“ ‘Well,’ I say, ‘I have no need to bring up little Tartars. If they could be baptized and take communion, that would be a different matter, but now what: as many of them as I multiply, they’ll all be yours, not Orthodox, and they’ll cheat Russian peasants when they grow up.’ So again I took two wives, and wouldn’t have more, because when there’s a lot of women, even if they’re Tartars, the foul things will get to quarreling, and you have to discipline them all the time.”
“Well, sir, and did you love these new wives of yours?”
“What’s that?”
“These new wives of yours—did you love them?”
“Love? … Ah, so that’s what you mean? Yes, one that I had from Agashimola was very obliging to me, so I just … took pity on her.”
“And that girl, the young one who had been married to you before—most likely she pleased you more?”
“She was all right. I took pity on her, too.”
“And you probably missed her when you were stolen by one horde from the other?”
“No, I didn’t miss her.”
“But still, you most likely had children there, from your first wives?”
“Of course I did: Savakirey’s wife bore two Kolkas and a Natasha, and the young one gave birth to six in five years, because once she had two Kolkas at the same time.”
“Allow us to ask you, though: why do you keep calling them ‘Kolkas’ and ‘Natashas’?”
“That’s the Tartar way. For them, if it’s a grown Russian man—it’s Ivan, if it’s a woman—it’s Natasha, and boys they call Kolka, and so my wives, though they were Tartars, were counted as Natashas because of me, and the boys were Kolkas. Though all this, naturally, was only superficial, because they had no Church sacraments, and I didn’t consider them my children.”
“So you didn’t consider them yours? Why was that?”
“How could I, when they weren’t baptized or anointed with oil?”
“And your parental feelings?”
“What’s that, sir?”
“Can it be that you didn’t love these children at all and never caressed them?”
“Why should I caress them? Naturally, if I happened to be sitting alone and one of them came running up, well, I’d just pat him on the head and tell him: ‘Go to your mother’—only that rarely happened, because I couldn’t be bothered with them.”
“Why couldn’t you be bothered: did you have so much to do?”
“No, sir, I had nothing to do, but I was pining away: I wanted very much to go home to Russia.”
“So in ten years you still didn’t get used to the steppe?”
“No, sir, I wanted to go home … I pined for it. Especially in the evenings, or even at midday, when it was fair weather, hot, the camp was quiet, the Tartars had all dropped off to sleep in their tents from the scorching heat, and I raise the flap of my tent and look at the steppe … to this side and to that—it’s all the same … Scorching hot, a cruel sight; the expanse boundless; a riot of grass; feather-grass white, fluffy, billowing like a silver sea; and a smell borne on the breeze, the smell of sheep, and the sun beats down, burning hot, and the steppe, like a burdensome life, has no foreseeable end, and there’s no bottom to the depths of your anguish … You gaze off somewhere, and suddenly out of the blue a monastery or a church appears, and you remember your baptized land and start to weep.”
