From childhood memories of St. Seraphim of Sarov

Hermit of the 1st quarter of the 19th century and pilgrims of his time These days, the Church and people of Orthodox Russia, with the Royal Family at its head, reverently celebrated a long-awaited great spiritual triumph - the discovery of the relics of St. Seraphim, the Wonderworker of Sarov. Thousands of pilgrims from all over Russia are drawn along the path already trodden by the people to venerate the honest relics of the saint of God with warm faith in the mighty intercession in Heaven of the prayer book now glorified by the Church for our souls. Rumors about the joyful event involuntarily bring to mind pictures of long, long-ago days of my childhood: the past seems to come to life before me and the image of the ascetic of the Murom forests is vividly depicted in my imagination, as I had the great happiness of seeing him about three-quarters of a century ago. Probably, my memories will add very little new to what is already known about the life and exploits of St. Seraphim, but it seems to me that the personal testimony of an eyewitness should have some significance at the present time, and therefore I would like to tell, as far as I can remember, what I witnessed when visiting the Sarov Hermitage in 1831 or 1832. Now I can’t remember, due to the distance of time, the immediate reasons that prompted my father and mother to leave their nest in Nizhny Novgorod and go to the Murom forests, taking with them the entire huge family, from older teenagers to the baby at the mother’s breast, and almost the entire household - in a word, in the expression of that time - children and household members, their entire house... Most of the pilgrims walked and rode in order to fulfill the vow made at one or another difficult moment of life. And there was a lot to be grateful for in those distant times. The horrors of '12 were still fresh in everyone's memory. Many vows were made in this terrible time by both poor and rich people. Then came the joys of liberation, rejoicing and celebration of unheard-of victories. The rise in public spirit lasted for more than tens of years. And where there is an uplift of spirit, there is an attraction to achievement. And so... shortly before the events described, a new social disaster befell the country: the first formidable onslaught of a hitherto unknown Asian guest - cholera. So what? “The same people of the same generation, who, during the invasion of a foreigner, rallied in friendly resistance as one person, deeply feeling the common solidarity in the face of a common misfortune for all, now hastened to fade away, each to hide in his own hole. Fear for oneself, for oneself personally, gripped everyone. People looked like animals at the passerby, protecting their homes with fires and smoke. The man ran headlong across the street, seeing a man in the distance. The traveler drove his cart into a snowdrift in fear, just so as not to breathe in the contaminated breath of someone he met. But, fortunately, these days have also shortened. The quarantine outposts were removed, and the road across the entire width and surface of our land became good riddance again. People again poured into all places of free pilgrimage. It was at this very time that my sisters and brothers (now long deceased) happened to catch the hermit of the Murom forests in the midst of his ascetic works. We rode for a long time... I vividly remember the charm of halts at the edge of the forest with fires near a stream or over a hole in the forest, with samovars under the shade of trees - with all the expanse of a half-gypsy nomad... I remember spending the night in the huge villages of a rich, prosperous region: in a spacious, recently felled hut, I fell asleep sweetly to the buzz of women’s spindles... You look, half asleep, and the women are still spinning, silently spinning, and not long after midnight. The gray-haired mother-in-law either sits down, then gets up again, with measured movements like a pendulum, inserting splinter after splinter into the tall light... And from the height of the light, sparks rain down in splashes, like a fiery rain, giving the silent work of peasant women in the silence of the night something fantastic, fabulous... After each overnight stay, after each halt, the train of Sarov pilgrims became longer and longer. In those days people loved to stick together when approaching the then unsafe area of ​​the Murom forest. I remember how a line of our carriages slowly and ponderously pulled along the shifting sands of the main road, skirting the edge of a formidable coniferous forest. Peasant carts joined the tail of the train one after another; The pilgrims on foot diligently kneaded the shifting sand with their feet, just so as not to fall behind them and lose the guards of the train. From time to time