My Sev­enth Stage begins as two jour­neys are set into motion—one by rail, the oth­er by post. As autumn sun­light bathes the Eng­lish coun­try­side in warmth, Sigis­mund Zalus­ki departs from the peace­ful town of Mud­dle­ton, answer­ing an unex­pect­ed sum­mons from his uncle in Rus­sia. Though the vis­it is intend­ed to be brief—just a fortnight—he leaves behind his belong­ings and a ten­der promise to Gertrude, his fiancée, to return soon. Simul­ta­ne­ous­ly, a let­ter penned in idle malice—full of falsehoods—makes its own jour­ney toward St. Peters­burg, nei­ther slowed by guilt nor guid­ed by con­science. The con­ver­gence of these two paths—Zaluski’s hope­ful vis­it and the letter’s poi­so­nous errand—sets the stage for an unfore­seen dis­as­ter.

The let­ter, upon arrival, is prompt­ly absorbed into the moun­tain of cor­re­spon­dence at Dmit­ry Leonoff’s home. A gov­ern­ment offi­cial bur­dened by end­less doc­u­ments, Dmit­ry gives it bare­ly a glance, set­ting it aside with dozens of sim­i­lar envelopes. But when a wave of police raids sweeps through the city—standard pro­ce­dure in an age where sus­pi­cion equaled guilt—the let­ter is redis­cov­ered by a zeal­ous inspec­tor. Sud­den­ly, its con­tents are no longer dis­missed. Instead, they become the foun­da­tion for a reck­less inves­ti­ga­tion. The accu­sa­tions, though base­less, align con­ve­nient­ly with the regime’s thirst for root­ing out dis­sent, and Leonoff’s once mun­dane office is soon over­run by offi­cers search­ing for evi­dence that doesn’t exist.

Dur­ing the raid, even the most per­son­al cor­ners of the home are over­turned, dri­ven by an obses­sive need to uncov­er hid­den rev­o­lu­tion­ary doc­u­ments. Papers are exam­ined with­out con­text, fam­i­ly heir­looms mis­tak­en for cod­ed mes­sages, and diaries read as con­fes­sions. Though Leonoff protests his inno­cence, the offi­cials remain unmoved. To them, guilt is not deter­mined by proof but by pres­ence in the wrong place at the wrong time. He is detained overnight for fur­ther ques­tion­ing, part of a sys­tem designed to pun­ish fear rather than crime. Mean­while, his fam­i­ly watch­es in silent despair, know­ing that in such times, jus­tice is a lux­u­ry few can afford.

Zalus­ki, stay­ing else­where in the city, remains unaware until the storm of sus­pi­cion reach­es him. That night, he dreams of the tran­quil gar­den at Mud­dle­ton, of walk­ing arm-in-arm with Gertrude under the soft glow of lanterns. The dream is shat­tered by the ham­mer­ing of fists at his door and the shrill com­mands of uni­formed men. Dragged from bed and ques­tioned harsh­ly, he is accused of con­nec­tions to a con­spir­a­cy he’s nev­er heard of. Incred­u­lous, he tries to rea­son with them, his words lost in the echo of offi­cial accu­sa­tions. His Eng­lish man­ner and com­posed demeanor con­fuse his inter­roga­tors, but they only serve to deep­en their sus­pi­cions.

The next day brings par­tial clar­i­ty, but not full free­dom. The accu­sa­tion, it turns out, is linked to a mis­in­ter­pret­ed let­ter now believed to be evi­dence of sub­ver­sive activ­i­ty. Despite prov­ing his iden­ti­ty and inten­tions, Zalus­ki remains marked—a man asso­ci­at­ed with doubt. Though even­tu­al­ly released, his faith in his homeland’s jus­tice has been irrepara­bly shak­en. The expe­ri­ence reveals just how frag­ile safe­ty is when truth is buried beneath bureau­cra­cy and fear. For him, the com­fort of Eng­land now seems like a dis­tant dream, and the real­iza­tion that his name might be per­ma­nent­ly stained weighs heav­i­ly.

Back in Mud­dle­ton, the con­trast could not be stark­er. Gen­tle winds rus­tle gold­en leaves, and life moves at a steady, unevent­ful pace. Gertrude, unaware of the chaos abroad, pre­pares for Zaluski’s return. She imag­ines his train pulling into the sta­tion, his smile unchanged, their plans resumed with­out dis­rup­tion. But the slan­der has done more than delay a reunion—it has carved a wound invis­i­ble from the out­side. While the gos­sip that sparked it was spo­ken light­ly, its rip­ples have caused real harm, reach­ing across bor­ders and into lives nev­er intend­ed to be touched.

This chap­ter cap­tures how slan­der, once set loose, becomes almost impos­si­ble to recall. It gath­ers momen­tum, con­sumes con­text, and cre­ates chaos far beyond its ori­gin. In Zaluski’s case, it col­lid­ed with a sys­tem already inclined to see ene­mies in shad­ows, trans­form­ing care­less speech into a weapon. The events in Rus­sia serve not just as a cri­tique of gov­ern­men­tal para­noia but also as a reflec­tion on the respon­si­bil­i­ty we car­ry with our words. The dam­age caused by unex­am­ined rumors may be indi­rect, but it is no less real. As Zaluski’s ordeal reveals, truth may even­tu­al­ly emerge, but the scars left behind nev­er ful­ly dis­ap­pear.