There were presented: AG (Angel-Guardian), AD (Angel-Destroyer), Joanna and witnesses:
The inspectors assistant S. Murakhovsky,
The inspector of the seminary hiermonk Hermohen,
The writer Aleksander Radishchev,
Aleksey Khomyakov (a religious philosopher, poet and publicist),
Alexander Pushkin (a poet and writer),
Michael Lermontov (a poet and writer),
Nikitenko (the author of the 'Diary' The 40's of the 19th century),
The poetess Barykova (the middle of the 19th century),
Nicolay Nekrasov (a poet and publicist),
Leo Tolstoy (a writer and publicist).
The AG narrated about Joseph's third dangerous illness smallpox, and again Katherine tearfully prayed to God, and her prayers are heard - the death goes away. Somebody brought a tattered book about vampires by Tolstoy to the recovering patient; it was not Leo but his namesake.
"All of them are vampires," Joseph suddenly concludes, "All the rich live of people's labour and drink people's blood. And they are afraid of nothing because the entire world is on the side of the rich, even the church."
"That's right," the AD livened up. But the AG waved his hands,
"What are you saying, Joseph? Doesn't the Scripture condemn service to mammon, riches, in every of its line? Particularly if it is acquired in an unrighteous way at the cost of others. Remember, the rich man found himself in the hell only because he feasted when the beggar Lazarus was sitting near his house and suffering..."
"I mean the Scripture but the church. They pray for tsar, his relatives and servants, for all moneyed people who drink blood. But who will plead for the poor? They don't have money even for prayers for the dead! These bloodsuckers aren't even afraid of God; they must be killed."
"Bravo, it's in an anarchistic way," the AD began to clap his hands, "it's our way!"
"Come to your senses, Joseph, after all, we are said, "Thou shalt not kill." There are no vampires. And except driving in the stake they are even more afraid of the Light..."
"Where can you get this Light when only darkness is everywhere," the AD said, "When the whole world lieth in wickedness?"
AN EXAMINATION OF WITNESSES
The inspector assistant S. Murakhovsky and the inspector of the seminary hiermonk Hermohen,
'It turned out that Dzhugashvili had a subscription list of 'Cheap Library' whose books he used. Today I confiscated from him the book 'The Toilers of the See' by Victor Hugo where I found the above-named list." "Punish him by long-time isolation in the cell; before he was already warned about an outside book (1893).'
'Grasping beasts, insatiable leeches! What do we leave for a peasant? The thing we cannot take away from him. Yes, air alone!' (the witness Radishchev).
'Nothing good, nothing worthy of respect or imitation was in Russia. Everywhere and always there were illiteracy, injustice, robbery, sedition, oppression of personality, poverty, disorder, absence of enlightenment and depravity. Your gaze cannot rest on any bright minute in people's life, on any comforting epoch,' (the witness Khomyakov).
'The monster is fat, villainous, having a hundred mouths and barking.' (the witness Radishchev).
The depravity came being proud and naked.
And the hearts hardened before it,
The fatherland was forgotten for power's sake.
A man sold his brother for gold.
Madmen said, there was no Liberty,
And nations believed them.
Good and evil is considered as meaningless:
Both of them became shadows,
Everything was forgotten,
Like earthly dust in the wind," (the witness Pushkin).
The wild gentry are here, being senseless and lawless,
With the help of violent birch rod misappropriated
Labor, property and time of a peasant,
who bends over another's plough and obeys whips,
Exhausted slavery drags along furrows
Of an implacable owner.
Here everybody drags heavy burdens as long as he lives.
Daring not to feel any hopes and wishes,
Young virgins are blooming here
For whims of heartless scoundrels (the witness Pushkin).
'Woe to them that devise iniquity, and work evil upon their beds! when the morning is light, they practise it, because it is in the power of their hand. And they covet fields, and take [them] by violence; and houses, and take [them] away: so they oppress a man and his house, even a man and his heritage' (Micah 2:1-2).
The despotic villain!
I hate you and your throne,
With cruel joy can I see
Yours and your children death.
The nations can see the seal of damnation
On your forehead,
You are horror of the world and shame of nature,
You are a rebuke to God on the earth (the witness Pushkin).
'Everywhere there are violence, groaning and restrictions and no freedom for a poor Russian spirit. When will be the end of these things? Will coming people understand and estimate all the horror, all tragic aspect of our existence?' (the witness Nikitenko, the Diary, the 40's years of the 19th century).
You who are standing at the throne like a greedy crowd,
The hangmen of liberty, genius and glory!
You are hiding under the shade of the law;
All judgment and truth are silent before you.
But there is God's judgment for you, confidants of depravity.
And the strict Judge - He is waiting,
He can't be corrupted by ringing of gold.
He knows all thoughts and deeds in advance (the witness Lermontov).
'A preacher of a whip, an apostle of ignorance, an advocate of obscurantism, a panegyrist of Tartar customs, what are you doing? I can understand that you base this teaching on the Orthodox Church; it's always been a supporter of whip and a servant of despotism, but why have you mentioned Christ here? He was the first who declared a teaching of liberty, equality and fraternity to people, sealed it by his martyrdom and confirmed the truth of his teaching.'
