The Enchanted Wanderer and Other Stories

“A hump?” the storyteller repeated, smiling and not taking offense. “Why do you suggest that? In our true Russian understanding concerning a woman’s build, we keep to a type of our own, which we find much more suitable than modern-day frivolity, and it’s nothing like a hump. We don’t appreciate spindliness, true; we prefer that a woman stand not on long legs, but on sturdy ones, so that she doesn’t get tangled up, but rolls about everywhere like a ball and makes it, where a spindly-legged one will run and trip. We also don’t appreciate snaky thinness, but require that a woman be on the stout side, ample, because, though it’s not so elegant, it points to maternity in them. The brow of our real, pure Russian woman’s breed is more plump, more meaty, but then in that soft brow there’s more gaiety, more welcome. The same for the nose: ours have noses that aren’t hooked, but more like little pips, but this little pip itself, like it or not, is much more affable in family life than a dry, proud nose. But the eyebrows especially, the eyebrows open up the look of the face, and therefore it’s necessary that a woman’s eyebrows not scowl, but be opened out, archlike, for a man finds it more inviting to talk with such a woman, and she makes a different, more welcoming impression on everybody coming to the house. But modern taste, naturally, has abandoned this good type and approves of airy ephemerality in the female sex, only that’s completely useless. Excuse me, however, I see we’ve started talking about something else. I’d better go on.”

Our Pimen, being a vain man, notices that we, having seen the visitor off, have begun to criticize her, and says:

“Really, now! She’s a good woman.”

And we reply: what kind of good is she, if there’s no goodness in her appearance? But God help her: whatever she is, let her be. We were glad enough to be rid of her, and we hastened to burn some incense so that there would be no smell of her in our place.

After that we swept all traces of the dear guest’s visit from the room, put the substitute images back into the trunks behind the partition, and took out our real icons, placed them on the shelves as they had been before, sprinkled them with holy water, said some initial prayers, and went each to his own night’s rest, only, God knows why and wherefore, we all slept poorly that night and felt somehow eerie and restless.

VI

In the morning we all went to work and set about our tasks, but Luka Kirilovich wasn’t there. That, judging by his punctuality, was surprising, but it seemed still more surprising to me that he turned up after seven all pale and upset.

Knowing that he was a self-possessed man and did not like giving way to empty sorrows, I paid attention to that and asked: “What’s the matter with you, Luka Kirilovich?” And he says: “I’ll tell you later.”

But, being young then, I was awfully curious, and, besides, a premonition suddenly came to me from somewhere that this was something bad to do with our faith; and I honored our faith and had never been an unbeliever.

And therefore I couldn’t stand it for long, and, under some pretext or other, I left work and ran home. I think: while nobody’s home, I’ll worm something out of Mikhailitsa. Though Luka Kirilovich hadn’t revealed anything, she, in all her simplicity, could still somehow see through him, and she wouldn’t conceal anything from me, because I had been an orphan from childhood, and had grown up like a son to them, and she was the same to me as a second mother.

So I rush to her, and I see she’s sitting on the porch, an old coat thrown over her shoulders, and herself as if sick, sad, and a sort of greenish color.

“My second mother,” I say, “why are you sitting here of all places?”

And she says:

“And where am I to huddle up, Marochka?”

My name is Mark Alexandrovich, but she, having maternal feelings for me, called me Marochka.

“What’s she giving me this nonsense for,” I think, “that she’s got nowhere to huddle up?”

“Why don’t you lie down in your closet?” I say.

“I can’t, Marochka,” she says, “old Maroy’s praying in the big room.”

“Aha!” I think. “So it’s true that something’s happened to do with our faith.” And Aunt Mikhailitsa begins:

“You probably don’t know what happened here during the night, do you, Marochka, my child?”

“No, second mother, I don’t.”

“Ah, terrible things!”

“Tell me quickly, second mother.”

“Ah, I don’t know how I can tell you.”

“How is it you can’t tell me?” I say. “Am I some kind of stranger to you, and not like a son?”

“I know, my dearest,” she replies, “that you’re like a son to me, only I don’t trust myself to put it in the right words for you, because I’m stupid and untalented, but just wait—uncle will come back at quitting time, he’ll surely tell you everything.”

But there was no way I could wait, and I pestered her to tell me, tell me right now, what it was all about.