“I’ve already chosen: I only have to go and see if anybody else has taken her.”
The mayor laughed at him:
“Look at you,” he said, “you little sinner—makes out like there’s never been any sin on him, yet he’s already spied out a wife for himself.”
“Who hasn’t got sin on him!” replied Alexander Afanasyevich. “The vessel’s brimming with abomination, only I haven’t asked her to be my bride yet, but I do indeed have my eye on her and ask permission to go and see what’s what.”
“Not a local girl, probably—is she from far away?”
“Not local and not from far away—she lives by the stream near the swamp.”
The mayor laughed again, dismissed Ryzhov, and, intrigued, began to wait, wondering when the odd fellow would come back to him and what he would say.
VI
Ryzhov indeed cut down a tree that suited him: a week later he brought a wife to town—a big woman, white-skinned, ruddy-cheeked, with kindly brown eyes and submissiveness in every step and movement. She was dressed in peasant clothes, and the two spouses walked one behind the other, carrying a yoke on their shoulders from which a decorated bast box containing a dowry hung on a canvas strap.
Veterans of the marketplace recognized this person at once as the daughter of old Kozlikha, who lived in a solitary hut by the stream beyond the swamp and passed for a wicked witch. Everyone thought that Ryzhov had taken the witch’s wench to keep house for him.
That was partly true, only before bringing her home, Ryzhov had married her in church. Conjugal life cost him no more than bachelorhood; on the contrary, now it became even more profitable for him, because, having brought home a wife, he immediately dismissed the hired woman he had paid no less than a copper rouble a month. From then on the copper rouble remained in his pocket, and the house was better kept; his wife’s strong hands were never idle: she spun and wove, and also turned out to be good at knitting stockings and growing vegetables. In short, his wife was a simple, capable peasant woman, faithful and submissive, with whom the biblical eccentric could live in a biblical way, and apart from what has been said, there is nothing to say about her.
Alexander Afanasyevich’s treatment of his wife was most simple, but original: he addressed her informally, and she addressed him formally; he called her “woman,” and she called him Alexander Afanasyevich; she served him, and he was her master; when he spoke to her, she replied—when he was silent, she did not dare ask. At the table, he sat and she served, but they shared a common bed, and that was probably the reason why their marriage bore fruit. There was just one fruit—an only son, whom the “woman” reared, and in whose education she did not interfere.
Whether the “woman” loved her biblical husband or not is not clear from anything in their relations, but that she was faithful to her husband was unquestionable. Besides that, she feared him as a person placed above her by divine law and having a divine right over her. That did not disturb her peaceful life. She was illiterate, and Alexander Afanasyevich did not wish to fill this gap in her education. They lived, naturally, a Spartan life, of the strictest moderation, but they did not consider it a misfortune; in that, perhaps, they were much helped by the fact that many others around them lived in no greater prosperity. They did not drink tea and kept none at home, and they ate meat only on days of major feasts—the rest of the time they lived on bread and vegetables, preserved or fresh from their kitchen garden, and most of all on mushrooms, which grew abundantly in their forested area. In summertime the “woman” picked these mushrooms in the forest herself and prepared them for keeping, but, to her regret, the only way of preparing them was by drying. There was nothing to salt them with. The expense for salt in the necessary amount for such a supply was not included in Ryzhov’s calculations, and when the “woman” once prepared a small barrel of mushrooms with a little sack of salt given to her by a tax farmer, Alexander Afanasyevich, on learning of it, gave the “woman” a patriarchal beating and took her to the archpriest to have a penance laid on her for disobeying her husband’s precepts; and he rolled the whole barrel of mushrooms to the tax farmer’s yard with his own hands and told them to “take it wherever they liked,” and he gave the tax farmer a reprimand.
Such was this odd fellow, of whom for all the length of his days there is also not much to say; he sat in his place, did his little job, which did not enjoy anyone’s special sympathy, nor did he ever seek any special sympathy; the Soligalich ringleaders considered him “deranged by the Bible,” and simple people judged that he was simply “this-that-and-the-other.”
