The Enchanted Wanderer and Other Stories

We had a mare named Dido that we bought from a stud farm, a young golden bay for an officer’s saddle. A marvelous beauty she was: pretty little head, comely eyes, nostrils delicate and flared—just breathe away; light mane; chest sitting smartly, like a boat, between her shoulders; supple in the flanks; and her legs light in their white stockings, and she flings them out as if she’s playing … In short, if you were a fancier and had an understanding of beauty, the sight of such a creature could make you ponder. As for me, she was so much to my liking that I never even left her stable and kept caressing her from joy. I’d brush her and wipe her all over with a white handkerchief, so that there wasn’t a speck of dust anywhere on her coat, and I’d even kiss her right on the forehead, where her golden hair turned into a little swirl … At that time we had two fairs going on at once, one in L——, the other in K——, and the prince and I separated: I did one, and he went to the other. And suddenly I received a letter from him, saying: “Send such-and-such horses and Dido to me here.” I didn’t know why he was sending for my beauty, in whom my fancier’s eyes rejoiced. But I thought, of course, that he had traded or sold my darling to someone, or, still more likely, had lost her at cards … And so I sent Dido off with the stablemen and started pining away terribly and longed to go on an outing. And my situation at that moment was quite unusual: I told you I had made it a rule that, whenever the zeal for an outing came over me, I would present myself to the prince, give him all my money, since I always had large sums on my hands, and say: “I’m going to disappear for this many or that many days.” Well, but how was I going to arrange it this time, when my prince wasn’t with me? And so I thought to myself: “No, I’m not going to drink anymore, because my prince isn’t here, and it’s impossible for me to go on a regular outing, because I have no one to give my money to, and I’ve got a considerable sum on me, more than five thousand.” So I decided it was not to be done, and I held firmly to that decision, and did not give way to my zeal for going on an outing and disappearing good and proper, but all the same I felt no weakening of that desire, but, on the contrary, craved more and more to go on an outing. And, finally, I came to be filled with a single thought: how can I arrange things so as both to fulfill my zeal for an outing and to safeguard the prince’s money? And with that aim I began hiding it and kept hiding it in the most incredible places, where it would never occur to anyone to put money … I thought: “What to do? It’s clear that I can’t control myself. I’ll put the money in a trustworthy place, to keep it safe, and then I’ll do my zeal, I’ll go on an outing.” Only I was overcome by perplexity: where should I hide this cursed money? Wherever I put it, the moment I stepped away from the place, the thought would at once come to my head that someone was stealing it. I’d go and quickly take it again and hide it again … I simply wore myself out hiding it, in haylofts, and in cellars, and under the eaves, and in other such unsuitable hiding places, and as soon as I stepped away, it immediately seemed to me that someone had seen me hide it and would certainly find it, and I would go back again, and get it again, and carry it around with me, and again think: “No, basta, I’m clearly not fated to fulfill my zeal this time.” And suddenly a divine thought occurred to me: it’s the devil who keeps tormenting me with this passion, so I’ll go and drive the scoundrel away with holiness! And I went to an early liturgy, prayed, and as I was leaving the church, I saw the Last Judgment painted on the wall, and there in a corner the devil in Gehenna being beaten with flails by angels. I stopped, looked, and prayed zealously to the holy angels, and, spitting on my fist, shoved it into the devil’s mug.

“Here’s a fig for you, buy what’ll do, and a lot of it, too”—and after that I suddenly calmed down completely and, having given all the necessary orders at home, went to a tavern to have tea … And there in the tavern I saw some rascal standing among the customers. The most futile of futile men. I had seen the man before, too, and considered him some sort of charlatan or clown, because he kept dragging himself around to the fairs and begging gentlemen for a handout in French. He was supposedly of the nobility and had served in the army, but had squandered all he had and gambled it away at cards, and now went around begging … There, in that tavern I came to, the waiters wanted to throw him out, but he refused to leave and stood there saying: