The Enchanted Wanderer and Other Stories

“That’s right,” the red-haired little man seconded. “Every saved person is guided by an angel, not by the dark one.”

“That’s something I’ve never seen, and since I find this a vile place, I don’t want to think my angel brought me here,” replied the garrulous fur coat.

The innkeeper only spat angrily, but the little redhead said good-naturedly that not everybody could behold the angel’s path, and you could only get a notion of it from real experience.

“You speak of it as if you’ve had such experience yourself,” said the fur coat.

“Yes, sir, I have.”

“So you saw an angel, and he led you—is that it?”

“Yes, sir, I saw him, and he guided me.”

“What, are you joking, or making fun?”

“God keep me from joking about such things!”

“So what precisely was it that you saw: how did the angel appear to you?”

“That, my dear sir, is a whole big story.”

“You know, it’s decidedly impossible to fall asleep here, and you’d be doing an excellent thing if you told us that story now.”

“As you wish, sir.”

“Please tell it, then: we’re listening. But why are you kneeling over there? Come here to us, maybe we can make room and all sit together.”

“No, sir, I thank you for that! Why crowd yourselves? And besides, the story I’m going to tell you is more properly told kneeling down, because it’s a highly sacred and even awesome thing.”

“Well, as you wish, only tell us quickly, how could you see an angel and what did he do to you?”

“If you please, sir, I’ll begin.”

II

As you can undoubtedly tell from my looks, I’m a totally insignificant man, nothing more than a muzhik, and the education I received was most village-like, as suited that condition. I’m not from hereabouts, but from far away; by trade I’m a mason, and I was born into the old Russian faith.³ On account of my orphanhood, from a young age I went with my countrymen to do itinerant work and worked in various places, but always with the same crew, under our peasant Luka Kirilovich. This Luka Kirilovich is still alive: he’s our foremost contractor. His business was from old times, established by his forefathers, and he didn’t squander it, but increased it and made himself a big and abundant granary,⁴ but he was and is a wonderful man and not an offender. And where, where didn’t our crew go with him! Seems we walked all over Russia, and nowhere have I seen a better and steadier master than him. We lived under him in the most peaceful patriarchy, and he was our contractor and our guide in trade and in faith. We followed him to work the way the Jews followed Moses in their wanderings in the desert; we even had our own tabernacle with us and never parted with it: that is, we had our own “God’s blessing” with us. Luka Kirilovich passionately loved holy icons, and, my dear sirs, he owned the most wonderful icons, of the most artful workmanship, ancient, either real Greek, or of the first Novgorod or Stroganov icon painters.⁵ Icon after icon shone not so much by their casings as by the keenness and fluency of their marvelous artistry. I’ve never seen such loftiness anywhere since!

There were various saints, and Deisises, and the Savior-not-made-by-hands with wet hair,⁶ and holy monks, and martyrs, and the apostles, and most wondrous were the multifigured icons with different deeds, such as, for instance, the Indictus, the feasts, the Last Judgment, the Saints of the month, the Council of Angels, the Paternity, the Six Days, the Healers, the Seven Days of the Week with praying figures, the Trinity with Abraham bowing down under the oak of Mamre, and, in short, it’s impossible to describe all this beauty, and nowadays such icons aren’t painted anywhere, not in Moscow, not in Petersburg, not in Palekh;⁷ and there’s even no talking about Greece, because the know-how has long been lost there. We all passionately loved these holy icons of ours, and together we burned lamps before them, and at the crew’s expense we kept a horse and a special cart in which we transported this blessing of God in two big trunks wherever we went. We had two icons in particular, one copied from the Greek by old Moscow court masters: our most holy Lady praying in the garden, with all the cypress and olive trees bowing to the ground before her; and the other a guardian angel, Stroganov work. It’s impossible to express what art there was in these two holy images!