Part 2

“I don’t know how to beg,” he said in shame. “Avtonomov orders and orders.... But I can’t.”

“Who’s this Avtonomov?” I asked.

“That’s me,—Gennady Avtonomov,” said the preacher with a stern glance at his small companion, who quailed under the glance and dropped his sallow face. His thin hair fell and rose.

“Are you walking for your health, or why?” Avtonomov asked me.

“Because I want to.... Where are you going?”

He looked into the distance and answered:

“To Paris or nearer, to Italy or further....” And, noticing that I did not understand, he added:

“I was joking.... I am wandering aimlessly wherever it suits me. For eleven years——”

He spoke with a faint touch of sadness. Then he quietly exhaled some tobacco smoke and watched the blue clouds melt away in the air. His face had a new expression, a quality I had never noticed before.

“A wasted life, signor! A ruined existence, which deserved a better lot.”

The sadness disappeared and he concluded grandiloquently, with a flourish of his cigarette:

“Yet, good sir, the wanderer will never be willing to exchange his liberty for luxurious palaces.”

Just then a bold little bird flew over our heads like a clod of earth thrown up into the air, perched on the lowest branch of the birch, and began to twitter without paying any attention to our presence. The face of the little wanderer brightened and was suffused with a ludicrous kindness. He kept time with his thin lips and, at the successful completion of any tune, he looked at us with triumphant, smiling, and weeping eyes.

“O God!” he said finally, when the bird flew away at the end of its song. “A creature of God. It sang as much as it needed to, it praised Him, and flew off on its own business. O darling!... Yes, by heaven, that’s right.”

He looked at us joyfully, and then became embarrassed, stopped talking, and straightened his cassock, but Avtonomov waved his hand and added like a teacher:

“Behold the birds of heaven. We, signor, are the same kind of birds. We sow not, neither do we reap, nor gather into barns....”

“You studied in the seminary?” I asked.

“Yes. I could tell a lot about that; only there’s little worth hearing. But, as you see, the horizon is being covered with clouds. Up, Ivan Ivanovich; rise, comrade, rise. The portion of the wanderer is journeying, not resting. Let us wish you every sort of blessing.”

He nodded and started rapidly along the road. He took free, even strides, leaning on a long staff and thrusting it back with every step. The wind blew out the skirts of his cassock, he bent forward under his wallet, and his wedge-shaped beard projected in front. It seemed as if this sun-burned, dried, and faded figure had been created for the poor Russian plain with the dark villages in the distance and the clouds which thoughtfully gathered in the sky.

“A scholar!” Ivan Ivanovich shook his head sadly as he tied up his wallet with trembling hands. “A most learned man! But he falls to nothing just as I. On the same plane ... we wander together. God forgive us, the last....”

“Why?”

“Why? How? The modern wanderer has a good wallet, a cassock or kaftan, boots, for example,—in a word, equipment for every circumstance, so to speak. And we! You see yourself. I’m coming, I’m coming, Gennady Sergeich, I’m coming. Right away!”

The little fellow soon overtook his companion. Thinking that they had reasons for not inviting me to accompany them, I kept sitting on the hill, and watching a heavy, dark cloud rise from behind the woods and spread quietly, sadly, imperceptibly, almost stealthily over the sky, and then I went on alone, regretting the controversy with Andrey Ivanovich.

It was quiet and sad. The grain waved and rustled drily. In the distance, behind the woods, growled the thunder and at times a large drop of rain fell.

It was an empty threat. Towards evening I came to the village of K. and it had not rained yet, but the cloud was advancing quietly and spreading out; it grew dark and the thunder sounded nearer and nearer.

III

To my surprise, on the bank of earth around one of the first huts of the village, I saw Andrey Ivanovich, with his long legs reaching almost to the very middle of the street. As I approached, he looked utterly unconcerned.

“What are you doing, Andrey Ivanovich?”

“Drinking tea. Did you think I was waiting for you? Don’t flatter yourself. When the cloud passes, I’m going on.”

“Fine.”

“And your adored——”

“Who?”

“Those wanderers, people of God.... Please see what they’re doing in that hut! Go, look: it’s nothing; don’t be ashamed....”

I walked up to the window. The hut was full. The peasants of the village were all away on business and so there were only women present. A few young women and girls were still running back and forth past me. The windows were open and illuminated, and I could hear within the even voice of Avtonomov. He was teaching the dissenters.

“Come, join us,” I suddenly heard the low voice of Ivan Ivanovich. He was standing in a dark corner near the gate.

