Birds of Heaven, and Other Stories. Vladimir Galaktionovich Korolenko
The preacher stopped and said:
“The Orthodox Catholic Church. … Is she not the means of salvation? He who seeks refuge in her need not despair. So … if. …”
A tense silence prevailed for a few seconds. The stranger was facing the crowd of peasants and he felt that he held their feelings in his hands. Not long since, they had been following him joyfully and it was not hard to foresee the results of the sermon: the men of the old faith had been ready to invite to their homes the man who had been driven from the monastery. Now they were dumbfounded and did not know what to think.
“But if,” continued the stranger, accenting each word, “any one rejects the one Mother Church … expects to be saved in cellars with the rats … if he trusts in shaved heads. …”
The peasant with the deep voice suddenly turned and walked away.
His good-natured companion glanced around with an air of disillusionment and a lack of comprehension and said half-questioningly:
“Are you shocked? … Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! …”
He followed the others. The sectarians grimly went to the gates. The wanderer remained alone. His figure was outlined sharply against the base of the tower and there was a strange expression in his faded blue eyes. Evidently he had intended to gain by his sermon that lodging which the monks had denied him. Why had he suddenly changed his tone? …
There were now only three of us in the yard: the wanderer, I and the young fellow under the curtain of the booth. The stranger glanced at me but at once turned away and walked up to the dealer. The young man’s face beamed with joy. …
“That was clever,” he said. “You shocked them well. They all had their heads shaved. The devils were threshing peas. Ha, ha, ha!”
He broke out into a hearty, youthful laugh and started to put his wares within the shop.
When he had finished, he closed the swinging doors and locked them. The shop was well made and adapted for moving—it was on wheels and had a low shelf. The fellow evidently intended to sleep by his wares.
“Well, it’s time to go to bed,” he said, looking at the sky.
In the yard and behind the gates all was still and deserted. From the bazaar the wares had all been carried away. The fellow faced the church, crossed himself, opened the door a little way and crawled under his stand.
His hands soon appeared. He was trying to put a small screen over the opening.
The stranger also looked up at the sky, thought a few seconds, and walked resolutely up to the shop.
“Wait, Mikhailo! I’ll help you like a good fellow.”
The pale-faced man let go and looked out of his quarters.
“My name’s Anton,” he said simply.
“Come, Antosha, let me help you.”
“I’m very glad; thank you. It’s hard to do it from here.”
Anton’s simple face disappeared.
“Please … move your feet a little.”
Anton obeyed. The wanderer quietly opened the door, stooped quickly, and, to my amazement, I saw him step nimbly into the opening. A scuffle ensued. Anton moved his feet and part of the stranger appeared outside for a moment, but without any delay and almost instantaneously he disappeared again within.
Interested by this unexpected turn of events, I almost instinctively walked up to the booth.
“I’ll yell, I’ll yell,” I heard the nasal but pitiful voice of Anton. “The fathers will beat you up again!”
“Don’t yell, Misha. What’s the matter?” argued the wanderer.
“Why do you keep calling me Misha? I tell you my name’s Anton.”
“In the monastic jargon your name will be Mikhailo. Remember that. … Hush! Quiet, Anton, keep still.”
The booth became silent.
“What for?” asked Anton. “What do you hear?”
“Listen, hear the tapping. … It’s raining.”
“Well, what of it? Tapping. … If I let out one shout, the fathers will tap harder on you.”
“Why do you keep harping on one thing? I’ll yell and yell. You’d better not. If you do, I’ll eat you up. I’ll tell you a good story about a nun. …”
“I see, you’ve been stealing something.”
“It’s wrong, Antosha, for you to slander a stranger. You gave me this one kalach yourself. I ate nothing—you believe God. …”
“Go ahead and eat a stale one. … I haven’t eaten them up,” and Anton yawned so hard that he gave up all thoughts of further resistance.
“You shocked those blockheads well,” he added at the end of his strenuous yawn. “You’ve certainly showed them up.”
“And the fathers?”
“The fathers wanted to spit at you. … You promised to tell me a story. Why don’t you do it?”
“In a certain country, in a certain land,” began the stranger, “in a convent with a stone wall, lived a nun, brother Antoshenka. … And such a nun. … Oh, oh, oh!”
“Yes? …”
“Yes, she lived there, and grieved.”
Silence.
“Well? … Go on.”
Silence again.
“Well, go on. What did she grieve about?” insisted the interested Anton.
“Go to the devil, that’s what! Why did I start a story? You know I hoofed it thirty versts to-day. She grieved about you, you fool, that’s what she did. Let me sleep!”
Anton let out a sound of utter exhaustion.
“Well, you’re a rogue. I see your scheme,” he said reproachfully.
“All right, knave,” a minute later but more softly, and even sorrowfully. “Yes, a knave. … I never saw such a knave before.”
All was quiet in the booth. The rain beat harder and harder on the slanting roof, the earth grew black, the puddles disappeared in the darkness. The monastery garden whispered something, and the buildings behind the wall stood defenceless against the rain, which pattered on the gutters. The guard within the enclosure beat upon his wet rattle.
II
The next day I started back with Andrey Ivanovich, who had accompanied me on many of my wanderings. We had been walking not without having interesting experiences, lodged in the village, and started off again rather late. The pilgrims had already left and it was hard to imagine the crowds which had passed by such a little while before. The villages seemed busy; the workmen could be seen as white spots on the fields. The air was muggy and hot.
My companion, a tall, thin, nervous man, was this day especially gloomy and irritable. This was a not at all uncommon state towards the end of our joint trips. But this day he was unusually out of humor and expressed his personal disapproval of me.
Towards afternoon, in the heat, we became completely disgusted with each other. Andrey Ivanovich either thought it necessary to rest without any reason in the most inappropriate places, or wished to push on, when I proposed stopping.
We finally reached a little bridge. A small stream was flowing quietly between the damp green banks with their nodding heads of grass. The stream wound along and disappeared behind a bend amid the waving grain of the meadows.
“Let’s