Laurus

‌The Book

of Journeys

‌

Ambrogio Flecchia was born in a little place called Magnano. To Magnano’s east, a day away on horseback, lay Milan, the city of Saint Ambrosius. The boy was named in honor of that saint, too. Ambrogio. Which is what it sounded like in his parents’ language. Perhaps it reminded them of ambrosia, nectar of the immortals. The boy’s parents were wine-makers.

As he grew up, Ambrogio began helping them. He obediently did everything he was instructed to do, but there was no joy for him in the labor. The older Flecchia, who had secretly observed his son more than once, was ever more convinced of this. Ambrogio remained serious even when stomping on grapes in the vat with his bare feet (and what could be merrier for a child?).

The older Flecchia, who descended from a family of wine-makers, did not himself like excessive mirth. He knew the fermentation of wine was an unhurried, even melancholy, process, and thus he permitted a certain degree of pensiveness in winemaking. But his son’s aloofness toward wine production was something else: in his father’s eyes, it bordered on disinterest. Only a person who is not indifferent is capable of making real, true wine (the older Flecchia sighed as he brushed press cake from his fingers).

The boy’s assistance to the family business came from an unexpected angle. Five days before a big grape harvest, Ambrogio announced that the grapes should be harvested right away. He said this in the morning—after he had opened his eyes but before he had fully woken up. A vision of a thunderstorm had come to him. It was a dreadful thunderstorm and Ambrogio described it in detail. His description included a darkness that suddenly thickened, a howling wind, and hailstones the size of a hen’s egg whistling through the air. The boy told of ripe bunches of grapes that beat, tattered and soaked, against their stems, and of balls of ice that fell, drilling holes in thrashing leaves and finishing off grapes that had fallen to the ground. On top of that, a blue, ringing cold descended from the heavens and a thin coating of snow covered the site of the catastrophe.

The older Flecchia had seen a thunderstorm like that only once in his life, and the boy had never seen one. All the specifics of the story, however, coincided exactly with what the father had seen back in the day. The older Flecchia was not inclined toward mysticism but, after some wavering, he heeded Ambrogio’s advice after all and set to harvesting the grapes. He said nothing to the neighbors because he feared ridicule. But when a dreadful thunderstorm really did come down on Magnano five days later, only the Flecchia family ended up with a harvest that year.

Other visions visited the dark-complexioned adolescent. They affected various and sundry aspects of life but were fairly remote from winemaking. And so, Ambrogio predicted the war that developed between the French kings and the Holy Roman Empire in the territory of Piemonte in 1494. The wine-maker’s son clearly saw the forward French troops marching from west to east, past Magnano. The French hardly touched the local population, taking only small livestock to supplement their provisions, as well as twenty casks of Piemonte wine that seemed pretty fine to them. This information came to the older Flecchia in 1457, meaning it was far, far in advance, and would not, in essence, let him reap any possible benefit. A week later, he had already forgotten about the predicted military operations.

Ambrogio also predicted that Christopher Columbus would discover America in 1492. This event did not attract his father’s attention, either, since it would have no substantial influence on winemaking in Piemonte. The vision put the boy himself into a dither, though, for it was accompanied by the ominous luminescence of the outlines of all three of Columbus’s caravelles. This disagreeable light even touched the explorer’s aquiline profile. The Genovese man named Colombo, who had switched to Spanish service by force of circumstances, was, in essence, Ambrogio’s countryman. One would not want to think that on October 12, 1492, a person of this sort would do something unseemly, and thus the child was inclined to explain the light effects as excessive electrification within the Atlantic atmosphere.

After Ambrogio had grown up a little more, he expressed the desire to go to Florence and study at the university there. The older Flecchia did not impede him. By this time, he was already conclusively convinced that his son was not cut out for winemaking. Everyone in Magnano already knew that Flecchia the younger was, essentially, his own man, so they had been expecting his departure from the small town any day. Ambrogio himself, though, decided to postpone his departure: he was able to foresee that the plague would rage in Florence for the next two years.

The young man did finally end up in Florence. Everything was different in that city: it bore no resemblance to Magnano. Ambrogio arrived as Florence was recovering from the plague, and the city’s grandeur still mingled with dismay. Ambrogio studied seven liberal arts at the university. After mastering the trivium (grammar, dialectics, and rhetoric) he moved on to the quadrivium, which covered arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy.

As was often the case at universities in the olden days, the education process ended up lasting a long time. It included several years of rigorous instruction interspersed with years of similarly rigorous interpretation of what had been studied, during which Ambrogio’s attendance at the university ceased and he would set off and travel around Italy. In practice, though, the student’s ties with his alma mater were never cut, not even during his trips to the most distant corners of his native country, which, happily, was not that large.

Ambrogio came to love history more than anything else he happened to be introduced to during his studies. The university did not consider history a distinct subject: it was studied within the trivium, as an element of rhetoric. The young man was willing to spend hours sitting over historical writings. With their focus on the past, they (and this connected them with Ambrogio’s visions of the future) were an escape from the present. Movement away from the present—in both directions—became something Ambrogio needed as much as air, because it removed time’s unidimensionality, which caused him to gasp for breath.

Ambrogio read ancient and medieval historians. He read annals, chronicles, chronographs, and the histories of cities, lands, and wars. He learned how empires formed and collapsed, how earthquakes happened, and how stars fell and rivers overflowed their banks. He took particular note of fulfilled prophesies, too, and how omens appeared and came true. In this surmounting of time, he saw confirmation of the nonrandomness of everything that took place on earth. People encounter one another (thought Ambrogio), bumping into one another like atoms. They do not have their own trajectories and so their actions are random. But when taken together, those random events (so thought Ambrogio) were their own form of consistency, which could be predictable in certain parts. Only He Who created everything knows this in full.

A merchant from Pskov once came to Florence. The merchant’s name was Therapont. With a long beard split into two tails and a huge pocked nose, he stood out from the local populace. Besides his bundles of sable pelts, Therapont brought the news that Rus’ awaited the end of the world in 1492. On the whole, people in Florence took this information calmly. In the first place, Florentines were busy with routine matters galore and many simply had no time to think about things that posed no immediate threat. In the second place, very few people in Florence could picture the location of Rus’. In view of Therapont’s own unusual appearance (it was unclear if everyone in his homeland had similar beards and noses) it was presumed there was a possibility Rus’ was located outside the inhabited world. This gave the populace hope that the conjectured end of the world would be limited to just Rus’.

Of all the people living in Florence, merchant Therapont’s announcement only seemed truly important to one person: Ambrogio. The young man sought out Therapont and asked him about the basis for this conclusion that the end of the world was coming in 1492. Therapont replied that this was not his conclusion but that he had heard it from competent people in Pskov. Unable to substantiate the fatal date, Therapont jokingly proposed that Ambrogio head to Pskov for clarification. Ambrogio did not laugh. He nodded pensively for he did not rule out that possibility.

After this conversation, Ambrogio began taking Russian (old Russian) lessons from the merchant. The older Flecchia had no inkling how his money was being spent. For his part, Ambrogio wisely said nothing to his father: the existence of Rus’ would have seemed even more dubious to the older Flecchia than the specifics of the 1494 war his son had once described.

It was at this same time that Ambrogio Flecchia met Amerigo Vespucci, the future mariner. Looking at Vespucci’s eyes, Ambrogio had no trouble realizing where his course lay. It was obvious Amerigo would head to Seville in 1490, where he would help finance Columbus’s expeditions through his work at Giannotto Berardi’s trading house. Beginning in 1499 and inspired by Columbus’s successes, the Florentine himself would undertake several voyages and all so very successfully that the newly discovered continent would be named for him rather than Columbus. (In that very same 1499—and Ambrogio could not help but tell the merchant Therapont about this—archbishop Gennady Novgorodsky would compile the first full Holy Scripture in Rus’, which was subsequently called Gennady’s Bible.)

Ambrogio directed Amerigo Vespucci’s attention to a strange convergence of events foreseen for 1492. On the one hand, a new continent would be discovered, on the other, the end of the world was expected in Rus’. How much (Ambrogio’s quandry) were those events connected, and, if they were connected, then how? Could it be (Ambrogio’s guess) that the discovery of the new continent was the beginning of a lengthy, drawn-out end of the world? And if that is the case (Ambrogio takes Amerigo by the shoulder and looks him in the eye), is it worth giving your name to a continent like that?

Meanwhile, Arseny’s lessons with the merchant Therapont continued. Ambrogio read a Slavonic Psalter the merchant had with him and, it must be said, understood much of it, because he knew the Latin text of the Psalms by heart. He listened to Therapont’s readings with no less interest. At his request, each Psalm was read through multiple times. This allowed Ambrogio to remember not only the words (he had already learned them during the reading) but also the specifics of pronunciation. To Therapont’s surprise, little by little, the young man became his phonic twin. The Russian originals of the words Ambrogio pronounced could not always be discerned immediately, but at times—and this happened ever more frequently—Therapont involuntarily shuddered as the purest intonations of a Pskov merchant issued from the Italian’s lips.

The day arrived when Ambrogio knew he was ready to head for Rus’. The last thing the Florentines heard from him turned out to be a prediction of a horrifying flood, fated to descend upon the city on November 4, 1966. As he pleaded with the city dwellers to be vigilant, Ambrogio pointed out that the Arno River would overflow its banks and that a body of water with a volume of 350 million cubic meters would gush onto the streets. Florence subsequently forgot about this prediction, just as it forgot about the predictor himself.

Ambrogio headed for Magnano and informed his father of his plans.

But the boundary of the inhabited expanses is there, said the older Flecchia. Why are you going there?

Perhaps on the boundary of the world, replied Ambrogio, I will learn something about the boundary of time.

‌

Ambrogio did have his regrets about leaving Florence. A considerable number of worthy people (Sandro Botticelli, Leonardo da Vinci, Raffaello Santi, and Michelangelo Buonarroti) whose roles in cultural history were already clear to him were passing their time there. Not one of them, however, could contribute the slightest clarity to the only issue meaningful for Ambrogio: the issue regarding the end of the world. That issue does not disquiet them, Ambrogio noted to himself, for they are creating for eternity.

In the last days of his life in Florence, Ambrogio was favored with several visions, large and small. The visions were not completely comprehensible to him and he did not tell anyone about them. They were not related to world history. The events he saw related to the histories of individual people, and it is they, or so it seemed to Ambrogio, who ultimately form world history. One of the visions—the least understandable for him—touched on the large country to the north, where he aspired to go. After some deliberation, Ambrogio decided to tell the merchant Therapont about the vision. What follows is the short version.

In 1977, Leningrad State University sent Yury Alexandrovich Stroev, who was right on the verge of becoming a candidate of historical sciences, to Pskov for an archeological expedition. Yury Alexandrovich’s dissertation, which was devoted to early Russian chronicle writing, was nearly finished. It lacked only a conclusion containing findings, but the dissertator just could not write it. Whenever he sat down to work on his findings, Stroev began thinking they were incomplete, trivialized his work, and, in some sense, nullified it. It’s possible he was simply burnt out. That is, in any case, what his research advisor, Ivan Mikhailovich Nechiporuk, thought. And Nechiporuk, as it happened, was the person who had included Stroev in the archeological expedition’s team. The professor figured the findings would fall into place on their own after Stroev got some needed rest. The professor had tremendous experience as an advisor.

The members of the expedition were housed in private apartments in Pskov. Stroev’s apartment was in Zapskovye, on Pervomaiskaya Street, not far from the Church of the Image of Edessa, which was built during the great pestilence of 1487. The apartment consisted of two rooms. A young woman with a five-year-old son lived in the large room, and they settled Stroev into the small room. They told him the woman’s name was Alexandra Muller and that she was a Russian German.

The German woman introduced herself as Sasha. Her son, who greeted the guest along with her, was Sasha, too. The boy hugged her leg, turning Alexandra’s cotton print dress into tight-fitting pants. Despite being immersed in thought about his dissertation, Stroev noticed Alexandra’s shapely legs.

Stroev liked their building. It was an old red-brick merchant’s home. In the evenings, the windows glowed with a yellowish electrical light. When he came home from the excavation for the first time, Stroev stopped at the front steps to admire their glow. This glow was reflected on the Pobeda automobile that stood in front of the building. And on the round cobblestones in the roadway, too.

When he went in, Stroev saw Alexandra was drinking tea with her son. And he drank tea with them.

What is your expedition working on? Alexandra asked.

Someone began playing the violin on the other side of the wall.

We’re studying the foundation of the Saint John the Baptist Church. It has sunk considerably over the centuries. Stroev slowly brought his palm closer to the table.

The boy’s palms also nearly touched the table. When he noticed Stroev’s glance, he began drawing his fingers along the patterns on the oilcloth. The patterns were small and complex but the boy’s fingers were even smaller. He could handle this geometry easily.

A holy fool named Arseny, who called himself Ustin, lived around the John the Baptist Convent, said Alexandra, by the cemetery wall.

There’s no wall there now.

There isn’t even a cemetery. Alexandra topped up Stroev’s tea. The cemetery became Komsomol Square.

But what about the deceased? the boy asked. Did they all become Komsomol members or something?

Stroev bent right to the boy’s ear:

That will be determined during the excavations.

They went out for a walk the next evening. They crossed Trud Street, came to the Thundering Tower, and sat there on the bank of the Pskova River. The boy tossed pebbles into the river. Stroev found several shards of tile and launched them so they skipped like a frog along the river’s surface. The largest piece hopped along the water five times.

Another time they went to Zavelichye. They crossed the Velikaya River over the Soviet Army Bridge and headed to the John the Baptist Convent. They came to the church and stood for a long time at the rim of the excavation site. They cautiously went down the stairs. They stroked ancient stones warmed by the August evening. Warmed for the first time in many centuries. And someone was stroking them for the first time in many centuries. That’s what Alexandra was thinking. She was imagining an ancient holy fool near those stones and could not answer her own question about whether or not she actually believed what she had read. Had a holy fool even really existed? And, one might ask, had his love existed? And if so, then what had that love turned into during those hundreds of years gone by? And who, then, could feel that love now, if those who had loved had been reduced to dust long ago?

I like being with both of them, Stroev said in his heart, because I feel a certain something kindred in both of them. A definite consonance, you might say, despite her German heritage. She is calm, dark blonde, and her facial features are well balanced. Why is she a single mother to her boy, and where is her husband? What is she doing here in the Russian provinces among windows sunken into the ground that have little view, old automobiles, untucked linen shirts (with patch pockets), and the wrinkled, yellow-faced, dust-strewn photographic denizens of honor boards (a breeze blows, ever so slightly, through the feather grass under them)? I don’t know, he answered himself, what she’s doing, for she is not organic to this world. And his heart faltered when he imagined Alexandra Muller on a teeming Leningrad street or, for example, at the Kirov Opera and Ballet Theater, with her face flushed just before intermission’s third bell: it was within his power to take her there.

Then they returned home and drank tea, and the violin began plinking on the other side of the wall.

That’s Parkhomenko playing, said the boy. We love listening to him.

Alexandra shrugged.

Stroev imagined himself gazing from the street and tried to see them—all three of them—in the window, in the yellow electric light. Maybe he was even gazing from Leningrad. He already knew, now, that he would yearn for that kitchen, for the automobile by the window, the cobblestone roadway, and Parkhomenko’s unseen violin. He was already scrutinizing them, sitting there, as if they were themselves a cherished photograph: the window frame was its frame and the chandelier’s light flooded it with the yellowing of time. Why am I (thought Stroev) yearning in advance, predestining events, and moving ahead of time? And how is it that I always know in advance about my yearning? What is it inside me that gives rise to this vexing feeling?

I teach Russian language and literature at a school, said Alexandra, but that’s not of much interest to anyone here.

Stroev took a cookie from the dish and pressed it to his lower lip.

And what does interest them?

I don’t know. After a silence, she asked:

So why did you choose medieval history?