“What are you doing?”

“Fooling the people. That’s what they’re doing,” interrupted Andrey Ivanovich.

The little wanderer coughed, and, squinting at Andrey Ivanovich, he said:

“What can we do, sir?”

He bent toward me and whispered:

“The old dissenters think Gennady Sergeich is a runaway priest. It’s dark. What can we do? We may not get anything. And, besides, there’s nothing else to do. Won’t you come in?”

“Let’s go in, Andrey Ivanovich.”

“What I haven’t seen there?” he answered, turning away. “Go,—kiss them. I think enough of myself not to do this, for I wear a cross.”

“So do we,” Ivan Ivanovich spoke with a mild tone of reproach.

Andrey Ivanovich whistled suspiciously, and then, with a serious look on his face, he called to me:

“Do you know this disreputable crowd?”

With an enigmatic glance at me, he added in a lower tone:

“Did you understand?”

“No, I didn’t. Good-bye. If you want to, wait for me.”

“We’ve nothing to wait for. Some people don’t understand....”

I didn’t hear the rest of the sentence, because I went into the hut with Ivan Ivanovich.

Our entrance caused some excitement. The preacher noticed me and stopped.

“Oh! We thank you,” he said, pushing the women aside. “Please. Won’t you have a little cup of tea? Here’s the samovar, even though it’s a dissenting village.”

“Did I disturb you?”

“What nonsense. Woman, bring the samovar! Quick!”

“Do you use that weed, too?” asked a young woman with a full bosom and bashful, coal-black eyes, who was standing in the front.

“If the gentleman will permit,—it will give me pleasure, ... and I’ll drink another....”

“If you please,” I said.

“Please give me a cigarette.”

I gave it to him. He lighted it and looked laughingly at the surprised women. A murmur of dissatisfaction ran through the hut.

“Do you suck that?” asked the young woman spitefully.

“Of course.... According to the Scriptures, it is permitted.”

“In what part?—teach us, please.”

He smoked on and then he threw the cigarette over the heads of the women into a basin of water.

“He’s thrown it away,” said the hostess, fussing around the samovar.

“Don’t throw it away, fool; you’ll set the place on fire,” interrupted another.

“Afire? If the well won’t stop that, you’d better put out the fire in the kitchen.”

“What are you thinking of? Everything is done nowadays. Even the priests smoke.”

“Of course, of course. You’ve a voice like a bell. You ought to be in a convent choir. Come with me.”

He reached for her. She cleverly turned aside, bending her beautiful form, while the other women, laughing and spitting, ran out of the hut.

“W-what a priest,” said a thin woman with childishly open eyes. She was in evident terror. “T-teacher!”

“Yes, he’ll teach us.”

“Teach us,” laughed a soldier’s wife, coming forward and resting her cheek on her fat hand. “Teach us something easy and sweet.”

“Yes! We’ll sigh for you.”

“I’ll teach you. What is your name, beauty?”

“I’m called what I’m called and nicknamed Gray Duck. What do you want?”

“You, Gray Duck. Give us some vodka,—heavens, they’ll pay up.”

“Get what? We’ll get it.”

She looked at me questioningly and cunningly.

“Please, a little,” I said.

The soldier’s wife hurried from the hut. Laughing and pushing, two or three women ran out after her. The hostess looked displeased but she put the samovar on the table and without a word she sat down on the bench and commenced to work. The children watched us curiously from their plank beds.

Laughing and panting, the soldier’s wife put on the table a bottle of some sort of greenish liquid. Then she walked away from the table and looked at us laughingly and boldly. Ivan Ivanovich coughed from embarrassment and the temporary widows still in the hut gazed at us in secret expectation. After the first cups, the preacher of the evening lifted the skirts of his cassock and stamped around the Gray Duck, who avoided his caresses.

“Go away!” She waved her hand, and, with a provokingly challenging glance at me, she walked up to the table.

“Why don’t you drink? Look at them,—they’ll finish it, I bet. Go ahead and drink.”

Smiling and shrugging her shoulders, she filled a glass and brought it to me.

“Don’t drink!” These words, in an unexpectedly venomous tone, came through the window, and out of the darkness appeared the bony face of Andrey Ivanovich.

“Don’t drink the vodka, I tell you!” he repeated, still more sternly, and again disappeared in the darkness.

The soldier’s wife let the glass tremble and spill. Thoroughly frightened she looked out of the window.

“May the power of the cross help us,—what was that?”

Everyone felt ill at ease. The vodka was exhausted and the question was whether to get more and continue, or to end now. Ivan Ivanovich looked at me in timid sorrow, but I had not the slightest desire to continue this feast. Avtonomov suddenly understood this.

“Really,—it’s time to be going,” he said, walking towards the window.

“But it’s raining outdoors,” said the soldier’s wife, glancing to one side.

“No. The clouds are all right; ... they look dry.... Get ready, Ivan Ivanovich.”

We began to get ready. Ivan Ivanovich went out first. When I followed him into the dark, closed yard, he took my hand and said in a low tone:

“There’s that long-legged fellow waiting by the gate.”

In very truth I made out Andrey Ivanovich by the entrance. Avtonomov, with his wallet and staff, came out on the porch, holding the soldier’s wife by the hand. Both figures could be seen in the lighted doorway. The soldier’s wife did not withdraw her hand.

“Are you going to leave us?” she said in despair. “We thought—you’d carouse around here.”

“Wait, I’ll be back,—I’ll get rich.”

She looked at him and shook her head.

“Where? You’ll never get rich. You’ll get along, empty....”

“Don’t caw, you crow.... Tell me this: does Irina’s clerk still live by the cemetery?”

“Stchurovskaya? Yes. He just went to the bazaar. What do you want?”

“This. Let’s see.... He had a daughter, Grunyushka.”

“She’s married.”

“Nearby?”

“To a deacon in the village of Voskresenskoye. The old woman’s there alone.”

“You say Irina’s husband hasn’t come back?”

“He hasn’t been seen.”

“Is he rich?”

“No, he lives like everyone else.”

“Good-bye!... Glasha-a!”

“Now, now! Don’t call.... You know Glasha is good and not yours. Go along. There’s nothing to hang around for.”

Kindly pity could be heard in the voice of the village beauty.

Outside the dark figure of Andrey Ivanovich left the gate and hurried towards us, while at the same time Avtonomov overtook us and silently went ahead of us.

“You should have stayed till morning,” remarked Andrey Ivanovich grimly. “I could have waited here!”

“That’s foolish,” I answered coldly.

“How so? Why?”

“Why?—you could have gone on if you didn’t like it.”

“No, thanks for your kindness, I’m not willing to leave a companion.... I’d rather suffer myself than leave him.... We’ve been together three years, Ivan Anisimovich. Trifles don’t count, I’ve drunk so often in good company....”

“Yes?”

“They took off my vest; three rubles twenty.... A new pocket book....”

“If you’re blaming Gennady and me for this,” began Ivan Ivanovich, hurriedly and excitedly, “that’s so mean. Why?... If you have any doubts, we can go ahead or stay behind....”

“Please don’t pay any attention,” I said, wishing to quiet the poor fellow.

“What’s the matter?” asked Avtonomov, stopping. “What are you talking about?”

“They’re so suspicious. Lord, have mercy upon us! Are we really robbers, the Lord forgive the word?”

Gennady gazed in the darkness into the face of Andrey Ivanovich.

“Oh, the lanky gentleman!... I see!” he said drily. “The man who never trusts has pleasure, if all he judges by his measure.’ ... The road is broad....”

He again walked forward quickly and his timid little companion ran after him. Andrey Ivanovich waited for several seconds. He was surprised that the stranger had answered in rhythm. He almost started after him, but I caught his hand.

“What’s the matter with you?” I said angrily.

“You’re sorry for your good companions?” he said spitefully. “Please, don’t be uneasy. They won’t go far....”

In very truth we caught sight of a black figure near the last houses. It was Ivan Ivanovich, alone.

He was standing in the road, panting and coughing and holding on to his breast.

“What’s the matter?” I asked sympathetically.

“Oh, oh! My death!... He went off.... Gennady.... He ordered me not to go with him.... To go with you. I can’t catch him.”

“That’s all right. Do you know the road?”

“It’s the broad road. He hurried on some place or other.”

“Fine.”

We walked along in the darkness.... A dog barked behind us; I looked around and saw in the darkness two or three lights in the village, but they soon disappeared.

IV

It was a quiet, starless night. The horizon could still be traced as an indistinct line beneath the clouds, but still lower hung a thick mist, endless, shapeless, without form or details.

We walked on quite a while in silence. The wanderer panted timidly and tried to smother his cough.

“I don’t see Avtonomov,” he kept saying, and he gazed helplessly in the blackness of the night.

“We can’t see him.... But he sees us, by heavens,” said Andrey Ivanovich, spitefully and ominously.

The road seemed to be a confused streak, like a bridge across an abyss.... Everything around was black and indistinct. Was there or was there not a light streak on the horizon? There was not a trace of it now. Was it so short a time, since we were in that noisy hut with the laughter and conversation?... Will there be any end to this night, to this field? Were we moving ahead or was the road like an endless ribbon slipping by under our feet while we remained treading in the same spot, in the same enchanted patch of darkness? An involuntary, timid joy sprang up in my soul when an unseen brook began to babble ahead of us, when this murmur increased and then died away behind us, or when a sudden breath of wind stirred the scarcely visible clumps of willows beside the road and then died away, a sign that we had passed them....

“It’s night now all right,” said Andrey Ivanovich quietly, and this was very unusual for him. “A man’s a fool to walk the roads a night like this. And what are we after, I’d like to know. We worked during the day, rested, drank our tea, prayed—for sleep. No, I don’t like it—and then we started along the roads. It’s better for us. Here it’s midnight and we haven’t crossed ourselves yet. We certainly pray!...”

I made no answer. Thoughts of repentance seemed still to be running through the head of Andrey Ivanovich.

“Women can teach us a little,” he said sternly. “We don’t stay at home. What do we want?...”

“Why, I can’t see Avtonomov,” interrupted the plaintive voice of the young wanderer.

“Neither can I,” grunted Andrey Ivanovich.

“What a misfortune!” said the young wanderer sorrowfully. “I’ve been abandoned by my protector....”

His voice was so filled with despair that we both looked ahead involuntarily in search of the lost Avtonomov. Suddenly, rather to one side, we heard a dull sound as if some one had stepped upon an old bridge.

“There he is!” said Andrey Ivanovich. “He went to the left.”

“The road must have turned.”

In truth the road soon forked. We also turned to the left. Ivan Ivanovich sighed from relief.

“What are you grieving so over?” asked Andrey Ivanovich. “Is he your brother or who is he? He’s a freak, begging your pardon.”

“He’s closer than a brother. I’d be lost without him; I can’t beg myself. And in our condition not to—is absolute ruin....”

“Why do you wander around?”

The stranger was silent as if it were hard for him to answer this question.

“I’m looking for a shelter. In some monastery.... Since my youth I have been destined for the monastic life.”

“You should live in a monastery.”

“I have a weakness,” said Ivan Ivanovich, almost inaudibly and bashfully.

“You like drink.”

“Yes, that’s it. I was spoiled as a child.”

“Too bad!... The devil’s to blame for it.”

“Yes, the devil.... Of course.... Formerly, when the people were serfs, _he_ had a lot of work: he wrestled with the monotonous life, we’ll say.... They all saw him.... And, just think, they struggled just the same.... Now it’s our weakness.... The people are all inclined to it.”

“Y-yes,” assented Andrey Ivanovich. “It’s much easier now for the impure.... He lives with us, by heavens. Lie, dear, on the stove.... We’ll come to see you and bring one another.... Only entertain us.”

The stranger heaved a deep sigh.

“That is the truth!” he said sadly. “I’ll tell you about myself,” he whispered, as if he did not wish his words to be heard by any one in the blackness along the road. “Do you know who ruined me? My own mother and my father superior!”

“Wh-what?” queried Andrey Ivanovich, also in a low tone.

“Yes!... I know it’s sinful to blame my dead mother,—may she rest in peace!” He took off his hat and crossed himself. “And yet I keep thinking: if she had had me taught a trade, I might have been a man like the others.... No, she wanted her child to have an easy life, the Lord forgive her....”

“Go on, go on!” urged Andrey Ivanovich.

“You know,” continued Ivan Ivanovich sadly, “in old times, as the books say, parents always objected and children went secretly to the monastic cell to devote themselves.... But my mother took me herself to the monastery; she wanted me to become a clerk.”

“Yes, yes!”

“And before that, I must tell you, they used to make them psalmists and so on, ... but they had changed by my time!”

“That’s the rank!”

“Yes!... And mother again! stay there in the monastery.... That’s an easy life. And the superior loves you.... That’s the truth: the father superior did love me and took me as a novice under his own charge. But if a man is doomed, fortune will become misfortune. I’ll tell you the truth: I fell because of an angel ... not because of the devil....”

“What are you telling us?” said Andrey Ivanovich in surprise.

“Just the truth.... Our superior was a wonderfully kind soul, not evil, and strict.... But he had a secret weakness; at times he’d drink. Quietly, nobly. He’d shut himself up and drink for three or four days. No more than that. Then he’d all at once stop it.... He was a strong man.... But once, in that condition, he got bored. And he called me and said: ‘Dear boy, mortify yourself. Vanya, obey me and do something you don’t want to. An innocent boy, stay with me, a hardened sinner.’ Well, I did it, and sat and listened how he talked with some one and wept over that weakness of his.... I wasn’t strong, and when I got tired I fell asleep. He said: ‘Vanya, take a drop to brace you up.’ And I drank a glass of brandy.... ‘But swear to me,’ he said, ‘that you’ll never drink a drop alone without me.’”

“So that’s it,” drawled Andrey Ivanovich meaningly.

“Of course I swore. And he gave me another glass.... And so it went. At first a little, then—— The father superior was a strong man. No matter how much he drank, he was still steady. But, you know, after three or four glasses, my feet went.... He remembered himself and forbade me solemnly. It was too late. I didn’t drink with him and I had the keys to the chest.... I began to take a nip secretly.... Another and a larger one.... A second time I couldn’t walk. He thought at first that it was from that first drunkenness, because of my weakness. Then he looked at me steadily and said: ‘Vanyushka, do you want a glass?’ I trembled all over from my longing for it. He guessed the truth. He took his staff, caught it in my hair, and reasoned with me.... He was strong and afraid of hurting me.... It did no good. Again and again.... He saw that his weakness was ruining me. He said to me: ‘Forgive me, Vanyushka, but you must pass through temptation or you’ll be ruined.... Go and wander.... When you meet sorrow you can be healed. I will pray for you. Come back in a year,’ he said, ‘on this same date. I will receive you like the prodigal son.’ He blessed me. Began to weep. Called the rufalny, that is, the monk who had charge of the habits, and ordered him to get me ready to wander.... He himself said the prayers for a brother who is going on a journey.... And forth I went, the servant of the Lord, on the twenty-ninth of August, the day of the Beheading of St. John Baptist, for a period of wandering....”

The narrator again stopped, drew his breath, and coughed. Andrey Ivanovich sympathetically stopped walking and the three of us stood in the dark road. Finally Ivan Ivanovich was rested and we started on again....

“So I traveled summer and winter. It was hard work and I had many sorrows. Yes! I went to various monasteries. Some places I didn’t get into the courtyard,—others I didn’t like. Our monastery was supported by the state and rich and I’d gotten accustomed to an easy life. And I couldn’t get into another state monastery, but they took me into one where all the monks lived together, that of St. Cyril of Novoye Ozero, and it was awful: we got little tea and not a bit of tobacco; the monks were all peasants.... A hard rule and a lot of work....”

“I bet you didn’t like that after your easy life,” said Andrey Ivanovich.

“To tell the truth, I wasn’t strong enough,” sighed Ivan Ivanovich humbly. “The burden was too great.... And sanctity looked unpleasant in that garb. There was no splendor.... A lot of people and no choir.... They did make an awful noise....”

“That’s sanctity!” said Andrey Ivanovich with conviction.

“No, let me tell you,” answered Ivan Ivanovich no less emphatically.... “You’re wrong.... That doesn’t determine the kind of monastery. A monk must be trained and have a head like a blade of grass ... and hold himself up.... That makes a fine monk and there’s mighty few of them. And the simple monk is smooth and clean with a velvety voice. Benefactors and women go wild over them. But a peasant, let me tell you, is no account even there....”

“All right.... What next?” said Andrey Ivanovich, a little surprised at the decided opinion of the expert.

“What next?” answered the wanderer sadly. “I wandered for a year. I fasted and wandered.... The worst was that my conscience bothered me; I didn’t know how to beg. I waited and waited for that year to end,—to go home, home, to my poor cell. I thought of the father superior as if he were my own father; I loved him so. Finally August twenty-ninth came. I went into the courtyard, you know, and somehow I felt badly. Our attendants came to the gate.... They knew me. ‘Wanderer Ivan, have you returned?’ ‘I have,’ was my reply. ‘Is my benefactor alive?’ ‘Too late,’ was the answer. ‘He was buried some time ago. He was deemed worthy; he went away with the collect of the Resurrection. He remembered you ... and wept.... He wanted to reward you.... We’ve got a new superior, ... a barbarian. Don’t let him see you?’ But,” he added, plaintively, “I can’t see Avtonomov.”