Towards evening a hard rain suddenly came up and drove the crowds and the merchants from the bazaar. The square and the streets became quiet and no sound was to be heard save the splashing of the huge drops in the puddles and the flapping and blowing of the wet curtains, as they were tossed by the storm wind. Yes, and in the church the harmonious singing still continued and the yellow lights of the candles still flickered on.
When the clouds suddenly lifted and streamed off to the east, carrying with them the veil of mist which had hung over the fields and woods, the sun reappeared in the west and with its parting rays it tenderly caressed the windows of the village and the crosses of the monastery. But the earlier bustle did not return to the square of the bazaar. The pilgrims all had a quiet thirst for rest after their[5] hard journey and the day ended with the last notes of the concluding service in the church. Even the cymbals behind the wall of the “institution” clashed weakly and dully.
The service was ended. Within the church the candles burned out one after the other. The pilgrims scattered. Little groups of men and women stood at the door of the guest-house of the monastery, until the guest-master should grant admission to those who desired lodging. A fat monk and two lay brothers came out on the porch and began to divide the sheep from the goats. The sheep entered the door; the goats were driven off and, muttering, made their way to the gates. At the end of this operation, there remained by the entrance a group of Mordvin women and a wanderer. Apparently, their fate had already been decided by the guest-master who reëntered the building.
In a moment the lay brothers came out, counted the women and admitted them to the women’s apartments. The older lay brother walked up to the solitary stranger and said with a bow:
“Forgive me, for Christ’s sake, Brother Varsonofy.... The guest-master will not permit you to stay here.... Go in peace.”
A sick smile passed over the face of the young[6] wanderer and I was surprised by its peculiar, dramatic, and significant character. The man’s face was also worthy of notice: hump-nosed, thin, and with large, glowing eyes. A pointed hat and a hardly noticeable, but pointed, beard gave the man an unusual appearance. The whole dry figure dressed in an old cassock, with a thin neck and a strong profile, attracted your attention, even against your will. The impression which it produced was clear, alarming and disturbing.
When he heard the words of the lay brother, the stranger bowed and said:
“God will save and for this....”
As he turned to go, he suddenly staggered. He was clearly sick and extremely tired. The good-hearted lay brother looked at him and hesitated.
“Wait, Brother Varsonofy.... I will try again.”
The stranger rested on his staff and waited expectantly. But in a moment the brother again came out and, walking up with some embarrassment, said with evident pity:
“No, he won’t allow it.... Father Nifont told him that a stranger ... like you ... speaks badly ... disturbs the people.”
The stranger’s face showed how he felt. His[7] eyes flashed, as if he were about to speak, but he bowed and said:
“Thank you, fathers....”
And he wearily went from the door.
The lay brother looked at me questioningly. I knew that he was about to shut the gate and so I went to the outer court. This was already empty. The young man who sold kalaches (cakes) for the monastery was behind his stand, but no one came to it.
The porter closed one gate behind me and then, pressing with his feet, he started to close the second. Just then a scuffle was heard within the gate, the tramping of several pairs of feet; the opening again widened and in it appeared an ill-favored figure in a pilgrim’s costume, reddish and faded. A rough, hairy hand held it by the collar and directed its involuntary movements. A vigorous push.... The stranger flew off several paces and fell. One wallet and then another sailed after him.... A small book in a worn leather binding fell out in the mud and its leaves commenced to blow in the wind.
“Look here, ...” said a deep, bass voice behind the gate. “Don’t quarrel....”
“What’s the matter?” asked the porter.
“Why, this,” answered the bass voice. “Because[8] of him the guest-master sinned ... turned a man away.... And he’s a good man. Oh! Oh!... a real sin....”
The speaker went away. The porter shut the gate, but not quite completely; curiosity mastered him and his little eyes, his fat nose, and his light mustache could be seen through the crack. He was following with manifest interest the further actions of the rejected wanderer.
The latter quickly rose, gathered up his wallets, put one on his back, and threw the other over his shoulder. Then, picking up the book, he carefully began to clean the mud off of it. Looking around the court, he caught sight of me and of the kalach-seller. A group of peasants were watching the little drama from the outer gates of the square. Deliberately the stranger assumed an air of dignity, and, with the most demonstrative devotion, he kissed the binding of the book and made a sarcastic bow toward the inner gates.
“I thank you, holy fathers. As ye have received the stranger and fed the hungry....”
Suddenly noticing in the crack of the gate the mustache and nose of the porter, he said in a different tone:
“What are you looking at? Did you recognize me?”
“I thought ... yes ... I thought you were familiar,” said the porter.
“Of course, of course!... We’re old friends! We ran off together to the Mordvin women of Sviridov.... Do you remember now?”
The porter spat loudly and angrily, closed the gate, and threw the bolt. But his feet, with their rough boots, could still be seen beneath the gate.
“Don’t you remember Fenka, father?”
The feet disappeared as if ashamed.
The stranger straightened his muddy cloak and again looked around. Attracted by the unusual conversation, some six peasants had strolled towards the gate. They were the nearest neighbors to the monastery, Old Believers from the villages in the vicinity, who had come to the bazaar with an air of indifferent and even hostile curiosity. Despite its influence at a distance, the monastery was surrounded by a ring of the “most venomous” sectarians, as the monks expressed it. The inhabitants of the region were positive that in the near future the monastery would be threatened with the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah. But still it continued and attracted thousands of people to its festivals. On such days the figures of the Old Believers furnished a grim contrast to the rejoicing multitudes and their faces reflected their[10] hostility and disgust. Like the Prophet Jonah, they murmured because the Lord delayed in inflicting the promised doom upon the accursed Nineveh.
They were now watching with malevolent curiosity the scene which was being enacted at the door of the dishonorable habitation.
“What’s the matter? They won’t let him in, I see, ...” one said jokingly. “It’s crowded ... with Mordvin women....”
The wanderer turned and threw a keen glance at the speaker. Suddenly his face took on a humble expression and he walked back to the gate,—and three times he crossed himself reverently and ostentatiously.
The peasants looked at one another in surprise; the stranger had made the sign of the cross not with three fingers, but in the old way with only two.
“The Lord, Who seest all things, will reward the monks according to their mercy,” he said with a sigh. “We, brothers, will shake off the dust from our feet, and listen here, in the temple not made with hands (he pointed gracefully and calmly to the evening sky), to an instructive sermon on repentance....”
The peasants crowded together; their faces expressed[11] their delighted and also credulous surprise. The change was too unexpected.... The idea of holding their own meeting on the alien festival and of listening at the very gate of the monastery to a wandering preacher, who made the sign of the cross in the old way, clearly pleased the adherents of the old faith. The preacher took his stand at the base of the bell-tower. The wind ruffled his dusty, light hair.
It was hard to tell the man’s precise age, but he was clearly not old. His face was heavily tanned and his hair and eyes seemed faded from the action of sun and storm.
At each movement of his head, however slight, the cords of his neck stood out prominently and trembled. The man gave you, involuntarily, the impression of something unfortunate, wonderfully self-controlled and, perchance, evil.
He began to read aloud. He read well, simply, and convincingly, and, stopping now and then, he commented in his own way on what he had read. Once he glanced at me, but he quickly shifted his eyes. I thought he did not care for my presence. After that he turned more often to one of his auditors.
This was a broad-shouldered, undersized peasant, whose shape might have been fashioned by two[12] or three blows of an axe. In spite of the squareness of his figure, he seemed very communicative. He paid the utmost attention to every word of the preacher and added some remarks of his own, which expressed his almost childish joy.
“Oh, brothers ... my friends,” he said, looking around.... “It’s so true, what he told us about repentance.... The end might come.... You know ... and we’re such sinners ... just one little sin more and another. Yes, yes....”
“And that means another and another, ...” broke in a second.
“Yes.... You see.... Oh!...”
With delighted eyes, he looked around the gathering....
His noisy interruption and his joy apparently did not please the preacher. The latter suddenly stopped, turned his head quickly, and the cords of his neck tightened like ropes.... He wanted to say something, but he checked himself and turned a page.