It’s hard to say… Maybe because historians in the Middle Ages were unlike historians these days. They always looked for moral reasons as an explanation for historical events. It’s like they didn’t notice the direct connection between events. Or didn’t attach much significance to it.

But how can you explain the world without seeing the connections? said Alexandra, surprised.

They were looking above the everyday and seeing higher connections. Besides, time connected all events, even though people didn’t consider that connection reliable.

The boy was holding a cookie by his lower lip. Alexandra smiled:

Sasha’s copying your body language.

Stroev went home two weeks later. The semester started and, contrary to his expectations, he didn’t feel any yearning at first. He didn’t feel it later, either, because he was so busy that autumn, finishing his dissertation and preparing for the defense of it that he would be expected to present. Stroev successfully gave his defense at the very end of the year. Everyone was satisfied with his dissertation, especially Professor Nechiporuk, who was convinced the decision to send the dissertator to the excavation had turned out to be the one and only correct thing to do. Stroev entered January of the new year by tossing off the burden that had been weighing on him for so long and, let’s be honest, making his life thoroughly miserable. His soul felt lighter. And in that weightless, almost soaring condition, it sensed the absence of Alexandra Muller.

This doesn’t mean Stroev began thinking constantly about Alexandra, let alone took steps to see her: action was not his strong point. But he remembered Alexandra before going to sleep, in that flickery instant when daytime matters have already receded and dreams aren’t yet drawing close. Her kitchen drifted in front of him, with the fabric lampshade over the table and the tea pot painted with leaves. As he lay in his bed, Stroev inhaled the scent of the old Pskov building. From outside the window, he heard pedestrians’ footsteps and snatches of their conversations. He saw the boy’s body language, which turned out to be his own body language. Stroev calmed and fell asleep.

One time he told Ilya Borisovich Utkin, his friend and colleague, about Alexandra.

It’s possible that’s love, said Utkin, wavering.

But love (Stroev flapped his arms around) is such an overpowering feeling that, as I understand things, it just convulses you. Practically makes you high. But I’m not feeling that. I miss her, yes. I’d like to be with her, yes. Hear her voice, yes. But not behave like a madman.

You’re talking about passion that really is a form of insanity. But I’m talking about love, which is sensible and, if you like, predestined. Because when you miss someone, we’re talking about lacking a piece of you, yourself. And you’re looking to be reunited with that piece.

That sounds very romantic, thought Stroev, but how do notions like that fit into real life? And so Alexandra, let’s say, has a son, a very sweet little boy. But he’s not my son. I know nothing about his father. Stroev bit his lips. And, when it comes down to it, I don’t want to know. I can’t rule out that there are some bleak stories connected with this person. Some sort of, for all I know, gulfs in Alexandra’s life. For the most part, though, this isn’t about him. I’m just afraid I wouldn’t be able to get along with the boy.

About a month later, he said to Utkin:

I keep thinking about the kid. Would he get in the way between me and Alexandra?

Has she really already said she’ll marry you?

What, you think she won’t?

I don’t know that. Call her, ask.

Things like that aren’t resolved over the phone.

So go there.

Oh, come on, Ilya, what are you talking about?! I’m not ready for that yet.

I don’t know myself what I want, Stroev admitted to himself. I have lots of different thoughts and feelings, but, yet again, I can’t reach conclusions.

In March, it was Utkin who asked Stroev about Alexandra.

I’m afraid, Stroev said, she might marry me just to get out of the provinces. Or so her kid has a father.

What, and you don’t want her to leave the provinces or for her kid to have a father?

Why are you asking me about this?

Because you still haven’t looked at what’s happening from her perspective. If you can manage to do that, it means you love her and you have to go see her.

At the end of May, Stroev told Utkin:

You know, Ilya, I think I’m going to go.

Stroev got on the train and headed for Pskov. Poplar fluff was bursting through the windows. As Stroev rode, he thought he wouldn’t even find Alexandra there again. He’d go to the door and nobody would open it for him. He’d press his forehead against the kitchen window and, after he’d placed his palms to his temples so the reflections wouldn’t get in the way, see remainders of his former happiness. The lampshade, the table. An empty table. His heart would shrink. A reproachful Parkhomenko (and I played for you, you know) would come out of the neighboring door, all big shoulders and short legs. And that, it turns out, is what was behind the music. They’re not here, Parkhomenko would say, they went away forever. For. Ever. It took too long for you to get yourself together. Essentially, what’s happening here isn’t really about time, because true love is beyond time. It can, after all, wait an entire lifetime. (Parkhomenko sighs.) The cause of what’s happening here all lies in the absence of an internal fire. Your trouble, if you will, is that reaching final conclusions just isn’t your thing. You’re afraid the decision you make will deprive you of further choice, so that paralyzes your will. Even now, you don’t know why you’ve come. Meanwhile, you’ve missed out on the best thing life had arranged for you. You had, I can report to you, all the conditions that nature could present a person: a place to live on a quiet Pskov street, old linden trees outside the window, and good music on the other side of the wall. You didn’t take advantage of any of the things I just listed, so this trip is, just like your previous trip, a complete waste of time.

A complete waste of time, Ambrogio said pensively.

A complete waste of time, repeated the merchant Therapont.

‌

Ambrogio Flecchia turned up in Rus’ in either 1477 or 1478. The Italian was met with reserve—but without hostility—in Pskov, where the merchant Therapont sent him. He was received there as a person whose goals are not entirely clear. People began treating him more warmly when they were convinced he was only interested in the end of the world. Determining the time the world would end seemed like an estimable pursuit to many, for people in Rus’ loved large-scale tasks.

Let him determine it, said Mayor Gavriil. Experience tells me that signs of the end of the world will be most obvious here.

Mayor Gavriil became the Italian’s patron after getting to know him better. Ambrogio did not manufacture anything or trade anything, so he would not have had an easy time of things without that patronage. Essentially, he completely owed his rather decent life in Pskov to the mayor’s generosity.

Gavriil liked talking with Ambrogio. The Italian told him about past prophesies in history, about indications of the end of the world, about famous battles, and just about Italy. When he talked about his homeland, Ambrogio was crushed that he could not convey the undulating blueness of the mountains, the damp saltiness of the air, and many other things that made Italy the most wonderful place on earth.

But were you not sorry to leave a land like that? Mayor Gavriil once asked him.

Of course I was sorry, answered Ambrogio, but the beauty of my land did not allow me to concentrate on what is most important.

Ambrogio devoted all his time to reading Russian books, attempting to find in them an answer to the question that was troubling him. Many people who knew about his quest asked when the end of the world would come.

Me thinketh it be knowne only to God, Ambrogio answered, evading. I have ofte read in books of what is sayde, morover, there is not any numeric agreement within them.

The contradicting sources flustered Ambrogio but he did not abandon his attempts to determine the date of the end of the world. It surprised him that there was no sense this menacing event was approaching, despite the indication that the end of the world was most likely to come during the seven thousandth year. Things were precisely the opposite: Ambrogio’s small and large visions concerned much later years. Essentially, he was even glad of this, though it increased his perplexity.

The birth of the Antichrist in the year 6967 was approaching (Ambrogio read) and there will be created an erth quake soche as has never been before this woeful and fierce time and there will then be great mourning, on all the land of all times and places.

Yes (thought Ambrogio), the Antichrist should make an appearance thirty-three years before the end of the world. But year 6967 from the Creation (this was year 1459 since the Birth of Christ) had passed long ago and indications of the coming of the Antichrist were still not tangible. Did it follow that the end of the world was being indefinitely postponed?

One day, Mayor Gavriil said to him:

I need someone willing to go to Jerusalem. I want him to hang an icon lamp in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, in memory of my perished daughter Anna. And that person could be you.

Well sure, Ambrogio said, I could be that person. You have done a lot for me so I will take the icon lamp in memory of your perished daughter.

Mayor Gavriil embraced Ambrogio.

I know you are waiting here for the end of the world. I think you will be able to return before then.

Do not worry, mayor, said Ambrogio, for if the expected does occur, it will be conspicuous everywhere. And a visit to Jerusalem is auspicious.

Loaf baker Samson was being led down the street, bound.

My glorious, lovely bread products and baked goods, said the loaf baker, weeping. I loved ye more than life, my own or anyone else’s, for I could nurture you like nobody else in this entire burg of Pskov. That holy fool Karp grabbed you with his unclean mouth, dragged you along the ground, and gave you away to people who were not worth your heel, and they all smiled, trustinge he was doing a good deed. And I smiled, for what else could I do when everyone considered me a good person and, yes, I was a good person, when it comes right down to it. It’s just that the level of what was expected from me exceeded the level of my kindness—and that does happen, no surprises there. And so, I do report to you, that a malice as heavy as lead simply filled the gap inside me, between the kindness expected and the kindness possessed. The gap increased and the malice increased and the smile that bloomed on my lips was, if you can believe it, a sort of spasm.

Do you know how long you have already been in Pskov? holy fool Foma asked Arseny.

Arseny shrugged.

Well, I know, exulted holy fool Foma. You have already worked things out for Leah and for Rachel and some third person, too.

Only not for Ustina, Arseny said in his heart.

Foma pointed at loaf baker Samson, who was being led away by guards, and shouted:

There’s no more point in your silence now that Karp’s gone. You could be silent because Karp spoke. You don’t have that opportunity now.

So what am I supposed to do now? asked Arseny.

Karp invited you to Heavenly Jerusalem but you didn’t become his traveling companion. Which is understandable: you wouldn’t go there without Ustina. But go to earthly Jerusalem and pray for her to the Almighty.

But how will I get to Jerusalem? asked Arseny.

I have this one idea, said holy fool Foma. But for now, buddy, give me the bag with Christofer’s manuscripts. You won’t be needing them anymore.

Arseny handed the bag with Christofer’s manuscripts to holy fool Foma but he felt mournful inside. As he handed over the bag, Arseny thought about how his attachment to property seemed to have stayed with him, and he was ashamed of this feeling. Holy fool Foma grasped what was happening within Arseny’s soul and told him:

Do not mourn, O Arseny, for Christofer’s collected wisdom will enter you in an unwritten way. As far as the descriptions of the herbs go, I reckon that’s already ancient history for you. Heale the ill by taking their sins upon yourself. Herbs are not required for that sort of treatment, as I hope you understand. And also: from now on you are not Ustin but Arseny, like before. Prepare, comrade, for the journey.

‌

Shortly thereafter, all of Pskov knew that Ustin had begun speaking. That his name was not Ustin but Arseny. And they all came to look at him but they could not see him because he was no longer living in the cemetery but in a guest cell at the John the Baptist Convent.

What do you think this is, a circus or something? the abbess asked the visitors. A person lived outdoors for fourteen years, so let him come to his senses.

Ambrogio came to see Arseny on one of those days.

Mayor Gavriil sent me to see you, said Ambrogio. He wants you to be my traveling companion for a journey to Jerusalem. I am presuming the end of the world will arrive no earlier than the year 7000, 1,492 years from Christ’s birth. So if everything works out right we can make it back.

What are you basing your calculations on? Arseny asked him.

It is all very simple. I will liken days to millennia for it was said in the ninetieth psalm: A thousande yeares in thy sight are but as yesterdaye that is past. Since there are seven days in a week, it results in seven millennia of human lyfe. It is now year 6988: we have another twelve years at our disposal. I think that should be plenty for repentance.

Are you sure, Arseny asked him, that it is now that precise year, I mean are you sure that it has been exactly 6,988 years from the Creation until now?

If I were not sure of it, Ambrogio answered, I probably would not have invited you to come with me to Jerusalem. Judge for yourself: Hellenic and Roman chronicles have been documenting all the emperorships ever since the year 5500, when Jesus Christ our Savior was born. Add up the years the Roman and Constantinople emperors ruled and you will get the sought date.

But why—forgive me, O you from other lands—do you think that precisely 5,500 years, no more and no less, passed between the Creation and the birth of our Savior? What served as the source of that conclusion?

Only that I read the Holy Scripture carefully, Ambrogio responded, and it is my principle source. For example, the Book of Genesis indicates the age of each of the forefathers at the time his firstborn arrives. Beyond that, there are also mentions of the number of years the forefathers lived after the arrival of their firstborn, as well as the overall sum of the forefathers’ years of life. As you see, O brother Arseny, the two final items are even redundant to my calculation. In order to find the overall number of years that have passed, it is sufficient to add up the forefathers’ years before the arrival of their firstborn.

But the letters that denote the numerical figures are subject to flaws, Arseny objected. For a long tyme what is wrytten has been erased and unknown. And yf just one of the two lines that form the letter т is erased, then it cannot be understonded if it was originally the letter т or rather the letter п, which has three lines, and that would be the difference between a quantity of eighty or three hundred, methinketh. Tell me, Ambrogio, how do you prove that your calculations are infallible and that the birth of our Savior Jesus Christ really happened in the year 5500? Using what harmony, one might ask, will you prove all this algebra?

The figures, O Arseny, have their own higher meaning, for they reflect that heavenly harmony you are asking about. Now listen carefully. The Passion of Christ fell on the sixth hour of the sixth day of the week and that indicates that the Savior was born in the middle of the sixth millennium, meaning the 5,500th year since the Creation. This is also indicated because the sum of the measures of Moses’ ark, according to the twenty-fifth chapter of the Book of Exodus, totaled five and a half cubits. Thus Christ, like a true Ark, should also have come in the year 5500.

This person is capable of sound reasoning, Arseny told Ustina. It truly is possible to go to Jerusalem with a person like this. If I am to believe his calculations (and I am inclined to do so), we have at least ten years for the journey. And so I, my love, am going to the very center of the earth. I am going to the point that is closest of all to Heaven. If my words are destined to fly all the way to Heaven, then it will happen there. And all my words will be about you.

‌

That day, Arseny and Ambrogio began preparing for the journey to Jerusalem. Mayor Gavriil allotted a purse of Hungarian gold ducats to each of them for the trip. The ducats were recognized over the entire distance from Pskov to Jerusalem and pilgrims eagerly took them on the road. The mayor could have given even more but he knew coins rarely lingered very long with travelers in the Middle Ages. Like money, items also had trouble going the distance. Their possessors often returned home without one or the other. Even more often, they did not return.

Letters of recommendations and personal connections were sometimes more useful to wayfarers than money. In this epoch, which was anything but simple, it was important that someone in a certain place was either waiting for someone or doing the opposite: sending someone someplace, vouching for him, and asking that his travel be facilitated. In some sense, this was a confirmation that the person had a place in life before, too, and that he had not come out of nowhere and was traveling honestly around an expanse. In the most general sense, journeys confirmed to the world the continuity of the expanse, a concept that continued to evoke certain doubts.

Arseny and Ambrogio were issued letters of recommendation for several cities. These were letters to personages of princely rank, spiritual figures, and representatives of the merchantry: any of them could help if need be. Each man was granted two horses and two riding caftans. The pilgrims sewed the ducats into the hems of the caftans. They inserted small strips of leather between them so the coins would not jingle or be detectable. Dried meat and fish were purchased, too, as much as two unsaddled horses were capable of carrying. Ambrogio, who had experience in distant wayfaring, led the preparations.

They limited themselves as they gathered food and clothing. It was a warm time of year in Pskov but of course it was always a warm time in the land of Palestine. Warm and abundant, for in this lande watery brooks and sprynges flow from the depths along valleyes and hilles, watering grapes, fig trees, and dates, this land streams with olive oil and honey for truly this land is blessed and belongs to the Lord’s Heaven.

On the eve of their departure, Mayor Gavriil summoned Arseny and Ambrogio and presented them with a six-faceted silver icon lamp. The icon lamp was small, so as not to attract unwanted attention. For that same reason, the mayor presented them, separately, with six adamants. Upon arrival at the site, the adamants should be placed in the spots intended for them on each of the icon lamp’s facets. Place them and squeeze the pins, which bend easily. The mayor showed them how the pins bent.

There is nothing complex.

They were silent.

I thought for a long time about who to send to Jerusalem and chose you. You are of varying faiths but both are true. And you seek the same Lord. You will be going to Orthodox and non-Orthodox lands and your differences will help you.

