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she had heard.

      The woman got silent. Her kind heart stopped, and her light soul left the temporary abode, rushing towards Heaven, to meet her dead son and those whom she so sincerely had tried to save…

January 29, 1995

      2. A Sinner

      After a small breakfast of scrambled eggs, taking with him a couple of cheese and sausage sandwiches, and only by chance remembering to take also the Gospel and the cross, the parish priest, Father Alexey, slowly went to confess a certain parishioner Pelageya, who was dying of a terminal illness. Father Alexey didn’t know her, as he had served in that church for a week only.

      Entering a shabby little room, he saw a woman about forty. She seemed to no longer react to the surrounding sounds, and her gaze was fixed on the window overlooking the garden, where the birds were singing joyfully, and the cheerful wind was rustling.

      Father Alexey came closer to Pelageya. Her features seemed too familiar to the priest, but in vain he tried to remember where he might have crossed paths with the dying woman, so, sitting down on a chair by her bed, as usual in such cases, he asked,

      “I was told that you want to confess, my dear…”

      “Yes,” the dying woman replied in a weak voice.

      “Then tell me your sins and transgressions,” the priest made the sign of the cross and prepared to listen attentively.

      Pelageya started her life story from the very beginning: as a child she had broken her mother’s favorite vase, too often she had quarreled with her sister and friends, and she hadn’t believed in God. However, left without a livelihood at the age of fifteen, Pelageya went to play the flute in the streets to get money for food, and by the will of the Almighty, for the first time she found herself in a church, where a completely different world opened up for her.

      What the dying woman had told him up to that point was not of particular interest to the priest, he even snored a little, and, waking up, only shook his head periodically. Sometimes it seemed to Father Alexey that he had already heard something similar before, but during his life the priest managed to serve in so many churches that thousands of stories confessed to him by parishioners had long been mixed up in his head and safely forgotten, and new ones were not remembered at all.

      “Then I met him,” the eyes of the dying woman suddenly sparkled, and she smiled. “He was kind and caring, he courted me as a princess, but said almost nothing about himself, only that he loved me and we would get married after Easter. Once I found out by accident that my groom was a student at the Theological Seminary, however, the prospect of becoming the wife of a priest didn’t frighten me at all! On the contrary, I was even delighted, since I already believed in God! But soon, when I told him we were going to have a baby, he forbade me to give birth to our son.”

      “Son?” Father Alexey furrowed his brow and fiddled with the Gospel.

      “Yes, thank God, I didn’t take at least that sin upon my soul! After all, we never got married. My groom got scared, exchanged me for the daughter of a rich and influential official. And my son outwardly is a copy of his father, and I named him Alexey as well.”

      “How old is the boy?”

      “Seventeen.”

      “Did you tell him about his father?”

      “No, Father. My son sings in a church choir, he is going to the Seminary. I didn’t want him to change his attitude towards God because of such a father. All he knows is that they are too similar in appearance.”

      Father Alexey shook his head and touched Pelageya’s hand. He was silent for a while, but then, sharply withdrawing his hand, said menacingly,

      “So, my dear, you seduced a priest, then disobeyed him, despite the fact that a woman should always be in obedience to a man, being created out of his rib, and on the top of that you also concealed the truth from him!”

      “Father, but…” Pelageya tried to object.

      “Sinner! Isn’t it written in the Bible that everything I have listed is a mortal sin?!”

      “I sincerely repent of all my sins and ask you to forgive me!”

      “Have that man forgiven you?”

      “Where can I find him now?” the unfortunate woman whispered already in tears. “Is my soul doomed to wander the world like a restless ghost?”

      “My dear, the Great pre-Easter fast is going on, so you must fast! Perhaps God will forgive you, but not I.”

      The dying woman wept silently.

      Father Alexey was returning to the church, obviously not in a good mood, but only one thought was spinning in his head, “My God, what does time make with a female beauty!”

      That same evening, Father Alexey left his cassock at home and went with friends to a pub. Having drunk heavily, the next morning he skipped the mass and spent the entire Holy Week with friends, remembering the Passion of Christ without parting with the bottle.

      On Easter, in order to avoid losing his job again, Father Alexey had to sober up. At the festive meal after the mass, he was informed that Pelageya had been buried on Friday. The deceased had not been served by the funeral vigil due to the lack of money from her son, who nevertheless ordered a special 40-days prayer for the dead mother.

      Taking church wine with him, Father Alexey went to the grave of the newly departed and bumped into a handsome young man at the cemetery gate. The priest immediately recognized his son, but the son would have never recognized his father, since he looked too bad…

June 28, 1994

      3. Two women

      I just loved her too much! Haven’t you ever felt like to sacrifice your life for the sake of your beloved?

      …I don’t remember where and when I met Jeanne, because we lived in the same house, played in the same yard, studied at the same school. Everyone liked Jeanne, she was surrounded by crowds of suitors, and at first I was even afraid to invite her for a walk. I’ve had problems with women since childhood. I’ve always been afraid of them. And, as it turned out, not for nothing!

      We started dating in early spring, when Jeanne was eighteen. We often went to that lake, with an uninhabited island in the middle. Jeanne used to say she would like to get on it! No one was pulling her tongue, mind you!

      I always took my favorite, Junga, on my walks. Just in case. I felt much more confident next to her. Many people even believe that such dogs should not be kept at home for being dangerous to life! Yes, I agree, her character, frankly, wasn’t simple, I couldn’t bring home a friend, not to mention the whole company. Junga would attack anyone who was not a member of our family, and, being locked in another room, she would burst into unbearable barking and “breaking down” the door until the stranger left. Junga, by the way, disobeyed even me, but I loved her very much! Isn’t a dog man’s best friend?

      Honestly, I sincerely hoped that my girls would become friends, however, Junga – once it became clear to me! – had scanned the future and hated Jeanne in advance, growled at her and tried in every possible way to bite her. I tried to persuade Junga to accept the situation, in vain! She was stubbornly adamant. Then I realized that she was jealous of me! Finally! Anyway, under third parties pressure, I still made a decision to get married. Must means must. No way to avoid! They would think that I was indifferent to the opposite sex, unlike my own!

      Junga, of course, couldn’t forgive me for such a turn of events! Her aggression went off the scale, she began to rush at me as well! No matter the way I tried to explain to her the human ‘must’, it was all in vain: dogs don’t forgive betrayal. How would you feel about someone who betrayed you? After the wedding,

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