The congregation had rejoiced too early. At the very time when they were most highly exalted,—pride and excessive hope pressed hard on the ladder. It trembled; the listeners seemed frightened; the ladder crashed down....
“He’s through!” were the sad words of the deep-voiced peasant.
“Yes, brother!” chimed in the first. And a strange thing: he turned his sparkling eyes on all and the same joy sounded in his voice.... “Now we have no excuse.... We mustn’t do that first little sin.”
The stranger closed his book and for a few seconds he watched the speaker obstinately. But the peasant met his gaze with the same joy and trusting good nature.
“Do you think so?” asked the preacher.
“Yes,” answered the man. “Judge yourself, my friend.... How long will He suffer us?”
“Do you think so?” the preacher asked again with some emphasis, and his voice caused signs of uneasiness to appear on the other’s face.
“You know there are limits to the long suffering of God. You know about the Orthodox Catholic Church.”
He turned a few pages and began to read about the spiritual power of the Orthodox Church. The faces of his hearers darkened. The preacher stopped and said:
“The Orthodox Catholic Church.... Is she not the means of salvation? He who seeks refuge in her need not despair. So ... if....”
A tense silence prevailed for a few seconds. The stranger was facing the crowd of peasants and he felt that he held their feelings in his hands. Not long since, they had been following him joyfully and it was not hard to foresee the results of the sermon: the men of the old faith had been ready to invite to their homes the man who had been driven from the monastery. Now they were dumbfounded and did not know what to think.
“But if,” continued the stranger, accenting each word, “any one rejects the one Mother Church ... expects to be saved in cellars with the rats ... if he trusts in shaved heads....”
The peasant with the deep voice suddenly turned and walked away.
His good-natured companion glanced around with an air of disillusionment and a lack of comprehension and said half-questioningly:
“Are you shocked?... Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh!...”
He followed the others. The sectarians grimly went to the gates. The wanderer remained alone. His figure was outlined sharply against the base of the tower and there was a strange expression in his faded blue eyes. Evidently he had intended to gain by his sermon that lodging which the monks had denied him. Why had he suddenly changed his tone?...
There were now only three of us in the yard: the wanderer, I and the young fellow under the curtain of the booth. The stranger glanced at me but at once turned away and walked up to the dealer. The young man’s face beamed with joy....
“That was clever,” he said. “You shocked them well. They all had their heads shaved. The devils were threshing peas. Ha, ha, ha!”
He broke out into a hearty, youthful laugh and started to put his wares within the shop.
When he had finished, he closed the swinging doors and locked them. The shop was well made and adapted for moving,—it was on wheels and had a low shelf. The fellow evidently intended to sleep by his wares.
“Well, it’s time to go to bed,” he said, looking at the sky.
In the yard and behind the gates all was still and deserted. From the bazaar the wares had all been carried away. The fellow faced the church, crossed himself, opened the door a little way and crawled under his stand.
His hands soon appeared. He was trying to put a small screen over the opening.
The stranger also looked up at the sky, thought a few seconds, and walked resolutely up to the shop.
“Wait, Mikhailo! I’ll help you like a good fellow.”
The pale-faced man let go and looked out of his quarters.
“My name’s Anton,” he said simply.
“Come, Antosha, let me help you.”
“I’m very glad; thank you. It’s hard to do it from here.”
Anton’s simple face disappeared.
“Please ... move your feet a little.”
Anton obeyed. The wanderer quietly opened the door, stooped quickly, and, to my amazement, I saw him step nimbly into the opening. A scuffle ensued. Anton moved his feet and part of the stranger appeared outside for a moment, but without any delay and almost instantaneously he disappeared again within.
Interested by this unexpected turn of events, I almost instinctively walked up to the booth.
“I’ll yell, I’ll yell,” I heard the nasal but pitiful voice of Anton. “The fathers will beat you up again!”
“Don’t yell, Misha. What’s the matter?” argued the wanderer.
“Why do you keep calling me Misha? I tell you my name’s Anton.”
“In the monastic jargon your name will be[17] Mikhailo. Remember that.... Hush! Quiet, Anton, keep still.”
The booth became silent.
“What for?” asked Anton. “What do you hear?”
“Listen, hear the tapping.... It’s raining.”
“Well, what of it? Tapping.... If I let out one shout, the fathers will tap harder on you.”
“Why do you keep harping on one thing? I’ll yell and yell. You’d better not. If you do, I’ll eat you up. I’ll tell you a good story about a nun....”
“I see, you’ve been stealing something.”
“It’s wrong, Antosha, for you to slander a stranger. You gave me this one kalach yourself. I ate nothing—you believe God....”
“Go ahead and eat a stale one.... I haven’t eaten them up,” and Anton yawned so hard that he gave up all thoughts of further resistance.
“You shocked those blockheads well,” he added at the end of his strenuous yawn. “You’ve certainly showed them up.”
“And the fathers?”
“The fathers wanted to spit at you.... You promised to tell me a story. Why don’t you do it?”
“In a certain country, in a certain land,” began the stranger, “in a convent with a stone wall, lived a nun, brother Antoshenka.... And such a nun.... Oh, oh, oh!”
“Yes?...”
“Yes, she lived there, and grieved.”
Silence.
“Well?... Go on.”
Silence again.
“Well, go on. What did she grieve about?” insisted the interested Anton.
“Go to the devil, that’s what! Why did I start a story? You know I hoofed it thirty versts to-day. She grieved about you, you fool, that’s what she did. Let me sleep!”
Anton let out a sound of utter exhaustion.
“Well, you’re a rogue. I see your scheme,” he said reproachfully.
“All right, knave,” a minute later but more softly, and even sorrowfully. “Yes, a knave.... I never saw such a knave before.”
All was quiet in the booth. The rain beat harder and harder on the slanting roof, the earth grew black, the puddles disappeared in the darkness. The monastery garden whispered something, and the buildings behind the wall stood defenceless against the rain, which pattered on the gutters.[19] The guard within the enclosure beat upon his wet rattle.
II
The next day I started back with Andrey Ivanovich, who had accompanied me on many of my wanderings. We had been walking not without having interesting experiences, lodged in the village, and started off again rather late. The pilgrims had already left and it was hard to imagine the crowds which had passed by such a little while before. The villages seemed busy; the workmen could be seen as white spots on the fields. The air was muggy and hot.
My companion, a tall, thin, nervous man, was this day especially gloomy and irritable. This was a not at all uncommon state towards the end of our joint trips. But this day he was unusually out of humor and expressed his personal disapproval of me.
Towards afternoon, in the heat, we became completely disgusted with each other. Andrey Ivanovich either thought it necessary to rest without any reason in the most inappropriate places, or wished to push on, when I proposed stopping.
We finally reached a little bridge. A small[20] stream was flowing quietly between the damp green banks with their nodding heads of grass. The stream wound along and disappeared behind a bend amid the waving grain of the meadows.
“Let’s rest,” I said.
“We’ve got to be getting on,” answered Andrey Ivanovich.
I sat down on the railing and began to smoke. The tall figure of Andrey Ivanovich went on, ascended a hill and disappeared.
I bent over the water and began to meditate. I thought I was absolutely alone, but I suddenly felt that some one was looking at me and then on a hill under some birch trees, I saw two men. One had a small and almost childish face. He at once hid from shame in the grass behind the crest of the hill. The other was the preacher of the preceding evening. As he lay on the grass, he quietly turned his bold, gray eyes upon me.
“Come, join us, we’ll have more fun together,” he said simply.
I got up and to my surprise I saw the feet of Andrey Ivanovich sticking out of the grass by the road; he was sitting nearby in the boundary strip, and his cigar smoke was rising above the tops of the grass. I pretended not to see him and walked up to the strangers.
The one whom I had taken for a child proved to be a young, sickly creature in a striped cassock, with thin hair around his narrow, sallow face and a nose like a bird’s beak. He kept straightening his cassock, was uneasy, kept moving around and was clearly ashamed of his condition.
“Sit down and be our guest,” the preacher suggested with a slight gesture. Just then the tall figure of Andrey Ivanovich rose like the shade of Banquo above the grain.