Mayor Gavriil kissed the icon lamp. He embraced Arseny and Ambrogio.

This is important to me. This is very important to me.

They bowed to Mayor Gavriil.

‌

The horses shifted from one foot to another on the shore and were afraid to step onto the vessel. Moving in water was not what frightened them: they had swum across and waded through rivers more than once in their lives. Moving on top of the water frightened them. It seemed unnatural to them. The horses were dragged by the reins along the gangways. They neighed and knocked their hooves on the deck’s wood. As he gazed at the horses, Arseny did not even notice they had set sail.

The crowd on shore set sail, too, beginning to shrink in size and sound after the rowers had begun rowing their oars. The crowd simmered, turning into a whirlpool that spun around the mayor, who stood at its center. He did not even wave. He stood motionless. Alongside him fluttered the robes of the abbess from the John the Baptist Convent. Sometimes the heavy black fabric even touched the mayor’s face, but he did not shift. The abbess seemed far wider than usual in the wind; she seemed lightly inflated. She blessed the departing vessel with slow, broad crosses.

The shores moved in time with the oar strokes. They tried to catch up to the clouds gliding through the sky but clearly lacked the speed. Arseny inhaled the river breeze with delight, understanding it was the breeze of wayfaring.

So many years, he said to Ustina, I sat here for so many years without moving and now I am sailing directly south. I feel, my love, that this motion is beneficial. It draws me closer to you and further from people whose attention, to tell the truth, had begun to weigh on me. I have, my love, a good traveling companion, a young, cultured person with a broad range of interests. Dark-complexioned. Curly hair. Beardless, for they shave beards in his part of the world. He is attempting to determine when the world will end and though I am not sure this is within his competence, attention to eschatology, even on its own, seems worthy of encouragement. Some Pskov boatmen are with us. They are taking us along the Velikaya River to the boundaries of the Pskov land. The river is wide. The residents of the shores that we pass watch us leave, if they notice us. Sometimes they wave as we pass. We wave to them, too. What awaits us? I feel an inexpressible gladness and fear nothing.

Toward evening, they moored at the shore and started a fire. They did not take the horses off the vessel because they had already grown used to being there. A late Pskov night was setting in.

In our lands, said the boatmen, nothing is unexpected. But, according to some sources, there will be people with dogs’ heads further along. We do not know if that is true, but this is what people say.

Do not be too proud, answered Ambrogio, for there is plenty of everything in this land, too. Suppose you go into the kremlin: there are lots of people like that there.

From time to time, one of the boatmen would go to the nearby forest and gather fallen branches. Arseny watched the fire flare up. He pensively added branch after branch, using them to build a pyramid. At first the fire licked them. It was as if the fire was tasting them with its tongue before taking them entirely. Some of the brushwood crackled as it burned.

They are damp, said the boatmen. It is still damp in the forest.

Mosquitoes and gnats circled the fire. They were flying in a translucent swarm, almost like smoke. They drew circles and ellipses within the swarm, making it look as if someone was juggling them. But nobody was juggling them. They scattered when the smoke shifted in their direction. Arseny was surprised to note that the mosquitoes’ escape gladdened him.

Can you believe, he said to Ustina, that I have gotten squeamish and am afraid of these bloodsuckers? I feared nothing when I was living as if in the body of another. And that, my love, does frighten me. Did I lose in an instant what I was gathering for you all those years?

We heard, said the boatmen, that the fire that comes upon the Holy Sepulcher at Easter does not singe. You have set out on your journey after Easter, though, so it works out that you will not see this fire’s unusual properties.

But should not every day of the Lorde become Easter for us? asked Arseny.

He stretched his palm over the very fire. Tongues of fire came through his separated fingers, illuminating them from below with a rosy light. In the middle of the night that had fallen, Arseny’s palm glowed brighter than the fire. Ambrogio stared steadily at Arseny. The boatmen crossed themselves.

‌

The next day they reached the southern limits of the land of Pskov. The boatmen had been ordered to transport the pilgrims to these limits. The Velikaya River was becoming small and turning to the east.

The river is nearing its sources, said the boatmen, and there are more and more sandbars, which are just one more huge headache to deal with. We are, truth be told, sorry to part ways with you, but at least there is some consolation that we will be floating with the current on the way back.

It has long been observed, confirmed Ambrogio, that it is much easier to float with the current. So go in peace.

The horses were led to shore and Ambrogio and Arseny embraced the boatmen in parting. They felt disquiet as they watched the vessel grow distant. From now on, the wayfarers were left to the Lord and their own devices. A difficult journey awaited them.

They headed south. They rode unhurriedly, Arseny and Ambrogio in the front and the two pack horses in the rear, tethered with the reins. The road was narrow, the locality hilly. They dismounted to eat. They cut off strips of dried meat and washed it down with water. The horses hurried to nibble grass at their stopping places. When they crossed brooks, they lowered their lips to it and drank, snorting.

Toward the end of the day, they arrived in the town of Sebezh. Upon entering, they asked where they could stop for the night. They were directed to a hostelry. The hostelry reeked of either spilled beer or urine. The keeper was drunk. After seating the visitors on a bench, he himself sat on another. He looked at them for a long time, unblinking. He sat, his legs spread, arms resting on his knees. He did not answer questions. After touching him on the shoulder, Arseny realized the hostelry keeper was sleeping. He was sleeping with his eyes open.

The hostelry keeper’s wife turned up and led the horses to a stall. She showed the guests to a room.

Hey, Ladle, she called out to her husband, but he did not stir. Ladle! She gave up on him with a wave of her hand. Let him sleep.

Close his eyes, said Ambrogio. It is much better to sleep with the eyes closed.

No, no, it is better like this, said the hostelry keeper’s wife. This way, he will see you if you start prowling around the hostelry.

The Ladle he sleeps—The Ladle the hostelry keeps, said the keeper, with a belch. Don’t try anything clever. The big thing is, do not trespass on my wife, for she will trespass on you herself. He lifted his feet onto the bench and covered himself with a bast mat. You cannot even imagine the things I have to close my eyes to.

In the middle of the night, Arseny felt something warm moving on his belly. He thought it was a rat and jolted to toss it off.

Shh, whispered the hostelry keeper’s wife. The big thing is not to make any noise, my fees are low, just a token amount, you might say, I would not charge anything, but my husband—an animal, as you have seen for yourself—thinks there should be an economic component to any matter, and changing his mind is impossible, the scoundrel, and you want it, you want it...

Go away, he whispered to her, barely audibly.

She continued stroking Arseny on the belly and he felt himself lose all his will under the hand of this woman who was neither young nor pretty. He wanted to tell Ustina that everything that had been forming all those years might now be broken, but then the hostelry keeper’s wife croaked out, at almost full voice:

And I know your type inside and out...

Her hand glided down toward the very bottom of his belly and Arseny jumped up, hitting his head on something hard and resonant that fell from the wall, rolled, bounced, and flew out of the room along with the hostelry keeper’s wife.

The fire began smoldering in the next room.

No, just have a look, will you, have a look, shrieked the hostelry keeper’s wife, pointing at Arseny. He started coming on to me.

He was using my moment of weakness, said the hostelry keeper, who was nearly sober and thus mean.

He was coming after me, Ladle! My garment is left in his hands. But I got away.

Arseny extended his hands and they were empty:

I have nobody’s clothing.

The hostelry keeper’s wife looked at Arseny and shouted, more calmly now:

Look at you, could not keep your hands to yourself, you are not in your Pskov. Pay a gold coin for this dishonor.

This is the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, said the hostelry keeper, and I, in other words, will not allow anyone...

Arseny began weeping.

Listen, Ladle, said Ambrogio, I have a document that I will present to your local authorities. But I will inform them orally (Ambrogio walked right up to the hostelry keeper) about how guests are received in Sebezh. I do not think they will be pleased.

And what about me? said the hostelry keeper. I know of this only from what she says. You need not pay for the dishonor if you wish.

The tavern keeper’s wife cast a stern look at him:

Oh you, Ladle. This one sayde to me, I will revell in youre beauty. And I did denye him. At least give me something, even if it is not gold coin.

To pay you for your beauty, asked Ambrogio.

We will pay her because she rejected me, said Arseny. For if she rejected me in words, then she is capable of doing the same in deed. And I am to blame for all, and this is my fall. Forgive me, kind woman, and you forgive me, too, Ustina.

Without saying a word, Ambrogio took a ducat and extended it toward the hostelry keeper’s wife. The woman stood, eyes cast down. The hostelry keeper shrugged. His wife looked at her husband and took the ducat, embarrassed. It was getting light outside.

They rode silently from Sebezh to Polotsk. Arseny rode a bit ahead and Ambrogio did not catch up.

After so many years of silence, said Ambrogio, it is difficult for you to get used to speech again.

Arseny nodded.

When they dismounted yet again, Ambrogio said:

I understand why you took the blame upon yourself. He who holds the world within answers for everything. But you did not think about how you deprived that woman of feeling the blame. Thanks to you, she is convinced everything is permitted for her.

You are wrong, said Arseny. Look what I found in my pocket.

He took his hand from his pocket and unclenched his fist. In his palm there lay a ducat.

‌

In Polotsk they dismounted by the Spaso-Evfrosinevsky Monastery. Ambrogio tied the horses to an old elm. Arseny pressed his forehead to the monastery fence and said:

Hello, O Saint Evfrosinia. As you likely know, my traveling companion Ambrogio (Ambrogio bowed his head) and I are going to Jerusalem. It is not our place to tell you just how complicated is the journey there, for you have made it and we are at its very beginning. And it would be even more inappropriate for us to tell you how complicated is the journey back: we have not even begun it. And you, saintly one, totally forewent it and, with God’s favor, found your resting place in the Holy Land. We are going there to pray for two women and are counting on your help very much. Bless us, O Saint Evfrosinia.

The pilgrims bowed and rode away.

Ambrogio addressed a pedestrian on the outskirts of Polotsk:

We are looking for the road to Orsha.

Orsha is on the Dnepr, said the pedestrian. The Dnepr is a big river and that, correspondingly, opens up great possibilities.

He showed the direction to Orsha and went about his business.

I have noticed, said Ambrogio, watching the pedestrian leave, that the people of ancient Rus’ prefer a water route because of unfit roads. By the way, they do not yet know that Rus’ is ancient but they will figure that out over time. Certain skills of foresight allow me to assert this. And this, too: the condition of the roads will not change. Basically, the history of your land will unscroll in a rather unusual way.

Does the history of my land truly unroll as a scroll unrolls? asked Arseny.

All history is, to a certain extent, a scroll in the Almighty’s hands. Some people (me, for example) are granted the opportunity to peek every now and then, to see what lies ahead. There is just one thing I do not know: if that scroll will suddenly be thrown away.

Do you mean the end of the world? asked Arseny.

Yes, the end of the world. And the end of the dark underworld at the same time. This event, you know, has its own symmetry.

They rode for several hours without uttering a word. The road ran along the Dvina. The road followed the river, looping, fading, and sometimes even getting lost. But the road invariably turned up somewhere further on. They rode into a pine wood and the sound of hooves became more ringing.

Arseny asked:

If history is a scroll in the hands of the Creator, does that mean that everything I think and do is my Creator’s thinking and doing, rather than mine?

No, that is not what it means: the Creator is good but not everything that you think and do is good. You were created in God’s image and likeness, and your likeness consists, among other things, of freedom.

But if people are free in their intentions and actions, then it works out that they create history freely.

People are free, Ambrogio replied, but history is not free. As you say, there are so many intentions and actions that history cannot bring them all together, and only God can holde them all. I would even say that it is not people that are free but the individual person. I liken the confluence of human wills to fleas in a container: their movement is obvious but do they really have a common purpose? That is why history has no goal, just as humanity has none. Only an individual person has a goal. And even then, not always.

‌

It was already their second day riding along the river. As they were riding through a forest, they saw a glade with a slope leading down to the water. Ambrogio dismounted to water his horse. He slipped on the clay at the very edge of the river and fell into the water. It turned out to be unexpectedly deep, almost to his throat. Ambrogio laughed as he spat out river plants. His long, black hair resembled river plants, too, streaming down his laughing face. Ambrogio’s laughter splashed on the water’s surface like sunny glints.

Today is warm, almost hot, said Arseny. We can wash some of our clothes and they will dry before evening.

After gathering some birch bark and branches, Arseny began starting a fire. He got a steel and flint out of his bag. He got tinder he had made from a bracket fungus, which was wrapped in a separate cloth. He struck the flint on the steel until one of the sparks lit the tinder. He noticed this because of a small plume of smoke. Then a barely perceptible spot of smoldering appeared on the tinder and began broadening. Arseny placed dried pine needles and the thinnest layers of birch bark on it. He began fanning the flame with a wide piece of birch bark. Once it had flared up, Arseny placed some thin branches on it. Then some fatter branches.

All we have to do now is wait for the wood to turn to ash, said Arseny. We need the ash for laundering.

Ambrogio was still standing in the water. His hands were tracing two frothy semicircles on the water.

Jump in here, he shouted to Arseny.

After wavering a bit, Arseny undressed and jumped into the river. He sensed the water as if it were someone’s touch. A gentle, cool touch upon his entire body, all at once. Arseny felt happiness and was ashamed of it, for Ustina could not come into the Dvina’s waters with him. He went on shore. Embarrassed at his nakedness, he wound himself in a wide sash he was not planning to launder.

After some of the branches had burned down, Arseny raked the ashes to the side and poured on water. He spread a rag on the ground and arranged the ash on it. He tied the ends of the rag then tested it. The little bundle had come out tight. He noticed a rock jutting out of the water and brought over the items that had been designated for laundering. Ambrogio had difficulty taking off his wet caftan after coming out of the water. He added some of his clothing to the caftan and placed it all on the heap Arseny had collected.

After thoroughly wetting the clothes and linens, Arseny rubbed them on the rock with the bundle of ashes. He was crouching. The ducats sewn into the caftans dully knocked when they touched the rock. Ambrogio rinsed what had been laundered and hung it on low tree branches. He hung it on rosehip bushes and pine saplings that bent under the weight of their wet medieval clothes.

Arseny lay down not far from the water. He felt the heat of the sun on his back and the softness of the grass on his stomach. Each of them was curative for his body. He himself became the grass. Small nameless creatures crawled along his arms. They conquered the tiny hairs on his skin, cleaned their little paws, and pensively flew off. Ducks beat their wings in the water. The wind stirred in the tops of the oaks, turning the leaves inside out. Arseny fell asleep.

When he awoke, he discovered he was already lying in shade. The sun had gone behind him and hidden beyond the trees. Sometimes, when the wind gusted, the sun made an appearance in openings in the crowns of the trees. The wind caught ashes from the fire, onto which Ambrogio had laid two dried-out birch trunks crosswise. The tree trunks burned slowly and dimly but dependably: the wind could not put them out. Ambrogio had managed to take the linens off the branches and was now feeling the caftans. They were all still damp.

I think we will stay here and spend the night, said Ambrogio.

We will stay, nodded Arseny.

He wanted to stay here forever but he knew that was impossible.

It grew cool at dusk. They brought some dry branches from the forest and laid them by the fire. Clouds began floating along the sky and then it finally darkened. The moon and stars were gone. The forest and river were gone. All that was left was the fire and what little it illuminated. A misshapen pyramid of logs. Two sitting wayfarers. Many-armed shadows on the trees.

Is it true there are many-armed monsters? asked Arseny.

I have not heard of them, answered Ambrogio, but one of my countrymen saw monsters when he was traveling east from Rus’, and they had only one arm, and it was in the middle of their chest. Plus only one leg. Because of their peculiarities, it took two of them to shoot with one bow. But they got around so quickly the horses could not keep up with them even though they hopped on just one leg. When they got tired, they walked on the arm and the leg, turning somersaults. Can you imagine?

