What is your promised word worth? On the melted music of the smoldering song I see distorted faces and hear and distinguish their voices.
Fate’s messengers,
The one who gave love,
The one who condemned to suffering—separation,
The one with the flaming candle, fanning the exhausted soul with the flame.
“I lit his heart with love.
I broke his heart with separation.
I fanned his soul.
Three lots are given to man.
The first lot—for happiness—meeting
Love.
The second—unhappiness—separation.
The third—the gift of light.”
The flame of my candlelit heart will go below the dark earth.
The storm of my heart—an inextinguishable flame,
The light of my love penetrates the dawn.
III
There had never been so many people at St. Dimitri of Solun—the great prince’s wedding would be remembered a long time.
Before the icons the kiss of love, a wedding memory, strengthened the bond into a single body and mind. The newlyweds left the church, ornamenting the sunlit day with the radiance of love throughout the world before sky and sun.
The falcon sat on the cupola by the cross, unresponsive to others, and came when Yaroslav called, settling on the prince’s right hand, regarding the couple with anxious eye.
They feasted for a day and night in Edemonovo. The glorifying songs were heard without stop until dawn.
In the morning Yaroslav remembered his favorite page and felt guilt.
Irreversibly. He wanted to explain how it happened, tell him his fateful dream and persuade him: to forgive him if he could. So he ordered Grigory brought to him.
They could not find him.
Yaroslav thought, what if he killed himself? He ordered them to look along the shore and in the wells.
They searched—he was nowhere to be found.
They found Grigory’s clothes at a peasant’s house. The peasant confessed: the prince’s page traded his expensive garb for peasant rags and asked him to tell no one.
“I’m going off to the desert,” he said, “I won’t need it there.”
It was pitiful to see a man so despairing of life.
Yaroslav ordered that the entire region be searched. Wherever they looked, they got into the deepest part of the woods, he was nowhere, the man had vanished.
Yaroslav spent three days in Edemonovo. His “heavenly bliss” would have been complete if not for the thought of Grigory that saddened him; he kept thinking of his favorite page, blaming himself for his death. And he was also worried by the thought: how would they treat his choice in Tver—the great princess a sacristan’s daughter.
He told Ksenia about his dream.
She understood everything.
“Everything was as it had to be,” she said and sorrow covered her words; either she remembered Grigory, her only love, or accepting contrary destiny is not easy.
“Take me with you,” she said, “do not fear.”
IV
He sent Ksenia on the boat to Tver with the wedding retinue that had accompanied Grigory, while he traveled along the shore with his hunters.
Enjoying the hunt, he arrived in Tver before Ksenia and ordered the boyars to come out to welcome the great princess.
Yaroslav’s choice was accepted unanimously, with no hostility, the whole city gathered at the Church of St. Michael the Archangel to meet the great princess, a sacristan’s daughter. They loved Ksenia and there was great rejoicing in the city for many days.
Life flowed on under great prince Yaroslav Yaroslavovich and great princess Ksenia Afanasyevna.
V
Grigory went down roads without a path after leaving Edemonovo.
Yaroslav—he could understand, after all he himself had fallen in love with Ksenia at first glance; but what prompted Ksenia, who loved him, to suddenly stop? And why such bitter sadness in her farewell look?
When Grigory had decided to marry and told Ksenia and her father, the sacristan Afanasy, that he would live with them in the village of Edemonovo, it meant his departure from a life that promised him first place and respect among the great prince’s army.
And now when he was chased away, in despair he decided to leave the life of people, where nothing was certain and the very vow of love meant nothing.
Accepting your lot and submitting to it, living out the pain is hurtful and heavy to the heart.
Grigory settled in the woods; he would not get along with people, and the animals did not touch him. His pain rose above the earth and expressed itself there—as prayer.
“To whom and about what can a man pray who has been treated thus by fate: given everything to have it taken away roughly?
“In the world there is only one haven for a man in misfortune—mother.”
Grigory, cast out of life, crushed, prayed to the Mother of God, asking Her to set him on the path—for he was destitute in every way.
And so he lived in loss.
VI
He prayed for the secret of his cruel lot to be revealed.
His prayer to the Mother of God was a persistent and inexorable howl.
The ringing of the forest and the roar of the beasts repeated the words of his pierced heart.
Once people wandered into the forest and saw a hut among the trees. A cross on the hut. Whose was that? They were curious. And they came upon Grigory: where was he from, how was he, and how did he settle on their land?
Grigory only bowed, said nothing, and so they left him, learning nothing.
Grigory was afraid, it was dangerous to stay there: now they would find him—curiosity draws people.
So he abandoned his hut and went wherever the road would take him.
And the road led him to the mouth of the Tvertsa River. Familiar places, Tver was not far.
He went back. He did not remember how he reached his abandoned hut.
He realized that there was no point in going far, but he could not remain here. He decided to move his hut to the depths of the pine forest. So he did. It was safe in the pine forest.
That night in the new place he rested, confident, with his only prayer that the secret of his cruel lot be revealed to him, and fell asleep.
A clear meadow in his eyes—not the forest, but a clear meadow—clear, pierced by light. And the light vacillated and had sound:
Every creature feels joy for You, Pleased One, glory to You.
Revelation came upon awakening: on this spot will be the house of the Holy Mother of God—the monastery of the Birth of the Mother of God.