“Let’s be going!” he said in a not very kind tone of voice, as he threw away the butt of his cigar.
“I’ll stay here,” I answered.
“I see you like those parasites better....” And Andrey Ivanovich glanced at me sorrowfully, as if he wished to impress upon me the impropriety of my choice.
“Yes, there’s more fun here,” I answered.
“I’m through with you. I hope you remain in good company.”
He pulled his cap down over his face and started off with long strides, but he soon stopped, came back, and said angrily:
“Don’t ask me again! You rascal, I’ll never go with you again. Don’t you dare to ask me! I refuse.”
“It’s my business whether I ask you or not.... Yours is to go or not.”
“A serious-minded gentleman!” The wanderer nodded after him as he started off.
“He doesn’t approve of us,” the little man said in a voice that was between a sigh and a squeak.
“What do we care whether he does or not?” remarked the preacher indifferently. Then he turned to me:
“Haven’t you a cigarette, sir?... Please.”
I held out my case to him. He took out two cigarettes, lighted one and placed the other beside him. His small companion interpreted this in a favorable way and rather irresolutely reached for the free cigarette. But the preacher, with perfect composure, took the cigarette out of his hands and placed it on the other side. The little fellow was embarrassed, again squeaked from shame and straightened his robes.
I gave him a cigarette. This embarrassed him still more,—his thin, transparent fingers trembled; he smiled sadly and bashfully.
“I don’t know how to beg,” he said in shame. “Avtonomov orders and orders.... But I can’t.”
“Who’s this Avtonomov?” I asked.
“That’s me,—Gennady Avtonomov,” said the preacher with a stern glance at his small companion,[23] who quailed under the glance and dropped his sallow face. His thin hair fell and rose.
“Are you walking for your health, or why?” Avtonomov asked me.
“Because I want to.... Where are you going?”
He looked into the distance and answered:
“To Paris or nearer, to Italy or further....” And, noticing that I did not understand, he added:
“I was joking.... I am wandering aimlessly wherever it suits me. For eleven years——”
He spoke with a faint touch of sadness. Then he quietly exhaled some tobacco smoke and watched the blue clouds melt away in the air. His face had a new expression, a quality I had never noticed before.
“A wasted life, signor! A ruined existence, which deserved a better lot.”
The sadness disappeared and he concluded grandiloquently, with a flourish of his cigarette:
“Yet, good sir, the wanderer will never be willing to exchange his liberty for luxurious palaces.”
Just then a bold little bird flew over our heads like a clod of earth thrown up into the air, perched on the lowest branch of the birch, and began to twitter without paying any attention to our presence. The face of the little wanderer brightened[24] and was suffused with a ludicrous kindness. He kept time with his thin lips and, at the successful completion of any tune, he looked at us with triumphant, smiling, and weeping eyes.
“O God!” he said finally, when the bird flew away at the end of its song. “A creature of God. It sang as much as it needed to, it praised Him, and flew off on its own business. O darling!... Yes, by heaven, that’s right.”
He looked at us joyfully, and then became embarrassed, stopped talking, and straightened his cassock, but Avtonomov waved his hand and added like a teacher:
“Behold the birds of heaven. We, signor, are the same kind of birds. We sow not, neither do we reap, nor gather into barns....”
“You studied in the seminary?” I asked.
“Yes. I could tell a lot about that; only there’s little worth hearing. But, as you see, the horizon is being covered with clouds. Up, Ivan Ivanovich; rise, comrade, rise. The portion of the wanderer is journeying, not resting. Let us wish you every sort of blessing.”
He nodded and started rapidly along the road. He took free, even strides, leaning on a long staff and thrusting it back with every step. The wind blew out the skirts of his cassock, he bent forward[25] under his wallet, and his wedge-shaped beard projected in front. It seemed as if this sun-burned, dried, and faded figure had been created for the poor Russian plain with the dark villages in the distance and the clouds which thoughtfully gathered in the sky.
“A scholar!” Ivan Ivanovich shook his head sadly as he tied up his wallet with trembling hands. “A most learned man! But he falls to nothing just as I. On the same plane ... we wander together. God forgive us, the last....”
“Why?”
“Why? How? The modern wanderer has a good wallet, a cassock or kaftan, boots, for example,—in a word, equipment for every circumstance, so to speak. And we! You see yourself. I’m coming, I’m coming, Gennady Sergeich, I’m coming. Right away!”
The little fellow soon overtook his companion. Thinking that they had reasons for not inviting me to accompany them, I kept sitting on the hill, and watching a heavy, dark cloud rise from behind the woods and spread quietly, sadly, imperceptibly, almost stealthily over the sky, and then I went on alone, regretting the controversy with Andrey Ivanovich.
It was quiet and sad. The grain waved and[26] rustled drily. In the distance, behind the woods, growled the thunder and at times a large drop of rain fell.
It was an empty threat. Towards evening I came to the village of K. and it had not rained yet, but the cloud was advancing quietly and spreading out; it grew dark and the thunder sounded nearer and nearer.
III
To my surprise, on the bank of earth around one of the first huts of the village, I saw Andrey Ivanovich, with his long legs reaching almost to the very middle of the street. As I approached, he looked utterly unconcerned.
“What are you doing, Andrey Ivanovich?”
“Drinking tea. Did you think I was waiting for you? Don’t flatter yourself. When the cloud passes, I’m going on.”
“Fine.”
“And your adored——”
“Who?”
“Those wanderers, people of God.... Please see what they’re doing in that hut! Go, look: it’s nothing; don’t be ashamed....”
I walked up to the window. The hut was full.[27] The peasants of the village were all away on business and so there were only women present. A few young women and girls were still running back and forth past me. The windows were open and illuminated, and I could hear within the even voice of Avtonomov. He was teaching the dissenters.
“Come, join us,” I suddenly heard the low voice of Ivan Ivanovich. He was standing in a dark corner near the gate.
“What are you doing?”
“Fooling the people. That’s what they’re doing,” interrupted Andrey Ivanovich.
The little wanderer coughed, and, squinting at Andrey Ivanovich, he said:
“What can we do, sir?”
He bent toward me and whispered:
“The old dissenters think Gennady Sergeich is a runaway priest. It’s dark. What can we do? We may not get anything. And, besides, there’s nothing else to do. Won’t you come in?”
“Let’s go in, Andrey Ivanovich.”
“What I haven’t seen there?” he answered, turning away. “Go,—kiss them. I think enough of myself not to do this, for I wear a cross.”
“So do we,” Ivan Ivanovich spoke with a mild tone of reproach.
Andrey Ivanovich whistled suspiciously, and then, with a serious look on his face, he called to me:
“Do you know this disreputable crowd?”
With an enigmatic glance at me, he added in a lower tone:
“Did you understand?”
“No, I didn’t. Good-bye. If you want to, wait for me.”
“We’ve nothing to wait for. Some people don’t understand....”
I didn’t hear the rest of the sentence, because I went into the hut with Ivan Ivanovich.
Our entrance caused some excitement. The preacher noticed me and stopped.
“Oh! We thank you,” he said, pushing the women aside. “Please. Won’t you have a little cup of tea? Here’s the samovar, even though it’s a dissenting village.”
“Did I disturb you?”
“What nonsense. Woman, bring the samovar! Quick!”
“Do you use that weed, too?” asked a young woman with a full bosom and bashful, coal-black eyes, who was standing in the front.
“If the gentleman will permit,—it will give me pleasure, ... and I’ll drink another....”
“If you please,” I said.
“Please give me a cigarette.”
I gave it to him. He lighted it and looked laughingly at the surprised women. A murmur of dissatisfaction ran through the hut.
“Do you suck that?” asked the young woman spitefully.
“Of course.... According to the Scriptures, it is permitted.”
“In what part?—teach us, please.”
He smoked on and then he threw the cigarette over the heads of the women into a basin of water.
“He’s thrown it away,” said the hostess, fussing around the samovar.
“Don’t throw it away, fool; you’ll set the place on fire,” interrupted another.
