Sister Pelagia and the Black Monk

by Boris Akunin

  “Who do you mean by he?” Mitrofanii exclaimed angrily.

  “Basilisk himself! He must have set out after me, taking seven-league strides or moving through the air! Black and huge, looking over the tops of the trees with his great goggling eyes! I drove the horses on hard. The branches were lashing my face, the wind was whistling, but I kept driving them on. I wanted to warn you that he was already close!”

  The quick-witted Pelagia was the first to guess what was the matter. “He's talking about the statue, father. About Yermak Timofeich.”

  At this point I ought to explain that two years before, on the orders of the governor, Anton Antonovich von Haggenau, a majestic monument entitled Yermak Timofeich Bringing the Good News to the East had been erected on the high bank of the river. This monument, the largest in the entire region of the river, is now an object of great pride in our town, which has nothing else to boast of to its distinguished neighbors Nizhni Novgorod, Kazan, and Samara. Every locality needs to have its own reason to feel proud, after all. And now we have ours.

  There are some historians who believe that Yermak Timofeich began his famous Siberian campaign, to which the empire is indebted for the greater part of its vast landholdings, from our very own district. And the bronze giant was erected in order to commemorate this. This major commission was entrusted to a certain Zavolzhsk sculptor, perhaps not as gifted as some sculptors in the capital, but a true patriot of the region and a very good man in general, greatly loved by all Zavolzhians for his breadth of spirit and goodness of heart. The sculptor had given the conqueror of Siberia a helmet that looked rather like a klobuk, or monk's headgear, and it was this that had led poor Brother Antipa, who was not familiar with our latest innovations, into his superstitious error.

  But that was nothing! The previous autumn, when the captain of a tug pulling along a string of barges full of Astrakhan watermelons had sailed out from around a bend and seen the goggle-eyed idol standing on top of the steep bank, he had taken such a fright that he ran his entire flotilla aground on a shoal, and for several weeks afterward green-striped spheres could be seen bobbing up and down in the river, hurrying back downstream to their native parts. And that, note, was a river captain, so what was to be expected from a wretched monk?

  Having explained Antipa's mistake to him and more or less calmed him down, Mitrofanii sent the monk to the diocesan hotel to await a decision on his fate. It was clear that the fugitive could not be returned to the stern archimandrite of New Ararat and a place would have to be found for him in some other monastery.

  When the bishop and his spiritual daughter were left alone together, His Grace asked, “Well, what do you think of this gibberish?”

  “I believe him,” Pelagia replied without hesitation. “I looked in Brother Antipa's eyes and he's not lying. He described what he saw and didn't add anything.”

  His Grace knitted his brows, suppressing his feeling of annoyance. He said guardedly, “You said that deliberately to tease me. You don't believe in any ghosts—I know you too well for that.”

  But then he immediately realized that he had fallen into the trap set by his cunning assistant and wagged a finger at her in admonishment. “Ah, what you meant was that he himself believes in his own ravings. He thought he saw something, for which the scientific name is a hallucination, and he took it for something that really happened. Is that it?”

  “No, Father, that's not it,” the nun sighed. “He's a straightforward man and not foolish, or, as it said in the letter, ‘not inclined to vain dreaming.’ People like that don't have hallucinations—they don't have enough imagination. I think that someone really did appear to him and speak to him. And then, Antipa is not the only one who has seen this Black Monk; there are other eyewitnesses too.”

  Patience had never ranked high among the Primate's virtues, and to judge from the crimson color that flooded Mitrofanii's high forehead and cheeks, what little he had was now exhausted.

  “And have you forgotten about mutual suggestion, examples of which are so common in monasteries?” he exploded. “Do you remember when the devil started appearing to the sisters in the Mariinsky Convent? First to one, then to another, and then to all the rest? They described him in fine detail and repeated words that honest nuns could not possibly have learned anywhere. You were the one who suggested sending a neuropsychological doctor to the convent that time!”