Ambrogio sat so his head was thrown back and his face was not visible. Based on the Italian’s voice, Arseny thought the other was smiling. Arseny was serious. He was staggered by the huge, black world that was sprawled out behind their backs. That world contained much that was unknown, that hid dangers, murmured its foliage in the night wind, and agonizingly creaked its branches. Arseny no longer knew if that world existed at all, at least for now, in that shaky time when the world dwelled in darkness. Had the forests, rivers, and cities been removed for the dark time of the day? Was nature taking a rest from its own orderliness so it could gather its strength and transform chaos into cosmos once again in the morning? The only one who had not betrayed himself in this strange time was Ambrogio, and Arseny felt a warm gratitude toward him for that.

‌

They reached Orsha a few days later. Their supplies proved to have diminished considerably during their journey and now they did not need the pack horses. Two horses were sold in Orsha. It was easier to consider water routes with only the two remaining horses. Two days later they found a vessel bound for Kiev and boarded.

The Dnepr River was not yet wide in Orsha. It was no wider than the Velikaya, whose very name even spoke of greatness. Arseny and Ambrogio surmised, though, that it would broaden: they had heard the Dnepr truly was great, unlike the river in Pskov. Ambrogio showed some interest in learning more about this river but the boatmen turned out to be gloomy and did not keep up their end of the conversation. They knew they were being paid to carry people and cargo. And apparently surmised that they were not being paid for conversation.

They did not even converse when they gathered in a tight circle in the evenings and shared some sort of murky drink. Neither Arseny nor Ambrogio knew what, exactly, these people were drinking, only that the drink did not make them cheerier. Their backs got even more hunched. Sitting, these people brought to mind large, unattractive flowers that close up for the night. Every now and again they would begin singing something in low voices. Their songs were as joyless and murky as what they drank.

Lots of Russians are gloomy, said Ambrogio, sharing an observation.

It is the climate, nodded Arseny.

Three days later, they docked in Mogilev. Neither the city nor, particularly, its name, sounding almost like the grave itself, improved the boatmen’s mood. That evening they drank more than usual but did not go to bed. A cart pulled up to the pier at around midnight. Someone whistled from the cart. The boatmen exchanged looks and went ashore. They returned with tightly tied sacks. People from the cart helped them drag the sacks onto the ship. With the curiosity and openness of one from abroad, Ambrogio wanted to ask them what was in the sacks but Arseny put his finger to his lips.

Arseny approached one of the boatmen after the ship had set sail. He took him by the neck with two hands and asked:

What is thy name, O boatman?

Prokopy, responded the boatman.

You, O Prokopy, have a tumor in your respiratory tract. Your condition is dangerous but not hopeless. If you decide to ask the Lord’s help, dispose first of what burdens you.

Boatman Prokopy did not respond to Arseny but tears flowed from his eyes.

The river became significantly wider in Rogachev.

Prokopy approached Arseny in Lyubech and said:

Nobody knows of my illness yet but I am already beginning to feel short of breath.

You are short of breath because of your sins, answered Arseny.

As they were approaching Kiev, boatman Prokopy told Arseny:

I have perceaved what thou hast spoken and will do as thou hast sayde.

Upon seeing Kiev’s mountains on the starboard side, boatman Prokopy shouted out:

O ye saints of the Kiev Caves, pray to God for us!

Prokopy’s comrades looked at him gloomily. His unexpected piety put them on guard. When the vessel entered the Pochaina River to moor at Kiev’s Podol district, Prokopy said to them:

Run from this ship that I may repente of my synnes and delyuere myself to those holding power.

If the ship had not stood at a crowded Kiev dock and if there had not been two guests on board, boatman Prokopy might not have managed to leave the ship so easily. It is entirely likely that he would not have managed to leave it at all. But circumstances were on Prokopy’s side.

He went ashore and gave his final orders to his former comrades from there. He advised them not to wallow in sin and, after repenting, to go upstream on the Dnepr, to the city of Orsha, and look for honest work there. The boatmen listened silently, for how could they object to Prokopy’s reasonable speech? As they followed the movement of his lips, they regretted, to a certain extent, that they had not wrung his neck somewhere outside Lyubech and tossed him into the deep waters of the Dnepr River.

The port authorities approached the ship. Boatman Prokopy told them, of his own free will, that the vessel had delivered stolen goods from Mogilev to Kiev, along with linen shirts, clay crockery, the pilgrims, and their horses. He told them that the merchant Savva Chigir was killed three weeks ago in Mogilev. Savva’s property had been transported, by water, to Kiev because it could not be sold in Mogilev, where there was a danger it would be recognized. Other Mogilev merchants’ property had been transported earlier using the same route; boatman Prokopy had known nothing about this, having been hired into service without any special explanations. Though he was surprised, of course, that loading took place in the dead of night, with unusual precautions for mere shirts and crockery. But Prokopy immediately suspected something amiss this time when he discovered jewelry, as well as the murdered Savva’s goblet (his name was engraved on the silver goblet), in one of the bags instead of crockery. And the worsening of his health did not seem accidental to him, so he saw in the words of the pilgrim Arseny instructions from God and was, thus, repenting in the presence of everyone. Prokopy exhaled. And his next breath seemed easier to him than the one before.

After hearing the boatman’s confession, the port authorities went aboard but found no people there. They found several bags that were, indeed, stuffed with valuables. They then began questioning Prokopy about his comrades and he told everything he knew. He spoke in a weakened voice because he could not get enough air.

Arseny approached Prokopy and again placed his hands on his neck. He felt it and squeezed, his index fingers resting on the larynx. The boatman had a coughing fit. He bent in half and a bloody spittle came out of his mouth. It caught on Prokopy’s beard and hung over the ground like a thin pink icicle.

Considering the boatman’s sincere repentance, his lack of involvement in the matter, and the sorry state of his health, the authorities released him.

Now take Communion and you will be on the road to recovery, Arseny told him. Believe me, O brother Prokopy, you have gotten off easily.

‌

Arseny and Ambrogio had a letter from Pskov mayor Gavriil, addressed to Commander Sergy in Kiev. Gavriil asked Sergy to facilitate matters for the pilgrims and, if possible, attach them to one of the merchant caravans that left Kiev from time to time. When the pilgrims began asking where they could find the commander, local residents directed them to the Castle. That is what they called the part of the city that was on a small plateau and enclosed by a wall.

The Castle was visible everywhere. Arseny and Ambrogio took their horses by the bridles and slowly began climbing along one of the streets. The street looped but the travelers knew they would not get lost. The blackened logs of the Castle’s walls hung above them.

The horde, a pedestrian told them, pointing at the darkened wall. Since I recognize you are wayfarers, I will explain the reason for this blackening to you: Mengli-Girei’s horde. It was, quite frankly, a big headache.

He smiled a wide, toothless smile and went about his business.

Russians are not as gloomy as you seemed to think, after all, Arseny told Ambrogio. Sometimes they are in a good mood. After a horde leaves, for example.

A guard greeted them at the entrance to the Castle. They were admitted after giving their names. The homes of Kiev’s nobility and several churches were located within the Castle. They approached Commander Sergy’s house and introduced themselves to other guardians. One of them disappeared into the house after hearing what they had to say. He returned a few minutes later and signaled for the visitors to be searched. Arseny and Ambrogio were let inside after a brief pat-down.

Commander Sergy was bald with thick eyebrows. His eyebrows made his uninteresting face expressive. Thanks to his eyebrows, the slightest emotional impulse, which would go unnoticed in any other person, became a facial expression. After sternly greeting the pilgrims (brows knitted), the commander accepted their letter from Mayor Gavriil. His face smoothed as he read, depending on his level of immersion in the letter, until his brows extended into one even, fat cord. After finishing the letter, he placed it on the table and pressed his hand to it. The fingers of his other hand were tucked under the left edge of his caftan. They were moving.

I know the mayor and will help you, said Commander Sergy. I will send you with the next caravan of merchants. You will live in a guest house while you wait.

Will we need to wait long? asked Ambrogio.

Maybe a week, replied Commander Sergy. Or maybe even a month. It is anybody’s guess. He took a drink from a swan-shaped dipper and drew his palm across his forehead. It is hot.

It was clear their audience was over. When they were already in the doorway, Arseny said:

You know, commander, the problem is not with your heart. It is with your spine. Basically, a lot depends on the spine. A lot more then we are sometimes inclined to suppose.

Commander Sergy’s eyebrows crept upward.

You know about my heart disease?

I repeat: it is not your heart but your spine, replied Arseny. One of your veins is pinched and you think it is your heart. Undress, commander, and I will see what can be done.

After a brief hesitation, Commander Sergy began pulling off his clothes. His shoulders and chest were covered with hair. Stooped and with a large belly, he resembled the dipper from which he had drunk. Arseny pointed to a bench:

Lie down on your belly, commander.

Sergy lay down on his belly as if it were something separate from him. The bench squeaked melodiously under him. Arseny’s fingers plunged into the commander’s shaggy back. They ran from top to bottom, feeling vertebra after vertebra. They stopped on one of them, kneaded slightly and then let the lower part of the palm take their place. Arseny placed one palm on top of the other and began powerfully and rhythmically pressing on the spine. Ambrogio watched the patient’s fatty nape shake. A light crack sounded and the commander screamed.

Okay, said Arseny. From now on the heart pain and all pain will ease for you.

Commander Sergy stood from the bench and rubbed his back. Straightened. Nothing hurt. He asked:

What dost thou ask for your doctorly help?

I ask one thing, Arseny answered after thinking a bit: that you be very wary of drafts and of lifting heavy loads. They are a sharp knife for you.

‌

Commander Sergy accommodated them in his own chambers and did not let them go to the guest house. Many people visited them over the next three days.

The commander’s father-in-law, Feognost, who had lost his flexibility long ago, came. It seemed he was constantly in a half-bowing position and he leaned on a low cane. Arseny settled the patient on the bench. After going over Feognost’s spinal column, vertebra by vertebra, he found the reason for his inflexibility. Feognost left Arseny without his cane.

The commander’s pregnant wife, Fotinya, came, complaining of the child’s restlessness inside the womb. Arseny placed his hand on her belly.

You are in your eighth month, he told her, and a boy will be born. As far as his restlessness, well, he is the commander’s son after all, how could he be calm?

The commander’s mother-in-law, Agafya, came because a broken bone in her wrist had not knitted together after a winter fall. Arseny bandaged Agafya’s wrist tightly with pieces of linen and held it in his hand.

Grieve no more, O Agafya, for you shall be whoale before the byrth of your grandson.

Among Arseny’s visitors were the steward Yermei with his painful teeth, the priest’s wife Serafima with the shaky head, the urban tradesman Mikhalko with the festering wound on his hip, and several other people who had heard of the astonishing help provided by this person from Pskov. And he healed the ailments of those who came to see him or gave them relief by strengthening their ability to overcome illnesses, because simply interacting with him felt curative. Still others sought to touch his hand because they felt a vitalizing strength from it. And then his first nickname—Rukinets—inexplicably flew in from Beloozero. Everyone who came to see Arseny now knew he was Rukinets. They did not learn his primary nickname until later: Doctor.

During the third night of their stay in Kiev, Arseny and Ambrogio left the city limits and went to the Kiev Monastery of the Caves. They walked along a mountain overgrown with trees as the Dnepr, a dark mass, slumbered below. It was not visible, but it breathed and made itself known, just as the sea or any other abundance of water makes itself known. Day was already breaking when Arseny and Ambrogio reached the monastery. The gently sloping left shore was visible from the mountaintop. Nothing broke the view to the east: the vista soared over a plain and reached Rus’, which lay in the distant distance. A huge red sun was visible from where they stood, and it was even rising, as if in fits and starts.

They were questioned for a long time at the monastery gates, about who they were. There were doubts about letting them in when they learned Ambrogio was Catholic. Someone was sent to the abbot. He gave his blessing for both to enter, deciding a visit to the monastery could benefit the foreigner.

They were given one candle each and then a monk led them into the Caves of Saint Anthony and the Caves of Theodosius. They saw the relics of the Venerable Anthony and Theodosius. There were many other saints there, too, some of whom Arseny knew about, and occasionally some he did not know about. The monk accompanying them walked ahead. He turned at one of the twists and each of his eyes began burning as if it were a candle.

Evfrosinia Polotskaya (the monk indicated one of the reliquaries). She returned here from where you are headed. Her relics were transferred here during the times of discord in the Holy Land.

Peace be with you, O Evfrosinia, said Arseny. And we did stop in Polotsk, though of course we did not catch you there.

She will return to Polotsk in 1910, Ambrogio surmised. The relics will be transported to Orsha along the Dnepr and then carried by hand from Orsha to Polotsk.

The monk said nothing and walked on. Arseny and Ambrogio began following behind him, feeling for the uneven floor with their feet. Dawn and summer were sparkling overhead, outside, but only three candles tore into the darkness here. Darkness slipped away from the candles, though rather uncertainly and not very far. It would stay still under low arches only an arm’s length away and then swirl, ready to close in again. It was already hot outside at this early hour but cool reigned here.

Is it always so cool here? asked Ambrogio.

Here there is never the frost nor the heat that are the manifestation of extremes, answered the monk. Eternity is tranquil and so it is characterized by coolness.

Arseny drew a candle toward the inscription near one of the shrines.

Salutations, O beloved Agapit, Arseny quietly uttered. I had so hoped to meet you.

To whom are you wishing health? asked Ambrogio.

This is the Venerable Agapit, an unmercenary physician. Arseny dropped to his knees and pressed his lips to Agapit’s hand. You know, Agapit, all my healing, it is such a strange story… I can’t really explain it to you. Everything was more or less obvious, as long as I was using herbal treatments. I treated and knew God’s help came through the herbs. Well then. Now, though, God’s help comes through me, just me, do you understand? And I am less than my cures, far less, I am not worthy of them, and that makes me feel either frightened or awkward.

You want to say you are worse than herbs, asked the monk.

Arseny raised his eyes to the monk.

In a certain way I am worse, for the herb does not sin.

But it does not sin because it has no consciousness, is that not so? said Ambrogio. Can this truly be a merit of the herb?

It means one must consciously rid oneself of sins, shrugged the monk. And that’s all there is to it. One must be more like God, you know, not expound on things.

The three men walked on and were met by ever more new saints. The saints were not exactly moving or even speaking, but the silence and immobility of the dead were not absolute. There was, under the ground, a motion that was not completely usual, and a particular sort of voices rang out without disturbing the sternness and repose. The saints spoke using words from psalms and lines from the lives of saints that Arseny remembered well from childhood. When they drew the candles closer, shadows shifted along dried faces and brown, half-bent hands. The saints seemed to raise their heads, smile, and beckon, barely perceptibly, with their hands.

A city of saints, whispered Ambrogio, following the play of the shadow. They present us the illusion of life.

No, objected Arseny, also in a whisper. They disprove the illusion of death.

‌

A caravan of merchants set off for Venice a week later, and Arseny and Ambrogio joined them. In releasing them for their journey, Commander Sergy did not hide the sadness he was experiencing. The commander was sorry to part with such a wonderful doctor. He was sorry to part with good conversation partners. During the short time the pilgrims had been his guests, he had managed to learn a lot about life in Pskov and in Italy, about world history, and about methods for calculating how long until the end of the world. Commander Sergy weakly endeavored to hold back his guests but made no serious attempts to stop them. He knew the reason Arseny and Ambrogio had undertaken this journey.

A caravan of forty merchants, two Novgorod envoys, and thirty guardians had formed. Money for the guards was gathered from all the travelers, including Arseny and Ambrogio, whom they charged four ducats, taking into consideration that they hardly had any cargo. Each of the merchants had brought several pack horses and many brought their cargo in wagons harnessed with oxen. When all assembled, the caravan filled the entire square in front of the Saint Sophia Cathedral. Sounds could be heard everywhere: the squeak of wagons, the neighing of horses, the bellows of oxen, and the cursing of the guardians protecting the caravan. They were angry people, as befits guardians.

