The Enchanted Wanderer and Other Stories

The holy man named that little priest deprived of his post on account of drunkenness, and then withdrew; and the bishop woke up and thought: “What shall I count that as: a simple dream or fancy, or an inspiring vision?” And he began to reflect and, as a man known to the whole world for his intelligence, figured that it was a simple dream, because how on earth could it be that St. Sergius, an ascetic and observer of the good, strict life, would intercede for a weak priest who lived a life of negligence? Well, sir, so his grace decided that way, and left this whole matter to take its natural course, as it had begun, and passed the time as was suitable to him, and at the proper hour lay down to sleep again. But no sooner had he nodded off than another vision came, and of such a sort that it plunged the bishop’s great spirit into still worse confusion. Imagine, if you can: noise … such a frightful noise that nothing can convey it … They come riding … so many knights, there’s no counting them … racing, all in green attire, breastplates and feathers, their steeds like lions, ravenblack, and at their head a proud stratopedarchos⁶ in the same attire, and wherever he waves his dark banner, there they ride, and on the banner—a serpent. The bishop doesn’t know what this procession means, but the proud one commands them: “Tear them apart,” he says, “for now they have no one to pray for them”—and he galloped on; and after this stratopedarchos rode his warriors, and after them, like a flock of scrawny spring geese, drew dreary shades, and they all nodded sadly and pitifully to the bishop and moaned softly through their weeping: “Let him go! He alone prays for us.” As soon as the bishop got up, he sent at once for the drunken priest and questioned him about how and for whom he prays. And the priest, from poverty of spirit, became all confused before the hierarch and said: “Master, I do as is prescribed.” And his grace had a hard time persuading him to confess: “I am guilty,” he says, “of one thing: that I am weak of spirit, and thinking it better to do away with myself out of despair, I always pray when preparing the communion for those who passed away without confession or who laid hands on themselves …” Well, here the bishop understood what those shades were that floated past him like scrawny geese in his vision, and he did not want to please the demons who sped before them to destruction, and he gave the little priest his blessing: “Go,” he said, “and do not sin in that other thing, but pray for those you prayed for”—and sent him back to his post. So you see, such a man as he can always be useful for such people as cannot endure the struggle of life, for he will never retreat from the boldness of his calling and will keep pestering the Creator on their account, and He will have to forgive them.

“Why ‘have to’?”

“Because of the ‘knock’⁷—you see, He ordered it Himself, so that’s never going to change, sir.”

“And tell us, please, does anybody else pray for suicides besides this Moscow priest?”

“I don’t rightly know how to fill you in on that. They say you supposedly shouldn’t petition God for them, because they followed their own will, though maybe there are some who don’t understand that and do pray for them. On the Trinity, or on the day of the Holy Spirit,⁸ though, it seems everybody’s allowed to pray for them. Some special prayers are even read then. Wonderful, moving prayers; I think I could listen to them forever.”

“And they can’t be read on other days?”

“I don’t know, sir. For that you’d have to ask somebody who’s studied up on it; I suppose they should know; since it’s nothing to do with me, I’ve never had occasion to talk about it.”

“And you’ve never noticed these prayers being repeated sometimes during services?”

“No, sir, I haven’t; though you shouldn’t take my word for it, because I rarely attend services.”

“Why is that?”

“My occupation doesn’t allow me to.”

“Are you a hieromonk or a hierodeacon?”⁹

“No, I just wear a habit.”

“But still, doesn’t that mean you’re a monk?”

“Hm … yes, sir; generally that’s how it’s considered.”

“Indeed it is,” the merchant retorted to that, “only even in a habit they can still call you up as a soldier.”

The black-cassocked mighty man was not offended in the least by this observation, but only reflected a little and replied:

“Yes, they can, and they say there have been such cases; but I’m too old now, I’m in my fifty-third year, and then military service is nothing unusual for me.”

“You mean you’ve already been in military service?”

“That I have, sir.”

“What, as a corporal, was it?” the merchant asked again.

“No, not as a corporal.”

“Then what: a soldier, an orderly, a noodle—the whole caboodle?”

“No, you haven’t guessed it; but I’m a real military man, involved in regimental doings almost since childhood.”

“So you’re a cantonist?”¹⁰ the merchant persisted, getting angry.

“No again.”

“Then what the deuce are you?”

“I’m a conosoor.”

“A wha-a-at?”