Chapter 7, Part 4 Summary

Yakov receives a letter from Marfa. She is being accused by her neighbors of unsavory acts, which Bibikov indicated she did commit. She begs Yakov to confess. The current theories insist Yakov was put up to the crime by the Jewish leaders of a fanatical political party, so Marfa insists that Yakov just needs to accuse those leaders and all will be set right.

In the letter, Marfa says she secretly had Yakov followed after he chased her son from the brickyard. She says she now has evidence that Yakov was a leader on a smuggling trade route, to draw suspicion away from herself. She goes on for pages about how Jews are born evil and feel nervous, when they are not committing wrong acts. She then insists that Yakov molested her son before murdering him.

Yakov's reaction to the letter...