
"Nowhere does it say that it's forbidden," someone muttered from behind. "There's no sign on the gate: 'No entry for plebeians.'"
"Let him play if he doesn't get in the way!" Yermolov snapped, and someone next to him nodded. "What are we doing, a tournament on aristocracy?
"No, well listen, this is a match, not... Not charity!"
With each remark the voices grew louder, like those of market traders before the rain. The girls on the benches perked up, looked at each other, and one even asked, quite loudly:
"And the cook's children run worse?"
After this phrase, the argument suddenly died down - as if someone had slapped their hand on the table. Jerome darkened, pressed his lips together and waved his hand:
"Even if he is a gypsy baron himself, let him go! Just hurry up - our score doesn't add up!"
And that's all.
Xander suddenly realized that now it was really possible. No one grabbed him by the sleeve, shouted "stop!", shook a finger. He just went. One step, one more step, and here he was - on the field. On the grass that he had just seen from afar.
His cheeks were burning like a tomato forgotten in the sun. He hardly raised his eyes to anyone - he only saw the toes of his boots, which had suddenly become unbearably crooked and dusty.
"Over here!" someone shouted and waved his hand.
They put him in the stupidest position - somewhere on the side, right at the line, closer to the fence, almost under the acacia. A position where all you can do is catch dust and dodge balls thrown from afar. All the newbies started there. And Xander knew - it was no accident. It was Jerome. He had set it all up. He was probably smiling to himself, watching how the "cook's son" would puff himself up for laughter.
But the field is big. And the ball is round. And something clicked in Xander's chest - as if a locked door had suddenly opened. But here's the problem: right behind that door there were no flowers and applause, but dust, heat, and a ball hitting him straight in the stomach.
The first minutes were just torture. The ball, as luck would have it, bypassed Xander, as if he, the leather one, knew who the newcomer was and whose son he was. Xander ran, tried to hold his position, as he saw others do, but it all looked like he was just getting in the way. Once he almost collided with his own player, and the latter hissed: "Watch where you're going, kitchen hero!"
And then Jerome made a pass, seemingly by chance. Only it wasn't a pass at all, but a well-aimed projectile, and not towards the goal, but straight into Xander's stomach. The ball hit with a dry sound, like a slap on the back of the head from fate. Xander bent over and coughed, trying to catch the air that seemed to have left him along with the remnants of his dignity.
The girls' benches gasped cheerfully, then burst into giggles and whispers, like weeds. Only Delia jumped up and shouted something angry, but either the wind carried her voice away, or the girls' hubbub drowned it out. She remained standing, clenching her fists, and her lips moved, as if she were going into battle without a weapon.
Xander straightened up. His cheeks were burning, either from pain, or from resentment, or from the fact that he wanted to wipe his eyes - but he couldn't. Never.
And Jerome grinned and, passing by, said in a low voice:
"Be careful, you cook's son. This is sport. Not ballet."
Then he winked at his friends, and they giggled. Smirnov even pretended to stagger, clutching his stomach, and falsely moaned: "Oh, mother, you've ruined my plebeian appetite!"
"Does he even know which side the ball is kicked from?" someone from the back line said out loud, and toward the benches so the girls could hear.
Xander was silent. His head was buzzing. He felt that same "click" in his chest begin to flare up - not with self-pity, not with fear, but with something else. As if someone had whispered in his ear: "Well, now you're definitely on the field. Welcome."
But everything really changed in the second half.
The sun rose higher, the shadows became shorter, the air became drier and louder. Xander stood in his usual, most dishonorable position at the line, in the dust and weeds, and felt as if he was about to get hit in the stomach again. But the ball suddenly went differently. Cleaner. Straighter. And for a moment - as if he had chosen it himself.
The pass went the wrong way. One of Jerome's players missed, and the ball rolled, losing speed, straight to him. Xander, without thinking, lunged. His legs remembered themselves - like at seven years old, when dad was still alive and they kicked a rag ball around the yard: barefoot, in the dust, with squeals, laughter and bruises. And then there were no "sons of cooks" or boots from England - only passion and dust.
"Now," he whispered. "Now."
He picked up the ball, albeit awkwardly, but precisely, precisely - as it should be! And at that very moment something clicked in his head in a new way: "In Manchuria, where they are now fighting the Japanese, soldiers are dying for their country, and I... I am here fighting with the young master for my Delia."
"For his own." He was even surprised by this thought. But it flared up like a match in the dark - and did not go out. And from this match everything else caught fire. He rushed forward. Not gracefully, not like an athlete, but like a man who needs to. Let it be choking, let it be breathing heavily - but he rushed as best he could.
And suddenly - a chance. A free partner. Their team captain, puffing but in position. Xander stopped abruptly, turned his leg and... And made a pass.
The pass was precise. Not very strong, but accurate. As if the air itself helped. The captain received it - and, without hesitation, drove the ball into the goal. Straight. Beautifully. Silently.
There was silence for a second. Then a roar, laughter, shouts, applause. Someone whistled. Someone jumped up.
Xander stood with his eyes wide open. Everything inside him was shaking like a string. He didn't believe it was him. That it had happened. That everyone had seen it.
And on the bench was Delia. She wasn't clapping. She wasn't shouting. She was just sitting. But in her eyes there was that same light he'd known since childhood: a glow of pride. Not loud, but real.
After this goal, an almost carnival-like bustle began on the field. The captain patted Xander on the shoulder (and it seemed like he didn't do it very hard on purpose), Yermolov smiled with approval, and one of the younger players, his eyes wide open, whispered: "It turns out you're no slouch, you cook's son!"
The team was delighted. In a couple of minutes, Xander turned from an outsider and unnecessary into "that guy who made the pass." Simple, football magic.
And the girls on the benches began to bustle about. Some reached closer, some began to whisper:
"Where did he come from?"
"Why not in a school uniform?"
"He seems to be one of the servants... But how he gave the ball!"
"His eyes... Are like..." and then there would be a pause, filled with three exclamation marks and four hearts.
But no one knew exactly who he was, where he was from, or why his collar wasn't starched like everyone else's. A secret hero, a football mirage.
Meanwhile, Xander quietly left the field. Not waiting for applause, hugs, or praise. As soon as the game resumed, he stepped beyond the line and went to the fence, to the very shadow from which he had appeared. As if he said to himself: "That's it. I did what I had to."
Jerome, watching this, grimaced. In his eyes - misunderstanding, irritation, and that same caustic envy that tickles the throat so unpleasantly.
"Ah! You chickened out!" he shouted, trying to sound contemptuous. "You showed yourself - and ran away! A typical plebeian!"
But even he himself heard how false it sounded. As if someone had played a false note on the piano - and the girls, as if on command, stopped looking at him. And some continued to look at the one who did not ask for applause and did not demand scenes - but did his job.
