In the morning I confessed early and took communion, at confession Fr. Arseny said: Your grief is enormous, it has no measure or comparison, you are the mother and wife of the lost, but neither you nor I know the will of the Lord. The pain is enormous, and I, Priest Arseny, understand this, but I bow before the will of God. Only He, yes, yes, only to Him are open the paths of human life. The Fathers of the Church said that the Lord calls man to Himself in the best moments of life. Pray for the departed, read prayers to the Most Holy Theotokos, and remember the two most important commandments of the Lord: Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind: this is the first and greatest commandment; and the second is like unto it: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself; on these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets (Matt. 22:3740). Entering the dining room, look at the faces of those sitting. Many of them bear the burden of great sorrow, but they are calm, because they believe in God. In the evening, you sat next to Georgy Alekseevich at the table, he suffered great grief. His daughter and wife were killed, having previously abused them, but look how he endures it, he is in deep sorrow, but all in prayer.

This confession was unusual, I never confessed like that. I began to tell, and with two or three half-questions, he revealed the most hidden, carefully hidden from everyone and even from myself, which I had tried never to remember before, and now I was telling the priest. And I could not keep silent, I saw and understood that Fr. Arseny knew what lay at the bottom of my conscience, and if I did not say something, I felt incomplete repentance and returned to what I had lost.

I understood a lot of things that were layered in my relationship with my deceased husband Nikolai and my mother differently, saw my mistakes and even began to perceive the death of my son and husband differently. Confession with Fr. Arseny seemed to have lifted the veil separating my soul from the faith, and many things had to be rethought and spiritually reevaluated. I was infinitely grateful to Lena for bringing me to Fr. Arseny, it strengthened our friendship even more, new interests and topics for heart-to-heart conversations with Yuri and Lena appeared.

It was lunch, evening came, we gathered for dinner, the conversation was about church news, the health of Natalia Petrovna, unknown to me, about methods of herbal medicine. Father Arseny also took part in the conversation, ate very little, wanted to drink two cups of some infusion, but the doctor, who was called Lyuda, took the second cup from him, saying: Father Arseny, you are my spiritual mentor, but now you wanted to deceive me and drink more than you should, and I forbid it, you can't drink more than one cup with your edema. The people around him smiled. The big cat that used to annoy me jumped on everyone's lap, climbed up to me and licked my cheek.

Suddenly, the bell rang desperately, Nadezhda Petrovna excitedly rushed to open the door, a noise was heard in the hall, fragmentary exclamations, the door to the dining room opened with a crack, and he did not enter the room, but a huge man rushed in, dragging two large bags in his hands, with a backpack on his shoulders and a long bundle under his arm. Throwing everything on the floor, he put his hands for a blessing, and impulsively stepped towards Fr. Arseny. Father! Father Arseny, bless me, and, having received the blessing, he grabbed Fr. Arseny in an armful and began to kiss him, and we saw tears flowing down the faces of the noisy giant and Fr. Arseny, the joy of meeting was mutual. Then a big man approached Nadezhda Petrovna (the mistress of the house and the spiritual daughter of Fr. Arseny), lifted her by the shoulders, repeating Petrovna! Petrovna!, kissed him tightly and went in a circle, always kissing and saying something to everyone, now picking someone up, now just hugging. He came up to me, picked me up, kissed me tightly and for some reason said: Masha is good, but not ours, don't worry, dear, you will soon find a place for yourself, he put me on a chair and went on.

He was so huge, noisy and surprisingly good-natured that it was impossible to be offended by him, and everyone was glad to see him, although later I realized that Fr. Arseny, Dr. Yulia and Nadezhda Petrovna knew and loved him, and everyone else saw him for the first time. Well, now I'll get down to the gifts, I've been fishing in the Astrakhan estuaries for two weeks. Untying a long bundle, he took out a huge sturgeon, perhaps stellate sturgeon, handing it to Fr. Arseny, he was like this before smoking and spread his arms wide almost to the opposite wall. Daniil Matveyevich! Cut your hands, you will break through the wall with sturgeon," said Fr. Arseny, smiling. So I am a fisherman, we, fishermen, caught a pike in a third of a meter, and we always show in a meter, fishermen only catch large fish. Those sitting at the table laughed. Well, now everyone has a gift, the first one, Petrovna, for you, and you take out a three-liter jar of black caviar, caught it yourself, salted it yourself, lick your fingers, but I know, Petrovna, you will feed the guests and Fr. Arseny. He went around all those sitting and gave each of them a huge piece of sturgeon or a jar of black or red caviar. He came up to me, looked carefully and said loudly: Is it the first time you came? Yes, yes, I answered. I see, in sorrow, great grief, you will open this bundle in Moscow, give a jar of black caviar to a sick mother, but to your daughter. He lifted me up from my chair again and kissed me three times. Do not be sad, dear, the Lord is merciful, pray to Him

No one treated me like that, but it was impossible to be offended by Daniil Matveyevich, he was too direct. But how could he know about my grief, my mother and daughter? It seemed to me that Fr. Arseny was also surprised by this. Nadezhda Petrovna fed Daniil Matveyevich, the evening tea was over, general conversations did not last long, they agreed on when someone would leave, about meetings in Moscow.

