The Enchanted Wanderer and Other Stories

And endless stupidities of the same sort followed. And suddenly everything was in an uproar, and the innkeeper was shouting:

“Away with all you millers, get out of my establishment, me and my butchers will carry on by ourselves.”

Pavel Mironych shook his fist at him.

But the innkeeper replies:

“If you threaten me, I’ll shout up such Orelian stalwarts right now that you won’t bring a single unbroken rib home to Elets.”

Pavel Mironych, being the foremost strongman in Elets, got offended.

“Well, no help for it,” he says, “call for them, if you can still stand up, but I’m not leaving this room; we laid out money for the drink.”

The butchers wanted to leave—they had obviously decided to call people.

Pavel Mironych herded them back and shouted:

“Where’s the key? I’ll lock them all up.”

I said to my uncle:

“Uncle! For God’s sake! See what we’re coming to! There may be a murder here! And mama and auntie are waiting at home … What must they be thinking! … How they’ll worry!”

My uncle was frightened himself.

“Grab your coat,” he says, “while the door’s still open, and let’s get away.”

We leaped into the next room, grabbed our coats, and gladly came barreling out into the open air; only the darkness around us was so thick you couldn’t see an inch, and a wet snow was slapping big flakes in our faces, so that our eyes were blinded.

“Lead me,” says my uncle. “I’ve somehow suddenly forgotten all about where we are, and I can’t make anything out.”

“Just run for it,” I say.

“It’s not nice that we left Pavel Mironych.”

“But what could we do with him?”

“That’s so … but he’s our foremost parishioner.”

“He’s a strong man; they won’t hurt him.”

The snow blinded us, and once we leaped out of that stuffiness, we fancied God knows what, as if somebody were coming at us from all sides.

IX

Naturally, I knew the way very well, because our town isn’t big and I was born and grew up in it, but it was as if this darkness and wet snow right after the heat and light of the room dimmed my memory.

“Wait, uncle,” I said, “let me figure out where we are.”

“You mean you don’t know the landmarks of your own town?”

“No, I know them. The first landmarks for us are the two cathedrals, the one new and big, the other old and small, and we have to go between them and turn right, but in this snow I don’t see either the big one or the small one.”

“How about that! They may really take our fur coats or even strip us naked, and we won’t know where to run. We could catch our death of cold.”

“Maybe, God willing, they won’t strip us naked.”

“Do you know those merchants who came out from under the beds?”

“Yes.”

“Both of them?”

“Both of them. One is named Efrosin Ivanovich, and the other Agafon Petrovich.”

“And what—are they real true merchants?”

“They are.”

“I didn’t like the mug on one of them at all.”

“What about it?”

“Some sort of Jesovitic expression.”

“That’s Efrosin: he frightened me once, too.”

“How?”

“In my imagination. Once I was walking past their shops in the evening after the vigil, and I stopped across from St. Nicholas to pray that God would let me pass, because they have vicious dogs in the market; and this merchant Efrosin Ivanych had a nightingale whistling in his shop, and the light of an icon lamp was coming through a crack in the fence … I put my eye to the crack and saw him standing knife in hand over a bullock. The bullock at his feet has its throat cut and is kicking its bound feet and tossing its head; the head is dangling from the cut throat and blood is gushing out; and there’s another calf in the dark corner awaiting the knife, maybe mooing, maybe trembling, and over the fresh blood the nightingale in its cage is whistling furiously, and far across the Oka a thunderstorm is rumbling. Fear came over me. I was frightened and cried out: ‘Efrosin Ivanych!’ I wanted to ask him to accompany me to the pontoon bridge, but he suddenly gave such a start … I ran away. And I’ve only just remembered it.”

“Why are you telling me such a frightening thing now?”

“And what of it? Are you afraid?”

“No, I’m not, but better not talk about frightening things.”

“But it ended well. The next day I told him: thus and so—I got scared of you. And he says: ‘And you scared me, because I was standing there listening to the nightingale, and you suddenly cried out.’ I say: ‘How is it you listen so feelingly?’ ‘I can’t help it,’ he says, ‘my heart often swoons in me.’ ”

“Are you strong, or not?” my uncle suddenly interrupted.

“I wouldn’t boast of any special strength,” I said, “but if I put three or four old coppers in my fist, I can send any prigger you like to an early grave.”

“That’s fine,” he says, “if he’s alone.”

“Who?”

“The prigger, that’s who! But if there’s two of them, or a whole company? …”

“Never mind: if there’s two, we’ll manage—you can help. And priggers don’t go around in big companies.”

“Well, don’t rely much on me: I’ve grown old, my lad. Formerly, it’s true, I gave such beatings for the glory of God that they were known all over Elets and Livny …”