Jerome frowned. The thought was spinning in his head: 'Fall... Fall in value.' And not from a banker or a high school rector - but from the girls! From those who yesterday were still giggling at other people's ears, and today were looking not at uniforms and collars, but at who was passing the ball, and not shaking it.
And at that very moment, when Jerome, smiling tensely, tried to appear unperturbed, Delia already realized that Xander had disappeared. He was not on the sideline, nor among the substitutes, nor at the goal. He had left. Quietly, as he had come.
At first she simply stood up, as if to adjust the ribbon on her hat, then she took a step forward, but Josephine intercepted her. As always, she appeared as if from under the ground, with the face of a tutor and the gait of a governess.
"Miss! No, no! You can't just say ;aller vers les garçons' like that!" she whispered sternly, mixing French with rather lively Russian, as if the thoughts in her head were in one language, and her mouth was working in another. "Your mother will be extremely déçue... Oh, I mean disappointed!"
"But he..." Delia began, but Josephine had already built a living wall in front of her.
"Il faut être digne! A decent girl doesn't run around the gardens after boys, especially alone, and not after..." here she stopped short, not knowing how to gracefully call 'the cook's son'.
"I'll just see where he's gone," Delia said firmly, and with a cunning sideways movement, as in a fencing lesson, she dodged and slipped out from under Josephine's arm.
"Delia York!" she gasped, "I'll tell your mother!" But she was already speaking into the air - Delia was running.
The dust rose above the garden path, the boys were playing again, the girls were whispering again, and she, in a lace dress and with determination on her face, was catching up with someone who didn't even know that he was being caught.
Xander walked quickly, without looking back, with his hands in his pockets. He had almost reached the garden gate when he heard the sound of footsteps behind him.
"Xander!" she shouted, slightly out of breath.
He turned around. The sun was in his eyes, and for a second he didn't realize it was her. But then he recognized her - by her gait, by her look, by the way she was completely different from the others. Xander froze, as if he were back on the field and the ball was rushing towards him.
"What's wrong?" Delia exhaled, running closer. "Why did you leave?"
Xander looked down and shrugged.
"Why stay there? They didn't call me because of the game. They just needed one. Like they dragged the bench onto the field - so the players' score would match. And now they stare at me like I'm a circus dog. I played, bowed - and I'm free."
He spoke without malice, but with that dry bitterness that comes from those who have learned too early not to expect justice.
"And you too," he added, almost in a whisper, "with them. You look as if... As if nothing happened. But they, no matter how they smile, still think that I am nobody."
Delia flushed, her cheeks turning the color of a tea rose.
"It's not true!" she almost screamed. "You don't understand! I was sitting there and just waiting for you to... For you to do something. And you did! You were better than all those dandies. All they know how to do is judge each other by their collars, but you - you're the real deal!
Xander was still looking away, but his breathing became slower.
"I saw how they looked at you after the pass. Not mockingly. Respectfully. Even the captain!" She grabbed his elbow, forgetting about propriety, about Josephine, about her mother - about everything. "And now everyone knows: a simple man can be nobler than any young lord!"
Xander turned his head slightly towards her. Slowly. As if he was afraid to believe her.
"Do you really think so?"
"I know," Delia said firmly, "because you're shaking with anger and resentment, and they're laughing as if nothing had happened. You have a heart, Xander. And they only have a school emblem on a button."
He smiled for the first time all day. Just a little.
And at that very moment the road near Tavrichesky suddenly began to tremble.
"What is it?" Delia asked, turning around.
Xander also raised his eyes.
Along the dusty alley, with a rumble and a clang, as if the military music itself had decided to ride past, a carriage appeared - luxurious, like in a picture from the Niva magazine. Gray trotters with apples, as if shaved, hooves click with such a bearing that even the bushes by the path swayed. The landau - black, like a varnished coffin, with a golden coat of arms on the door. The coachman - as if on parade, in snow-white gloves, with a straight back and an expression of complete contempt for everything that is not a carriage.
"Wow," was all Delia breathed out.
Inside sat two ladies, in sable capes, like high society lionesses. On their noses were lorgnettes, in their hands were white handkerchiefs with red crosses. Formally - mercy. But in their eyes - belladonna and boredom. Their eyebrows were drawn in a dark arc, their lips were scarlet, their earrings sparkled, and on their fingers were diamonds, such that they could have blinded half a company if the soldiers had forgotten to put on their helmets.
On the contrary, no less picturesque, are two officer-adjutants: cigarettes in their teeth, epaulettes that could be used to hammer nails, sabres like mirrors, reflecting even shadows.
"Look," Xander muttered, "they're both merciful and smart. With one eye they help the sick, with the other they take away the cadets."
One of the adjutants laughed at that moment, throwing back his head. The carriage slowed down a little, and one could even hear one of the ladies languidly singing:
"Ah, Nikolay Petrovich, you are saying horrible things again..."
And - laughter, silvery, like a spoon in a glass of champagne.
Xander was still standing there, as if under hypnosis. His eyes were wide, his mouth slightly open, like a boy who had seen the living emperor for the first time. The crowd around him began to stir - someone gasped, someone, on the contrary, snorted. Someone even whistled from the back line - either from admiration or mischief.
Xander leaned slightly towards Delia and, almost in a whisper, still not taking his eyes off the carriage, asked:
"And who is this?"
Delia seemed to hesitate for a moment. Then her lips tightened and her voice came out quietly, but with that sharpness that can make even a sunny day seem chilly.
"This is Madame Korzhenevskaya. And her daughter. They are taking their gentlemen for a ride. They are on holiday..." she looked away for a second - in Greece. You see."
She said "in Greece" with such an inflection as if she were talking about another planet, where they get to on tears and gold. And now these ladies with crosses on their neck scarves and diamonds on their fingers are riding in the sun as if all in the world is a ball and cakes.
"And here?" Delia continued, no longer whispering. "All over Russia - there is blood. Tears. Death notices. People get bread on ration cards, and they - these! - with sables and earrings worth half a teacher's salary."
She pointed to the rings sparkling in the landau window and cried out with a passion that was unexpected for her:
"Where do you think they got such stones from? Did they dig them themselves? Yeah, right. They stole! They robbed! They took everything that others didn't get! They filled their pockets, and now they're off for a walk!"
Xander even took a step back in surprise. He had never seen Delia like this. She wasn't crying or screaming, but there was metal in her voice. A sound that made his chest ache.
"I hate them," she said quietly, but with such force, like a curse. "All that scum!"
The carriage sped on, the harness still jingling somewhere behind the trees, and in Delia's eyes burned something much brighter than the diamonds in the ladies' fingers.
But this cry - one, clear as a blow - 'I hate them, all that scum!' was enough for the following to happen.
Behind him, there was a rushing sound of footsteps, as if someone was about to take a quick march down the gravel path. And before Xander could turn around, Josephine appeared, out of breath. She was as pale as a dry-cleaning sheet, and she grabbed Delia's hand as if she wanted to save her from the burning building, not to take her away.