Ivan Severyanych paused, sighed deeply at his memories, and went on:
“Or even worse than that was on the salt marshes near the Caspian: the sun glows, bakes, and the salt marsh glitters, and the sea glitters … You get befuddled by that glitter even worse than by the feather-grass, and you don’t know anymore what part of the world you’re in, that is, whether you’re still alive or dead and suffering for your sins in hopeless hell. Where there’s more feather-grass on the steppe, all the same it’s more heartening; at least you find gray-blue sage here and there on a low rise, or small clusters of wormwood and thyme, colorful in all that whiteness, but here there’s nothing but glitter … If fire runs scorching through the grass somewhere, there’s a great bustle: bustards, kestrels, steppe snipe fly up, and the hunt for them begins. We’d overtake the bustards on horseback, surround them, and bring them down with long whips; but then we and our horses would have to flee from the fire ourselves … All this was a diversion. And then strawberries would grow again on the old burnt places; birds of all sorts would come flying, mostly small ones, and there’d be chirping in the air … And then you’d occasionally come upon a little bush: meadowsweet, wild peach, or broom. And when the mist falls as dew at sunrise, it’s as if there’s a breath of coolness, and the plants give off their scents … Of course, it’s boring even with all that, but still you can endure it, but God keep anyone from staying long on a salt marsh. A horse is content there for a while: he licks the salt, which makes him drink a lot and get fat, but for a man it’s the end. There’s not a living thing there, there’s only, as if in mockery, one little bird, the redbill, like our swallow, quite unremarkable, only it has a red edging on its bill. Why it comes to that seashore, I don’t know, but since there’s nothing for it to light on, it drops onto the salt, lies there for a while on its behind, and then flutters up and flies off again, but you’re deprived even of that, for you’ve got no wings, and so here you are again, and you’ve got neither death, nor life, nor repentance, and if you die, they’ll put you in the salt like mutton, and you can lie there salted till the end of the world. And it’s still more wearisome in winter; it snows a little, just enough to cover the grass, and hardens. Then the Tartars all sit by the fire in their yurts and smoke … And here, out of boredom, they often have whipping contests among themselves. Then you go out, and there’s nothing to look at: the horses are all sullen and go around hunched up, so skinny that only their tails and manes flutter in the wind. They can barely drag their feet and dig through the snowy crust with their hooves to nibble on the frozen grass, which is all they feed on … Unbearable. The only distraction is when they notice one of the horses has grown very weak and can no longer break the snow with his hoof and get at the frozen roots with his teeth, so they slit his throat with a knife at once, skin him, and eat the meat. It’s vile-tasting meat, though: sweet, like cow’s udder, but tough; you eat it, of course, because you have to, but it turns your stomach. Thankfully, one of my wives knew how to smoke horse ribs; she’d take a rib with meat on both sides, put it in the large intestine, and smoke it over the fire. That wasn’t too bad, you could eat it more readily, because at least it smelled something like ham, but even so the taste was vile. So here you are gnawing on this foul thing, and you suddenly think: Ah, at home now in the village they’re plucking ducks and geese for the feast, slaughtering pigs, cooking cabbage soup with the nice, fatty necks, and soon now Father Ilya, our priest, a most kindly old man, will lead the procession glorifying Christ, and the deacons and their wives walk with him, and the seminarians, and they’re all tipsy, but Father Ilya himself can’t drink much; the butler in the manor house offers him a little glass; the steward sends the nanny with a bit more from the office; Father Ilya goes limp, he can barely drag his feet to us in the yard from drunkenness: he’ll manage to sip another little glass at the first cottage on his way, but after that he can’t take any more and pours it all into a bottle under his chasuble. He does it all in a family-like way, even with regard to food. If he sees something that looks appetizing, he asks: ‘Wrap it up in newspaper for me, I’ll take it along.’ They usually reply: ‘We have no newspaper, Father’—he doesn’t get angry, but takes it as it is, unwrapped, gives it to his wife, and goes on just as peaceably. Ah, gentlemen, when all that life remembered since childhood comes to mind, and it suddenly weighs on your soul and suddenly begins to press on your liver that you’ve been perishing in this place, separated from all that happiness, and haven’t been to confession for so many years, and are living without a Church marriage, and will die without a Church funeral, you’re overcome with anguish and
… you wait for night, quietly crawl outside the camp, so that neither your wives, nor the children, nor any of the infidels can see you, and you begin to pray … and you pray … pray so hard that the snow even melts under your knees, and where your tears fall you see grass the next morning.”
The storyteller fell silent and hung his head. No one disturbed him; they all seemed filled with respect for the sacred sorrow of these last memories; but a moment went by, and Ivan Severyanych himself sighed, as if waving it away; he took his monastery hat from his head and, crossing himself, said:
“But that’s all past, thank God!”