Which rather unclear definition had for them a clear and plain meaning.
Ryzhov did not care in the least what people thought of him: he served everyone honestly and did not play up to anyone in particular; in his thoughts he gave his accounting to the one he believed in immutably and firmly, calling him the author and master of all that exists. Ryzhov’s pleasure consisted in fulfilling his duty, and his highest spiritual comfort in philosophizing about the highest questions of the spiritual world and about the reflection of the laws of that world in phenomena and in the destinies of particular persons and of entire kingdoms and peoples. Whether Ryzhov shared the common weakness of many self-taught men in considering himself more intelligent than anyone else is not known, but he was not proud, and he never thrust his beliefs and views on anyone or even shared them, but only wrote them into big blue-paged notebooks, which he filed under one cover with the significant inscription: Singlemind.
What was written in this whole enormous manuscript by the policeman-philosopher remained hidden, because at Alexander Afanasyevich’s death his Singlemind perished, and no one can say much about it from memory. Only a bare two or three passages from the whole of Singlemind were shown by Ryzhov to an important person on an extraordinary occasion in his life, which we are now approaching. The rest of Singlemind’s pages, the existence of which almost all Soligalich knew about, were used to paper walls, or perhaps were even burned to avoid unpleasantness, because these writings contained much incoherent raving and religious fantasy, for which, in those times, both the author and his readers might have been sent to pray in the Solovetsky Monastery.14
The spirit of this manuscript became known with the following incident, so memorable in the annals of Soligalich.
VII
I cannot recall for certain and do not know where to find out in precisely what year Sergei Stepanovich Lanskoy, later a count and a well-known minister of the interior, was named governor of Kostroma.15 This dignitary, according to the apt observation of a contemporary, “was of strong mind and haughty bearing,” and this brief characterization is correct and perfectly sufficient for the notion our reader needs to have of him.
One may, it seems, add only that Lanskoy respected honesty and fairness in people and was kind himself, and he also loved Russia and the Russian man, but understood him in a lordly way, as an aristocrat, having a foreign view and a Western measure for everything.
The appointment of Lanskoy as governor of Kostroma occurred at the time of Alexander Afanasyevich Ryzhov’s eccentric service as Soligalich’s constable, and under certain peculiar circumstances besides.
On entering into his duties as governor, Sergei Stepanovich, following the example of many functionaries, first of all made a “clean sweep of the province,” that is, threw out of office a great many negligent civil servants who abused their positions, among them the mayor of Soligalich, under whom Ryzhov was constable.
In throwing unsuitable persons out of office, the new governor did not rush to replace them with others, so as not to fall upon the same sort, and maybe on still worse. To select worthy people, he wanted to have a look around, or, as we now say in Russian, to “orient himself.”
With that aim, the duties of the removed persons were entrusted temporarily to substitutes from among the junior officials, and the governor soon undertook a tour of the whole province, which trembled with a strange trembling at the me
re rumors of his “haughty bearing.”
Alexander Afanasyevich assumed the duties of mayor. What he did in this substitution that differed from the former “standing” order, I don’t know; but, naturally, he did not take bribes as mayor, just as he had not taken bribes as constable. Ryzhov also did not change his manner of living or his relations with people—he did not even sit in the mayor’s chair before the zertsalo,16 but signed “for the mayor” seated at his ink-stained little desk by the front door. For this last obstinacy Ryzhov had an explanation, which was connected with the apotheosis of his life. After many years of service, just as in the first days of his constableship, Alexander Afanasyevich had no uniform, and he governed “for the mayor” wearing the same greasy and much-mended beshmet. And therefore, to all the appeals of the chief clerk that he take the mayor’s seat, he replied:
“I can’t: my garment betrays me as unfit for the wedding feast.”17
This was all duly written down in his own hand in his Singlemind, with the addition that the chief clerk suggested that he “take the seat in his beshmet, but remove the eagle from the zertsalo.” However, Alexander Afanasyevich “ignored this indecency” and went on sitting in the former place in his beshmet.
