Free Russia

Tikhon's great merit as a writer lies in the fact that he foresaw, prepared, and urged emancipation of the serfs.

For fifteen years he lived the life of a holy man. As a friend of serfs, he one day went to the house of a prince, in the district of Voronej, to point out some wrong which they were suffering on his estate, and to beg him, for the sake of Jesus and Mary, to be tender with the poor. The prince got angry with his guest for putting the thing so plainly into words; and in the midst of some sharp speech between them, struck him in the face. Tikhon rose up and left the house; but when he had walked some time, he began to see that he – no less than his host – was in the wrong. This man, he said to himself, has done a deed of which, on cooling down, he will feel ashamed. Who has caused him to do that wrong? "It was my doing," sighed the reprover, turning on his heel, and going straight back into the house. Falling at the prince's feet, Tikhon craved his pardon for having stirred him into wrath, and caused him to commit a sin. The man was so astonished, that he knelt down by the monk, and, kissing his hands, implored his forgiveness and his benediction. From that hour, it is said, the prince was another man; noticeable through all the province of Voronej for his kindness to the serfs.

Tikhon lived into his eightieth year. Before he passed away, he told the brethren of his convent he would live until such a day and then depart. He died, as he had told them he should die – on the day foreseen, and in the midst of his weeping friends. From the day of his funeral, his shrine in Zadonsk was visited by an ever-increasing crush; for cures of many kinds were wrought; the sick recovered, the lame walked home, the blind saw, the crooked became straight. A thousand voices claimed the canonization of this friend of serfs; until the reigning emperor, struck by this appeal, invited the Holy Governing Synod to conduct the inquiries which precede the canonization of a Russian saint.

The commission sat; the miracles were proved; and then the tomb was opened. Out from the coffin came a scent of flowers; the flesh was pure and sweet; and the act of canonization was decreed and signed in 1861, the emancipation year. Tikhon of Zadonsk is the emancipation saint.

Yet, according to the Black Clergy, the newest and the greatest miracle of modern times is the Virgin's defense of Solovetsk against the Anglo-French squadron in 1854.

The wardrobe of Solovetsk contains the chief treasures of the cloister; old charters and letters; original grants of lands; the rescript of Peter; manuscript lives of Savatie and Zosima; service-books, richly bound in golden plates; Pojarski's sword; cups, lamps, crosses, candlesticks in gold and silver; but the treasure of treasures is the evidence of that stupendous miracle wrought by the Most Pure Mother of God.

On the centre stand, under a glass case, strongly locked, lie an English shell and two round-shot. They are carefully inscribed. A reliquary in a closet holds a dozen bits of brass, the rent fusees of exploded shells. A number of prints are sold to the devout, in which the English gun-boats are moored under the convent wall, so near that men might easily have leaped on shore. Among this mass of evidence is a new and splendid ornamental cup; the gift of Russia to Solovetsk – in memory of the day when human help had failed, and "the convent that endureth forever" was saved by the Virgin Mother of God.

A scoffer here and there may smile. "Savatie! Zosima!" laughed a Russian cynic in my face; "you English made the fortune of these saints. How so? You see a peasant has but two notions in his pate – the Empire and the Church; a power of the flesh and a power of the spirit. Now, see what you have done. You wage war upon us; you send your fleets into the Black Sea and into the White Sea; in the first to fight against the Empire, in the second to fight against the Church. In one sea, you win; in the other sea, you lose. Sevastopol falls to your arms; while Solovetsk drives away your ships. The arm of the spirit is seen to be stronger than the arm of flesh. What then? 'Heaven,' says the rustic to his neighbor, as they dawdle home from church, 'is mightier than the Tsar.' For fifty years to come our superstitions will lie on English heads!"

The tale of that miracle, told me on the spot, will sound in some ears like a piece of high comedy, in others like a chapter from some ancient and forgotten book. A dry dispatch from Admiral Ommanney contains the little that we know of our "Operations in the White Sea;" the next Chapter gives the story, as they tell it on the other side.

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE GREAT MIRACLE

So soon as news arrived in the winter palace that an English fleet was under steam for the Polar seas, the War Office set to work in the usual way; sending out arms and men; such arms and men as could be found and spared in these northern towns. Six old siege-guns, fit for a museum, were shipped from Archangel to the convent, with five artillerymen, and fifty troopers of the line, selected from the Invalid Corps. An officer came with these forces to conduct the defense.

