“That’s hard. I’ll have to get all our men together to pray all night and call out by candlelight till morning.”
But she didn’t bat an eye. She handed him thirty roubles—only pray! And what do you think? This wastrel son of hers runs into such luck that he passes to the upper class. The lady nearly went out of her mind with joy that our God showed her such kindness! She started giving Pimen commission after commission, and he had already petitioned God and obtained health for her, and an inheritance, and high rank for her husband, and so many decorations that there was no more room on his chest and they say he carried one in his pocket. Wondrous, that’s all, and we knew nothing about it. But the time came for all that to be revealed and for some wonders to be exchanged for others.
V
Trouble was brewing in the commercial dealings among the Jews in one of the Jewish towns of that province. I can’t tell you for sure whether it was about some wrong money or some duty-free trading, but it had to be looked into by the authorities, and here there was the prospect of a mighty reward. So the lady sends for our Pimen and says:
“Pimen Ivanovich, here’s twenty roubles for oil and candles; tell your people to pray as zealously as they can that my husband gets sent on this mission.”
Nothing to it! He’s already acquired a taste for collecting this oil tax and replies:
“Very well, my lady, I’ll tell them.”
“And they should pray good and proper,” she says, “because it’s very necessary for me!”
“As if they dare to pray badly on me, my lady, when I order them,” Pimen reassured her. “I’ll have them go hungry till their prayer’s answered.” He took the money and was off, and that same night the lady’s husband got the job she wished for him.
Well, this time the blessing went to her head so much that she wasn’t satisfied with having us pray, but absolutely desired to go and pray to our holy images herself.
She said so to Pimen, but he turned coward, because he knew our people wouldn’t let her go near our holy images. But the lady wouldn’t leave off.
“Say what you like,” she said, “but I’ll take a boat towards evening today and come to you with my son.”
Pimen tried to talk her out of it. “It’s better,” he says, “if we pray by ourselves. We have this guardian angel, you donate for the oil to burn before him, and we’ll entrust him with safeguarding your spouse.”
“Ah, splendid,” she replies, “splendid. I’m very glad there’s such an angel. Here’s for the oil. Be sure to light three lamps before him, and I’ll come and look.”
Trouble caught up with Pimen. He came to us and started saying, “Thus and so, it’s my fault, I didn’t contradict this vile heathen woman in her wishes, because her husband is somebody we need.” And so he told us a cock-and-bull story, but still didn’t tell us all he’d done. Well, unpleasant as it was for us, there was nothing else to do. We quickly took our icons off the walls and hid them away in the trunks, and replaced them with some substitutes we kept for fear the authorities might come and inspect us. We put them on the shelves and waited for the visitor. And she came, spiffed up something awful, sweeping around with her long, wide skirts, looking at our substitute icons through a lorgnette and asking: “Tell me, please, which one is the wonderworking angel?” We didn’t even know how to get her off the subject:
“We have no such angel,” we said.
And no matter how she insisted and complained to Pimen, we didn’t show her the angel and quickly took her away to have tea and whatever little treats we could give her.
We disliked her terribly, and God knows why: her look was somehow repulsivous, for all that she was considered beautiful. Tall, you know, with such spindly legs, thin as a steppe goat, and straight-browed.
“You don’t like that kind of beauty?” the bearskin coat interrupted the storyteller.
“Good grief, what’s likeable in such snakiness?” he replied.
“Do your people consider it beautiful if a woman looks like a hump or something?”
“A hump?” the storyteller repeated, smiling and not taking offense. “Why do you suggest that? In our true Russian understanding concerning a woman’s build, we keep to a type of our own, which we find much more suitable than modern-day frivolity, and it’s nothing like a hump. We don’t appreciate spindliness, true; we prefer that a woman stand not on long legs, but on sturdy ones, so that she doesn’t get tangled up, but rolls about everywhere like a ball and makes it, where a spindly-legged one will run and trip. We also don’t appreciate snaky thinness, but require that a woman be on the stout side, ample, because, though it’s not so elegant, it points to maternity in them. The brow of our real, pure Russian woman’s breed is more plump, more meaty, but then in that soft brow there’s more gaiety, more welcome. The same for the nose: ours have noses that aren’t hooked, but more like little pips, but this little pip itself, like it or not, is much more affable in family life than a dry, proud nose. But the eyebrows especially, the eyebrows open up the look of the face, and therefore it’s necessary that a woman’s eyebrows not scowl, but be opened out, archlike, for a man finds it more inviting to talk with such a woman, and she makes a different, more welcoming impression on everybody coming to the house. But modern taste, naturally, has abandoned this good type and approves of airy ephemerality in the female sex, only that’s completely useless. Excuse me, however, I see we’ve started talking about something else. I’d better go on.”