The caravan set off after two hours of formation and monetary calculations. It narrowed after reaching the Golden Gates and began heavily seeping outward, as if it had come through the neck of a bottle. Those traveling with goods had to make payments to exit the city. Arseny and Ambrogio were not charged because they were traveling without goods. The only valuable object in their possession was the silver icon lamp, but nobody knew about that.

The merchants, though, were carrying furs, hats, belts, knives, swords, locks, plow iron, linen, saddles, lances, bows, arrows, and jewelry. From the perspective of the men standing at the Golden Gates, the merchants had something to pay for. Money was charged per wagon, not per individual good. They thus loaded each wagon with as much as it could hold, sometimes even more. In situations like that, if the wagons broke, their cargo, according to law, became the property of the Kiev commander. Items that fell (what might fall is windfall) were also ruthlessly taken away. The road through the gates was pitted with potholes. If the potholes smoothed over time, they were carefully gouged out again. In the Middle Ages, just as in later times, customs officers knew how to work with travelers.

The caravan stopped after traveling a considerable distance from the city walls. Ten wagons awaited them here, so they could transfer a portion of the cargo they’d brought from the city. The goods would not have made it to Venice the way they were arranged when they went through the gates, and the merchants understood that. Redistributing the goods required several hours. The sun was already low when the caravan got underway for good.

They spent the night not far from Kiev. The caravan was so large they needed to seek shelter in several villages at once. As they were being taken into the villages, the guardian Vlasy approached Ambrogio and Arseny. He held a flail in his hands and a battle ax hung from his belt.

Are you from Pskov? asked the guardian Vlasy.

We are from Pskov, the travelers replied.

I am also from there, I earn money as a guard. Let us go, I will give you good lodging.

Arseny and Ambrogio were housed in the same hut as the Polish merchant Vladislav, who was going to Krakow. He had seven bundles of sable pelts purchased in Novgorod. Vladislav piled all seven bundles by the bench where his bed had been made.

The pelts were fresh and gave off a pungent odor. The merchant held onto the lobes of his large ears, taking each in turn as he told about his goods. His ears burned from the warmth in the hut, making their unusual size even more noticeable. Several rings with gemstones shone on his fat fingers. From time to time he thrust his hands into the sable fur, as if into grass, and the precious stones twinkled from inside the bundle like hefty, inedible wild strawberries.

They are excellent pelts, summed up the merchant Vladislav.

Are there no pelts like this in Krakow? Ambrogio asked out of politeness.

But why not? There are, said the merchant, offended. Though at different prices. There is everything in the Kingdom of Poland.

He spoke with a noticeable accent, so it was difficult to make out certain words.

People’s speech is no longer as reliable as it was at the beginning of our journey, Arseny told Ustina as he lay down on a bench. Words are more and more shaky now. Some slip away without being identified. To be honest, my love, this disquiets me a little.

An instant later, Arseny was sleeping.

‌

The caravan set off again at dawn. Its formation resembled the previous evening’s but did not repeat it precisely. The line-up finally took shape outside the furthest settlement where the travelers had stayed. The caravan’s movement was slow: the speed was determined by the oxen, animals that are unhurried by nature. The oxen had a contemplative look, though they were not actually contemplating anything. The caravan left no tracks as it moved because there had not been any rain in a long time. Only swirls of dust, floating in the dry air, were left behind.

Arseny and Ambrogio saw the guardian Vlasy a bit ahead. He had seemed older yesterday; now he looked almost like a boy. He had dark blond hair. Gray eyes. He waved to them and said something. They could not hear over the noise of the caravan. Ambrogio pointed to his ear.

I lived in Zapskovye, shouted the guardian Vlasy. In Za-pskov-ye. He smiled. Do you know that spot?

They knew and nodded: but of course they knew Zapskovye.

The road was narrow and Arseny’s horse lightly brushed against Ambrogio’s horse from time to time. Arseny took his traveling companion’s horse by the reins and said:

For many years, I have been attempting to devote myself to saving Ustina, whom I killed. And I still just cannot understand if my effort is beneficial. I keep waiting for some sort of sign that could show me I am going in the right direction, but I have not seen a single sign in all these years.

It is easy to follow signs, and that requires no courage, replied Ambrogio.

If this were about saving me, I would not be getting impatient. I would keep moving on and on, as long as my feet would walk, for I do not fear movement and exertion. I only fear I am not going in the right direction.

But I should think the main difficulty is not in the movement (Ambrogio met Arseny’s glance), but in choosing the path.

The caravan was riding through a forest. Arseny rocked silently in the saddle and it was unclear if he was nodding as a sign of agreement with Ambrogio or was shaking his head in time with the horse’s gait. When they rode onto a field, Arseny said:

I am just afraid, Ambrogio, that everything I am doing is not helping Ustina and my path is leading me away from her, not toward her. You have to understand that I have no right to go astray, what with the end of the world coming up. Because if I have gone down the incorrect path, I will not have time to return to the correct one.

Ambrogio unfastened the top buttons of his caftan.

I am going to tell you something strange. It seems ever more to me that there is no time. Everything on earth exists outside of time, otherwise how could I know about the future that has not occurred? I think time is given to us by the grace of God so we will not get mixed up, because a person’s consciousness cannot take in all events at once. We are locked up in time because of our weakness.

Does that mean you think the end of the world already exists, too? asked Arseny.

I am not ruling that out. Of course death of individual people exists, and is that not, really, a personal end of the world? In the long run, history over all is just a part of personal history.

You could say the opposite, too, noted Arseny, after thinking a bit.

Yes, you could: inherently, these two histories cannot exist without each other. And here, O Arseny, what is important is that the end of the world for each individual person will come a few decades after birth—each gets however much time is allotted. (Ambrogio leaned toward the horse’s neck and exhaled into his mane.) The overall end of the world worries me, as you know, but I do not dread it. Meaning I dread it no more than my own death.

The road was now wider and the merchant Vladislav pulled up alongside them.

I heard you were talking about death, said the merchant. You Russians really love talking about death. And it distracts you from getting on with your lives.

Ambrogio shrugged.

So, do people just not die in Poland? asked Arseny.

The merchant Vladislav scratched the back of his head. There was a doubtful expression on his face.

Of course they die, but ever less and less frequently.

He spurred his horse and galloped to the head of the caravan. Arseny and Ambrogio silently watched him.

I keep thinking about what you said about time, said Arseny. Do you remember how long the forefathers lived? Adam lived 930 years, Seth 912, and Methuselah 969. So tell me, is time truly not a blessing?

Time is more likely a curse, for it did not exist in Heaven, O Arseny. The forefathers lived that long because a heavenly timelessness still glowed on their faces. It was as if they had grown used to time, see? They had a little eternity in themselves, too. And then their age began to decrease. And when the pharaoh asked the elder Jacob how old he was, Jacob answered: the dayes of my pilgremage are an hundred and thirty yeres. Few and evil have bene the dayes of my lyfe, not attayning the dayes of the yeres of my fathers’ pilgremage.

But Ambrogio, you are speaking of general history that you consider predestined. Perhaps that is how things really are. But personal history is something entirely different. A person is not born ready-made. He studies, analyzes his experience, and builds his personal history. He needs time for that.

Ambrogio placed a hand on Arseny’s shoulder.

O friend, I do not question the necessity of time. We simply need to remember that only the material world needs time.

But we can only act in the material world, said Arseny. That is where the difference lies now between me and Ustina. And I need time, at least for her, if not for both of us. I, Ambrogio, am very afraid that time might end. We are not ready for that, neither she nor I.

Nobody is ready for that, Ambrogio quietly said.

‌

The caravan reached Zhitomir a few days later. After leaving Zhitomir, it headed for Zaslav. From Zaslav its path lay to Kremenets. When they left Kremenets, the merchant Vladislav said:

The Kingdom of Poland begins after this.

He pronounced this so loudly and slowly that those around him turned. They wanted to expect something special from the Kingdom of Poland: after all, this was the first kingdom to appear along the caravan’s route. The mood was animated. The caravan was making progress but the same forest, fields, and lakes that had been accompanying the wayfarers along their route continued to stretch along both sides of the road. Some of them supposed the forests, fields, and lakes were already different. Others, though, noticed a resemblance to what they had seen earlier and explained it by saying the Kingdom of Poland had not yet begun.

Night found the caravan in a deserted territory and nobody, including the merchant Vladislav, was capable of determining if this was already Poland or still Lithuania. A group of horsemen galloped past the caravan. They asked the horsemen what land the caravan was in but they did not know or did not want to answer. These were fairly gloomy horsemen.

They stopped in a field by a forest and built fires. Arseny and Ambrogio ended up by the same fire as the merchant Vladislav and the guardian Vlasy. Before lying down to sleep, the guardian Vlasy asked those present if there exist people with dogs’ heads. The guardian was young and loved edifying conversations.

In traveling east from Rus’, said Ambrogio, the Italian monk Giovanni da Pian del Carpine saw many of those people. Or was told about them, which, of course, is not the same thing.

The merchant Vladislav cleared his throat and joined the conversation.

In the Kingdom of Poland, people have been seen who have a completely human appearance but the ends of their feet were like a bull’s and even though the head was human, the face was like a dog’s, and they would say two words like a human but yelp the third like a dog.

The Kingdom of Poland is extremely interesting, said Ambrogio, and we can only regret that we are passing through without making any lengthy stops.

They have also seen people, the merchant Vladislav went on, whose ears are so great they cover their entire body.

Arseny involuntarily looked at the merchant Vladislav’s ears. They were not so very small, either, but it would be impossible to cover oneself with them.

The guardian Vlasy asked:

And are there people in the Kingdom of Poland who live only by smell? I’ve heard tell about them.

The Kingdom of Poland has everything, replied the merchant Vladislav. There are people with small stomachs and small mouths: they do not eat meat, they only boil it. After boiling up the meat, they lie down on the pot, soak up the steam, and sustain themselves with only that.

And what? marveled the guard Vlasy. Do they not eat anything at all?

If they eat, it is not much at all, the merchant said modestly.

The fire burned down and nobody added any new wood. Everyone, including the guardian Vlasy, began settling in to sleep. Vlasy was not on guard duty that night. The other fires went out, too, little by little, all but one, where several guardians sat. They were supposed to keep vigil until morning. A while later that fire went out, too.

Arseny pulled up some soft grass and ferns and piled them into a bed. He placed his saddle at the head. The saddle smelled of leather and horse sweat. This was especially unpleasant on a sultry night. A vague sense of alarm was entering into his soul. A full moon shone into his eyes. Arseny began turning on his side but then the saddle pressed on his cheekbone. He hesitated and turned onto his back again.

Saddles were invented for a different spot, whispered Ambrogio when he saw how Arseny was settling in. I have something a little better.

He held out a wide, soft sash for Arseny. Arseny wanted to refuse it at first but stopped himself in time. He ached with a feeling of gratitude toward Ambrogio, for looking after him. Arseny lay and thought he was, for the first time in so many years, not alone. He could feel how much he had tired of his loneliness. He began weeping. And went to sleep in tears.

‌

Arseny dreamt of screams. The screams were simultaneously warlike and blood-curdling. It was clear to Arseny that various people were producing them. It was possible they were not even people. Perhaps they were the forces fighting over Ustina. Two opposing forces pulling the soul of the deceased in various directions.

Arseny opened his eyes and knew he had not dreamt the screams. They were coming from the far end of the field where their camp had been pitched. Arseny saw guardian Vlasy run past him, unstrapping the battle ax from his belt. The guardian was running to the place the screams were coming from. Everything in the air was still drenched in darkness and it had only begun to brighten in the east, the direction from which the caravan had come.

They attacked the caravan, screamed someone close by.

And so it was. The highwaymen had chosen to attack during pre-morning sleep, when a body ripe with warmth is will-less and defenseless. They concentrated first on the guardians sitting night duty. They put up no resistance because they were not keeping vigil but were, instead, embraced by a deep sleep. They were hacked right away, in their sleep, next to the lifeless fire. One of them, who was fatally wounded, managed to shout and awaken the other guardians. The guardians, who were sleeping clothed that night, quickly rushed into action.

The highwaymen did not expect resistance. They were used to guards scattering in these situations, leaving all the goods for the attackers. But these guards did not scatter. They silently and fiercely resisted the highwaymen, fully waking up as the battle unfolded. The villains saw there would be no swift victory, and victory at any cost had not entered their plans. They decided to retreat after several of their men were lost, slain. A quiet command sounded and the highwaymen began leaving the caravan’s location. Several minutes later, the group of horsemen was already rushing east. Nobody pursued them.

Only when dawn fully broke was it clear how horrible the battle had been. Four slaughtered guardians lay beside the lifeless fire. There were no weapons in their hands, they simply had not managed to wake up. The bodies of three highwaymen were also found. Based on the form of the crosses they wore, it was determined that they were Russians.

The field of battle resounded with frantic screams. They would abate then begin again with an unhuman strength, for there was nothing human in those screams. Arseny headed toward the screams. A crowd surrounded the person who was screaming but nobody had resolved to approach him. The person was writhing in pain and rolling on the bloody earth, his guts fallen out and dragging behind him, gathering dust and pine needles. When the person straightened for a moment, from a spasm, Arseny saw the screaming person was the guardian Vlasy.

The crowd parted before Arseny when he took a step toward Vlasy. They had been waiting to see who would take that step. The fervent desire to help was embodied in the speed with which a path was made for Arseny, and how broad it was. Arseny stooped over the injured man. Vlasy, a man of few words, the kindly Vlasy, had turned to suffering flesh weakened from screaming. And Arseny asked himself if there was now a spirit in that flesh, and answered himself that it could not be that there was not.

Arseny cut the suffering man’s clothing with a sharp knife, baring his torso. He asked for some water. When a pitcher of water was brought, he ordered those around him to hold Vlasy by the arms and by the legs. He then lifted Vlasy’s guts from the ground and began washing them with a stream of water. He felt clots of blood and mucus on their slippery surface. Vlasy began screaming as he had never screamed before. Ambrogio touched Arseny’s back to support him but looked away because he did not have the strength to watch what was happening to Vlasy. Arseny placed the guts in Vlasy’s belly and wrapped it in linen. Several men lifted the wounded Vlasy and laid him on one of the carts, on top of the pelts. His head hung lifelessly. Vlasy had lost consciousness.

I see he will die in a short time, Arseny told Ustina, and I, my love, am powerless to help him. But now it will be easier for him to live out that time.

They decided to bury the dead guardians in the nearest Russian village, for the merchant Vladislav informed them that the Kingdom of Poland had Russian villages as well as Polish villages, particularly near the border. After thinking things through, they decided to take the highwaymen’s bodies, too, though they would be committed to the earth separately.

The caravan set off. The guardian Vlasy came to from the motion of the cart and began moaning. The jostling caused him suffering. Arseny approached the cart and took the miserable man by the shoulder. Vlasy lost consciousness again. When Arseny took his hand away, Vlasy came to and began screaming again. And so Arseny walked alongside him and did not remove his hand.

The caravan stopped when it reached the nearest village. Vlasy was exhausted from the jostling so they decided to leave him there. The merchant Vladislav went into the village because it was Polish. After several unsuccessful attempts to find a place for the wounded man, the merchant managed to come to an agreement with two elderly people. Their names were Tadeusz and Jadwiga and they had no children. These merciful people were willing to look after the wounded man.

Vlasy opened his eyes when they carried him into Tadeusz and Jadwiga’s house. When Vlasy saw Arseny at his bedside, he took him by the hand, for the pain slackened as long as Arseny was holding his hand. With only his lips, Vlasy asked:

Thou leavest me, O Arseny?

The merchants from the caravan looked at Vlasy, their eyes filled with tears. They understood that everyone had to leave with the caravan.

Lament not, O Vlasy, said Arseny. I wyll byde with you.

Arseny turned to Ambrogio. Ambrogio bowed his head. He went outside with the merchants and returned a short while later, leading two horses. Arseny and Ambrogio watched from Tadeusz and Jadwiga’s yard as the caravan solemnly went on its way.