"Mon Dieu! Miss!" she hissed with the grace of a person who has forgotten her native language from horror. "Do you even understand what you said? Here! In front of everyone! On the street! This is not just impudence - this is... This is a real disaster!"
Delia, who had not expected anything like this, was amazed:
"But I just..."
"Only?!" the porcelain of propriety was already cracking in Josephine's voice. "You said it out loud, and anyone could have heard! Servants, provocateurs, officials, agents! And what if someone from the carriage stopped? They can have ears!
Delia stood there, confused, her mouth hanging open for a second, but then, as if something had clicked inside her, she answered:
"But I... I just told the truth."
"The awful truth must not be spoken out loud!" Josephine glanced sharply around, as if there was a spy with a notepad lurking behind every tree. "Come on! Now! Mrs. York will be furious!"
She dragged the girl away with an unyielding force, casting a glance at Xander along the way. There was no malice or condemnation in that glance, only fear. Fear - as if he and Delia had run into some dangerous game together, the rules of which they did not know, but she did. And she was very afraid of how it would all end.
Xander stood there, confused. The buzzing in his ears wouldn't go away - as if the words that had flown out of Delia were now echoing inside him: Bastards... Blood... Burial grounds...
He watched them for a long time until the figures disappeared around the bend in the garden.
...666...
Later that evening, Josephine sat in Delia's room, perched on the edge of a chair as if preparing to confess someone else's sins. She sat upright, taut as a bowstring, her fingers fidgeting with a handkerchief, her lips trembling - not from cold, but from dread. Her curls had escaped from under her bonnet, and her eyes darted around the room, filled with dolls, ribbons, and books she herself had chosen for the young lady, thinking them très innocent.
"I... I'm not talking about that... Ce garçon de cuisine! How do you say... Oh, mon Dieu, the kitchen boy!" she began, stumbling over her words, mixing French with Russian. "No, no, not him, pardon! Lord, forgive me!"
Delia sat across from her, composed, legs tucked under, her face showing no trace of remorse. Her dark eyes gleamed in the lamplight, her fingers thoughtfully toying with the hem of her dress, as if oblivious to the governess's panic.
"It's about the words, ma petite!" Josephine jabbed a finger into the air, as if the words were buzzing around like flies. "Such dreadful words! C'est scandaleux! You can't speak like that, Delia! It's... It's... A political catastrophe! Do you understand? You were talking about the Tsar, about rebellion! That's not for a young demoiselle!"
"But I only said what I think," Delia replied calmly. "Everyone says it."
"Qui?! Who is this 'everyone'?" Josephine squealed, her French tangling with Russian in her panic. "Tout le monde? What 'monde'? What's the Russian word... Crowd? People? Are you whispering with workers at the market? With those... Révolutionnaires?"
Delia shrugged, as if the conversation were about the weather.
"Well, I hear it from people. At home, in the shops, the servants talk. And..." She glanced out the window, where the April night was thickening. "It's just obvious. And I read 'The Heart of Midlothian' by Walter Scott. It's about John Porteous, the captain of the guard. He was cruel, debauched, beat his wife, mistreated his son, and crushed anyone who dared protest on duty. The people executed him for murdering the innocent. Isn't it the same here? Aren't our officials and police just like that?"
Josephine froze, as if doused with ice water. Walter Scott? 'The Heart of Midlothian'? She hadn't even opened that book! She only knew Scott wrote about knights and love - 'Ivanhoe', perhaps, or 'Quentin Durward', something romantique! She had given Delia his novels so she could dream of princesses and tournaments, not... Not mob justice! Porteous? Who was Porteous? Was that in a book about noble knights?
"Quoi? Porteous? Who's that?" she gasped. "What Porteous? I thought Scott was about... Chevaliers, love, castles! I gave you his books so you'd learn élégance, dream of balls! And you... You found executions? Rebellions? Some monster in power? C'est affreux! You're comparing that to our... our autorités? It's... Scandal!"
Delia straightened, her gaze sharp, almost adult.
"Why can't we talk about the Tsar?" she asked, her voice ringing with steel. "In the book, Porteous held power, but the people wouldn't tolerate his cruelty. He was no better than our officials. It's the same here! Look at those in the offices, the police. They're like Porteous - strange, cruel, taking bribes, crushing the poor for the slightest misstep while shielding the rich. Shouldn't the people overthrow them, like in Edinburgh? In the book, the people did what was just."
"Non, non, non!" Josephine nearly choked. "Never! Jamais! No talk of the Tsar, of rebellions! What's the word... Révolte? Oh, in Russian... Uprising? No, Delia! I didn't know those books had such horrors! I thought Scott was about princesses, valor! And instead... Executions? Mobs with axes? You want that here? C'est impossible! I wanted you to learn manners, not... not to plan an insurrection!"
"What if there's inequality in the world?" Delia met her gaze unflinchingly. "If the poor suffer more than the rich? Should we stay silent? In the book, the people didn't stay silent. They punished Porteous because he deserved it. And here? Is Russia any better? Our Porteous figures in uniforms are just the same. I read about the Scottish people, and I saw how the proletariat fights injustice. Is that wrong?"
"Par Dieu! Be quiet!" Josephine clutched her handkerchief as if it could save her. "This Scott! I didn't read his 'The Heart of Midlothian'! I thought it was all about chevaliers, amour! And you found... Rebellion! You're comparing our... Les fonctionnaires... To some villain? It's dangerous, Delia! This isn't a gentle novel! It's... Poison! I wanted you to dream of balls, and you're dreaming of... Guillotines!"
Delia's eyes blazed, but her voice remained even, tinged with defiance. "Oh, come now, Jo, everyone talks like this. Why can't I? In the book, the people were right to rise up. There's injustice all around us here too. Papa says there's inequality, and it's wrong. Mama called Korzhenevsky a pig with his lavish dinners. And..."
She hesitated, as if deciding whether to continue, then blurted out, "And Mr. Sergei told me about the Tsar..."
That was the final straw. Josephine leapt to her feet, her face white as chalk.
"Qui?! Mr. Sergei?!" she shrieked, waving her handkerchief. "Who's this Sergei? Non, non, c'est fini! No more uncles! No Sergeis, no Peters, no... No révolutionnaires! And no more Scott! Those books, I thought they were gentil, about knights, but they're... Diabolique! Porteous, the Tsar, rebellions, Mr. Sergei! It's all poison! C'est la fin!"
She grabbed her shawl, threw it on backward like a Roman centurion, and stormed out of the room. Her voice echoed through the stairwell:
"Corrompue! She's corrompue! This Scott! This Sergei! These... ouvriers with their proclamations! Or what's the word... Délégations? Mon Dieu! Porteous! Rebellion! C'est la révolution!"
