The Enchanted Wanderer and Other Stories

And I see she keeps blinking, blinking her eyes, and her eyes get all filled with tears, and she suddenly brushes them away with her shawl and softly whispers to me:

“Our guardian angel came down last night, child.”

This revelation threw me into a fit of trembling.

“Say quickly,” I ask, “how did this wonder happen and who were the beholders of it?”

And she replies:

“It was an unfathomable wonder, child, and nobody beheld it but me, because it happened in the deepest midnight hour, and I was the only one not asleep.”

And this, my dear sirs, is the story she told me:

“I fell asleep having said my prayers,” she says. “I don’t remember how long I slept, but suddenly in my dreams I see a fire, a big fire: as if everything here is burning down, and the river carries the ashes and whirls them around the piers, and swallows them, sucks them into the depths.” And as for herself, it seemed to Mikhailitsa that she ran out in a threadbare nightshirt, all holes, and stood right by the water, and across from her, on the other bank, a tall red pillar thrust itself up, and on that pillar was a small white cock, and he kept flapping his wings. And it was as if Mikhailitsa said: “Who are you?”—because her feeling told her that he was announcing something. And the cock suddenly exclaimed “Amen” as if in a human voice, and drooped, and was no longer there, and around Mikhailitsa it became quiet and there was such spentness in the air that Mikhailitsa became frightened and couldn’t breathe, and she woke up and lay there, and she heard a lamb start bleating outside the door. And she can hear from its voice that it’s a very young lamb that still hasn’t shed its newborn wool. Its pure, silvery little voice rings out “Ba-a-a,” and suddenly Mikhailitsa senses that it’s walking about the prayer room, its little hooves beating out a quick tap-tap-tap on the floorboards, as if it’s looking for someone. Mikhailitsa reasons to herself: “Lord Jesus Christ! What is it? There are no sheep in our whole settlement and no lambing either, so where has this little one dropped from?” And at the same time she gives a start: “How, then, did it end up in the house? It means that, with all last night’s bustle, we forgot to bolt the front door. Thank God,” she thinks, “it’s just a lamb that’s wandered in, and not a yard dog getting at our holy icons.” And she tries to wake up Luka with it: “Kirilych!” she calls him. “Kirilych! Wake up quick, dearest, we’ve left the door open and some little lamb’s wandered in.” But Luka Kirilovich, as bad luck would have it, was wrapped up in a dead sleep. No matter what Mikhailitsa did, she couldn’t wake him up: he groaned, but didn’t speak. The harder Mikhailitsa shook and shoved him, the louder he groaned, and that was all. Mikhailitsa began asking him at least “to remember the name of Jesus,” but she had barely uttered that name herself when something in the room squealed, and at the same moment Luka tore himself from the bed and went rushing forward, but in the middle of the room it was as if a metal wall suddenly flung him back. “A light, woman! A light, quickly!” he shouted to Mikhailitsa, and he himself couldn’t move from the spot. She lit a candle and ran out, and saw him, pale as a condemned man, trembling so much that not only was the clasp moving on his neck, but even his pants were shaking on his legs. The woman turned to him again. “My provider,” she said, “what is it?” And he just pointed his finger at the empty spot where the angel used to be, while the angel himself was lying on the floor by Luka’s feet.

Luka Kirilovich went at once to old Maroy and said, thus and so, this is what my woman saw and what happened to us. Come and look. Maroy came and knelt before the angel lying on the floor and stayed motionless over him for a long time, like a marble tombstone. Then, raising his hand, he scratched the bare patch on the crown of his head and said softly:

“Bring me twelve clean, newly fired bricks.”

Luka Kirilovich brought them at once, Maroy looked them over and saw that they were all clean, straight from the fiery furnace, and told Luka to stack them one on top of the other, and in that way they erected a pillar, covered it with a clean towel, raised the icon up on it, and then Maroy, bowing to the ground, exclaims:

“Angel of the Lord, may thy footsteps be poured out wheresoe’er thou wishest!”

And he had only just uttered these words, when there suddenly comes a rap-rap-rap on the door, and an unfamiliar voice calls out:

“Hey, you schismatics, which of you is the chief here?”

Luka Kirilovich opens the door and sees a soldier with a badge standing there.

Luka asks what chief he wants, and the soldier replies:

“The one who visited the lady and calls himself Pimen.”

Well, Luka sent his wife for Pimen at once, and asked the soldier what was the matter. Why had he been sent at night to find Pimen?

The soldier says:

“I don’t know for certain, but the word is that the Jews set up some awkward business with the gentleman.”