a rifle shot was heard: it was an old captive Turk, once taken out by his grandfather, who was amusing himself. Now, as either a bartender or a housekeeper, he sat importantly on the wide trestles of his grandmother’s dorm, saying after each shot something like: “Let them get scared there in the forest.” I can’t remember the general appearance of the Sarov monastery upon entry. It was probably towards evening, and we children took a nap, napping on the laps of our elders. Upon entering the long, low, vaulted monastery dining room, we children were seized with a slight trembling, either from the dampness of the stone building, or simply from fear. In the very middle of the meal, the monk, standing at the lectern, read the Lives of the Saints. The honored guests sat in deep silence at the long table to the right. The “honorables” ate lazily, disdainfully scooping with wooden spoons from a common bowl that was unusual for them. The peasants at the other table to the left were diligently slurping up the delicious monastery food. Both were silent. Under the dimly lit arches, only the monotonous voice of the reader and the restrained shuffling of the servants' shoes on the stone floor, serving food in wooden cups and on wooden trays, could be heard. That night we children were not woken up for matins, and we only got to mass. Father Seraphim was not at the service, and the people flocked straight from the church to the building in which the monastery hermitage was located. Our family also joined the pilgrims. We walked for a long time under the arches of endless, as it seemed to me then, dark passages. The monk with a candle walked ahead. “Here,” he said, and, untying the key from his belt, he used it to unlock the lock that hung at the low, narrow door set deep into the thick stone wall. Bending towards the door, the old man said the usual greeting in monasteries: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on us.” But there was no response “Amen” as an invitation to enter. “Try it yourself, see if any of you respond,” said the old counselor, addressing the pilgrims. The usual exclamation at the closed door was repeated by my father and others - both women and children tried... “So be it, Alexey Nefedovich,” the mother timidly invited the tall gentleman in a retired hussar uniform, a man still young in the flexibility of his figure and the sparkle of his deep black eyes, but an old man in his gray mustache and the wrinkles that furrowed his high forehead. Alexey Nefedovich Prokudin quickly walked to the door, bent down to it and with the confidence of a friend at home, with a smile of ready greeting on his face, softly said in a chest tenor familiar to us: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on us.” However, there was no answer to his handsome voice from behind the closed door. “If, Alexey Nefedovich, he didn’t answer you, it means that the elder is not in his cell. Maybe you should go and check under the window to see if he jumped out when you heard the roar of your train in the yard.” We followed the gray-haired counselor out of the corridor by another, shorter route. Having rounded the corner of the building behind him, we found ourselves on a small platform, right under Father Seraphim’s window. On this site between two ancient graves there were indeed traces of two feet shod in work shoes. “Run away,” the gray-haired monk said worriedly, embarrassedly turning the now unnecessary key to the empty cell in his hands. “Ehma,” he sighed deeply, humbly returning to the work of his obedience as a leader of pilgrims around the monastery shrine. Meanwhile, a crowd of them was already crowding around an ancient grave standing at a distance with a cast-iron coffin on top of the ground instead of a monument. Some, while crossing themselves, venerated cold cast iron, some raked loose sand from under the tomb into the corner of their neckerchief... Crossing himself three times, the monk bowed down to the ground in front of the ancient grave. All the people bowed to the ground after him. “Our Father Mark,” the monk began his usual monastic tale: “Our Father Mark was saved in these very forests, when this monastery of ours was just being built for the first time. The accursed forest robber adversaries more than once maimed him in the forest, extorting from him the place where the monastery treasures were supposedly buried, and finally, out of frustration, they tore out his tongue. For tens of years the martyr then lived in our forest as an involuntary silent man. And for all his patience during his life, the Lord now gives his miraculous power to the tomb. As you know, many miracles have already happened over this grave, and we, unworthy of his brothers, sing requiems here, waiting for God to please reveal his holy relics from under cover.” The crowd of pilgrims