“Afire? If the well won’t stop that, you’d better put out the fire in the kitchen.”
“What are you thinking of? Everything is done nowadays. Even the priests smoke.”
“Of course, of course. You’ve a voice like a bell. You ought to be in a convent choir. Come with me.”
He reached for her. She cleverly turned aside, bending her beautiful form, while the other women, laughing and spitting, ran out of the hut.
“W-what a priest,” said a thin woman with[30] childishly open eyes. She was in evident terror. “T-teacher!”
“Yes, he’ll teach us.”
“Teach us,” laughed a soldier’s wife, coming forward and resting her cheek on her fat hand. “Teach us something easy and sweet.”
“Yes! We’ll sigh for you.”
“I’ll teach you. What is your name, beauty?”
“I’m called what I’m called and nicknamed Gray Duck. What do you want?”
“You, Gray Duck. Give us some vodka,—heavens, they’ll pay up.”
“Get what? We’ll get it.”
She looked at me questioningly and cunningly.
“Please, a little,” I said.
The soldier’s wife hurried from the hut. Laughing and pushing, two or three women ran out after her. The hostess looked displeased but she put the samovar on the table and without a word she sat down on the bench and commenced to work. The children watched us curiously from their plank beds.
Laughing and panting, the soldier’s wife put on the table a bottle of some sort of greenish liquid. Then she walked away from the table and looked at us laughingly and boldly. Ivan Ivanovich coughed from embarrassment and the temporary[31] widows still in the hut gazed at us in secret expectation. After the first cups, the preacher of the evening lifted the skirts of his cassock and stamped around the Gray Duck, who avoided his caresses.
“Go away!” She waved her hand, and, with a provokingly challenging glance at me, she walked up to the table.
“Why don’t you drink? Look at them,—they’ll finish it, I bet. Go ahead and drink.”
Smiling and shrugging her shoulders, she filled a glass and brought it to me.
“Don’t drink!” These words, in an unexpectedly venomous tone, came through the window, and out of the darkness appeared the bony face of Andrey Ivanovich.
“Don’t drink the vodka, I tell you!” he repeated, still more sternly, and again disappeared in the darkness.
The soldier’s wife let the glass tremble and spill. Thoroughly frightened she looked out of the window.
“May the power of the cross help us,—what was that?”
Everyone felt ill at ease. The vodka was exhausted and the question was whether to get more and continue, or to end now. Ivan Ivanovich[32] looked at me in timid sorrow, but I had not the slightest desire to continue this feast. Avtonomov suddenly understood this.
“Really,—it’s time to be going,” he said, walking towards the window.
“But it’s raining outdoors,” said the soldier’s wife, glancing to one side.
“No. The clouds are all right; ... they look dry.... Get ready, Ivan Ivanovich.”
We began to get ready. Ivan Ivanovich went out first. When I followed him into the dark, closed yard, he took my hand and said in a low tone:
“There’s that long-legged fellow waiting by the gate.”
In very truth I made out Andrey Ivanovich by the entrance. Avtonomov, with his wallet and staff, came out on the porch, holding the soldier’s wife by the hand. Both figures could be seen in the lighted doorway. The soldier’s wife did not withdraw her hand.
“Are you going to leave us?” she said in despair. “We thought—you’d carouse around here.”
“Wait, I’ll be back,—I’ll get rich.”
She looked at him and shook her head.
“Where? You’ll never get rich. You’ll get along, empty....”
“Don’t caw, you crow.... Tell me this: does Irina’s clerk still live by the cemetery?”
“Stchurovskaya? Yes. He just went to the bazaar. What do you want?”
“This. Let’s see.... He had a daughter, Grunyushka.”
“She’s married.”
“Nearby?”
“To a deacon in the village of Voskresenskoye. The old woman’s there alone.”
“You say Irina’s husband hasn’t come back?”
“He hasn’t been seen.”
“Is he rich?”
“No, he lives like everyone else.”
“Good-bye!... Glasha-a!”
“Now, now! Don’t call.... You know Glasha is good and not yours. Go along. There’s nothing to hang around for.”
Kindly pity could be heard in the voice of the village beauty.
Outside the dark figure of Andrey Ivanovich left the gate and hurried towards us, while at the same time Avtonomov overtook us and silently went ahead of us.
“You should have stayed till morning,” remarked Andrey Ivanovich grimly. “I could have waited here!”
“That’s foolish,” I answered coldly.
“How so? Why?”
“Why?—you could have gone on if you didn’t like it.”
“No, thanks for your kindness, I’m not willing to leave a companion.... I’d rather suffer myself than leave him.... We’ve been together three years, Ivan Anisimovich. Trifles don’t count, I’ve drunk so often in good company....”
“Yes?”
“They took off my vest; three rubles twenty.... A new pocket book....”
“If you’re blaming Gennady and me for this,” began Ivan Ivanovich, hurriedly and excitedly, “that’s so mean. Why?... If you have any doubts, we can go ahead or stay behind....”
“Please don’t pay any attention,” I said, wishing to quiet the poor fellow.
“What’s the matter?” asked Avtonomov, stopping. “What are you talking about?”
“They’re so suspicious. Lord, have mercy upon us! Are we really robbers, the Lord forgive the word?”
Gennady gazed in the darkness into the face of Andrey Ivanovich.
“Oh, the lanky gentleman!... I see!” he said drily. “The man who never trusts has pleasure,[35] if all he judges by his measure.’ ... The road is broad....”
He again walked forward quickly and his timid little companion ran after him. Andrey Ivanovich waited for several seconds. He was surprised that the stranger had answered in rhythm. He almost started after him, but I caught his hand.
“What’s the matter with you?” I said angrily.
“You’re sorry for your good companions?” he said spitefully. “Please, don’t be uneasy. They won’t go far....”
In very truth we caught sight of a black figure near the last houses. It was Ivan Ivanovich, alone.
He was standing in the road, panting and coughing and holding on to his breast.
“What’s the matter?” I asked sympathetically.
“Oh, oh! My death!... He went off.... Gennady.... He ordered me not to go with him.... To go with you. I can’t catch him.”
“That’s all right. Do you know the road?”
“It’s the broad road. He hurried on some place or other.”
“Fine.”
We walked along in the darkness.... A dog barked behind us; I looked around and saw in the[36] darkness two or three lights in the village, but they soon disappeared.
IV
It was a quiet, starless night. The horizon could still be traced as an indistinct line beneath the clouds, but still lower hung a thick mist, endless, shapeless, without form or details.
We walked on quite a while in silence. The wanderer panted timidly and tried to smother his cough.
“I don’t see Avtonomov,” he kept saying, and he gazed helplessly in the blackness of the night.
“We can’t see him.... But he sees us, by heavens,” said Andrey Ivanovich, spitefully and ominously.
The road seemed to be a confused streak, like a bridge across an abyss.... Everything around was black and indistinct. Was there or was there not a light streak on the horizon? There was not a trace of it now. Was it so short a time, since we were in that noisy hut with the laughter and conversation?... Will there be any end to this night, to this field? Were we moving ahead or was the road like an endless ribbon slipping[37] by under our feet while we remained treading in the same spot, in the same enchanted patch of darkness? An involuntary, timid joy sprang up in my soul when an unseen brook began to babble ahead of us, when this murmur increased and then died away behind us, or when a sudden breath of wind stirred the scarcely visible clumps of willows beside the road and then died away, a sign that we had passed them....
“It’s night now all right,” said Andrey Ivanovich quietly, and this was very unusual for him. “A man’s a fool to walk the roads a night like this. And what are we after, I’d like to know. We worked during the day, rested, drank our tea, prayed—for sleep. No, I don’t like it—and then we started along the roads. It’s better for us. Here it’s midnight and we haven’t crossed ourselves yet. We certainly pray!...”
I made no answer. Thoughts of repentance seemed still to be running through the head of Andrey Ivanovich.
“Women can teach us a little,” he said sternly. “We don’t stay at home. What do we want?...”
“Why, I can’t see Avtonomov,” interrupted the plaintive voice of the young wanderer.
“Neither can I,” grunted Andrey Ivanovich.
