A great personal calamity is a poor teacher of mercy. At least it has no good effect on people of ordinary, mediocre morality, which doesn’t rise above the level of mere compassion. It dulls the sensitivity of the heart, which suffers painfully itself and is filled with the sense of its own torment. Instead, in such woeful moments of general calamity, the people’s milieu brings forth of itself heroes of magnanimity, fearless and selfless. In ordinary times they are not conspicuous and often are in no way distinguishable from the masses: but let “carbuncle” fall upon the people, and the people produce a chosen one for themselves, and he works wonders, which make of him a mythical, legendary, deathless person. Golovan was one of these, and during the very first plague he surpassed and eclipsed in people’s minds another remarkable local man, the merchant Ivan Ivanovich Androsov. Androsov was an honorable old man, respected and loved for his kindness and fairness, for he was “ready helpful” in all the people’s calamities. He also helped during the “plague,” because he had a written “treatment,” and he “recopied it all in multiples.” These copies of his were taken and read in various places, but nobody understood them or “knew how to go about it.” It was written: “Should a sore appear on the head or another place above the waist, let much blood from the median; should it appear on the brow, quickly let blood from under the tongue; should it appear by the ears or under the chin, let blood from the cephalic vein, but should it appear under one of the breasts, it means the heart is affected, and then the median should be opened on that side.” For each place “where a burden is felt,” it was written which vein to open: the “saphena,” or “the one opposite the thumb, or the spatic artery, the pulmatic, or the basical,” with the recommendation to “let the blood flow, till such time as it turns green and changes aspect.” And to treat also “with remedies of athelaea, sealed earth or Armenian earth, Malvasian wine, bugloss vodka, Venetian virian, mithridate, and Manus-Christi sugar.”11 And those who entered the sickroom were advised “to hold Angelica root in their mouths, wormwood in their hands, have their nostrils wetted with wild rose vinegar, and sniff a vinegar-soaked sponge.” No one could make anything of it, as in official decrees, which have been written and rewritten, this way and that, and “in foursome thereforesomes.” The veins couldn’t be found, nor the Malvasian wine, nor the Armenian earth, nor the bugloss vodka, and people read good old Androsov’s copies more only so as to “quench my sorrows.” All they could apply were the concluding words: “And where there be plague, it behooves you not to go to those places, but to go away.” That was what most people followed, and Ivan Ivanovich himself adhered to the same rule and sat in his warm cottage and dispensed his medical prescriptions through a little slot, holding his breath and keeping angelica root in his mouth. The only ones who could enter a sickroom safely were those who had deer’s tears or a bezoar-stone;12 but Ivan Ivanovich had neither deer’s tears nor a bezoar-stone, and while a bezoar-stone might have been found in the pharmacies on Bolkhovskaya Street, the pharmacists were one a Pole, the other a German, and they had no proper pity for Russian people and saved the bezoar-stones for themselves. This was fully trustworthy, because when one of the Orel pharmacists lost his bezoar, his ears began to turn yellow right there in the street, one eye grew smaller than the other, he started trembling, and though he wanted to sweat and for that asked them at home to put hot bricks to his soles, all the same he didn’t sweat, but died in a dry shirt. A great many people searched for the pharmacist’s lost bezoar, and somebody did find it, only not Ivan Ivanovich, because he also died.
And so in this terrible time, when the intellectuals wiped themselves with vinegar and did not give up the ghost, the “carbuncle” swept still more fiercely through the poor village huts; people began to die here “wholesale and with no help at all”—and suddenly, there, on the field of death, with astonishing fearlessness, appeared Golovan. He probably knew, or thought he knew, something of medicine, because he put a “Caucasian plaster” of his own making on the sick people’s swellings; but this Caucasian, or Ermolov, plaster of his was of little help. Like Androsov, Golovan did not cure the “carbuncle,” but his service to the sick and the healthy was great in this respect, that he went dauntlessly into the plague-stricken hovels and gave the infected not only fresh water but also the skim milk he had left after removing the cream for the club. In the early morning, before dawn, he crossed the Orlik on a shed gate he had taken off its hinges (there was no boat there), and went from hovel to hovel, his boundless bosom filled with bottles, moistening the dry lips of the dying from a flask, or putting a chalk cross on the door, if the drama of life was already over there and the curtain of death had been drawn on the last of its actors.
