Laurus

‌The Book

of Renunciation

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But Arseny had not melted away. On the day they were searching for him at Christofer’s home, he was already a dozen versts away. Two days earlier, he had tossed a canvas bag on his back and left the hamlet.

He had placed a scant number of remedies and medical instruments in the bag. Christofer’s manuscripts took up the rest of the space. This was an insignificant part of the deceased’s writings—his written legacy was so extensive it would not even have fit into a large bag. And Arseny’s bag was not large. He felt regret, forced as he was to leave behind many wonderful manuscripts.

Arseny walked out of the house and headed for Koshcheevo. From Koshcheevo to Pavlovo and from Pavlovo to Pankovo. His feet slid along wet clay, he fell into deep puddles, and his boots quickly took on water. Arseny’s route was not direct, for he had no clearly defined geographical goal. And it was unhurried. When entering yet another village, Arseny would ask if there was pestilence. There was no pestilence in the first villages he saw. They still knew Arseny there and so let him into their houses and even fed him.

In light of the early darkness, Arseny had to spend the night in Pankovo. When he set out again in the morning and came to Nikolskoe, he was not allowed in. They were not letting anyone into Nikolskoe, in order that no one carry the pestilence scourge into the village. Arseny was also not let into Kuznetsovoe, which lay one verst from Nikolskoe. Arseny headed for Maloe Zakoze but it turned out that logs blocked the entry into Maloe Zakoze. He went in the direction of Bolshoe Zakoze but the very same sort of logs lay there, too.

Velikoe Selo was next on Arseny’s route. The entry was open but it was immediately obvious to Arseny that an air of ill-being hovered over the place.

It smells of trouble here, Arseny told Ustina. Our help is needed in this village.

This was the first time he had addressed Ustina since her death, and he felt trepidation. Arseny did not ask her forgiveness because he did not consider himself eligible to be forgiven. He simply asked for her participation in an important matter and hoped she would not refuse. But Ustina remained silent. He sensed doubt in her silence.

Believe me, my love, I do not seek death, said Arseny. To the contrary, actually: my life is our mutual hope. Could I really seek death now?

They did not open the first house to him. They said the pestilence had come to the village. Arseny asked where, exactly, there were sick people, and they indicated Yegor Blacksmith’s house. Arseny knocked at that house. There was no answer. Arseny took a linen rag from his bag, covered his mouth with it, and tied the ends on the back of his head. He crossed himself and entered.

Yegor Blacksmith was lying on a bench. His huge arm was hanging down. His hand clenched into a fist from time to time, showing that he was still alive. Arseny took Yegor by the wrist so he could check how strongly his blood was moving. Hardly any movement was apparent, though. Yegor unexpectedly opened his eyes at Arseny’s touch.

Drink.

There was no water in the house. An overturned dipper lay on the floor, right by Yegor’s hand; under it glistened the last drops of moisture. It was obvious Yegor had knocked over the dipper but lacked the strength to fetch more water from the well.

Arseny went outside and headed toward the well sweep. The crane-like sweep had a dead appearance. Its wooden neck, which had been secured to the log that formed its torso with a clamp, creakily danced in the wind. Arseny lowered a wooden bucket into the well. The underground water stood high, unbound by ice. Arseny saw his reflection in the water and did not recognize it. His face had become different.

My face has become different, he told Ustina. These differences are difficult to define but they are obvious, my love.

He went back inside and gave water to Yegor Blacksmith. Arseny supported Yegor’s head with his hand and Yegor drank, seeing nothing. He choked as he swallowed. The water flowed along his beard and streamed under his shirt. He could not get enough to drink. He held onto Arseny’s hand with his own hand, and Arseny could barely hold its weight. This person had been very strong, thought Arseny, and, oh, he is so weak now. Just several days of illness had transformed him into a powerless heap of meat. Which would begin to decompose in several days. He sensed there was already no life in that body.

Yegor unexpectedly opened his eyes.

Art thou my angel of death?

I am not, said Arseny, denying it.

Do tell, O angel, how I shall be judged.

Arseny watched as Yegor’s eyelids slowly shut.

Thou shall soon die, Arseny quietly said, but Yegor could no longer hear him.

He breathed heavily and drops of sweat rolled from his forehead, disappearing in his thick hair. Sitting alongside him, Arseny remembered how he had sometimes looked at the sleeping Ustina. Her chest had moved, barely noticeably, under the bedspread. Sometimes Ustina would loudly inhale air through her nostrils and turn onto her other side. Rub her cheek. Move her lips. Arseny moved his lips, too. He was reciting the prayer for the dying. His glance gradually took on sharpness and he saw Yegor behind Ustina’s features. Yegor was dead.

Arseny went to the neighboring houses. There lay the living and the dead. He dragged the dead outside and covered them with pieces of canvas and brushwood. Arseny felt signs of life in one of the bodies as he was dragging it outside. He noticed there was still a soul clinging to the body. It was a young woman’s body.

Something is telling me, he told Ustina, that this is not a hopeless case.

He carried the woman back into the house. It was warm there because the owners had still been on their feet that morning and stoked the stove. Arseny laid the sick woman on her stomach and examined her neck. Swollen glands—buboes—had spread along her neck like huge, minium-red beads. Arseny blew on the embers in the stove and threw in more wood. He took his instruments from his bag and laid them out on the bench. He thought for a bit. He chose a small lance and brought it to the fire. When the lance had been cleansed in the flame, he went over to the patient. He felt the buboes with his free hand. After choosing the largest and softest bubo, he stuck the point into it and squeezed it with two fingers. A thick, cloudy fluid with an unpleasant smell flowed from the bubo. Arseny felt its viscous flow with his fingers but he did not find it repulsive. For him, the pus running along the woman’s neck was the disease’s visible departure from the body. Arseny experienced joy. Feeling node after node with the pads of his fingers, he squeezed the plague from the patient.

After the neck, Arseny moved to the underarms, and then from the underarms to the groin. He sensed other smells there, too, besides the smell of the pus, and that agitated him. So much of me is brutish, thought Arseny. So much. After finishing the treatment, he let her blood in the places with the most buboes. The blood was foul there and had to be drained. The woman came to and began moaning when Arseny pierced the first blood vessel.

Be patient, O woman, Arseny whispered to her, and she again fell into unconsciousness.

He pierced blood vessels in various parts of her body and she moaned each time but no longer opened her eyes. Arseny covered her with a blanket when he finished.

And now: sleep a long sleep and gather your strength. And awaken not for death but for life. Your prognosis is favorable.

With those words, Arseny left the house. By the end of the day, he had been in several other houses, had dealings with the dead and the living, and seen the living transform into the dead. In one of the houses, he discovered the rag had fallen from his face. There was no time to search for a new one and so he prayed to his Guardian Angel, who was on his right shoulder, warding off the scourge of pestilence with his wings. Arseny felt an angelic waft of air from time to time and that calmed him. Now he could fully concentrate on treating the ill.

Arseny held the wrists of the ill and took heed of the movement of their blood. Sometimes he drew his hand along their chests or along the top of the head. This revealed to him the most likely journey preordained for the ill person. If recovery awaited the patient, Arseny smiled and kissed the person’s forehead. If death was predestined for him, Arseny noiselessly wept. Sometimes no preordination was presented and then Arseny fervidly prayed for the ailing person’s recovery. He would transfer vitalizing strength to the patient as he held the lying patient’s hand. He would let go the hand only when he sensed that the struggle between life and death was resolving itself in favor of life.

This sapped much of his strength that day because never had so many people required his help all at once. In the last of the homes he visited, Arseny fell asleep alongside the patient. He slept and dreamt of his Guardian Angel, who was warding off the scourge of pestilence for him. He did not furl his wings, even at night. Arseny was surprised at the Angel’s indefatigability and asked how he did not tire.

Angels do not tire, said the Angel, because they do not scrimp on their strength. If you are not thinking about the finiteness of your strength, you will not tire, either. Know, O Arseny, that only he who does not fear drowning is capable of walking on water.

In the morning, Arseny and the patient awoke at the exact same time. And the patient knew that he was well.

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Arseny stayed in Velikoe Selo for two weeks. He treated and washed the sick. He gave them food and drink, first and foremost drink. And he taught those who recovered how to care for the sick.

You are not under the power of the pestilence now, Arseny told those who had recovered. It can no longer touch those who have broken free of its clutches.

Not everyone believed him. Some, fearing the ailment would return, quietly left the village, going where there was no pestilence. They soon realized this was a mistake. Their bodies, weakened by illness, could not ward off the adversities of the journey, so the slush and cold fog of the road completed what the plague had lacked the power to accomplish. Those who stayed (they were the majority) believed in Arseny as they believed in themselves. He was their savior and his healing confirmed in their eyes the rightness of his words. They entered the plague houses together with Arseny but no harm came to any of them.

When Arseny had enough helpers to care for the living, he devoted himself to the dead: they could not wait, either. Even the dead who had been brought outside were decomposing, unrestrained. The embarrassed grimaces of the deceased clearly showed they were not to blame; they required immediate help. A cart was found and loaded with bodies. They were taken off to the nearest potter’s field, three versts away, and there they stayed, to await Semik. Those who took care of the deceased did not cry. In those days nobody really cried, for tears cannot soften the grief of so much death. Beyond that, there were simply no more tears.

When he was certain life was returning to normal in Velikoe Selo, Arseny decided to leave. He said goodbye to its residents on a fine January morning, not allowing anyone to escort him beyond the outskirts. But Arseny’s great renown—the source of which may be found in Velikoe Selo—could not confine itself to that one locality.

Arseny’s renown spread, independent of his will, through burgs and hamlets, overcoming dank dampness and roadlessness. Arseny moved on to the village of Lukinskaya, but his renown greeted him right at the first house. It stood in the form of an old peasant woman leaning against a carved doorframe and holding a ceremonial loaf of bread.

Art thou Arseny? asked the woman.

I am, answered Arseny.

The woman thrust the bread at him and he mechanically pinched some off. The bread was hard because (as Arseny gathered) it had been baked long ago.

Do helpe us, O Arseny, for we are dying the death.

If it so please God, I will help, Arseny muttered, not looking at the woman.

He did not understand where she had learned about him; he silently followed her around the village. Mud squished underfoot, and large, wet snowflakes floated down on them through awkwardly angled birch branches. The snowflakes were invisible against the backdrop of the white tree trunks but their faces keenly sensed them. The snow melted instantly on their cheeks but lingered on their eyelashes, hanging for a short time.

How does she know me? Arseny asked Ustina, but Ustina remained silent.

Arseny paused and then said, I’m afraid she takes me for someone else. And that her expectations are too high.

Sometimes he got ahead of the old woman and looked her in the eyes. They reflected a gray sky with no ray of light. He took the woman by the shoulder and abruptly stopped her. She turned her head but looked beyond him.

You know full well your grandson died so why are you taking me to him? said Arseny.

And why, one must ask, am I alive? said the woman, indifferent.

Arseny did not know how to respond, and it had not been a question anyway. At least not a question for him. He silently watched the woman disappear beyond the snowflakes. Once she was no longer visible, he headed toward the nearest house. Work already awaited him there.

Arseny spent more time in Lukinskaya than in Velikoe Selo. There were more patients here. There were also more dead. Apathy reigned in Lukinskaya and it turned out to be much more complicated to get people to help each other. But Arseny dealt with that, too.

He worked to convince the peasants that their recovery depended in large part on they, themselves. With the wish of awakening the vitalizing force within them, Arseny proved to them that God’s help often comes in the form of hard workers. The peasants nodded because they took Arseny to be one of those hard workers. But they did not want to become hard workers. Or perhaps could not. Hope awakened within them when a few of the sick they had already mourned recovered.

And so the recovered began to help the sick and gather up the deceased. They brought bread to orphaned children, washed houses and burned incense for purification, and cleared out yards and streets that had suffered from neglect during the time of the pestilence. Arseny left the village of Lukinskaya and moved on after seeing this.

The village of Gory was the next spot Arseny came to on his journey. After spending some time in Gory, he went around Lake Kishemskoye, ending up in the village of Shortino after walking ten versts. From there his route took him to Kuligi, from Kuligi to Dobrilovo and from there to Zagorye. People already awaited Arseny everywhere and the local residents were already aware of how they should help him, the doctor. His words, like his renown, preceded him and everyone now knew what Arseny would say to them upon arrival, meaning he could speak ever less. This became a significant relief for Arseny: of all his work, it was the uttering of words that took the most effort.

Frost finally struck when Arseny was in Zagorye. It was a hard frost: less than a week passed before it had frozen the Sheksna River over with a thin but solid ice. Arseny now continued his travels along the frozen surface of the Sheksna. His feet sometimes slipped, sometimes got caught on reeds frozen in the ice, but it was still easier to walk along the river than along roadlessness.

And so he arrived in the large village of Ivachevo, a wealthy village that lived off fishing. In Ivachevo there stood a large stone church named for Andrew the First-Called, who was a fisherman before his apostlehood. The smell of nets and salted fish blended with the smell of decaying bodies in the houses of Ivachevo. The pestilence had arrived long ago, as in all the river villages that took in boatmen and travelers.

Arseny, who grew up far from watery expanses, sensed the river’s presence with every hour. The Sheksna was not large, but the depth of its flowing water radiated a certain unusual energy of motion, even under the ice. This force was new in Arseny’s life and it made him uneasy. It awakened in him the thought of pilgrimage.

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Spring found Arseny in Ivachevo. The frosty weather, which had made the pestilence a bit less ferocious, had given way to thaw. Arseny expended all his strength on thwarting a second wave of the pestilence scourge. He prescribed that the residents of Ivachevo eat ground sulfur in egg yolk, drinking it down with an extract of rosehip juice. He ordered them not to eat pork or drink any milk or wine on the days they took the remedy. In the afternoons, Arseny went around to patients’ houses and at night he prayed they be bestowed with health and also that the illness not spread.

When Arseny found himself on the banks of the Sheksna, he thought about how the river’s ice would soon begin melting. He needed to cross the river to another village before the onset of warm days. He was already planning to head out on that journey when a sledge arrived in Ivachevo one morning over the ice of the Sheksna. Someone among Ivachevo’s residents called the sledge “princely” upon seeing its beauty. This turned out to be the truth. The sledge had been sent from Belozersk by Prince Mikhail. And it had been sent for Arseny.

For me? asked Arseny. He was surprised when they told him of the sledge’s arrival.

For you, confirmed those who had come from Belozersk. Pestilence’s sores have come to bear on the princess and her doughter. Your renown is great, O Arseny, in the Land of the White Lakes. Show thy doctorly wisdom and thou shall be esteemed by the prince.

I await rewarde from only our Savioure Jesus Christ, answered Arseny, and why need I esteem from the prince?

Turning aside, he said to Ustina:

I shall see, my love, what I can do for these people. The disease will not become easier simply because they belong to a princely line. Nor more severe, either, that is true.

With those words, Arseny boarded the decorated sledge. The seat was covered with down pillows that lent their softness to the body with the emphatic readiness of expensive items. They wrapped Arseny in a coverlet and he felt awkward before the residents of Ivachevo who gazed at him. Never before had he ridden in such a sledge. And he had not imagined the passage could be so comfortable. Or the motion so fast.

The runners moved along the ice with a quiet, crystal-clear sound and the water responded to them from its depths like a heavy bell. Blowing snow swirled behind the runners in well-worn ruts. Frightened fish scattered every which way under the ice. Whenever there were bends in the Sheksna, the forest changed to villages.

There was a shorter route to Belozersk, too. It was not as convenient as the river route and it went through villages that flashed by, one after another. But the travelers did not know if it had been cleared. They were in a hurry and so decided not to risk anything, knowing the river route to be quick and reliable. Perhaps they did not want to ride into those villages because the pestilence raged there. They had (the sledge driver looked sternly at Arseny) plenty of pestilence in Belozersk.

The icy expanse began to broaden after the sun had lost its brightness. As he looked around, Arseny realized that now there was only a riverbank to the left. Instead of a right riverbank, endless versts of ice extended as far as the eyes could see. This was Beloozero, White Lake. The lake’s ice turned out to be flatter than the river ice and the ride quickened. When it was already completely dark, the lake gradually changed to city. Belozersk, the principal city in the princedom, greeted them.

The sledge glided through dark streets. Arseny had never before seen such long streets and such tall buildings. He could judge the tallness of the buildings by the glow in upper-storey windows. People were already waiting when they pulled up to the prince’s residence. Arseny was plucked from the sledge and quickly led along the staircase to the second floor. After racing through two half-darkened rooms, they ended up in a third. It was brightly lit, and a person stood there. This was Prince Mikhail.