“What a misfortune!” said the young wanderer[38] sorrowfully. “I’ve been abandoned by my protector....”
His voice was so filled with despair that we both looked ahead involuntarily in search of the lost Avtonomov. Suddenly, rather to one side, we heard a dull sound as if some one had stepped upon an old bridge.
“There he is!” said Andrey Ivanovich. “He went to the left.”
“The road must have turned.”
In truth the road soon forked. We also turned to the left. Ivan Ivanovich sighed from relief.
“What are you grieving so over?” asked Andrey Ivanovich. “Is he your brother or who is he? He’s a freak, begging your pardon.”
“He’s closer than a brother. I’d be lost without him; I can’t beg myself. And in our condition not to—is absolute ruin....”
“Why do you wander around?”
The stranger was silent as if it were hard for him to answer this question.
“I’m looking for a shelter. In some monastery.... Since my youth I have been destined for the monastic life.”
“You should live in a monastery.”
“I have a weakness,” said Ivan Ivanovich, almost inaudibly and bashfully.
“You like drink.”
“Yes, that’s it. I was spoiled as a child.”
“Too bad!... The devil’s to blame for it.”
“Yes, the devil.... Of course.... Formerly, when the people were serfs, he had a lot of work: he wrestled with the monotonous life, we’ll say.... They all saw him.... And, just think, they struggled just the same.... Now it’s our weakness.... The people are all inclined to it.”
“Y-yes,” assented Andrey Ivanovich. “It’s much easier now for the impure.... He lives with us, by heavens. Lie, dear, on the stove.... We’ll come to see you and bring one another.... Only entertain us.”
The stranger heaved a deep sigh.
“That is the truth!” he said sadly. “I’ll tell you about myself,” he whispered, as if he did not wish his words to be heard by any one in the blackness along the road. “Do you know who ruined me? My own mother and my father superior!”
“Wh-what?” queried Andrey Ivanovich, also in a low tone.
“Yes!... I know it’s sinful to blame my dead mother,—may she rest in peace!” He took off his hat and crossed himself. “And yet I keep thinking: if she had had me taught a trade, I might[40] have been a man like the others.... No, she wanted her child to have an easy life, the Lord forgive her....”
“Go on, go on!” urged Andrey Ivanovich.
“You know,” continued Ivan Ivanovich sadly, “in old times, as the books say, parents always objected and children went secretly to the monastic cell to devote themselves.... But my mother took me herself to the monastery; she wanted me to become a clerk.”
“Yes, yes!”
“And before that, I must tell you, they used to make them psalmists and so on, ... but they had changed by my time!”
“That’s the rank!”
“Yes!... And mother again! stay there in the monastery.... That’s an easy life. And the superior loves you.... That’s the truth: the father superior did love me and took me as a novice under his own charge. But if a man is doomed, fortune will become misfortune. I’ll tell you the truth: I fell because of an angel ... not because of the devil....”
“What are you telling us?” said Andrey Ivanovich in surprise.
“Just the truth.... Our superior was a wonderfully kind soul, not evil, and strict.... But[41] he had a secret weakness; at times he’d drink. Quietly, nobly. He’d shut himself up and drink for three or four days. No more than that. Then he’d all at once stop it.... He was a strong man.... But once, in that condition, he got bored. And he called me and said: ‘Dear boy, mortify yourself. Vanya, obey me and do something you don’t want to. An innocent boy, stay with me, a hardened sinner.’ Well, I did it, and sat and listened how he talked with some one and wept over that weakness of his.... I wasn’t strong, and when I got tired I fell asleep. He said: ‘Vanya, take a drop to brace you up.’ And I drank a glass of brandy.... ‘But swear to me,’ he said, ‘that you’ll never drink a drop alone without me.’”
“So that’s it,” drawled Andrey Ivanovich meaningly.
“Of course I swore. And he gave me another glass.... And so it went. At first a little, then—— The father superior was a strong man. No matter how much he drank, he was still steady. But, you know, after three or four glasses, my feet went.... He remembered himself and forbade me solemnly. It was too late. I didn’t drink with him and I had the keys to the chest.... I began to take a nip secretly.... Another[42] and a larger one.... A second time I couldn’t walk. He thought at first that it was from that first drunkenness, because of my weakness. Then he looked at me steadily and said: ‘Vanyushka, do you want a glass?’ I trembled all over from my longing for it. He guessed the truth. He took his staff, caught it in my hair, and reasoned with me.... He was strong and afraid of hurting me.... It did no good. Again and again.... He saw that his weakness was ruining me. He said to me: ‘Forgive me, Vanyushka, but you must pass through temptation or you’ll be ruined.... Go and wander.... When you meet sorrow you can be healed. I will pray for you. Come back in a year,’ he said, ‘on this same date. I will receive you like the prodigal son.’ He blessed me. Began to weep. Called the rufalny, that is, the monk who had charge of the habits, and ordered him to get me ready to wander.... He himself said the prayers for a brother who is going on a journey.... And forth I went, the servant of the Lord, on the twenty-ninth of August, the day of the Beheading of St. John Baptist, for a period of wandering....”
The narrator again stopped, drew his breath, and coughed. Andrey Ivanovich sympathetically stopped walking and the three of us stood in the[43] dark road. Finally Ivan Ivanovich was rested and we started on again....
“So I traveled summer and winter. It was hard work and I had many sorrows. Yes! I went to various monasteries. Some places I didn’t get into the courtyard,—others I didn’t like. Our monastery was supported by the state and rich and I’d gotten accustomed to an easy life. And I couldn’t get into another state monastery, but they took me into one where all the monks lived together, that of St. Cyril of Novoye Ozero, and it was awful: we got little tea and not a bit of tobacco; the monks were all peasants.... A hard rule and a lot of work....”
“I bet you didn’t like that after your easy life,” said Andrey Ivanovich.
“To tell the truth, I wasn’t strong enough,” sighed Ivan Ivanovich humbly. “The burden was too great.... And sanctity looked unpleasant in that garb. There was no splendor.... A lot of people and no choir.... They did make an awful noise....”
“That’s sanctity!” said Andrey Ivanovich with conviction.
“No, let me tell you,” answered Ivan Ivanovich no less emphatically.... “You’re wrong.... That doesn’t determine the kind of monastery. A[44] monk must be trained and have a head like a blade of grass ... and hold himself up.... That makes a fine monk and there’s mighty few of them. And the simple monk is smooth and clean with a velvety voice. Benefactors and women go wild over them. But a peasant, let me tell you, is no account even there....”
“All right.... What next?” said Andrey Ivanovich, a little surprised at the decided opinion of the expert.
“What next?” answered the wanderer sadly. “I wandered for a year. I fasted and wandered.... The worst was that my conscience bothered me; I didn’t know how to beg. I waited and waited for that year to end,—to go home, home, to my poor cell. I thought of the father superior as if he were my own father; I loved him so. Finally August twenty-ninth came. I went into the courtyard, you know, and somehow I felt badly. Our attendants came to the gate.... They knew me. ‘Wanderer Ivan, have you returned?’ ‘I have,’ was my reply. ‘Is my benefactor alive?’ ‘Too late,’ was the answer. ‘He was buried some time ago. He was deemed worthy; he went away with the collect of the Resurrection. He remembered you ... and wept.... He wanted to reward you.... We’ve got a new superior, ... a[45] barbarian. Don’t let him see you?’ But,” he added, plaintively, “I can’t see Avtonomov.”
His voice betrayed his terror and sorrow.
V
Andrey Ivanovich stared into the darkness and suddenly he caught hold of my hand, exclaiming:
“Stop! We shouldn’t have come.”
“What’s the matter?”
“I told the truth. Don’t chase on after them! Wait for me.... I’ll run and see....”
He quickly disappeared in the darkness. I stayed with Ivan Ivanovich in the road. When the steps of the bootmaker died away, we heard merely the quiet noises of the night. The grass rustled gently; at times a rail whistled as it ran nervously from place to place. In the vague distance the frogs were croaking dreamily and playing in the swamp. Hardly visible clouds were rising.
