"Now listen, Samuel: you have certainly done a very great thing; but it is worth nothing to you personally. Nay, worse: they might again try to make you renounce your faith. So it is really a danger to you. But, if you wish, just say that I have done it, and I shall repay you handsomely for it. The priest will not know the difference."
Well, it is this way: I always hated get-rich-quick schemes. I never cared a rap for a penny I had not expected and was not ready to earn. Take, for instance, what I did with the priest: Did I ever expect any honors or profits out of it? Such possible honors and profits I certainly did not like, and did not look for. Besides, who could assure me that they would not try again to coax me into renouncing my faith? Why, then, should I put myself into such trouble? And I said to Serge:
"You want it badly, Serge, do you? You'd like to see yourself promoted, to be an officer? Is that so? Very well, then. Make out a paper assigning the house to Marusya."
"I promise faithfully."
"I believe no promises."
"What shall I do?"
"You have paper and pencil in your pocket?"
"Certainly!"
I turned around, supported myself on both my arms and one knee, and made a sort of a rickety table of myself. And on my back Serge wrote out his paper, and signed it. But all that was really unnecessary. He would have kept his word anyway. For he was always afraid I might blurt out the whole story. Not I, though. May I never have anything in common with those who profit by falsehoods!
As to what happened later, I cannot tell you exactly. For I was taken away, first to a temporary hospital, and then to a permanent one. I fell into a fever and lost consciousness. I do not know how many days or weeks passed by: I was in a different world all that time. How can I describe it to you? Well, it was a world of chaos. It was all jumbled together: father, mother, military service, ikons, lashes, lambs slaughtered, Peter, bullets, etc., etc.