Delia remained in the silence. She didn't sigh. She looked out the window, where the evening held the faint glow of a football field. On the table lay 'The Heart of Midlothian', open, and in the girl's mind echoed lines about a people who brought justice to a cruel captain who, like so many in Russia, hid behind power to perpetrate injustice.
Meanwhile, Josephine, wide-eyed, her shawl still backward, paced the hallway. Where to go? Who to tell? Delia's mother? Non, Mrs. York says questionable things herself! Father Mattson? He's a philosopher; he'd probably praise this liberté! The cook? Ne ris pas, Josephine! Mon Dieu, mon Dieu! How could she, a governess who hadn't properly read Scott, think his books were innocent tales of knights and princesses? How could 'The Heart of Midlothian' plant in Delia's head the idea that the people should overthrow figures like Porteous, and that Russia was full of its own "Porteouses" in power? And this Uncle Seryozha! She had wanted to raise a lady, but instead, she had raised... A révolutionnaire!
And then her gaze fell on a figure slowly wandering down the street. Pitiful and at the same time - as strange as it may seem - majestic.
Elder Noah. A holy fool, a local landmark. Some twirled their temples, some crossed themselves, and children simply ran away. Everyone knew him, but no one knew where he was from, where he lived, or why he always smelled of candles, ram fat, and something… And something funereal.
He was stooped, with sloping shoulders and a round, bulging belly that for some reason resembled a loaf of bread hidden under his cassock. His face was covered with a red beard, disheveled and suspiciously greasy. His eyes were cloudy, fishy, like those of a cat that sees but does not look. His hair probably hadn't seen soap for years, but it stubbornly smelled of lamp oil - with an admixture of something disgustingly creamy.
Josephine froze.
"It's a sign, the omen..." she whispered. "Un vrai signe de Dieu..."
Of course. Just like in the books. Not a priest, not a professor, not a family friend - but an old man, a holy fool, a man of God, whom the Lord himself sent at that very moment. He was walking right down their street. Right now. But he hadn't been there before. Or had she simply not noticed?
"He will be the guide. He will snatch the child from the clutches of Satan. He knows the way," the thought beat in her mind, at once theatrical and desperate.
"Monsieur Noah!" she cried, running to the gate. "Wait! Arrêtez-vous! I... I... I need your... Your divine power! It's urgent! It's spiritual! It's a fille damnée! A lost child! You must..."
But the old man, without changing his expression, simply walked past. He turned his head for just a second - and his eyes, fishy and empty, met hers. What he saw there - if he saw anything - remained a mystery.
Josephine, however, decided: he accepted the challenge. And now everything depended on her. And meanwhile, if anyone from St. Petersburg said with confidence that no one knew where this strange fool nicknamed "The Holy Elder Noah" came from, then, alas, they were deeply mistaken. They knew. And how! It's just that his story was such... Well, such that not everyone would immediately tell it without bursting out laughing or crossing themselves.
The elder's real name was not The Holy Noah at all, but just Ferapont. He was born into a respected dynasty of priests - even their cat seemed to bless the bowl before eating. His father, grandfather and great-grandfather - all in cassocks, with beards and serious looks, even in photographs looking as if they were about to send you on a penitential fast.
Ferapont, of course, was destined for the clergy from childhood - he went to the theological school in Yekaterinoslav. He studied there diligently, but without joy, like someone cramming a shopping list in someone else's words. And then one day - boom! - he saw a column of infantry on the street, followed by artillerymen, and at the end - a proudly riding trumpeter, who blew his horn so that the Christmas trees in the heads of passers-by lit up. Ferapont then understood: to hell (sorry) with the catechism - 'I want to march'!
He begged his father for permission to become a cadet, his father suggested "to be patient a little longer", but "a little longer" dragged on, and soon his father even arranged an engagement for him with Arina - a kind girl, but with dreams of borscht, not guns. Furious, Ferapont ran away to Chuguev and entered a military school. There he turned out to be unexpectedly good at the liturgy (!) - and even impressed the general. But when the general asked whether he would pray or command in battle, Ferapont realized that since even the military joked about his cassock, then apparently there was no way to get rid of it.
His father found him, brought him back home, married him to Arina, and ordained him as a priest. Everything would have been fine, but life in marriage resembled the comedy 'strangers live in the same apartment': Arina cooked borscht, Ferapont read 'On Faith' and felt like he was in a sanatorium with very boring evenings. And when Arina died in childbirth along with their child, he became completely unbearable.
The culmination was the confession of a merchant who beat his worker and framed him. Ferapont, deciding to save the innocent, went to the bishop - but he declared that confession was sacred and let the victim suffer.
Ferapont took it and spat in his face. Right in his face, as is! The monks wanted to tie him up, but he ran away, tearing off his cassock, and disappeared.
Since then, a strange holy fool with the smell of lamp oil and the habits of a half-philosopher, half-madman has been wandering around Petersburg. The children of Petersburg are afraid, the tradeswomen cross themselves, and Josephine - oh, Josephine! - is sure that he was sent to her personally from heaven, and now, seeing this fallen man before her, she, led by inspiration (and slight hysteria), grabbed his hand as if she were catching a life preserver. She seemed to herself to be a prophetess.
"This is... This is the omen!" she whispered, grabbing the old man by the elbow. "Vous êtes envoyé! You are a messenger from above! From le ciel!" She almost shouted the last words, causing a passing janitor to drop his broom.
The Holy Elder Noah froze like a brown bear brought into a city store. His cloudy eyes filled with alarm, and his whiskers twitched.
"Who? What? Where?" he began to mumble, looking into her face. "I'm a saint! I myself went with the sivizdu! That's where they whispered to me... That it's time to cleanse someone, well!"
Josephine wasn't listening. Repeating "c'est la grace divine" and "allez, allez," she dragged him along the pavement, tugging at his cassock as he went, which trailed menacingly, collecting road dust and candy wrappers.
Karen caught up with them in the hallway of the house and, seeing them, gasped loudly.
"Dear God!" she breathed, covering her mouth with her hand. "Josephine, are you in a fever?! Who is this?! What is this?! And why is it in our house?!"
"He... He is... Un saint! A saint, I mean! Le plus vrai possible! Just like... Like the apostle Paul!"
The old man, pleased with this introduction, turned to Karen and bowed politely - almost falling over. Then, staring at the dusty corner by the stairs, he muttered:
"That's... What do you call me... Holy Elder... Noah... I... I cleanse with thought! Taking off all sorts of things, so that they don't stir... Uh... These, you see, devils!"
"He's mumbling," Karen said coldly. "And talking nonsense."
"It's... It's a special gift! It speaks from the spiritual side, you understand? Through... Through layers, as it were!" Josephine explained confidently. "It's... La voix de l'esprit!"
