“Listen,” he said, “and remember. It is said, ‘The words of a desperate man fly on the wind.’ And also remember that even the angels of God are not perfect, but the only perfect and sinless one is Jesus Christ our God, whom the angels also serve. You didn’t want the death of that child, you were merely unreasonable. Only,” he says, “here is what I even marvel at: you’ve uttered so many worse outrages, you’ve sent so many people into poverty, corrupted so many, ruined so many—isn’t it the same as if you’d killed them? Hadn’t his sisters died even before then, all four little babies, almost in front of your eyes? Why does this one disturb you so much? For I suppose you’ve forgotten, not only to regret, but even to think about the previous ones? Why are you so frightened of this child, before whom you’re not even so guilty?”
“I see him in my dreams,” said Maxim Ivanovich.
“And what of it?”
But the man revealed no more, he sat and said nothing. The abbot wondered, but with that he left; there was nothing more to be done here.
And Maxim Ivanovich sent for the tutor, for Pyotr Stepanovich; they hadn’t seen each other since that occasion.
“Do you remember?” he says.
“I do,” he says.
“You’ve painted oil paintings for the tavern here,” he says, “and made a copy of the bishop’s portrait. Can you paint a picture for me?”
“I can do everything,” he says. “I,” he says, “have all talents and can do everything.”
“Then paint me a very big picture, over the whole wall, and first of all paint the river on it, and the landing, and the ferry, and so that all the people who were there will be in the picture. The colonel’s wife, and the little girl, and that hedgehog. And paint me the whole other bank as well, so that it’s seen as it was—the church, the square, the shops, and the cab stand—paint it all as it was. And there by the ferry, paint the boy, just over the river, on that very spot, and he must have his two fists pressed to his breast, to both nipples. That without fail! And open up the sky before him on the other side over the church, and have all the angels in the heavenly light come flying to meet him. Can you satisfy me or not?”
“I can do everything.”
“I could invite the foremost painter from Moscow, or even from London itself, instead of a bumpkin like you, only you remember his face. If it comes out not like or a little like, I’ll only give you fifty roubles, but if it comes out very much like, I’ll give you two hundred. Remember, blue eyes . . . And the painting should be very, very big.”
They prepared everything; Pyotr Stepanovich started painting, then suddenly he comes:
“No,” he says, “it’s impossible to paint it like that.”
“How so?”
“Because this sin, suicide, is the greatest of all sins. So how would angels come to meet him after such a sin?”
“But he’s a child, he’s not responsible.”
“No, he’s not a child, but already a boy; he was eight years old when this happened. He has to give at least some sort of answer.”
Maxim Ivanovich was still more terrified.
“But,” says Pyotr Stepanovich, “here’s what I’ve thought up: we won’t open the sky or paint the angels; but I’ll bring a ray of light down from the sky as if to meet him; one bright ray of light: it will be as if there’s something all the same.”
So they brought down the ray of light. And I myself saw this painting afterwards, much later, and that same ray, and the river stretched across the whole wall, all blue; and the dear young boy right there, both hands pressed to his breast, and the young miss, and the hedgehog—he did it all satisfactorily. Only Maxim Ivanovich didn’t show the painting to anybody then, but locked it up in his study, away from all eyes. And they really were eager to have a look at it in town. He ordered everybody to be chased away. There was a lot of talk. And Pyotr Stepanovich was as if out of his mind then: “I can do everything now,” he says, “it’s proper for me to be at the court in St. Petersburg.” He was a most amiable man, but he had an inordinate love of extolling himself. And fate caught up with him: as soon as he received all two hundred roubles, he immediately started drinking and showing the money to everybody, boasting; and he was killed during the night, drunk, by one of our tradesmen, whom he had been drinking with, and robbed of his money. All this became known the next morning.