“That’s just like him.... My comrade loves to walk at night,” complained Ivan Ivanovich. “What’s the use of it? Why not by day?”
“Was he in a monastery too?”
“Yes,” answered Ivan Ivanovich. Then, with a sigh, “He’s from a good family. His father[46] was a deacon in the city of N. You may have heard of him.... His brother is a secretary in a police office. He was betrothed....”
“Why didn’t he marry?”
“Don’t you see, he’d already gone wrong.... He ran away ... but he wasn’t a wanderer yet. He had the outfit but he didn’t wander.... He passed as a suitor. He was accepted. The girl loved him, and her father didn’t object.... Oh!... Oh!... Of course, it was sinful, ... he deceived them. Sometimes, when he tells about it, you’ll cry, and then again it’s really funny.”
Ivan Ivanovich acted strangely. He laughed and then began to choke and put his hand over his mouth. At first you could hardly tell he was laughing. But he really was,—an hysterical, bashful, rather explosive laugh, which ended like a cough. When he quieted down, Ivan Ivanovich said, half-pityingly:
“Only he tells it different every time.... You can’t tell whether it’s the truth or not.”
“He wouldn’t lie?”
“Not exactly, ... but he’s not always accurate. You see, the truth——”
“Just what does he say?”
“You know, the clerk, he says, was clever. He saw the young man wasting his time, really doing[47] nothing. He pretended to go to a bazaar,—so he went to the city, left the old woman in the house, and gave her strict orders to keep an eye on him. Avtonomov, you see, didn’t live with them, but in the village with the woman who baked the bread for the church.... He kept visiting them.... Every day.... They’d sit by the river bank.... And the old woman was there, too. And, of course, she watched them.... One time, my dear little Avtonomov saw two men coming from the city in a cart—and both drunk. They came up and turned out to be the clerk and his older brother, the secretary. He hadn’t even looked around—when they landed on him and licked him. The reason why: his brother, because he ran away from the seminary; the clerk, for deceiving and disgracing him....”
Ivan Ivanovich sighed.
“He hardly got off alive, he says.... They were both angry and drunk.... He ran to the house where he was living, grabbed his wallet, and off into the woods.... Since then, he says, he’s been wandering.... But, another time, he really ... tells something else.”
He came nearer to me and wanted to tell me something very confidentially. But suddenly out of the darkness near us came the figure of Andrey[48] Ivanovich. He walked rapidly with a deliberately menacing scowl.
“Come here, if you please.” He took me aside and whispered:
“You and I are in a nice mess!”
“How?”
“This Avtonomov, the monk, seems to have gone off to steal.... We’ll get into trouble over him yet....”
“That’s enough, Andrey Ivanovich.”
“Yes, for you. Did you hear what he asked in the village? Of the soldier’s wife? About a certain clerk? Is the clerk actually at home or not?”
“Yes, I remember.”
“Do you remember where that clerk lived?”
“Yes, by a cemetery.”
“There it is!” said Andrey Ivanovich maliciously, pointing ahead in the darkness.
“What of it?”
“Just this.... The old woman, you heard, is alone.... And he went right there.... He walked around the yard and looked. You’ll see for yourself.... That’s the sort of a fellow you wanted to drop an old companion for.... If he’d crossed the bridge without a board creaking, we’d have gone straight along the road.... I turned aside.... Let’s go ahead quietly.”
Behind us some one coughed plaintively. Andrey Ivanovich looked around and said:
“Come with us, novice.... What can we do with you? You love your comrade.”
We crossed the bridge, followed the road and came to the cemetery. On the hill a little light shone through the trees. I saw the whitish walls of a small house, perched on the edge of a hill, and behind it was the dark outline of a bell-tower. Below on the right it was easier to imagine than to see the little stream.
“There he is,” said Andrey Ivanovich. “Do you see him?”
Not far from us, between the wall and the slope, near an arbor covered with foliage, was a figure. A man seemed to be crowded against and fastened to the fence and looking through the bushes. By the light of the window, I saw the pointed cap, the long neck, and the familiar profile of Avtonomov. The light streamed out through the trees and lilac blossoms. When I went nearer, I saw in the window the head of an old woman in a cap and with horn spectacles. Her head nodded like that of a man who is working when he is terribly sleepy, and the needles moved rapidly in her hands. The old woman was evidently waiting for her husband to return.
Suddenly she listened.... An irresolute call came out of the darkness:
“Olimpiada Nikolayevna!”
The old woman looked out of the window but saw no one.
A moment of silence, and then the same call was repeated:
“Olimpiada Nikolayevna!”
I did not recognize Avtonomov’s voice. It seemed soft and timid.
“Who’s there?” The old woman suddenly started. “Who called me?”
“It’s I.... Don’t you remember Avtonomov?... We used to know each other....”
“Avtonomov, mercy.... We never knew any one of that name.... I don’t know you.... Wait a moment and I’ll call some one. Fedosya, oh, Fedosya!... Come here quick....”
“Don’t call, mother.... I won’t disturb you.... Have you really forgotten Avtonomov?... I used to be called Genasha....”
The old woman got up, took the candle and held it out of the window. There was no breeze. The flame burned steadily and illuminated the bushes, the walls of the house, and the wrinkled face of the old woman with her glasses pressed up on her forehead.
“That voice sounded familiar.... Where are you?... If you’re a good man——”
She held the candle above her head and the light fell on Avtonomov. The old woman staggered, but just then another woman entered the room. The old woman grew bolder and again threw the light on Avtonomov.
“Fine,” she said coldly. “The suitor, of course.... What are you walking around under the window for?...”
“I happened to be passing, Olimpiada Nikolayevna——”
“Passing, and would pass.... See here, when the master returns, he’ll set the dogs on you.”
She closed the window and lowered the curtain. The bushes disappeared, and the figure of Avtonomov was lost in the darkness.
We could then think of leaving, and we quickly descended the hillock.... In a few minutes we heard the bells in the tower. Some one apparently wanted to show that there were people in the cemetery....
Andrey Ivanovich walked slowly and thoughtfully. Ivan Ivanovich ran panting at a dog trot and constantly stifling his cough.... When we had reached a proper distance he stopped and said again with indescribable sorrow:
“We’ve lost Avtonomov....”
His voice was so despairing that Andrey Ivanovich and I involuntarily felt sorry for him. We stopped and began to peer into the darkness.
“He’s coming,” said Andrey Ivanovich, straining his lynx-like eyes.
In very truth we soon saw behind us a strange shape like a moving tree. Avtonomov had large bunches of lilacs in his belt, on his shoulders, and in his hands, and even his cap was decorated with flowers. When he caught up with us he had perfect control of himself and seemed neither glad nor astonished. He walked on along the road and the branches waved about him in a very peculiar manner.
“It’s great to walk at night, signor,” he began grandiloquently, like an actor. “The fields are clothed in darkness.... There’s a grove on one side.... See how peaceful it is! The nightingale pours forth its melody....”
He almost declaimed this but yet his voice showed that he was a little exasperated.
“Wouldn’t you like a spray from my garden, signor?”
With a theatrical gesture, he offered me a branch of lilacs.
Near the road a nightingale sang timidly and[53] irresolutely. In the distance, in answer to the bells from the cemetery, came another, and we could hear the noise of a rattle. Somewhere on the dark plain dogs were barking.... The night grew darker and it began to feel like rain....
“I’m sorry,” Avtonomov suddenly began at random, “I got separated from you by the cemetery. I have an old friend who lives there, a real old friend. If he’d been home, we’d all have gotten lodging and something to eat.... The old woman asked me to stop, ... but without her husband——”
Ivan Ivanovich cleared his throat. The bootmaker snorted ironically.
Avtonomov must have guessed that we had seen more than he thought, for he turned to me and said:
“Judge not, signor, that ye be not judged.... Another’s soul, signor, is dark.... Some time,” he added resolutely, “believe me, I’ll come here, ... and I’ll be entertained.... And then....”
“And then?”
“Oh!... we’ll be entertained.... Drink till you can’t see.... And I’ll crow over it....”
“Why?”
