“It was God’s wish that I should humble myself to ask you, my child, for forgiveness. If you grant me your forgiveness, Vera, I, too, can forgive you. I had hoped to keep my secret until I died, and now my sin has plunged you into ruin.”
“You rescue me, Grandmother, from despair.”
“And myself, Vera. God forgives, but he demands cleansing. I thought my sin was forgotten and forgiven. Because of my silence I seemed to men to be virtuous, but my virtue was a lie. God has punished my sin. Forgive me from your heart.”
“Does one forgive one’s Mother? You are a saint, a Mother without a peer in the whole wide world. If I had known you, as you really are, how could I have acted contrary to your will?”
“That is my second terrible sin. I was silent, and did not tell you to beware of the precipice. Your dead Mother will call me to account for my failure, I know. She comes to me in my dreams, and is now here between us. Do you also forgive me, Departed One,” she cried wildly, stretching out her arms in supplication.
Vera shuddered.
“Forgive me, Vera. I ask forgiveness of you both. We will pray.”
Vera tried to raise her to her feet, and Tatiana Markovna raised herself with difficulty, and sat down on the divan.
Vera bathed her temples with eau de Cologne, and gave her a sedative; then she kneeled down before her and covered her hand with kisses.
“What is hidden must be revealed,” began Tatiana Markovna, when she had recovered a little. “For forty-five years only two human beings beside myself have known it, he and Vassilissa, and I thought the secret would die with me. And now it is made public. My God!” she cried, wildly, stretching her folded arms to the picture of the Christ. “Had I known that this stroke would ever fall on another, on my child, I would have confessed my sin there and then to the all world in the Cathedral square.”