I have hearde thou art a wise doctor, said the prince. He came closer to Arseny and began speaking quietly, almost directly into his ear. From above, for he was tall. My wife and daughter, they took ill last night, do you understand? The doctors here can do nothing. Nothing. Even treating teeth...

That is obvious, said Arseny. You have fetid breath.

Help my dear ones, O Arseny. I think that you can.

Why do you think so? Arseny asked. A rather large number of those I have treated died.

The prince sat down on a massive carved chair. When he was sitting, a bald spot was visible on the top of his head. He looked at Arseny, twisting his head unnaturally.

Because you yourself did not die. They told me you went through many plague villages and did not die. In that I see your blessedness.

Arseny was silent.

The prince brought him to the female half of the residence. Arseny stopped the prince when they arrived at the room where the ill lay.

I will go further by myself.

He bent his head and entered.

Two beds stood side by side. A young woman lay on one (she was much younger than the prince) and a girl of six lay on the other. The girl was unconscious. The princess nodded weakly to Arseny. He went first to the child and took her by the wrist. Then he touched her forehead.

What wilt thou saye, O Arseny? asked the princess.

Thou knowest my name, said Arseny, surprised.

He sat down on her bed. Even in the room’s duskiness, it was apparent the princess had blue eyes. Her eyes must sparkle with a heavenly blueness in the sun, thought Arseny. The Lord has such a color. He carefully lifted her head from the pillow and felt her neck.

What wilt thou saye? she repeated.

Pray, O princess, and the Lord will show his mercy.

Arseny went out and closed the door behind him. The prince silently approached him. He looked away.

You saw them?

I saw them, said Arseny. They are gravely ill but life is not leaving them. With the Lord’s help, I think they will feel better by morning.

The prince laid his head on Arseny’s shoulder. Arseny felt tears on his neck.

Arseny returned to the ill and remained with them until morning. He watched as life battled with death and he understood he needed to help life. He treated the pestilent sores of mother and child. He gave them much to drink because water washes what is foul from the body. He held their heads over the wooden tub when they vomited. Most important, he released his vitalizing strength into them when he felt they did not have enough of their own.

Arseny was particularly apprehensive about the little girl since children withstand the plague worse than adults. He held her hand, not letting go, whenever he could. From her pulse he discerned changes in her condition and controlled her battle for life. Arseny could feel when he had to intervene decisively. At those moments, he mustered everything he had, leaving nothing behind, and delivered to the child everything vitalizing that he could find within himself. He feared only the depletion of his own strength.

When people came into the room to see them in the morning, Arseny was sitting motionless on the floor and holding the child by the hand. Those who entered thought he was dead. That the princess and her daughter were dead, too. But Arseny was alive. And though the princess and her daughter were still very weak, they were healthy.

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That event became the beginning of Arseny’s rise. The prince doted on his family, so the recovery of his loved ones made a deep impression on him. He gave Arseny a sable fur coat as a gift. The gift’s value was obvious despite the warm season. The prince decided to make Arseny the court doctor and house him in his own palace.

It should be noted that princely chambers in this time long gone do not fully correspond to current notions of palaces. The Russian nobility’s palaces were usually wooden. They differed from the houses of simple townsfolk in terms of size more than anything: they were taller and broader. Construction never finished. It might be interrupted, but it would be resumed when the first necessity arose. New quarters were added to the main building with new marriages in the family. New additions appeared when kitchens, rooms for servants, and service areas were expanded. The structures became larger but not more beautiful. They resembled bee hives or a colony of mollusks. Their primary merit was that they suited the owners.

After living at the prince’s for several weeks, Arseny appealed to him, requesting that he be let go. No, Arseny did not want to leave Belozersk—there were still many people there who needed treatment—he asked only to be provided other housing. The request surprised the prince at first but Arseny explained that he visited other patients and was afraid of bringing the pestilence into the prince’s chambers. This was the truth but it was not the whole truth. Life in the palace weighed upon Arseny.

I feel you less strongly when I am amid luxury, he admitted to Ustina, in tears. And there it is impossible to accomplish the task I now live for.

The prince did not even consider hindering Arseny, for Arseny’s word meant a great deal to him. It was important for the prince that Arseny not leave Belozersk. He gave him a house not far from the palace and let him live as he saw fit. As Arseny saw fit was, of course, to deal with the affliction that gripped the city. Within a short time, he was able to arrange for the recovered to help the ill in Belozersk, too. He could not have dealt with the entire city’s ill all by himself.

Arseny left his house at daybreak and made the rounds to the houses of the plague-stricken. He examined them, determining their conditions and prospects for life. He stayed for long hours in places where his help could turn out to be decisive, persuading the sad angels of death to wait a bit. At times, when he thought his powers had completely abandoned him, he went to Beloozero.

It was already the end of May, but the lake was still under ice, its boundless leaden expanse standing in contradiction to the green-covered shores. Arseny felt the coldness of the lake’s depths as he walked along the ice. A waft of that coldness felt to him like a waft of death, as if the lake’s abyss contained everyone from Belozersk who had ever departed. He could gaze at the ice for hours, studying what had frozen into it over the winter: shards of a pot, charred pieces of campfire wood, a fallen wolf, remnants of bast shoes, and items that had lost their initial appearance and transformed into pure matter after resting for so long.

Arseny thought he was by himself but that was not the case. He could not hide anywhere from his renown. Unbeknownst to Arseny, Belozersk observed him from the shore. The city understood that the strain on Arseny would be unbearable for a regular person, so its people did not prevent him from gathering his strength in solitude.

But one day a speck broke free from the shore and began rapidly moving toward Arseny. He paid it attention when it became obvious that the speck was headed directly toward him. At first he thought the person was still far away but it only appeared that way because the person was so small. When the boy approached, Arseny saw he was around seven years old.

I am Silvester, said the boy. I have come, for my mother is sicke. Helpe us, O Arseny.

He took Arseny by the hand and pulled him in the direction of the shore. Silvester’s hand was cold. Arseny moved along silently behind him. Silvester slipped on the ice several times and hung ludicrously from Arseny’s hand. But neither laughed, since their walk was not joyful. Their motion was accompanied by the crackling of ice beneath their feet; above their heads there bellowed birds who had returned from warm lands. From time to time, waves of warm shore air flowed over them, offering its heat as they walked over the icy expanse.

My father died two years ago, said Silvester. Also from the pestilence. My mother’s name is Kseniya.

Seeing that Silvester was looking at him, Arseny nodded.

Silvester’s house stood by a swampy pond near the very edge of the city. Despite Arseny’s expectations, it was a nice home, without orphanhood or abandonment.

When did she get sick? Arseny asked before crossing the threshold.

Yesterday, said the boy.

Arseny went in. Silvester followed him despite a cautionary gesture.

She’s my mama, whispered Silvester. Nothing wicked can come to me from her.

But she belongs to the illness now, not to herself, said Arseny, whispering too, as he led the boy outside.

Kseniya lay with her eyes closed. Arseny watched her in silence for several minutes. Even the swelling from the illness had not distorted her balanced facial features. Arseny touched her forehead with his hand, surprised at his own timidity. He pressed on her forehead with his palm to shed his indecisiveness. Kseniya opened her eyes. They expressed nothing then slowly closed: Kseniya had no strength to resist sleep. Arseny felt her pulse. He drew his hand along her jugular artery. He pressed several times on the place under which her heart was beating. He could feel nothing in her but the waning of life.

In the entry room, Silvester looked at Arseny, questioning. Arseny knew that look very well but had not seen it before on a child. He could not fathom what he should say to a child who wore that look.

Things look bad, you know (Arseny turned away). I feel pained that I cannot save her.

But you saved the princess, said the boy. Save her, too.

Everything is in God’s hande.

You know, for God, it would be such an easy thing to heal her. It is very simple, Arseny. Let us pray to Him together.

Let us. But I do not want you to blame Him if she dies anyway. Remember: she is likely to die.

You want us to ask Him but not believe that He will grant this for us?

Arseny kissed the boy on the forehead.

No. Of course not.

Arseny made a bed for Silvester in the entryway and said, you will sleep here.

Yes, but we will pray first, said Silvester.

Arseny went to the room and brought out icons of the Savior, His Virgin Mother, and the great martyr and healer Panteleimon. He took dippers off a shelf and put the icons in their place. He and the boy knelt. They prayed for a long time. When Arseny finished reciting prayers to the Savior, Silvester tugged at his sleeve.

Wait, I want to say it in my own words. (He pressed his forehead to the floor, which made his voice sound more muffled.) Lord, let her live. I need nothing else in the world. At all. I will give thanks to you for centuries. You know, after all, that if she dies I will be left all alone. (He looked out from under his arm at the Savior.) With no help.

Silvester did not fear for himself when he informed the Savior of these possible consequences: he thought of his mother and chose the weightiest arguments in favor of her return to health. He hoped he could not be refused. And Arseny saw that. He believed the Savior saw it, too.

Then they prayed to the Mother of God. Arseny glanced back when he did not hear Silvester’s voice. Still kneeling, Silvester slept, leaning against a storage chest. Arseny carefully carried him to the bed and prayed, now alone, to the healer Panteleimon. At around midnight he went in to begin taking care of Kseniya.

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For several days, Kseniya did not improve. But she was not dying, either. In this Arseny saw a display of God’s boundless mercy and an encouragement to fight for her life. And he continued to fight. He lifted Kseniya’s head a little, pouring into her mouth remedies for the plague as well as infusions to strengthen her flesh during her struggle with death. He held Kseniya by the hand, whispering a prayer and feeling how the help from Him to Whom he appealed poured into his patient through him.

When Arseny left her room, Silvester greeted him in the entry room. They went to the lake for a short time after praying for Kseniya’s good health. The days in Belozersk had become hot, so the coolness of the lake was pleasant. They did not go out onto the ice because it was already unreliable: underwater springs had created melted patches and pools in the ice. The ice had changed from dark blue to black, from stable to fragile.

You will marry my mother, won’t you? asked Silvester as they walked along the shore.

Arseny stopped from the unexpectedness.

I want for us to always be together, said Silvester.

You see, Silvester...

After walking a bit ahead, the boy slowly returned to Arseny.

Do you have another woman?

You ask very adult questions.

That means there is?

One might say so.

Arseny saw the boy’s eyes fill with tears. Silvester kept himself in hand, and the tears would not roll down his cheeks.

What is her name?

Ustina.

Does she live in your village?

No.

In Belozersk?

She does not live on this earth.

The boy took Arseny’s hand and they walked on, silent.

On the fifth day of her illness, Kseniya began to recover. She had no strength whatsoever but death no longer threatened her. She looked with gratitude at Arseny, who helped her drink, fed her porridge with a spoon, and brought her the chamber pot.

I do not feel embarrassed around you, she said. This surprises even me.

The flesh loses its sinfulness during illness, said Arseny, after thinking. It is becoming known that the flesh is only a shell. So there is no need to feel embarrassed about it.

I do not feel embarrassed around you, said Kseniya at another time, because you have become close to me.

Kseniya improved. On one of the following evenings, she got up and boiled a turnip. She cut the turnip into regular little circles and placed them in bowls. She watched the men with a happy gaze. Arseny looked at Silvester: the boy was hardly eating. It began to worry him that Silvester had been listless all day.

After supper, Arseny took Silvester by the wrist. As he approached the boy he already knew things were bad but he did not understand how bad until he felt Silvester’s pulse. Arseny felt as if his own blood had reversed its flow and would now gush from his nostrils, ears, and throat. Kseniya still kept talking but Arseny could not even part his lips, distinctly feeling his inability to help. He looked at the child and again he wanted to die.

Silvester did not sleep that night. He thrashed around in his bed, seized by an inexplicable restlessness. He tossed and turned and could not find a comfortable position for sleep. The muscles in his arms and legs ached. After falling asleep for a few minutes, he would quickly wake up and ask if Kseniya and Arseny were there. He thought they had gone. But they were beside him: they sat by his bed and never ceased watching over him. Kseniya did not speak; tears ran down her cheeks. Toward morning, Silvester lost consciousness.

Kseniya lifted her head.

Save him, O Arseny. He is my life.

Arseny fell to the floor next to her, buried his head in her knees, and sobbed. He wept from the fear of losing Silvester and from his inability to help him. He wept for all those he had not succeeded in saving. He felt his own responsibility for them, a responsibility he had to bear alone. He wept from his own loneliness, which now burned at him with an unexpected sharpness.

In trying to cure Silvester, Arseny used every measure against the plague that Christofer had ever taught him. He employed several methods whose usefulness he had discovered himself, through observation. He sat the child on his lap and held him that way, not letting him go. Arseny feared the angel of death might come for Silvester in his absence. Arseny knew that, at the crucial moment, he would press the child to himself, pushing waves of life from his heart to Silvester’s. He felt dread when Silvester began coughing. When he wiped the bloody slime from the boy’s lips, Arseny feared Silvester’s soul would fly out with the dreaded cough, for the position of the soul within the body was not stable.

Arseny remembered what Silvester had said and appealed to God:

Help him, this is so easy for You. I understand that my request is impertinent. And I cannot even offer my life for the boy’s because my life is already devoted to Ustina, before whom I am guilty for the ages. But still I trust in Your boundless Mercy and beg You: save the life of Your servant Silvester.

Arseny did not sleep for five days and five nights: another reason he could not let Silvester out of his arms was that the boy needed to be held in a semi-sitting position. When Silvester lay down, his lungs quickly filled with phlegm and he began violently coughing it out. On the sixth day, Arseny sensed changes: they were not yet outwardly visible but they did not escape Arseny.

Without explaining anything, he ordered Kseniya to pray harder. Falling down from exhaustion and lack of sleep, Kseniya prayed harder. She genuflected before the icons in the sacred corner and remained that way for hours. Her hoarse voice now intoned continuously. Her hair came loose from under her headscarf but she had no strength to neaten it. And her tears came to an end, no longer flowing down her cheeks. On the seventh day, the boy opened his eyes.

Arseny collapsed on a bench after uttering a prayer of thanksgiving. He slept for two days and two nights but still did not feel rested. He understood that he needed to get up, and he dreamt that he was getting up. He wanted to examine Silvester and he dreamt that he was examining him: the examination showed that everything was fine with Silvester. Arseny knew that he was dreaming but he knew that he was dreaming the way things truly were. Otherwise, something else would have come to him in his dream.

A cool touch to Arseny’s hand woke him. Kseniya’s lips. Seeing that Arseny had opened his eyes, Kseniya pressed his palm to her forehead. Silvester stood behind her. The boy was pale and thin after the illness. He was transparent, almost spectral. A crease in his shirt stuck out from behind his back as if it were an angel’s wing. He smiled at Arseny, not trying to come closer. Letting his mother go first.

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The city warmed as soon as the ice on the lake had melted. The plague began abating with the onset of hot days. The residents’ unease gradually dissipated as Belozersk returned to normal life. Arseny’s great renown, however, did not dissipate: it had already resounded throughout the entire princedom. People appealed to Arseny for all manner of medical reasons, sometimes even appealing without any reason. The city dwellers sensed obvious grace from God when speaking with him. Arseny spoke little but his very attention, smile, and touch filled people with joy and strength.

Prince Mikhail invited him to dinner from time to time. He again asked Arseny to live in his chambers but Arseny gently refused several times. The prince wanted to build him a large home beside his chambers but Arseny rejected that, too. Arseny would have refused the dinners as well but the prince would have taken that as a personal offense.

The prince was an intelligent person and was not zealous in his attempts to draw Arseny closer to himself. When Prince Mikhail grasped that Arseny needed a particular variety of independence, he did not consider imposing his company on him. The prince understood that this particular variety of independence was an independence whose boundaries he, the prince, could set himself. Letting Arseny live in the city as Arseny saw fit, the prince limited him in only one way: by denying him the right to leave. He politely but firmly made that plain.

Dinners with the prince were not the only complications Arseny faced. Dinners at Kseniya’s turned out to be more frequent and torturous for his soul. Silvester came for him nearly every day and pulled him to his mother’s house. It was even harder to refuse those dinners than the prince’s. It especially troubled Arseny that he did not want to refuse them.

He would come to Kseniya’s and see how she set the table. He delighted in her calm and precise motions. He and Kseniya barely spoke. Silence was not heavy with her and Arseny liked that, too. Sometimes Silvester spoke but more often he tried to leave them by themselves. After dinner, he would see Arseny home. That was pleasant for Arseny, too. Sometimes he thought Silvester feared he would turn and go into some other house.

