The Enchanted Wanderer and Other Stories

by Nikolai Leskov

  “Wait, uncle,” I said, “let me figure out where we are.”

  “You mean you don’t know the landmarks of your own town?”

  “No, I know them. The first landmarks for us are the two cathedrals, the one new and big, the other old and small, and we have to go between them and turn right, but in this snow I don’t see either the big one or the small one.”

  “How about that! They may really take our fur coats or even strip us naked, and we won’t know where to run. We could catch our death of cold.”

  “Maybe, God willing, they won’t strip us naked.”

  “Do you know those merchants who came out from under the beds?”

  “Yes.”

  “Both of them?”

  “Both of them. One is named Efrosin Ivanovich, and the other Agafon Petrovich.”

  “And what—are they real true merchants?”

  “They are.”

  “I didn’t like the mug on one of them at all.”

  “What about it?”

  “Some sort of Jesovitic expression.”

  “That’s Efrosin: he frightened me once, too.”

  “How?”

  “In my imagination. Once I was walking past their shops in the evening after the vigil, and I stopped across from St. Nicholas to pray that God would let me pass, because they have vicious dogs in the market; and this merchant Efrosin Ivanych had a nightingale whistling in his shop, and the light of an icon lamp was coming through a crack in the fence … I put my eye to the crack and saw him standing knife in hand over a bullock. The bullock at his feet has its throat cut and is kicking its bound feet and tossing its head; the head is dangling from the cut throat and blood is gushing out; and there’s another calf in the dark corner awaiting the knife, maybe mooing, maybe trembling, and over the fresh blood the nightingale in its cage is whistling furiously, and far across the Oka a thunderstorm is rumbling. Fear came over me. I was frightened and cried out: ‘Efrosin Ivanych!’ I wanted to ask him to accompany me to the pontoon bridge, but he suddenly gave such a start … I ran away. And I’ve only just remembered it.”

  “Why are you telling me such a frightening thing now?”

  “And what of it? Are you afraid?”

  “No, I’m not, but better not talk about frightening things.”

  “But it ended well. The next day I told him: thus and so—I got scared of you. And he says: ‘And you scared me, because I was standing there listening to the nightingale, and you suddenly cried out.’ I say: ‘How is it you listen so feelingly?’ ‘I can’t help it,’ he says, ‘my heart often swoons in me.’ ”

  “Are you strong, or not?” my uncle suddenly interrupted.

  “I wouldn’t boast of any special strength,” I said, “but if I put three or four old coppers in my fist, I can send any prigger you like to an early grave.”

  “That’s fine,” he says, “if he’s alone.”

  “Who?”

  “The prigger, that’s who! But if there’s two of them, or a whole company? …”

  “Never mind: if there’s two, we’ll manage—you can help. And priggers don’t go around in big companies.”

  “Well, don’t rely much on me: I’ve grown old, my lad. Formerly, it’s true, I gave such beatings for the glory of God that they were known all over Elets and Livny …”

  Before he finished saying it, we suddenly thought we heard somebody coming behind us and even hastening his steps.

  “Excuse me,” I said, “but it seems to me somebody’s coming.”

  “Ah, yes! I also hear somebody coming,” my uncle replied.

  X

  I kept silent. My uncle whispered to me:

  “Let’s stop and let him go past us.”

  And this was just on the slope of the hill where you go down to the Balashevsky Bridge in summer, and across the ice between the barges in winter.

  It was a godforsaken place from old times. There were few houses on the hill, and those were closed up, and below, to the right, on the Orlik, there were seedy bathhouses and an empty mill, and up from there a sheer cliff like a wall, and to the right a garden where thieves always hid. The police chief Tsyganok had built a sentry box there, and folk started saying that the sentry helped the thieves … I thought to myself, whoever’s coming—prigger or not—in fact it’s better to let him go past.

  My uncle and I stopped … And what do you think: the man who was walking behind us must also have stopped—his footsteps were no longer heard.

