The Enchanted Wanderer and Other Stories

by Nikolai Leskov

  At home I endured it all, but I also couldn’t show my face outside, because as soon as they saw me, the market folk started teasing me:

  “He’s the one who took the deacon’s watch.”

  No living at home, no going out.

  Only the orphan girl Mavrutka smiled at me.

  But the matchmaker Matryona Terentyevna saved me and helped me out. She was a simple woman, but a kindly one.

  “My fine lad,” she says, “would you like to have your head put back on your shoulders? I’ll do it so that, if anybody laughs at you, you won’t feel it.”

  I say:

  “Please do, I’m disgusted with life.”

  “Well, then,” she says, “listen to me alone. You and I will go to Mtsensk, pray zealously to St. Nicholas, and offer him a candle big as a post; and I’ll marry you to a picture of beauty, whom you’ll live with all your life, thanking God and remembering me, and protecting poor orphans, because I have a soft spot for orphans.”

  I replied that I myself felt pity for orphans, but that no decent sort of girl would marry me now.

  “Why not? That’s all nonsense. This girl’s intelligent. You didn’t take from your own household, you brought to it. That makes a difference. I’ll tell her how to understand it, and she’ll see it clearly, and she’ll marry you all right. And we’ll travel so nicely to St. Nicholas with full satisfaction: the horse will pull a little cart with our load, with a samovar, with provisions, and we three will go by foot along the roadside, we’ll take that trouble for the saint’s sake: you, and me, and her, and I’ll take an orphan girl to keep me company. And she, my swan, Alyonushka, also pities orphans. They’ll let her go to Mtsensk with me. And you and she will walk and walk, then sit down, and sit and sit, and then take to the road again and get to talking, and the talking will lead to loving, and once you’ve tasted love, you’ll see that in it is all our life and joy, and our desire is to live in family quietude. And then you’ll just spit on all people’s talk, and not even look their way. So all will be well, and your former pranks will be forgotten.”

  I obtained mama’s leave to go to St. Nicholas and heal my soul, and the rest all went as the matchmaker Matryona Terentyevna had said. I became friends with the girl Alyonushka, and I forgot about all those happenings; and once I married her and a children’s spirit came to our house, mama also calmed down, and to this day I live and keep saying: Blessed art thou, O Lord!

  * Podlyot, in old Orel speech, was the same as the Moscow word zhulik or the Petersburg word mazurik (“rogue, swindler, cheat”). Author. (We translate it by the old thieves’ word “prigger.” Trans.)

  Notes

  Biblical quotations, unless otherwise noted, are from the King James Version.

  The Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk (1865)

  1. the lives of the Kievan saints: A collection of writings about monks from the Monastery of the Caves in Kiev (founded in 1015) and the history of the monastery, based on letters exchanged in the early thirteenth century by Simon, bishop of Suzdal, and the monk Polycarp.

  2. include him in the communion: That is, write his name down on a list of those to be prayed for by the priest during the preparation of the bread and wine for communion.

  3. the feast of the Entrance: The full title is “The Feast of the Entrance of the Mother of God into the Temple,” commemorating Mary’s first entrance as a child into the temple of Jerusalem, where she was met by the high priest Zacharias. It is celebrated on November 21.

  4. St. Feodor Stratilatos: Theodore Stratilatos, or Stratelates (“the General”), military commander of the city of Heraclea Pontica, a fourth-century Greek martyr, executed by the Roman emperor Licinius for declaring himself a Christian and refusing to take part in a pagan celebration.

  5. the social-democratic communes of Petersburg: The first experiments by Russian nihilists in alternative social organization. In the early 1860s, the nihilists took Leskov for their ideological opponent and vilified him in their writings—hence the sarcasm here.

  6. an Old Believer: In 1656–58, Nikon, patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church, introduced certain reforms to bring the Church into conformity with current Greek Orthodox practice, and also made corrections in the translation of liturgical texts. These changes were rejected by some, who held to the old ways and thus became known as Old Believers (also Raskolniki, “Schismatics”). In 1666, the Old Believers were anathematized by the Church and deprived of civil rights. Some renounced having priests and sacraments (apart from baptism), as a consequence of their break with the apostolic church; others ordained their own priests and maintained the sacraments; still others even practiced the “rebaptism” of those who joined them. Leskov was especially interested in the Old Believers, who figure prominently in a number of his stories.

