The Enchanted Wanderer and Other Stories

“Don’t talk to me about prophets,” he says. “I remember the Scriptures myself and feel that ‘the prophets torment the dwellers on earth,’¹⁶ and I even have a sign of it,” and he complained that he had bathed in the river the other day and after that his whole body became piebald, and he unbuttoned his chest and showed me, and in fact he had spots on him, like on a piebald horse, covering his chest and creeping up on his neck.

Sinful as I was, I had a mind to tell him, “Beware of him whom God hath marked,” but I quashed these words on my lips and said:

“Pray, then, and rejoice that you’ve been stamped like that in this world—perhaps you’ll present yourself clean in the next.”

He started lamenting to me about how unhappy he was because of it and what it would cost him if the piebaldness spread to his face, because the governor himself, seeing Pimen when he was received into the Church, had admired his beauty and said to the mayor that, when important persons passed through town, Pimen should unfailingly be placed in front with the silver platter. Well, and how are they going to place him there if he’s piebald? But, anyhow, as there was no point in my listening to the vanity and futility of this Belial, I turned and left.

And with that we parted ways. His spots became ever more clearly marked, and we had no lack of other signs, at the end of which, in the fall, the ice had only just set in, when suddenly there was a thaw, all that ice was scattered and came to wreck our constructions, and from then on damage followed upon damage, until suddenly one granite pier gave way, and the deeps swallowed up all the work of many years, worth many thousands …

Our English bosses themselves were struck by that, and then word from someone reached their chief, Yakov Yakovlevich, that to be delivered from it all he had to drive out us Old Believers, but since he was a man of good soul, he didn’t listen to it, but, on the contrary, sent for me and Luka Kirilovich and said:

“Give me your advice, lads: isn’t there some way I can help you and comfort you?”

But we replied that, as long as the image of the angel, which was sacred to us and had gone before us everywhere, was sealed with fiery resin, we could not be comforted and were wasting away from sorrow.

“What do you hope to do?” he asks.

“We hope in time to replace him with a substitute and to unseal his pure face, scorched by the godless hand of an official.”

“Why is he so dear to you?” he asks. “Can’t you get hold of another one like him?”

“He’s dear to us,” we reply, “because he has protected us, and to get hold of another is impossible, because he was painted by a pious hand in times of firm faith and was blessed by an old-time priest according to the complete prayer book of Pyotr Mogila,¹⁷ and now we have neither priests nor that prayer book.”

“But how will you unseal him,” he asks, “if his whole face is burnt with resin?”

“Well,” we reply, “Your Honor needn’t worry on that account: it will be enough to have him in our hands; then our protector will stand up for himself. He wasn’t made by commercial painters, he’s real Stroganov work, and Stroganov and Kostroma varnish is boiled up so that it has no fear of fiery seals and won’t let the resin through to the delicate paint.”

“Are you sure of that?”

“We are, sir. That varnish is as strong as the old Russian faith itself.”

Here he swore at those who were unable to cherish such art, gave us his hands, and said once more:

“Well, don’t grieve, then: I’ll help you, and we’ll get hold of your angel. Do you need him for long?”

“No,” we say, “just for a short time.”

“Well, then I’ll say I want to have a rich gold casing made for your sealed angel, and once they give him to me, we’ll put a substitute in his place. I’ll get started on it tomorrow.”

We thanked him, but said:

“Only don’t do anything, sir, either tomorrow or the next day.”

“Why not?” he asks.

And we reply:

“Because, sir, first of all we’ve got to have a substitute icon made, as like the real one as two drops of water, and there are no such masters here, and none to be found anywhere nearby.”

“Nonsense,” he says. “I’ll bring a painter from town myself; he paints not only copies but portraits excellently well.”

“No, sir,” we reply, “kindly don’t do that, because, first of all, improper rumors may start up through this worldly artist, and, second of all, such a painter cannot carry out the work.”