  “That was quite different—ordinary female hysterics. But this time the testimony comes from experienced senior monks,” the nun objected. “There is unrest at New Ararat, and it will not end well. Rumors about the Black Monk have already reached Zavolzhsk. We ought to investigate.”

  “Investigate what? What? Or do you really believe in ghosts? For shame, Pelagia, it's all superstition! It's eight hundred years now since Saint Basilisk passed on, and he has no reason to go cruising over the waves around the island and frightening empty-headed monks!”

  Pelagia bowed humbly, as if acknowledging that the bishop had a perfect right to his wrath, but there was little humility in her voice, and even less in her words: “That is your limitation as a male speaking, Your Grace. In their judgments men rely too excessively on their sight and the other five senses.”

  “Four,” Mitrofanii corrected her.

  “No, Your Grace, five. Not everything that exists in the world can be detected by sight, hearing, touch, smell, and taste. There is another sense that has no name, which is given to us so that we might feel God's world not only with our bodies but with our souls. And it is strange that I, a plain nun weak in mind and spirit, am obliged to explain this to you. Have you not spoken of this sense numerous times in your sermons and in private conversations?”

  “I had in mind faith and the moral measure that is given to every man from God! But what you are expounding to me is some kind of fairy mirage!”

  “Then let it be a fairy mirage,” the nun said with a stubborn shake of her head. “Around and within our world there is another one, invisible, and perhaps even more than one. We women feel this more clearly than men, because we are not afraid to feel it. Surely, Your Grace, you would not deny that there are some places that cheer and illuminate the soul (God's churches are usually built there) and there are some that set it shuddering? There is no reason for it; you simply start walking more quickly and cross yourself. I always used to run past the Black Ravine, like that, with a chill shiver. And then what happened? That was the very spot where they found the cannon!”

  This argument adduced by Pelagia as if it were quite irrefutable requires an explanation. Two years before, a treasure trove had been found under the Black Ravine, located half a mile from Zavolzhsk: an old bronze mortar stuffed with gold coins and semiprecious stones— evidently it had lain in the ground since the times when Pugachev's “general” Chika Zarubin, later raised by the pretender to the rank of count, used to roam these parts. Plenty of blood and tears must have been spilled in collecting such a treasure. (Let us note, by the way, that this was the very money that had been used to erect on that very same spot the magnificent monument that had frightened Brother Antipa half to death.)

  But the argument about the cannon failed to convince His Grace. Mitrofanii merely flapped his hand dismissively: “Ah, your chill shiver was just imagination.”

  The prelate and his spiritual daughter carried on arguing like this for a long time, until they almost had a serious quarrel. And therefore we shall omit the end of the argument about superstition and move on straightaway to its practical conclusion, which did not emerge in the court archives room, but in the episcopal residence, during the drinking of tea to celebrate a happy event.

  THE TEA HAD been arranged for the following day in honor of the successful outcome of the court case. In addition to Pelagia, His Grace had invited another of his spiritual children, the assistant public prosecutor Matvei Bentsionovich Berdichevsky, who had also played a part in achieving the triumph of justice. A bottle of sweet Communion wine stood on the table beside the samovar, a
nd in addition there was a genuine abundance of sweet things: spice cakes, and candied fruit, and all sorts of jam, and the inevitable apple marshmallows of which the bishop was so exceedingly fond.

  They sat in the refectory, where copies of Mitrofanii's two favorite icons hung on the walls: the wonder-working Softening of Vicious Hearts and the little-known Judas Kissing Christ the Savior, both magnificently painted, with expensive silver settings. His Grace had not simply placed them here by chance, but for a purpose—to remind himself of the most important aspects of the Christian faith: forgiveness for all and the Lord's acceptance of any soul, even the most debased, because there are no souls that have absolutely no hope of salvation. Owing to his passionate character, the bishop was inclined to forget about these things, especially forgiveness for all: he acknowledged this sin in himself and strove to overcome it.