respectfully parted, interrupting the monk's speech: the abbot himself went with the singers to serve the usual Sunday memorial service over the grave of a long-dead brother. After the funeral service, Father Abbot blessed us, pilgrims, to look for Father Seraphim in the forest: “He won’t go far,” the Abbot consoled, “after all, like our father Mark, he was severely crippled in his lifetime. You will see for yourself: where is the arm, where is the leg, and there is a hump on the shoulder. Whether a bear broke him... or people beat him... because he’s like a baby, he won’t say. But you are unlikely to find it in the forest. He will hide in the bushes and lie down in the grass. Will he himself respond to children's voices? Take more children, so that they go ahead of you. They would certainly run ahead,” the abbot shouted after the crowd that had already moved towards the forest. At first it was fun for us to run alone, completely alone; running unattended and unsupervised across a soft, velvety layer of shifting sand. We, city children, had to stop every now and then to shake out the fine white sand from one or another slotted (fashionable at that time) shoe. The village sandals, laughing, shouted to us as we walked: “Why don’t you take off your shoes... it will be easier.” The forest became thicker and taller. We were increasingly overwhelmed by forest dampness, forest calm, and the tart, unusual smell of resin. It became completely dark under the high arches of the huge fir trees... It became eerie for both the village and the city in the gloomy forest. I wanted to cry... Luckily, somewhere in the distance a ray of sunlight flashed and lit up between the needle-like branches... We took courage, ran towards the gap that flickered in the distance, and soon we all ran out scattered into a green, sun-drenched clearing. We look: near the roots of a separate spruce tree standing in a clearing, a short, thin old man is working, bending almost to the ground, deftly cutting tall forest grass with a sickle. The sickle sparkles in the sunshine. Hearing a rustling in the forest, the old man quickly stood up, pricking his ear towards the side of the monastery, and then, like a frightened hare, quickly darted towards the thicket of the forest. But he didn’t have time to run, he was out of breath, timidly looked back, ducked into the thick grass of the curtain he had not cut and disappeared from our sight. Just then we remembered our parents’ instructions when entering the forest, and we shouted in almost twenty voices in unison: “Father Seraphim! Father Seraphim! Exactly what the monastery pilgrims hoped for happened: hearing the sound of children’s voices not far from them, Father Seraphim could not stand his ambush and his old head appeared from behind the tall stems of forest grass. Putting his finger to his lips, he looked at us touchingly, as if begging the children not to betray him to the elders, whose steps were already heard in the forest. The hermit's yellowish hair, wet with labor's sweat, lay in soft strands on his high forehead: his face, bitten by forest midges, was speckled with drops of blood caked in wrinkles. The appearance of the forest hermit was unsightly. Meanwhile, when, having trodden a path to us through all the grass, he sat down on the grass and beckoned us to him, our little Lisa was the first to throw herself on the old man’s neck, pressing her tender face to his shoulder, covered with rubbish. “Treasures, treasures,” he said in a barely audible whisper, pressing each of us to his thin chest. We hugged the elder, and meanwhile a teenager, the shepherd Sema, who was mixed up in the crowd of children, ran as fast as he could back to the side of the monastery, loudly shouting: “Here, here. Here he is... Here is Father Seraphim. "Syu-yu-da-a." We felt ashamed. Both our shouts and our hugs seemed to us like something like betrayal. We felt even more ashamed when two powerful, out of breath figures, I don’t remember whether they were men or women, grabbed the Elder by the elbows and led him to a heap of people that had already poured out of the forest. Having come to our senses, we rushed after Father Seraphim... Having gotten ahead of his uninvited counselors, he was now walking alone, limping slightly, to his hut over the stream. Approaching her, he turned to face the pilgrims waiting for him. There were a lot of them. “I have nothing to treat you here, dears,” he said in the soft, embarrassed tone of a householder caught by surprise in the midst of a working day. “But perhaps you can treat the kids,” he remembered, as if delighted at his own guess. And then, turning to the teenager, our brother, he said: “Here I have beds with onions there. Do you see? Gather all the kids, cut them some onion; feed them some onion and give them a good drink of water from