One night, on Easter Monday in the year 1964, after midnight and just before going to sleep, I went out into the little garden behind our house and stood there for a while, gazing at the dark sky filled with stars. Once, a blessed elder had told me that around these hours the heavens open.
I would have stood there until dawn, as though I had no body nor any bond with the earth. But I thought someone inside the house might wake up and worry about me being missing. So I went back inside and lay down.
Sleep had hardly overtaken me. I do not know whether I was awake or asleep, and I saw before me a man with a strange appearance.
He was yellow all over like a dead man, yet his eyes were open, and he looked at me in terror. His face was like a mask, like a mummy, with his skin shiny, dark-yellow, and stuck upon the skull with all its hollows visible. He breathed shortly, as though out of breath.
In one hand he held some strange object, which I could not understand what it was, and then with the other he clutched his chest as if he were in pain. That creature made me shudder. I looked at him, and he looked at me without speaking, as though waiting for me to recognize him. And truly, although he looked so strange, it was as if a voice spoke in my mind:
“It is so-and-so.”
As soon as I heard the voice, I recognized who he was.
Then he opened his mouth and sighed. But his voice sounded as if it came from very far away, as though from the depths of a well.
I could see that he was in great agony. His hands, his feet, his eyes — everything showed that he was suffering terribly. In my despair, I moved toward him to help him, but he motioned with his hand for me to stop, not to come near. He began groaning in such a way that I froze. Then he said to me:
“I did not come on my own, but they sent me. Here I tremble constantly. I am in great confusion. I want to die, but I cannot. Ah, everything you used to say, Fotis, proved true. Do you remember, a few days before I died, when you came to my house and spoke about religion? Two of my unbelieving friends were there too, just like me. While you were speaking, they were smiling mockingly. After you left, they said to me: ‘It’s a pity that Fotis has such a mind and yet believes in the nonsense that old women believe.’
Another day, I told you, as I had many times before: ‘Come on, Fotis, gather money; otherwise you’ll die on a straw mat. Look at how much money I have, and still I want more.’ Then you told me: ‘Do you have some contract with Death guaranteeing that you will live as many years as you wish to enjoy your old age?’
And I said to you, 'Nonsense. I am now seventy-five; I will live past one hundred. I have secured my children’s future. My son earns money. I married my daughter to a rich man from Abyssinia. My wife and I have everything we need. Not like you, listening to what the priests say: “A Christian ending to our life.” What will you gain from a Christian ending — money? Better to have a full pocket and not care about anything. I’ll even give you charity. Why did your compassionate God make poor people anyway? So that I may toss them crumbs? Ah, you feed lazy people just so you can enter paradise! Ha ha! I am a priest’s son, you know, and I understand all these tricks very well. Let small-minded people believe them—not someone like you, Fotis, who has such intelligence and is wasting it. At this rate, you’ll die before me. You’ll destroy yourself and your family. But I tell you and sign it as a doctor that I will live to be one hundred and ten years old.’
As he was saying these things, he twisted back and forth as though he were roasting upon a grill, letting out terrible groans from his mouth.
‘Ah! Ah! Oh!’
He calmed down a little and continued:
‘Those were the things I used to say. But a few days later, I died. I died and lost the wager. What terror, what horror I went through! One moment I was sinking down, the next I was being thrown upward, crying out, "Mercy! Mercy!” But no one heard me. A current tossed me around as though I were a dead rat. What I have suffered until now and what I still suffer! What agony this is! Everything you said proved true. You won the wager.
Back in the world where you still live, I was considered the clever one. I was a doctor and had learned to speak so that everyone listened to me. I mocked religion. I spoke only of tangible things. But now I see that the things I once called fairy tales and fantasies are the truly tangible things. Tangible is the agony in which I now exist. Ah! This must be the worm that does not sleep. This must be the gnashing of teeth.’
At those words, he vanished from before my eyes, and I could only hear his groans fading slowly away.
Sleep took me for a little while, but suddenly I felt an icy hand pushing me. I opened my eyes and saw him again before me. This time, he looked even more dreadful and smaller. He had become like a little child with a large old man’s head shaking from side to side.
He opened his mouth and said:
‘In a little while, dawn will come, and those who sent me will come to take me away.’
I asked him:
‘Who sent you?’
He muttered some confused words that I could not understand. Then he said:
"Where I am, there are many others—those who mocked you for your faith. And now they understand that cleverness goes no farther than the graveyard.
There are also some whom you treated kindly, yet they slandered you, and the more you forgave them, the worse they became. For an evil man, instead of rejoicing at kindness, he becomes bitter because kindness makes him feel defeated. Those people are in an even worse state than I am. They cannot leave their dark prison to come and find you as I did. They suffer terribly because they are scourged by the whip of love, as a saint once said.
How different the world is from the way we see it — completely upside down from our clever understanding. Now we understand that our cleverness was foolishness, our words were wicked trifles, and our joys were falsehood and deception.
You who have your hearts in Christ and for whom His word is truth—the only truth—you won the great wager placed between believers and unbelievers. The wager, which I, the miserable one, lost, and now I tremble and sigh and find no rest.
Truly, in Hades, there is no repentance anymore.
Woe to those who walk as we once walked while we were upon the earth. Our flesh had become drunk, and we mocked those who believed in God and in the life to come. And the crowds applauded us.
We called you fools. We ridiculed you. And the more kindly you accepted our mockery, the more our wickedness grew.
Even now, I see how grieved you become by the behavior of evil people, yet how patiently you endure the poisonous arrows we shoot from our mouths, calling you hypocrites, deceivers, and misleaders of the people.
If those miserable people were here where I am now and saw things as they truly are, they would tremble at what they are doing today.
I want to appear before them and tell them to change their path, but I do not have permission, just as the rich man who begged Patriarch Abraham to send poor Lazarus did not receive permission either.
And this is so that those who sin may become fully worthy of condemnation, and those who walk the path of God may become worthy of salvation.
‘He that is unjust, let him be unjust still; and he which is filthy, let him be filthy still; and he that is righteous, let him be righteous still; and he that is holy, let him be holy still.’
As Scripture says.
After these words, I lost sight of him before me.