Just as the English ships were entering on their task this officer died (June, 1854); no doubt by the hand of God, in order to rebuke the pride of man, while adding fresh lustre to the auriol of His saints. The arm of flesh having failed, the fathers threw themselves on the only power that can never fail.

Father Alexander, then the Archimandrite, ordered a series of services to be held in the several chapels within the walls. A special office was appointed for Sunday, with a separate appeal to Heaven for guidance; first in the name of the Most Sweet Infant Jesus; afterwards in that of the Most Pure Mother of God. Midnight services were also given; the effect of which is said to have been great and strange; firing the monks with a new and wonderful spirit of confidence in their cause. The Archimandrite sang mass in person before the tombs of Savatie and Zosima, in the crypt of the cathedral church, and also before the miracle-working picture of the Virgin brought by Savatie to his desert. This picture – so important in the story – came from Greece. The service sung before it filled the monks with gladness; warmth and comfort flowed from the Madonna's face; and her adorers felt themselves conquerors, in her name, before the English warships hove in sight.

In their first trouble, the copes and missals, charters and jewels, had been sent away into the inland towns. This act of doubt occurred before the officer died, and the monks had taken upon themselves the burden of defense. To those who carried away the cups and crosses, robes and books, the Archimandrite gave his blessing and his counsel. "Know," he said to them at parting, "that, whether you be on sea or land, every Friday we shall be fasting and praying for you; do you the same; and God will preserve the things which belong to His service, and which you are carrying away; follow my commands, and come back to me in a better time, sound in health, with the things of which you go in charge." When news came in that English ships were cruising off the bar of Archangel, some of the brethren fainted; "left by the Emperor," they sighed, "to be made a sacrifice for his sins." Ten days before the squadron came in sight, the Archimandrite held a service in his church, to encourage these feeble souls; and when his prayers were ended, he addressed them thus: "Grieve not that the defense seems weak while the foe is strong. Rely upon our Lord, upon His Most Pure Mother, upon the two excellent saints who have promised that this convent shall endure forever. Jesus will perform a miracle, for their sake, such as the world has never seen." A ray of comfort stole into their hearts; and rolling out barrels of pitch and tar, they smeared the wooden shingles of wall and tower, filled pails of water in readiness to drench out fires, and took down from the convent armory the rusty pikes and bills which had been lying up since the attack of Swedish ships in the days of Peter the Great.

A hundred texts were found to show that these old weapons could be used again, even as the arms of David were used once more by the Lion of Judah in defense of Solomon's shrine. Young children came into the monastery from Kem and Suma, vowed by their fathers to the cause of God; and many old pikes and bills were put into these infant hands. "The fire of your ships," said one of the monks, "did not frighten these innocents, who played with the shells as though they had been harmless toys." Not a child was hurt.

When the fleet was signalled from the outlooks, Alexander spoke to his brethren after meat: "Have a good heart," he cried; "we are not weak, as we appear; for God is on our side. If we were saved by an army, where would be our credit? With the soldiery, with the world! What would be our gain? But if by prayer alone we drive the squadron from our shores, the glory will belong to our convent and our faith. Have a good heart! Slava Bogu – Glory to God!"

On Tuesday morning (July 18th, 1854) the watchers signalled two frigates, which were rounding Beluga Point: the Archimandrite proclaimed a three days' fast. The two frigates anchored seven miles from the shore: the Archimandrite ordered the convent bell to toll for a special service to the Most Pure Mother of God. Like a Hebrew king, he took off his gorgeous robes, and, humbling himself before the fathers, read a prayer in front of the tombs of Savatie and Zosima, and, taking down the miraculous picture of the Virgin, marched with it in procession round the walls. Then – but not till then – the frigates sailed away.

As the ships steamed off towards Kem, it was feared they might still come back; and Ensign Niconovitch, commanding the Company of Invalids, went out to survey the shores, dragging two three-pounder guns through the sand; while many of the pilgrims and workmen offered their services as scouts. Niconovitch built a battery of sods and sand, behind which he trained his guns; and eight small pieces were laid upon the towers and walls, after which the fathers fell once more to prayer.

