Then all grew confused and Tichon fell asleep. He dreamt he was flying over some visionary city: either the old legendary town Kitesh, or the New Jerusalem, or perhaps Stockholm, or else the Glass City, “like unto clear glass and a jasper stone, clear as crystal.” A music which was at the same time mathematics filled the luminous city.
He suddenly awoke. All around him were bustling about with joyous faces.
“The soldiers, the soldiers have come!”
Tichon looked out and saw afar off, on the borders of the wood, in the evening twilight, men around a fire wearing three-cornered hats, green coats with red lapels, and brass buttons. These were the soldiers. “The soldiers have come. Kindle! friends! God is with us!”
CHAPTER V
Captain Pirsky had received the following instructions from the Bishop of Nishni-Novgorod.
“The haunt of the Raskolniks is to be approached secretly, lest the people set themselves on fire. Should they shut themselves up in their monastery or chapel the soldiers must surround them in close order, and watch their shelter carefully night and day. At all costs prevent a fire. Try and persuade them to surrender, and give them hope that they will all be freely pardoned. And when they surrender make a list of their names, put them into footstocks or chains to make flight impossible, and send them with all their goods under guard to Nijni. But if, unmoved by your persuasions, they refuse to surrender, stubbornly remaining shut in, you must get them out as best you can by siege and famine; catching the ringleaders that their heresy may not spread. Take them prisoners by force or starvation, but avoid bloodshed. Should they set their robbers’ den or chapel on fire, you must flood it with water, and hacking away windows and doors, drag them out alive.”
Captain Pirsky, a brave old retired soldier, who had been wounded at Poltava, considered the destruction of monasteries, a “cunning invention of the army of long-haired popes,” and would have preferred to have encountered the severest fire of the Swedes or Turks, than to meddle with the Raskolniks. They chose to burn themselves and he always received the blame! “The captain and other lay officers should exercise more caution and skill, for it is obvious that the Raskolniks seek death in the flames for fear of the Captain.” Pirsky explained that the Raskolniks were driven to death, not by fear but by their stubborn hate of the world. “They are filled with anger against us, whom they consider apostates, and would rather suffer death than accept the new faith, so inflated and stubborn are they over minutest trifles.” But these explanations were not listened to at the bishop’s palace and the remonstrances continued.