'If you would really be filled with the Truth of Christ, but not with devil's teaching, you would write in your new book quite other things. You would say to a landowner that since his peasants are his brothers in Christ and since a brother cannot be a slave of his brother, he must free them, or at least use their labor to their own profit as much as it is possible, realizing at the bottom of his conscience his false status in regards to them' (the witness Belinsky, 'A letter to Gogol').
'Ye know that the princes of the Gentiles exercise dominion over them, and they that are great exercise authority upon them. 26 But it shall not be so among you: but whosoever will be great among you, let him be your minister' (Mathew 20:25-26).
'Thy princes [are] rebellious, and companions of thieves: every one loveth gifts, and followeth after rewards: they judge not the fatherless, neither doth the cause of the widow come unto them' (Isaiah 1:23).
[Is] not this the fast that I have chosen? to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke?' (Isaiah 1:58).
The whirlwind of anger and fury is raging
Over you, a submissive country,
Every living and good thing is destroyed...
It is only heard, 'oh night without dawn,
Amidst darkness you have spread,
How triumphing enemies are called together,
How to the corpse of the killed giant
Bloodthirsty birds are flying together
And poisonous vipers are crawling together!
The days are passing... the air is stuffy as before,
The decrepit world is in the fatal way.
Man is awfully heartless.
The week cannot find salvation! (the witness Nekrasov).
There are times of shameful depravity
And insolent triumph over truth and good.
All that is pure is silent as if it were embraced
By dull and heavy sleep.
Everywhere priests of the golden calf are triumphing,
The favorites of senseless fate rejoice,
Branded slaves who are deprived of human image make merry.
The life has become an orgy.
In mean souls and filthy feelings nothing moves.
They are feasting, dancing and drink. Everything is vulgar and hideous.
And the conscience is sleeping tightly..." (the witness Barykova, 1874).
'Who hate the good, and love the evil; who pluck off their skin from off them, and their flesh from off their bones; Who also eat the flesh of my people, and flay their skin from off them; and they break their bones, and chop them in pieces, as for the pot, and as flesh within the caldron. Then shall they cry unto the LORD, but he will not hear them: he will even hide his face from them at that time, as they have behaved themselves ill in their doings' (Micah 3:2-4).
From people who are rejoicing, talking idly and stained with blood
Lead me away to a camp of those who are dying for a great cause of love.
'Where are you, singers of love, liberty, peace
And valor? The age of 'blood and sword'!
On the throne of the earth you have seated a banker,
And declared a hangman to be a hero.
The crowd is shouting, 'Singers are not needed for the age'!
And there are no more singers... the deity has become silent.
Oh who can now remind a man of his high calling?' (the witness Nekrasov).
'It takes only to look around to be horrified by the infection, which, not to speak of plants and factories used for our own luxury, is spread by our luxurious life among the people in towns whom we later want to help' (the witness Leo Tolstoy).
And he continues, 'I'm an all paralyzed and a good for nothing parasite who can exist only under the most exceptional conditions and who can exist only when thousands of people work for the maintenance of this useless life.'
How can a person, considering himself as not only a Christian, not only an educated and humane man, but as a simple man not deprived of intellect and conscience, live without taking part in the struggle for life of all humanity but only absorb works of people struggling for life, and by his demands multiply work of struggling people who die in this struggle? So called Christian and educated world is full of such people. It's not enough that our world is full of such people, an ideal of people of our educated world is acquisition of as much property as possible, i.e. take a chance to liberate themselves from struggle for life and maximally use work of brothers who die in this struggle.'
"No matter how we try to conceal from ourselves a simple and the most obvious danger to exhaust patience of those people whom we oppress; no matter how we oppose this danger by all kinds of deception, violence and coaxing, the danger grows day by day and hour by hour and has threatened us for a long time, and it's so impending that we can hardly keep ourselves in our small boat in a raging see, which is about to gorge and devour us in anger. Working people's revolution with horror of destructions and murders not only threats us but we have lived with it for 30 years already, and we put off its outburst only for a while with the help of different guiles. Ruling classes who oppress people, except tsar, now have no justification in the eyes of our nation; they keep everything in the present condition only by their violence, guile and opportunism, i.e. by their craft, but hatred among worst representatives of the nation and contempt to us among the best representatives grow from year to year.
Property in our times is a reason of sufferings for people who have or don't have it and a reason of conflicts between those who have excess of property and those who are deprived of it.
Bankers, tradesmen, factory owners and landowners work, try to fool, suffer and are tormented by property; officers, craftsmen and landowners fight, deceive, oppress and suffer because of property: courts and police protect property. Property is a root of evil: almost all the world is engaged in distribution and safeguard of property." (Leo Tolstoy).
'Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide [is] the gate, and broad [is] the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: Because strait [is] the gate, and narrow [is] the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it' (Mathew 7:13:14).