  “Maybe we were mistaken,” said my uncle. “Maybe there wasn’t anybody.”

  “No,” I replied, “I clearly heard footsteps, and very close.”

  We stood there a little longer—nothing to be heard; but as soon as we went on—we heard him hurrying after us again … We could even hear him hustling and breathing hard.

  We slackened our pace and went more quietly—and he also went more quietly; we speeded up again—and he again came on more quickly and was nearly stepping in our tracks.

  There was nothing more to talk about: we clearly understood that this was a prigger following us, and he’d been following us like that all the way from the inn; which meant that he was lying in wait for us, and when I lost my way in the snow between the big cathedral and the small—he caught sight of us. Which meant that now there was no avoiding some run-in. He couldn’t be alone.

  And the snow, as if on purpose, poured down still more heavily; you walk as if you’re stirring a pot of curds: it’s white, and wet, and sticks to you all over.

  And now the Oka is ahead of us, we have to go down on the ice; but on the ice there are empty barges, and in order to reach home on the other side, we have to make our way through the narrow passages between these barges. And the prigger who is following us surely has some fellow thieves hidden there somewhere. It would be handiest for them to rob us on the ice between the barges—and kill us and shove us underwater. Their den was there, and in the daytime you could always see them around it. They fixed up their lairs with mats of hemp stalks and straw, on which they lay smoking and waiting. And special pot-house wives hung out with them there. Rascally wenches. They’d show themselves, lure a man and lead him away, and he’d get robbed, and they’d be there on the lookout again.

  Most of all they attacked those returning from the vigil in the men’s monastery, because people liked the singing, and back then there was the astounding bass, Strukov, of terrifying appearance: all swarthy, three tufts of hair on his head, and a lower lip that opened like the folding front flap of a phaeton. While he bellowed, it stayed open, and then it slammed shut. Anybody who wanted to return home safely from the vigil invited the clerks Ryabykin or Korsunsky to go with him. They were both very strong, and the priggers were afraid of them. Especially of Ryabykin, who was wall-eyed and was put on trial when the clerk Solomka was killed in the Shchekatikhino grove during the May fête …

  I’m telling all this to my uncle so that he won’t think about himself, but he interrupts:

  “Stop it, you’ll really be the death of me. It’s all about killing. Let’s rest at least, before we go down on the ice. Here, I’ve still got three coppers on me. Take them and put them in your glove.”

  “Do please give them to me—I’ve got room in my mitten, I can take three more coppers.”

  And I was just going to take these three coppers from him, when somebody emerged from the darkness right next to us and said:

  “So, my good fellows, who have you robbed?”

  I thought: that’s it—a prigger, but I could tell by the voice that it was that butcher I told you about.

  “Is that you, Efrosin Ivanych?” I say. “Come along with us, brother.”

  But he hurries by, as if blending with the snow, and answers on his way:

  “No, brothers, we’re no birds of a feather: divide up your own booty, but don’t touch Efrosin. Efrosin’s just been listening to voices, his heart’s swooning in his breast … One flick—and there’ll be no life left in you.”

&nb
sp; “Impossible to stop him,” I say. “You see, he’s mistaken on our score: he takes us for thieves.”

  My uncle replies:

  “God keep him and his bird feathers. With him, too, you don’t know if you’ll be left alive. We’d better take what God grants and go with God’s help alone. If God doesn’t desert you, pigs won’t hurt you. Now that he’s gone, I feel brave.… Lord have mercy! Nicholas, protector of Mtsensk, Mitrophany of Voronezh, Tikhon and Josaf … Scat! What is it?”

  “What?”

  “Didn’t you see?”

  “What can anybody see here?”

  “Something like a cat under our feet.”

  “You imagined it.”

  “Just like a watermelon rolling.”

  “Maybe somebody’s hat got torn off.”

  “Aie!”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “It’s the hat.”

  “What about it?”

