The Enchanted Wanderer and Other Stories

“Yes, sir, it’s very hard, but all the same that Jew did have money.”

“He did?!”

“He did, sir. Later on wolves and jackals began worrying him, and they dug him out of the sand bit by bit, and finally got to his boots. Once his boots fell apart, seven coins came out of the soles. They were found later.”

“Well, but how did you break free of them?”

“I was saved by a miracle.”

“Who performed this miracle that delivered you?”

“Talafa.”

“Who is this Talafa—also a Tartar?”

“No, sir, he’s of another race, an Indian, and not a simple Indian at that, but one of their gods who comes down to earth.”

Prevailed upon by his listeners, Ivan Severyanych Flyagin told the following about this new act in the tragicomedy of his life.

IX

After the Tartars got rid of our missaneries, again nearly a year went by, and again it was winter, and we drove our herds to graze further south, towards the Caspian, and there suddenly one day before evening two men came to us, if they could be called men. Nobody knew who they were and where from and of what sort and rank. They didn’t even have any real language, neither Russian nor Tartar, but they spoke a word in ours, a word in Tartar, and between themselves in who knows what. They weren’t old. One was dark, with a big beard, in a robe, something like a Tartar, only his coat wasn’t multicolored but all red, and on his head he had a conical Persian hat. The other one was red-haired, also in a robe, but a tricky fellow: he had all sorts of little boxes with him, and as soon as there was a moment when nobody was looking at him, he’d take off his robe and remain just in trousers and a little jacket, and these trousers and jacket were of the same fashion as what Germans wear in factories in Russia. And he kept turning over and sorting out something in those boxes, but what it was that he had in them—deuce knew. They said they came from Khiva²⁵ to buy horses and wanted to make war on somebody at home, but who it was they didn’t say, they just kept stirring the Tartars up against the Russians. I heard him, this red-haired one—he couldn’t say much, but just brought out something like “soup-perear” in Russian and spat; but they had no money with them, because these Asiatics know that if you come to the steppe with money, you won’t leave with a head on your shoulders, and they urged our Tartars to drive the herds of horses to their river, the Darya, and settle accounts there. The Tartars were of two minds about that and didn’t know whether to agree or not. They thought and thought, as if they were digging gold, and were obviously afraid of something.

They tried persuading them honorably, and then also began to frighten them.

“Drive them,” they say, “or it may go badly for you: we have the god Talafa, who has sent his fire with us. God forbid he should get angry.”

The Tartars didn’t know this god and doubted that he could do anything to them with his fire on the steppe in winter. But that black-bearded man from Khiva, the one in the red robe, says, “If you have doubts, Talafa will show you his power this very night, only if you see or hear anything, don’t run outside, or he’ll burn you up.” Naturally, this was all terribly interesting amidst the boredom of the winter steppe, and we were all a bit afraid of this terrible thing, but eager to see what this Indian god could do and how, by what miracle, he would manifest himself.

We crawled into our tents early with our wives and children and waited … All was dark and quiet, as on any other night, but suddenly, during my first sleep, I heard something on the steppe hiss like a strong wind and explode, and through my sleep I fancied there were sparks falling from the sky.

I roused myself and saw my wives stirring and my children crying.

I say:

“Shh! Stop their gullets, get them sucking instead of crying.”

The children started smacking away, and it became quiet again, and on the dark steppe a fire suddenly went hissing up again … hissed and burst again …

“Well,” I think, “anyhow it’s clear this Talafa is no joke!”

And a little later he hissed again, but now in quite a different way—like a fiery bird fluttering up, and with a tail of fire as well, and the fire is of an extraordinary color, red as blood, and when it bursts, it all suddenly turns yellow and then blue.