The next night he saw the Mother of God in his dream.
He saw her from afar on the edge, and she came closer. He recognized her: she was not the Vladimir or the Bogolubovo Mother of God; she was in Ksenia’s simple peasant dress, with a staff and a bundle in her hands—a pilgrim.
She looked at him with sorrow.
“Put a church and monastery here,” she said. The Birth of the Mother of God, he thought.
“In honor of the Dormition,” she said. “Yaroslav will help you, turn to him.”
At the mention of Yaroslav, Grigory shuddered and woke up; the forest was rustling and a golden ray of sunshine came through the trees.
VII
Waking up was horrible. He wanted to hide in a more secret place—he could not go ask the great prince for help. But over the course of the day he changed his mind—running away would mean disobeying the Mother of God.
That day servants of the great prince came into the forest on business. They recognized Grigory immediately and rejoiced: what news they would bring Yaroslav—three years without a word and suddenly found; Yaroslav would rejoice, all that time never forgetting his favorite page, he had blamed himself for his death. So they went straight to the court of the great prince.
Yaroslav recognized Grigory and joy illuminated him.
Grigory bow
ed: forgive me, I distressed you.
He told of his sad life—three years. And the vision of the Mother of God and the words of the Mother of God.
“Forgive me, I distressed you,” he repeated and bowed to the ground.
“Our life was sorrowful,” Yaroslav said. “Three years. Now you have removed my sorrow.”
He asked Grigory to return to the court, but Grigory refused.
And when Yaroslav wanted to feed him, he did not touch the foods but asked for bread.
Yaroslav promised to clear the place Grigory would indicate and build a church and monastery in the name of the Dormition.
And he did it all.
The brethren gathered, and among the monks was Grigory, with the name Gurii.
The great prince of Tver and the great princess Ksenia were present at the consecration of the church.
VIII
The monk Gurii did not live at the monastery for long: having fulfilled what he had been assigned to do, he left this life, to work off his earthly lot.
Yaroslav has a son—they called him Mikhail—and among the Russian princes under the Tatar Yoke, Mikhail of Tver was a powerful name (with the proud dream of uniting the Russian land).
Soon after his favorite page, Yaroslav died.
Yaroslav died on the way back from the Horde, before his death he was tonsured as a monk with the name Afanasy.
Until Mikhail grew up, Ksenia ruled the Tver principality: she instilled the proud dream in her son to unite the Russian land and throw off the Tatar Yoke. In the last years of her life Ksenia went to a convent (Sofia) and became a nun, taking the name Maria.
Until her death she took care of page Grigory’s monastery. She attended services often and decorated the first grave—of her only love.
Even separated love does not die, I see—it will lead to a meeting by sorrowful paths—the chains of fate fall apart. Grigory will meet Ksenia and they will recognize each other.
The shadow of damnation fell on Yaroslav’s family.
The fate of their son Mikhail of Tver was a bitter lot: he was crushed by Moscow and finished off by the Tatars.
At the Horde they tied him up, nailed him into a block, shackled him, threw him full force into a wall: the wall broke. They attacked him and struck him with whatever was at hand, beat his head against the ground, trampled him ruthlessly with their feet—and the killer Romanets grabbed a knife and stabbed him in the chest and cut out his heart.
RUSSIAN LIBRARY
Between Dog and Wolf by Sasha Sokolov, translated by Alexander Boguslawski
Strolls with Pushkin by Andrei Sinyavsky, translated by Catharine Theimer Nepomnyashchy and Slava I. Yastremski
Fourteen Little Red Huts and Other Plays by Andrei Platonov, translated by Robert Chandler, Jesse Irwin, and Susan Larsen
Rapture: A Novel by Iliazd, translated by Thomas J. Kitson
City Folk and Country Folk by Sofia Khvoshchinskaya, translated by Nora Seligman Favorov
Writings from the Golden Age of Russian Poetry by Konstantin Batyushkov, presented and translated by Peter France
Found Life: Poems, Stories, Comics, a Play, and an Interview by Linor Goralik, edited by Ainsley Morse, Maria Vassileva, and Maya Vinokur
Sisters of the Cross by Alexei Remizov, translated by Roger John Keys and Brian Murphy
Sentimental Tales by Mikhail Zoshchenko, translated by Boris Dralyuk
Redemption by Friedrich Gorenstein, translated by Andrew Bromfield
The Man Who Couldn’t Die: The Tale of an Authentic Human Being by Olga Slavnikova, translated by Marian Schwartz
Necropolis by Vladislav Khodasevich, translated by Sarah Vitali
Nikolai Nikolaevich and Camouflage: Two Novellas by Yuz Aleshkovsky, translated by Duffield White, edited by Susanne Fusso
New Russian Drama: An Anthology, edited by Maksim Hanukai and Susanna Weygandt
A Double Life by Karolina Pavlova, translated and with an introduction by Barbara Heldt
Klotsvog by Margarita Khemlin, translated by Lisa Hayden
Fandango and Other Stories by Alexander Grin, translated by Bryan Karetnyk
Woe from Wit: A Verse Comedy in Four Acts by Alexander Griboedov, translated by Betsy Hulick
The Nose and Other Stories by Nicolai Gogol, translated by Susanne Fusso
Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow by Alexander Radishchev, translated by Andrew Kahn and Irina Reyfman
The Little Devil and Other Stories Page 26