the stream.” We ran and skipped to carry out Father Seraphim’s orders and squatted down between the beds. Of course, no one touched Luke. All of us, lying down in the grass, looked from behind it at the old man, who pressed us so tightly to his chest. Having received his blessing, everyone stood at a distance in a respectful semicircle and, like us, looked from afar at the one whom they had come to see and listen to. There were many people here, saddened by their recent grief: most of the peasant women wore white scarves as a sign of mourning. The daughter of our old nanny, who had recently died of cholera, was crying quietly, covering her face with her apron. “The plague then, now cholera,” the hermit said slowly, as if recalling to himself something long, long ago. “Look,” he said loudly, “here the children will cut the onion, there will be nothing left of it on top of the ground... But it will rise, grow stronger and stronger than before... So will our dead ones, both the plague and cholera... and everyone will rise better, more beautiful than before. They will be resurrected. Will be resurrected. They will be resurrected, every single one of them..." The hermit did not address the pagans with the news of the resurrection. Everyone standing here knew from a young age “about the life of the next century.” Everyone exchanged joyful greetings on “Bright Day.” Meanwhile, this loud: “They will be resurrected. They will rise again,” proclaimed in a remote forest by lips that had spoken so little during their lives, flashed over the clearing as an assurance of something undoubted and close. Standing in front of the door of his forest hut, in which it was impossible to stand or lie down, the old man quietly crossed himself, continuing his prayer, his silent prayer... People did not interfere with him, just as neither work with an ax, nor haymaking, nor heat, nor cold, nor night, nor day, interfered with his constant conversation with God. It was as if a quiet angel flew over the silent clearing. Separated from the pilgrims and in front of everyone stood a formidable, proud creature well known to us - Mrs. Zorina, a distant relative of my father. Behind her was crowded a whole staff of female servants, dressed, like herself, in black with white scarves on their heads. The old woman was supported by two elbows, either squirrels or winged women in velvet pointed caps. Bored with the solemn calm of the forest clearing with its quietly praying people, the old lady grumbled, turning to her courtyard: “We’ll have time to pray at home. I came to speak out and I will speak out.” And, pushing her entourage in both directions, she swam with both of them to the very middle of the semicircle. “Father Seraphim, Father Seraphim,” she called loudly to the hermit. – What advice would you give me? Here I am, General Zorina, a widow for thirty years. I’ve been living for fifteen years, maybe you’ve heard, at the monastery with all these people. During all this time I have been observing Wednesdays and Fridays; Now I’m thinking about going on Monday, so what do you say to that? What do you recommend, Father Seraphim? If a flock of rooks had appeared, flying cawing over a crowd of pilgrims, we would have been no more stunned by the noisy birds than by this annoying request from Mrs. Zorina, which suddenly interrupted the general mood. And Father Seraphim, as if puzzled, blinked at her with his kind eyes: “I don’t quite understand you,” he said and then, after thinking a little, he added, “if you’re talking about food, then I’ll tell you this: when you pray, you forget about food - well, don’t eat, don’t eat for a day, don’t eat for two - and then, when you get hungry and weak, then eat a little.” This wise solution to the problem, made by a hermit who had endured centuries of hardship, brought a smile of tenderness on all faces. The old, arrogant zealot of fasting somehow awkwardly backed away along with her courtiers, quickly hiding with them in the crowd of her own. Meanwhile, the pilgrims grew weak, standing in the sunny heat. Everyone’s body came into its own, demanded food and rest. Father Seraphim beckoned to Prokudin with his hand: “Tell them,” he said, “do me a favor, tell everyone to quickly drink from that spring there. The water there is good. And tomorrow I will be at the monastery. I certainly will." When everyone, having quenched their thirst, looked around, Father Seraphim was no longer on the hill in front of his hut, in which there was no room to stand or lie down. Only in the distance behind the bushes did a sickle rustle, cutting dry forest grass. We walked back to the monastery alone, with our family, following the tired gait of my grandmother, my father’s mother. Only Alexey Nefedovich was with us, and a long row of household members stretched at some distance behind. Crowds