  7. Curse the day … die: Job’s wife actually says, “… curse God, and die” (Job 2:9). In Job 3:3, Job himself curses the day he was born.

  8. A blond head … none can see: Lines from the poem “The Call” (1844), by the Russian poet and prose writer Yakov Polonsky (1819–98).

  The Sealed Angel (1873)

  1. the eve of St. Basil’s: The feast day of St. Basil the Great of Caesarea in Cappadocia (ca. AD 330–379) falls on January 1.

  2. on the stove: The Russian peasant stove was a large and elaborate structure that served not only for heating and cooking, but also for sleeping and even for bathing, as will be seen later.

  3. the old Russian faith: See note 6 to “Lady Macbeth.” “The Sealed Angel” deals in particular with the maintaining of the tradition of icon painting among the Old Believers. Icon painting was beginning to be revived in Leskov’s time and interested him deeply. He claimed to have written “The Sealed Angel” while sitting in the studio of an icon painter in an Old Believers’ quarter in Petersburg.

  4. granary: In the Old and New Testaments, granaries symbolize wealth in general (see, for instance, Luke 12:16–20, the parable of the rich man).

  5. Novgorod or Stroganov icon painters: After the Mongol invasion of Russia in the thirteenth century and the fall of the capital Kiev, the center of Russian artistic culture shifted to the city of Novgorod, where the art of icon painting reached a high point in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The Stroganovs were wealthy merchants from Novgorod who moved further north and brought Novgorod icon painters with them. The Stroganov school was known in particular for its use of bright colors and for its miniature icons, such as the one painted by Sevastian later in “The Sealed Angel.”

  6. Deisises … wet hair: The Deisis, the central section in the iconostasis, is a triple icon representing Christ in majesty between the Virgin and St. John the Baptist. The Savior-not-made-by-hands is an icon depicting the face of Christ imprinted on a towel or cloth. According to legend, Abgar, king of Edessa, wishing to be healed of leprosy, sent his court painter to make an image of Christ, but the painter could not get close enough to do it. Christ then took a towel, wiped his face, imprinting his image on it, and had the towel sent to Abgar, who was healed by it. On some icons of this type, Christ is portrayed with wet-looking hair and beard.

  7. the Indictus … Palekh: The Indictus is the icon of the first feast of the ecclesiastical year, which begins on September 1. The Council of Angels usually portrays the archangel Michael and/or Gabriel holding a round icon of the infant Emmanuel (Christ), surrounded by a host of angels. The Paternity portrays God the Father with the Christ Child on his lap holding a dove. The Six Days usually has six parts illustrating the six days of the creation; another type has six days of the week identified with certain feasts, and sometimes the two are combined. The Healers is a late type of icon (eighteenth or early nineteenth century) portraying various saints and indicating which one heals which disease. The Trinity illustrates the episode in Genesis 18:1–16 in which three angels visit Abraham, considered the first manifestation of God as the Trinity. The town of Palekh was an important center of icon painting from the sixteenth to the mid-nineteenth century.
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  8. Bezaleel: See Exodus 35:30–35. Bezaleel was one of two men called by God and Moses to build and decorate the sanctuary for the ark of the covenant.

  9. famous stone bridge: Leskov has in mind the suspension bridge over the Dniepr River in Kiev, built in 1849–53, while he himself was living in Kiev.

  10. Amalthea’s horn: That is, the horn of plenty. In Greek mythology, the goddess or goat-goddess Amalthea saved the infant Zeus from being devoured by his father Cronus by hiding him and nursing him on goat’s milk in a cave. Zeus accidentally broke off the goat’s (or goddess’s) horn, which then became a source of perpetual abundance.

  11. an old antlion: A fantastic animal described in the medieval Russian Physiologist as having the front parts of a lion and the rear parts of an ant—probably a fanciful misinterpretation of the Latin myrmeleontid.

  12. Belial: In the Old and New Testaments, Belial is one of the four princes of Hell, a demon of wickedness or impurity, or sometimes Satan himself.

  13. passports: Russians were, and still are, required to have “internal passports” when moving from their registered place of residence.

