The Enchanted Wanderer and Other Stories

“Yes, he read it out of boredom and can’t forget it.”

“A real fool! Now what are we to do with him?”

“There’s nothing we can do: he’s already very far into it.”

“Can it be he’s got to Christ himself?”

“All of it, he’s read all of it.”

“So it’s the kibosh!”

They felt sorry for Ryzhov and started being more charitable to him. All Orthodox people in Russia know that, if someone has read through the Bible and “gone as far as Christ,” he cannot very well be expected to act reasonably; such people are rather like holy fools—they behave oddly, but harm nobody, and are not to be feared. However, so as to be more secure with regard to the strange correcting of Ryzhov on “matters of concern,” the father archpriest offered the mayor a wise but cruel piece of advice: to get Alexander Afanasyevich married.

“For a married man,” the archpriest expounded, “even if he has ‘read as far as Christ,’ it’s hard to preserve his honesty: his wife will light a fire under him, and in one way or another will drive him until he yields to her and lets the whole Bible leave his head, and becomes amenable to gifts and devoted to the authorities.”

This advice accorded with the mayor’s thinking, and he gave orders to Alexander Afanasyevich that in one way or another he must marry without fail, because bachelors are unreliable in political positions.

“Say what you like, brother,” he said, “but I find you good from all points of view except one, and from that one point of view you’re unfit.”

“Why so?”

“You’re a bachelor.”

“Where’s the reproach in that?”

“The reproach is that you may do something treacherous and flee to another province. What is it to you now? Just grab your Bibbel and that’s it.”

“That’s it.”

“There’s just what’s untrustworthy.”

“And is a married man more trustworthy?”

“No comparison. A married man,” he says, “I can twist like a rope, and he’ll suffer it all, because he’s got his nestlings to tend to, and his woman to feel sorry for, but a bachelor’s like a bird himself—it’s impossible to trust him. So either you walk off, or you get married.”

The enigmatic fellow, having heard this argument, was not put out in the least and replied:

“Well, marriage is a good thing, too, it’s indicated by God: if need be, I’ll get married.”

“Only cut down a tree that suits you.”

“Yes, one that suits me.”

“And choose quickly.”

“I’ve already chosen: I only have to go and see if anybody else has taken her.”

The mayor laughed at him:

“Look at you,” he said, “you little sinner—makes out like there’s never been any sin on him, yet he’s already spied out a wife for himself.”

“Who hasn’t got sin on him!” replied Alexander Afanasyevich. “The vessel’s brimming with abomination, only I haven’t asked her to be my bride yet, but I do indeed have my eye on her and ask permission to go and see what’s what.”

“Not a local girl, probably—is she from far away?”

“Not local and not from far away—she lives by the stream near the swamp.”

The mayor laughed again, dismissed Ryzhov, and, intrigued, began to wait, wondering when the odd fellow would come back to him and what he would say.

VI

Ryzhov indeed cut down a tree that suited him: a week later he brought a wife to town—a big woman, white-skinned, ruddy-cheeked, with kindly brown eyes and submissiveness in every step and movement. She was dressed in peasant clothes, and the two spouses walked one behind the other, carrying a yoke on their shoulders from which a decorated bast box containing a dowry hung on a canvas strap.

Veterans of the marketplace recognized this person at once as the daughter of old Kozlikha, who lived in a solitary hut by the stream beyond the swamp and passed for a wicked witch. Everyone thought that Ryzhov had taken the witch’s wench to keep house for him.

That was partly true, only before bringing her home, Ryzhov had married her in church. Conjugal life cost him no more than bachelorhood; on the contrary, now it became even more profitable for him, because, having brought home a wife, he immediately dismissed the hired woman he had paid no less than a copper rouble a month. From then on the copper rouble remained in his pocket, and the house was better kept; his wife’s strong hands were never idle: she spun and wove, and also turned out to be good at knitting stockings and growing vegetables. In short, his wife was a simple, capable peasant woman, faithful and submissive, with whom the biblical eccentric could live in a biblical way, and apart from what has been said, there is nothing to say about her.