The Enchanted Wanderer and Other Stories

In the ravine behind the encampment, under overturned sledges, by the stream, a Gypsy lived with his Gypsy wife and Gypsy children. The Gypsy and his wife had a big medical practice there. They kept tied to one sledge runner a big, voiceless cock, who produced stones in the morning that “promoted bedstead potency,” and the Gypsy had a catnip that was then quite necessary against “aphedronian sores.”³⁰ This Gypsy was a celebrity of sorts. Word went around about him that when the seven sleeping virgins were “revealed” in infidel lands, he was not a superfluous man there: he could transform old people into young, could heal serfs punished by flogging, could make the pain of soldiers who had run the gauntlet pass out of their insides through the drainage system. His Gypsy wife seemed to know still greater secrets of nature. She gave husbands two kinds of water: one to expose wives who sin by fornication (such wives, when given this water, could not retain it, but passed it right out again); the other a magnetic water, which made an unwilling wife embrace her husband passionately in her sleep, but if she tried to love another man, she would fall out of bed.

In short, things were at the boil here, and the manifold needs of mankind found useful helpers.

When the wastrel caught sight of the merchants, he didn’t speak to them, but started beckoning to them to go down into the ravine, and darted down there himself.

Again this seemed a bit frightening: there was the danger of an ambush, in which evildoers could be hiding capable of robbing pilgrims blind, but piety overcame fear, and after some reflection, the merchant, having said a prayer and commemorated the saint, decided to go three steps down.

He moved carefully, holding on to little shrubs, after telling his wife and daughter to shout with all their might if anything happened.

There was indeed an ambush there, but it was not dangerous: the merchant found in the ravine two men like himself, pious men in merchant garb, with whom he was to be “put together.” They all had to pay the wastrel the promised sum for taking them to the saint, and then he would reveal his plan to them and take them there at once. There was no point in thinking long about it, and resisting would not have gotten them anywhere: the merchants put together the sum and handed it over, and the wastrel revealed his plan to them, a simple plan, but, in its simplicity, of pure genius. It consisted of there being in the “poor train” a paralytic whom the wastrel knew, who needed only to be picked up and carried to the saint, and nobody would stop them or bar their way with a sick man. All they had to do was buy a litter and a coverlet for the paralytic, and then the six of them would pick him up and carry the litter on towels.

The first part of this idea seemed excellent—with the paralytic, the bearers would, of course, be allowed in, but what would the consequences be? Wouldn’t there be embarrassment afterwards? However, they were also set at ease on this account; their guide simply said it wasn’t worthy of attention.

“We’ve already seen such occasions,” he said. “You’ll be honored with seeing everything to your satisfaction and with kissing the relics during the singing of the vigil, and as for the sick man, it’s as the saint wills: if he wishes to heal him, he will heal him, and if he doesn’t, again it’s as he wills. Now, just chip in quickly for the litter and coverlet, I’ve got it all ready in a house nearby, I only have to hand over the money. Wait here for me a little, and we’ll be on our way.”

After some bargaining, he took another two roubles per person for the tackle and ran off, came back ten minutes later, and said:

“Let’s go, brothers, only don’t step too briskly, and lower your eyes so you look a bit more God-fearing.”

The merchants lowered their eyes and walked along with reverence, and in the same “poor train” they came to a wagon where a completely sickly nag stood eating from a sack, and a scrofulous little boy sat on the box amusing himself by tossing the plucked hearts of yellow chamomile from hand to hand. In this wagon, under a bast top, lay a middle-aged man with a face yellower than the chamomile, and his arms were also yellow, stretched out and limp as soft wattle.

The women, seeing such terrible infirmity, began crossing themselves, but their guide addressed the sick man and said:

“Look, Uncle Fotey, these good people have come to help me take you to be healed. The hour of God’s will is approaching you.”

The yellow man began to turn towards the strangers, looking at them with gratitude and pointing his finger at his tongue.