  14. Herodias: See Mark 6:17–29 and Matthew 14:1–12. Herodias was the wife of the tetrarch Herod Antipas; when John the Baptist condemned their marriage, she contrived by means of her daughter Salome to have his head brought to her on a platter.

  15. the prophet Amos: “… they sold the righteous for silver, and the poor for a pair of shoes” (Amos 2:6).

  16. the prophets … earth: “And they that dwell upon the earth shall rejoice over them, and make merry, and shall send gifts one to another; for these two prophets tormented them that dwelt on the earth” (Revelation 11:10).

  17. prayer book of Pyotr Mogila: Pyotr (Petro, or Peter) Mogila (1596–1646), bishop and then metropolitan of Kiev, was a major figure in the history of the Orthodox Church under Polish domination and among other things undertook an important printing program. His Trebnik (“Prayer Book”), published in 1646, contained the texts of all the Orthodox rites and services.

  18. Ushakov … Rublev … Paramshin: Semyon Ushakov (1626–86), icon painter and theorist, was the most well-known of the newer “proto-Baroque” painters from the time of Nikon’s reforms (see note 6 to “Lady Macbeth”) and enjoyed the favor of the royal family. He was also a secular artist. Andrei Rublev (ca. 1360–ca. 1430) is considered the greatest Russian icon painter and the glory of the Moscow school. He was canonized by the Orthodox Church in 1988. Paramshin (or Paramsha) was a well-known silver- and goldsmith of the fourteenth century; in 1356 he made a gilded icon and cross for the grand prince of Moscow, which was remembered for several generations afterwards in the wills of the ruling family.

  19. folding icons … he sold it: Folding icons were mainly intended for travelers. In Leskov’s time, this particular folding icon was wrongly dated to the thirteenth century; later it was shown to have been painted no earlier than the second half of the seventeenth century. It was actually bought by an Italian archaeologist from a relative of the father confessor of Peter the Great, who had given it to him.

  20. Prince Potemkin … as a Jew: Grigory Potemkin (1739–91) was a Russian general and statesman, a favorite of the empress Catherine the Great, who made him governor general of the newly acquired southern provinces of Russia and gave him the title of Prince of Taurida. The reference to “Christ … depicted as a Jew” is probably to the painting Christ in the Desert (1872), by Ivan Kramskoy (1837–87), one of the founders of the group known as the Peredvizhniki (“Wanderers”), who broke with the conventions of academic painting in the 1860s.

  21. Joseph’s lament: The lines that follow are from an anonymous spiritual song of the same title belonging to Russian oral tradition and dating approximately to the sixteenth century. The story of Joseph is told in Genesis 37–45.

  22. with one mouth and one heart: These words come from the prayer preceding the reciting of the Creed in the Orthodox liturgy. Levonty suffers because he feels separated from the “one holy, catholic, and apostolic Church” mentioned in the Creed.

  23. the gates of Aristotle … the same view as theirs: The Gates of Aristotle was the title of a collection of apocryphal sayings, which was condemned by the Church in 1551, but continued to circulate in Russia until the eighteenth century. Remphan is mentioned in Acts 7:43 (“Yea, ye took up the tabernacle of Moloch and the star of your god Remphan, figures which you made to worship them”). The words, with slight changes, come from Amos 5:26.

  24. All the earth … dwell in it: A slightly altered version of Psalm 24:1 (“The earth is the Lord’s, and the fulness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein”).

  25. Creed … the old way: The Old Believers (see note 6 to “Lady Macbeth”) rejected the patriarch Nikon’s revision, which removed two words from the Nicene Creed.

  26. the spirit of God … nostrils: Slightly altered from Job 27:3–4 (“All the while my breath is in me, and the spirit of God is in my nostrils, my lips will not speak wickedness, nor my tongue utter deceit”).

  27. the slaughter of the innocents … comforted: The event and some of the words are from Matthew 2:16–18, which in turn quotes Jeremiah 31:15.

  28. heron … forbidden to eat: In Leviticus 11:13–19, the heron is included among the fowl that the Jews are forbidden to eat.

  29. the spirit bloweth where it listeth: See John 3:8 (“The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit”). The Greek word pneuma can mean wind, breath, or spirit.

  30. the great prokeimenon: The prokeimenon (graduale in Latin) is composed of verses sung responsively before the reading of the Gospel, approximately midway through the “all-night vigil,” which may last from two to six hours or even longer.