We let him rest awhile and then ventured upon some new questions about how he, our enchanted mighty man, had cured his heels ruined by the chopped-up horsehair, and by what paths he had escaped from his Natashas and Kolkas on the Tartar steppe and ended up in a monastery.
Ivan Severyanych satisfied this curiosity with complete frankness, which he was obviously quite unable to abandon.
VIII
Valuing the sequence of development in Ivan Severyanych’s story, which had caught our interest, we asked him first of all to tell us by what extraordinary means he had rid himself of his bristles and left captivity. He gave the following account of it:
I utterly despaired of ever returning home and seeing my fatherland. The thought of it even seemed impossible to me, and my anguish itself even began to fade. I lived like an insensible statue and nothing more; and sometimes I’d think how, in church at home, that same Father Ilya who asked for newspaper used to pray during services “for travelers by land and by sea, for the suffering and for captives,” and I used to listen and think: “If there’s no war now, why pray for captives?” But now I understood why they prayed like that, but I didn’t understand why all those prayers were no use to me, and, to say the least, though not an unbeliever, I became confused and did not pray myself.
“Why pray,” I think, “if nothing comes of it?”
And meanwhile one day I suddenly hear the Tartars are in a commotion about something.
I say:
“What is it?”
“Nothing,” they say. “Two mullahs have come from your country. They have a safe conduct from the white tsar and are going far and wide to establish their faith.”
I hurriedly said:
“Where are they?”
They pointed to one yurt, and I went where they pointed. I come and see there’s a gathering of many sheikh-zadas, and malo-zadas, and imams, and dervishes, and they’re all sitting cross-legged on rugs, and in the midst of them are two unknown men dressed for traveling, but you can see they’re some sort of clerics. The two are standing in the midst of this Tartar riffraff and teaching them the word of God.
When I caught sight of them, I rejoiced at seeing Russians, and my heart throbbed inside me, and I fell at their feet and wept. They also rejoiced at my bowing and both exclaimed:
“Well, well! So you see how grace works! It has already touched one of yours, and he is turning away from Mohammed!”
The Tartars replied that nothing was working: this is your Ivan, he’s from you Russians, only he’s living here with us as a prisoner.
The missionaries were very displeased at that. They didn’t believe I was Russian, so I butted in myself:
“No,” I say, “I really am Russian! Spiritual fathers, have mercy on me! Rescue me from this place! It’s already the eleventh year I’ve been languishing here in captivity, and see how crippled I am: I can’t walk.”
But they didn’t pay the slightest attention to my words, turned away, and went on with their business of preaching.
I think: “Well, what’s there to grumble about: they’re on official business, and maybe it’s awkward for them to treat me differently in front of the Tartars”—and I left off, and chose a time when they were alone in their separate quarters, and I flung myself at them and told them everything in all frankness, how I was suffering from the cruelest lot, and I begged them:
“My father-benefactors, threaten them with our beloved white tsar: tell them that he does not allow Asiatics to hold his subjects captive by force, or, better still, pay them a ransom for me, and I’ll serve you for it. Living here,” I say, “I’ve learned their Tartar language very well and can be a useful man to you.”
But they reply:
“We have no ransom for you, my son, and we are not permitted to threaten the infidels, because they are devious and disloyal people even without that, and we maintain a courteous policy towards them.”
“So, then,” I say, “it means that on account of that policy I’m to perish with them here for all time?”
“Well,” they say, “it makes no difference where you perish, my son, but you must pray: God’s mercy is great, perhaps He will deliver you.”
“I’ve already prayed,” I say, “but I have no strength left, and I’ve laid aside all hope.”
“Do not despair,” they say, “because that is a great sin!”
“I don’t despair,” I say, “only … how is it that you … it pains me very much that you are Russians and my countrymen, and you don’t want to help me at all.”
“No, child,” they reply, “don’t mix us into this, we are in Christ, and in Christ there is neither Greek nor Jew: whoever listens to us is our countryman. For us all are equal, all are equal.”
“All?” I say.
