On their way back, Tíkhonovna and the deacon's wife stopped in Moscow to see the saints. Here she heard that the Tsar was there, and she thought that it was evidently God's command that she should petition the Tsar. All that had to be done was to write the petition.
In Moscow the pilgrims stopped in a hostelry. They begged permission to stay there overnight; they were allowed to do so. After supper the deacon's wife lay down on the oven, and Tíkhonovna, placing her wallet under her head, lay down on a bench and fell asleep. In the morning, before daybreak, Tíkhonovna got up, woke the deacon's wife, and went out. The innkeeper spoke to her just as she walked into the yard.
"You are up early, granny," he said.
"Before we get there, it will be time for matins," Tíkhonovna replied.
"God be with you, granny!"
"Christ save you!" said Tíkhonovna, and the pilgrims went to the Kremlin.
After standing through the matins and the mass, and having kissed the relics, the old women, with difficulty making their way, arrived at the house of the Chernýshevs. The deacon's wife said that the old lady had given her an urgent invitation to stop at her house, and had ordered that all pilgrims should be received.
"There we shall find a man who will write the petition," said the deacon's wife, and the pilgrims started to blunder through the streets and ask their way. The deacon's wife had been there before, but had forgotten where it was. Two or three times they were almost crushed, and people shouted at them and scolded them. Once a policeman took the deacon's wife by the shoulder and, giving her a push, forbade her to walk through the street on which they were, and directed them through a forest of lanes. Tíkhonovna did not know that they were driven off the Vozdvízhenka for the very reason that through that street was to drive the Tsar, of whom she was thinking all the time, and to whom she intended to give the petition.
The deacon's wife walked, as always, heavily and complainingly, while Tíkhonovna, as usual, walked lightly and briskly, with the gait of a young woman. At the gate the pilgrims stopped. The deacon's wife did not recognize the house: there was there a new hut which she had not seen before; but on scanning the well with the pumps in the corner of the yard, she recognized it all. The dogs began to bark and made for the women with the staffs.