The Enchanted Wanderer and Other Stories

Before he finished saying it, we suddenly thought we heard somebody coming behind us and even hastening his steps.

“Excuse me,” I said, “but it seems to me somebody’s coming.”

“Ah, yes! I also hear somebody coming,” my uncle replied.

X

I kept silent. My uncle whispered to me:

“Let’s stop and let him go past us.”

And this was just on the slope of the hill where you go down to the Balashevsky Bridge in summer, and across the ice between the barges in winter.

It was a godforsaken place from old times. There were few houses on the hill, and those were closed up, and below, to the right, on the Orlik, there were seedy bathhouses and an empty mill, and up from there a sheer cliff like a wall, and to the right a garden where thieves always hid. The police chief Tsyganok had built a sentry box there, and folk started saying that the sentry helped the thieves … I thought to myself, whoever’s coming—prigger or not—in fact it’s better to let him go past.

My uncle and I stopped … And what do you think: the man who was walking behind us must also have stopped—his footsteps were no longer heard.

“Maybe we were mistaken,” said my uncle. “Maybe there wasn’t anybody.”

“No,” I replied, “I clearly heard footsteps, and very close.”

We stood there a little longer—nothing to be heard; but as soon as we went on—we heard him hurrying after us again … We could even hear him hustling and breathing hard.

We slackened our pace and went more quietly—and he also went more quietly; we speeded up again—and he again came on more quickly and was nearly stepping in our tracks.

There was nothing more to talk about: we clearly understood that this was a prigger following us, and he’d been following us like that all the way from the inn; which meant that he was lying in wait for us, and when I lost my way in the snow between the big cathedral and the small—he caught sight of us. Which meant that now there was no avoiding some run-in. He couldn’t be alone.

And the snow, as if on purpose, poured down still more heavily; you walk as if you’re stirring a pot of curds: it’s white, and wet, and sticks to you all over.

And now the Oka is ahead of us, we have to go down on the ice; but on the ice there are empty barges, and in order to reach home on the other side, we have to make our way through the narrow passages between these barges. And the prigger who is following us surely has some fellow thieves hidden there somewhere. It would be handiest for them to rob us on the ice between the barges—and kill us and shove us underwater. Their den was there, and in the daytime you could always see them around it. They fixed up their lairs with mats of hemp stalks and straw, on which they lay smoking and waiting. And special pot-house wives hung out with them there. Rascally wenches. They’d show themselves, lure a man and lead him away, and he’d get robbed, and they’d be there on the lookout again.

Most of all they attacked those returning from the vigil in the men’s monastery, because people liked the singing, and back then there was the astounding bass, Strukov, of terrifying appearance: all swarthy, three tufts of hair on his head, and a lower lip that opened like the folding front flap of a phaeton. While he bellowed, it stayed open, and then it slammed shut. Anybody who wanted to return home safely from the vigil invited the clerks Ryabykin or Korsunsky to go with him. They were both very strong, and the priggers were afraid of them. Especially of Ryabykin, who was wall-eyed and was put on trial when the clerk Solomka was killed in the Shchekatikhino grove during the May fête …

I’m telling all this to my uncle so that he won’t think about himself, but he interrupts:

“Stop it, you’ll really be the death of me. It’s all about killing. Let’s rest at least, before we go down on the ice. Here, I’ve still got three coppers on me. Take them and put them in your glove.”

“Do please give them to me—I’ve got room in my mitten, I can take three more coppers.”

And I was just going to take these three coppers from him, when somebody emerged from the darkness right next to us and said:

“So, my good fellows, who have you robbed?”

I thought: that’s it—a prigger, but I could tell by the voice that it was that butcher I told you about.

“Is that you, Efrosin Ivanych?” I say. “Come along with us, brother.”

But he hurries by, as if blending with the snow, and answers on his way:

“No, brothers, we’re no birds of a feather: divide up your own booty, but don’t touch Efrosin. Efrosin’s just been listening to voices, his heart’s swooning in his breast … One flick—and there’ll be no life left in you.”

“Impossible to stop him,” I say. “You see, he’s mistaken on our score: he takes us for thieves.”

My uncle replies: