The Little Devil and Other Stories

by Alexei Remizov

  “Your countryman came by three times,” Kolpakov said, “he’ll drop in later.”

  2

  Savva waited all day.

  Waiting is enticing, but hard: impatience can exhaust the most stubborn “wait.” Savva was impatient, waiting: he wanted to tell Viktor about his meeting with Bozhen: everything was just as he had predicted last night: “Savva, come back to us!”

  Savva should have dealt with his affairs in his free time—why hide it? His father’s business had long been abandoned, he had forgotten whom he owed and who owed him, and there were no notes in his trading book.

  A third letter from his mother came on New Year’s: his mother begged Savva to return to Ustyug; she didn’t know anything about his father, news did not travel fast from Persia, and she was alone.

  Savva did not plan to respond and there was no way he would go home: Persia was beyond the sea, but Ustyug, it was called Gleden for a reason, was on the edge of the world. His mother’s letters seemed as though they came from the other world.

  Late at night, not having seen Viktor, Savva went outside. He looked at the square: empty—a holiday. He went out of the town to the field.

  It was fresh and clear. The autumn promised a starry night, and at dawn it would cover the field with cold stardust. It grew hotter with every step, like noon on St. Ilya’s Day. Or fire—his soul was on fire!—warmed him up, urging on his legs.

  The stars came out.

  And Savva heard a familiar voice: it was Viktor.

  It was hard to recognize, there was nothing of the merchant’s son or the horse trader of the square: a silver star brighter than the ones in the sky melted on his pointy cap. He took Savva’s arm and they went into the night.

  Their path in the dark field was lit by stars, not the high falling ones, but the migratory stars.

  “I know how you waited for me. Love is judged by expectation. You love me. I want to respond with my love. Love is also judged by frankness. I will reveal my secret to you. Listen: I’ve never been in Ustyug and I am no relation to the Grudtsyns, I am the son of a great tsar, I am a tsarevich. Come, I will show you the power and the glory of my father.”

  “Then he’s a real tsarevich and not a pretender!” thought Savva.

  They were down into the ravine, walked along the bottom, then up a hill.

  “Behold,” said Viktor, “do you see?”

  And Savva saw—and what he saw amazed him: it would have been comprehensible in a dream, but on a starry night with his own eyes …

  Deep down, as if looking into an abyss, versts wide and endlessly to the edge was such an expanse and in the middle a city—glittering with gold and the poppy color of midsummer fire were walls, towers, bridges and aerial ladders and platforms.

  “Here’s the capital city of my father, a creation of his art. Let’s go, I will bring you to his hand.”

  Savva followed Viktor, his head spinning. It did not occur to him to ask himself: how could this be possible, the entire land belonged to the Moscow sovereign and where could this city come from—the capital of a powerful tsar?

  When they reached the city gates, they were met by silver and crimson belts, these were the young guards, with moonlike faces. They gave Viktor royal salutes and bowed to Savva.

  There was another honor guard in the courtyard, not silver but gold with red belts, and their faces were like a rosy moon.

  When they entered the royal apartments, the gold beading and braiding of the walls blinded him.

  “Savva,” Viktor said, “wait here, I’ll report. When the tsar calls you, give him your manuscript. My father is a great lover of fancy handwriting, yours will please him and you will be given great honor. You, ‘Willless’ (Savva) will feel such will in yourself that even the devil can’t be more.” And with that same arrogant laughter that Savva remembered, Viktor took the manuscript signed in blood out of his pocket and shoved it into Savva’s hand.

  The light from the glowing faces blinded his eyes.

  Once in childhood Savva dived too deep when he was swimming and he couldn’t swim up. It was the same here. When Viktor returned and took him by the hand, Savva felt that he was not walking but swimming after him underwater and now—now he would surface before the face of the powerful tsar—the Prince of Darkness.

  He sat on an emerald throne, in brilliant royal garb, the king of kings. Off to the side on smaller thrones resembling his were two-horned viziers. And around him a motley winged entourage: blue, scarlet, purple, copper green, and pitch black (“Many tongues serve my father,” Viktor later explained, “Persians, Indians, Chinese, Ethiopians”). Everything was bright and exaggeratedly enormous: the tsar’s face, as if from a monument, could not be measured by human measure, and even at a distance would be visible to all.

  Savva kneeled and bowed low to the ground. He heard a voice, sounding above him like a many-trumpeted four-hooved brass cry: that was the two-horned viziers repeating the tsar’s words after him:

  “Where did you come from and what do you want?”

  Here the underground little devils, faces like bats and feet like stable flies, crawled out and surrounded Savva, tickling under his arms and scratching, blowing in his ears.

  Savva rose quickly and put his bloody handwriting into the tsar’s hand, extended like a snake.

  “I, Savva Grudtsyn of Veliky Ustyug,” Savva hears his voice and does not recognize it, “an empty man from far away, I have come to serve you, your slave to death and after death.”

  The tsar brought Savva’s page close to his eyes and examined it attentively. The two-horned viziers stretched to see it: what an extraordinary curlicued line in a single sentence: “Savva Grudtsyn by his hand.”

  “I will take this youth,” the tsar said to the viziers, “he’s very clever, but will he be strong for me?”

  “Give him time,” Viktor insisted, “he’ll show himself. It wouldn’t hurt to strengthen him.”

  And the little devils of the air, with faces like floats and feet like dragonflies, clapping their mossy paws, circled around Savva. Savva dove and swam.

  “Where are we going?”

  “The tsar commanded you be given food and drink,” Viktor said. “Don’t be shy!”

  Savva was thrown to the surface and he was in a dining room. There were no underground or aerial devils with him.

  It was the tsar’s dining room and at the same time the tsar’s kitchen. They were cutting, chopping, gutting, and flaying. Blood flowed and feathers flew. The noise was unimaginable and the crowding impossible. Everything was mixed together: people, animals, birds, and devils.

  Black tail-less monkeys with roses pinned to their backs hopped and leaped on the cut, chopped, and quartered. Chefs and cooks worked at a flaming stove, whistling, whispering, and clanging, wearing red caps and white robes turned red from the fire. And like everyone, like the tail-less monkeys, there was a rose pinned on the back of their red garments, not red roses but yellow.

  Savva’s eyes, opening wide, saw blood.

  “Crayfish soup!” Viktor announced like a maître d’hôtel, “Grudtsyn, enjoy!”

  Savva, feeling as hungry as a wolf, started in on the bowl: in the yellow liquid floated red crayfish heads-and-chests, stuffed with the thick white meat of the larvae of dung beetles. Viktor kept refilling the bowl with even hotter soup. The bowl and Savva were steaming.

  The main course was a large mutton hind leg with rice and they piled the plate with fried potatoes. Savva ate three legs, the rice, and all the potatoes. He could have eaten more and more; he just couldn’t feel sated.

  He drank ceaselessly and indiscriminately, mixing white and red, unable to quench his thirst with kvass, or braga, or mead. Frenzy and greed fell upon him.

  “My father has many wines, but I’ve never drunk any like this, and everything is so light and delicious!”

  “You might say supernatural!” Viktor laughed.

  Savva reached for the pomegranate. It was a pomegranate of untold size,
like a man’s head. He poked it with a knife to remove the peel and a burst of raspberry red juice acidly hit his eyes. A drilling squeal stuck in his ears—he heard the whisper “Fool!” He saw green circles before his eyes, dizzying him.

  Savva shut his eyes tight. “If I could just drop!” And he did. And he sees the empty field around him.

  They walk through the field. Stars are above them, and in front, the impenetrable night.

  “Now you know everything,” Viktor says, “but call me brother, as before. I’m a tsarevich but I will be your younger brother: whatever you may want, I will do for you. Just be obedient to me in everything.”

  “I promise!” Savva said with a light heart, recalling last night and the predicted meeting with Stepanida.

  When they came into town, his younger brother the tsarevich vanished from Savva’s eyes. Savva called—no one answered.

  “And he never did give me his cross!” Savva put his hand in his pocket and pulled it out with a jerk. “What a sharp knife!”

  He was afraid of something, and in his eyes there was a burning mist, and he was merry.

  Savva confidently entered their bedroom.

  The hot votive light. Spellbinding silence.

  Bozhen slept. Was Stepanida asleep? She reacted and sat up at his steps. She looked at her sleeping husband in horror.

  Savva took out the knife and raised his arm: “Take that!”

  It was either the harsh gleam of the knife or the flashing threat, but Bozhen without waking rolled over to face the wall.

  “The last time. I’ve come to say goodbye,” said Savva and without hiding the knife, embraced her. “Give me your pearl for the last time!” He kissed her.

  She did not resist. Her lips trembled.

  Proudly he said:

  “Love is measured: by how you wait and by frankness. I waited and I will tell you a secret: I am the son of a great tsar, I am a tsarevich. And I love you royally.”

  He looked at her and could not take his eyes off her, with longing.

  “How will you be without me?” he asked, but in a different way, as if blaming himself for something and repenting.

  “The first one is hard,” she said, “and then …”

  She did not finish; she would finish there. He hardened, only his heart wept, and he stabbed her in the stomach.

  The feeling of the blow was so overwhelming, it was as if he had stabbed himself, and felt turned inside out. He saw himself, stuffing the bloody knife into his pocket and missing. Without thinking, he stuck it in his leg. And left.

  He walks, not feeling the pain, with no curiosity about what it was. In the doorway he hunched down, knowing the celling was low. Down the hallway to the window.

  A starry night.

  But when he jumped through the window and was on the street, the stars vanished. He thought someone else had followed him and jumped down. A blizzard howled fiercely around his head.

  “The blizzard,” he thought, “it’s the blizzard baptizing and whipping me!”

  He could not see the road, but he walked.

  Either he or someone else was walking across the field with a knife. “You stuck it in yourself, take it out!” he said. And he took it out. He stuck the knife in his pocket. “Her blood is mixed with mine!” He heard the familiar ghostly whisper. That wasn’t a blizzard, she was racing before him: her hot body pressed against his and she was kissing him with her entire mouth, burning him.

  Savva awoke to his name.

  “Why aren’t you paying any attention, like a wild horse. I’m calling, and he’s not interested. You’re covered with blood.”

  Savva suddenly felt a sharp pain in his leg.

  “Don’t worry, it’ll pass!” Viktor bent down.

  His hot touch sent warmth through him, and no pain.

  “There’s an alarm in town,” said Viktor. “You don’t know what happened at Bozhen’s: Stepanida was stabbed to death.”

  “Who did it?”

  “Robbers.”

  Savva merely stuck out his neck like a goose; he was clamped from behind by two fists and with such force, his spine would crack.

  “Why are we hanging out in this backwater?” Viktor asked insouciantly. “You can die of boredom here. Let’s go someplace else. We’ll travel, and if you want, we’ll return.”

  Savva was ready for anything.

  He sensed that everything had been removed from him and he was empty, stiff, without a will, and he didn’t want anything.

  “Wherever you want, I’m ready,” he said, “but what about money? Let’s go to the inn, I’ll get what I have left.”

  “Forget it,” Viktor interrupted. “You know the power of my father, his lands are everywhere, and wherever we may be, we will have money. Let’s go!”

  Viktor whistled. And he slapped Savva’s back hard, as if with a wing, so hard his heart skipped a beat.

  In an instant they were in Kozmodemyansk on the Volga, two thousand versts from Solikamsk Oryol.

  III

  1

  Overfed, stuck in a daydream morning till night, the city couldn’t be called a bustling place—Kozmodemyansk was a Volga wharf and a flower of propriety and an example of Domostroi.

  And into this fish-loving goodness, suddenly two young men came out of nowhere, not resembling anyone else, neither in speech nor dress, looking like tsareviches, and so rich! That rocked the boat. Nothing of the kind had been seen before, not even in the Time of Troubles.

  Truly, “the evil one appears if he wants.”

  Savva and Viktor on a spree—carousing without end, no restraint whatsoever. Gold coins flashing, wine flowing, nonstop singing.

  What temptation they held for bottled up but vital human feelings!

  Wherever and whenever the friends showed up, Klim Tsarevich and Prov Tsarevich, as they were called, people were drawn to them like flies to sugar paper, and the debauchery began. In the morning: some have crooked necks, some have black eyes, and others still can’t recognize their parents or have lost their tongue, mooing like a cow about to calve. The young men were an infectious example and were followed by the older ones, family men, who wanted to make up for lost years. And after the civilians came the clergy.

  Man can’t live by food and prayer alone; the simple truth is: “I want freedom!”

  The first to rebel were the monks, then the married priests:

  God’s churches were empty, no one showing up for services, old or young, they can’t be roused; the deacons croaked, and the choir bleated. Gubnoi was the elder: a day didn’t pass without complaints about mayhem and injuries. And the voyevoda threated Gubnoi: “When I get the miscreants, I’ll show them!” But threats don’t help: you can’t catch all the thieves and you can’t shut up a drunken mouth.

  Neither Viktor nor Savva could be accused of anything: nothing started without them, but they always came out of it clean: their hands weren’t sullied by brawling—they watched and laughed, Klim Tsarevich and Prov Tsarevich.

  The tavern was smoky and full of drunks.

  Viktor pitted two fools against each other—the fools went at it, while he stepped out, supposedly to see about a horse. One of the fools started bragging and showing off. Naturally, the other began arguing, words ensued, and then he punched him in the ear. Viktor came back, the fool was on the floor, maybe looking for something, seemingly having found it and calmed down, he made no sound, meaning he was a dead body. Everyone saw this and laughed: “Good job, Klim Tsarevich, royally done, one punch and he’s dead!”

  Viktor called Savva over for a few words “about a horse.” And they were out the door.

  “I’m tired of this,” Viktor said.

  “So am I.”

  No sooner had Savva uttered the words than he heard the familiar whistling. He shut his eyes: he was afraid.

  Viktor took Savva’s arm tightly and in an instant they were on the Oka River, far from Kozmodemyansk, on the Pavlov ferry landing.

  It was market day in the villag
e. Hungover, sleepy people wandered from cart to cart, from sideshow to tavern.

  At the loudest one, where people were drinking away their earnings and the intoxication encouraged them to stay and be deceived, Savva suddenly saw a man at the door, barefoot, bare-headed, with a walking stick, but he didn’t look like a beggar, and he wasn’t old but Savva’s age, except that he had been washed in many waters, he was white, transparent, and weeping.

  These were not the tears of hunger and poverty, they were light blue, from the heavenly purity of his eyes. Savva was drawn to him and he came over to the wanderer to ask: why was he weeping so bitterly?

  Viktor was off in a crowd of gypsies, playing at horse trader.

  “Brother Savva,” Savva heard a voice, “I am weeping, my tears are for your soul. Savva, the one you call brother, do you think he is a man? He’s leading you into the abyss. There is blood on you.”

  “Who are you?”

  “I am Semyon Farewell-to-Summer, do you remember? No, you don’t, you’ve forgotten everything. I am a holy fool in Christ and the Immaculate Virgin Mary.”

  He cuckooed, blue tears shining, and the cuckooing turned into a prayer for the dead:

  “Give rest to the soul of Thy departed servant, murdered Stepanida, in a place of brightness, a place of refreshment, a place of repose, where all the righteous lie in repose!”

  With the last dragged-out cuckooing word Savva sensed something happen in his empty heart, something suddenly opened and a clear spring welled up and drop by drop overflowed into a sob. Even though his soul was sold and his hands were bloodied, the painful sob illuminated and illustrated the ghostly emptiness of his heart, poisoned by love.

  Savva shuddered: through the heavenly blue something suddenly stabbed at him and the spring died down: Savva’s eyes met Viktor’s. Viktor was far away, but his eyes were burning and were right there in front of Savva—burning wrath burned in them.

  Savva quickly walked away.