Our Pimen, being a vain man, notices that we, having seen the visitor off, have begun to criticize her, and says:
“Really, now! She’s a good woman.”
And we reply: what kind of good is she, if there’s no goodness in her appearance? But God help her: whatever she is, let her be. We were glad enough to be rid of her, and we hastened to burn some incense so that there would be no smell of her in our place.
After that we swept all traces of the dear guest’s visit from the room, put the substitute images back into the trunks behind the partition, and took out our real icons, placed them on the shelves as they had been before, sprinkled them with holy water, said some initial prayers, and went each to his own night’s rest, only, God knows why and wherefore, we all slept poorly that night and felt somehow eerie and restless.
VI
In the morning we all went to work and set about our tasks, but Luka Kirilovich wasn’t there. That, judging by his punctuality, was surprising, but it seemed still more surprising to me that he turned up after seven all pale and upset.
Knowing that he was a self-possessed man and did not like giving way to empty sorrows, I paid attention to that and asked: “What’s the matter with you, Luka Kirilovich?” And he says: “I’ll tell you later.”
But, being young then, I was awfully curious, and, besides, a premonition suddenly came to me from somewhere that this was something bad to do with our faith; and I honored our faith and had never been an unbeliever.
And therefore I couldn’t stand it for long, and, under some pretext or other, I left work and ran home. I think: while nobody’s home, I’ll worm something out of Mikhailitsa. Though Luka Kirilovich hadn’t revealed anything, she, in all her simplicity, could still somehow see through him, and she wouldn’t conceal anything from me, because I had been an orphan from childhood, and had grown up like a son to them, and she was the same to me as a second mother.
So I rush to her, and I see she’s sitting on the porch, an old coat thrown over her shoulders, and herself as if sick, sad, and a sort of greenish color.
“My second mother,” I say, “why are you sitting here of all places?”
And she says:
“And where am I to huddle up, Marochka?”
My name is Mark Alexandrovich, but she, having maternal feelings for me, called me Marochka.
“What’s she giving me this nonsense for,” I think, “that she’s got nowhere to huddle up?”
“Why don’t you lie down in your closet?” I say.
“I can’t, Maro
chka,” she says, “old Maroy’s praying in the big room.”
“Aha!” I think. “So it’s true that something’s happened to do with our faith.” And Aunt Mikhailitsa begins:
“You probably don’t know what happened here during the night, do you, Marochka, my child?”
“No, second mother, I don’t.”
“Ah, terrible things!”
“Tell me quickly, second mother.”
“Ah, I don’t know how I can tell you.”
“How is it you can’t tell me?” I say. “Am I some kind of stranger to you, and not like a son?”
“I know, my dearest,” she replies, “that you’re like a son to me, only I don’t trust myself to put it in the right words for you, because I’m stupid and untalented, but just wait—uncle will come back at quitting time, he’ll surely tell you everything.”
But there was no way I could wait, and I pestered her to tell me, tell me right now, what it was all about.
And I see she keeps blinking, blinking her eyes, and her eyes get all filled with tears, and she suddenly brushes them away with her shawl and softly whispers to me:
“Our guardian angel came down last night, child.”
This revelation threw me into a fit of trembling.
“Say quickly,” I ask, “how did this wonder happen and who were the beholders of it?”
And she replies:
“It was an unfathomable wonder, child, and nobody beheld it but me, because it happened in the deepest midnight hour, and I was the only one not asleep.”
