| I decided not to return
to my parents and in the lumber yard I quickly hid myself away between
the bundles of firewood. The logs were long, cut for monastary fireplaces.
I sat there, until the croud left for work again, and then I crawled out,
I didn't see anyone around. What I went through in there, though, listening
to the shootings and gazing up at the stars (that was all I saw that night)!
After that dreadful night a change took place in me. I won't say that it all happened at once. The change occured during the next few days and nights and grew steadily stronger. That night just started it off. I understood this: every day is a gift from God. I must live for the present day, and be content that I have been given yet another day to live. Be thankful for every day. Then you won't need to be afraid of anything on earth. Also. Since this execution had once again been performed as a warning, it was apparent, as I later confirmed, that some round number was shot: say, three hundred or four hundred people. It was clear as day, that in my absence, someone else was "taken". I had to live for two. So the person who was taken instead of me wouldn't be ashamed. What did I learn in Solovkí? The most basic thing I understood was that every human being is a human being. My life was saved by a "house-rat" (an appartment burglar) and by the king of thieves in Solovkí, the bandit Ivan Yakovlevíÿ Komissarov, with whom I spent about a year in the same cell. (Likhachev 1993, p.43) |