"Objection," the AD said, "Leo Tolstoy was excommunicated..."
"He was excommunicated for his opposition to church dogmas and sacraments but not for his social sermons. By the way, in the beginning of the last century a division happened. Spiritual tendencies became all the more indifferent to social issues, and social tendencies became indifferent to spiritual ones. The disgraced count wrote as follows,
'Everything is forgivable but not perversion of those high truths reached by humanity with such difficulties.'
'Our manorial life is so outrageous that we cannot be glad even when our children are born. Not people's ministers are born but their enemies and parasites. They are likely to be so.'
'We, rich classes, bring laborers to ruin, keep them work unceasingly, enjoying our spare time and luxury. We don't allow them who are exhausted by work to yield spiritual bloom and fruit of life: no poetry, no science and no religion. We are ready to provide them with all of that and provide them with false poetry...
What horrible sin! If only we didn't suck the lifeblood out of them they would manifest poetry, science and life theories.'
"By the way, it was proved in Joseph's country but we will discuss it in the next part. But inevitability of revolution was foretold by the Lord Himself,
'Her prophets [are] light [and] treacherous persons: her priests have polluted the sanctuary, they have done violence to the law.
The just LORD [is] in the midst thereof; he will not do iniquity: every morning doth he bring his judgment to light, he faileth not; but the unjust knoweth no shame.
Woe to him that increaseth [that which is] not his! how long? and to him that ladeth himself with thick clay!
SHALL THEY NOT RISE UP SUDDENLY THAT SHALL BITE THEE, AND AWAKE THAT SHALL VEX THEE, AND THOU SHALT BE FOR BOOTIES UNTO THEM?"
"What are you, Positive, trying to prove? That the apostasy of the accused..."
"Was not apostasy but search for Truth amidst sea of lie because the conception of the Holy Russ in 19th and in the beginning of 20th centuries was incompatible to the reality according to numerous witnesses of its best representatives. But the father of lie is your boss, Negative. The rebellion was impending. And it was not only against social injustice but against something incomparably more important.
Remember the formula of salvation in the chapter about the Last Judgment, feed the hungry, provide the shoeless with shoes, give a roof over the head to the homeless, conform and encourage the sufferers. 'Then said he unto the disciples, It is impossible but that offences will come: but woe [unto him], through whom they come! It were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he cast into the sea, than that he should offend one of these little ones' (Luke 17:1-2).
This incompatibility of the name and the essence of the Great Orthodox State was a temptation for 'little ones' when the state ideology affirmed one thing but 'the Law in the heart' (Isaiah 51:7) i.e. conscience affirmed something other?.
'The state isn't obliged to save anybody. Of course, I mean souls.'
'I'm not a little boy and can understand you. Then change your slogan and don't mislead.'
'But woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against men: for ye neither go in [yourselves], neither suffer ye them that are entering to go in. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye devour widows' houses, and for a pretence make long prayer: therefore ye shall receive the greater damnation. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, ye make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves.'
'Woe unto you, [ye] blind guides, which say, Whosoever shall swear by the temple, it is nothing; but whosoever shall swear by the gold of the temple, he is a debtor! [Ye] fools and blind: for whether is greater, the gold, or the temple that sanctifieth the gold?'
'Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye make clean the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within they are full of extortion and excess. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead [men's] bones, and of all uncleanness. Even so ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity. [Ye] serpents, [ye] generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?' Mathew 23:13-17, 25, 27, 33).
'For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required: and to whom men have committed much, of him they will ask the more.'
I AM COME TO SEND FIRE ON THE EARTH; AND WHAT WILL I, IF IT BE ALREADY KINDLED?" (Luke 12:48-49).
"I'm fed up with your quotations!"
"Keep patience, demon. Then you will understand that it's the Scripture but not all kinds of atheistic manifests that brought our defendant to revolution. In conclusion I will recite more poems of a little known poet. Try to guess whose they are,
"Where once the strings of his lyre resounded
The mob has set a vial filled with poison
Before the hounded man,
Crying "Drink, accursed one, such is
Thy lot, the reward for thy songs.
We have no need of thy truth
And you heavenly strains!"
I know this poem," the AD grumbled. It's from the newspaper 'Iveria', page 1, 1895, under the pan-name Soselo (Joseph). It was included in a reading book.
But you must agree that our defendant is different from socialists - envious persons, who thirst for redistribution of property to their own favor... and he is different from materialists and atheists. He is rather a seeker of truth and romanticist"
"A little later Joseph had a lot of such seekers of truth and romanticists," the AD hemmed, "and as a result an ugly mug of a philistine will be discovered"
Just after these words something skin-headed, in headphones and with a chewing gum suddenly rolled from behind chairs and began to swing over Yana's head, in a word, it was an ugly mug. And before she frightened, suddenly turning out in the space of impenetrable doors with a hard-to-get lamp unscrewed by somebody without a single window or chink, her mother with her suitcase and rucksack pushed her out of the darkness to staircase and ran upstairs to get a showing up white illusion of never written father's letter in the post box.