of pilgrims were already entering the monastery gates, but we still did not leave the wide, cool clearing, at the end of which the heads of the monastery cathedral could be seen in the distance. The father began to sing quietly, which he always did when he was among his family, and he felt good in his soul; the two older sisters and the teenage brother began to sing, as always, in their angelic, still half-childish voice; Prokudin's deep tenor echoed them. Separated from the other servants, Semyon and Vasily moved along, the usual bass voices of our family songs, and a modest but harmonious choir announced the high arches of the clearing: “We sing to You, we bless You, we thank You and pray to You, Our God, our God, our God...” The sounds of the last “Our God” were still fading in the heights when we quietly stepped out into the monastery clearing. Meanwhile, the meek appearance of the forest elder involuntarily floated before the eyes of the singers. My sister Lisa, the same one whom Father Seraphim hugged so much, calling her a treasure, my little sister held me tightly with both hands. When leaving the darkness of the forest, she squeezed my hand and, looking questioningly into my face, said: “After all, Father Seraphim only seems like an old man, but in fact he is a child like you and me. Isn’t that right, Nadya?” Since then, over the next seventy years of my life, I have seen smart, kind, and wise eyes, I have seen many eyes full of hot, sincere affection, but never since then have I seen such childishly clear, senilely beautiful eyes as those that looked at us so touchingly that morning from behind the tall stems of forest grass. There was a whole revelation of love in them... The smile that covered this wrinkled, exhausted face can only be compared with the smile of a sleeping newborn, when, according to the nannies, he is still being comforted in his sleep by his recent comrades - angels. For the rest of my life, I will remember the seedlings of small firewood interspersed with heaps of hay, which I saw in early childhood in a forest clearing, among a dense forest, among giant pines, as if guarding this poor, back-breaking work of a frail in body, but strong with God’s help, hermit. From early morning the next day, Father Seraphim, according to his promise, was already in the monastery. He greeted us, pilgrims, like a hospitable householder greets his invited guests, in the open doors of his inner cell. No trace of his stay in the desert was visible on him: his yellowish-gray hair was combed smoothly, in the deep wrinkles there was no visible blood from the bite of forest mosquitoes; a snow-white linen shirt replaced a worn-out homespun; his whole person was, as it were, an expression of the words of the Savior: “When you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, so that you may appear fasting not before men, but before your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly.” The hermit's face was joyful, the cell was filled with bags filled with breadcrumbs from prosphoras. The only space left free was in front of the icons for kneeling and prayer. Next to the old monk stood the same bag of crackers, but open. Father Seraphim distributed a handful of it to each pilgrim who approached him, saying: “Eat, eat, my lights. You see what abundance we have here.” Having finished this distribution and blessing the last one who came up, the old man stepped back half a step and, bowing deeply on both sides, said: “Forgive me, fathers and brothers, for what I have sinned against you in word, deed or thought.” (Father Seraphim went to confession that evening with the confessor common to all the monasteries). Then he straightened up and, shading everyone present with a wide priestly cross, added solemnly: “May the Lord forgive and have mercy on all of you.” Thus ended our second meeting with the Reverend Elder. I don’t remember how we spent the rest of that day, but the third and last day of our stay in the Sarov Desert remained all the more vivid in my memory. Having confessed, as I said, the day before, Father Seraphim served mass as a priest in a small church that day. Its size allowed only a few of the pilgrims to be present at the service. Remembering us who did not make it to the church, the Reverend sent a novice to say that he would come to us with a cross after the service. All of us, rich and poor, were waiting for him, crowding around the church porch. When he appeared at the church doors, everyone's eyes were fixed on him. This time he was in full monastic vestments and in a service epitrachelion. His high forehead and all the features of his moving face shone with the joy of a man who had worthily tasted the Body and Blood of Christ; in his eyes, large and blue, there was a sparkle of intelligence and thought. He slowly walked down the steps