From then on the hitherto little-known Golovan became widely known in all the villages, and a great popular attraction to him began. His name, previously familiar to the servants in noble houses, came to be uttered with respect among simple folk; they began to see him as a man who not only could “replace the late Ivan Ivanovich Androsov, but meant even more than he to both God and men.” And they weren’t slow in finding a supernatural explanation for the very fearlessness of Golovan: Golovan obviously knew something, and by virtue of such knowledge he was deathless …
Later it turned out that it was precisely so: the herdsman Panka helped to explain it all, having seen Golovan do something incredible, and it was confirmed by other circumstances.
The pest did not touch Golovan. All the while it raged in the villages, neither he himself nor his Ermolov cow and calf got sick; but that wasn’t all: the most important thing was that he deceived and expelled—or, keeping to local speech, “denihilated”—the pest itself, and he did it not sparing his own warm blood for the peasant folk.
The bezoar-stone lost by the pharmacist was with Golovan. How he got it was not known. It was supposed that Golovan had been taking cream to the pharmacist for “daily unction,” had spotted the stone and secreted it away. Whether such secreting away is held to be honest or dishonest, there was no strong criticism of it, and there shouldn’t have been. If it is no sin to take and secrete away eatables, because God gives eatables to everybody, then still less is it blameworthy to take a healing substance, if it is meant for general salvation. So our people judge, and so say I. Golovan, having secreted away the pharmacist’s stone, acted magnanimously with it, letting it be of general benefit to the whole of Christendom.
All this, as I said above, was discovered by Panka, and the general intelligence of the people cleared it up.
VI
Panka, a muzhik with different-colored eyes and sun-bleached hair, was a herdsman’s helper, and besides his general herding duties, he also drove the rebaptizers’13 cows out to the dew in the morning. Being thus occupied early one morning, he spied out the whole business that raised Golovan to the height of popular greatness.
It was in springtime, doubtless soon after young St. George,14 bright and brave, rode out to the emerald Russian fields, his arms in red gold to the elbows, his legs in pure silver to the knees, on his brow the sun, on his nape the crescent moon, on all sides the moving stars, and the honest, righteous people of God drove their cattle big and small to meet him. The grass was still so short that the sheep and goats had barely enough, and the thick-lipped cows could take little. But in the shade under the fences and in the ditches, wormwood and nettles were already sprouting, which could be eaten at need with the dew.
Panka drove the rebaptizers’ cows out early, still in darkness, and led them straight along the bank of the Orlik to a clearing beyond the outskirts, just across from the end of Third Dvoryanskaya Street, where on one sloping side lay the old “city” garden, as it was known, and on the left Golovan’s nest clung to its ledge.
It was still cold in the morning, especially before dawn, and to someone who wants to sleep it feels even colder. Panka’s clothes, naturally, were poor, orphan-like, some sort of rags with hole upon hole. The lad turned one way, then the other, praying that St. Prokop w
ould warm him up, but instead the cold went on. As soon as he closed his eyes, a little wind would sneak, sneak through a rip and awaken him again. However, young strength held its own: Panka pulled his coat over his head like a tent and dozed off. He didn’t hear what hour it was, because the green bell tower of the Theophany church was far away. And there was no one around, not a human soul, only fat merchants’ cows huffing, and every once in a while a frisky perch splashed in the Orlik. The herdsman slumbered in his tattered coat. But then it was as if something suddenly nudged him in the side—zephyr had probably found a new hole somewhere. Panka roused himself, looked around half-awake, was about to shout: “What are you up to, hornless!” and stopped. It seemed to him that somebody was going down the steep slope on the other side. Maybe a thief wanted to bury some stolen thing in the clay. Panka became interested: maybe he would sneak up on the thief and catch him red-handed, or shout “Let’s go halves,” or, better still, try to take good note of the burial place, then swim across the Orlik during the day, dig it up, and take it all for himself without sharing.