Everyone was tired, it was already late, and Nadezhda Petrovna began to distribute who would go to bed where. Father Arseny said: Daniel will sleep in my room, go and get a mattress. One of the doctors who treated Fr. Arseny said: I beg both of you, do not talk all night, because each of you is tired and sick. Daniil Matveyevich laughed and said: My dear, the doctors have given me more than one month to live, and Fr. Arseny will outlive me by many years, and he hugged this woman. It was obvious that Daniil Matveyevich was pleased that he would sleep in the same room with the priest.

We parted, I slept with Lena and three women on hay mattresses for the night. We got up early, read prayers, were in a good mood, stood for the liturgy in the priest's room, and took communion. For some reason, Father Arseny asked Lena and me to stay one more day. Lena and I walked through the museums of the city in the afternoon and in the evening gathered again in the dining room. Dinner was over, there were common, probably interesting conversations for everyone. Father Arseny, sitting in an armchair, silently fingered his rosary, the powerful voice of Daniil Matveyevich buzzed like thunder, I felt surprisingly comfortable and good in this atmosphere.

I don't remember, but someone present turned to Daniil Matveevich with a request to tell about his life and meeting with Fr. Arseny. For some time, Daniil Matveyevich denied and was apparently dissatisfied with the request, but after a pause and gathering his thoughts, he began to speak.

All of the above is my path to God. A geologist by profession, Doctor of Science, laureate of state prizes for the discovery of valuable deposits, he traveled all over Siberia and the Far East. I successfully worked in geological parties, the employees were good, friendly, and this is the main thing in our work. It was 1951, a new party organizer was sent to our geo-party. A so-so peasant, not visible, unpleasant, arrogant, rude, he does not understand geology, but he has a huge opinion of himself, and he put his importance in our geoparty above the chief geologist of the region. He considered us to be human material that he had to educate, re-educate, and so on. Some of us were indignant: an illiterate person teaches. At the beginning of the story, I mentioned my titles only so that you understand, I understand in geology, I wrote a number of major works. Well, he said: You are an illiterate mediocrity, you do not understand anything in our work, and you give instructions to me, a doctor of science, a laureate. The first was taken by Seryogin, then three more, I was arrested in Yakutia and brought to Moscow, to the Lubyanka.

I will not talk about interrogations, beatings, tortures. I will say that I was handcuffed during all interrogations, the investigators were afraid of my hands and my strength. Three conveyor belt interrogations took place, each for three days, six investigators interrogated continuously. He spent many days in punishment cells of various types, but did not sign a confession. They said a saboteur, a spy, sold wholesale and retail to foreign intelligence services data on explored deposits. He was sentenced to death, shot, deprived of all awards and titles, but then sent to die in a high-security camp. The sentence of execution was not canceled, which meant that during the cleansing of the camp I could be shot at any moment. The same thing happened with Fr. Arseny.

I was brought up in a believing family, my mother Arina (Irina) Leonidovna believed deeply and was a great woman of prayer. She put faith in God in me. But I unwound it in my wanderings in Siberia and the Far East, although a little faith lived in me. Sitting in prison, I remembered almost all the prayers, and when they tortured me, I grit my teeth and read the Lord's Prayer incessantly. What was strange and angered the investigators in the Lubyanka was that neither punishment cells nor torture changed my appearance, I was still healthy, huge, strong.

I got into a special one. I remember that they drove us in a convoy, frosty, wet, tired we entered the barracks. The criminals rushed to take away everything they could from those who came. They silently give it away. They leaned into me, I said: Don't touch me! Where is it, they climb. Well, I mutilated three of them, knocked out someone's teeth, injured someone's arm. They came at me with sharpeners (homemade knives made of files, rims and other things), but I beat them all. He began to enjoy respect, no one else climbed, but twice they tried to kill with an axe at work. I was on guard, and some of them became disabled for life. There was no denunciation against me, the camp was special, punks were not kept in it, and the big thieves had their own laws on denunciation and honor. Although sometimes they inform, they can kill their own people for it.