The Enchanted Wanderer and Other Stories

“Well, of course it was simple, but why does it surprise you that our people back then avoided deeds of purchase and just wrote down their transactions in notebooks? There’ll be a lot of that uncovered in the future. They were afraid of clerks and trusted their own people, that’s all.”

“But how,” I say, “could Golovan earn such trust? To tell the truth, I sometimes have the impression that he was a bit of a … charlatan.”

“Why is that?”

“Don’t I remember people saying, for instance, that he supposedly had some sort of magic stone, and that he stopped the plague with his blood or flesh, by throwing it into the river? And why was he called ‘deathless’?”

“It’s nonsense about the magic stone. People made it up, and it wasn’t Golovan’s fault, and he was nicknamed ‘deathless’ because, in that horror, when the fumiasms of death hovered over the earth and everybody got frightened, he alone was fearless, and death couldn’t touch him.”

“And why,” I say, “did he cut his leg?”

“He cut off his calf.”

“What for?”

“Because he also had a plague pimple on him. He knew there was no salvation from that, quickly grabbed the scythe, and cut the whole calf off.”

“Can it be?!” I said.

“Of course it can.”

“And what,” I say, “are we to think of the woman Pavla?”

Grandmother glanced at me and replied:

“What about her? The woman Pavla was Fraposhka’s wife. She was very unhappy, and Golovan gave her shelter.”

“But, all the same, she was called ‘Golovan’s sin.’ ”

“Each one judges and gives names by his own lights. He had no such sin.”

“But, Grandmother, dear, do you really believe that?”

“I not only believe it, I know it.”

“But how can you know it?”

“Very simply.”

Grandmother turned to the girl who was working with her and sent her to the garden to pick raspberries, and when the girl left, she looked me in the eye significantly and said:

“Golovan was a virgin

!”

“How do you know that?”

“From Father Pyotr.”

And my grandmother told me how Father Pyotr, not long before his end, spoke to her of what incredible people there are in Russia, and that the late Golovan was a virgin.

Having touched upon this story, Grandmother went into fine detail and recalled her conversation with Father Pyotr.

“Father Pyotr had doubts himself at first,” she said, “and began to question him in more detail, and even alluded to Pavla. ‘It’s not good,’ he says. ‘You don’t repent, and you’re in temptation. It’s not meet for you to keep this Pavla. Let her go with God.’ But Golovan replies: ‘It’s wrong of you to say that, Father: better let her live with God at my place—I can’t let her go.’ ‘And why is that?’ ‘Because she has nowhere to lay her head …’ ‘Well,’ he says, ‘then marry her!’ ‘That,’ he replies, ‘is impossible.’ Why it was impossible, he didn’t say, and Father Pyotr had doubts about it for a long time. But Pavla was consumptive and didn’t live long, and before her death, when Father Pavel came to her, she revealed the whole reason to him.”

“What was that reason, Grandmother?”

“They lived according to perfect love.”

“What does that mean?”

“Like angels.”

“Excuse me, but why was that? Pavla’s husband disappeared, and there’s a law that after five years one can marry. Didn’t they know that?”

“No, I think they did, but they also knew something more than that.”

“What, for instance?”

“For instance, that Pavla’s husband survived it all and never disappeared anywhere.”

“But where was he?”

“In Orel!”

“Are you joking?”

“Not a bit.”

“And who knew about it?”

“The three of them: Golovan, Pavla, and the scoundrelly fellow himself. Maybe you remember Fotey?”

“The healed one?”

“Call him what you like, only now that they’re all dead, I can tell you that he wasn’t Fotey at all, but the runaway soldier Fraposhka.”

“What?! Pavla’s husband?”

“Precisely.”

“Then how was it …” I was about to begin, but was ashamed of my own thought and fell silent, but my grandmother understood me and finished:

“You surely want to ask: how was it that no one else recognized him, and Pavla and Golovan didn’t give him away? That’s very simple: others didn’t recognize him, because he wasn’t from this town, and he had grown old and was overgrown with hair. Pavla didn’t give him away out of pity, and Golovan out of love for her.”

“But in court, according to the law, Fraposhka didn’t exist, and they could have married.”

“They could have—according to court law they could have, but according to the law of their conscience they couldn’t.”

“Why, then, did Fraposhka persecute Golovan?”

“The deceased was a scoundrel and thought the same about them as everybody else.”

“But on account of him they deprived themselves of all their happiness!”

“That depends on what you consider happiness: there’s righteous happiness, and there’s sinful happiness. Righteous happiness doesn’t step over anybody, sinful happiness steps over everything. They loved the former better than the latter …”

“Grandmother,” I exclaimed, “these were astonishing people!”

“Righteous people, my dear,” the old woman replied.