Jadwiga wanted to cook porridge for Vlasy but Arseny stopped her. He would only allow the injured man to be given water. Ambrogio brought an earthenware mug to his lips again and again. Vlasy drank thirstily, not letting go of Arseny’s hand. He spent the afternoon in semi-consciousness. In the evening, he opened his eyes and asked:

Will I die?

Sooner or later we all die, answered Arseny. May that be a consolation to you.

But I am dying sooner.

A film slowly covered Vlasy’s eyes. Leaning over him, Arseny said:

The words sooner and later do not determine the content of occurrences. They relate only to the form in which they flow: time. Which Ambrogio reckons does not, in the final analysis, exist.

Arseny glanced back at Ambrogio.

I think, said Ambrogio, that it is not time that runs out, but the occurrence. An occurrence expresses itself and ceases its own existence. The poet dies at, say, thirty-seven years old, and when people lament over him, they begin debating about what he might yet have written. But perhaps he had already accomplished what he had to and expressed all of himself.

I do not know who you have in mind but that is something to think about. Arseny pointed at the dozing Vlasy. Do you want to say this boy has expressed himself already?

Nobody can know that, replied Ambrogio. Except God.

Vlasy squeezed Arseny’s hand with unexpected strength.

I am afraid to leave this world.

Do not be afraid. That world is better. Arseny wiped the sweat from Vlasy’s forehead with his other hand. I would leave myself but I need to finish something.

I am afraid to leave by myself.

You are not by yourself.

My mother and brothers are still in Pskov.

I am your brother.

So I came here to serve in the guard. To earn money. Why?

You have to live on something.

But now I do not have to. Do not let go of my hand.

I will hold it.

To the very end.

The dying man closed his eyes.

The first roosters, do you hear them?

No, said Arseny, I do not.

But I hear them. They are calling to me. It is bad that I am leaving without Communion. Without repentance.

Confess to me. I will take your Confession to Jerusalem and, I do believe, your sins will turn to dust.

But that will happen only after my death. Will that really count for me?

I am telling you: the very existence of time is open to question. Maybe there simply is no after.

Vlasy then began making his Confession. Ambrogio went out to the entryway, where Tadeusz and Jadwiga were sitting. They said something to him in Polish. Ambrogio did not understand what they said, but he nodded. He agreed with anything they said because he saw there were kind people.

Just do not forget any of my sins, Vlasy whispered to Arseny.

I will not forget, O Vlasy. Arseny stroked his hair. Everything will be fine, do you hear?

But Vlasy no longer heard anything.

‌

Arseny and Ambrogio set off after committing Vlasy to the earth. They rode quickly, in hopes of catching up with the caravan. Caravans are unhurried, so they actually did catch up with it around midnight. The next morning, Arseny and Ambrogio hit the road along with the caravan.

The forests again gave way to fields, and small Polish towns gave way to Russian towns. Primarily Poles lived in Busk, Russians in Neslukhov, and in Zapytov, one must suppose, half and half. It was unclear who lived in Lvov. The caravan met up with the urban tradesman Stepan on a Lvov street. Stepan was not sober and his language could not be determined. He shook his fist at the riders. He went rolling under one of the guardians’ horses after slipping in manure. The horse’s hoof came down on Stepan’s hand and broke a bone. They laid Stepan on a wagon and sent for Arseny.

What is your name, O man? Arseny asked, as he bound Stepan’s hand in linen.

Stepan motioned with his healthy hand and mumbled some gibberish.

Judging from his gesture, his name is Stepan, surmised the merchant Vladislav.

Listen, Stepan, said Arseny, God’s world is bigger than your small town. You should not shake your fist at people. Or you might lose a hand.

After Lvov they went through Yaroslav, and then Zheshov after Yaroslav.

In Zheshov, Arseny said to Ustina:

These Zheshovites’ speech surely does shine with shushing sufficient for the inspiration of sensations of sheer satiation.

After Zheshov was Tarnov, Bokhnya was after Tarnov, and Krakow was after Bokhnya. Arseny and Ambrogio parted with the merchant Vladislav in Krakow. The merchant invited them to stay and visit his city but they gratefully declined. They needed to move on. They embraced in parting. There were tears in the merchant’s eyes:

I do not like parting.

Life consists of partings, said Arseny. But you can rejoice more fully in companionship when you remember that.

But I would (the merchant Vladislav blew his nose) gather up all the good people I’ve met and never let them go.

I think then they would quickly become mean, smiled Ambrogio.

On the way out of Krakow, the caravan traveled along the Vistula. The river was not yet wide there. Winding along with the river, they reached the small town of Oświęcim. Ambrogio said:

Believe me, O Arseny, this place will induce horror in centuries. But its gravity can be felt, even now.

Silesia began further on. Arseny was still questioning the merchants about Silesia when it turned, unnoticed, into Moravia. He hurried to learn everything about Moravia, for nothing in Moravia heralded that it was any larger than Silesia. Slavic speech was equally interspersed with German and Hungarian in the mouths of those who lived there. German was ever more frequent as they progressed further to the southwest, until it completely displaced everything else. And then Austria began.

German speech was not alien to Arseny. In the utterances of the people he met, he divined the words he himself had once attempted to read in Belozersk, when he studied with the merchant Afanasy Flea. The pronunciation of German speakers turned out to differ significantly from Afanasy Flea’s pronunciation. Afanasy, however, was only partly to blame for that. Even at the time, residents of Austria were trying to speak German in their own way. At the end of the fifteenth century, Austrians still did not know for sure if they were different from Germans and—if they were—how. In the end, the specifics of pronunciation gave them answers to both questions.

‌

In Vienna, Ambrogio went to St. Stephen’s Cathedral to take Communion. Arseny decided to accompany him. He went with Ambrogio feeling ever more certain of his decision, since there was no Orthodox church in Vienna anyway. He wanted to see a huge cathedral from within. Beyond that—and this was likely the most important thing—he had never been to a Catholic mass.

It makes a twofold impression, Arseny reported to Ustina from St. Stephen’s Cathedral. On the one hand, there is the sense of something kindred because we have common roots. On the other hand, I do not feel at home here: after all, our paths diverged. Our God is closer and warmer, theirs is higher and grander. Perhaps, my love, this impression is superficial and caused by my ignorance of Latin. But throughout the entire service I just could not determine if the Austrians themselves know it.

Hugo, a Franciscan monk from Dresden, joined the caravan in Vienna. Brother Hugo had been in Bohemia for some monastery matters and was now on his way to Rome. He was riding a donkey and even explained—counting on his fingers—why he was doing so. In the first place, Christ had ridden a donkey (the monk made the sign of the cross over himself). In the second place, a donkey is smaller than a horse and, correspondingly, requires less tending. In the third place, a donkey is a stubborn animal, exactly what a true monk needs for humility.

Everything the brother said was true. The customary donkey stubbornness was intensified by the fact that the donkey did not like Brother Hugo as a rider. The brother was good-natured and genial but also fat and impatient. He constantly drove the donkey, knocking him in the sides with his heels even though the animal most valued deliberateness and quiet. It was not surprising that Hugo’s talkativeness openly irritated him. Whenever Brother Hugo began speaking, the donkey hastened to bite him on the knee.

After speaking with various people in the caravan (this cost him several painful bites), the Franciscan latched onto Arseny and Ambrogio. Unlike many of the others, they understood German, more or less anyway. This was most likely the reason Brother Hugo felt at ease when talking with them, far more at ease than he felt with the traders in the caravan. Beyond that—and this was not insignificant—he began to think his donkey was calmer and bit him far less in the presence of the two pilgrims.

After leaving Vienna, the caravan began riding along the Alps. Fields spread between the road and the mountains. There was something soothing, almost lazy, in how the mountains lay. Despite the apparent calm, though, their motionlessness was illusory. Unlike the fields, which conscientiously stayed in their places, the mountains moved. The mountains accompanied the caravan on the right, neither nearing it nor distancing themselves. They rushed ahead at the same pace as the caravan, and those walking thought it was impossible to overtake them.

The mountains’ movement began on the far side of the fields, where wind combed at the rye, against the grain. These expanses, which remained a plain, were already moving, along with the mountains. The mountains changed as they went along. They became taller and steeper, the forest became rock, and the rock was snow-covered. Arseny saw tall mountains for the first time and now could not stop admiring them.

And so the caravan reached Graz after Vienna, then set a course from Graz to Klagenfurt. The road was already running through the mountains here, winding and adapting itself to the giant folds of the rock. Crags came together, ever more densely, over the road. Sometimes they almost joined overhead and it would get dark. Then the mountains would part again for a while, and they would make their camp in those places because there was less danger of ending up under a rockslide.

Each time, Brother Hugo sprinkled the camp site with Irish road dust that kills snakes, for he knew that Ireland had been rid of reptiles, thanks to prayers from Saint Patrick. That country’s soil is so unbearable for those scaly creatures that even toads carried in on a ship burst as soon as they are tossed onto the Irish shore. The dust, which the forward-thinking Franciscan had gathered in Ireland, continued to work, protecting the travelers in the Alps, too.

After tying the donkey to some distant bushes, Brother Hugo had a chance at camp to calmly tell how the Apennines suppress the heat of a southern wind and how the Alps’ crags stop the cold northern winds, Boreas and Arktos. He also knew a little something about the Hyperborean Mountains in the Far North: their surface is as smooth as glass, allowing them to easily reflect the sun’s rays. The mountains’ dish-like form forces the rays to converge in one point, warming the air. The height of the mountains does not allow that air to mix with the Arctic cold, and it is precisely that which makes the climate remarkably pleasant. This is why the Hyperboreans who reside there reach such an age that they tire from life naturally and then throw themselves into the sea from high cliffs for no apparent reason whatsoever, thus putting an end to their existence, which is, of course, a sin.

When he found an opportune moment, Hugo would tell his new acquaintances about other mountains, too. He shared his knowledge about Olympus, which beholds the clouds from on high; about Mount Lebanon, which is covered by forests; and about Mount Sinai, with its peak reaching the very clouds, making it impossible for regular people to climb. As a Franciscan, of course the monk reminisced about Mount La Verna, where Saint Francis came for a retreat, blessing the mountain just as he had formerly blessed birds. Brother Hugo’s attention did not overlook a mountain that Alexander the Great had passed: it turned men of courage into cowards and cowards into men of courage. Alexander was a selfless traveler and the road simply unrolled beneath his feet.

Sometimes I feel like Alexander, Arseny told Ustina, and the road unrolls itself under my feet. And like Alexander, my love, I do not know where it leads.

One day a rockslide came down on the caravan. Rocks flew, echoing a thousand times in the gorge, and that was frightening. When everything had quietened, they all saw a horse thrashing and wheezing in the bushes beside the road. The horse was frantically kicking her hooves in front of herself, and they could hear the sound of branches cracking under her rump. Arseny stopped those who intended to kill the horse to spare her suffering. Approaching the horse from the side of the bush, he placed a hand on her mane. The horse stopped pounding her legs. Blood was visibly running from a front leg. Arseny walked around the horse and felt the wounded leg.

This is not death throes, said Arseny, the horse is thrashing not because it is dying but from unbearable pain. Her leg is badly bruised but not broken. Give me some pieces of linen and I will wrap the leg to stop the bleeding.

Take it but be careful, they shouted to him from the caravan, because she could kill you with a hoof. Keep in mind, too, that the caravan cannot wait for a horse to recover.

Arseny wrapped the horse’s leg and carefully drew his hand along the linen as he sat beside her. The horse got up a little while later. She walked with a limp, but walked. The merchants thanked Arseny, not so much for saving the horse as for giving them something unusual to witness. They understood this was not about the horse. The caravan moved along.

In the wide, bright gorges where the road allowed three horsemen to ride abreast, Brother Hugo’s small donkey invariably ended up between Arseny and Ambrogio’s horses. A staccato clopping reminiscent of a toy drum accompanied the horses’ measured gait. Brother Hugo’s cheeks and chins joggled in time with that staccato. The horses and the donkey walked side by side, despite the difference in their strides: this was a matter of honor for the donkey. For the brother, it was important only that both conversation partners could hear him equally well.

When it rained, Brother Hugo would tell them about the nature of various clouds; in good weather, he spoke of belts in the heavens, where daytime and nighttime luminaries float. When observing quick changes in the Alpine weather, the Franciscan did not hide from Arseny and Ambrogio his knowledge of how climate influences a person’s character. Based on the climactic particularities of lands, he concluded validly that Romans were gloomy, Greeks fickle, Africans crafty, Gauls fierce, and Englishmen and Teutons sound of body. The strong mistral in the Rhone Valley led to people being flighty, airheaded, and not keeping their word. The migration of peoples, along with a change in climate, inevitably led to a change in disposition. Thus the Lombards who moved to Italy lost their severity in part, of course, because they married Italian women but mostly, one might think, because of climactic conditions.

Brother Hugo, there are many useful things, said Arseny, that we would never have learned had we not met you.

Moving around within an expanse enriches our experience, the brother modestly said.

It compacts time, said Ambrogio, and makes it more spacious.

‌

A person journeying in the Alps is similar to a person moving through a labyrinth. He zigzags along the bottom of gorges, following their form, and his route is never direct. Gorges merge together at times, giving the traveler an opportunity to transit, unimpeded, from one to the other. But mountains, which are primarily an ordeal for a person, do not always offer the convenience of transitions. Situations where mountains completely shut off a gorge are not uncommon. In those situations, there is only one route: up.

That was exactly what lay ahead for the caravan. The road went along the gentlest of slopes and the caravan was slowly gaining altitude. Whenever the ascent was not too steep, Brother Hugo told of the astonishing nature of glaciers, which not only slip down between cliffs but are also in constant internal motion, meaning their upper parts gradually sink and their lower parts rise to the surface, causing the bodies of those who have fallen into crevasses or deep cracks to be discovered only afterwards, when they have risen to the surface of the ice. Brother Hugo also imparted knowledge of avalanches set loose by the slightest shout, speeding away, growing like an enormous, shapeless lump, and rolling into themselves everything that comes across their path—people, horses, and carts—and then nothing that was caught up in the avalanche can come to the surface, for an avalanche stops for the ages after its descent.

The incline grew ever steeper with each hour, making the ascent not only difficult but also unsafe. The air was already appreciably colder. The road narrowed. A sheer cliff rose to the walkers’ right; to the left, a stream roared at the bottom of the gorge, a rainbow glistening in its spray. Snow began to fall after they’d climbed higher, and drops and vapor from the stream settled and froze on the road, making it slippery.

Brother Hugo’s donkey’s legs kept splaying and even the shod horses were slipping noticeably. The donkey fell on its front legs several times and Brother Hugo dismounted. He was no longer telling stories and he walked, panting, ahead of Arseny and Ambrogio. The width of the road now only allowed two to ride abreast. A little later, those who rode horses dismounted and led their horses by the bridle. Those who owned wagons pushed them from behind because the oxen’s legs had begun helplessly scrabbling at the ice.

On yet another bend in the road, the donkey’s legs went off to the right, he fell on his side, and ludicrously began to slip, taking Brother Hugo along behind him. The donkey was slipping downward and slowly rolling, as everyone stood motionless, watching: his rather-too-large white stomach, onto which the travel bags had fallen, was shaking, and his legs were helplessly twitching, which only sped the downward motion, all as Brother Hugo slipped along with him, powerless to let go of the rope...

The Franciscan let go of the rope when Ambrogio grabbed him by the scruff of the neck at the very last moment, but the animal continued slipping, making a horrible whooshing sound on the iced rocks, and sliding all the way to the edge of the precipice. The donkey hung in the air. He fell into the stream, his bellow diminishing.

Brother Hugo rose to his feet. He silently cast his gaze over everyone. He took a few steps toward the precipice, and those standing nearby were already prepared to grab him, thinking he had lost his senses. But Brother Hugo fell to his knees. It was unclear if he was praying or if his legs simply could not hold him. And when he stood, there was a clump of donkey fur in his hand. He held the clump in front of everyone and tears flowed from his eyes.