  They spoke for a while about the trial that had just finished, recalling all of its twists and turns, and then about the imminent addition to Berdichevsky's family—the father-to-be was concerned that the child would be the thirteenth, and the bishop laughed at the lawyer, claiming that neophyte converts like him always made the very worst obscurantists, and he rebuked Matvei Bentsionovich for his superstition, which was so shameful for an enlightened man.

  From the subject of superstition the conversation naturally turned to the Black Monk. It should be noted that the first to bring up the mysterious phenomenon was none other than the assistant public prosecutor, who, as we recall, had not been present at—and did not even know about—the explanation in the archive room.

  It turned out that the entire town was already talking about the way the monk from New Ararat had raced along the streets. Everyone also knew about Basilisk's appearance and the menacing omens. As he whipped his horses on, Brother Antipa had very nearly run over a cat belonging to an influential member of Zavolzhsk society, Olympiada Savelievna Shestago, but he had just carried on shouting all sorts of alarming things: “Flee, Orthodox believers!” “Basilisk is coming!” and so forth, as well as demanding to be told where he could find the bishop.

  It turned out that Sister Pelagia had been right the day before: after what had happened it was impossible not to take action. His Grace, having now cooled off after his annoyance of the previous day, no longer took issue with that, but there was disagreement among the three revelers concerning what measures should be taken.

  Mitrofanii ascribed all of his numerous successes in the field of arch-pastoral endeavor to the Lord, humbly acknowledging that he was only the visible instrument of a Power that acted invisibly, and when he spoke he was an absolute fatalist who loved to repeat: “If it is pleasing to God, then it is certain to happen, but if it is not pleasing to God, then I have no need of it.” But in practice he was guided more by the maxim “Trust in God, but commit no blunders yourself;” and it must be admitted that he rarely blundered and did not trouble the Lord excessively.

  It need hardly be said that the bishop was immediately fired with enthusiasm to go to New Ararat himself, in order to bring people to their senses and put an end to this business (he absolutely refused to allow the probability of anything genuinely mystical and saw the Basilisk phenomenon as either a case of mass insanity or a piece of chicanery perpetrated by someone or other).

  The cautious Matvei Bentsionovich tried to persuade the bishop not to go. He expressed the opinion that rumors were dangerous and hard to lay to rest. You couldn't stop everyone's mouth. Administrative intervention in such cases was about as effective as dousing a fire with kerosene—it only made the fire blaze even more fiercely. Berdichevsky's proposal was as follows: under no circumstances should His Grace go to the islands or give the slightest impression that anything out of the ordinary was happening there, but he should secretly send to New Ararat a sensible and tactful official, who would get to the bottom of everything, find the source of the rumors, and present an exhaustive report. It was clear that by a “sensible official” Matvei Bentsionovich meant himself, and he was demonstrating yet again his constant readiness to forget about all current business and even his family responsibilities, if only he could be of service to his spiritual mentor.

  As for Pelagia, while agreeing with Berdichevsky that an episcopal inspection would be inappropriate for the case, the nun could not see any point either in sending a lay person to the islands since, in the first place, he would not be able to understand the subtleties of monastery life and monkish psychology, and in the second place … But no, we had better quote this second argument verbatim, so that the polemicist's own conscience may bear its full weight.

  “In matters concerning incomprehensible phenomena that cause trepidation to the soul, men are too categorical,” Pelagia declared, clicking away rapidly with her knitting needles—after her third glass of tea she had taken out her knitting without asking the bishop's permission. “Men have no curiosity about anything that they regard as unimportant, but the unimportant often conceals the most essential. When something has to be built or, even better, demolished, then men have no equals. But if patience, understanding, and possibly even compassion are required, then it is best to entrust the business to a woman.”

  “But at the first sight of a ghost a woman will faint away or, even worse, have a fit of hysterics,” the bishop teased the nun. “And nothing useful will come of it.”

  Pelagia looked at the row of stitches that had gone awry and sighed, but she didn't unknit it—let it come out whatever way it would.