"Yes, I am... Yes, I am a saint!" Noah confirmed, raising an eyebrow. "I sanctify myself... Every morning! I mumble a prayer! First out loud, then to myself, and then... Oooh... My stomach is buzzing - that means spirituality has begun!"
Karen just blinked. She couldn't tear her eyes away from the belly sticking out under the cassock - as if the fermented spirit of Orthodoxy was really hidden there in a tin can.
"Okay," she said wearily. "Just don't let him sit down. On anything. And let him be quiet. At least for a minute."
"I'm a saint, I'm not just like that... So I'll cleanse her..." the old man mumbled", With prayer, yes... And garlic! Because Satan - he's afraid of garlic, the bastard... Even if he doesn't eat it!
Josephine beamed.
"You see! He knows the secrets! He knows everything! This is heaven! Oh, my God, I knew it! Just don't worry, madame, he will completely... Uh-uh... Transcend your daughter!"
"I hope I don't faint," Karen muttered and went into the kitchen for some valerian.
Here's a translation into English that preserves the tone, atmosphere, and Noah's distinctive speech impediment (his lisping, represented by "sh" sounds and stuttering). I've kept the dialogue natural, capturing the intensity of the scene, the characters' emotions, and the cultural nuances, while ensuring Noah's speech retains its quirky, slightly comical yet unsettling quality. The translation also maintains Josephine's French exclamations and the mix of formal and colloquial language where appropriate.
The door to Delia's room flew open. Josephine stood in the doorway, pale, clutching the wall for support, with the holy fool beside her. She didn't dare approach the girl - her former charge had become too alien, too frightening.
"Voilà!" Josephine exhaled with feigned solemnity. "This is... le saint! Do you understand, Delia? He's a holy man! He'll... purify you, sanctify you... Everything as it should be in God's house!"
Noah, clumsy as a bear, shuffled across the threshold, glancing around with wary importance. His washed-out cassock, reeking of sourness, swayed like a sail in the wind. He looked at Delia, who sat on the bed with clenched fists, and hesitantly made the sign of the cross - bottom to top, sideways, and then, for some reason, poked a finger in his ear.
"Th-th... You... Daughter of God?" he mumbled, as if chewing his words. "Now I'll... S-s-sh! With prayer, I mean! Pfft! And all the evil - whoosh! Straight to Kazan Station it'll go!"
Delia sprang up like a cat ready to pounce. Her eyes flashed, darting from Noah to Josephine.
"Have you lost your minds?!" she snapped. "Who even is this guy?! And why on earth do you think I need this... this holy fool of yours to 'purify' me?!"
Noah huffed indignantly, puffing out his belly, which seemed ready to burst through his cassock.
"I ain't no fool... I'm holy! Big-bellied, see, for holiness!" he droned, patting his stomach. "This here belly's for prayer, so it can, y'know, spread out!"
"Young lady, I beg you!" Josephine stammered, twisting the edge of her shawl. "You don't understand! You were talking... About the Tsar, about Mr. Sergei... It's all the revolution! I read it in the pamphlets! That's how it starts - unrest, rebellion, and then... The guillotine!"
"You just don't get what people are saying out there!" Delia cut her off. "And don't you dare talk about Mr. Sergei when you know nothing!"
"Aïe!" Josephine squealed, clutching her chest. "It's just like in the proclamations! Oh, God, I'll lose my reputation as a governess!"
"And I'm losing my patience," Delia hissed. "Get this... This elder out of here before I call my father!"
Noah, who had raised his hand to bless her, froze under Delia's glare like a mouse before a cat. His lips trembled, and he muttered, stumbling over every word:
"I-I... I... S-s-holy... P-p-pray, daughter... L-L-Lord, save..."
"Pray under your bench in your cell!" Delia shot back, leaping from the bed. "Holy, you say? You stink like a wine barrel! What, you sit with monks and rich men's sons at their tables, guzzling their 'elixir' while they hide contraband in the monastery?"
"Delia!" Josephine gasped, paling even further. "Qu'est-ce que tu fais?! Arrête! He's a holy man! Il est envoyé par le ciel!"
"Sent to stink and cover up contraband?" Delia took a step closer, her voice trembling with anger. "I've heard about your 'holy men' in their velvet rooms, drinking wine with merchants' sons, shuffling cards, and dividing up the church's collection plates! And you, Noah, or whatever your name is - bet you're right there, stuffing your face, while the people pray for you!"
"Non, non!" Josephine wailed, clutching the curtain as if it could save her. "He's holy! Un instrument du divin! He sees angels, he prays for us!"
"Angels?" Delia nearly laughed, but her laughter was venomous. "He sees the bottom of a bottle! And you, Jo, only see his 'holy half' because you're too scared of the truth! Your monks are hypocrites! They stash contraband in cellars, carouse with rich wastrels, then cross themselves in church and sing like saints!"
Noah, backing toward the door, choked on his words:
"I-I... L-L-Lord... H-h-have mercy, daughter..."
"I know your kind!" Delia pressed on. "Fasting and prayers in the monastery, but behind closed doors - cards, wine, and contraband! And you dare come to 'purify' me? You're filthier than the refectory floor!"
"Delia, par pitié!" Josephine pleaded, nearly fainting. "He's sacré! Sent by God!"
"Sent by the devil!" Delia snapped, grabbing a French phrasebook from the dresser.
With a furious motion, she hurled it at the wall. The book thudded, and Noah yelped, covering his head with his hands.
"Ah... F-f-forgive me... Daughter..." he wheezed, bolting for the door.
His cassock caught on the threshold, and a dried lemon rolled out from under it, skittering beneath the dresser. The elder squeaked, tripped, and stumbled out of the room, leaving behind a trail of sweat, onions, and dusty rags. Josephine slumped against the wall, whispering breathlessly:
"Seigneur miséricordieux... Quelle horreur..."
And Delia sat down slowly on the bed, her fists clenched tightly on her knees. All the trembling was gone. Only a hard, silent resentment remained.
Josephine couldn't take it anymore. Her face contorted, her mouth opened as if she wanted to scream, but no sound came out. And suddenly, like a toppled doll, she collapsed on the floor. Her face was pale, her eyes rolled back in her head. Her heart, it seemed to Karen, stopped.
"Oh no..." Karen whispered, running in. "Pelageya! Get Dr. Hastings quickly!"
Pelageya, crossing herself in fear, jumped out, knocking over a bucket of water. Delia stood by the window. She didn't turn around.
"Deedle..." Karen carefully approached closer. "What happened here?"
"Nothing." The daughter's voice was strangely even.
"Nothing?! Josephine is unconscious!"
"She brought me a stinking old man and said he would save me," Delia said, still not looking at her mother. "Like I was a leper. Like I was... Like I was the devil. And he was a saint. Who smelled like dog. Would you want a 'saint' like that to cleanse you?"
Karen didn't answer. She looked at Josephine, breathing harshly on the floor, and covered her face with her hands.