Next day a trail of smoke was seen in the summer sky. The two ships, soon known to them as the "Brisk" and the "Miranda," steamed into the bay. The "Brisk," say the monks, was the first to speak, and she opened her parley with a rattling shot. Standing on the quay, the Archimandrite was nearly struck by a ball, and his people, frightened at the crashing roar, ran up into the convent yard, and tried to close behind them the Sacred Gates.

A petty officer, one Drushlevski, having charge of ten men and a gun in the Weaver's Tower, returned the fire; on which the English frigate is said to have opened her broadside on the tower and wall. Drushlevski took up her challenge; but with aim and prudence, having very little powder in his casks. The "Brisk," they say, fired thirty rounds, while the officer in the Weaver's Tower discharged his gun three times. The English then sheered off; a shot from the convent gun having struck her side, and killed a man.

That night was spent in joy and prayer. The Archimandrite kissed Drushlevski, and gave his blessing to every gunner in the Weaver's Tower. When night came on – the summer night of the Frozen Sea – the frigates were out of sight; but no one felt secure, and least of all Drushlevski, that this triumph of the cross was yet complete. Not a soul in the convent slept.

Dawn brought them one of the holiest festivals of the Russian year; Thursday, July 20th, the feast of our Lady of Kazan; a day on which no plough is driven, no mill is opened, no school is kept, in any part of Russia, from the White Sea to the Black. Matins were sung, as usual, in the Cathedral Church at half-past two; the Archimandrite steadily going through his chant, as though the peril were not nigh. Te Deum was just being finished, when a boat came ashore from the "Brisk," carrying a white flag, and bringing a summons for the convent to yield her keys. The letter was in English, accompanied by a bad translation, in which the word for "squadron of ships," was rendered by the Russian term for squadrons of horse. Consulting with his monks – who laughed in good hearty mood at the idea of being set upon by cavalry from the sea – the Archimandrite told the messenger to say his answer should be sent to the "Brisk" by an officer of his own.

Two "insolent conditions" were imposed by the admiral: (1.) The commander was to yield his sword in person; (2.) The garrison were to become prisoners of war. Ommanney's letter informed the fathers that if a gun were fired from the wall, his bombardment would begin at once; alleging in explanation that on the previous day a gun in the convent had opened on his ship.

One Soltikoff, a pilgrim, carried the Archimandrite's answer to the "Brisk: " – a proud refusal to give up his keys. Denying that the convent had opened fire on the English boat, he said the first shot came from the frigate, and the convent simply replied to it in self-defense. The paper was unsigned; the monk declaring that as a man of peace he could not write his name on a document treating of blood and death.

Admiral Ommanney told the pilgrim there was nothing more to say; the bombardment would begin at once; and the convent would be swept from the earth. Soltikoff asked for time, and Ommanney offered him three hours' grace. It was now five in the morning, and the admiral gave the fathers until eight o'clock; but on the pilgrim saying the time was short, Ommanney is said to have sworn a great oath, and lessened his term of grace three-quarters of an hour. He kept his oath; the bombardment opened at a quarter to eight o'clock of that holy day – inscribed to Our Lady of Kazan – our Lady of Victory; the first shell flying over the convent shingles almost as soon as Soltikoff reached the Sacred Gates.

On the English frigates opening fire, the bell in the courtyard tolled the monks to prayer. Shot, shell, grenade and cartridge rained on the walls and domes; yet the services went on all day; a hurricane of fire without; an agony of prayer within! While the people were on their knees, a shell struck the cathedral dome – the rent of which is piously preserved – and, tearing through the wooden framework, dashed down the ceiling on the supplicants' heads. The rafters were on fire; the church was suddenly filled with smoke. A sacred image was grazed and singed. The windows cracked; the doors flew open; the buildings reeled and shivered; and the terrified people fell with their faces on the stones. One man only kept his feet. Standing before the royal gates, the Archimandrite cried: "Stay! stay! Be not afraid, the Lord will guard His own!" The monks and pilgrims, lifting up their eyes, beheld the old man standing before his altar, quiet and erect, with big tears rolling down his cheeks. They sprang to their feet; they ran to fetch water; they put out the flames; they swept off the wreck of dust and rafters; and when the floor was cleansed, they sank on their knees and bowed their heads once more in prayer.