This non-uniformity did not interfere with the business of policing the town, but the question became completely different when news arrived of the coming of the “haughty bearing.” In his quality as the town’s mayor, Alexander Afanasyevich was supposed to meet the governor, receive him, and report to him on the welfare of Soligalich, and also to answer all the questions Lanskoy was going to ask him and introduce him to all the town’s points of interest, from the cathedral to the prison, the vacant lots, the ravines, which nobody knew what to do with.
Ryzhov indeed had a problem: how was he to perform all that in his beshmet? But he did not worry about that in the least; instead all the others worried about it, because Ryzhov, by his unsightliness, might anger the “haughty bearing” from the first step. It did not occur to anyone that it was precisely Alexander Afanasyevich who was going to astonish and even delight the all-terrifying “haughty bearing” and even prophesy his promotion.
The generally conscientious Alexander Afanasyevich was not embarrassed in the least by how he looked, and did not share the general bureaucratic fear at all, on account of which he was subject to disapproval and even hatred and fell in the opinion of his compatriots, but he fell in order to rise afterwards higher than all and leave behind him a heroic and almost legendary memory.
VIII
It is not superfluous to recall once again that, in those recent but deeply vanished times to which the story of Ryzhov dates, governors were not at all as in our evil days, when the grandeur of these dignitaries has fallen significantly, or, in the expression of a certain ecclesiastical chronicler, has “cruelly deteriorated.” Back then governors traveled “fearsomely,” and were received “tremblingly.” Their progress was accomplished in a grandiose bustle, to which not only all the lesser principalities and powers,18 but even the rabble and the four-footed brutes contributed. By the time of the governor’s arrival, towns would have received an anointing with chalk, soot, and ochre; the tollgates would be newly adorned with the national motley of official tricolors; the sentries in their booths and the invalids would be admonished to “wax their heads and mustaches,” the hospitals would set about intensifying the discharge of the “healthified.” Everything to the ends of the earth took part in the general animation; peasant men and women were driven from their villages to the roadways, shifting about for months repairing swamped roads, log roads, and bridges; at the posting stations even special couriers and various lieutenants hurrying on countless official errands were detained. During such periods stationmasters revenged themselves on these restless people for their insufferable offenses and with steadfast inner firmness made them drag along on any old nags, because the good horses were “kept resting” for the governor. In short, no one could walk or drive anywhere without feeling with some one of his senses that in the nature of all things something extraordinary was going on. Thanks to that, back then, without any empty babble from the garrulous press, each person, old or young, knew that the one than whom there was none greater in the province was passing through, and on that occasion, each as he was able, they all expressed to their intimates their manifold feelings. But the most exalted activity went on in the central nests of the district lordship—in the court offices, where things began with the tedious and boring checking of lists, and ended with the merry operation of dusting the walls and scrubbing the floors. The floor scrubbing was something like the classical orgies in the days of the grape harvest, when everything was intensely exultant, having only one concern: to live, before the hour of death comes. Following a small convoy of crooked invalids, female prisoners, bored with a deadly boredom, were delivered from jail to the offices, where, snatching at a brief moment of happiness, they enjoyed the captivating rights of their sex—to delight the lot of mortals. The décolletés and manches courtes* with which they set about their work had such an arousing effect on the young clerks busy with their papers that the consequence in the jails, as is known, was not infrequently the coming into the world of so-called “floor-scrubbing children”—of unacknowledged but undoubtedly noble origin.
