The Enchanted Wanderer and Other Stories

It was still cold in the morning, especially before dawn, and to someone who wants to sleep it feels even colder. Panka’s clothes, naturally, were poor, orphan-like, some sort of rags with hole upon hole. The lad turned one way, then the other, praying that St. Prokop would warm him up, but instead the cold went on. As soon as he closed his eyes, a little wind would sneak, sneak through a rip and awaken him again. However, young strength held its own: Panka pulled his coat over his head like a tent and dozed off. He didn’t hear what hour it was, because the green bell tower of the Theophany church was far away. And there was no one around, not a human soul, only fat merchants’ cows huffing, and every once in a while a frisky perch splashed in the Orlik. The herdsman slumbered in his tattered coat. But then it was as if something suddenly nudged him in the side—zephyr had probably found a new hole somewhere. Panka roused himself, looked around half-awake, was about to shout: “What are you up to, hornless!” and stopped. It seemed to him that somebody was going down the steep slope on the other side. Maybe a thief wanted to bury some stolen thing in the clay. Panka became interested: maybe he would sneak up on the thief and catch him red-handed, or shout “Let’s go halves,” or, better still, try to take good note of the burial place, then swim across the Orlik during the day, dig it up, and take it all for himself without sharing.

Panka began to stare, looking at the steep slope across the Orlik. It was still barely gray outside.

Somebody comes down the slope, steps out on the water, and begins to walk. Just simply walks on the water, as if on dry land, and doesn’t row with anything, but only leans on a stick. Panka was dumbfounded. A miracle was expected then in the Orel monastery, and voices had already been heard from under the floor. This began right after “Nikodim’s funeral.” Bishop Nikodim¹⁵

was a wicked man, who distinguished himself towards the end of his earthly career by this: that, wishing to have yet another decoration, he sought to please by sending a great many clerics as soldiers, among whom there were some only sons and even married deacons and sacristans. A whole party of them was leaving town, pouring out tears. Those seeing them off were also sobbing, and simple folk themselves, for all their dislike of well-stuffed priestly britches, wept and gave them alms. The officer of the party himself felt so sorry for them that, wishing to put an end to the tears, he ordered the new recruits to strike up a song, and when the chorus sang out loud and clear a song they themselves had composed:

Our old bishop Nikodim

Is as cruel as he is mean,

the officer himself supposedly burst out weeping. All this was drowned in a sea of tears and for sensitive souls represented an evil that cried out to heaven. And indeed, just as their cries reached heaven, “voices” came to Orel. At first the “voices” were inarticulate and it was not known who they came from, but when Nikodim died soon after that and was buried under the church, then the talking clearly came from a bishop buried there previously to him (Apollos, it seems¹⁶

). The previously departed bishop was displeased with his new neighbor and, ashamed at nothing, said directly: “Take this carrion out of here, he makes me choke.” And he even threatened that, if the “carrion” was not removed, he himself “would go and appear in another town.” Many people heard it. They would come to the monastery for the vigil, stand through the service, and on the way out hear the old bishop moan: “Take the carrion away.” Everyone wished very much that the request of the kindly deceased be fulfilled, but the authorities, who are not always attentive to the needs of the people, did not throw Nikodim out, and the saint who was clearly revealing himself¹⁷ might at any moment “quit the premises.”

None other than that very thing was now happening: the saint was leaving, and no one saw him but one poor little shepherd, who was so bewildered by it that he not only did not hold him back, but did not even notice how the saint vanished from his sight. Dawn was just beginning to break. With light a man’s courage grows, and with courage his curiosity increases. Panka wanted to go near the water over which the mysterious being had just passed; but as soon as he came near, he saw a big, wet gate held to the bank by a pole. The matter became clear: meaning it had not been the saint passing over, but simply deathless Golovan floating. He had probably gone to comfort some orphaned children with milk from his bosom. Panka marveled: when did this Golovan sleep! … And how could such a huge man as he float on such a vessel—on half a gate? True, the Orlik is not a big river and its water, held back by a dam further down, is quiet as a puddle, but even so, what was this floating on a gate?