  “Why, you yourself said ‘torn off’ … They must be trouncing somebody up there on the hill.”

  “No, it must be the wind tore it off.”

  And with those words we both started going down towards the barges on the ice.

  The barges, I repeat, were simply standing there then, without any order, one beside the other, just as they had put in. They were piled terribly close together, with only the narrowest little passageways between them, where you could barely get through and had to keep twisting and turning this way and that.

  “Well, uncle,” I say, “I don’t want to conceal it from you: here lies the greatest danger.”

  My uncle froze—he even stopped praying to the saints.

  “Now, uncle,” I say, “you go on ahead.”

  “Why ahead?” he whispers.

  “It’s safer ahead.”

  “Why safer?”

  “Because, if a prigger attacks you, you can immediately fall back towards me, and then I’ll support you, and give him one. But behind I won’t see you: the prigger may cover your mouth with his hand or some slippery bast—and I won’t hear … I’ll keep walking.”

  “No, don’t keep walking … And what sort of bast is it?”

  “Slippery. Their women pick it up around the bathhouses and bring it to them for stopping people’s mouths so they can’t shout.”

  I could see that my uncle kept talking like this because he was afraid to go ahead.

  “I’m apprehensive about going ahead,” he says, “because he may hit me on the forehead with a weight, and then you won’t have time to defend me.”

  “Well, but behind is still more frightening, because he may swat you on the head with a svaika.”

  “What svaika?”

  “Why do you ask? Don’t you know what a svaika is?”

  “No, I do know: a svaika’s used in a game—made of iron, sharp.”

  “Yes, sharp.”

  “With a round head?”

  “Yes, a three- or four-pound ball-shaped head.”

  “Back home in Elets they carry bludgeons for that; but this is the first I hear about a svaika.”

  “Here in Orel it’s the most favorite fashion—on the head with a svaika. The skull splits right open.”

  “Better, though, if we walk arm in arm beside each other.”

  “It’s too narrow for two between the barges.”

  “Still … this svaika, really! … Better if we squeeze together somehow.”

  XI

  But as soon as we locked elbows and started squeezing through those passageways between the barges—we hear that one from behind us, again not hanging back, again pressing close on our heels.

  “Tell me, please,” says my uncle, “maybe the other one wasn’t the butcher?”

  I just shrugged my shoulders and listened.

  A scraping could be heard as he squeezed through sideways, and he was just about to seize me from behind with his hand … And another one could be heard running down the hill … Well, it was obvious these were priggers—we had to get away. We tore ahead, but it was impossible to go quickly, because it was dark, and narrow, and ice stuck up everywhere, and this nearest prigger was already right on my back … breathing.

  I say to my uncle:

  “Anyhow there’s no avoiding it—let’s turn around.”

  I thought, either let him go on past us, or better if I meet him in the face with my fist full of coppers than have him strike from behind. But as soon as we turned to face him, the good-for-nothing bent down and shot between us like a cat! …

  My uncle and I both went sprawling.

  My uncle shouts to me:

  “Catch him, catch him, Mishutka! He snatched my beaver hat!”

  And I can’t see a thing, but I remember about my watch and clutch myself where it should be. And just imagine, my watch is gone … The beast snatched it!

  “Same for me,” I answer. “He took my watch!”

  And, forgetting myself, I went hurtling after the prigger as fast as I could, and was lucky enough to catch him in the dark just behind a barge, hit him on the head as hard as I could with my coppers, knocked him down, and sat on him:

  “Give me back the watch!”

  He didn’t say a word in reply, the scoundrel, but he nipped my hand with his teeth.

  “Ah, you dog!” I say. “See how he bites!” And I gave him a good belt in the jaw, then stopped his mouth with the cuff of my sleeve, and with the other hand went straight for his breast pocket, found the watch at once, and yanked it out.