And this, my dear sirs, is the story she told me:
“I fell asleep having said my prayers,” she says. “I don’t remember how long I slept, but suddenly in my dreams I see a fire, a big fire: as if everything here is burning down, and the river carries the ashes and whirls them around the piers, and swallows them, sucks them into the depths.” And as for herself, it seemed to Mikhailitsa that she ran out in a threadbare nightshirt, all holes, and stood right by the water, and across from her, on the other bank, a tall red pillar thrust itself up, and on that pillar was a small white cock, and he kept flapping his wings. And it was as if Mikhailitsa said: “Who are you?”—because her feeling told her that he was announcing something. And the cock suddenly exclaimed “Amen” as if in a human voice, and drooped, and was no longer there, and around Mikhailitsa it became quiet and there was such spentness in the air that Mikhailitsa became frightened and couldn’t breathe, and she woke up and lay there, and she heard a lamb start bleating outside the door. And she can hear from its voice that it’s a very young lamb that still hasn’t shed its newborn wool. Its pure, silvery little voice rings out “Ba-a-a,” and suddenly Mikhailitsa senses that it’s walking about the prayer room, its little hooves beating out a quick tap-tap-tap on the floorboards, as if it’s looking for someone. Mikhailitsa reasons to herself: “Lord Jesus Christ! What is it? There are no sheep in our whole settlement and no lambing either, so where has this little one dropped from?” And at the same time she gives a start: “How, then, did it end up in the house? It means that, with all last night’s bustle, we forgot to bolt the front door. Thank God,” she thinks, “it’s just a lamb that’s wandered in, and not a yard dog getting at our holy icons.” And she tries to wake up Luka with it: “Kirilych!” she calls him. “Kirilych! Wake up quick, dearest, we’ve left the door open and some little lamb’s wandered in.” But Luka Kirilovich, as bad luck would have it, was wrapped up in a dead sleep. No matter what Mikhailitsa did, she couldn’t wake him up: he groaned, but didn’t speak. The harder Mikhailitsa shook and shoved him, the louder he groaned, and that was all. Mikhailitsa began asking him at least “to remember the name of Jesus,” but she had barely uttered that name herself when something in the room squealed, and at the same moment Luka tore himself from the bed and went rushing forward, but in the middle of the room it was as if a metal wall suddenly flung him back. “A light, woman! A light, quickly!” he shouted to Mikhailitsa, and he himself couldn’t move from the spot. She lit a candle and ran out, and saw him, pale as a condemned man, trembling so much that not only was the clasp moving on his neck, but even his pants were shaking on his legs. The woman turned to him again. “My provider,” she said, “what is it?” And he just pointed his finger at the empty spot where the angel used to be, while the angel himself was lying on the floor by Luka’s feet.
Luka Kirilovich went at once to old Maroy and said, thus and so, this is what my woman saw and what happened to us. Come and look. Maroy came and knelt before the angel lying on the floor and stayed motionless over him for a long time, like a marble tombstone. Then, raising his hand, he scratched the bare patch on the crown of his head and said softly:
“Bring me twelve clean, newly fired bricks.”
Luka Kirilovich brought them at once, Maroy looked them over and saw that they were all clean, straight from the fiery furnace, and told Luka to stack them one on top of the other, and in that way they erected a pillar, covered it with a clean towel, raised the icon up on it, and then Maroy, bowing to the ground, exclaims:
“Angel of the Lord, may thy footsteps be poured out wheresoe’er thou wishest!”
And he had only just uttered these words, when there suddenly comes a rap-rap-rap on the door, and an unfamiliar voice calls out:
“Hey, you schismatics, which of you is the chief here?”
Luka Kirilovich opens the door and sees a soldier with a badge standing there.
Luka asks what chief he wants, and the soldier replies:
“The one who visited the lady and calls himself Pimen.”
Well, Luka sent his wife for Pimen at once, and asked the soldier what was the matter. Why had he been sent at night to find Pimen?
The soldier says:
“I don’t know for certain, but the word is that the Jews set up some awkward business with the gentleman.”
But precisely what it was, he couldn’t tell.
“I heard,” he says, “that the gentleman sealed them, and they put a seal on him.”
But how it was that they sealed each other, he couldn’t tell coherently.
Meanwhile Pimen came over and, like a Jew himself, rolled his eyes this way and that: obviously, he didn’t know what to say. Luka says:
“What are you standing there for, you spielman, go on now and bring your spielmaning to an end!”
Pimen and the soldier got into the boat and left.
An hour later our Pimen comes back and puts up a cheerful front, but it’s clear he’s cruelly out of sorts.