Meanwhile, the fool whom the girl had called "pathetic - and this word tore apart the fragile network of fantasies in his head in which he was a prophet, a chosen one, a sufferer in the name of God - was rushing through the streets. A veil before his eyes, a cloudy fear, like a sticky fog. 'Daughter of Satan,' throbbed in his head. 'She has exposed... She has seen... She...'
He flew out onto the crossroads and did not notice the carriage. The coachman screamed, but it was too late - the old man's body flew into the air, fell, tumbled and froze in a pitiful pose, as if he were praying. The carriage stopped. Someone yelled: 'The old man was hit!' But no one came up - everyone slowly dispersed, as if the place itself had become vile.
The room was silent. Only the clock ticked. Josephine groaned.
"She's alive," Karen whispered. "Thank God, thank God..."
"Glory to whom?" Delia asked suddenly. "To the one who sends people like him?" She nodded toward the door. "Or to the one who keeps quiet when the grown-ups go crazy?"
"You don't understand," the mother said quietly. "Josephine was scared... She wanted the best..."
"Me too. Only I have no saint, no spirit, no books on spiritualism. There is only me. And all of you who do not hear me. You are only afraid that I will become not what I should be.
Karen walked up to the girl and wanted to hug her, but Delia pulled away.
"I can't be angry, right? It's a sin. But that guy over there could just stink and roll his eyes, and no one would say a word to him."
"Deedle..."
"That's it, Mom, I want to sleep, please come out."
And she sat down slowly on the bed, clenching her fists on her knees. The room was already dark, only the curtains trembled with the dim glow of the lantern. The air was like after a thunderstorm, but the thunder did not rumble - it happened inside her.
...666...
And in that silence, which suddenly became ringing, as if the entire universe had taken a step back to give her time to think, someone else, in a completely different place, at that very moment, was lying awake, staring at the cracked plaster above him.
It was Sergei Zazyrin, a student with a pale forehead and black, unkempt hair, looking more like a poet than a revolutionary, and yet connected to the underground as a drop of ink is to a pen. His room in a communal apartment on Sredny Prospekt was squalid and cold: a wall in the corner leaked, and a draft blew under the window so that the candle trembled. But he lay under a blanket, not feeling the cold - his soul was warmed by memories.
Oh, how often in the twilight of consciousness he returned there - to Kolpino, to the dam, in mid-February of one thousand nine hundred and four... It was Saturday, the frost scratched his cheeks like a thin veil of ice, and the air was so transparent that one could discern distant pipes, as if drawn with a thin pencil on the white sky.
Sergei had only just begun to listen to the conversations in the university corridors, where secret leaflets were passed under notebooks and names were whispered. But that day remained forever: bright as a scar.
He was walking along a path along a frozen river, wrapped in a fur coat, burying himself in the fur of the collar, and suddenly noticed someone approaching. It was a couple - strange, uncoordinated: a young man with a suitcase in one hand and a book in the other, and a girl, beautiful, in a white scarf, buttoned at the chin. She was the first to call out to Sergei:
"Excuse me... Are you Zazyrin?"
He stopped. His heart twitched - she was not just beautiful, there was something elusively familiar about her, as if he had already met her in a dream.
The young man laughed and nodded:
"It's him. Nice. Let me introduce you, I'm Vyacheslav Griftsov, and this is Darya Mironovna. You can take her arm, I'm already as heavy as a grey gelding. And she's light, you won't overexert yourself."
Sergei, taken by surprise, did not know whether to laugh, blush, or extend his hand. He chose the latter - and when her palm rested on his elbow, it seemed to him that the whole world was nothing more than steam over a frozen river.
Then they began to hail a cab with difficulty - for horses were at a premium and the frost was growing stronger. The coveted sleigh finally rolled up, the horse with the plaques on its breastplate shook its mane, and the three of them sat down: Griftsov in front with a suitcase on his knees, Darya and Sergei - next to him, covered with one blanket. The driver touched the reins, the bell rang, and the city was left behind.
They rode for a long time - across the bridge, along the frozen Neva, past frozen barges and spires that looked up at the sky like frozen arrows. Vyacheslav talked about Smolny, then about Karamzin, but Darya, laughing, ordered them to be silent and "drink the silence - like syrup for boredom. Then all three were silent, and only the snow creaked under the runners, and the wind walked between the collars.
"What kind of air is this," Sergei whispered, "it's as if you're breathing not into your chest, but into your soul."
Darya smiled. He remembered her profile - thin, like on a silver coin, and her eyes sparkling in the frosty gilding.
"Is this your first time?" she asked him informally, looking at the snow.
"In the first one."
"Then remember. Such days never happen again."
After seven miles we reached a turn where a slanted sign stood. The bells no longer sang here, and the wind blew up near the fences, raising snowdrifts like a curtain on a stage.
"Here," said Griftsov, and, throwing up his suitcase, he stepped forward.
The village, whose name Sergei never remembered later, slept under a heavy blanket of snow. The snowdrifts were waist-deep, the roofs reached the ground, and everything resembled a country where giants lived and were silent. They walked one after another: Griftsov with a suitcase, Sergei and Darya behind. Darya laughed when the snow sank under her feet, and Sergei hurried to offer her his hand.
Soon they entered a spacious room, where the cold and snow blindness made it almost hot. The air was heavy with breath, the smell of firewood, tobacco smoke, and something spicy - cinnamon, perhaps, or just warm bread. Along the walls were benches, and in the center, as if in a round dance, about twenty people were huddled. Men, mostly young, with clear eyes and sharp features. Two girls - one in a velvet blouse, the other in a gray kerchief - stood a little to the side, but did not look strangers.
Sergei took off his fur coat. The room fell silent - he was wearing a dark blue officer's uniform with gold piping, neatly fitted, with silver buttons. He felt dozens of glances at once - some with curiosity, others with alarm, others with open disapproval.
Lyasya, the one in the velvet coat, came closer. Her chestnut braid fell over her shoulder, and her voice was ringing, slightly mocking:
"You... You are a military man?"
Sergei lifted his chin in surprise, but quickly pulled himself together. He felt a slight burning sensation on his cheeks, but answered calmly:
"No. This is my father's uniform. He served in Crimea."
"Did he fight in the Crimean War?" the girl asked again. "So it's almost a museum piece!"
Someone chuckled behind him. Someone cleared their throat. Lyasya measured him with a look that mixed everything: joke, interest, and caution.
"Why did you put it on?"
Sergei shrugged his shoulders, a little guiltily:
"I don't know... It's warm in it. And... And in it I'm not quite me. It's easier that way."
"Ah, so that's how it is", Lyasya grinned and returned to her friend, throwing out on the go: "Look, Darya, now we even have a uniform. Almost like the Japanese."