Ustina cannot be your wife, said Silvester one day as he was seeing Arseny home.

Why? Arseny asked.

Because she does not live on this earth.

I answer for her everywhere, O Silvester.

Arseny placed his hand on Silvester’s shoulder but Silvester turned away.

Silvester was not alone in his unhappiness. Arseny was beside himself, too. He could not avoid visiting Kseniya because there were no apparent reasons to do so. Beyond that, he had started noticing that he awaited those visits as if they were holidays, and so he began experiencing shame. Arseny was also ashamed that he could not hide from his renown in Belozersk. But he was not allowed to quit the city.

The people of Belozersk now came to him on their own. He treated them for the same afflictions as he had treated residents of Rukina Quarter. He never asked anyone to pay for treatment but few were willing to be treated for free. Unlike the residents of the quarter, the city dwellers rarely paid in kind, preferring money. And they paid far more. Sometimes Prince Mikhail made generous gifts, too.

Arseny used the money to buy several small books that he chanced upon: they described the healing properties of herbs and stones. One of them was a doctor book from abroad, and Arseny paid the merchant Afanasy Flea, who had visited German lands, for a translation. Flea’s translation was extremely approximate, which limited opportunities for using the book. Arseny employed the book’s prescriptions only when they coincided with what he knew from Christofer.

By following along as the merchant read the unfamiliar symbols and translated the words they composed, Arseny grew interested in the correlations between languages. Thanks to the story of the confusion of tongues, Arseny knew of the existence of seventy-two world languages, but he had yet, in his whole life, to hear a single one of them beyond Russian. His lips moving, he repeated the unaccustomed combinations of sounds and words to himself, after Flea. When he learned their meanings, it surprised him that familiar things could be expressed in such an unusual and—this was the main thing—awkward way. At the same time, the multitude of opportunities for expression entranced and attracted Arseny. He tried to memorize correlations between Russian and German words, along with Flea’s pronunciation, which probably did not correspond to authentic German pronunciation.

The enterprising Flea quickly noticed Arseny’s interest and offered to give him German lessons. Arseny readily agreed. Essentially, these new lessons were nothing like the usual notions of teaching, because Afanasy Flea was unable to say anything intelligible about language in general. He had never thought about its structure and certainly did not know its rules. At first the lessons consisted of nothing more than the merchant reading more of the doctor book aloud and translating it. These language lessons differed from their previous translation sessions only because at the end of each section, Flea asked Arseny:

Got that?

This allowed the merchant to charge Arseny a double fee: for translation and for lessons. Arseny did not begrudge the money so he did not grumble. He valued Afanasy Flea as the only person in Belozersk familiar to any degree with speech from abroad. Understanding that he would achieve little by merely reading the doctor book, Arseny decided to make use of one of his instructor’s undeniable merits: Flea possessed a good ear and a tenacious memory.

During his time spent on lengthy trips in the land of Germany, Flea had mastered phrases to be uttered in various situations and could repeat those words when asked probing questions. Arseny described these situations for Flea and asked what to say in those cases. The merchant (this is so easy!) waved his hands around, surprised, and reported all the versions he had heard. Arseny wrote down what Flea said. When he was alone, he put his notes in order. He extracted the unfamiliar words from the expressions he heard from Flea and registered them in a special little dictionary.

One time Arseny bought a German chronicle when a foreign merchant’s items were sold off after he died while on the road. It was a thick and fairly tattered manuscript. Arseny and Flea could not tear themselves away when they opened it at random.

They read about people called satyrs that cannot be overtaken when they run. They go around naked, live with wild animals, and their bodies are covered with fur. Satyrs do not speak, they only shout shouts. Arseny and Flea read about athanasias who live in the northern part of the Great Ocean. Their ears are so large they can easily cover their entire bodies. They read of shchirits who, on the other hand, have no ears, only holes. They read of manticores who live in Indian lands: they have three rows of teeth, human heads, and the body of a lion.

The world is so varied, thought Arseny, remembering similar descriptions in the Alexander Romance and asking himself about the place of all these listed phenomena in the overall scheme of things. After all, their existence could not, could it (he asked himself), be an irrationality in a world that is constructed rationally?

The greater part of the money Arseny earned went, however, not toward books or even lessons. Arseny primarily bought roots, herbs, and minerals he needed to make remedies. He gave out expensive remedies to those who had no opportunity to buy them. The most expensive were medicinal remedies brought in from other countries. Among them were items Arseny had only heard about from Christofer or read about in the German doctor book. Now an opportunity had arisen for Arseny to try them out, too, thanks to the generosity of the citizens of Belozersk.

First off, he bought a few pearls and finely ground them. He then mixed that with sugar from rosehips and gave it to someone weakened after the illness of the pestilence. According to Christofer, this remedy returned strength. The ill man’s strength really did return, just as strength returned to other surviving patients. The role of the ground pearl in the matter remained unexplained for Arseny. All Arseny could say with certainty was that the pearl had not harmed the patient.

Arseny also bought a marvelous emerald stone, the sort brought from Britain. Those who often look at emeralds, Christofer had said, will strengthen their vision. Ground emerald that is dissolved in water helps treat lethal poisons. Arseny had never once used it as an antidote but looking at an emerald truly was pleasant.

He also tried out oils the likes of which he had never before seen. Arseny applied turpentine oil to heal up fresh wounds and it seemed efficacious to him. For joint pain, he rubbed the black oil petroleum on bothersome places. Patients felt better from Arseny’s touch. When all was said and done, it did not matter to them what oil Arseny rubbed in. It was important to them that it was Arseny himself who did it because when they rubbed on the petroleum themselves, the curative effect seemed considerably weaker. They did not, however, deny the positive effect of the petroleum.

Arseny was content after trying out remedies previously unavailable to him. It cannot be said he completely lost faith in them, if only because he had faith in Christofer. Arseny, though, took into consideration the fact that even Christofer formed opinions of many medicines without personal experience. This enabled him to subject them to testing and reach his own opinions. Over all, Arseny felt ever more strongly about his long-time supposition that, when all is said and done, medicines are of secondary significance. The primary role belongs to the physician and his doctoring power.

Meanwhile, the short northern summer was already coming to an end. The evening coziness of stoves and the light of splinter lamps had returned. There were even frosts at night. Arseny would stay up late at Silvester and Kseniya’s, reading Christofer’s manuscripts to them.

Vasily the Great sayde: virtue that is in old age is not virtue, but infirmitie in acting on luste of the flesh. Alexander, upon seeing a certain person with his same name, a horrifying creature, sayde, Yonge man, change either thy name or thy morals. When a certain bald man insulted Diogenes, Diogenes said: I will not render insult for insult but I will praise the hairs of your head because they ran off after seeing its madness. Some young man at the market, proud, said he was wise because he had conversed with many wise people, but Democritus answered him: Well, I have conversed with many rich people but that did not make me rich. When Diogenes was asked how to live with the truth, he answered: Do as with fyre: do not go so exceadyngely close that it will burn, but do not go so farre away or the colde will reache you.

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Meanwhile, cold weather was already close. The wind was tearing leaves from Belozersk’s trees and flinging them into the lake. Gusts of wind were growing ever stronger, and the leaves’ connection to the branches was already extremely tenuous. Leaves that had flown off into the river seemed to resemble flocks of small birds that were hurrying north for some reason.

Arseny continued treating patients, but not all were residents of Belozersk. Drawn by news of the Doctor, people from the entire Belozersk princedom now streamed to Arseny. At first he seated them in an entry room. When there was not enough space in the entry room, he ordered that several benches be placed in the yard. When the visitors no longer fit there, either, Arseny began limiting times he would see patients. He only took those who managed to find space on the benches. The rest, however, did not leave. They wandered the yard and patiently awaited the Doctor’s kindness. They knew he would examine them anyway if they waited it out.

There were many patients, and they were very highly varied.

People with broken bones were brought to him. Arseny aligned their bones and stretched pieces of linen and a medicinal ointment over the injured places, to cover them. This was the flower mallow, which had been boiled in wine from another land. He gave them blackthorn juice with ground cornflowers to drink. These ailing people patiently wore their dressings and drank the remedy every morning for eight days. And their bones knitted together.

People burned in fires and scalded by boiling water were brought to him. Arseny applied linen with ground cabbage and egg white to the burns. He sprinkled the burns with cinnabar when changing the dressings. He gave an infusion of the magical herb known as ephiliya to those with burns. Their burns began to heal over and scar after a short time.

People tormented by worms came. For them, he prescribed wild radish ground with pure honey. He prescribed almond nuts. And young nettles, boiled in vinegar with salt. If a person still had any sort of worms after all this, Arseny gave him a pinch of vitriol on a full stomach, so the worms would leave for good. There were many worms in the Middle Ages.

Arseny also treated those suffering from hemorrhoids. He ordered them to dust the painful places with ground dill seed or antimony. People with itchy chests came to him. He prescribed that they obtain herring, an ocean fish, from merchants—it was well known that herring goes around in schools and its eyes glow in the dark. The herring should be cut lengthwise and applied to the chest. People with sore gums came to Arseny, too. He advised them to firm up their gums by frequently holding an almond in the mouth.

As before, Silvester came for Arseny and brought him to his mother. Knowing that Arseny was busy with patients all day, the boy would appear late in the evening. Without noticing it himself, Arseny would begin hurrying toward the end of the day, doing all he could to be free before Silvester’s arrival. Arseny’s patients noticed this and tried not to come in the evening. Arseny finally noticed this himself, too. His heart sank the day he made this discovery. He was silent until sunset and did not take out the manuscripts to read that evening.

Arseny began wavering when Silvester arrived. The boy looked at him, wordless, and Arseny could not withstand that look.

Shall we go, O Silvester?

They did not speak along the way. The boy could feel some changes had taken place within Arseny’s soul but was afraid to ask. Kseniya already had everything on the table. Arseny did not want to eat; he ate so as not to offend Kseniya. He did not have any manuscripts from Christofer with him and the conversation did not go well. When Silvester disappeared into the entry room, Arseny said:

I should not be here, O Kseniya.

Kseniya’s expression did not change. She had been waiting for those words and was prepared for them. Those words inflicted suffering on her.

I know that you are faithful to Ustina, said Kseniya, and I love you for that. But I am not seeking Ustina’s place.

It makes me joyful and happy to be with you, said Arseny. But Ustina is my eternal bride.

If it makes you joyful to be with me, be my brother. Let us live together under a perfect love. Just to be with you, O Arseny.

I am weak so I cannot live with you under a perfect love. Forgive me, for God’s sake.

God will forgive you, said Kseniya. You serve your memory and display boundless devotion, but know, O Arseny, that you are destroying the living in the name of the dead.

The whole point, shouted Arseny, is that Ustina is alive, too, and the baby is alive and they crave to be atoned for. Who will atone for them if not I, who has sinned?

We will. The two of us and Silvester, who will be happy to share a prayer with you. And he will be happy to return your serenity to you. His prayer is pleasing to the Lord. The three of us, together, will pray to the Lord on all dayes, from morning until evening. Just do not leave us, O brother mine Arseny.

Kseniya was pale and thus inexpressibly beautiful. Arseny felt a lump growing in his throat. As he left, he saw Silvester in the entry room; his gaze was achingly lonely. Arseny burst out sobbing from that gaze. He covered his face with his hands and flung himself from the house. He walked along the pine fencing and sobbed loudly. Nobody saw him because it was already night in Belozersk. The people of Belozersk only heard his sobs and wondered whose they might be, for they had not previously been familiar with this voice of Arseny’s.

As he arrived home, Arseny wiped away his tears and told Ustina:

And so you see, my love, what is happening. I have not spoken with you, my love, for several months and I have no excuse. Instead of atoning for my sin, I am ever more mired in it. How can I pray for your atonement before God, my poor girl, when I myself am sinking into the abyss? It would not be so regrettable, you know, if I alone were to be lost forever, but who will atone for thee and the babe? I am the only one here who prays fervently for you and that is the sole reason that I still do not despair.

That is what Arseny said to Ustina. He gathered Christofer’s manuscripts in a bag, showed it to Ustina, and added:

Here is the bag with Christofer’s manuscripts, essentially the most treasured thing that I have. I would take it and go wherever I feel like, away from my renown. My renown has overcome me: it is driving me into the ground and preventing me from conversing with Him. I would leave here, my love, but the prince of this cyte will not release me, though the main thing that keeps me here is Kseniya and Silvester. They would be happy to pray with me for you and the baby but they do not understand that only I can do that. I am the only one on this earth who is still united with you and it is as if you continue to live through me. But Kseniya thinks I am destroying the living in the name of the dead and wants to pray for you as if you were dead, though I happen to know you are alive, only in a different way.

Arseny began thinking. He stroked the bag with the manuscripts and they answered him with a birch-bark rustle.

You know, I am going to the city gates. They are shut at this tyme but yf it will be necessary, an angel will lead me from this cyte.

His gaze fell on the fur coat the prince had given him. He had never even worn it. Despite its grandeur, the fur coat was neither heavy nor cumbersome. Arseny put on the fur coat and strolled around the room. He liked the fur coat. Arseny grew uneasy because he thought he was beginning to value the comfort of expensive things. He stood in the fur coat for about a minute but decided not to take it off after all. If he truly had a journey ahead of him, this sort of fur coat might come in handy. He noticed several more of Christofer’s manuscripts on the bench by the door. He did not feel like untying his well-packed bag. Arseny shoved the manuscripts into the pocket of the fur coat and left the house.

Snow was blowing and drifting outside. Arseny felt its prickly touch on his cheeks but saw nothing in the darkness. Not one light was shining in the windows, and that was a good sign: in Arseny’s life, lights at night accompanied illnesses and deaths. The darkness did not prevent him from walking. He could have made his way to the city gates with his eyes closed.

It was a little brighter in the open area near the gates. Arseny noticed movement in one corner of the square. After wavering, he went over there. A horse and rider gradually became visible, against the background of a freshly planed fence. Arseny did not know if angels rode horseback. Another horse stood alongside.

Ready? the horseman quietly asked.

Ready, Arseny replied, just as quietly.

The horseman silently motioned to the other horse, and Arseny jumped into the saddle. The horseman started off in the direction of the gates. Arseny followed him. At the gates, the horseman dismounted and knocked at the guard booth. Something sleepy was uttered in response. The horseman entered. A quiet conversation accompanied by the jingle of coins could be heard from the booth. A minute later, several people, the horseman among them, came out of the booth. He got in the saddle again. Two people put a key in a lock and turned it with an unexpectedly loud clank that rolled through the hushed city. Three others pushed on the gates. They opened them, again with a creak, to exactly the distance needed for a horse to pass through. The night wayfarers disappeared through that crack.

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The guards are venal, said Arseny’s traveling companion, once they were far from the gates.

Arseny nodded, though nobody saw it. His traveling companion said nothing more to him. They soon entered the forest. Only there did it become completely obvious what true darkness is. They were forced to ride slowly; the horses had to feel around to place their hooves. One time a branch hit the stranger’s face and he cursed foully. Arseny realized he was not accompanied by an angel. He had suspected that from the first moment they met.

A quarter of an hour later, a second branch knocked the horseman from his saddle. As he fell, he awkwardly splayed his leg, injuring it. He tried to get up right away, stood on the injured leg, and collapsed to the ground with a groan.

My leg… Son of a bitch, did myself in with all that riding.

Arseny jumped from his horse and went over to the fallen man. He carefully felt his leg.

It’s nothing serious, just a dislocation. The main thing is the bone is intact.

The stranger tensed at the sound of Arseny’s voice. Arseny felt the leg jolt.

This is easy to deal with, Arseny said to liven him up.

Without saying a word, the other man grabbed Arseny by the hair and pulled him toward himself. Arseny felt a knife at his throat.

Who are you? wheezed the stranger.

Me? Arseny.

I’ll slice you up, you lowlife.

Why? asked Arseny.

The question seemed pointless, even to him.

Because my man Stinge was supposed to be in your place. The stranger shook Arseny and the knife lightly cut the skin on his neck. What, you telling me you’re Stinge?

No, said Arseny.

Then how’d you end up here, you nit?

You were the one who asked if I was ready.

And what of it?

And I was ready.

Oh, jeez, you… Stinge is going to slice me up next time I see him. Son of a bitch, I didn’t just bring you, I brought our money, his and mine… Now he’s sitting there thinking I skipped town on him, that’s what’s so shitty. That’s what’s so shitty, is what I’m saying!

He shook Arseny again but the knife no longer touched his throat.

Just explain to him that everything is all my fault, said Arseny.

