The Enchanted Wanderer and Other Stories

I thought over what to do: at home it would be the same thing again tomorrow and the day after, going on your knees in the path, and tap, tap, crushing little stones with a hammer, and I already had lumps growing on my knees from the work, and all I had in my ears was people jeering at me, that the fiend of a German had condemned me to make rubble of a whole mountain of stones on account of a cat’s tail. Everybody laughed: “And yet they call you a savior: you saved the masters’ lives.” I simply couldn’t stand it, and figuring that, if I didn’t hang myself, I’d have to go back to the same thing, I waved my hand, wept, and went over to the robbers.

IV

That sly Gypsy gave me no time to collect my wits. He said:

“To convince me you won’t go back on it, you must bring me a pair of horses from the master’s stable right now, and take the best ones, so that we can gallop far away on them before morning.”

I grieved inwardly: Lord knows I didn’t want to steal; but then it was sink or swim; and, knowing all the ins and outs of the stables, I had no trouble leading two fiery steeds, the kind that knew no fatigue, out beyond the threshing floor, and the Gypsy had already taken wolves’ teeth on strings from his pocket, and he hung them on each horse’s neck, and the Gypsy and I mounted them and rode off. The horses, scenting wolves’ teeth on them, raced so fast I can’t tell you, and by morning we were seventy miles away, near the town of Karachev. There we sold the horses at once to some innkeeper, took the money, went to the river, and began settling our accounts. We had sold the horses for three hundred roubles—in banknotes, of course, as it was done then—but the Gypsy gave me one silver rouble and said:

“Here’s your share.”

I found that insulting.

“How come?” I say. “I stole the horses and could suffer more for it than you—why is my share so small?”

“Because,” he says, “that’s how big it grew.”

“That’s nonsense,” I say. “Why do you take so much for yourself?”

“And again,” he says, “it’s because I’m a master and you’re still a pupil.”

“Pupil, hah!” I say. “What drivel!” And one word led to another, and we got into a quarrel. Finally, I say:

“I don’t want to go any further with you, because you’re a scoundrel.”

And he replies:

“Do leave me, brother, for Christ’s sake, because you’ve got no passport,¹⁸ and I could get in trouble with you.”

So we parted ways, and I was about to go to the local justice and turn myself in as a runaway, but when I told my story to his clerk, the man says to me:

“You fool, you: why go turning yourself in? Have you got ten roubles?”

“No,” I say, “I’ve got one silver rouble, but not ten.”

“Well, then maybe you’ve got something else, maybe a silver cross on your neck, or what’s that in your ear—an earring?”

“Yes,” I say, “it’s an earring.”

“A silver one?”

“Yes, a silver one, and I’ve also got a silver cross from St. Mitrofan’s.”¹⁹

“Well,” he says, “take them off quickly and give them to me, and I’ll write you out a release, so you can go to Nikolaev—they need people there, and hordes of vagrants flee there from us.”

I gave him my silver rouble, the cross, and the earring, and he wrote out the release, put the court seal on it, and said:

“I should have added something for the seal, like I do with everybody, but I pity your poverty and don’t want papers of my making to be imperfect. Off you go,” he says, “and if anybody else needs it, send him to me.”

“Well,” I think, “a fine benefactor he is: takes the cross from my neck and then pities me.” I didn’t send anybody to him, I only went begging in Christ’s name without even a penny in my pocket.

I came to that town and stood in the marketplace so as to get myself hired. There were very few people up for hire—three men in all—and all of them must have been the same as me, half vagrants, and many people came running to hire us, and they all latched onto us and pulled us this way and that. One gentleman, a great huge one, bigger than I am, fell on me, pushed everybody away, seized me by both arms, and dragged me off with him: he led me along, making his way through the others with his fists and cursing most foully, and there were tears in his eyes. He brought me to his little house, hastily slapped together from who knows what, and asked me:

“Tell me the truth: are you a runaway?”

“I am,” I say.

“A thief,” he says, “or a murderer, or just a vagrant?”

I answer:

“Why do you ask me that?”

“The better to know what kind of work you’re good for.”

I told him all about why I ran away, and he suddenly threw himself into kissing me and said:

“Just the one I need, just the one I need! If you felt sorry for your pigeons,” he says, “surely you’ll be able to nurse my baby: I’m hiring you as a nanny.”

I was horrified.

“How do you mean,” I say, “as a nanny? I’m not at all suited to that situation.”