When mass was over, three poor women remained in the cathedral on their knees; a shell came through the roof, and burst; on which the poor things crawled towards the shrines where men were praying, and women are not allowed to come. A good pope let them in, and suffered them to pray with the men; an act which the monks regard as one of the highest wonders of that miraculous day.

A petty officer named Ponomareff occupied with his gun a spit of rock, from which he could tease the frigates, and draw upon himself no little of their wrath. Every shot from the "Miranda" splashed the mire about his men, who were often buried, though they were not killed that day. Leaping to his feet, and shaking the dirt from his clothes, Ponomareff stood to his gun, until he was called away. He and three other men crept through the stones and trees, to places far apart; whence they discharged their carbines, and ran away into the scrub, after drawing upon these points a rattle of shot and shell. At length he was recalled. "It is a sad day for the monastery," sighed the gunner, "but we are willing to die with the saints."

Services were sung all day in front of the shrines of Savatie and Zosima. Once a shot struck the altar; the pope shrank back from his desk, and the people fell on their faces. Every one supposed that his hour was come, and many cried out in their fear for the bread and wine. Father Varnau, the confessor, took his seat, confessed the people, and gave them the sacrament. Alexander was the first to confess his sins, and make up his account with God. The elders followed; then the lay monks, pilgrims, soldiers, women; and when all were shriven, the body of penitents pressed around the shrines of Philip, Savatie, Zosima, and the Mother of God.

A little after noon, the convent bells in the yard were tolled, the monks and pilgrims gathered on the wall, and lines of procession were ordered to be formed. The monks stood first, the pilgrims next, the women and children last; and when they were all got ready to march, the Archimandrite took down from the screen beside his altar the Miraculous Virgin and the principal cross; and placing himself in front of his people, with the cross in his right hand, the Virgin in his left, conducted them round the ramparts under fire. He waved his cross, and blessed the pilgrims with the Miraculous Virgin as he strode along. The great bell tolled, the monks and pilgrims sang a psalm. Shot and shell rained overhead; the boulders trembled in the wall; the shingles cracked and split on the roof. Near the corner tower by the Holy Lake the procession came to a halt. A shell had struck the windmill, setting the fans on fire. Pealing their psalm, and calling on their saints, they waited till the flames died down, and then resumed their march. A shot came dashing through the rampart; splintering the logs and planks in their very midst, and cutting the line of procession into head and heel. "Advance!" cried the Archimandrite, waving his cross and picture, and the people instantly advanced. On reaching the Weaver's Tower, from which the shot of destiny had been fired the previous day, the Archimandrite, calling the monk Gennadie to his side, gave him the cross, with orders to carry it up into the tower, and let the gunners kiss the image of our Lord. While Gennadie was absent on this errand, the Archimandrite showed the monks and pilgrims that the convent doves were not fluttered in their nests by the English guns.

A miracle! When the procession moved from the Weaver's Tower, they came near some open ground, which they were obliged to cross, under showers of shot. No man of flesh and blood – unless protected from on high – could pass through that fire unscathed. But now was the time to try men's faith. A moment only the procession paused; the Archimandrite, holding up his miraculous picture of the Mother of God, advanced into the cloud of dust and smoke; the people pealed their psalm; and the shells and balls from the English ships were seen to curve in their flight, to whirl over dome and tower, and come down splashing into the Holy Lake! Every eye saw that miracle; and every heart confessed the Most Pure Mother of God.

The frigates then drew off, and went their way; to be seen from the watch-towers of the sacred isles no more; vanquished and put to shame; though visibly not by the hand of man. Not a soul in the convent had been hurt; though hurricanes of brass and iron had been fired from the English decks.

A Norwegian named Harder, a visitor by chance to Solovetsk, was so much struck by this miraculous defense, that he cried in the convent yard, "How great is the Russian God!" and begged to be admitted a member of their Church.