Right, like he’s just waiting for my explanations. No, no, I wouldn’t even have a damn chance to open my mouth. But I’m going to slice you up before that, you got it?

A certain calming could be felt in his bitter words, though. His change in tone offered a chance for the travelers to reconcile themselves to their circumstances. Arseny gently took away his traveling companion’s knife and got to work on his leg. He reset the leg with one jerk as the man briefly shouted.

You could have at least warned me, complained the patient.

It works better without a warning.

The other man got off the ground with Arseny’s help and carefully stood on the reset leg:

Seems a little better.

Ride on horseback and do not walk for the time being, said Arseny. It will be completely healed in a few days.

The forest was no longer so dark. This was not yet dawn itself, only its portents. Arseny’s traveling companion looked at him with interest.

Maybe this is what had to happen, for Stinge to stay in Belozersk, he said pensively. Maybe it’s all for the better.

He took both horses by the bridle and began moving into the depths of the forest.

And you know what, you go the hell away, too. Son of a bitch, I get twitchy when I’m not alone. I’m going to go take a rest away from the road, then tonight I’ll slowly be on my way. And you, brother, just leave me the fur coat, you have a nice fur coat.

What? Arseny did not understand.

Take off the fur coat and you can go. You set the leg for me, I’ll let you out of this alive. What are you gawking at me for?

The knife glinted in his hand again. Arseny took off the fur coat and held it out to the stranger. The man took off his homespun coat and tossed it to Arseny.

Here, wear this.

He put on the fur coat, checking that it was not tight in the shoulders. He spun around ludicrously in front of Arseny. After thinking a minute, he went to the horse Arseny had been riding and unfastened the leather bag from the saddle, taking a long time. The straps would not come undone. He slit them with a knife and the small bag fell to the ground with a jingle. He picked up the bag and winked.

This is mine, that (he tossed the reins to Arseny) is yours. I don’t need the second horse. Go wherever you like, even to Belozersk. You can get some sleep along the way. The horse is from Belozersk, she’ll take you right there. And forget about me, you got that?

Arseny did not go to Belozersk. The gates of that city had closed behind him. He knew he would enter them no more. He had felt comfortable in Belozersk and that was exactly why he had fled. That city distanced him from Ustina. Arseny came onto the road and headed in the opposite direction to Belozersk.

He felt downcast as he rode along. Despite his former traveling companion’s request, Arseny could not forget him. Arseny was not upset with how his companion had treated him. He was not even upset by the obvious fact that it was not an angel who had led him from the city, something he had, truth be told, dreamed about. Arseny felt agitated as he advanced slowly in an unknown direction. The agitation was seemingly unfounded, but with each minute it grew clearer that the agitation was swirling around the person he had left behind. Arseny knew he could not return, for that person had sent him away. And that person was alone, so he was not twitchy.

After riding for about another hour, Arseny remembered that a few of Christofer’s manuscripts, the ones he had put in his pocket at the last minute, were still in the fur coat. He began feeling regret about the manuscripts: it was unlikely they held any value for the new owner of the fur coat. He could have returned them. Arseny grasped that he now had an excuse to see his traveling companion again. And so he turned his horse. He rode back and the agitation intensified.

Arseny dismounted by the place where he needed to leave the road. He tied the horse to a tree and headed into the forest. He already noticed some sort of motion far off, beyond the bare trees. A person was walking around in his fur coat between two horses, but Arseny recognized that he was not the person who had ridden with him that night. They had never met but Arseny recognized the person must be Stinge. Stinge held a cudgel in his left hand. He was most likely a leftie. A few steps later, Arseny saw his traveling companion, too.

He was lying in an unnatural pose on the ground behind one of the horses. He was turned so his face looked up and, for some reason, he was holding one arm behind his back and his legs were convulsively scraping at the ground. One of his heels had dug a shallow trench edged with pine needles. He looked at Arseny with unseeing eyes and in them Arseny could read what awaited this person.

Arseny paid no attention to Stinge as he bent over the dying man. He was no longer moving. Stinge thought for a moment and lowered the cudgel on Arseny’s head.

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It was darkish in the forest. And difficult to determine if it was sunset or sunrise. Only when it began to lighten a bit was it clear that it was sunrise. Arseny gathered his strength and was able to separate his head from the hard thing it rested upon. It was his traveling companion’s body. It was just as cold as the ground.

But I am warm, Arseny said to Ustina. I, who am guilty of his death, am warm and alive. Now I have been saved—only for your sake—but he, like you, is on my conscience. I doomed him with one spoken word. If I had not told him I was ready, he would not be lying here so cold. Arseny remembered Arsenius the Great, who more than once regretted the things he said but never once regretted his silence. From now on, I do not want to speak with anybody but you, my love.

Arseny held onto a tree and stood. There were no horses now. Stinge had most likely taken them. Arseny plodded toward the road. The horse he had tied there still stood in the same place. He untied her and led her into the depths of the forest, grasping the mane so as not to fall. He reeled from side to side.

Arseny sat down to rest when they got to the dead body. Arseny gathered his strength and dragged the dead man toward the horse and tried to lay him across the saddle. The slain man, who would no longer bend, slid off several times. He fell to the ground with a dull, hardened sound. By sheer force of will, Arseny threw the man’s arms on the saddle and pressed his head against the man’s legs, pushing the body upward. Indifferently balanced, the slain man began wobbling in the saddle. The gaze in his open eyes expressed indifference, too. He had the look of a man who wanted to be left alone.

Arseny managed to sit the corpse in the saddle and turn his face forward. When Arseny could not find anything with which to tie him to the horse, he checked the dead man’s boots. In one of them lay the knife the man had threatened him with just the day before. Arseny took off the homespun coat he had been given and began cutting it into thin strips. By tying them together he came up with a fairly long cord. He bound the deceased’s legs to the saddle using the cord.

Arseny led the horse onto the road.

You are from Belozersk, he said. Take him there, for there they will commit him to the earth.

The horse gave Arseny a long look and would not get going.

I am not going, said Arseny. He needs you more. He smacked the horse lightly on the rump.

The horse got going, heading in the direction of Belozersk. The dead horseman rode, nestled into her mane. Arseny watched them as they grew more distant and transparent, turning into one large circle that disintegrated into small circles. The circles floated, not coming into contact. When they met, they simply passed through one another. Arseny vomited. His feet no longer held him.

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… they thought: he is dead, since he did not look alive ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Ten days later, Stinge was approaching Novgorod. He himself sat atop one horse; a second horse, without a rider, trotted a little behind him. Four pairs of hooves clopped on the frozen earth with an exaggerated loudness. He rode unhurriedly because he had nowhere to hurry. Stinge thrust his hand into the pocket of the fur coat and pulled out Christofer’s manuscripts. He read them, his lips moving.

David sayde: misfortune shal slaye the ungodly. Solomon sayde: your close one will praise you, not your lips. Kirik asked bishop Nifont: should a prayer be carried out over a defiled clay vessel or only over one of wood, and should the rest be smashed? Nifont answered, a prayer may be carried out over anything, the same over a wooden vessel as over clay, or over brass or glass or silver. He who holds to worthy actions cannot be without many enemies. Wealth does not bring a friend but a friend brings wealth. Remember your absent friends when you are with those who are present, that they may hear and know you do not forget them either. All Stinge’s friends were absent so he had to remember them alone.

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He opened his eyes, they said over Arseny.

He realized, too, that he had opened his eyes. The crossed branches floating above Arseny seemed like a dream. Someone’s face sprang up in front of him. It was so big that it blocked the astonishing arch of sky that was floating above him. Arseny saw each of the face’s wrinkles and the beard framing the face. A mouth moved within the beard and asked:

What is your name?

So that is how sounds are formed, Arseny thought.

What is your name? the mouth asked again.

He pronounced those four words separately, as if he did not trust the hearing of the man lying there.

Ustin, Arseny said, barely audibly.

Ustin. The face turned to someone. His name is Ustin. What befell thee, O Ustin?

Arseny had tired of looking at the face and so closed his eyes. His whole body sensed soft straw. His hand felt the wooden side of a cart.

Leave him alone, said another voice. We’ll bring him to the nearest village, let them sort it all out there.

Arseny opened his eyes again but no longer felt the cart rattling. It was cold. He was lying on something hard. It was similar to firewood. He dragged a log out from under himself and looked at it for a long time. Light through a door ajar. Light and squeaking. A woodshed.

After raising himself a little on his elbow, Arseny saw he was completely undressed. Alongside him lay his bag and some sort of rags. Hesitating, Arseny extended a hand toward the rags but pulled it right back. He felt disgusted. It was not just the filth of the rags that repelled him. It was unbearable to think the person who had undressed him had most likely worn them. That person had not taken—and this was even insulting—the bag with Christofer’s manuscripts. Overcoming his revulsion, Arseny extended his hand toward the pieces of fabric, which turned out to be a shirt, trousers, and a belt.

Arseny needed more than clothing, he also needed shoes, for his boots had been taken from him, too. After some thought, he tore the bark off two birch logs and fit the pieces against his feet. He gave the birch bark the proper shape using his teeth. Then he pulled the belt from the rags and began rubbing it against the door frame. When the shabby belt had frayed through into two pieces, Arseny used it to bind the birch bark to his feet. Shod, he caught himself putting off the moment he would dress. He was slow to get dressed, despite shivering.

But he could not leave the shed naked. Arseny took what had once been a shirt and held it against his chest. Hesitating, he put his arms into the sleeves and his head through the hole: the collar had been torn off. The shirt hung on his body like a formless rag. Patches livened up its colorlessness.

It was most difficult to put on the trousers. They turned out to be a bit more intact than the shirt but that only made things worse. As Arseny put on those tatters, he thought that they had touched the thief’s indecent member. His trousers were like a bodily closeness to him, and Arseny convulsed with loathing. The theft dispirited him not for the loss of his own clothes but for acquiring someone else’s. Arseny was scared that he would abhor his own body from now on; he wept. And then, after it had dawned on him that from now on he would abhor his own body, Arseny began laughing.

He emerged from the shed in an elated mood. After taking several steps in his new clothes, he said to Ustina:

You know, my love, these are essentially my first steps in the right direction since I came to Belozersk.

The shed stood on the edge of a village. Arseny approached the nearest house and knocked at the door. Andrei Magpie lived in the house with his family.

Who are you? Magpie asked Arseny.

Ustin, answered Arseny.

Hey, Ustin, just wait till the trees turn green, Magpie smirked and slammed the door.

Then Arseny knocked at Timofei Pile’s door. Timofei looked Arseny over and said:

You will bring in lice: in your position, you cannot not have lice. Or fleas. I think you have a whole bag of them.

The bag contained only Christofer’s manuscripts but Arseny did not consider untying it in front of Timofei.

Next was Ivan Skinanbones’s house. Ivan remembered the hospitality of Abraham and did not want to send away a pilgrim. But he did not want to let him in, either. He led him to the other end of the village, to the old woman Yevdokia, who was afraid of neither lice, nor fleas, nor strangers.

Yevdokia was chewing the soft part of some bread when they entered. She had no teeth so chewed the soft bread with her gums, which made her entire face move. It just plain bobbed up and down, folding and unfolding, looking like an old leather wallet.

After observing Yevdokia’s face for a bit, Ivan said:

Here you go, woman, a guest who says nothing except that he is Ustin. You have to agree that is at least some sort of information.

I am of the opinion that is plenty, nodded Yevdokia.

She tore off half the soft part of the bread and held it out for Arseny.

Eat, O Ustin.

Ivan and Yevdokia silently watched as Arseny ate.

He is hungry, said Ivan.

That is a fact, confirmed Yevdokia. He can stay.

After warming up a little, Arseny could feel his head start to itch. The clothing he had inherited was full of lice. They had come to life in the warmth and begun crawling into Arseny’s hair. He sat, feeling the motion of the lice along his neck, from bottom to top. Arseny knew it was difficult to get rid of lice and began feeling sorry for Yevdokia. He did not want to multiply the difficulties in her life. He decided he should not stay here. As Arseny stood, he bowed to Yevdokia from the waist. Yevdokia continued chewing. He went outside and closed the door behind him.

The cold hit Arseny. He was still holding on to the door ring. The desire arose to pull on it and go back inside the warm house. After stepping down from the front steps, though, he realized he was not going back. An early dusk was thickening. Arseny walked, experiencing fear and the cold. And he himself did not understand why he had stepped out of the warmth. All he understood was that a difficult journey awaited him—and it might not even be surmountable. And he did not know where that journey would take him.

Arseny walked along a forest road that was growing ever darker. His legs would not bend in the cold, so he walked as if he were on stilts. Then snow began to fall. It was the first snow of the year and it was falling somewhat uncertainly. At first there were individual snowflakes, few but large. Their fluffiness seemed to make it a little warmer. The snowflakes came down ever more, until they turned into a complete wall, a blizzard. When the blizzard ended, the moon came into sight and everything grew bright. Each bend in the road was visible.

The coldness seemed to intensify when the moon appeared. Arseny thought the moon itself was pouring out the silvery cold that was spreading across the land. He took pity on his chilly body for a while but the pity left him when he suddenly remembered his body was defiled by another’s clothes and lice. This was no longer his body. It belonged to the lice, the person who previously wore his clothes, and, finally, the cold. But not to him.

As if I were dwelling in the body of another, thought Arseny.

However much sympathy one might have for another’s body, its pain cannot be perceived as one’s own. Arseny knew that, having helped infirm bodies. Though he had lived in the pain of others in order to ease it, he could never fathom all its depth. And now the matter at hand concerned a body he did not even sympathize with very much. A body that, for the most part, he despised.

Arseny was no longer cold, for someone dwelling in another’s body cannot be cold. Quite the contrary, he markedly felt how his (not his) body had filled with strength and was confidently moving along toward dawn. He was surprised at how firmly he strode and broadly he swung his arms. Waves of warmth rose in spurts from somewhere below and flowed to his head. After he’d fallen to the ground, Arseny did not even notice that his tireless motion had ceased.

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…. .…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Do I want, thought Arseny, to forget everything and live from now on as if there had been nothing in my life before, as if I had just appeared on earth right now, as a grown-up from the start rather than as a child? Or perhaps: remember only what was good from what I have already lived, since it is typical for the memory to rid itself of what is torturous? My memory keeps abandoning me and next thing you know, it will abandon me forever. But would being freed of my memory become my absolution and salvation? I know it would not and I will not even pose the question that way. Because what kind of salvation would I have without the salvation of Ustina, who was the primary good fortune in my life as well as the primary misery? And so I pray to You: do not take away my memory, where there is hope for Ustina. If you summon me to Yourself, be merciful: pass judgment on her not based on our doings but on my hunger to save her. And register as hers the bit of kindness, which I haue made.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

A cow’s tongue is soft and does not scorn the lice-ridden. Its rough caress partially replaces human warmth. It is not easy for a person to take care of the festering and lice-ridden. He who enters can leave a crust of bread and a mug of water alongside the ill person, but one can only count on a cow for a true, unsqueamish caress. The cow quickly got used to Arseny and considered him one of her own. She licked dried clumps of blood and pus from his hair with her long tongue.

Arseny observed the sway of her udder for hours and sometimes pressed his lips upon it. The cow (how shall I udder your name?) had nothing against that, though all she took seriously were her morning and evening milkings. Only her mistress’s hands brought genuine relief. There was strength in them, unlike Arseny’s lips. The urge to squeeze all the milk out into a tightly woven birch-bark container, leaving nothing. The milk burst out of the udder with a loud gurgle, first delicate, almost chirring, but taking on fullness and range as it filled the container. Some of the milk flowed down the mistress’s fingers. Watching those fingers twice a day, Arseny remembered them better than the woman’s face. He knew what each individual finger looked like but had never once felt their touch.

Sometimes the cow would stand motionless and lift her tail a bit (it quivered), then warm patties would slap onto the cowshed floor right under the tassel of her tail. From time to time, those patties spattered in all directions under a strong stream. Arseny used a clump of hay to wipe off the drops that ended up on his face.

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

The wound on his head had almost healed but then he had bouts of headaches. The pain came not from the wound but from somewhere in the very depths of his head. It felt to Arseny as if a worm had taken up residence there and that its movements were inducing this torture so difficult to endure. During these bouts, he would grasp his head with his hands or bury his head between his knees. He rubbed his head, frenzied, and the resulting external pain removed the internal pain for a moment. But the internal pain came on right away with new force, as if it had caught its breath. Arseny wanted to split his skull in two and toss out the worm along with his brains. He pounded himself on his forehead and on the top of his head but the worm sitting inside understood perfectly that it could not be reached. The worm’s invincibility allowed it to swagger, driving Arseny to wit’s end.

