At Easter he did not go to church and did not take communion.
The years of the troubles and confusion left their trace in the “black affliction.” Everyone remembered Pozharsky’s black death. So the Shilovs diagnosed the illness of their famous tenant with the popular phrase, “black affliction.”2
Savva did not complain of anything, but he could not get up anymore: he lay in bed all day. And at night—no sleep!—black sleepless depression.
The centurion’s wife was worried: he might die without being shriven. But every time she tried to persuade Savva to call a priest, he would not have it: his black depression was no fatal disease!
Viktor cheered him up, “People die of wounds,” he said. “But you’re not dead.”
There was no talk of the soul. And whose soul? The devil’s soul is not like ours. Savva’s soul was sold and in good hands.
Viktor had to know that the soul is not the only component of a living being, and that the upset of the soul, whether sold or free, opens up the path to what is above the soul, higher than the soul, a person’s spirit. Viktor was worried, but never showed it, he was always feckless or joking or mocking: he could heal wounds, but he couldn’t heal souls.
The centurion’s wife took care of Savva: if you didn’t feed him, he would never remember to eat. What is it about women?—this most secret of secrets—that they can drive a man to the noose but also show him the path to the kingdom of heaven. She persuaded Savva. Or would his spirit have heard it without her: isn’t it time to make an accounting?
The Shilovs were parishioners at St. Nikola on Grachi on Sretenka, nearby. The centurion’s wife, not wasting time, ran to Grachi, found the Nikola priest Varnava. And this Varnava, to put it in book talk, was “an ecclesiastic of mature years, a skillful man, and mightily God-fearing.” She told the priest everything about her tenant without hiding anything, about how he is tormented day and night by his heart and suffers with his soul, and asks to be renewed.
2
Saturday, after the vigil service, Varnava packed the spare communion wine and bread and appeared at the house of the streltsy centurion Yakov Shilov.
Savva lay in a daze.
Or had the summer evening sharpened his thoughts and pondering with warmth and memory: everything in the past was clear, and what darkness it was!
Varnava recited the prayers of repentance and ordered everyone to leave the rooms. When the centurion and his wife and everyone who happened to be at his house that evening had left, Varnava checked the door and, having made the initial prayers and obeisances, he started the confession.
Savva sat up and wanted to make the sign of the cross, but his arm was heavy, his fingers wouldn’t bend, and his arm merely fumbled with the blanket.
But the long-suffering and suddenly liberated voice sounded clearly—what cleansing sounds!—and it never betrayed itself, speaking over the increasing noise that turned into a threatening howl, a screeching and angry racket.
“Bring rest, oh Lord, to the soul of thy servant, the murdered Stepanida, in a place of light, of coolness, of tranquility, where all the righteous rest.”
… is it possible to forgive me to smooth out of eternal memory what my conscience cannot forgive we had a secret and the paths of that secret led us to our end and then the ends hid in water how many times in despair I told myself if only I could stop loving you you never said such words and could not you know that you are everything to me you are everything together I was ready more than once to die for you and here I killed you and if I was mistaken I am trusting and my suspiciousness is inculcated not innate and you are not the same and you did not say that and your words are simple without trickery or lies and your silence was not hushing up a crime my crime is deeper and my guilt is more irreparable and my repentance is hopeless if you knew if you understood in the depths of your heart and felt how much I loved you and love you and there is no law for such love no power can ban or allow it my love is a precious stone and I will not stop before anything and did not stop for the sake of love for you I sold my soul and killed you yet am I like that and can I be tested the way others are what passes for them unnoticed is a storm and there is nothing wasted in words if you only knew you gave me so much happiness and poisoned me with fierce bitterness without intention of course in your eyes I was like everyone but I am a tsarevich but you were happy you drank and for that peck I killed you and when I think about you so much happiness overwhelms me the way I love you no one will ever love you everyone sees but color and radiance of feeling is not the same thing I am fire and when I see you there are two dawns in my eyes morning and evening and you alone have the power to change my fate I dreamed of simplicity and not thinking and I could not chase away my thoughts the thoughts cut me up my love is mad eternity is in its every instant everything is passing but for me nothing will pass “I will never see you again” you said no I will give my soul for you and gave it away but I did not possess your soul and killed you farewell I told myself and that lid covered the light of acquiescence for me my heart is brimming for the sake of my love I will acquiesce to all but I am not confessing “sin” you have nothing to repent love is sinless the crown will sadden Stepanida but such a sin cannot bring joy when I awaken or think my first thought is of you how much I love you look alone I love to smell flowers and look when you come in a whole garden trees flowers grasses come with you you are always like that first time trees flowers grasses quietly cling and your “purposeful” thorns and prickly branches I love when you look me in the eyes your voice your hands light caressing fingers your smile and your deep gaze your past poverty is there your absence of freedom your buried life and our life I am buried alive my skin is flayed I must acquiesce the way you acquiesced there is no way out for me from underground I want to roll up in my underground den and burn with pain “do not ask me and there will be no lies” it means there was a lie such black depression and in this dark clothing I will go on my final path without you I will turn into a black snake but I have no one to wait for fiery flames the longing of my love separation to die to drown my crooked soul I cannot bear it your tears have filled my thoughts and put out words take away my sin in my thoughts my dreams to the tune of songs about you all of you inside me is deceit and my love does not exist I deceived myself you do not believe me I am lost my heart is beating protecting my last day and night light blood “the first time is hard, and then” …
Savva did not finish “and then.”
“I’ll finish,” said someone, and sharp pain jabbed his eyes, “you are mistaken: she is not like that, not that and not so, she did not say that, she wanted to say … She asked: ‘which is higher, love or the soul?’ For the sake of the purity of the soul, for the sake of a quiet conscience—to live in lies, hiding, is unbearable! She sacrificed her love. And you sold your soul for the sake of love.”
“You don’t sacrifice love,” Savva said, “love will cover the worst sin!” “Acquiesce!” and another painful prick in the eye, he curled up: it was as if he would be flattened now.
Viktor was following a crowd of similar creatures—blue, crimson, purple, copper green, and pitch black—and the horde bustled in clouds of smoke, growling and howling.
“You bastard!” Savva heard him and shuddered: Viktor’s eyes were drilling through him, dunking him in ice and searing him with fire. “You think you can get out of it with a confession, you people, God’s creatures. Why then you can remove all the ‘word of honors,’ justify any cheat, and deny everything. Tell me, please, about this feat of heroism, you unblessed bastards, you are given reason so that you can deceive. But there is something that you cannot erase with anything: blood! Look: your blood!” He raised high above their heads the page from Savva’s trade notebook. “You won’t get away with this, you oathbreaker!”
Viktor walked through the smoking motley mass as though through a clearing and grabbed Savva by the neck, lifting him over the bed: “Tsarevich! You are a pretender, so take that!” And he struck S
avva’s head against the wall.
And the clawed creatures crawled out from all sides, digging into his eyes and compressing his throat. Having crushed him, they threw him toward the ceiling.
A long howl covers everything like hard flooring. The sound rammed and trampled: it was either Savva in death pains or his torturers in a fury.
The centurion and his wife came running at the screams.
Varnava was gone, and Savva was on the floor.
He was supine: his face dark, eyes swollen, his tongue bitten and engorged, foam in his mouth.
3
“He’s possessed, we have to take him to Simonov, Father Kasyan will know better,” Varnava said.
It was a miracle he had escaped from the centurion’s!
“Everything was going well,” Varnava said, “but once Savva started talking, the whole place went up, enough to frighten the saints: benches and the table up to the ceiling, dishes, books flying, howling and whistling, they grabbed my hair, tugged at my cassock.”
Having a “possessed” person in the home is no fun. Even worse if, God forbid, he dies. Would they be blamed? What would the tsar say when he learns?
The Shilovs were lucky: they had a relative, a neighbor. And she had entrée to the tsar: her sister Akulina Ivanovna was the tsar’s best cook and the tsar held her in high esteem. The Shilov wife told her neighbor about Savva and Varnava, who the demons searched for in the priest’s head. Fedosya was kind, took pity on Savva, but did note about Varnava: “It is not proper for the priest to get involved with demons.” And it was true; if the worst happened, the Shilovs would be blamed, you couldn’t hide it: Grudtsyn wasn’t no one, a bast sword, people would talk.
Never had the words “the tsar’s word and deed,” an arrest warrant, been shouted so arrogantly in Moscow as during the post-troubles time under Tsar Mikhail Fyodorovich: “word and deed” was just like the “black affliction,” but it was expressed not in gnawing depression but in an indescribable fear of being caught: if there are no feathers around your mouth, know the best thing to do is to blame your neighbor.
Fedosya took along some dill—a treat never hurts, even for your own sister—and headed to the Kremlin.
At the tsar’s stove she told her sister everything about Shilov and his wife and Varnava and the possessed Savva and told Akulya to bring this to the attention of the tsar’s synod and they to the tsar’s.
“Grudtsyn isn’t a bast sword, and today they’ll arrest you even for a sword.”
“Don’t forget the garlic next time,” Akulina Ivanovna told her sister in parting. “Lukyanovich prefers it to all other vegetables: he says it cleanses the heart and your spirit is cleansed, too.”
Very few of the synod members did not spend some time in the tsar’s kitchen, allegedly to keep an eye on things and prevent conspiracy—it was easier than easy to sprinkle poison in the food!—but it was really because young and old, they enjoyed chatting with the cooks: Akulina Ivanovna seemed to have hired them to match, they all had curly hair, heart-shaped lips, and bubbly voices. The most frequent visitor would impress anyone: the tsar’s brother-in-law Boyar Semyon Lukyanovich Streshnev.
That day everyone was talking about Grudtsyn, the hero of Smolensk, the possessed Savva, who was staying at the house of the streltsy centurion Yakov Shilov on Streshnya.
The tsar took Grudtsyn’s plight to heart and commanded: as soon as there was a changing of the guards, send two sentinels to the house of the centurion.
“He is sick with the black affliction, but he has to be watched so that he doesn’t throw himself into the fire or the water prompted by demons.”
And the tsar commanded that food be sent daily to Savva and he receive reports about his health.
From that day the streltsy sentinels were in charge; forget the demons, the centurion’s wife had other concerns.
The demons, they didn’t care about the sentinels, they just wanted to torment him. Savva, tormented by demons, didn’t even poke a fork in the tsar’s baked veal. And what health was there to report? He just wanted it to end soon!
That’s what everyone was expecting: the end: Savva and the Shilovs and Fedosya the relative and the brave guards and the anger-darkened demons.
They said that Viktor now did not show up in the daytime but in the evening, no longer hiding but in his full demonic image: if you want to shake his hand hello! he’ll shove his prickly tail into your hand, and then you’ll have to soak your hand in holy water from Epiphany.
The streltsy guard Kharka Myshelov, mischievously scaring the womenfolk, told them at dinner that Kharka saw Viktor with his own eyes: “He sat down right on the sun, pulled up his heelless feet, dumped his astrakhan trunk on the table, so as to dry it, and flicked away flies with his paw and chuckled.”
All right, Kharka’s tongue is not a pen or a brush, but a “self-writer” that needs no dipping in ink.
Viktor, who never left Savva’s room day or night, commanded his dark forces: their demonic work was to diligently toss Savva up in the air and then throw him on the floor and beat him with whatever they had.
With every passing day the demons grew better at their torturing exercises and Savva was worse.
Today is July 3, a holiday in Veliky Ustyug, the day of St. John the Holy Fool. This day will be memorable for Savva.
After extraordinary suffering, Savva, finally weakened, fell into a deep sleep.
Deathly silence reigned in the house.
Fedosya ran to get Varnava: after all a priest can shake a dead man enough for a “Christian end of life.” The centurion and his wife and with them the streltsy guards came into Savva’s room.
Savva was dead.
They stood and looked: “God took him, may he rest in peace!”
Suddenly his empty eyes held tears. Without waking, he sat up as if seeing something and said clearly:
“I promise. I will do it. Have mercy!”
It was so terrible to hear words from a dead man; the centurion and his wife fainted, and the guards shook Savva: they wanted to know with whom he was talking. But Savva’s eyes rolled up and he could say nothing …
Varnava arrived with the Communion.
“A fine dead man,” Varnava said, “he’s breathing like a healthy horse!” And he scolded the guards: “Those fists could send a live man to the next world, and you shouldn’t bother a corpse.”
When Savva woke up, they all asked him what he had seen and why he wept.
“I saw,” said Savva, and tears came to his damp eyes again, “what rich red garments she wears and she was glowing—it was her face, her eyes. ‘What is the matter, she asked, why are you so sad?’—‘You know why I am sad.’—She smiled and her smile lit her up and the warm light enveloped me. ‘You worry how to get your signature back.’—‘In my love for you.’—‘I will help you, promise me you will leave the world.’—‘I promise, have mercy!’ And here the red burst into emerald and as it burned was forged into azure. And I heard a voice, I remember that voice from my childhood, such concern and such tenderness: ‘Savva, on the feast day of the icon of Lady of Kazan you will come to my house on the square by Vetoshny Row. For your suffering love before all the people I will perform a miracle over you.’”
Varnava spoke the initial obeisance prayers and began singing a prayer to the Lady of Kazan. The guards sang the dogma of the sixth verse along with him:
Who would not love you
Holy Virgin.
Who would not praise
Your Immaculate Birth!
Fedosya ran out of the Shilov house as if it were on fire and rushed to the Kremlin. She fought her way through the gatekeepers, doormen, and chamber men like a clawing cat up the stairs to her sister Akulina’s kitchen. Without catching her breath, she repeated Savva’s vision word for word:
“Come, she said, Savvushka, to my house on the square by Vetoshny Row on the Kazan feast day and I will perform a miracle over you.”
“What about the garlic?”
/> It was only then that Fedosya remembered she had left Streshnev’s garlic in the Shilov kitchen.
“I’ll pick some. From the Rogozhsky garden.”
But before she got to the garden, without garlic at lunch, all of the tsar’s closest synod members had heard from Akulina Ivanovna about Savva’s vision. And at dinner Semyon Lukyanovich told the tsar.
“Look at that!” said the tsar. “Man is dark but God moves in mysterious ways.”
All Moscow awaited the feast day of Our Lady of Kazan.
On the feast day, July 8, the procession of the cross came to the Kazan Cathedral on the square by Vetoshny Row.
In the procession with banners and icons came Tsar Mikhail Fyodorovich and the holy patriarch of all Russia, the tsar’s father Filaret Nikitich, and to the side, without a road like the tsar and patriarch, but with a clear path before him, came Semyon Letoprovodets, Farewell-to-Summer—Syoma the Holy Fool in Christ and the Blessed Virgin Mary. People looked at the tsar and the patriarch without making out their faces, as if at an icon, but who would dare look into Syoma’s eyes? A whirl of light circled over his head and that light attracted everything living and terrified the will.
The weather had been heavy since morning. Dark storm clouds hesitated, but inexorably advanced from beyond the Vorobyov Hills. The heat was unbearable. But there were as many people as at Easter: every hour, every minute of man’s life is miraculous, but it’s not every day that miracles are performed to be seen.
Before the procession the tsar sent streltsy to Sretenka to deliver Savva to the service at the Kazan Cathedral. But it was not easy to obey the tsar’s order: they took turns carrying Savva in a rug—he was unbelievably heavy! It would be different if it had been just Savva, but there were so many who climbed into the rug to have a final hour of tormenting their wretched victim before killing him.
The Little Devil and Other Stories Page 22
