“The informer could add nothing to the proof of my guilt, which was disclosed by the entries made in certain agents’ books, showing that they had for years been wont to give me trifling sums, amounting in all to two hundred and fifteen roubles; and I have nothing wherewith to repay the sum. I am poor, old, sad, wretched, disabled, destitute; and unable any longer to do my work, I beg to be discharged of it. Most merciful Highness! open your bowels of compassion unto me, and protect a defenceless old man; cause me to be exempted from this unjust payment! Have mercy upon me, I beseech you, Tsarevitch Alexis Petrovitch!”
Alexis had met this old man some months ago in Petersburg, at St. Simeon and St. Anne’s Church. Noticing him because of his unshaven, grizzled beard—so unusual for clerks—and his zealous reading of the Psalms in the choir, the Tsarevitch had asked him his name, position, and whence he came.
The old man had introduced himself, as a clerk of the Moscow Arsenal, Larion Dokoukin by name. He had come from Moscow and was now staying in the house belonging to the woman who made the consecrated bread at St. Simeon’s; he had mentioned his poverty, the informer’s disclosure, and also, almost in his first words, had referred to Antichrist. The Tsarevitch had been touched by the pitiable condition of the old man and told him to come to his house, promising to help him with money and advice. Now that he stood before him in his torn coat he looked the very image of a beggar. He was one of those poor ordinary clerks, nicknamed in Russia “inky souls,” “pettifoggers.” Hard were his wrinkles as though fossilized, hard the cold look in the small dim eyes, hard his neglected grizzled beard, his face colourless and dull as the papers which he had been copying and had pored over may be for thirty years in his office. He had accepted bribes from agents “in all fairness”; he may have even been guilty of roguery, and this was the conclusion he had suddenly arrived at: Antichrist is coming!
“Is he not simply an impostor?” surmised the Tsarevitch, looking steadily at him. There was nothing deceitful or sly in this face, but rather something artless and helpless, sombre and stubborn, as with people who are possessed by an idée fixe.
“There was yet another reason for my coming here,” added the old man, and then stopped short, unable to continue; the idée fixe was slowly working its way through his hard features. He cast down his eyes, fumbled with one hand in his breast pocket, pulled out some papers, which had apparently slipped into the lining through the pocket-hole, and gave them to the Tsarevitch.
They consisted of two thin, greasy, quarto booklets, filled with the large legible handwriting of a clerk.
Alexis began to read them carelessly, but gradually became more and more absorbed.
At the beginning came passages from the Holy Fathers, the prophets, and the Apocalypse, with reference to Antichrist and the end of the world. Then followed an appeal to the chief clergy of great Russia, and of the world, together with a prayer that they would forgive him, Dokoukin, his impudence and rudeness for thus writing this without their fatherly blessing, prompted as he had been solely by much suffering, sorrow and zeal for the Church, and with a further prayer that they would also intercede on his behalf with the Tsar and entreat him to show mercy unto himself, and vouchsafe him a hearing. Then followed what was evidently Dokoukin’s main idea, “God has ordained man to be master of himself (to exercise self-will, to be autonomous,)” and at the end came an accusation against the Tsar Peter:
“Nowadays we are cut off from this divine gift—life absolute and free; as well as deprived of houses, markets, agriculture, handicrafts and all the old established trades and laws, and, what is worse still, of Christian religion. We are hunted from house to house, from place to place, from town to town; we are insulted and outraged. We have changed all our customs, our language and dress; we have shaved our heads and beards, we have basely defiled ourselves; we have lost all that was characteristic both of nature and bearing, and in no wise differ now from the foreigners; we have once and for all mingled with them, got used to their ways, broken our Christian vows, and forsaken the holy churches. We have turned away from the East, and directed our footsteps toward the West, we have travelled along strange and unknown paths and have perished in the land of oblivion. We have adopted strangers and have showered good gifts upon them, while our own countrymen are left to die of hunger, to be beaten on distraint and ruined absolutely by unbearable taxation. It is inexpedient to give utterance to everything; more becoming is it to place a bridle on one’s tongue. But the heart is sore distressed to see the desolation of the New Jerusalem, and the troubled people smitten with insufferable scourges!”
“All this,” ran the conclusion, “is done unto us for the sake of the Lord Jesus Christ. O Secret Martyrs! fear not, neither despair, but rise valiantly and arm yourselves with the cross to repel the power of Antichrist. Suffer for the Lord’s cause, bear all patiently for yet a little while! Christ will not forsake us. Unto Him be praise now and ever more, world without end, Amen.”