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… They asked Arseny who he was but he kept silent. And he discovered, surprised, that the cow was no longer alongside him.

But where is the cow? Arseny asked the closest of those present. The cow was a splendid comrade and showed me heaven-sent mercy.

Nobody answered him because those who seemed present were absent. The one closest to Arseny—small, hunched, and gray—turned out, upon careful examination, to be a plow handle. The others were also curved and bony. Horse yokes of gigantic sizes. (On whom, one might ask, do they ride here?) Sledge runners. Shafts and milkmaid’s yokes for buckets. But the room was completely different.

Interesting, said Arseny, feeling a wagon wheel underneath himself. Interesting that time moves along but I am lying on a wagon wheel, not thinking the slightest bit about the supertask of my existence.

Arseny laboriously stood and went outside the door, stepping unsteadily. The houses in the unfamiliar village lined up before him, their roofs like fluffy hats. Smoke extended from each, into completely calm air. It looked to Arseny as if the smoke plumes had evenly affixed all the houses to the sky. The connecting threads took on an unusual soundness once they lost the mobility characteristic of smoke. Wherever they were a bit shorter than necessary, the houses rose a few sazhens. Sometimes they rocked a little. There was something unnatural in that and Arseny’s head spun. As he grasped the doorframe, he said:

The connection of sky and earth is not as simple as they have apparently grown used to considering it in this village. This sort of view of things seems excessively mechanistic to me.

Arseny headed right out of the village, squeaking along the freshly fallen snow. A short while later that sound attracted his attention and he looked at his squeaking feet: they were wearing bast shoes.

And they were in birch bark before, Arseny remembered. Now that is transformation for you.

The bag with Christofer’s manuscripts was swinging behind his back.

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Arseny went from village to village and his memory did not abandon him again. His head ached less; sometimes it did not ache at all. Arseny answered all questions by saying he was Ustin, for that was all that seemed essential at present. It was, however, also obvious to everyone what sort of person he was and how he could be helped. Arseny was no longer the former Arseny. During his time of wanderings, he acquired an appearance that required no explanations whatsoever. Without saying a word, people would give him—or not give him—a place in a shed (a cowshed). They would bring him a piece of bread from warm houses, or not bring it. More often, they brought it. And he grasped that life was possible without words.

Arseny did not know what direction he was moving in, or even if he was moving in one direction. Strictly speaking, he did not need a direction because he was not striving to go anywhere specific. He also did not know how much time had passed since he left Belozersk. Judging from the easing of the cold weather, spring was coming. Then again, that did not particularly concern him, either. As if dwelling in the body of another, Arseny had grown used to the cold. When he was given a holey but warm homespun coat in the village of Krasnoe, he was already unsure if this thing was necessary. He left the coat by one of the houses in the village of Voznesenskoe, saying to Ustina:

You know, with all this hoarded junk, we will not rise in the wake of our risen Savior. A person has, my love, a lot of unnecessary property and attachments that drag him down. If you happen to be concerned regarding my health, then I am pleased to inform you that—though it may still be cold now—a warming spring is already on the way.

Arseny correctly recognized spring’s arrival as he traveled along a road that was softening but not yet fully thawed. He was remembering the joy he had experienced in his previous life at the change in the air. And from the sunbeams, filled with strength, that he felt falling on his face.

One time he began to weep when he saw his own face in a spring puddle. His snarled hair no longer had any color. Clumps of beard were emerging from his sunken cheeks. It was not even a beard but tangled fluff that stuck to his skin in some places, and hung like icicles in others. Arseny cried not for himself but for a time gone by. He understood that now it would not return. Arseny was not even certain of the existence of the earth where he had lived during previous springs. It did, however, still stand in its former place.

Weeping, Arseny came to the city of Pskov. This was the largest of the cities he had seen. And the most beautiful. Arseny did not know its name for he did not ask anyone. As residents of a large city, the Pskovians did not ask Arseny anything, either, and that gladdened Arseny. He had the sense he could get lost here.

He walked along the wall of Pskov’s kremlin (krom) and was surprised at the might of the wall. Behind a wall like that, Arseny thought, life would go on, by all appearances, calmly and placidly. It was difficult to anticipate that an external enemy could get over its walls. I cannot picture ladders of dimensions large enough for these walls. Or, let us imagine, weapons capable of breaking through that thickness. But (Arseny threw back his head and it felt as if the wall had slowly begun bending toward him) even a wall like that did not preclude the danger of an internal enemy if he were to appear behind that wall. You might say that would be the worst possible thing: now that would truly be a critical situation.

The wall led Arseny to the Velikaya River. Chunks of ice were still drifting along the river, but it was generally open. Ferrymen were assembling people on the shore. Arseny felt drawn to the other shore and boarded the ferry, too.

And did you pay the fare? one of the ferrymen asked Arseny.

Arseny did not answer.

Do not ask him for money, people said to the ferryman, for this is a person of God before you, can you not see?

So I see, acknowledged the ferryman, I asked just in case.

He pressed his pole into the shore and the ferry cast off, its bottom rasping along the sand. In the middle of the river, Arseny lifted his head. Cupolas that had not been visible before showed from behind the kremlin’s walls. The setting sun gave them a double gilding. When the main bell struck, it became clear it was ringing from the water because the cupolas on the water were more alive than the cupolas in the sky. Their fine quivering reflected the strength of the sound they generated.

For a long time after getting off the ferry, Arseny admired the view that unfolded in front of him.

You know, my love, I had simply grown unaccustomed to beauty in my life, he told Ustina. And it unfolds so unexpectedly when crossing a river that I cannot even find the right words. And so on one side of the river I am wallowing in scabs and lice, but on the other there is this beauty. And I am glad to accentuate its grandeur with my wretchedness, since in doing so it is almost as if I am a party to its creation.

After it had grown dark, Arseny wandered along the shore. Finally, he stumbled upon a wall. He began walking along the wall and noticed it had a narrow gap. The darkness in the gap was even thicker than the surrounding darkness. Arseny crawled through, groping at the edges of the gap. In front of him there glimmered several oil lamps. The outlines of crosses could be discerned in their dull light. It was a cemetery. What a wonderful place, all the same, thought Arseny. You could not come up with anything better. It is just the right thing for the moment. He took one of the lamps and held his hands over it. The warmth spread through his whole body. Arseny placed his bag under his head and went to sleep. He shuddered in his sleep for a while but then Christofer’s manuscripts rustled under his cheek.

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He was woken by birdsong. This was real spring singing, though spring’s arrival was not yet obvious. Snow lay on some graves. The birds assisted the thaw. To the sound of their song, snow turned to water and seeped down to the deceased, bringing glad tidings of spring to them, too. Spring came earlier to Pskov than to Belozersk. Residents of Belozersk have always considered Pskovians southerners. To this day they continue to consider them southerners.

The cemetery where Arseny had spent the night belonged to a convent. He grasped that when he saw nuns walking around the cemetery. When the sisters asked him who he was, Arseny called himself Ustin, in his usual way. Of course he said no more to them. The sisters informed him that he was on the land of the Convent of the Nativity of Saint John the Baptist. They were not certain Arseny understood them. After conferring, they brought Arseny a dish of fish soup. After Arseny had eaten the soup, they took him by the arms and led him outside the fence.

Arseny wandered along the bank of the Velikaya River all day. When he saw an approaching ferry, he decided to cross the river in the other direction. This time the ferryman did not ask him for money. He said:

Ride, yf thou wylt, O man of God. Me thinketh your visit is good fortune.

Holy fool Foma greeted Arseny on the other shore.

Aha, shouted Foma, I see you are the realest of holy fools. Real. You can rest assured that I have a first-class nose for matters of this sort. But did you know, my friend, that each part of the Pskov soil supports but one holy fool?

Arseny kept quiet. Holy fool Foma then grabbed him by the arm and dragged him away. They were nearly running along the kremlin walls but Arseny saw no chance to halt their movement: Foma turned out to be very tenacious. Another river appeared before them. This was the Pskova, whose waters carried into the Velikaya River.

Out there, beyond the Pskova, said holy fool Foma, lives holy fool Karp. His speech is meager and unintelligible. Sometimes he only announces his name in quickspeache: Karp, Karp, Karp. A very worthy person. Even so, I have to pound his face in, on average, once a month. This occurs on the days when he crosses the river and comes to the city. And I, by inflicting bloody wounds on holy fool Karp, induce him not to leave Zapskovye, the area beyond the Pskova. That is your lot, I teach him, to stay in the Zapskovye part of town. Keep in mind, I tell him, that Zapskovye would be like a lonesome orphan without you, and you’d create an excess of our sort in my part of town. And excess is depravity that leads to spiritual devastation… Come he must, collecting no dust!

Holy fool Foma folded his arms on his chest and looked at the opposite shore. Holy fool Karp threatened him with a fist from the other side.

Go ahead and threaten, you shithead, threaten, shouted holy fool Foma, without malice. If I shall ever see thee here one daye, I will mercilessly smash your members. Like as the smoke vanisheth, so shall you be driven away!

He takes me for a holy fool, Arseny told Ustina.

And who else could you be taken for? said Foma, surprised. Just take a look at yourself, O Arseny. You really are a holy fool, for thou hath chosen a life for yourself that is wild and disparaged by people.

And he knows my christened name.

Foma began laughing:

How could I not know when it is written all over every christened person’s face? Of course it is more complicated to guess about Ustin but you yourself are informing everybody about him. So go ahead and holyfool it, dear friend, don’t be shy, otherwise they’ll all get to you with their reverence in the long run. Their deference is not compatible with your goals. Remember how things were in Belozersk. Do you need that?

Who is this one who knows my secrets? Arseny turned to Foma:

Who are you? Who?

A prick wearing one shoe, answered Foma. You are asking about things of secondary importance. But I will tell you the main thing. Go back to Zavelichye, the part of town beyond the Velikaya River, where the John the Baptist Convent stands on the future Komsomol Square. I suspect you already spent the night in the convent cemetery. Stay there and believe me: Ustina could have been in that convent. I think she just never got that far. Though you made it here. Pray for her and for yourself. Be her and be yourself, simultaneously. Be outrageous. Being pious is easy and pleasant, go ahead and make yourself hated. Don’t let the Pskovians sleep: they are lazy and incurious. Amen.

Foma drew his arm back and hit Arseny in the face. Arseny silently looked at him, feeling the blood flow from his nose and run down his chin and neck. Foma embraced Arseny and his face got bloody, too. Foma said:

By giving yourself to Ustina, you are, I know, exhausting your body, but disowning your body is only the half of it. As it happens, my friend, that can lead to pride.

What else can I do? thought Arseny.

Do more, Foma whispered right into Arseny’s ear. Disown your identity. You have already taken the first step by calling yourself Ustin. So now disown yourself completely.

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Arseny settled in at the cemetery that same day. Near one of its walls, he saw two oaks that had grown entwined: they became the first wall of his new home. The cemetery wall became his second wall. Arseny constructed the third wall himself. While walking along the river, he gathered logs that were lying around, bricks from demolished walls, scraps of nets, and many other objects essential for building. Arseny did not need a fourth wall: there was an entrance there instead.

The nuns kept an eye on the work but said nothing to Arseny. They never heard any words whatsoever from his end, either. The construction was conducted under a mutual tacit agreement. When construction concluded, the convent’s abbess, accompanied by several sisters, came to Arseny’s home. When she saw Arseny lying on last year’s yellow grass, she said:

He who lives here has the earthe as a bed, the heavens as a roof.

Indeed, this cannot be called full-fledged construction, the sisters confirmed.

It is simply that he is building his main home in the heavens, said the abbess. Pray to the Lord for us, O man of God.

By order of the abbess, they brought Arseny a bowl with porridge. Arseny’s hands loosened as soon as they felt the warmth of the bowl. The bowl fell with a dull thud but did not smash. The grass slowly swallowed the porridge. The first greenery that made its way through the yellow clumps was noticeable.

This grass, Arseny told Ustina, requires feeding, too. May it grow and bring glory to our little boy.

Afterwards, they brought him porridge more than once, and the same thing happened to it each time. Arseny finished eating only what the grass left for him. He carefully extracted remainders of the food from the grass, raking through it with his fingers. Sometimes dogs ran into the cemetery through the gap and lapped up the porridge with their long, red tongues. Arseny understood that they needed to eat, too, so he did not chase away the dogs. Besides, they reminded him of Wolf, from his childhood. It was as if Arseny was feeding him by feeding the dogs. The memory of him. The dogs ate up what Wolf had not had time to finish. When they would leave, Arseny yelled words of parting after them, asking them to say hello to Wolf.

You are all kin, Arseny shouted, so I think you know how to do it.

When they saw the particulars of Arseny’s eating habits, the sisters began laying food out on the grass for him. He would bow, not turning toward them, and he did not watch as they walked away. He was afraid he would not see Ustina’s features in the sisters who came to him.

During the first weeks of his life in Pskov, Arseny would get up at sunrise and head out for a walk around Zavelichye. He sized up the people who lived there. He would stop and then fix a special gaze on them: it was the gaze of someone whose state of mind differs from what is generally accepted. He peered behind fences. He pressed his forehead to windows and observed the innermost life of Pskovians. This generally failed to inspire delectation in him.

Smoke mixed with steam inside the houses of Zavelichye. Clothes dried and cabbage soup boiled there. They beat children, yelled at old people, and copulated in the house’s common space. They prayed before meals and sleep. Sometimes they collapsed to sleep without a prayer—they had worked so much they lost their strength. Or drunk so much. They cast booted feet on old rags their wives laid on their sleeping benches. Loudly snored. Wiped away spit that trickled when they slept and shooed away flies. Ran a hand over a face, making a grater-like sound. Cursed. Fouled the air with a crackle. All that without waking up.

As he walked along the streets of Zavelichye, Arseny threw stones at pious people’s houses. The stones bounced off the logs with a dull wooden thud. Arseny crossed himself and bowed to the residents when they came out of their houses. He walked right up to the houses of the depraved or those who behaved themselves inappropriately. He sank to his knees, kissed the walls of those houses, and quietly said something. And when many people showed surprise at Arseny’s behavior, Foma said:

Really, though, what’s so surprising here, when it comes right down to it? Our brother Ustin is profoundly correct, for he throws stones only at the houses of the pious. Angels exiled demons from these houses. They are afraid to enter and, as practice has shown, they cling to the corners of houses. Holy fool Foma pointed at one of the houses. Do you see all those demons on the corners?

We do not, answered those who had gathered.

But he does, he answered. And he pelts them with stones. Demons sit inside the houses of the unrighteous because the angels assigned to protect the human soul cannot live there. The angels stand near the house and weep for the fallen souls. So our brother Ustin appeals to the angels and requests they not abandon their prayer, that the souls not perish completely. And you, you sons of bitches, think he’s talking to walls...

Holy fool Foma noticed holy fool Karp among his listeners. Karp was sunning his face. He was listening to Foma and smiling vacantly. He was enjoying the warm spring day and his presence in this part of the city. After catching Foma’s irate look, Karp remembered he had violated the ban. He tried to hide on the sly, though he understood that was not the simplest of missions. As he hied off to make his way toward the bridge over the Pskova River, Karp began sidestepping to skirt the crowd. He seemed to think sideways motion could conceal his true intentions. Just a few moments later, he noticed Foma had cut him off from the bridge.

Karp, Karp, Karp, blubbered holy fool Karp and went sidestepping off in the opposite direction.

But holy fool Foma turned out to be faster than holy fool Karp. His palm descended on the transgressor’s neck with an unnaturally loud slap.

What else could I possibly have expected from this one? Karp shouted, as he set off running toward the bridge.

Foma urged him on with kicks. Karp stopped running after he had reached the middle of the bridge. When his pursuer neared, Karp gave Foma a powerful wallop. Holy fool Foma took it meekly, for this was already holy fool Karp’s land.

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You are my faithful friends in my struggle with the flesh, Arseny told the mosquitoes. You do not allow the flesh to dictate its conditions to me.

There were a multitude of mosquitoes on the bank of the Velikaya River, where the convent stood. There were even more mosquitoes beyond the cemetery wall, which the shore breeze did not reach, than at the water itself. Nobody had ever seen so many of them. The bloodsuckers were the outcome of an unusually hot spring.

A medieval person left only his face and hands uncovered but even that turned out to be enough to deprive Pskov’s residents of their patience. Pskovians scratched, spat on their palms and smeared the saliva on their skin, thinking it would ease the suffering caused by the bites. Unwilling to settle for uncovered body parts alone, the raging insects even bit through thick clothing.