At home during those same days dress boots were blackened, breeches were whitened, and long-folded-away, moth-eaten tunics were spruced up. This, too, enlivened the town. The tunics were first hung out on a hot day in the sun, on lines stretched across the yard, which attracted multitudes of the curious to every gate; then the tunics were laid on pillows or felt and beaten out with rods; after that they were shaken out, then darned, ironed, and, finally, spread out on an armchair in a drawing room or some other reception room, and at the conclusion of it all—in the final end, they were surreptitiously sprinkled with Theophany water from holy bottles, which, if kept near an icon in a wax-sealed vessel, does not go bad from one year to the next, and does not lose a bit of the wonderworking power imparted to it at the moment when the cross is immersed in it, to the singing of “O, Lord, save Thy people and bless Thine inheritance.”19
Stepping forth to meet the personages, the officials vested themselves in their besprinkled uniforms and, in their quality as the Lord’s inheritance, would be saved. Many reliable stories are told about this, but given the present-day universal lack of faith and the particularly Offenbachian mood20 that reigns in the bureaucratic world, all this has by now been discredited in the general opinion, and, among many other things sanctified by time, is light-mindedly called into question; but to our forefathers, who had genuine, firm faith, it was given according to their faith.
Waiting for the governor in those times was long and agonizing. There were as yet no railroads, with trains coming on schedule at an appointed hour, delivering the governor along with all other mortals, but a high road was specially prepared, and after that no one knew with certainty either the day or the hour when the dignitary would be pleased to appear. Therefore the weary waiting was prolonged and filled with a special, solemn anxiety, at the very zenith of which stood the guard on duty, who had to watch the high road from the tallest belfry in town. He was not supposed to doze off, protecting the town from an unexpected arrival, but of course it happened that he would doze and even sleep, and on such unfortunate occasions there would be various unpleasantnesses. Sometimes the negligent watchman rang the little bell when the governor was already at too close a distance, so that the officials did not all have time to uniform themselves and rush out, nor the archpriest to vest himself and come out with the cross, and sometimes the mayor even had no time to ride out to the town gates standing on a cart. To avoid this, the sentry was obliged to walk around the belfry and on each side make a bow in the corresponding direction.
This served the sentry as a diversion and the general public as a guarantee that the one keeping vigil over them was not sleeping or dozing. But this precaution did not always help; it would ha
ppen that the sentry mastered the ability of the albatross: he would sleep while walking and bowing, and, half-awake, would ring a false alarm, having taken a landowner’s carriage for the governor’s, and then a useless commotion would arise in town, ending with the officials un-uniforming themselves again and the mayor’s troika being unharnessed, while the imprudent watchman would get a light or not so light whipping.
Suchlike difficulties occurred frequently and were not easy to overcome, and, besides, their whole weight lay chiefly on the mayor, who had to go galloping off to the meeting ahead of them all, was the first to take upon himself the superior’s glares and growls, and then again, standing up, galloped ahead of the governor’s carriage to the cathedral, where the fully vested archpriest, with the cross and a sprinkler in a bowl of holy water, was waiting by the porch. Here the mayor, unfailingly with his own hand, flipped down the governor’s footboard and in that way, so to speak, with his own hand let the arriving exalted personage out of his traveling ark onto our native soil. Nowadays this is all no longer so, it has all been spoiled, and that not without the participation of the governors themselves, among whom there were those eager to “sell themselves short.” Now they may even repent of it, but what’s slipped away can’t be brought back: no one flips down footboards for them except lackeys and policemen.
But the mayor of old fulfilled his duty unabashedly and served as a first touchstone for everyone; he was the first to find out whether the arriving governor was ferocious or benign. And, truth to tell, much depended on the mayor: he could spoil things straight off, because one awkwardness of any sort on his part could anger the governor and throw him into a rage; but with one nimble leap, turn, or other fitting caper he could also bring his excellency to a benign disposition.
Now every reader, even one ignorant of these patriarchal customs, can judge how natural was the anxiety of the Soligalich officialdom, who came to have as their representative such an original, awkward, and stubborn mayor as Ryzhov, who, besides all his inconvenient personal qualities, had a wardrobe consisting of nothing but a beshmet of striped ticking and a shaggy peasant hat.
The Enchanted Wanderer and Other Stories Page 33