“Why! This place should be like any other.[54] But yet, signor, it appeals to me.... The past....”
He walked on more rapidly.
We passed by a little village and reached the last hut. Its small windows looked out sightlessly into the dark field.... All were sleeping within.
Avtonomov suddenly walked up to the window and tapped sharply on the pane. An indistinct face appeared behind it.
“Who’s there?” asked a dull voice, and a frightened face was pressed against the glass. “Who’s coming around this time of night?”
“The d-devil,” drawled Avtonomov in a piercing, evil tone, and he stuck his head with its floral decorations against the pane.... The face within disappeared in terror.... Dogs began to bark in the village; the guard struck his rattle; the dark plain went on guard.... Again somewhere in the distance the sleeping churches droned forth their prolonged notes, as if to defend the peaceful region from some unknown evil. As if they felt that above them was hanging the menace of certain dark and hopelessly ruined lives.
VI
We walked for more than an hour through the dark fields. Weariness claimed its own and we[55] neither wished to speak nor listen. At first I kept on thinking and tried in the darkness to imagine the appearance of my companions. This worked with Andrey Ivanovich, whom I knew well, and also with the little wanderer, but I had forgotten the features of Avtonomov, and as I looked at his dark form I could not recall his face.... Avtonomov at the clerk’s house and yesterday’s preacher seemed two distinct people.
My thoughts became still more confused; several days of tramping,—the dull night, the silence, the heavy, muddy road or the absence of one,—this was all that I could learn from my great weariness, and I began to lose myself as I walked along. It was a sort of semi-consciousness which permitted fantastic dreams strangely intertwined with reality. But reality for me was merely the dark road and three misty shapes, now behind me, now driving me onward.... I went with them almost unconsciously.
When I partially awoke, they were standing in the road and arguing.
“Open your eyes,” said the bootmaker, angrily but lazily.
“Thanks for your explanation,—I wouldn’t have guessed it,” answered the wanderer. “Don’t you know, signor, how to get to the road?”
I looked out lazily into the darkness. With its arms disappearing among the clouds, a huge black windmill towered above us; behind and beside it were others. I thought the whole field was dotted with windmills, silent but menacing....
“I’ve been spitting all night to beat this devil,” said Andrey Ivanovich venomously.
“Well, just keep still a little while, lanky signor,” said Avtonomov. “Listen!...”
“Grinding?” said Andrey Ivanovich questioningly....
“Right,” answered Avtonomov cheerfully. “The wheels are working. What a jolly little river!”
“Is it far?”
“Yes, by the road. We’ll take a short cut.”
“You’ll land us in the swamp, you devil....”
My feet carried me through the darkness after the three dark figures. I stumbled over the stubble or the hummocks, and they threw me forward or to the side.... If I had met a ravine or a river,—I would probably have waked up at the bottom.... At times strange phantoms leaped and flew from my head into the unshapen fog.
Finally I ceased to stumble over hummocks. I felt a level road beneath my feet and I heard an even, kindly hum. Water was pouring, roaring,[57] running, splashing and foaming, telling of something interesting, but too confused.... The noise stopped, but suddenly it became louder, as if the water were pouring through a dam.... I woke up completely and looked around in surprise.... Andrey Ivanovich caught me from behind. He took my arm and pushed me ahead....
“Wake up ... you’ll sleep when you’re walking.... We’re tied up with the devil and may God forgive us!... If the peasants come out, they’ll break our necks.... Quick, quick.... See Ivan Ivanovich go with his cassock held up....”
Indeed, the little wanderer was running with a speed that surprised me.
“Here ... here....”
Without understanding what had happened, I found myself hidden in the thick willows on the bank of a little stream. Ivan Ivanovich was panting.... Avtonomov was not with us. Near by the mill was roaring. The water raged and poured through the open sluices. One wheel was turning heavily as before,—another seemed locked,—it trembled and groaned beneath the assaults of the water. A dog was pulling at his chain and howling with anger.
A window in the mill lighted up as if the building[58] had waked and opened one eye. A door creaked and the old miller in a white shirt and trousers came out on the platform with a lantern. Behind him came another man, yawning and stretching.
“Did the dam go out?” he asked.
“It certainly did,—hear it roar in the sluice-ways; it almost broke the bars.... Just look.... Oh, ye saints....”
“Just look; they’re open.”
“What the devil! Who opened them?”
The peasants went to the sluices. The roar soon died away; they pushed both bolts and the mill stopped. The light of the lantern slowly crawled back along the dam and again disappeared. Then a rattle sounded shrilly. One peasant was evidently still on guard....
The unusual commotion at the mill, sounding across the fields, again roused the sleeping villages. It was surprising how many of them were hidden in the darkness. From all sides, in front, behind, almost beneath, they answered the alarm with the beating of boards and rattles. The slow peal of a bell floated up from a distant village or a cemetery. Near by some night bird called.
“Let’s go,” said Andrey Ivanovich, when the mill had become quiet.... “One rascal can so disturb people.”
“What’s the matter?” I asked.
“Ask him,” said the bootmaker spitefully, and he pointed to Ivan Ivanovich.
“Y-yes,” answered the wanderer sadly. “Of course, it’s outrageous.... I don’t approve of it....”
“What’s the matter? Where’s Avtonomov?”
“There he is—calling like a bird and making signs to us.... Come here, my dear companions.... How the rascal managed to open the sluices, I didn’t happen to notice. You, too!... You’ll follow him and sleep. If you’d kept on ... and the peasants had appeared before,—there’d have been a picnic. You bet! I’ll catch that devil and don’t you interfere. I’ll turn him inside out and run his feet out through his throat!...”
He started ahead with his mind made up.
VII
Andrey Ivanovich did not carry out his savage intentions and in a half hour we were again walking silently along the road.... It was not yet sunrise, but the white, milky streaks kept breaking through the clouds, and beneath our feet we could see the whitish fog which covered the whole plain. Suddenly the fog opened and showed[60] us a horse’s head and a cart loaded with sacks and a peasant sleeping on them and another empty cart behind it.
“Uncle, hey, uncle,” said Andrey Ivanovich to the second peasant, “won’t you take us along?”
The peasant rubbed his sleepy eyes and looked with amazement at the crowd which had surrounded him.
“Where did God bring you from?”
“A pilgrimage.”
“So, so! Sit down, but I can’t take you far; we’re from around here.”
“You’re not from the mill?”
“They were at the mill, but I’m empty. Sit down; that’s right.”
We got into the cart and sat down, letting our feet hang.
“Let me ask you a question,” said our guide, clucking to his horse; “have you been walking all night?”
“Yes.”
“You didn’t hear anything, did you?”
“Some dogs barking in the distance. Why?”
“Why? Some one opened the sluices in the mill and almost smashed the wheels.”
“Who was it?”
“I don’t know! Some one got fooling around at[61] night. In our little village near by, they say, the fellow asked to be taken in. A peasant looked out, but he said: ‘I’m the devil, let me in.’”
“He was,” said Avtonomov, who had discarded his decorations some time before.
“He wasn’t.... I’ll never believe it.... And I won’t let you either.” Andrey Ivanovich spoke ardently and decidedly to the peasant. “Some rascals have been deceiving you country people.... Your simplicity....”
“There are people who do not believe in God and the Saints,” said Avtonomov, with the greatest humility and composure.
Andrey Ivanovich gritted his teeth and showed Avtonomov his fist, when the peasant was not looking.
VIII
About noon we reached my home in the same kind of a cart. This we had happened to meet at the edge of the city. The cart stopped at the gate. Our picturesque company attracted the attention of several passers-by, a thing that clearly annoyed Andrey Ivanovich.... I asked my companion to come in and rest and have some tea.
“Thanks, I haven’t far to go,” answered the[62] bootmaker coldly. He threw his wallet on his back and, then, without ceremony, he pointed at Avtonomov.
“Are you inviting him in?”
“Yes, I’m inviting Gennady Sergeyevich,” I answered.
Andrey Ivanovich turned sharply and, without saying good-bye, he started down the street.
