The Enchanted Wanderer and Other Stories

“ ‘Call to him, young one, first with the wind, and then against the wind: he’ll start pining and come looking for you—and you’ll meet.’ He gave me water to drink and a cucumber with honey to fortify myself. I drank the water and ate the cucumber and went on again, and I kept calling you, as he told me to, now with the wind, now against the wind—and so we met. Thank heaven!” And she embraced me, and kissed me, and said:

“You’re the same as a dear brother to me.”

I say:

“And you’re the same as a dear sister to me”—and I’m so moved that tears come to my eyes.

And she weeps and says:

“I know, Ivan Severyanych, I know and understand it all; you’re the only one who loved me, dear friend of my heart, my gentle one. Prove to me now your final love, do what I ask of you in this terrible hour.”

“Tell me what you want,” I say.

“No,” she says, “first swear by the most dread thing in the world that you’ll do what I’m going to ask.”

I swore by the salvation of my soul, but she says:

“That’s not enough: you’ll break it for my sake. No,” she says, “swear by something more dreadful.”

“Well,” I say, “I can’t think of anything more dreadful than that.”

“Well,” she says, “I’ve thought of it for you. Quickly repeat after me, and don’t hesitate.”

I promised, fool that I was, and she says:

“Damn my soul the same as you’ve damned your own if you don’t obey me.”

“Very well,” I say—and I damned her soul.

“Well, now listen,” she says. “You must quickly become the savior of my soul. I have no strength left to live like this and suffer, seeing his betrayal and his outrages against me. If I live a day longer, I’ll settle it for him and for her

, but if I take pity on them and settle it for myself, I’ll destroy my poor soul forever … Take pity on me, my own, my darling brother: strike me once through the heart with a knife.”

I turned aside, made a cross over her, and backed away, but she embraced my knees, weeping, bowing at my feet, and pleading:

“You’ll live, you’ll pray to God for my soul and for your own, don’t be the ruin of me, don’t make me raise my hand against myself … W—w—well? …”

Ivan Severyanych frowned dreadfully and, chewing his mustaches, breathed out as if from the depths of his heaving breast.

She took the knife from my pocket … opened it … straightened out the blade … and put it into my hand … And she … began pouring out such talk, I couldn’t stand it …

“If you don’t kill me,” she says, “I’ll become a shameful woman, and that will be my revenge on all of you.”

I started trembling all over, and told her to pray, and didn’t stab her, but just pushed her over the steep riverbank …

All of us, on hearing this latest confession from Ivan Severyanych, began for the first time to doubt the truthfulness of his story and kept silent for a rather long while, but, finally, someone cleared his throat and said:

“Did she drown?”

“She went under,” replied Ivan Severyanych.

“And how was it for you after that?”

“What do you mean?”

“You must have suffered?”

“Of course, sir.”

XIX

I ran away from that place, beside myself, and only remember that somebody seemed to be pursuing me, somebody terribly big and tall, and shameless, naked, and his body was all black, and his head was small, and he was all overgrown with hair, and I figured that if it wasn’t Cain, it was the demon of destruction himself, and I kept trying to run from him and called out to my guardian angel. I came to my senses somewhere on a high road under a bush of broom. And the day was autumnal, dry, the sun was shining, but it was cold, and there was dust in the wind, and yellow leaves were whirling; and I didn’t know what time it was, or what place it was, or where the road led, and there was nothing in my soul, no feeling, no notion of what I should do; and I could think of only one thing, that Grusha’s soul is lost now, and it’s my duty to suffer for her and deliver her from hell. But how to do it—I don’t know and I’m in anguish over it, and then something touches my shoulder: I look—a twig has fallen from the broom and goes swirling, swirling into the distance, and suddenly it’s Grusha walking, only small, no more than six or seven years old, and with little wings on her shoulders. But as soon as I notice her, she flies away from me like a shot, and only dust and dry leaves billow up behind her.

I thought: that must surely be her soul following me; she’s probably beckoning to me and showing me the way. And I set off. All day I walked, not knowing where myself, and I became unbearably tired, and suddenly people overtook me, an old man and woman in a cart and pair, and they say:

“Get in, poor man, you can ride with us.”

I get in. They drive, and they grieve:

“Woe to us,” they say, “our son’s being taken as a soldier, and we have no money, we can’t pay to replace him.”

I felt sorry for the old people and said:

“I’d go for you just like that, without pay, but I have no papers.”

They say:

“That’s a trifle: leave it to us; you only have to give our son’s name, Pyotr Serdyukov.”