The mosquitoes did not distress Arseny, though. On damp, warm nights, when the air turned into a humming blob, he stripped naked and stepped onto the gravestone in front of his house. He experienced an unusual sensation when he ran his hand along his body. It felt as if his skin was covered with thick fur, like Esau’s. The growth turned to blood when he touched it. Arseny did not see the blood in the dark but he sensed its scent and heard the crunch of crushed insects. Mostly, though, he paid them no mind, since he diligently prayed for Ustina when he stood there at night.

He stood like that only during the dark hours, times of brief duration, but long enough for a full bloodletting. Arseny, however, was not drained of blood. Whether the mosquitoes had tired of his blood or the bloodsuckers had decided—on account of Arseny’s exceptional generosity—to show restraint, his nocturnal standing did not take his life. He was found lifeless on more than one morning, but he ended up recovering each time.

Remove your earthly apparel and clothe thyself with passionless garmentes, said the abbess on those days, turning away from his nakedness.

There were fewer mosquitoes with the passage of time, but Arseny’s nocturnal vigil did not cease. It could not cease because night remained Arseny’s only tranquil time for prayer. The day was full of cares and worries.

Arseny made the rounds of Zavelichye, keeping an eye on life’s flow. He pelted demons with stones and conversed with angels. He knew about all christenings, weddings, and burials. He knew about births of new souls in Zavelichye. When he stood near the home of a newborn, he could foresee its fate. Arseny would laugh if the lifetime appeared to be long. Arseny would weep if the baby must soon die. In those days, nobody but holy fool Foma knew yet why Arseny laughed and wept. Foma was in no rush to explain it to anybody and besides, he was rarely in Zavelichye.

One day holy fool Foma came to Zavelichye and demanded that Arseny follow him across the river.

I need your advice, he told Arseny. This is no simple matter, which is why I am bringing you to my part of the city.

The military officer Perezhoga’s baby, Anfim, had taken ill. He was lying in his cradle, silently looking up. Ten pairs of eyes moved in time with the cradle’s mute swinging. Close kin had flocked around Anfim’s cradle. The child began wailing in despair when Arseny took him in his arms. Arseny’s eyes filled with tears and he placed Anfim back in the cradle and lay on the floor. Crossed his arms on his chest. Closed his eyes.

Our brother Ustin sees the child will die, said holy fool Foma. Medicine is powerless.

Anfim stopped breathing at twilight. Holy fool Foma gave Arseny a wallop as he saw him off at the ferry.

That’s for showing up in my territory. But it makes you feel better, doesn’t it?

At the middle of the river, Arseny nodded. Of course he felt better. In the dim light, dull, flashing sparks were visible on the river’s ripples. The largest shaft of light slowly moved along the peak of a wave and Arseny thought this was the departed child’s soul, which had come out of the small body so late in the evening.

You still have three nights here ahead of you, Arseny told the soul. It is thought that souls spend their first three days in the place they lived. You know, Pskov is a good city so why not depart the world from here? Take a look: lights are burning in houses on the riverbank, people are getting ready for bed. And the sky is still bright in the west. The clouds are frozen there and their uneven edges are scarlet. They have no intention now of moving until morning. Linden trees are gently quivering in a refreshing evening breeze. In short, it is a warm summer evening. You are leaving all this and that might be scary for you. It was, after all, because of that fear that you wailed when you saw me, right? My look told you death was near. But do not be afraid. I will spend these three days with you, do you want me to, so you will not feel all alone? I live at the convent cemetery, it is a very quiet place.

And so Arseny brought Anfim’s soul to the cemetery.

He recited prayers for three days and three nights. As the third day elapsed, Arseny’s lips no longer moved but his feeling of love for the child had not waned. And that feeling was telling Arseny: stand vigil. It said: you will fall asleep if you sit on the ground. Arseny did not sit down, though he permitted himself to rest an elbow on the oaks that had grown entwined and formed a wall for his house. He did not want to leave the child alone with his death.

As he parted with Anfim’s soul, Arseny whispered:

Listen, I want to ask you a favor. If you meet a little boy there, he is even smaller than you… You will recognize him easily, he does not even have a name. He is my son. You tell… Arseny pressed his forehead to an oak and felt its woodenness pour into him. You give him a kiss for me. Just give him a kiss.

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Here is how mornings began for holy fool Karp. He would stand outside Samson the loaf baker’s house, his arms folded behind his back.

Karp, Karp, Karp, holy fool Karp would say to passersby.

When Samson came outside with his hawker tray hanging around his neck, Karp grasped a half-coin loaf with his teeth and sprinted away. He ran very fast for a person holding a loaf in his teeth. He was, by necessity, silent. And did not unlink his arms, which were behind his back. People of modest means ran behind the holy fool because they knew the loaf would eventually fall. When the loaf fell, they would pick it up. Whatever remained in the holy fool’s mouth was his daily food.

Baker Samson did not run after holy fool Karp. Even if he had wanted to run, it would have been impossible with his hawker tray. But the baker did not want to run. He was not angry with holy fool Karp: business was good after his encounters with the holy fool, and his loaves sold out very quickly. If the holy fool was late due to his busyness, loaf baker Samson patiently waited for him by his home in Zapskovye.

Loaf baker Prokhor from Zavelichye was different. He was reputed to be a rather gloomy person and not inclined to hand out loaves. Since Zavelichye was within Arseny’s sphere of responsibilities, Arseny happened to run across loaf baker Prokhor. This occurred in late summer.

Arseny was deeply rattled when he saw Prokhor with his loaves. He looked at Prokhor up close and his look grew ever more bitter.

What dost thou need, O holy fool? asked Prokhor.

Without uttering a word, Arseny struck Prokhor’s hawker tray from below. The loaves jumped off the tray, all at once, thudding into the August dust. Passersby wanted to brush off the loaves and take them for themselves, but Arseny would not allow it. He began breaking loaf baker Prokhor’s goods into small pieces, kicking and stomping them into the dust. Only when the loaves had been transformed into clumps of dirt did Prokhor seem to come to life. He moved slowly toward Arseny and each blow was like a loaf. He struck Arseny in the face with those blows, without making any special preparatory swings. Arseny fell to the ground and the loaf baker kicked him.

Do not touch him, he is a man of God, shouted passersby.

And scattering my loaves around, does a man of God do that? And stomping them with his feet, does a man of God do that?

With each question, loaf baker Prokhor struck Arseny with his foot. Arseny lay there, bouncing like a pile of rags with each strike. He might well have been a pile of rags, for hardly any of his body remained. Shrieking, the loaf baker jumped on Arseny’s back with both feet and everyone heard ribs crack. The gathered men then threw themselves at loaf baker Prokhor and twisted his arms behind his back. Someone bound them with a belt. The strong Prokhor tried to shake off those who had bound him so he could go after Arseny again.

Go away, O man of God, the people told Arseny.

But Arseny did not go away. He did not move. He lay there, his arms stretched out, and a reddish-brown puddle spreading under his hair. Everyone was watching loaf baker Prokhor, who was calming down, bit by bit. Holy fool Foma was walking from the direction of the ferry.

From now on, your name is not loaf baker but blow-maker, Foma shouted at Prokhor. And now I will acquaint you, you shits (he looked around at those standing there), with the following facts. Yesternight, this mutt copulated with his wife. Then he kneaded dough and shaped his loaves without cleansing. In the morning he wanted to sell this impure product to Orthodox people and, if it had not been for our brother Ustin, he would have sold them, as sure as certain.

Is that true? asked those present.

Loaf baker Prokhor did not answer but his silence was already an answer. Everyone knew holy fool Foma spoke only the truth. They decided to take Prokhor away to the cellar prison. They postponed his punishment until Arseny’s fate had been determined. They said:

Yf a man of God dies, this sinne shall be on thee.

They laid Arseny on bast matting and headed for the John the Baptist Convent.

The sisters wept upon meeting them at the convent gates, for they had become attached to Arseny. They already knew of the misfortune that had occurred. Taking the mat by its edges, the sisters carefully carried Arseny through the convent so as not to inflict needless pain upon him. But Arseny was not in pain: he felt nothing. The sisters tried to walk with small steps and in rhythm as they carried him; Arseny’s head jiggled slightly.

The abbess said:

A stranger to your own people, you endured everything with joy for the sake of Christ, searching for an ancient, perished fatherland.

The abbess’s face was covered by her hands and her voice was muffled but intelligible.

They had emptied a remote cell for Arseny, where the presence of a male could not embarrass any of the pilgrims. The sisters themselves were not embarrassed since the holy fool Ustin was sexless in their eyes and, to some extent, incorporeal. As they carried the patient to the faraway cell, they hoped for his recovery and prepared for his departure.

It should be stated, with some bitterness, said the abbess, that the injured person’s injuries are extremely critical. Death, however, is not a completely unfamiliar topic for our brother Ustin: our brother Ustin is already deade within his living body. The holy fool Ustin goes about, worthie already of mourning, however the person within him has been restored to life. After living without a home, he, our brother, will have his tentes pitched in heven.

In the event of a mortal outcome, the sisters had designated for Arseny the spot by the cemetery wall where he had settled back in the spring. To them, Arseny’s dwelling almost seemed to be a ready crypt. A cozy and habitable structure.

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But Arseny survived. He regained consciousness a few days later and his bones began knitting together, bit by bit. Arseny felt their knitting just as unmistakably as he had felt them break earlier. It was soundless but obvious.

The sisters fed Arseny with a spoon. He silently opened his mouth and tears streamed down his cheeks. Tears streamed down the sisters’ cheeks, too. They asked the carpenter Vlas to wash Arseny, who could not stand.

On the first of September, holy fool Foma came to see Arseny and wish him a happy new year. He brought a dead rat as a gift: Foma held the rat by the tail and it swung sorrowfully back and forth.

After laying the rat at Arseny’s headboard, holy fool Foma pressed its front paws against its snout and turned to the patient:

I am heartily glad, colleague, that you did not take on a wretched appearance such as this. After all, everything was headed in that direction. And so I wish you a happy new year, 6967, which we are celebrating for old time’s sake on this bright September day, thirty-three years before the seven thousandth year.

The sisters were displeased by the arrival of the rat but they dared not object to Foma. And their anger ceased when they saw Arseny’s smile. This was his first smile in many months. He sneezed when holy fool Foma tickled his nostrils with the tip of the rat’s tail.

The patient needs fresh air, Foma shouted, but—and do forgive me—it’s as stale in here as inside the Devil’s ass. Haul him to the river. Water and air flow there. It will aid his recovery.

The abbess turned away and rolled her eyes but signaled to the sisters to carry out the holy fool’s instructions. They moved the patient (Arseny began moaning) onto a piece of canvas that they (he moaned again) carefully lifted.

Whimper and whine, bitch and moan, snorted holy fool Foma, and the abbess turned away again.

The sisters carried Arseny out to the river. Foma indicated the place where they should position the patient. Taking all precautions, they settled Arseny on the grass.

And now get your asses out of here, you tarts, holy fool Foma told the sisters.

The sisters headed in the direction of the convent without a word. The wind fluttered the hems of their habits and Arseny and Foma watched them go. The way the sisters retreated showed they were not, essentially, offended by holy fool Foma. Almost not offended.

After the sisters had disappeared behind the gates, holy fool Foma said:

I carried out your request with regard to Prokhor. If I understood you correctly across the river, you did not want the authorities to punish him.

I simply prayed for him, Arseny told Ustina. I requested: O Lord, laye not this synne to his charge, for he knoweth not what he creates. You pray for him, too, my love.

Holy fool Foma nodded:

As far as your prayer goes, people in Zavelichye are already well aware of what’s going on, I told them about it. (He motioned with his hand toward the Zavelichye residents who had managed to gather, and they confirmed what had been said.) I’m just afraid this isn’t the last of these prayers for you. Your clock will be cleaned again, my friend, more than once.

Not necessarily, objected the residents. Everyone in Rus’ knows that you’re not, like, you know, allowed to beat holy fools.

Foma burst into loud laughter.

I will resort to a paradox to illustrate my thought. People beat holy fools precisely because they are not supposed to beat them. It’s common knowledge, after all, that anyone who beats a holy fool is a bad guy.

Well, who else could they be? agreed the residents of Zavelichye.

That’s exactly it, said holy fool Foma. And a Russian person is pious. He knows a holy fool should endure suffering so he goes ahead and sins to supply him with that suffering. Somebody has to be the bad guy, right? Somebody should be capable of beating or maybe, let’s say, killing a holy fool, what do you think?

Well, like, you know, said the concerned Zavelichye residents. Beating might not always be so bad, but killing, is that really piousness? It is a mortal, if it can be put that way, sin.

Screw that, exclaimed holy fool Foma in a fit of pique. A Russian person, after all, is not simply pious. Just in case, I can report to you that he is also senseless and merciless and anything he does can easily turn into a mortal sin. But the line here is so fine that you, you bastards, wouldn’t understand.

The residents of Zavelichye did not know how to respond. Holy fool Karp, who was standing in the crowd, did not know, either. He was listening to holy fool Foma in utter bewilderment, his mouth agape.

Aha, and you’re here, you sinner, shouted holy fool Foma, and then holy fool Karp began weeping. I haven’t popped you in the face for a while.

Foma began making his way toward Karp but Karp was already walking backward, in the direction of the convent, and the crowd parted in front of his back.

O, wo is me, shouted holy fool Karp.

Once he’d broken away from the crowd, he rushed off toward the convent gate. The gate turned out to be closed. Karp drummed on it with all his might and watched in horror as Foma drew closer. Karp put his hands behind his back and rushed off for the river before the gates had opened. Foma ran past after the gate opened. Foma stuck out his tongue at the sisters, who were peering from the gate, and ran along. The sisters exchanged looks; they were used to not being surprised.

Didn’t I tell you to sit tight in your Zapskovye? holy fool Foma yelled to holy fool Karp.

Karp covered his face with his hands and kept on running. His bare feet slapped noisily on the grass. He stopped at the very edge of the river. When he took his hands away from his face, he saw Foma was catching up to him.

Karp, Karp, Karp, shouted holy fool Karp.

He stepped onto the water’s surface and carefully began walking. The waves on the Velikaya River were not high that day, despite a blustery wind. At first Karp walked slowly, as if he were uncertain, but his stride gradually quickened.

Foma ran up to the river and tested the water with one of his big toes. He shook his head in distress but also stepped onto the water. Arseny and the Zavelichye residents silently observed the holy fools walking, one after the other. They bounced lightly on the waves, ludicrously waving their arms to maintain their balance.

Apparently they can only walk on water, said the residents. They have not yet learned to run.

Holy fool Karp stopped in the middle of the river. He waited for holy fool Foma and then struck him on the cheek with all his might. The slap’s resonance floated along the water to those standing on shore.

He has the right, the Zavelichye residents said, shrugging. This is his territory, after all.

Holy fool Foma turned around without saying a word and headed toward his part of the city. The rays of a low autumn sun emphasized the uneven flow of the river. A mirror-like surface alternated with ripples and waves. If one gazed at the water long enough, the river seemed to begin flowing in the opposite direction. Perhaps because it reflected the flight of clouds. The two small diverging figures glided in time with the overall movement of the river’s surface. Only Arseny and the residents of Zavelichye surrounding him remained in their places.

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As winter drew closer, Arseny was already walking well. His bones had knitted together and all that reminded him of his illness was the weakness that sometimes seized him. Arseny returned to his home at the cemetery when he began feeling better. The sisters tried to convince him to stay in the faraway cell but he was adamant.

Blessed be thou, O pilgrim and homeless one, the abbess said, and let Arseny go to his chosen place of residence.

When Arseny returned to the entwined oaks, he realized he had become unaccustomed to a difficult life. He mourned as lost the weeks he spent in the cell, for they had forced him to pay attention to his body. They had, in essence, left Arseny cold and he could not find a way to get warm in the first days after his return. He tirelessly whispered to himself that it was as if he were in the body of another, but that was of no immediate help. It helped four days later.

On the seventh day, loaf baker Prokhor came to him. He silently took a loaf out from under his shirt and fell to his knees before Arseny. Arseny, who was standing next to his residence, approached loaf baker Prokhor. He knelt alongside him and embraced him. And he took the loaf from his hands.

I fasted for seven days, said Prokhor.

Arseny nodded because he knew this from the form of the loaf and its fragrance.

Forgive me, O blessed Ustin, wept loaf baker Prokhor.