Brother Hugo wept for the rest of the descent from the mountain pass. He held onto one of the wagons along with everyone else, so it would not roll too fast, and tears streamed down his face. He kept taking out the clump of fur he had picked up and pressing it to his eyes. In a flat area, two Kiev merchants sat Brother Hugo in a cart with furs because he was short of breath from the fast walking. In mourning his dead comrade, he unexpectedly noticed that nothing was biting him any longer. That could not reconcile him with the loss, though it did ease his pain to some degree.

‌

The way out of the final Alpine gorge was narrow. It was reminiscent of an archway, with its upper part formed by young saplings that had grown along both sides of the road on the cliffs and bent toward one another. It was in that archway that a group of horsemen appeared, blocking the caravan’s way. The caravan’s tail end was still continuing to make its way through the ravine, though the guards at its head were no longer moving. They stood some distance from the horsemen, making no attempt to near them, for their appearance presaged nothing good.

They are highwaymen, said Brother Hugo, sitting on the furs; those around him could not help but agree.

The highwaymen spoke amongst themselves in Italian. After brief deliberations, Ambrogio was entrusted to negotiate with them. Several guardians offered to go with him but Ambrogio refused. He pointed to Arseny, who was riding toward him, and said:

The two of us are enough.

Three, Brother Hugo intervened. Three. I speak Italian, too, after all. Besides, as of today I have nothing to lose.

They then gave Brother Hugo a horse so he would be on the same level as the highwaymen rather than speaking to them from a lower position. Those in the caravan thought the monk’s appearance was capable of softening even the hardest hearts. The three riders slowly headed toward the highwaymen.

Peace be with you, shouted Brother Hugo, still far away.

No answer followed, and the brother repeated his greeting from closer range.

You don’t speak our language so well, stranger, said a highwayman on a white horse. You must pay for that.

The other highwaymen began laughing. The speaker seemed to be the ringleader. He was heavyset and not young. His face was as crimson as a glass of Piemonte wine and a sable scar was engraved into his skull on his deeply receding hairline. His horse was pawing at the ground, clearly expressing the horseman’s impatience.

To the Lord, there are no strangers, objected Brother Hugo.

Then we will send you to Him, the ringleader said, and you can be among your own people there. And your stuff will be left for us.

The highwaymen laughed again, this time with more restraint. They themselves still did not know to what extent that was a joke.

We have good guards and they will not run away, said Ambrogio. This has been proven.

Proven but not by us.

The ringleader pulled the reins and his horse neighed.

Ambrogio shrugged.

You will have losses, no matter how this all ends.

Without answering anything, the ringleader and several of the highwaymen rode off to the edge of the path. They deliberated for a fairly long time. These people were not the type to fight for the sake of fighting, so they understood the outcome of the battle was not foregone. After steering his horse toward Ambrogio, the ringleader said:

You bring us ten ducats per person, including guards, and no blood will be shed.

Ambrogio became pensive.

One ducat per person, said Brother Hugo. Infidels charge two ducats for the opportunity to go to the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem, which is a total rip-off. In this case, it is the Christians who are robbing us, so I believe it ought to be possible to limit it to one ducat.

We appear to be bargaining, said the surprised ringleader.

I am trying to ease your conscience as much as I can, said Brother Hugo.

After an extensive discussion, they reached a sum acceptable to all: five ducats from each in the caravan. When Brother Hugo rode off to the caravan to announce the result of the negotiations, Arseny said to Ambrogio:

The person who was speaking with you is in danger. There is a loud noise in his head. Blood is pressing on the vessels in his head and they are ready to burst. I see, Ambrogio, that they are swollen from too much blood. They look like fat, coiled-up worms. Blood circulation can still be improved in that head, but believe me: nothing will work out unless there is a change of thought in there.

After hearing what Arseny had to say, Ambrogio addressed the ringleader:

The noise you hear in your head is the consequence of thoughts that have settled in there. The noise is life-threatening but my comrade could still help you.

The highwaymen, who knew nothing about the noise in the ringleader’s head, began laughing again. But the ringleader remained serious. He asked:

And what does your comrade ask for that?

He is a person of the Greek-Russian belief and asks that you alter your thinking; put another way: that you repent, for repentance in Greek is metanoia, which literally means a change in thoughts.

You are bargaining again, smirked the ringleader. But only money can be the object of bargaining.

This is not bargaining, it is a condition, said Ambrogio, shaking his head. A necessary condition, so that my comrade could help you.

Carrying the money, Brother Hugo rode up to the men as they conversed. The ringleader took the small bag with the gold coins from his hands and tossed it to one of the highwaymen to be counted. He turned to Arseny and Ambrogio as they were riding away:

You know, I have not yet accepted anyone’s conditions. He pointed at a piece of sky closed off by the cliffs. Not even His.

The caravan silently watched as the highwaymen left the gorge. The caravan began moving, too, after the last highwayman had disappeared behind the cliff. Everyone understood they had gotten off easy this time, though that gave them no joy.

There are so many different kinds of people in the world, sighed one of the Kiev merchants.

What did he say? Brother Hugo asked Ambrogio.

He said that people are very dissimilar.

What is true is true, confirmed Brother Hugo.

He again climbed onto the wagon with the furs. After settling in comfortably on the sable pelts, Brother Hugo continued:

There are all kinds of people. They say there are people known as androgyns. They have a body that is masculine on one side, feminine on the other side: a person like that has a masculine right nipple but a feminine left nipple. And there are people known as satyrs. Their dwellings are in mountain forests and their movement is quick: nobody can catch up when they run. They go around naked and their bodies are covered with hair. They speak no human language, they just shout shouts. As we know, there are also sciapods, people who rest in the shade of their own feet. Their feet are so big (Brother Hugo raised his own feet) that in hot weather they cover themselves with them, like an awning. There are, I can report to you, many various creatures born into the world: some have dog heads, some have no heads, teeth on the chest, eyes on the elbows, some have two faces, some have four eyes, some have six horns on their heads, and some have six digits on their hands and on their feet.

If they truly exist, asked Arseny, turning, what is the purpose of their existence?

Brother Hugo grew pensive.

There is no purpose, only a reason. The whole thing is that after the Tower of Babel, God let everyone live as their hearts desired. And so some went astray. They chose their paths to conform to their desires, and their outward appearances began to correspond to their ways of thinking. It is all very logical.

Ambrogio began laughing:

Logical? I have known people whose ways of thinking were such that, according to this logic, they should have looked very frightening. But they looked totally fine nevertheless.

Ambrogio spurred his horse and galloped ahead without waiting for an answer. Arseny followed him after reflecting a bit.

There are no rules without exceptions, Brother Hugo shouted to them as they rode off. They tell, for example, of antipodes who live on the other side of the earth. And, just imagine, many of them look exactly the same as us.

But Ambrogio could no longer hear him.

How do you like that? Brother Hugo said to the Kiev merchants.

The merchants nodded. They did not understand a word of German.

But I do not much believe the stories about antipodes, continued the brother, encouraged, and do you know why? Well, because to take them seriously, one must be willing to declare that the world is round! I am not even saying that this is funny or that it is blasphemy—it is, above all, ridiculous. As soon as we acknowledge that the world is round, we will simply be obligated to acknowledge that people on the other side of the earth walk upside down!

Brother Hugo began loudly laughing. The Kiev merchants also started smiling as they looked at him. Brother Hugo’s laugh proved so infectious that within just a minute the entire caravan was laughing. Thanks to that laugh, the anxiety that everyone felt after being subjected to mortal danger over the last several days departed. That laughter contained the joy of people for whom Venice, the most wonderful city on earth, awaited ahead.

As the caravan was leaving its nighttime campsite the next morning, two horsemen rode up from the Alps side. Members of the caravan recognized them as the highwaymen they had met the day before. When the highwaymen saw Arseny and Ambrogio, they approached them.

Our leader is in a very bad way, the highwaymen said to Ambrogio. He was stricken yesterday and is lying motionless. Can your comrade help in some way?

Ambrogio interpreted for Arseny what they had said.

Inform them that I am now powerless to help, Arseny answered. This person’s hours are numbered and he will die in the evening. There is mercy in the quick death the Almighty has presented to him.

After hearing Arseny’s reply, the highwaymen said:

When he was still able to speak, he asked to give you this.

One of the highwaymen took out the little bag with the gold coins and gave it to Ambrogio. Right then and there they returned the money to the people who had given it the day before. The caravan set its course for Venice.

‌

Guards stopped the caravan upon its arrival into Venice. They asked everyone for traveling papers that could prove the wayfarers were arriving from the north, not the southeast. The plague was raging in Asia Minor and the authorities feared its entry into the Venetian Republic. Everyone had letters except Brother Hugo, who had lost his along with his bags and donkey, but the caravan unanimously confirmed the brother had crossed the Alps with them.

I crossed, sighed the Franciscan, though he was not convinced it had been the right decision.

They all parted ways in Venice. The parting was marked with an especial cordiality, for many knew they were parting forever. In this lay a particularity of partings during that era. The Middle Ages rarely presented opportunities that brought people together twice during the course of an earthly life.

Brother Hugo invited Arseny and Ambrogio to spend the night at the Franciscan monastery. With no other shelter in Venice, they gratefully accepted the invitation. Brother Hugo’s memory of the route was shaky, so it took some time to reach the monastery. He rode the same horse as Ambrogio, pointing out which way to go. Streets looped, turned into dead ends, or led back to previous spots. Thrice they found themselves on Piazza San Marco and twice at the Rialto Bridge. The horses went one after the other, the clopping of their hooves overpowered by its own echo. Sometimes they had to press right up against walls to let through horsemen riding in the opposite direction. Ambrogio looked at Arseny with a smile. It was the first time he had seen his friend so amazed.

Arseny truly was amazed: he had never seen anything like this. One time he even stopped on a bridge to watch as an elderly Venetian woman stepped directly down from the doorway of her own home into a gondola. The gondola began rocking under her foot. Arseny turned away. He cautiously turned his head when he heard the splash of an oar. The woman was sitting calmly in the stern. She had been leaving her house just like this for the last half-century, so never suspected Arseny was alarmed.

The travelers were received affably at the monastery. Brother Hugo informed the prior that Arseny was not a Catholic and the prior answered with an elaborate gesture. That gesture could be interpreted in various ways, but it did not indicate a direct ban on staying at the monastery. That, at least, was how Brother Hugo perceived it. He brought Arseny and Ambrogio to a cell intended for three, where water for washing and beds had been prepared for them. They would be expected at evening table in an hour.

None of the three went to table. Brother Hugo and Ambrogio sank into a deep slumber after the road, but Arseny was experiencing deep excitement over his encounter with Venice. It would not let him sleep. It would not even let him stay in the cell. He quietly went downstairs and stepped outside after bowing to the porter.

The monastery stood on a canal. It seemed like a regular house from the street, no different from the other houses built right up against one another. A thin strip of a roadway ran between the houses and the canal, so here one need not walk straight onto the water from a house. Arseny took several steps toward the canal. He crouched and watched seaweed billowing on a mooring post. The water here smelled different from that of other places he’d visited. The smell was putrid. Arseny felt happy when he remembered it afterwards, for this was the smell of Venice.

Evening was falling. The sun was not visible because of the buildings, but the walls that the sun’s last rays still reached had turned ocher and yellow. Arseny walked along the canals—in the places it was possible to walk—and crossed arch-shaped little bridges. At first he tried to remember the route he had taken so he could return, but after just a few streets he could not even determine the direction in which the Franciscan monastery lay. Never in his life thus far had he found himself in such an astonishing place, and now he could not commit it all to memory. Arseny had developed a feel for the expanse of the forest and the expanse of the field, the icy emptiness of Beloozero and the wooden streets of Pskov, finding his way around everywhere without difficulty. But now, after ending up among overlapping water and stone, it occurred to him that he had no sense of this expanse. He was alone in a strange and wonderful city and did not know its language. The only one who could help him was asleep, exhausted, in a monastery that was in some unknown place. And Arseny grew calm.

He set off at random and no longer tried to remember his way. Several streets at the beginning seemed familiar to him. But then, the next instant, he would discover balconies and bas-reliefs he had not seen before and understand that similarity was brazenly passing itself off as repetition. After it had grown completely dark, Arseny came upon Piazza San Marco. The rising moon brightened the basilica, which in the murk resembled a dark mountain. Ambrogio had told Arseny it was made of stones from sacked Constantinople. He touched a marble column and sensed the warmth it had absorbed during the day. He thought this was likely the warmth of Byzantium.

Arseny sat down to the right of the entrance and leaned against a column. He could feel that he was tired. As he was settling in more comfortably, Arseny touched on something soft. A young woman was sitting in a niche between the columns, and her child-like face seemed to be one of the bas-reliefs, perhaps because it was motionless. Arseny brought his hand to her eyes and she blinked.

Peace to thee, childe, Arseny uttered. I wanted only to know that life had not left you.

She looked at him, unsurprised.

My name is Laura and I do not understand your language.

I see you are somehow dispirited but I do not know the reason for your sorrow.

Sometimes it is easier to speak when people do not understand you.

Maybe you are pregnant and your child will not be legitimate because its father has not become your husband.

Because when you live in despair, you want to express your pain but are afraid it will become known to everyone when it leaves your lips.

You know, there is nothing irreparable about that. The child’s father can still become your husband. Or another person might become your husband, that does happen. Believe me, I would take you as my wife to help you, but I cannot because I have an eternal love and an eternal wife.

But you could say I am no longer afraid. I know of a way to reconcile all my problems. If things get completely awful for me, my despair will give me the strength to use it.

In my life, I had Ustina and I had a little boy without a name, but I did not keep them safe.

A few days ago I heard that I am sick, with leprosy. When the spots appeared on my wrists, I did not know, at the time, what they meant. And I did not figure things out when the tickle started in my throat in the middle of the summer, either. But some chance person on the street saw me and said: why, you have leprosy. He said: abandon this city and go to the leper colony, so you do not become a curse upon your house. And I went to a doctor and the doctor confirmed that person was correct.

I have been trying to talk with them ever since, but they just cannot seem to answer me. The boy was small when he died so he cannot answer. But even Ustina is not answering. Of course in their position, things are not all that simple. How could I not understand that? I understand… but I am still waiting. Maybe not for a word but for a sign. Sometimes this is very difficult for me.

And I have not gone back home since. I knew my loved ones would not let me go and would prefer to slowly die with me.

But I am still not giving in to despair. And I do try, to the best of my ability, to tell Ustina about what happens here. She did not live out her life, after all, so I am trying to somehow fill in what was left unlived. But that is very difficult. You just cannot tell about an entire life in all its details, you know?

A wall has been built between me and the rest of the world. It is glass for now because nobody knows about my troubles. But it will be noticeable later. The doctor told me everything. It seemed like that gave him satisfaction. Or maybe he wanted to rid me of hopes and disappointments.

All you can truly convey to them there is a general idea, the main things that are happening. My love for her, for an example.

They will send me to a leprosarium. In time, I will have a saddle nose. Leonine facies. I will be ashamed that the sun that belongs to everyone falls on this face. I will know that I have no right to it. I have no right whatsoever to what is beautiful. It is possible to die while still living.

Arseny took Laura by the hands, looked her in the eye, and then the essence of what was happening was revealed to him. He kissed Laura on the forehead.

Be in good health, childe. Much is reparable as long as a person is on this earth. Know that not every illness remains in the body. Even the most terrible. I cannot explain this with anything but the mercy of the Almighty, but I see the leprosy will leave you. So you return to your loved ones and embrace them and do not ever part with them.

When he saw that Laura had no more strength, Arseny helped her stand and brought her home. A light nocturnal rain began to fall. The sky was still free of clouds in the part where the moon was. Wet gondolas glistened, rocking, in the moonlight. Water splashed at the gondolas’ hulls with a resonant smacking sound. On the threshold of her home (in the embraces of her parents), Laura turned to Arseny.