  Just then my uncle ran up:

  “Hold him, hold him,” he says, “I’ll give him a drubbing …”

  And we started drubbing him Elets-fashion and Orel-fashion. We pummeled him cruelly, so much so that when he tore away from us, he didn’t even cry out, but dashed off like a hare; and only when he had fled as far as the Plautin Well did he shout “Help”; and at once somebody on the other side, on the hill, also shouted “Help.”

  “What brigands!” says my uncle. “They rob people, and then shout ‘Help’ themselves on both sides! … Did you take your watch back from him?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why didn’t you take back my hat as well?”

  “Your hat,” I reply, “went clean out of my head.”

  “And I’m cold now. I’ve got a bald spot.”

  “Put on my hat.”

  “I don’t want yours. My hat cost fifty roubles at Faleev’s.”

  “Never mind,” I say, “nobody can see it now.”

  “What about you?”

  “I’ll simply go bareheaded like this. We’re already close—we’ll turn that corner in a moment, and it’ll be our house.”

  My hat, however, was too small for my uncle. He took a handkerchief from his pocket and tied it over his head.

  And so we came running home.

  XII

  Mama and my aunt had not gone to bed yet: they were both knitting stockings and waiting for us. When they saw my uncle come in all covered with snow and his head tied with a handkerchief like a woman’s, they both gasped at once and began talking.

  “Lord! What’s the matter! … Where’s the winter hat you were wearing?”

  “Farewell, good old winter hat! … It’s no more,” my uncle replied.

  “Our Lady, most holy Mother of God! Where did it go?”

  “Your Orelian priggers took it on the ice.”

  “So that’s why we heard you cry ‘Help.’ I said to my sister, ‘Let’s send our fullers—I think I hear Misha’s innocent voice.’ ”

  “Oh, yes! By the time your fullers woke up and came out, there wouldn’t even have been a name left to us … No, it wasn’t us crying ‘Help,’ it was the thieves; and we defended ourselves.”

  Mama and my aunt boiled up.

  “What? Can Misha have shown his strength?”

  “Yes, our Misha played the main part—he may have let my hat slip, but he did take back his watch.”

  I can see mama is glad that I’ve done so well, but she says:

  “Ah
, Misha, Misha! And I begged you so not to drink anything and not to stay out late, till the thieves’ time. Why didn’t you listen to me?”

  “Forgive me, mama,” I say, “but I didn’t drink anything, and I didn’t dare leave uncle there alone. You can see for yourself, if he’d come home alone, he might have gotten into some big trouble.”

  “He’s had his hat taken as it is.”

  “Well, so what! … You can always get yourself a hat.”

  “Of course—thank God you took back your watch.”

  “Yes, mama, I took it. And, oh, how I took it! I knocked him down in a trice, stopped his mouth with my sleeve so that he wouldn’t cry out, put my other hand into his breast pocket and pulled out my watch, and then uncle and I started pummeling him.”

  “Well, that was pointless.”

  “Not at all! Let the rascal remember it.”

  “The watch wasn’t damaged?”

  “No, I don’t think so—only the chain seems to be broken …”

  And with those words I took the watch from my pocket and examined the chain, but my aunt looks closely and asks:

  “Whose watch might that be?”

  “What do you mean, whose? It’s mine, of course.”

  “But yours had a rim.”

  “Well, so?”

  And I look myself and suddenly see: in fact, this watch doesn’t have a gold rim, but instead of that it has a silver face with a shepherd and shepherdess on it, and little sheep at their feet …

  I started shaking all over.

  “What is this??! It’s not my watch!”

  And they all just stood there, not comprehending.

  My aunt says:

  “How about that!”

  My uncle reassures us:

  “Wait,” he says, “don’t be frightened. The thief must have made off with Mishutka’s watch, and this one he took earlier from somebody else.”

  But I flung the filched watch on the table and, so as not to see it, rushed to my room. And there I hear my watch on the wall above my bed ticking away: tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock.

  I jump up to it with a candle and see—that’s it, my watch with the rim … Hanging there quite nicely, where it belongs!