Darya Mironovna sat down by the window, turning her face towards the light - as if all this was happening without her, but when she looked at Sergei, that same old warmth with which she had given him her hand back then, in the park, flashed in her eyes.
"Don't worry," she whispered barely audibly. "Nobody eats anybody here. Only sometimes."
Sergei smiled. He didn't know what to answer, but there was no need - people in the room were already starting to talk louder, someone was serving bread, someone was pouring tea into glass cups. The uniform seemed to have stopped catching the eye. They had accepted him.
At this time, Vyacheslav, putting his boots closer to the stove and warming his feet with obvious pleasure, opened his worn suitcase. The sheets of paper were neatly laid out in it: grayish paper with a fuzzy typographic print, which smelled of typographic ink and the street. He handed them out silently - one to each, without unnecessary words. Some began to read right away, others hid them in their pockets, and still others, very young, only exchanged glances with wary excitement.
Vyacheslav sat down right next to the stove, spread his arms across the bench like an ancient Roman, and began to speak - without a piece of paper, freely, with that special fervor with which those who do not so much explain as believe speak.
"The world," he began, "is subject to laws. Everything in the world, comrades, moves according to them: whether a stone falls, steam rises, the sun sets, or the people rise against the kings.
He spoke quietly, but each word seemed to ring - because his speech was not simply learned by heart, but lived through. Soon the room became quiet, even the firewood in the stove crackled more modestly.
"We live in a society where bankers and landlords are like spiders, they devour us, pulling us out by the thread. Look at the factories, the fields, the hospitals - everywhere the same cry: 'Be patient!' And these gentlemen themselves are growing fat, like yeast. On human blood! They fear only one thing - that the people will see. That the blind will begin to see."
He leaned forward:
"And so that this doesn't happen, so that we don't unite, they foist enemies on us. Japan, they say, is threatening! But do you think it really is threatening?"
Sergei, who had been sitting silently on the edge of the bench, felt Darya's lips twitch as she sat next to him. He looked at her, but she did not take her eyes off Vyacheslav.
"All this talk about Korea, about the railroad, about some islands - it's smoke. Smoke so that we don't see the fire. Our real enemy is not in the Kwantung Army. He's here. In the offices. In the mansions. On Znamenskaya and Moika. He wears top hats, not helmets."
Lyasya clenched her fists. One of the men whispered with a formal air: "He speaks the truth." Someone crossed themselves - not from horror, but as if from fire.
Vyacheslav smiled, but there was not a shadow of lightness in this smile:
"As long as we think that we are fighting the Japanese, we will not notice how we are dying for the autocracy. For their rubles, for their palaces. For their fear - because they are afraid of us."
And suddenly he hit his knee with his palm:
"And we shouldn't be afraid!"
Zazyrin listened, spellbound. No, what was said was not news to him - he had read leaflets, caught conversations in the canteens, where black-haired guys with southern surnames sat, he already knew what 'oppression' and 'exploitation' were. But Vyacheslav did not speak in slogans - he seemed to take the world, like a clockwork mechanism, disassemble it into screws and show how everything works. Why one lives in marble, and another in a frozen closet. Why they give you a punch in the kidneys for justice. Why guns shoot not at Japan, but at the workers' consciousness.
"Why," Griftsov's voice sounded, "is a peasant, working from dawn to dusk, barely able to feed his children, while a landowner, who owns twenty souls, sleeps until noon and dozes in a chair until midnight?"
"Why," he asked, "does a worker who has all the bread in Russia in his calluses receive less than a baker for his cakes?"
"Why does a banker, who has never held a hammer, a plow, or even a simple ruler, control factories, cities, lives?"
Sergei clutched the bench with his fingers. It seemed to him that someone would say: "Enough! Shut up!" But no one spoke. Everyone listened, as if it were a prophecy.
"And why, when we raise our voices - for us, for our people, for our children - why then are we put on trains and taken to die near cold water and lead?"
He spoke softly, but his words made everything inside Sergei tighten. Darya's face was close, he could feel her breath, and he wanted to grab her hand - not out of passion, but out of desperate agreement.
"Yes, yes," pounded in his temples. He didn't know how to fight, but he knew: he had to fight.
"Isn't it because they're driving us to the slaughter," added Vyacheslav, looking somewhere past everyone, "that they're afraid to hear our voice?"
He fell silent.
Silence hung over the room, thick as steam over a boiling cauldron. The materials that Griftsov cited - figures on the incomes of landowners, chronicles of famine, stories of strikes at the Putilov factory and rumors of secret meetings of the tsar's ministers - were like sparks falling on dry grass. And a flame flared up in Sergei's soul. Until that moment he had felt that the world was unfair, but now he saw it as if under a magnifying glass: clearly, distinctly, painfully. Vyacheslav spoke not only passionately - he spoke precisely, with knowledge, as if he were reading not books, but the very heart of the era.
"War with Japan?" flashed through Sergei's mind. "This is not defending the motherland. This is a game of chess, where we are the pieces. Pawns that move forward to disappear on a field that does not belong to them."
Griftsov showed: everything is connected. War is a continuation of fear. The Tsar is afraid of the hungry, afraid of those who can go out into the street and scream. So that no one screams, it is better to send them under the bullets. This is not madness. This is calculation.
Sergei felt that the framework was collapsing. Everything that seemed solid - ranks, shoulder straps, hymns, even prayers - was shaking like tinsel in a draft. The soldier and the general were no longer two steps of a ladder for him - they were two different banks. Between them there was a gaping abyss. He, Zazyrin, had always stood somewhere in between - in an officer's overcoat, but with the eyes of a worker. Now he was falling - and he knew which bank he wanted to fall on.
"This is not just a report," whispered Darya Mironovna, leaning towards him. "This, Sergei, is an awakening."
After Griftsov's words, a hum went through the room - not a shout, not a noise, but as if a wind had rushed over the water. People looked at each other, exchanged short remarks, someone jumped up, someone sat down, as if from fatigue. One worker, broad-shouldered, in a shirt with patches, said dully:
"They cut the pay at our workshop. They say it's for the front. And they can't stack boxes after boxes. They trade - that's how they make money."
"And my brother..." began the young teacher, thin, in a headscarf. "He didn't understand anything. They gave him a coat and told him to go. But where? Why? All he said was: 'Tell your mother not to cry'."
"And the Tsar..." the student in pince-nez, thin as a taut nerve, intervened sharply, "the Tsar is not stupid. He knows how it works. He is afraid of revolution. Afraid of people like you, like us. War is morphine: while the body is being eaten away by gangrene, the pain is dulled. But then - it will be too late."
Sergei couldn't tear himself away. He recognized himself in each of them. In the tired worker - his Mr., in the girl - his mother, in the student - himself, furious, desperate, afraid of his thoughts, but unable to stop them.
They spoke - and he listened.
