Page:John Feoktist Dudikoff - Beasts in Cassocks (1924).djvu/99

 immediately, provided, of course, that you take your wife with you." Father Richlov accompanied me to the General Consulate, and I received in Richlov's presence a passport for Jugoslavia. I still have this passport in my possession as documentary evidence. Besides Richlov, the General Consul Vustinov anr [sic] Consul Rutzky, were present when my passport was issued.

I brought the passport to the Consistory, where I was received by Boris Bakhmetyev, General Semionov, Metropolitan Platon, and Archbishop Alexander. Alexander looked at the document, burst out laughing like a maniac, and suggested that I go to Canada. Didn't you send me for a passport so that I could join Wrangel's Forces? Here, I have secured a passport."—"Oh, I see… and I had forgotten all about it. That’s fine. Let me see it." I showed it to him. "Very well, call on Sunday, that is, to-morrow. I will see you after services and on my way from the altar you will fall on your knees and ask my forgiveness."—"Forgiveness? For what?" I asked. "Well, that's what's required. If you wish to set everything right, do as I tell you."

On Sunday, after liturgy, I came to the Consistory and saw Alexander Nemolovsky returning from church. In the room where I met him and where he expected that I would fall on my knees before him, there were gathered a few priests, friends of Metropolitan Platon and Alexander. All were on the look-out for what was about to take place. This whole thing struck me as rather queer. I approached him, and having asked for his blessing, I told Archbishop Alexander that the genuflexion affair impressed me as a sort of conspiracy. I stated that I had no intentions of making a fool of myself in the presence of his friends. "All right," said the Bishop, "let's go up to the Metropolitan." In the Metropolitan's apartment we found General Semionov and Metropolitan Platon. Ambassador Bakhmetyev was not there.