Arseny touched Prokhor’s cheek and one of Prokhor’s tears remained on his index finger. He rubbed the edge of the loaf with it. Arseny took a bite from the loaf where it had absorbed Prokhor’s tear. After chewing what he had bitten, Arseny stood up and helped the loaf baker up. He made the sign of the cross over him and sent him homeward. After loaf baker Prokhor had disappeared through the gap, Arseny took the loaf and made his way outside. People of modest means stood at the convent wall. Arseny broke the loaf into pieces and gave it to them.

From that day on, loaf baker Prokhor called on Arseny fairly frequently. He brought a loaf each time, sometimes more than one. Arseny took the loaves gratefully. After Prokhor left, he took them to the convent wall and gave them to people of modest means.

With time, however, it was not only they who awaited the loaves from Arseny. People came from the city and from Zapskovye and many of them were considered well-to-do. These people were not tormented by hunger but they knew the loaves from Arseny’s hands were unusually tasty and wholesome. They had observed that these loaves imparted strength, stopped bleeding, and improved the metabolism.

One day Pskov’s mayor, Gavriil, came to Arseny after hearing about the distribution of loaves. Gavriil received half a loaf and headed back home with it. He, his wife, and their four children of various ages ate the bread he had received. They liked the bread and they felt better, though, essentially, they had felt pretty good before the bread, too.

Now this is a phenomenon worthy of all kinds of support, said Mayor Gavriil.

He set off to see Arseny and, in the presence of the sisters, presented him with a wallet of silver. To Mayor Gavriil’s surprise, Arseny accepted the wallet. As he left, the mayor had someone remain at the convent to see how the holy fool would handle the funds that had been presented to him. In the evening of that same day, the person came to Mayor Gavriil and reported to him that holy fool Ustin had gone straight to merchant Negoda. It was noted separately that the holy fool entered the merchant’s with the wallet in his hands but left without the wallet.

Mayor Gavriil then went to visit Arseny again and asked why he had given the money to a merchant rather than a beggar. Arseny looked silently at the mayor.

What’s not to understand here? asked a surprised holy fool Foma, who stood in the gap in the wall. Merchant Negoda is broke and his family is wasting away from hunger. And he’s ashamed to solicit alms because of his uprightness. He’ll put up with it, the damn tomcat, until he kicks the bucket—he and his family. And so Ustin gave him the money. Paupers can feed themselves: begging, after all, is their profession.

Mayor Gavriil marveled at Arseny’s wisdom and asked:

And you, O brother Ustin, what is necessary for thy life? Ask me and I will geue you a good rewarde.

Arseny was silent and then holy fool Foma said:

If I chose for him, will you geue the rewarde?

Mayor Gavriil answered:

I will geue it.

Then geue him the great burg of Pskov, said holy fool Foma. And sufficient it shall be for his sustenance.

The mayor did not utter another word, for he could not give the entire city away to Arseny. And holy fool Foma began laughing when he saw Mayor Gavriil’s distress:

Take it easy; jeez. If you can’t give him the city, then don’t. He’ll get it without you anyway.

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The ensuing winter was dreadful. Neither the Pskovians nor, even more so, Arseny could remember a winter like it. Admittedly, Arseny did not remember how many winters had passed since his arrival in Pskov. Maybe one. Or maybe all the winters had blended into one and no longer had anything to do with time. They just become winter.

First, snow covered the city. The snow fell day and night, and its abundance in the air and on the earth was stunning. It turned God’s world into a single milky clump. Cowsheds, houses, and even small churches were snowed under. They turned into huge snowbanks, sometimes with crosses visible at the top. The snow crushed the roofs of old houses and they collapsed with a dry crack. People found themselves under open skies from which the snow unceasingly floated, filling the damaged houses in the course of a day. Snow fell for three weeks and then a cold snap hit.

The cold snap was relentless. The wind, which could not be escaped, tripled the force of the cold. The wind knocked pedestrians off their feet, stole in through door cracks, and whistled from between logs that had not been firmly set. Birds perished from the wind in mid-air, fish froze to death in small rivers, and wild animals fell in the forests. Even people who had warmed themselves with fire could not tolerate the bitter cold, the body being feeble. Many people and cattle froze at that time, in the city, the surrounding villages, and on the roads. In enduring great adversities, beggars and those who were pilgrims for the sake of Christ lamented from the depths of their hearts and wept bitterly and shivered unceasingly and froze.

By order of the abbess, they moved Arseny into the faraway cell, where he was commanded to wait out the ferocious bitter cold. After three days elapsed, Arseny left the faraway cell and returned to his home in the cemetery. He responded with silence to all attempts to persuade him to stay inside.

You understand, he told Ustina, my flesh warms up in the faraway cell and begins making its own demands. There’s no use starting anything, my love. If you give your flesh a finger, it will grab an entire hand. It really is better, my love, that I spend some time in the fresh air. I guess I will go walking around Zavelichye to keep from freezing. I will watch what is happening in this big wide world of ours, though it looks less wide than white, more than ever before.

So Arseny began walking around Zavelichye. And when he encountered freezing people or drunk people or those inclined to fall asleep in a snow bank, he led them off to their homes. If someone had no home, he brought that person to a home for the impoverished, which had been set up for the cold spell in an old shed near the walls of the convent.

One day, as he was walking along the frozen river, Arseny saw holy fool Foma on the river, and Foma said to him, from the ice:

My kind friend, the border between the city’s various parts has now been erased by natural means. It should be stated that the barrier that divided us is hidden temporarily under ice of an unprecedented thickness. If you wish to gather up these frozen elements on my territory, too, I shall saye nothinge against it.

After hearing holy fool Foma’s statement, Arseny stopped limiting himself to Zavelichye. He went to the city and even to Zapskovye, where holy fool Karp resided. Prints of bare feet radiating from the John the Baptist Convent spoke to this. The new tracks that revealed themselves each morning showed Pskovians where Arseny had been the night before.

One time, Arseny brought a night wanderer back to his home. The man was leaving a tavern and his strength was almost gone. He sat down in the road often, demanding Arseny leave him alone. When that happened, Arseny had to use force and drag the unknown man through the snow. This was no smooth glide: the unknown man, laughing, scraped at the snow with the toe of his boot during the first part of the journey. An hour later he was chilled to the bone and merriment had deserted him. He silently trudged after Arseny, mean and significantly sobered.

They walked in circles through the hamlets outside the city in search of his dwelling. As midnight neared, the moon settled matters by showing itself in the sky. After identifying one of the drifted snowbanks as his house, the unknown man decisively headed for the front steps. He went up the steps and slammed the door behind him just as decisively.

Arseny looked around. All the roaming had disoriented him and now he could not figure out which direction the city was in. The moon clouded over again. Arseny understood that even the house would be lost to him if he took a few steps away. He sensed that he could also no longer get by without warmth.

Now is the sort of moment, my love, when I need to stay in the warmth, even if only for an hour, Arseny told Ustina. You need not worry about me: as you can see, nothing terrible is happening. I need only catch my breath, my love, and then I can make my way back.

Arseny tried to smile but realized he could not feel either his lips or his cheeks. He wavered and then returned to the house and went up the icy front steps. He knocked at the door. Nobody opened it so he knocked again. The door opened. His acquaintance stood on the doorstep. He stepped back as if freeing the space for Arseny. Arseny was despondent when he realized this person truly needed a running start. The man ran up with a shriek, knocking Arseny from the front steps with both arms.

The moon was shining again when Arseny came to. He took a handful of snow and rubbed his frozen face. The snow he tossed away was bloody. Arseny caught sight of the silhouettes of distant houses in the moonlight. He set off for them, staggering. The houses were rundown and Arseny knew poor people lived in them. When he knocked, people came out with sticks. They said:

Go away and die, O holy fool, we find no way to save ourselves from you here.

Arseny left after finding no compassion among these people. He set off, walking past houses, and noticed a ramshackle shed at the end of the street. Once his eyes had grown used to the dark, he could make out several pairs of eyes in the corner of the shed. The eyes reflected the moonlight penetrating through gaps in the roof. Several large dogs were watching Arseny, who got on all fours and crawled toward them. The dogs growled, muffledly, but brought Arseny no harm. He laid down between them and dozed off. There were no dogs alongside him when he awoke.

That is how vile I have become, Arseny told Ustina. God and man have left me. And even the dogs want nothing to do with me, either, so they left. My body, all dirty and turned blue, is loathsome, even for me. This all indicates that my bodily existence is pointless and nearing its end. Meaning, my love, you will not be pardoned because of my prayers.

Arseny crouched, grasped his head in his hands, and buried it in his knees. He was aware that he could no longer sense either his head or his hands or his knees. All he could feel, weakly, was his heart. Only his heart had not been shackled by the cold, because it was located deep within his body. It is good, Arseny thought, that I have already bid farewell to a part of my body. From the look of things, it will be far easier to bid farewell to what has not yet frozen.

As Arseny had that thought, he sensed warmth gradually filling him from within. After opening his eyes, he saw before him a young man with a splendid appearance. His face shone like a sunbeam and in his hand he held a branch scattered with scarlet and white flowers. The branch did not look like branches from the decaying world and its beauty was unearthly.

The splendid young man asked, holding the branch in his hand:

O Arseny, where dost thou now endure?

I sit in darkness, shackled by iron in the shadowe of death, answered Arseny.

Then the young man struck Arseny on the face with the branch and said:

O Arseny, take invincible life for your whole body and the cleansing and the ceasing of your sufferings from this great bitter cold.

And with those words, the fragrance of the flowers and life—granted to him a second time—entered Arseny’s heart. When he raised his eyes, he discovered the young man had become invisible. And Arseny understood who that young man was. He remembered the life-giving verse: Wher the Lord wills it, the natural order is overcome. Because according to the order of nature, Arseny should have died. But he was scooped up and returned to life as he was flying off toward death.

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From then on, time definitively began moving differently for Arseny. More precisely, it simply stopped moving and remained idle. Arseny saw events taking place on earth but also noticed that events had, in some strange way, diverged from time and no longer depended on time. Sometimes events came one after another, just as before; sometimes they took a reverse order. Rarer still, events arrived in no order whatsoever, shamelessly muddling prescribed sequences. And time could not cope with them. It refused to govern those sorts of events.

It has become known here that events do not always flow along in time, Arseny told Ustina. Now and again they flow on their own. Uprooted from time. Of course you, my love, already know this very well but I am encountering it for the first time.

Arseny observes the spring snow melting and the cloudy waters flowing down to the Velikaya River through the gutter the sisters have hollowed from wood. The sisters clear out this gutter every spring because it clogs with leaves—oak and maple—in autumn. The wind sweeps leaves into Arseny’s home, too, but Arseny does not object to this sort of feather bed since he considers it not made by human hands.

Arseny sees how an early June sun peers out after a night rain. Water is still quivering on leaves. Water detaches, as clouds of steam, from the John the Baptist cupola and disappears in an improbably blue sky. Sister Pulcheria leans on her broom and observes the water evaporate. A warm wind touches the wheaten locks of hair that have come out from under her wimple. Sister Pulcheria is pensively scratching a beauty mark and dying from blood poisoning. She is lying in a fresh grave a few sazhens from Arseny’s home. Her grave is drifted with snow.

The abbess approaches Arseny at the height of the autumn leaf season. She says:

The time commeth for me to departe from this vayne worlde for the never old, eternal dwellinge. Bless me, O Ustin.

Leaves glide along her vestments with a rustle. Arseny gives his blessing to the abbess.

Even as he does so, he tells Ustina, I have no right to bless someone. And so, my love, I am doing this not because I have the right but from impudence, since this woman requests it. Beyond that, her journey truly is distant, and she knows it.

The abbess is dying.

On a hot summer day, Sister Agafya leans on her broom, standing by the church of John the Baptist. She looks at the church’s cupola and her hand stretches for a beauty mark on her face. Arseny stops Sister Agafya’s hand halfway. He did so in time.

She will live, Arseny thinks as he walks away.

With a steady gait, he walks into the building, to priest John. He jolts the door open. The rough tongue of bitter cold barges in behind Arseny. Priest John and his family are sitting at the table. The priest’s wife is preparing to put food on the table. She peers out the blurry window: there is nothing outside but snow. Priest John stares straight ahead, as if he is trying to spot his own impending fate. The priest’s wife gestures silently, inviting Arseny to share the meal with them. The gesture separates itself from the priest’s wife and flies out the open door. Arseny does not notice it. The children squeeze onto the bench and focus their gaze on their hands, which rest on their knees. Then their fingers tug at the coarse linen of their shirts. To them, Arseny is similar to the lightning ball their father once saw. Their father taught them that when a lightning ball flies in, it is best not to move and not to give yourself away. Best to exhale and be still. They are still. Arseny grabs a knife off the table and lunges at priest John. Priest John continues staring ahead, as if he does not notice Arseny. In reality, he sees everything but considers it unnecessary to resist fate. Arseny waves the knife right in front of priest John’s face. As before, the priest does not move; perhaps he is thinking about the lightning ball. About how it found him anyway. Arseny tosses the knife to the floor and runs out of the house. Priest John feels no relief. He understands that what has happened is prophesy. It is only heat lightning but he is waiting for the lightning bolt to arrive. And he guesses that this time it will not be so easy for it to miss.

Arseny is walking around in Zapskovye, where little boys lie in wait for him. They knock him down, onto the boards of the roadway. Several pairs of hands press him into the boards, though he does not resist. The boy whose hands remain free nails the edges of Arseny’s shirt to the boards. Arseny watches the boys laugh and then he laughs, too. He laughs along with them each time the boys nail his shirt to the roadway. And he silently asks God not to cast blame on them for this. He could neatly tear his shirt away from the nails but does not. Arseny wants to do something nice for the boys. He abruptly stands and the hem of his shirt tears away with a loud rip. The boys are rolling on the ground with laughter. For the rest of the day, Arseny searches the trash for scraps of fabric and sews them on to replace the torn-off hem. The boys laugh even more when they see the new patches on his shirt.

It gets quiet when they run away. Only one boy remains, and he approaches Arseny and embraces him. And weeps. Arseny’s heart sinks because he knows this boy pities him but is embarrassed to show it in front of the others. He wants the boy to be joyful because he recognizes the features of another child in this boy’s features. And Arseny weeps, too. He kisses the boy on the forehead and runs away because his heart is ready to burst. Arseny chokes on his sobs. He runs and the sobbing shakes him and tears fly from his cheeks in all directions, sprouting all sorts of humble plants on the roadside.

The Velikaya River rises in the spring and the wooden roadways float in places. It is muddy in Zapskovye. The priest John wades through the mud on his way home. He hears the juicy squishing of mud behind his back. He slowly turns. In front of him stands a person covered in mud, holding a knife. Priest John silently presses his hand to his chest. A recollection of Arseny’s premonition flashes in his head. In his heart there sounds a prayer that he has no time to pronounce. The person inflicts twenty-three knife blows. With each swing of his arm, he grunts and groans from the strain. Priest John is left to lie in the mud. The person’s tracks are lost in that very place. They say it is as if there was not even a person, only a muddy splash. Which leapt up behind priest John’s back and immediately spread along the road. A short while later an inhuman shriek is heard. It floats across the Velikaya River and the Pskova River, extending over the entire city of Pskov. It is the priest’s wife shrieking.

People come from Mayor Gavriil. They say:

You, O Ustin, are an unusual person and your visits are salutary. The mayor’s wife’s teeth have been aching for three weeks now, might you help her? Many doctors have already come to her but brought no real relief. The mayor asks you to come to his house, too, hoping for your help.

Arseny looks at his visitors from Mayor Gavriil. They are waiting. They say the mayor’s wife could have come to the cemetery herself but, as it happens, she does not feel like coming to the cemetery. Arseny shakes his head. He thrusts his hand into his mouth, pulls a wisdom tooth out of his gums, and presents it to the visitors. They understand that this is, itself, the blessed man’s answer to their request. Taking all due care, they bring Arseny’s tooth to the mayor’s wife. The mayor’s wife places it in her mouth and the toothache goes away.

Mayor Gavriil and his suite come to see Arseny. He brings expensive clothing to Arseny and asks him to don it. Arseny dons it. He and Mayor Gavriil are each given a goblet of wine from another land. The mayor drinks and Arseny bows, turns to the northeast, and slowly empties his goblet onto the ground. The flowing wine forms a spiral as it falls, its polished facets glimmering. The grass thirstily soaks up the precious liquid. The sun is at its zenith. Mayor Gavriil scowls.

How can it be, holy fool Foma asks the mayor, that you don’t understand why God’s servant Ustin emptied your wine to the northeast?

The mayor does not understand and is not even inclined to hide that fact.

