The Enchanted Wanderer and Other Stories

But my inconstant character totally lacked the firmness for pretending to be angry, and Levonty and I soon began talking again, only not about divine things, because he was very well read compared to me, but about our surroundings, for which we were hourly given a pretext by the sight of the great, dark forests through which our path led. I tried to forget about my whole Moscow conversation with Levonty and decided to observe only one precaution, so that we would not somehow run across that elder Pamva the hermit, to whom Levonty was attracted and of whose lofty life I myself had heard inconceivable wonders from Church people.

“But,” I thought to myself, “there’s no point in worrying much, since if I flee from him, he’s not going to find us himself!”

And once again we walked along peacefully and happily and, at last, having reached a certain area, we heard that the icon painter Sevastian was in fact going about in those parts, and we went searching for him from town to town, from village to village, and we were following right in his fresh tracks, we were about to catch up with him, but we couldn’t catch up with him. We ran like hunting dogs, making fifteen or twenty miles without resting, and we’d come, and they’d say:

“He was here, he was, he left barely an hour ago!”

We’d go rushing after him, and not catch up with him!

And then suddenly, during one of these marches, Levonty and I got to arguing. I said, “We must go to the right,” and he said, “To the left,” and in the end he almost argued me down, but I insisted on my way. But we went on and on, and in the end I saw we’d wound up I don’t know where, and further on there was no path, no trail.

I say to the youth:

“Let’s turn back, Levonty!”

And he replies:

“No, I can’t walk anymore, uncle—I have no strength.”

I get all in a flutter and say:

“What’s the matter, child?”

And he replies:

“Don’t you see I’m shaking with fever?”

And I see that he is, in fact, trembling all over, and his eyes are wandering. And how, my good sirs, did all this happen so suddenly? He hadn’t complained, he had walked briskly, and suddenly he sits down on the grass in the woods, puts his head on a rotten stump, and says:

“Ow, my head, my head! Oh, my head’s burning with fiery flames!

I can’t walk, I can’t go another step!” And the poor lad even sinks to the ground and falls over.

It happened towards evening.

I was terribly frightened, and while we waited to see if he’d recover from his ailment, night fell; the time was autumnal, dark, the place was unknown, only pines and firs all around, mighty as an archaic forest, and the youth was simply dying. What was I to do? I say to him in tears:

“Levontiushka, dear heart, make an effort, maybe we’ll find a place for the night.”

But his head was drooping like a cut flower, and he murmured as if in sleep:

“Don’t touch me, Uncle Mark; don’t touch me, and don’t be afraid.”

I say:

“For pity’s sake, Levonty, how can I not be afraid in such a deep thicket?”

And he says:

“He who sleeps not and watches will protect.”

I think: “Lord, what’s the matter with him?” And, fearful myself, all the same I started listening, and from far away in the forest I heard something like a crunching … “Merciful God,” I think, “that must be a wild beast, and he’s going to tear us to pieces!” And I no longer call to Levonty, because I see it’s like he’s flown out of himself and is hovering somewhere, but only pray: “Angel of Christ, protect us in this terrible hour!” And the crunching is coming nearer and nearer, and now it’s right next to us … Here, gentlemen, I must confess to you my great baseness: I was so scared that I abandoned the sick Levonty where he lay and climbed a tree more nimbly than a squirrel, drew our little saber, and sat on a branch waiting to see what would happen, my teeth clacking like a frightened wolf’s … And suddenly I noticed in the darkness, which my eyes had grown used to, that something had come out of the forest, looking quite shapeless at first—I couldn’t tell if it was a beast or a robber—but I began to peer and made out that it was neither a beast nor a robber, but a very small old man in a skullcap, and I could even see that he had an axe tucked in his belt, and on his back a big bundle of firewood, and he came out into the clearing. He sniffed, sniffed the air several times, as if he were picking up scents all around, and suddenly threw the bundle on the ground and, as if he’d scented a man, went straight to my comrade. He went up to him, bent over, looked in his face, took him by the hand, and said:

“Stand up, brother!”

And what do you think? I see him raise Levonty, lead him straight to his bundle, and place it on his shoulders. And he says:

“Carry it behind me!”

And Levonty carries it.

XI