“Look, son, look.... And pray here too.... It’s a holy place, you know....”
“Don’t you know who’s buried here?”
“Yes, son, yes! People of every class.... Violence!... A Saltykov, a landowner from the Vyyezdnaya Sloboda, who oppressed the people,—God forbid.”
The old man sadly shook his gray beard.
“You know, old people say,—a merchant was going from Makary to Arzamas,—and offered thanksgiving for arriving safely. Glory to God—he was at home! At dawn he went out of the city peacefully and met the lord and his retainers on the bridge. There was no justice.... They hurled him from the bridge into the Tesha and in a day or two his body floated to the city.... It was picked up and buried here, on the mountain. And here it lies till the Day of Judgment....”
I was already familiar with the name of this Saltykov: the old records in the archives of Nizhny Novgorod preserve the dark memories of the acts of this noble family, and one is well known from the revolt of Pugachev: his retainers collected the taxes by robbery. When the glad tidings spread among the people that Petr Fedorovich had made himself known and was marching to recover his throne, the serfs of Saltykov thought that there would be an end to their master’s outrages and their necessarily sinful lives. The mir assembled, seized and bound their lord, put him in a cart and took him to the “tsar’s camp” for trial. “But,” said one landowner who described the incident, “the Lord heard the prayers of the innocent victim and the rascals instead of going to the camp of the pretender, carried him to the troops of Mikhelson.”
It goes without saying that the kindly nobleman was quickly released and the wicked peasants received just punishment. Their bones perhaps joined those of the followers of Bulavin, the Stryeltsi and the victims of this same Saltykov. They all lie there together awaiting “the judgment of God” over all earthly actions....
“Yes, there’s the Sloboda,” said the old man, rising to his feet and pointing to the village with its columns of smoke and with the morning fog across the river Tesha. “And there, higher up, were the gardens of Saltykov....”
“Do you think these houses of God were built since, grandsir?” I asked.
“N-no, friend! Since! N-no.... Much earlier.... Perhaps since Pugachev.”