Panka began to stare, looking at the steep slope across the Orlik. It was still barely gray outside.
Somebody comes down the slope, steps out on the water, and begins to walk. Just simply walks on the water, as if on dry land, and doesn’t row with anything, but only leans on a stick. Panka was dumbfounded. A miracle was expected then in the Orel monastery, and voices had already been heard from under the floor. This began right after “Nikodim’s funeral.” Bishop Nikodim15 was a wicked man, who distinguished himself towards the end of his earthly career by this: that, wishing to have yet another decoration, he sought to please by sending a great many clerics as soldiers, among whom there were some only sons and even married deacons and sacristans. A whole party of them was leaving town, pouring out tears. Those seeing them off were also sobbing, and simple folk themselves, for all their dislike of well-stuffed priestly britches, wept and gave them alms. The officer of the party himself felt so sorry for them that, wishing to put an end to the tears, he ordered the new recruits to strike up a song, and when the chorus sang out loud and clear a song they themselves had composed:
Our old bishop Nikodim
Is as cruel as he is mean,
the officer himself supposedly burst out weeping. All this was drowned in a sea of tears and for sensitive souls represented an evil that cried out to heaven. And indeed, just as their cries reached heaven, “voices” came to Orel. At first the “voices” were inarticulate and it was not known who they came from, but when Nikodim died soon after that and was buried under the church, then the talking clearly came from a bishop buried there previously to him (Apollos, it seems16). The previously departed bishop was displeased with his new neighbor and, ashamed at nothing, said directly: “Take this carrion out of here, he makes me choke.” And he even threatened that, if the “carrion” was not removed, he himself “would go and appear in another town.” Many people heard it. They would come to the monastery for the vigil, stand through the service, and on the way out hear the old bishop moan: “Take the carrion away.” Everyone wished very much that the request of the kindly deceased be fulfilled, but the authorities, who are not always attentive to the needs of the people, did not throw Nikodim out, and the saint who was clearly revealing himself17 might at any moment “quit the premises.”
None other than that very thing was now happening: the saint was leaving, and no one saw him but one poor little shepherd, who was so bewildered by it that he not only did not hold him back, but did not even notice how the saint vanished from his sight. Dawn was just beginning to break. With light a man’s courage grows, and with courage his curiosity increases. Panka wanted to go near the water over which the mysterious being had just passed; but as soon as he came near, he saw a big, wet gate held to the bank by a pole. The matter became clear: meaning it had not been the saint passing over, but simply deathless Golovan floating. He had probably gone to comfort some orphaned children with milk from his bosom. Panka marveled: when did this Golovan sleep! … And how could such a huge man as he float on such a vessel—on half a gate? True, the Orlik is not a big river and its water, held back by a dam further down, is quiet as a puddle, but even so, what was this floating on a gate?
Panka decided to try it himself. He stepped onto the gate, took the pole, and, for a lark, crossed to the other side, got off on the bank there to have a look at Golovan’s house, because it was already good and bright, and meanwhile Golovan cried out just then from the other side: “Hey! Who made off with my gate! Bring it back!”
Panka was a lad of no great courage and was not used to counting on anybody’s magnanimity, and therefore he got frightened and did a foolish thing. Instead of bringing Golovan his raft, Panka went and hid himself in one of the clay pits, of which there were a multitude there. Panka lay in the pit and, no matter how Golovan called from the other side, he did not show himself. Then, seeing that he couldn’t get his boat back, Golovan threw off his coat, stripped naked, tied his whole wardrobe up with his belt, put it on his head, and swam across the Orlik. The water was still very cold.
Panka’s only care was that Golovan shouldn’t see him and give him a beating, but soon his attention was drawn to something else. Golovan crossed the river and began to get dressed, but suddenly he squatted down, looked under his left knee, and paused.
This was so close to the pit Panka was hiding in that he could see everything from behind the hummock that shielded him. And it was already quite light by then, dawn was blushing, and though most of the citizens were still asleep, a young fellow with a scythe appeared by the city garden and started mowing the nettles and putting them in a basket.
Golovan noticed the mower and, standing up in nothing but his shirt, shouted loudly to him:
“Hey, boy, give me that scythe, quick!”
The boy brought him the scythe, and Golovan said to him:
“Go and pick me a big burdock leaf.” And when the fellow turned away from him, he took the blade off the handle, squatted down again, pulled at his left calf with one hand, and with one stroke cut it off. He hurled the cut-off hunk of flesh, the size of a peasant flat-cake, into the Orlik, pressed the wound with both hands, and collapsed.
Seeing that, Panka forgot everything, jumped out, and started calling the mower.
The two fellows picked Golovan up and carried him to his house. There he came to his senses, and told them to take two towels from a trunk and bind the wound as tight as they could. They tightened it with all their might, and it stopped bleeding.
Then Golovan told them to set a bucket of water and a dipper beside him, go about their business, and not tell anybody what had happened. They went, shaking with horror, and told everybody. Those who heard about it figured out at once that Golovan hadn’t done it just like that, but, out of heartache for the people, had thrown the hunk of his body to the pest, so that this sacrificed hunk would pass down all the Russian rivers from the little Orlik to the Oka, from the Oka to the Volga, all across Great Russia to the wide Caspian Sea, and in that way Golovan suffered for all, and he himself would not die from it, because he possessed the pharmacist’s living stone and was a “deathless” man.
This story suited everybody’s thinking, and the prophecy also came true. Golovan did not die of his terrible wound. The evil sickness actually stopped after this sacrifice, and days of tranquillity set in: the fields and meadows were lush with green growth, and young St. George, bright and brave, could now freely ride over them, his arms in red gold to the elbows, his legs in pure silver to the knees, on his brow the sun, on his nape the crescent moon, and around him the moving stars. Canvas was bleached by the fresh St. George’s dew, and instead of the hero St. George, the prophet Jeremiah rode out to the field with a heavy yoke, dragging ploughs and harrows, nightingales whistled on St. Boris’s day, comforting the martyr, sturdy seedlings, owing to the efforts of St. Mavra, showed their bluish sprouts, St. Zosima passed with a long cane bearing a queen bee
on its head; the day of St. John the Theologian, “father of St. Nicholas,” passed, and Nicholas himself was celebrated, and then came Simon the Zealot, when the earth celebrates its own day.18 On the earth’s day Golovan crept outside to sit by the wall, and after that he began little by little to walk and take up his business again. His health, evidently, hadn’t suffered in the least, only he began to “hitch”—hopping on his left leg.
Of the touchingness and courage of his bloody act upon himself people probably had a high opinion, but they judged it as I’ve said: they did not seek natural causes for it, but, wrapping it all in their own fantasy, from a natural event composed a fabulous legend, and of simple, magnanimous Golovan made a mythical personage, something like a magician or sorcerer, who possessed an invincible talisman and could venture upon anything and would perish nowhere.
Whether Golovan was aware or not that popular rumor attributed such deeds to him—I don’t know. However, I think he was, because people very often turned to him with requests and questions such as one would only turn to a good magician with. And to many such questions he gave “helpful advice,” and generally he did not frown at any requests. In the country roundabout he would be now a cow doctor, now a human doctor, or an engineer, or an astrologer, or a pharmacist. He knew how to get rid of mange and scabs, once again with some sort of “Ermolov ointment,” the cost of which was one copper kopeck for three people; he removed fever from the head with pickled cucumber; he knew that herbs should be gathered from St. John’s to St. Peter-and-Paul’s, and was excellent at “dowsing,” that is, at showing where a well should be dug. But he couldn’t do that all the time, but only from the beginning of June till St. Theodore of the Wells, when “you could hear how the water goes through the joints of the earth.”19 Golovan could also do everything else a man needs, but he had given God a pledge against the rest for stopping the pestilence. He had sealed it then with his blood, and he held firm to it. God loved him for that and had mercy on him, and the people, delicate in their feelings, never asked anything of Golovan that ought not to be asked. According to the people’s etiquette—that’s how it’s done with us.
The Enchanted Wanderer and Other Stories Page 38