Ivan Ivanovich looked desperately frightened, as if my invitation had caught him in a trap. He looked appealingly at Avtonomov, and shame at being present tortured his whole figure. Avtonomov asked simply:
“Where are we going?”
While the samovar was being heated, I asked the servants to gather up some superfluous clothes and linen and offered my companions a change of attire. Avtonomov at once consented, tied them all in one bundle and said:
“We’ve got to have a bath....”
Of course, I did not object. Both wanderers came back from the bath transformed. Ivan Ivanovich, in a coat which was too broad and trousers which were too long and with his thin hair, looked astonishingly like a woman in man’s clothes. As far as Avtonomov was concerned, he was not satisfied with the conventional amount of clothing, but he[63] had put on everything which had been given him to choose from. He was wearing, consequently, a blue shirt, a blouse, two vests, and a coat. The shirt stuck up above the collar of the blouse and reached below it,—it was so much longer. The edge of the blouse was visible and the coat seemed to form a third layer.... At the tea table Ivan Ivanovich was so miserable that we let him take his cup into the kitchen, where he sat down in one corner and immediately won the sympathy of our cook.
Avtonomov acted recklessly, called my mother signora and jumped up every minute in order to serve something.
After tea he looked himself over from head to foot and said, with an air of satisfaction:
“In this costume my brother-in-law won’t be ashamed of me.... I’ll go see my sister.... She lives near here. May I leave my wallet in your hall, signora?”
When he went to the gate, Ivan Ivanovich ran after him in terror. After a short conversation Avtonomov permitted the poor fellow to follow him at some distance.
Ivan Ivanovich soon returned alone. His bird-like face beamed with surprise and delight.
“They received him,” he said, clearing his throat[64] joyfully. “That’s the solemn truth. He really has a sister. And a brother-in-law.... Please go past, accidentally.... You’ll see it, too.... As God is true, they’re sitting in a garden entertaining him ... like a brother. His sister’s weeping from joy....”
From the breast of the little wanderer came strange sounds like hysterical laughing and weeping.
In an hour Avtonomov appeared, transfigured and triumphant. He came up to me, fervently grasped my hand, and pressed it till it hurt.
“Through you I’ve found my relatives.... Yes.... That’s it! Till death....”
He pressed my hand still harder, then convulsively released it and turned away. Apparently the brother-in-law, who was not without influence in the consistory, believed in Avtonomov’s reformation and decided to help him. It was also necessary to get certain papers from Uglich and....
“Back here again! My wanderings are ended, signor.... I won’t forsake you, Vanya.... I’ll give you a corner and food.... Live.... I’ll be responsible.... You’ll get quarters ... also....”
As I listened to this conversation, involuntary doubts crept into my mind, the more so as Avtonomov had resumed his grandiloquent manner and[65] kept using more and more frequently the word signor....
Towards evening the two set out “for Uglich to get the papers.” Avtonomov gave me a solemn promise to return in a week “to begin his new life.”
“Is this all that was necessary for this ‘miracle?’” I thought doubtfully....
IX
The weather suddenly changed.... A wonderful early spring seemed to be replaced by late, cold autumn.... It rained hard for days and the wind howled amid the rain and the fog.
One cold morning of this kind I awoke late and was trying to guess the time when I heard a light noise and a strange whistle in the hall by the door. I opened and saw some living creature in a dark corner. Yes! it was Ivan Ivanovich. He trembled all over, was blue, and looked at me with his appealing, timid eyes. It was the look of a frightened animal near its end.
“Your weakness again?” I asked kindly.
“Yes,” he answered humbly and briefly, and he started to straighten his clothing. He was again wearing an impossible cassock, he had no hat, and on his bare feet were rough shoes.
Avtonomov soon made his appearance. He was drunk and unpleasantly bold. He spoke in affectedly grandiloquent phrases, acted like an old friend, and from time to time in his reminiscences of our wanderings he made spicy allusions to a certain soldier’s wife.... In his eyes gleamed an evil passion and in him I recognized again the preacher in the monastery courtyard,—and readiness for any evil deed. He never said a word about his visit to his sister....
“Listen ... Dearie, ...” he turned to the maid.... “The other time I left a cassock with you.... It’s still fit to be worn.... Your present was unlucky,” he added, looking impudently at me.... “We were robbed near Uglich ... and they took absolutely everything we had. A merchant cheated you on those felt shoes, that’s easy to see.... Cheap goods, cheap.... They fell all to pieces....”
He condescendingly patted my shoulder.
Ivan Ivanovich looked at his protector reproachfully. We parted quite coldly, but everyone in my house felt sincere sympathy and pity for Ivan Ivanovich.
After that, from time to time, I heard from my accidental comrades. These messages were usually brought by people in cloaks and cassocks and with[67] more or less clear indications of “weakness” they gave me greetings or notes and they showed how disillusioned they felt, when they saw the meagreness of the reward which they received. Once during the fair a fellow appeared totally drunk and very evil looking, but he handed me a note with as much mysterious familiarity as if it had been from a mutual friend and confidant.
In the note a very shaky and uneven hand had scribbled:
“Dear friend. Receive the bearer as you would me. He is our friend and can tell you everything; incidentally give him money and clothing.... His trousers are pretty bad.... Gennady Avtonomov.”
One glance was enough to show that the agent was really in dire need of trousers.... But in spite of his intoxication, his eyes quickly and curiously ran over the contents of my rooms, and they showed well the results of professional training....
When he left, I heard an unpleasant noise and I had to run to the assistance of my good neighbors.
X
About two years passed, before I again met my former companions.
One hot summer’s day, I had crossed the Volga on a ferry and a pair of horses was dragging us over the sands of the bank to the foot of a hill. The sun had set, but it was intolerably hot. It seemed as if whole waves of heat were being wafted from the gleaming river. Flies hung in clouds over the horses, the bells rang unevenly, and the wheels dragged in the deep sand.... Half way up the hill a monastery nestled among the trees and as it looked down on the river out of the rising mist, it seemed to be suspended in midair.
Suddenly the coachman stopped his weary team at the very foot of the hill and ran along the bank. A quarter of a verst away on the rocky and pebbly edge of the river was a black group of people directly between us and the sun.
“Something’s happened,” said my companion.
I got out and also walked up to the place.
A dead body was lying on the bare bank, against which the water was splashing lazily. When I came nearer, I recognized in it my old acquaintance: the little wanderer was lying in his cassock, on his stomach, with outstretched hands and with his head turned at an unnatural angle. He was pale as death; his black hair had fallen over his forehead and temples, and his mouth was half open. I involuntarily recalled that face, as it was[69] when it was filled with childish delight over the singing of the little bird on the hilltop. With his long, sharp nose and his open mouth,—he reminded me greatly of a tortured and stifled bird.
Avtonomov sat swaying back and forth beside him and seemed frightened. There was a perceptible odor of wine in the air....
Glancing at the people who were coming up and not recognizing me, he suddenly pulled the dead body.
“Get up, comrade, it’s time to be going.... A wanderer’s fate is to wander always.”
He spoke in a very bombastic manner, but he rose uncertainly....
“Don’t you want to? Look, Vanya, I’ll leave you! I’ll go off alone....”
A village chief, with a medal on his chest, hurried up to the group and laid one hand on Avtonomov’s shoulder.
“Stop, don’t go away.... You’ve got to make a statement.... What sort of people are you?”
Avtonomov, with ironical humility, took off his cap and bowed.
“Please be so kind, your village excellency....”
Above our heads sounded a peal of the bell. The monks were being summoned to vespers. The peal echoed, disturbed the heated air, and rolled above[70] the leafy tops of the oaks and black poplars beside the monastery and as it died away, it fell to the sleepy river. The sound increased again, as it struck the water, and a keen eye could almost follow its flight to the other bank, to the bluish, mist-wrapped meadows.
All removed their hats. Avtonomov turned toward the sound and shook his fist in the air.
“Listen, Vanya,” he said, “your father superior is calling you.... Your benefactor.... Now he’ll receive you, I know....”
Peal after peal, rapid and repeated, ringing and quavering, fell down upon the river solemnly and quietly....