Well now, my dear man, says holy fool Foma, you are simply not aware of the news that on this daye there is a fire in Novgorod and God’s servant Ustin is striving to extinguish it, using makeshift methods.

Mayor Gavriil sends his people to Novgorod to make conclusive inquiries regarding what occurred. Upon their return, these people report to Mayor Gavriil that on the morning of the aforesaid day, an extremely powerful fire truly did break out but then died down around noon, through some power unfathomable to the Novgorodians. The mayor does not answer at all. He signals to the visitors to go out and they leave, bowing. The mayor lights an icon lamp. The muffled words of his prayer carry to those standing outside the doorway.

Arseny is walking to a hostelry in the clothes that were given to him. The hostelry’s patrons undress Arseny with the intention of drinking for three days and three nights with the money the clothing fetches. Arseny has a small bundle of old clothes with him and puts them right on. He sighs with relief. The hostelry guests order their first mug. When Arseny sees this, he knocks the mugs out of their hands. The mugs roll with a tinny sound, spilling their contents on the floor. The guests order a second round but Arseny again does not let them drink. One of them wants to hit Arseny in the face but the hostelry keeper bids him not to do so. The hostelry keeper knows he would be the one answering for beatings and so kicks the patrons out. The patrons call it a night and go home, sober and with money in their pockets. When they return home, their kin take away the money and are unable to find any rational explanation for its appearance. They remain completely bewildered.

And do you know, holy fool Foma asks Arseny, how many years have passed since you showed up here?

Arseny shrugs.

Well, you don’t need to know that anyway, says holy fool Foma. Live outside time for now.

Arseny tosses clods of mud at several venerable residents of Zapskovye. He can faultlessly discern small and large demons behind their backs. The residents are displeased.

There is consolation only in the fact, Arseny informs Ustina, that the demons are even more displeased.

Sometimes he throws stones at church doors. Ample quantities of demons throng there, too. They do not dare enter the churches and so huddle around the entrance.

When she sees how Arseny prays at night, the new abbess says:

During the dayes, God’s servant Ustin laughs at the worlde, at nyghte he mourns the same worlde.

Evpraksia, a carpenter’s daughter, is brought to Arseny at the monastery. A ceiling beam in the granary fell on her two months ago and she has been lying motionless ever since. Her affliction does not allow her to return to life but does not release her into death, either. And those around Evpraksia cannot understand which of those conditions she is closer to.

Evpraksia is assigned to a guest cell and prayers are recited over her there. On days with nice weather, she is carried out into the monastery yard, where prayers are recited in fresh air. The wind blows at Evpraksia’s hair but she herself remains motionless. Arseny approaches Evpraksia’s bed in the yard. He takes Evpraksia by the hand.

Life has not fully left her, Arseny tells Ustina. I sense that she may wake up. She only needs help to do so.

Arseny places his palm on Evpraksia’s forehead. His lips move. Evpraksia opens her eyes. She sees Arseny and the sisters surrounding her. It is a warm summer day. The shadows of the trees are sharply drawn. They shift in time with the sun’s movement. The linden leaves are sticky and barely tremble in the wind.

We are celebrating Evpraksia’s return, says the new abbess, but we remember, too, that it is temporary, for everything on this earth is temporary.

I had wanted to speak with her at least one more time, says carpenter Artemy. And now I will speak with her constantly. Meaning, of course, temporarily. I weep at the thought of the boundless mercy of God and the grace that has descended upon God’s servant, Arseny. And all of us standing here (without exception) are capable of inhaling the smells of a warm summer day and hearing the birds chirp. All of us, without exception, because my daughter Evpraksia might have been that exception if not for Arseny.

Carpenter Artemy kneels before Arseny and kisses his hand. Arseny pulls his hand back and crosses the Velikaya on the ice and ends up in Zapskovye. Loaf baker Samson takes out his goods in the early morning. He waits for holy fool Karp, who should steal one of his loaves. Holy fool Karp shows up, grasps a half-coin loaf and, with his arms behind his back, dashes off, away from loaf baker Samson. The loaf baker smiles a kind, loafy smile. The steam from his mouth settles on his beard like frost. He runs his hand through his beard and says:

A man of God, you understand. A blessed man.

The loaf baker lacks the words (as always) to fully express his feelings. Holy fool Karp (as always) drops the loaf and people of modest means pick it up. Karp chews what remains in his mouth.

When his mouth is freed up, he shouts:

Who will be my traveling companion to Jerusalem?

The people picking up the loaf are perplexed. They say:

Our Karp is holyfooling it. Who would go from Pskov to Jerusalem?

Who will be my traveling companion to Jerusalem? holy fool Karp yells to those gathered.

Those who have gathered answer:

Jerusalem, that is, like, you know, really far. How do you get there?

Holy fool Karp looks at Arseny, unblinking. Arseny is silent but does not turn. He has a lump in his throat. He wants to get a good look at holy fool Karp, that is what he came for. Karp cringes, shrinks his head down into his shoulders, and leaves.

Karp, Karp, Karp, he says pensively.

The weakened Davyd is being carried to the monastery. Davyd has been sick since the dayes of his youth. He is unable to move and cannot even hold up his head. Davyd’s head must be lifted when he is fed porridge. Sometimes the porridge falls from his mouth. Then it is picked from his chin with a spoon and again directed toward his mouth. They are carrying Davyd to the monastery cemetery. They carefully place him on the burial mound next to Arseny’s home. They say:

Helpe us, O Ustin, if thou canst.

Arseny does not reply. With his bare hands, he picks nettles from the graves, gathering them into a bunch. When the bunch is ready, Arseny lashes the visitors on their faces and on their hands. They feel their presence here is undesirable. They leave and Davyd remains, lying on the grave. Arseny thinks a bit and then lashes him with nettles, too. Davyd winces but continues lying there since he has no other option. The sun is setting faster than usual. The moon appears in the sky.

Arseny kneels next to Davyd and touches his hand. He examines Davyd’s white and almost lifeless skin. This skin was created for moonlight. Arseny strokes it with his fingers and begins kneading firmly. He switches to the other hand. He turns the weakened man onto his stomach. He kneads his deadened flesh with all his strength, as if pumping vitalizing forces into it. He rubs Davyd’s back along the spine. He kneads at Davyd’s legs, making Davyd’s arms, which dangle off the burial mound, shake. The patient is reminiscent of a large doll. The new abbess comes out to the cemetery twice during the night and twice sees Arseny’s unceasing work. Davyd rises to his feet at dawn’s first light. He takes several wooden steps in the direction of the cathedral, where his kin are already waiting for him. Davyd’s strength leaves him because his muscles are still unaccustomed to walking. His kin rush to him and grasp him under the arms. They understand that the first steps are the most important. But also the most difficult.

What is this? the new abbess asks those present, herself most of all. Is this the result of our brother Ustin’s therapeutic measures or the Lorde’s miracle, appearing independently of human action? Essentially, the abbess answers herself: one does not contradict the other, for a miracle can be the result of effort multiplied by faith.

Arseny gathers plants by the Velikaya River and in the Pskov forests. The Pskov lands are more southerly than Belozersk and produce greater quantities of herbs. There are even herbs that Christofer did not describe in his time. Arseny surmises their effects from the smells and shapes of their leaves. He dries plants like this in the monastery shed and experiments with them on himself. He dries other plants, too.

Some good believers in Christ catch a large fish in the Velikaya River and give it to priest Konstantin. The priest’s wife, Marfa, prepares fish for dinner. She warns her husband that a large fish has large bones and appeals to him to be careful. Priest Konstantin, a carefree person, absentmindedly eats the fish, not thinking about its bones. He is thinking about the parish church that is being built. He is trying yet again to calculate the quantities of purchased materials and worries there will not be enough. Priest Konstantin does not immediately notice that an arch-shaped bone with a fragment of the fish’s backbone has entered his throat along with the fish’s tender flesh. He coughs and pieces of fish—everything but the bone—fly out of his mouth.

The bone is stuck in his throat in three spots. It goes no further down but is not coming up, either. It has gone too deep to reach with fingers. Marfa, the priest’s wife, pounds on her husband’s back but the bone sits there, immovable. Priest Konstantin lies down, his belly on the table and his head hanging almost to the floor, trying to cough out the bone. Saliva and blood run out of his mouth but the bone does not move, not one vershok.

The doctor Terenty is brought to priest Konstantin. Terenty asks the patient to open his mouth and brings a candle toward it. The bone is not even visible under candlelight. Terenty tries to stick his long fingers down the patient’s throat but even he is unable to happen upon the bone. Priest Konstantin silently shakes from retching movements and finally breaks out of the doctor’s arms. Marfa, the priest’s wife, throws Terenty out of the house.

They refuse medical assistance, the doctor Terenty tells those gathered on the street. And, with hand on heart, I say they are correct, for the depth of the embedded bone is beyond the bounds of modern medicine.

After a night of suffering, they bring priest Konstantin across the river to Zapskovye. When they arrive at John the Baptist Convent’s cemetery, they place the priest in front of Arseny. The patient sits on a gravestone because he is no longer able to stand. His throat has swelled and he is gasping for breath. Suffering and grief are in his eyes: he thinks they are already going to bury him. He fears his pain will never pass, even in death.

Arseny crouches in front of priest Konstantin. He feels his neck with both hands. The priest quietly moans. Arseny suddenly grabs him by the feet and lifts him off the ground. He shakes priest Konstantin with unexpected strength and fury. Arseny’s fury is directed at the ailment. A wail, red mucus, and a bone issue from the patient’s throat.

The priest is lying on the ground and breathing heavily. His half-closed eyes gaze at the cause of his suffering. Certain among those who happen to be at the cemetery want to lift him, but he motions to stop them: he needs to catch his breath. The priest’s wife Marfa kneels before Arseny. Arseny bends and grasps her by the legs, trying to lift her, too. The priest’s wife shouts. She is too heavy and Arseny does not have that much strength.

Pretty much unliftable, those present whisper to each other, shaking their heads.

Arseny leaves Marfa and departs the cemetery. The priest’s wife wraps the bone in a handkerchief, as a family keepsake of gratitude.

Mayor Gavriil’s daughter Anna is dead. At fifteen years olde. After slipping on the ferry, Anna falls into the water and sinks to the bottom like a rock. Several people plunge in after her. They dive in various directions, trying to figure out where the maiden’s body has been dragged off to. They resurface, gasping for breath, gather more air in their lungs, and submerge into the water again. They have difficulty reaching the bottom of the Velikaya River and when there they cannot locate the mayor’s daughter. The water is cloudy. The water is swift and full of whirlpools. One of the divers nearly drowns but their efforts are in vain. They find the drowned girl’s body downstream several hours later, after it has washed up in the reeds.

Mayor Gavriil is beside himself with grief. He wants to bury his daughter at the John the Baptist Convent and goes to see the abbess. The abbess tells him it would be better to bury Anna in the potter’s field. Mayor Gavriil grabs the abbess by the shoulders and shakes her for a very long time. The abbess looks at the mayor not with fear but with sorrow. She allows the mayor to bury his daughter at the convent. The mayor orders Anna be adorned in gold and silver jewelry, that she not lose her beauty even when dead. The residents of Zavelichye and other parts of Pskov greet the ferry carrying the body. Everyone is in tears. They commit Anna to the earth, the sobs makynge a funeral dirge. All leave but the mayor. He remains and lies on the fresh grave for several hours. The mayor is led away when night falls. Only Arseny remains at the cemetery, leaning against the entwined oaks. He seems to have become entwined with them, too, having taken on the color of their bark and their immobility.

This impression is mistaken because Arseny’s essence is human and prayerful, not of wood. A heart beats inside him and his lips move. He prays for heavenly gifts for the newly departed Anna. His eyes are opened wide. They reflect a candle flame that uncertainly traverses the cemetery. The small flame skirts the crosses and climbs atop the hillocks. It stops upon reaching Anna’s grave. An unseen hand affixes the flame to a stump alongside the grave. Another hand breaks off a branch of quaking aspen and uses it to hide the flame on the convent side. A shovel appears within the flickering circle the candle forms. The shovel slices effortlessly through the burial mound. Fresh earth requires no effort. The digger is already standing up to his knees in the grave. Standing up to his waist. His face is at the same level as the candle. Arseny recognizes that face.

Stinge, he says quietly.

Stinge shudders and lifts his head. He sees nobody.

If you, Stinge, enter that grave up to your chest, you will never leave it, Arseny says. Is it not stated in the manuscripts you stole? Death is fierce for sinners.

Stinge is shaking. He looks into the dark sky.

Art thou an angel?

Does it really matter who I am, answers Arseny, an angel or a man? You used to steal from the living, but now you have become a grave robber. It turns out that you are taking on earthly properties even while you are alive, thus you can become of the earth in no time.

So what am I supposed to do, Stinge asks, if I am a burden to my own self?

Pray unceasingly and, for starters, fill up the grave.

Stinge fills up the grave.

If you were not an angel, you would not know my name, he says to someone above. Because today is my first day in this burg of Pskov.

Little by little, the renown of Arseny’s doctoring gift spreads through all of Pskov. People come to him with the most varied of illnesses and ask him to give them relief. They look into the holy fool’s blue eyes and tell him about themselves. They feel their troubles drown in those eyes. Arseny says nothing and does not even nod. He hears them out attentively. They think his attention is special, for he who refuses to speak expresses himself by hearing.

Sometimes Arseny gives them herbs. After rummaging around in his bag, Sister Agafya finds the appropriate manuscript from Christofer and reads it aloud to the patient. The one who receives the herb corncockle is prescribed to boil it in water with its root: it will draw pus from the ears. They give the plant quack grass to those stung by bees and order them to rub it on. Arseny silently takes notice of Sister Agafya’s reading though he is not inclined to overestimate the significance of the herbs offered. Doctoring experience tells him medicaments are not the most important part of treatment.

Arseny does not help everyone. He hears out the patient but turns away from him when he feels powerless to help. Sometimes he will press his forehead to the patient’s forehead and tears will flow from his eyes. He shares the patient’s pain with him and, to some degree, his death, too. Arseny’s heart fills with grief because he understands that the world does not remain the same after a patient passes away.

If I had the light within me, I would have cured him, Arseny says to Ustina about patients like that. But I cannot cure him, because of the gravity of my sins. These sins do not allow me to rise to the height where that person’s redemption lies. I, my love, am the culprit in his death and thus I weep for his passing and for my own sins.

But even the patients Arseny cannot cure feel benefit from interacting with him. They think their pain reduces after meeting with Arseny, and their fear lessens along with the pain. Incurable patients see in him a person capable of understanding the depth of suffering, for in his exploration of pain he gets to the very bottom of things.

It is not only the ill who come to Arseny. Pregnant women also show up at the cemetery. He looks at them through his tears and places his palm on their bellies. They feel better and birthing is easy after seeing the holy fool. Nursing mothers whose milk has dried up come, too; Arseny gives them the herb celandine. If the herb does not help, Arseny takes the woman to one of Zavelichye’s cowsheds and tells her to milk a cow. He watches as the white liquid dribbles through fingers red from tension. How the cow’s taut udder sways. The cow’s owners stand in the back, in the doorway. They watch, too. They know the arrival of the holy fool and the woman is a blessing. Arseny signals for the nursing mother to drink some milk. She drinks and feels her own nipples swell. And she hurries off to her child.

Arseny crosses the Velikaya River. Along the way, he notices that the ice is already gone but the water is still cold. An unwarmed river breeze has been blowing on Zapskovye since early morning, chilling that part of the city. Holy fool Foma squints and looks off into the distance somewhere. His beard twists in the breeze. Holy fool Karp stands, covering his face with his hands. He is half-turned toward holy fool Foma. Loaf baker Samson does not make them wait long: he shows up with his tray of loaves. And a kind smile on his lips. Holy fool Karp wearily takes his hands from his face and clasps them behind his back. A blue vein beats on his temple. He is, in his essence, no longer young. His facial features are delicate. Holy fool Karp approaches loaf baker Samson with a soft, balletic gait and grasps the closest loaf with his teeth. Holy fool Karp turns after taking a step away from the tray. He looks pitifully at Samson. Samson’s facial expression never changes as he takes the strap off his neck and carefully places the tray on the ground. He takes several steps in holy fool Karp’s direction. The loaf baker’s well-proportioned body folds. His hand drops to the top of his boot. Something there gleams, cold and sharp. The loaf baker walks right up to Karp. Karp stands to attention. He is taller than the loaf baker and senses the baker’s breath on his neck. The knife slowly enters the holy fool’s body. Oh, ye hosts of heaven, whispers loaf baker Samson, I have waited so long for this day.