  “A woman will never faint or fall into hysterics if there's no man there,” she said. “All women's fainting, hysterics, and weepiness were invented by men. You want to think of us as weak and helpless, and so we adapt to suit you. The best thing for this business, Father, would be for you to give me your blessing to take two or three weeks’ leave. I could go to Canaan, pray at the local holy places, and at the same time see what kind of ghost it is they have floating over the water there. Sister Apollinaria and Sister Ambrosia could take care of my girls in the college for the time being. One can take gymnastics and the other literature, and everything would work out very well.”

  “It can't be done,” said His Grace, interrupting his spiritual daughter with evident satisfaction. “Or have you forgotten, Pelagia, that nuns are not allowed into Ararat?”

  That immediately shut the nun up.

  And it was true that under the strict rules of New Ararat nuns and female novices were forbidden to travel to the islands. It was an ancient ruling, three hundred years old, but it was still rigorously observed.

  It had not always been like that. In the old days there had been a nuns’ convent standing beside the monks’ monastery, but this propinquity had given rise to various temptations and indecent incidents, and therefore when the patriarch Nikon, concerned to restore the honor of the monastic estate, made the monastery rules stricter everywhere, the New Ararat Convent was abolished and nuns were forbidden to show their faces on the Blue Lake. The laity could come to pray, and many of them did, but the brides of Christ could not—there were other shrines for them.

  Pelagia seemed on the point of making some objection to Mitrofanii, but she glanced at Berdichevsky and said nothing. And so this discussion of the Black Monk begun by the most intelligent triumvirate in the province of Zavolzhie ran into a dead end.

  The difficulty was resolved, as usually happened in such cases, by His Grace Mitrofanii—and in his typical paradoxical manner. The bishop had an entire theory about the usefulness of paradoxes, which possess the property of overturning the excessively unwieldy constructions of human reason while at the same time revealing unexpected and sometimes shorter routes to the solutions of problematic tasks. The bishop simply loved to disconcert the person to whom he was talking with a surprising phrase or outlandish decision, after first assuming an air of great wisdom and intense concentration.

  And likewise now, when the arguments had been exhausted without leading to any conclusion and a depressed silence had set in, the bishop
wrinkled up his white forehead into three vertical folds, knitted his eyebrows together, and began counting off his sandalwood rosary beads with his remarkably white and well-tended fingers. (Mitrofanii paid emphatic attention to the care of his hands and hardly ever appeared outside without silk gloves. He explained this by saying that a cleric who touched the Eucharistic bread and wine should treat his hands with the greatest possible respect.)

  His Grace remained sitting like that for about a minute and then opened his blue eyes, which sparkled brightly, and said in a tone that brooked no contradiction, “Alyosha Lentochkin will go.”

  Matvei Bentsionovich and Pelagia simply gasped.

  It would have been hard, even with a special effort, to imagine a more paradoxical nominee for the secret investigation of a highly delicate internal church matter.

  Alexei Stepanovich Lentochkin was still young in years, with cheeks that were still plump and pink, and so behind his back many people called him by the affectionately familiar name of Alyosha—indeed, many even called him that to his face, and he did not take offense. He had appeared in our town only recently, but had immediately become one of the bishops circle of especial favorites.

  There were, however, perfectly understandable grounds for this, since Alexei Stepanovich was the son of an old comrade of the bishop, who, as we know, had served as a cavalry officer before he took monastic vows. This fellow officer of Mitrofanii's had died as a major in the last Turkish war, leaving a widow with two small children—a daughter and a son— and almost no means of support.

  The little boy Alyoshenka had grown up to be very bright, so that at the age of eleven he could easily perform integral calculus and by the age of twenty he promised to become an absolute genius in the area of natural science or mathematics.

  The Lentochkins did not live in Zavolzhsk, but in the large university town of K——, which also stood on the river, but farther downstream, so that when the time came for Alyosha to choose his place of higher study, he was not only accepted at the local university without payment of any fees, he was even given a personal grant, so that he could study and develop his talent to the glory of his native city. Without a grant he would not have been able to attend university, even without paying for it, because his family had no money at all.