  31. Prepare yourself … morning: The Old Believers in this story have no priests and no sacraments apart from baptism; thus, receiving communion is a part of their reintegration into the sacramental unity of the Church.

  The Enchanted Wanderer (1873)

  1. Konovets … Valaam … Korela: Konovets, an island off the southwest shore of Lake Ladoga, in northern Russia near Finland, is the location of a monastery founded in the fourteenth century. Sixty miles north of Konovets is Valaam, a group of islands also famous for its monastery, probably founded at the same time. Korela was a fortress on the shore of Ladoga, first mentioned as early as the twelfth century.

  2. Ilya Muromets … Tolstoy: Ilya Muromets is a bogatyr (“mighty man”) in the anonymous Russian medieval epic poems known as byliny, who defeats various enemies and monsters. Vassily Petrovich Vereshchagin (1835–1909) painted his Ilya Muromets at the Banquet of Prince Vladimir in 1871, and in that same year the poet Alexei K. Tolstoy (1817–75) published his ballad “Ilya Muromets” in The Russian Messenger.

  3. the metropolitan Filaret: Filaret Drozdov (1781–1867) was one of the most influential Orthodox churchmen of his time. In 1826 he became metropolitan of Moscow (i.e., metropolitan archbishop, head bishop of a “metropolia”—a major city area, a region, or a province). Leskov was critical of his conservatism.

  4. a husband … feed my family: In perpetuation of the clerical estate, the daughter’s husband would be a seminarian eligible to replace his father-in-law at the latter’s death or retirement and to continue serving the same parish.

  5. St. Sergius: St. Sergius of Radonezh (1314?–92), one of the most highly revered saints of Russia, was the founder of the Trinity Monastery (later known as the Trinity–St. Sergius Monastery) in Zagorsk, sixty miles from Moscow. He was canonized in 1452.

  6. stratopedarchos: New Testament Greek for military leader or camp commandant.

  7. because of the “knock”: See Matthew 7:7 and Luke 11:9 (“Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you”).

  8. the Trinity … the Holy Spirit: The Sunday of Pentecost, celebrating the descent of the
Holy Spirit fifty days after Easter, is also known as the feast of the Trinity. The Monday following it is the day of the Holy Spirit. Traditionally, prayers for suicides were forbidden by the Orthodox Church except on the Saturday before Pentecost or in private prayer at home. This interdiction was lifted by the patriarch Kirill at a council of the Russian Orthodox Church in 2011.

  9. hieromonk … hierodeacon: A hieromonk is a monk who has been ordained a priest or a priest who has become a monk; a hierodeacon is a monk who has become a deacon.

  10. a cantonist: From 1721 to 1856, the sons of conscripted soldiers in Russia were educated in “canton schools” (from “canton” or recruiting district) and were obliged to serve in the army.

  11. the Englishman Rarey: John Rarey (1827–66) was in fact an American horse tamer, or “horse whisperer,” who developed a gentle technique for rehabilitating mistreated or vicious horses. He came to Europe to demonstrate his method and visited Russia in 1857.

  12. St. Vsevolod-Gavriil of Novgorod: Prince Vsevolod, baptized Gavriil (?1103–38), the patron saint of the city of Pskov, was prince of Novgorod from 1117 to 1136, and prince of Pskov from 1137 to 1138. He was buried in Pskov and later canonized there. His relics were said to protect the city, and his sword bore the inscription (in Latin) that Ivan Severyanych has embroidered on his belt.

  13. Count K——of Orel province: That is, Count Kamensky, of whom there were several. Leskov deals more fully with them in “The Toupee Artist.” Given the date, this would be Count Sergei Mikhailovich Kamensky (1771–1835).

  14. an old-style blue banknote: Blue banknotes, first issued in 1786, were worth five roubles, a considerable sum for a peasant at that time.

  15. Kaffeeschenks: A court position supervising coffee and tea supplies.

  16. Voronezh … relics there: St. Mitrofan of Voronezh (1623–1703) was the first bishop of Voronezh, in southwestern Russia. Relics are “revealed” when they prove to be either miracle-working or incorrupt. In 1831, Bishop Mitrofan’s relics were unearthed and found to be incorrupt; in 1832 he was canonized.