“Yes,” they reply, “all—that is the teaching we have from the apostle Paul.23 Wherever we go, we do not quarrel … it is not befitting for us. You are a slave and, no help for it, you must endure, for, according to the apostle Paul, slaves should obey. But remember that you are a Christian, and therefore with you we have nothing to worry about, since even without us the gates of paradise are open to your soul, while these people will be in darkness if we don’t join them up, so we must worry about them.”
And they show me a book:
“Here,” they say, “see how many names we’ve got written down in this register—that’s how many people we’ve joined to our faith!”
I didn’t talk with them anymore and didn’t see any more of them, except for one of them, and that by chance: one of my little sons came running from somewhere and said:
“Daddy, there’s a man lying over there near the lake.”
I went to look: I see that his legs have been skinned from the knees down like stockings, and his arms from the elbows down like gloves. The Tartars do it skillfully: they make an incision around and pull the skin off in one piece. The man’s head was lying nearby, with a cross cut on the forehead.
“Eh,” I thought, “you didn’t want to concern yourself with me, your countryman, and I condemned you, and here you’ve been found worthy of a martyr’s crown. Forgive me now for Christ’s sake!”
I made a cross over him, put his head together with his body, bowed to the ground, buried him, and sang “Holy God”24 over him—and what became of his comrade I don’t know, but most likely he also ended by receiving the crown, because afterwards the Tartar women of the horde turned up with lots of little icons like the ones these missionaries had with them.
“So these missionaries even get as far as the Ryn Sands?”
“Of course they do, only it’s all no use.”
“Why so?”
“They don’t know how to handle them. The Asiatic has to be brought to faith by fear, so that he’s shaking with fright, but they preach the meek God to him. At the outstart that’s no good at all, because without threats an Asiatic will never respect a meek God for anything and will kill the preachers.”
“And the main thing, it must be supposed, when going to the Asiatics, is that you should have no money or valuables with you?”
“You shouldn’t, sir, though all the same they won’t believe that somebody came and brought nothing with him; they’ll think you buried it somewhere in the steppe, and start torturing you, and torture you to death.”
“The bandits!”
“Yes, sir, that’s what happened i
n my time with a certain Jew: an old Jew turned up from who knows where and also talked about faith. He was a good man, and obviously zealous for his faith, and all in such rags that you could see his whole body, and he started talking about faith so that it even seemed you could listen to him forever. At the outstart I began to argue with him, saying what kind of faith is it if you haven’t got any saints, but he said, ‘We do,’ and he began reading from the Talmud about the saints they have … very entertaining. ‘And this Talmud,’ he says, ‘was written by the rabbi Jovoz ben Levi, who was so learned that sinful people couldn’t look at him; as soon as they looked, they all died straightaway, on account of which God called him before Him and said: “You, learned rabbi, Jovoz ben Levi! It’s good that you’re so learned, but it’s not good that because of you all my Jews may die. It was not for that,” he says, “that I drove them over the steppe with Moses and made them cross the sea. For that, get out of your fatherland and live somewhere where nobody can see you.” ’ And so the rabbi Levi left and went straight to the place where paradise was, and he buried himself up to the neck in the sand there, and stayed in the sand for thirteen years, and even though he was buried up to the neck, he prepared a lamb for himself every Saturday, cooked by a fire that came down from heaven. And if a mosquito or a fly landed on his nose to drink his blood, they were consumed at once by a heavenly fire …’ The Asiatics liked this story about the learned rabbi very much, and they listened to the Jew for a long time; but then they got after him and began questioning him about where he buried his money before coming to them. The Jew swore up and down that he had no money, that God had sent him with nothing but wisdom, but they didn’t believe him, and raking up the coals where the campfire had been burning, they spread a horsehide over the hot coals, put the Jew on it, and started shaking it. ‘Tell us, tell us, where is the money?’ But when they saw that he had turned all black and didn’t speak, they said:
The Enchanted Wanderer and Other Stories Page 22