And he understood: he was not the only one who felt this way. They did too. This was not an accident. This was strength. This was life. And most of all, the thirst to be worthy of this life.
"And you, young man," came a sudden voice from behind the table, "are you sure you're not an officer?"
The voice belonged to Motya - Matryona Yegorovna, a short woman with a quick, sharp gaze and a thick braid tucked under a headscarf. Until now she had been silent, listening to every word, but now, propping her cheek with her hand, she looked straight at Sergei with a slight mockery.
"A real uniform, everything according to regulations," she added, nodding towards the overcoat. "What kind of student is this?"
Sergei was a little embarrassed, but his voice sounded confident:
"My father's overcoat. He fought in the Crimea. I just put it on because of the cold, not because of my rank. I have nothing to do with the officer corps. I am a law student."
Motya nodded, as if this was exactly what she was expecting.
"Well, if that's the case, then fine," she muttered, "otherwise, you know, after one lieutenant I now avoid all military men. And you, then, are against the Tsar's will?"
Sergei smiled slightly.
"I am for the truth. And the truth rarely coincides with the Tsar's will.
"Well done," Motya said quietly but with approval. "Others open their mouths and it's like a boot to the head. Aren't you afraid?"
"I'm afraid," Sergei admitted honestly, "but being afraid doesn't mean being silent."
She looked at him in surprise, then, after a little while, asked:
"Do people listen to you, students? Or do they also read and argue in pubs?"
Sergei shrugged.
"It depends. Some argue. Some are afraid. And some go to Tsarskoe Selo in winter to listen to words that warm like a stove."
"Yeah," Motya croaked and raised her glass of tea, "so that later we can go to the barracks or to Siberia, yeah?"
"It happens. But not going means approving."
She nodded silently, looking at him for a long time and attentively.
"You are serious, though. And nice-looking. Well, maybe you will come to some good."
Muffled laughter could be heard in the room. Vyacheslav, who had been silent all this time, finally smiled and, without looking at Sergei, said:
"You convinced the people, brother. And that's already something."
Zazyrin blushed slightly, but not from embarrassment - from the internal heat that flared up in his chest with renewed vigor. Motya approves, Griftsov trusts, and that means... That means he is in his place. And maybe even more needed here than at the university.
He looked again at the faces in the room - at the workers, the students, the women, at Motya. And he realized that this was where the road began, which he would perhaps walk to the very end.
And as soon as this inner thought had died down, a new, strange, almost mystical silence fell in the hotly heated room. Everyone was waiting. Darya Mironovna, the same girl with whom Sergei had once walked along the path by the frozen river, rose from the table and said with a slight smile:
"Now", she said", I will read something strange. Strange and, perhaps, still raw. It is a play... It was written by a poet, almost a boy. You don't know him, his surname is Khlebnikov."
Silence fell in the room, where Griftsov's aftertaste still swayed. Someone coughed. Someone moved. But everyone was listening.
"Someone gave it to me", she continued. "From "Znanyie". He said that Gorky read it, shook his head and rejected it. Too... Too out of character. But," Darya raised her chin, "after all, the truth often comes to us in a torn shirt, and not in a lacquered top hat!"
She unfolded the tattered sheets, covered in ink, like an ancient scroll.
"'Elena Gordyachkina'. A play. Or maybe a dream. And I will be - all the roles."
And with these words, something impossible began.
At first she spoke quietly, timidly, in the voice of a peasant girl:
"Why did you, sir, sprinkle the ground with salt? We planted roots here, not hatred..."
Then, throwing back her head, she changed her voice to the muffled, nasal voice of an old landowner:
"Your land? Ha! Yours means it's nobody's. And mine is by law. By paper. By God's will, understand?"
Everyone froze. Even the tea in the glasses seemed to have stopped cooling.
Then, with a new voice, high and hoarse, a city official appeared:
"We're here for the sake of order. You're in the way. And the paper doesn't know that you're a woman and barefoot."
Darya suddenly rushed to the stove and, as if on a platform, spoke again - in Elena's own voice, bright and clear:
"I am like a jug that will crack and light will flow. Look!"
She grabbed a copper mug and slammed it down on the floor, the sound echoing throughout the room, and for a moment everyone believed that light was really bursting out of her hands.
"Every drop is us! And we will merge into the sea! And remember - the storm is coming!"
Sergei barely breathed. He felt his heart beating in unison with her voice.
And then, as if breaking a string, she moved on to the final scene: in a hoarse, stifled voice - as if under blows:
"I'm free! Do you hear? Not a slave!" and then in a whisper: "The storm... The storm is coming..."
And that's it. Darya lowered the sheets.
The stove crackled. Someone cleared their throat. One of the workers said quietly:
"Wow..."
Vyacheslav bowed his head.
At first, the play seemed strange to Sergei. He expected something else - directness, fire, a blow to the chest, but what he got was visions, images, a poetic storm. Not a scream, but a song. And yet... And yet, the longer he peered into what he heard, the more he felt: this was it. The real thing. Fire - not from the outside, but from the inside. Like Darya's words, her ringing voice, turned into a weapon, penetrated the very heart.
"Too symbolic," he thought at first. "Far from politics, from simple slogans..."
But then, deep in my soul, something else responded: "Or maybe that's how it should be? After all, what is born from the heart does not need to be shouted - it sounds quieter, but more precise."
He sat, leaning his elbows on his knees, and looked at Darya, who was now standing with her arms hanging down, her cheeks flushed with excitement, and thought: "I am not here by chance. I am among my own. I am with them."
With each passing minute, his pride grew stronger - quiet, joyful. Pride that he was accepted. That he understood. That he heard. That here it was - the truth, to which the best generations had been moving. He felt as if he had become part of something big, ancient and new at the same time, as if the views of the Decembrists, the Narodniks, all the persecuted - through time, through the darkness - had fallen on his shoulders.
"They did not know each other - and yet they strove for one thing... Like streams - for a river, like drops - for the sea."
And at that moment he understood. Completely, clearly, deeply: there was no need for a direct cry. Darya read in such a way that her voice already contained everything - rebellion, pain, and a hymn. The jug breaking in the girl's hands and the light bursting out were the same that burns in people. And the sea into which the drops will merge - that is the people. The awakening people.
"That's how it should be," he thought. "Through words. Through music. Through images."
And, surprised, with a slight smile, as if he was saying something for the first time, he whispered to himself:
"Khlebnikov will become great. It cannot be otherwise."
Darya, as if sensing his whisper, looked at him. Not directly, not point-blank - out of the corner of her eye, from under her brows. As if she too knew - what he said found a response.
And Sergei thought: "If a great battle comes, I will go not with a gun, but with this play in my heart. The word is a weapon. Even stronger than a bullet."
The stove crackled. Someone was pouring tea. Vyacheslav, still with his head bowed, was whispering something to his neighbor. And Sergei sat silently, happy that his heart had spoken to the voice of time.