Luka questions him:
“Tell me, featherbrain,” he says, “and you’d better tell me in all frankness, what were you up to there?”
And he says:
“Nothing.”
Well, so it was left at nothing, and yet it was by no means nothing.
VII
A most astonishing thing had happened with the gentleman our Pimen supposedly had us pray for. As I told you, he set out for the Jewish town and arrived there late at night, when nobody was thinking about him, and at once sealed every one of the shops, and informed the police that he would come and inspect them the next morning. The Jews, naturally, found it out at once and came to him at once that night asking to make a deal, meaning they had no end of illegal goods. They come and shove ten thousand roubles at the gentleman straight off. He says: “I can’t, I’m a big official, invested with confidence, and I don’t take bribes,” and the Jews psht-psht-psht among themselves and offer him fifteen. He says again: “I can’t.” They offer twenty. He says: “What is it, don’t you understand that I can’t, I’ve already let the police know about going there together tomorrow to inspect.” They psht-psht again, and then say:
“Vel, Your Excellency, dat’s nothing dat you let the police know, here ve’re giffing you tventy-five tousend, and you jes gif us your seal till morning and go peacefully to bed, and ve don’t need anyting else.”
The gentleman thought and thought: he considered himself a big person, b
ut, obviously, even big persons don’t have hearts of stone. He took the twenty-five thousand and gave them his seal, with which he had done the sealing, and went to bed. During the night, the Jews, naturally, dragged everything they had to out of their cellars and sealed them again with the same seal, and the gentleman was still asleep when they were already psht-pshting in his front hall. Well, so he lets them in; they thank him and say:
“And now, Your Honor, you’re velcome to inspect.”
Well, he makes as if he doesn’t hear that, and says:
“Give me back my seal, quickly.”
And the Jews say:
“And you gif us back our money.”
“What? How’s that?” says the gentleman. But they stand their ground:
“Ve left you de money as a pledge.”
“What do you mean, as a pledge?”
“Dat’s right, zir,” they say, “it vas a pledge.”
“You’re lying,” he says, “scoundrels that you are, Christ-sellers, you gave me that money to keep.”
They nudge each other and chuckle:
“Hörst-du,” they say, “you hear, ve supposedly gafe it outright … Hm, hm! Oy vey, as if ve could be so shtupid, just like some muzhiks mitout politics, to gif such a big person a khabar.” (“Khabar” is their word for a bribe.)
Well, sirs, can you imagine anything better than this story? The gentleman, naturally, should have given back the money, and that would have been the end of it, but he held out a little longer, because he was sorry to part with it. Morning came; all the shops in town were locked; people came and marveled; the police demand the seal, and the Jews shout: “Oy vey, vat kind of gofernment is dis! De high autorities vant to ruin us.” A terrible uproar! The gentleman locks himself in and sits there almost out of his mind till dinnertime, but in the evening he summons those clever Jews and says: “Take your money, curse you, and give me back my seal!” But they no longer want that. They say: “How can you do dat! In de whole town ve did no business all day: now Your Honor muss gif us fifty tousend.” You see what came of it! And the Jews threaten: “If you don’t gif fifty tousend today, tomorrow it vill cost you anoder tventy-fife tousend more!” The gentleman didn’t sleep all night, and in the morning he sent for the Jews again, gave them back all the money he had taken from them, and wrote a promissory note for another twenty-five thousand, and went ahead with the inspection anyhow; found nothing, naturally, quickly went home to his wife, and stormed and raged before her: where was he to get twenty-five thousand to buy back the promissory note from the Jews? “We’ll have to sell the estate that came as your dowry.” But she says: “Not for anything in the world—I’m attached to it.” He says: “It’s your fault, you prayed through some schismatics that I be sent on this mission and assured me their angel would help me, and yet see how nicely he’s helped me.” But she replies: “No, the fault is yours. Why were you so stupid that you didn’t arrest those Jews and declare that they stole the seal from you? But, in any case,” she says, “never mind: just listen to me and I’ll set things right, and others will pay for your injudiciousness.” And she suddenly shouted out to whoever happened to be there: “Quick, hurry, go across the Dniepr and bring me the schismatics’ headman.”
The Enchanted Wanderer and Other Stories Page 10