of the porch and, despite his limp and the hump on his shoulder, he seemed and was majestically beautiful. Ahead of our entire crowd at that time was a familiar German student who had just arrived to us from Dorpat. His tall, handsome figure and the curiosity with which he looked at what seemed to him a strange Russian ceremony could not help but attract the attention of the hermit, and he was the first to give him the cross. Knierim - that was the name of the young German - not understanding what was required of him, he grabbed the cross with his hand and, moreover, with a black-gloved hand. “A glove,” the old man said reproachfully. The German just became completely embarrassed. Father Seraphim then stepped back two steps and spoke: “Do you know what a cross is? Do you understand the meaning of the cross of the Lord? - and sonorous, harmonious speech flowed from the lips of the inspired monk in an eloquent stream... Even if I had enough memory to retain the words of the hermit over all these years, then even then I would not be able to include this impromptu sermon in my memories. At that time I was not able to understand it. At that time I could not have been more than nine years old. But what a child could then understand, see and hear has not been erased from my memory in the dozens of years of life I have lived since then. I must not forget this clear gaze, inspired at that moment by wisdom from above, I must not forget the suddenly transformed face of the woodcutter of the Murom forests. I vividly remember the sounds of a voice saying “as one who has power” to the small flock of pilgrims gathered in Sarov. I remember the sympathetic sparkle in Prokudin’s black eyes, I remember my old grandmother, humbly standing before the hermit, “like a wet lip.” I remember the youthful delight that flared up in the eyes of the younger uncle. The preacher noticed him and, bending slightly towards his uncle, said: “Do you have money?” The uncle rushed to look for the wallet in his pockets. But the hermit stopped him with a quiet movement of his hand: “No, not now,” he said. - “Give out always, everywhere.” And with these words he held out the cross to him first. And my late uncle did not “go away to mourn,” as was the case with the rich young man of Scripture... We were in a hurry to go back. We were a little late, and we did not have to get out before dark from the outskirts of the shifting sands that skirt the still terrible, according to rumors, dense Sarov forest. The walking pilgrims, among whom, as always, there were many frail women and children weak from old age, had already gone ahead. In the monastery courtyard, the roar of departing carriages of wealthier pilgrims could be heard every now and then. And our horses were already standing at the hotel porch. Our well-fed horses beat the ground with their hooves, hurrying with their impatience the servants who were carrying our travel luggage to the carriages. An old monastery servant approached Alexei Nefedovich, who was riding on horseback and already raising his foot in the stirrup. “Even before morning,” he said, “Father Seraphim, leaving the church, deigned to whisper his order to me in passing, so that you, Alexey Nefedovich, would not leave in the evening without seeing him again.” “An old friend, my spiritual father, wants to say goodbye,” Prokudin remarked to this and, turning to us, said: “Follow me, all of you.” And so our whole family, with a retired hussar at their head, again stretched along the long corridors of the monastery building. The door to the hermit's hallway was wide open, as if inviting entry. We positioned ourselves silently along the wall of a long and narrow room, opposite the doors of the inner cell. The last fading ray of the setting sun fell on a coffin hollowed out of an oak ridge, which had been standing in the corner on two transverse benches for decades. Leaning against the wall, the coffin lid stood ready... The cell door opened silently and slowly. With silent steps the Elder approached the coffin. His now bloodless face was pale, his eyes looked somewhere into the distance, as if intently peering into something invisible that occupied his entire soul, his entire inner structure. A flame trembled in his hand on top of a bunch of lit wax candles. Having stuck four candles on the outskirts of the coffin, he beckoned Prokudin to him and then looked intently and sadly into his eyes. Having crossed the oak coffin with a wide pastoral cross, he muffled but solemnly said: “On the Intercession.” The word of the holy Elder was understood both by Prokudin himself and by those around him as a prediction of his, Prokudin’s, death. Under the stunning impression of this prediction, we left the Sarov monastery. I never had a chance to see St. Seraphim again in my life. Almost the next year (1833), the