The news of this attack by an English Admiral on Solovetsk was carried into every part of Russia, and the effect which it produced on the Russian mind may be conceived by any one who will take the pains to imagine how he would feel on hearing reports from Palestine that a Turkish Pasha had opened fire on the dome and cross of the Holy Sepulchre. Shame, astonishment, and fury filled the land, until the further news arrived that this abominable raid among the holy graves and shrines had come to naught. Since that year of miracles, young and old, rich and poor, have come to regard a journey to Solovetsk as only second in merit to a voyage to Bethlehem and the tomb of Christ. Peasants set the fashion, which Emperors and grand dukes are taking up. Alexander the Second has made a pilgrimage to these holy isles; his brother Constantine has done the same; and two of his sons will make the trip next year. The Empress, too, is said to have made a vow, that if Heaven restores her strength, she will pay a visit to Savatie's shrine.

Some people think these visits of the imperial race are due, not only to the wish to lead where they might otherwise have to follow, but to matters connected with that mystery of a buried grand duke which lends so dark a fame to the convent in the Frozen Sea.

CHAPTER XIX.

A CONVENT SPECTRE

A land alive with goblins and sorceries, in which every monk sees visions, in which every woman is thought to be a witch, presents the proper scenery for such a legend as that of the convent spectre, called the Spirit of the Frozen Sea.

Faith in the existence of this phantom is widely spread. I have met with evidences of this faith not only in the northern seas, but on the Volga, in hamlets of the Ukraine, and among old believers in Moscow, Novgorod, and Kief. All the Ruthenians, most of the Don Kozaks, and many of the Poles, give credit to this tale, in either a spiritualized or physical form.

Rufin Pietrowski, the Pole who escaped from his Siberian mine, and, crossing the Ural Mountains, dropped down the river Dvina on a raft, and got as near to Solovetsk as Onega Point, reports the spectre as a fact, and offers the explanation which was given of it by his fellow-pilgrims. He says it is not a ghost, but a living man. Other and later writers than Pietrowski hint at such a mystery; but the tale is one of which men would rather whisper in corners than prate in books.

"You have been to Solovetsk?" exclaimed to me a native of Kalatch, on the Don, a man of wit and spirit. "May I ask whether you saw any thing there that struck you much?"

"Yes, many things; the convent itself, the farms and gardens, the dry-dock, the fishing-boats, the salt-pits, the tombs of saints."

"Ah! yes, they would let you see all those things; but they would not let you go into their secret prison."

"Why not?" I said, to lead him on.

"They have a prisoner in that building whom they dare not show."

The same thing happened to me several times, with variations of time and place.

Some boatman from the Lapland ports, while striving, in the first hard days of winter, with the floes of ice, is driven beneath the fortress curtain, where he sees, on looking up, in the faint light of dusk, a venerable figure passing behind a loop-hole in the wall; his white hair cut, which proves that he is not a monk; his eyes upraised to heaven; his hands clasped fervently, as though he were in prayer; his whole appearance that of a man appealing to the justice of God against the tyranny of man. A sentry passes the loop-hole, and the boatman sees no more.

This figure is not seen at other times and by other folk. Three months in the year these islands swarm with pilgrims, many of whom come and go in their craft from Onega and Kem. These visitors paddle below the ramparts day and night; yet nothing is seen by them of the aged prisoner and his sentry on the convent wall. Clearly, then, if the figure is that of a living man, there must be reasons for concealing him from notice during the pilgrim months.

"Hush!" said a boatman once to a friend of mine, as he lay in a tiny cove under the convent wall; you must not speak so loud; these rocks can hear. One dares not whisper in one's sleep, much less on the open sea, that the phantom walks yon wall. The pope tells you it is an imp; the elder laughs in your face and calls you a fool. If you believe your eyes, they say you are crazed, not fit to pull a boat."

"You have not seen the figure?"

"Seen him – no; he is a wretched one, and brings a man bad luck. God help him … if he is yet alive!"

"You think he is a man of flesh and blood?"

"Holy Virgin keep us! Who can tell?"

"When was he last seen?"

"Who knows? A boatman seldom pulls this way at dusk; and when he finds himself here by chance, he turns his eyes from the castle wall. Last year, a man got into trouble by his chatter. He came to sell his fish, and fetching a course to the south, brought up his yawl under the castle guns. A voice called out to him, and when he looked up suddenly, he saw behind the loop-hole a bare and venerable head. While he stood staring in his yawl, a crack ran through the air, and looking along the line of roof, he saw, behind a puff of smoke, a sentinel with his gun. A moment more and he was off. When the drink was in his head, he prated about the ghost, until the elder took away his boat and told him he was mad."