A House Divided by Michael Phillips

Author:Michael Phillips [Phillips, Michael and Judith Pella]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: FIC042030, FIC042000, FIC026000
ISBN: 9781441229755
Publisher: Baker Publishing Group
Published: 2015-10-07T00:00:00+00:00

33

For several hours after the hanging, Paul walked the streets of St. Petersburg, having lost all sense of time.

Sometime after noon he wandered across Isaac’s Bridge to Vassily Island. His progress was aimless, but all along he knew he would end up at Kazan’s flat on Maly Prospect. The porter let him in without question, for he was a frequent visitor. He had, in fact, lived in the place until after the Voronezh meeting. As Kazan’s activities intensified, however, Kazan had considered it unwise for them to be too closely associated. Paul located a flat with six or seven impoverished students two blocks away, where he had lived ever since.

Paul glanced sadly around the shabby room. It was a pitiful representation of a man’s life. Whatever material wealth or possessions Kazan might have had from his father, who was by no means a wealthy man in the first place, he had given up when he answered Herzen’s call to “go to the people.” His remaining years, few though they were, he spent in poverty.

“I’m poor as a dirt-scratching peasant!” he would laugh. “And I am proud of it!”

But now it seemed only a miserable shame. Paul did not count Kazan’s worth by his material possessions. Yet in view of the purposeless death he had just died, the condition of his living quarters made his life seem all the more futile.

The police had ransacked the place after Kazan’s arrest. Paul bent over and picked up a chair that had been left lying on its side on the floor. One by one he set the rest of the furnishings in place. He gathered up some broken pieces of crockery and cookware and a few books scattered on the floor. Paul stacked the books neatly on a table—he supposed he would take them himself, for it seemed a shame to leave them for the illiterate porter who would no doubt soon be clearing out the place for a new tenant. They would be for Paul a small remembrance of his friend, something untarnished by blood and hate. God only knew how he needed something, something tangible, at this moment of uncertainty and despair.

Yet Kazan’s books could not displace the hatred simmering within him. The ghastly memory of Kazan’s death had been imprinted upon his brain and heart forever.

The events of that black day in his life had not yet directed Paul toward any certain course. But as he wandered around the dingy room, certain perspectives gradually began to come into focus. Each pitiful possession, each worn book, each broken chair began to speak silently to him, telling him what he must do. There was only one path for him to take now. In the midst of all this plundered emptiness, Paul must find a way to give meaning to his friend’s life. He must elevate Kazan’s memory out of this wretched poverty, to give him the legacy of honor he deserved.

In that moment, Paul knew that he must carry on the mission for which Kazan had been martyred.

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