monks found him in his cell, deceased on his knees during prayer. But, of course, in our family for a long time there was no end to the conversations about the charming personality of the great ascetic and peaceful apostle of labor, and now the Wonderworker glorified by the Church. It remains for me to tell how the prophecy of Father Seraphim I heard came true, and it came true in the same year. The Feast of the Intercession of the Virgin Mary has arrived. What happened on this day to our Nizhny, always so calm, when the bustle of the fair cleared away from him and he fell asleep for the whole winter, as if in a dead sleep. Quadruples after quadruples rush past our house at the end of Malaya Pokrovka. It seems that everyone with a carriage has vowed to drive along this street, turn right and stop in front of the large white house of Baroness Morenheim. A.N. lodged here this winter. Prokudin. Today he received the Holy Mysteries, and the whole city came here to congratulate him. And all our elders went there too. The horses, of course, were not harnessed, since from the windows of our living room the windows of the Morenheim house were visible obliquely. The youngest of us, my sister and I, were left under the guard of Madame Oliveira, an old Spanish woman whom Prokudin found somewhere in the slums of Moscow, dying of hunger and want, and brought her to my mother’s house so that she could nurse and fatten her while the priest, Father Pavel, would teach her the dogmas and rituals of our faith. The Spanish woman’s ardent desire was now to become a nun at the nearby Maiden Convent. Sitting with us girls on this memorable day and working on her never-ending piece of blanket, the poor foreigner looked at her decrepit, thin arms and sighed, thinking that probably someday they would get fatter. But, having carefully put together her work, she told us: “Shouldn’t you and I also go for a walk to Morenheim’s house? You and I, of course, will not enter the house, but we can catch the moment when my benefactor comes out onto the balcony to bow to him and congratulate him.” We got ready in a minute and, turning the corner, began to slowly walk in front of the house, where other children were already walking, some with the governess, and some with the nanny. When the bell tower of a nearby church struck two o'clock, the glass door on the Morenheim balcony began to move, but when it opened, it was not the owner of the house who came out, but only the general doctor and friend of Nizhny, Lindegrin. A Spanish woman timidly approached the bars, asking: “What about our Prokudin?” The doctor replied: “He is healthier than all of us and will probably live to be a hundred years old. Now he walks from room to room with his brisk step, regaling his guests with stories about the Savior’s deeds on earth, and tells it in such a way that it seems to everyone as if he is hearing it for the first time. Wanting to be absolutely sure of his health, I came up with some stupid joke where I had to feel the pulse of each of the guests. I felt the pulse of the fat Mr. Smirnov and the old Madame Pogulyaeva, and the pulse of the one who, according to the prediction, was supposed to die that day, turned out to be the smoothest and strongest. After this, please believe the prediction.” And the good German, turning on one leg, respectfully bowed to the Spaniard, blew each of us a kiss and went back through the glass door. The bell tower struck half past three. Suddenly the glass door upstairs swung open and a footman, pale as death, ran headlong down the steps; he shouted: “He’s dying, they sent me for a confessor.” But no matter how close the church was and no matter how hurry Father Paul was, he still had to finish reading the funeral service over the deceased, over the already cold corpse of the one whom the poor and the rich called the friend of the poor and wretched. Dying, he sank into a chair, leaning his head against its high back. The correct, noble facial features of the retired hussar were completely calm. It seemed to be a baby quietly asleep on its mother's lap. “He has reposed,” said the gray-haired sexton loudly, standing with a censer in his hands. “Yes,” added the priest, wiping a large tear from his cheek. “And now he is there, from where did sorrow and illness and sighing escape.” Doctors did not find any illness in the deceased and did not find any signs of approaching death. It may be that in Nizhny Novgorod or in the vicinity of Sarov there will be someone who still remembers the death of Prokudin, this man who passionately loved God and his neighbors. He will probably confirm my memories. Do people in Sarov remember or not the prophetic word spoken by the hermit to his friend and disciple, in view of the coffin he had long ago prepared for himself? Don't know. In any case, it came true.