"Dulled and weakened, the Mother tottered. But she saw many eyes about her, glowing with a bold fire, eyes that she knew well and that were dear to her.
"'... They will never get at the truth, even under oceans of blood!'
"The policeman seized her heavily by the throat.
"There was a rattling in her throat:
"... 'The unfortunates!'
"Some one in the crowd answered her, with a deep sigh."
"A Confession" is the story of a restless soul who untiringly searches for the God of truth and goodness. Found as a child in a village of central Russia, Matvey was first taken by a sacristan, and, after his death, by Titov, the inspector of the domain. In order to debase Matvey, whose superiority irritates him, Titov asks him to participate in his extortions. Having become the son-in-law of his adopted father, Matvey, on account of his love for his wife, accepts the shameful life. But the God in whom Matvey has placed his distracted confidence, seems to want to chastise him cruelly. After having lost, one after the other, his wife and child, he goes away at a venture. He enters a monastery where, among the dissolute monks, whose vices are most repugnant, his soul gradually shakes off the Christian dogma. On one of his pilgrimages, he gets to Damascus. Among the workingmen, where chance has taken him, he feels his heart opening to the truth, which he follows up with the determination of a real Gorkyan hero. The life of the people appears to him in its sublime simplicity. And it is in the midst of a dazzling apotheosis—which reminds one of the most grandiose pages of Zola's "Lourdes"—that he finally confesses the God of his ideal: it is the people.
"People! you are my God, creator of all the gods that you have formed from the beauty of your soul, in your troubled and laborious search!
"Let there be no other gods on the earth but yourself, for you are the only God, the creator of miracles!"