But Arseny was not there. The spectral city was made so one could vanish within it. Dissolve in the rain. Laura knew this and was not surprised. Arseny had not seemed like a real creature to her even when he was alongside her. Laura could not have repeated his words but they had filled her with endless joy, for their main meaning had already been disclosed to her. She now perceived recent days as a dreadful dream. She herself did not understand what had happened to her and she wanted, more than anything on earth, to awaken.

Arseny walked toward the monastery. It had become more or less clear to him which direction to take now that the sky had completely clouded over and rain was falling like a solid wall. Brother Hugo and Ambrogio did not know of his absence. They were sleeping and dreaming.

Brother Hugo was dreaming of his donkey—affectionate, with a groomed mane, and elegantly decorated. He slowly soared over a precipice, his appearance reminiscent of Pegasus. A white horsecloth fluttered ever so slightly on his back. I always knew that nothing of what has been disappears, Brother Hugo whispered in his sleep. Not a person, nor an animal, nor even a sheet of paper. Deus conservat omnia. His face was wet with tears.

Ambrogio dreamt of a street in the city of Orel. A group of five people was being photographed on the steps of the Russian Linen store. Left to right: Nina Vasilyevna Matveyeva, Adelaida Sergeyevna Korotchenko (top row); Vera Gavrilovna Romantsova, Movses Nersesovich Martirosian, Nina Petrovna Skomorokhova (bottom row). May 28, 1951. Director Martirosian had suggested the group organize a celebration in honor of the Russian Linen store’s fifth anniversary. The women made jellied meat, stuffed cabbage, beet salad, and rice pilaf at home. They brought all that to work in pots and set it out in dishes and salad bowls. They licked the spoons after stirring up the beet salad and rice pilaf, one after the other. Movses Nersesovich brought two bottles of Champagne and a bottle of Ararat cognac. He arrived wearing medals. The women smelled of perfume and ironed dresses. There was the smell of a sunny May day. They said toasts (Movses Nersesovich), it was lots of fun. The medals on the store director’s chest jingled pleasantly when he raised his glass. Then the photographer came and took pictures of them, with the store in the background. When she examined the yellowed photograph in 2012, Nina Vasilyevna Matveyeva said: Then Movses announced the store would close early that day. Of everyone you see in the photograph, only I am still alive. I cannot even visit their graves because I moved to Tula and they stayed in Orel. Could that all really have happened to us? It’s as if I’m looking at them from the great beyond. Lord, how I do love them all.

‌

A week later, Arseny and Ambrogio boarded the ship Saint Mark. During that week, Brother Hugo was able, through the monastery prior, to solicit traveling papers for them from the Venetian doge, signor Giovanni Mocenigo. This letter had the purpose of protecting them throughout the Venetian Republic, which extended along both sides of the Adriatic Sea. Arseny and Ambrogio had to sell their horses during those same days. A long sea journey lay ahead and nobody knew how the animals might withstand it. Besides, transporting horses was not cheap.

Arseny and Ambrogio had orders to be on the ship by midnight. Brother Hugo saw them off to the dock. He left Venice the next day, too, and headed for Rome. The Franciscan brothers had given him another donkey, but he did not consider it a worthy replacement. After giving it a meticulous inspection and chucking it on the withers, Brother Hugo said:

This animal lacks real character and I fear it will not keep me humble.

Fear not, Brother Hugo, replied the Franciscans. Leave your worries behind, for this animal will keep you humble. He has an attitude, and that explains, to a certain degree, our desire to part with him.

Wishing as he did to help Arseny and Ambrogio bring their luggage to the dock, Brother Hugo loaded their bags on his new donkey. Essentially, the load was not that large but the donkey did not want to carry even that. He angrily bucked the whole way, trying to throw off the leather bags that had been tossed over the saddle. He rubbed the bags against walls and caught them on the stirrups of horsemen riding past. Brother Hugo calmed a bit when he saw that. He realized he still had a chance of being kept humble.

Brother Hugo embraced the sea travelers at the dock. He wept and said:

Sometimes you wonder if it is worth getting attached to people if it will be this difficult to part with them later.

Arseny slapped Brother Hugo on the back as he embraced him:

You know, O friend, any meeting is surely more than parting. There is emptiness before meeting someone, just nothing, but there is no longer emptiness after parting. After having met someone once, it is impossible to part completely. A person remains in the memory, as a part of the memory. The person created that part and that part lives, sometimes coming into contact with its creator. Otherwise, how would we sense those dear to us from a distance?

After boarding, Arseny and Ambrogio asked Brother Hugo not to wait for them on the dock, since nobody knew exactly when the vessel would set sail. The Franciscan nodded but did not leave. In the weak lights of the ship, it was not immediately obvious that the rope kept pulling in Brother Hugo’s hands or that the donkey resisted desperately because he did not want to leave the dock. The animal observed the embarkation of 120 infantrymen the Venetian doge was sending for service in Crete. They arrived in full uniform and the women accompanying them were doubly sad to let them go when they were looking so smart. This, thought the women, is the first time we have seen them like this. And perhaps the last, too.

The vessel raised anchor at four o’clock in the morning, just before dawn. It slowly left port; the contours of San Marco’s Basilica could already be divined against the backdrop of a brightening sky. Even as all the other travelers slept below in hammocks, Arseny did not leave the deck for several hours. He listened with delight to the mast creaking and the sails flapping: this was the sweet music of wayfaring. Arseny observed as the water gradually turned from black to pink and from pink to emerald.

It seemed to Arseny that—compared to the water he had seen previously in his life—sea water was a liquid with a completely different composition. He tasted the salinity of the waves’ spray when he licked it off his hands. Seawater was another color, and it smelled different and even behaved in another way. It did not have fine river ripples. It varied from river and even lake water as much as a crane varies from a sparrow. In reaching that comparison, Arseny did not mean to imply size so much as the character of the respective motions. Seawater rolled in large billows and its motions were grand and smooth.

The ship’s captain, a puffy man with large lips, approached Arseny when he saw his interest in seawater. The captain had heard Arseny’s conversation with Brother Hugo and so began speaking with him in German:

Sea and river water are two different elements. I would never agree to do this work on fresh water, signor.

Arseny lowered his head as a sign of respect for the captain’s point of view. Drawn by the discussion of water, two pilgrims from Brandenburg drew closer to Arseny and the captain.

It is completely obvious, the captain was continuing, that fresh water is weaker than salt water. If anyone doubts that, then let them explain to me why, for example, seawater is capable of pushing back a powerful flow of fresh water, like the Seine in Rouen, and forcing it to flow in the reverse direction for three days.

It is possible, said pilgrim Wilhelm, that fresh water thinks salt water is disgusting and so retreats when faced with it.

But I think, objected pilgrim Friedrich, that a river expresses its deference to its father—the sea—by yielding the road to it. And when the tide begins to go out, the river follows him just as deferentially.

In speaking of fatherhood, are you, foreigner, presuming there is a kinship between such differing elements? asked the surprised captain.

Of course, said pilgrim Friedrich. After all, the sea is the source of all rivers and springs, just as the Lord Jesus Christ is the source of all virtue and knowledge. Do not all pure aspirations, every last one of them, stream from one and the same source? And just as spiritual streams rush to their source, all waters return to the sea.

What do you think about the circumrotation of waters? pilgrim Wilhelm asked Arseny.

Our earth is reminiscent of the human body, replied Arseny, with canals running all through the inside, just as blood vessels run through the body. No matter where a person starts to dig up the earth, he will certainly strike water. That is what my grandfather Christofer said, and he felt water under the earth.

I had two grandfathers but never saw either one, sighed the captain. Both were sailors and both drowned.

Everyone was quiet for a while after the captain said that.

The flow of fresh water into salt water, the pilgrim Friedrich softly said, is something I liken to how the sweetness of this earth ends up turning to salt and bitterness.

‌

A day and a half after setting sail from Venice, the Saint Mark had crossed the Adriatic Sea and cast anchor a quarter-mile from the city of Parenzo. Cliffs prevented approaching the city any closer, but there was no possibility of moving further anyway: the sea was dead calm. Numerous travelers were on deck.

Parenzo is a beautiful city, Arseny told the captain.

It is beautiful because Paris founded it, said the captain. So they say.

They are mistaken, said pilgrim Wilhelm.

So then why do Paris and Parenzo sound similar? The captain’s puffy lips sprayed saliva as he pronounced the two proper nouns. Paris, I can report to you, founded the city when the Greeks stole Helen.

The Greeks did not steal Helen, said pilgrim Friedrich. That is just a heathen tall tale.

And maybe Troy is a tall tale, too? the captain asked maliciously.

Troy is a tall tale, too, confirmed pilgrim Friedrich.

The captain raised his hands in a helpless gesture and licked his wet lips. He most definitely had nothing to add.

I am not sure you are right, my dear Friedrich, said Ambrogio. I have a hunch that someone will find Troy one fine day. Perhaps it will even be someone from your part of the world.

Fair winds began blowing toward evening of that same day. They sailed for a full day with that wind but then had to enter the Dalmatian port of Zara because an opposing wind, known to Italians as the sirocco, began blowing. The travelers needed to prepare themselves to remain patient because this wind could blow for several days. One hundred and twenty infantrymen indifferent to coastal cities started playing dice together. All the rest of the travelers went ashore.

They were met on the dock by the Venetian pretor, who inquired if the ship had come from healthy air or not. They assured him the ship had arrived from Venice and not from the East. The pretor was also shown their traveling letters from the Venetian doge, and he permitted all who wished to go into the city and its fortress.

The city of Zara was famous because the relics of a pious elder rested in the Church of Saint Simeon. Arseny and Ambrogio went to bow to Simeon. As they sank to their knees before his incorruptible relics, Arseny said:

Now lettest thou thy servant departe in peace, acordinge to thy promesse, for myne eyes have sene my salvation. You know, O Simeon, I am not expecting any reward comparable to yours. And my salvation consists of salvation for Ustina and the baby. Take them in your arms as you took the Christ Child and bring them to Him. That is the gist of my entreaty and prayer.

Arseny touched Simeon’s relics with the upper part of his forehead so as not to dampen them with tears. But one tear found its way from his lashes anyway and fell on the relics. Fine, let it abide there, thought Arseny. It will remind the elder of me.

‌

The next day, Arseny, Ambrogio and the two Brandenburg pilgrims took a walk around the fortress in the city of Zara. Before returning to the ship, they stopped to eat at a tavern, where people representing the Croatian population of the Venetian Republic were celebrating something or other. These residents of Zara pricked up their ears when they saw guests in traveling clothes. The Turkish threat was no longer just empty noise, so they did not rule out that the strangers could turn out to be enemy infiltrators. Suspicion changed to certainty as their consumption of beverages increased. The final thing that reinforced this certainty was the pilgrims’ German, which was quickly taken for Turkish. The revelers all stood at once, overturning, with a crash, the benches they had been sitting on.

Arseny and Ambrogio, who generally understood Slavic speech, grasped the sense of what was happening before the others. But it became clear, even to the Brandenburg pilgrims, who did not understand Slavic speech, that events were taking a dangerous turn. A tin mug flew at pilgrim Wilhelm, because he was speaking an incomprehensible language.

Arseny took several steps in the direction of the attackers and extended his hand. For a moment, it appeared that this gesture had calmed them. They froze and stared, rapt, at Arseny’s hand. Arseny said to them in Russian:

We are pilgrims who are going to the Holy Land.

His language seemed understandable, albeit strange, to the residents of Zara. The revelers’ own speech was already garbled, too, so they regarded it with a fitting tolerance. Calmer already, they said to Arseny:

Go on, then, cross yourself.

Arseny crossed himself.

The storm resumed in the same breath:

He cannot even cross himself properly! Could we have expected anything else from the Turkish infiltrators?

For a while, Ambrogio attempted to explain that Catholics and Orthodox cross themselves differently and demanded they be taken to the Venetian pretor, but nobody would listen to him any longer. The residents of Zara were discussing how they should handle the captured men. After a brief but heated argument, they came to the conclusion that the infiltrators should be hung. Further, the residents of Zara were not inclined to postpone the matter to a later date, since they were well aware that time is the arch-enemy of decisiveness.

They demanded rope from the tavern keeper. He initially would not give it to them since he feared the offenders would be hung right in his tavern. When he learned the rope was only needed, at this point, for tying (who would hang people in a tavern, anyway?) he gladly gave it to them and even poured a last round, on the house, for the infiltrators’ captors. After tying up the captured men, despite their resistance, they drank quickly since the task before them was onerous and required time. They were already in the doorway when they asked for more rope but—more importantly—for some soap, which they had completely forgotten after the last toast, which they drank to the ruin of all infiltrators.

Our death will be so stupid, Ambrogio said to Arseny in a quiet voice.

But what death is not stupid? asked Arseny. Is it not stupid that coarse iron enters the flesh, violating its perfection? He who is not capable of creating even a fingernail on a little finger is destroying a most complex mechanism, something inaccessible to human comprehension.

It was decided the sentence passed at the tavern would be carried out in the port. There were many suitable beams and hooks there, and the space was open, too, meaning it was accessible for viewing, as an edifying lesson to all prospective infiltrators.

Ambrogio again attempted to get through to the hearts and minds of the residents of Zara. He shouted to them that the pilgrims had traveling papers from the Venetian doge and had offered more than once to cross themselves in the Catholic way, but all was in vain. The hearts and minds of these people were impaired by alcohol.

Arseny was surprised at the mistrust of Zara’s residents. Perhaps (he thought) infiltrators truly had tormented them here. Arseny also did not rule out that these people simply felt like hanging someone.

They finally stuffed a gag in Ambrogio’s mouth. After conferring, they untied all the prisoners’ legs so they could walk, but left their hands tied. Now Ambrogio could neither shout nor cross himself.

He walked alongside Arseny and looked at the pair of Brandenburg pilgrims striding in front of them. Despite the high drama of what was happening, their appearance could not help but evoke smiles. They walked, swaying from side to side, and their tied hands behind their backs gave them a solemn, almost professorial, appearance. They also resembled the pair of penguins that Europe would become acquainted with in another ten or fifteen years. Friedrich and Wilhelm still understood nothing and hoped the misunderstanding would be cleared up very soon. Arseny did not want to dissuade them of this notion, nor did Ambrogio, either, though of course he could not speak anyway.

My love, Arseny said to Ustina in the port, it is very possible that my journey—but not my love for you—will come to an end right here. Stepping back from the sad side of all this, I can be glad that my journey is concluding in such a beautiful place: with a view of the sea, a distant island, and all the grandeur of God’s world. Most important, though, I am glad my last hours are elapsing alongside the devout elder Simeon, whose aspiration, unlike mine, was fulfilled. I am sorry, my love, that I managed to do so little, but I firmly believe that if the All-Merciful takes me now, He will accomplish everything we did not accomplish. Without that belief, there would be no point in existing, either for me or for you.

The sun was already low. It had sketched a journey for itself from a mooring in the port to the horizon. It left no doubt that it also intended to set there, at the most distant point. The sun beat right into Arseny’s eyes but he did not squint. The sun beat in the captain’s eyes as he stood on the deck of the Saint Mark; he went to the opposite side. From that side, he noticed people tossing a rope with a noose over the piling of a port winch.

They are planning to hang someone, the captain told those standing on deck. Whoever is interested can watch.

They were all interested, including the infantrymen. They all scrutinized the people standing by the winch, particularly the one whose neck was being fitted with the noose.

Is that Arseny? the captain asked, uncertain. Arseny!

He turned to the spectators on deck and they nodded.

That is Arseny, the captain shouted to the residents of Zara. He held his hands like a megaphone, and everyone in port heard him. This person is under the personal protection of Giovanni Mocenigo, the doge of Venice, and anyone who lays a finger on him will be punished!

The residents of Zara paused. They knew the captain and turned to the Saint Mark to be certain of what they had heard, but the captain was already running down the gangplank. All 120 infantrymen—thoroughly exhausted from throwing dice—watched from aboard the ship.

Did you hear me? the captain shouted again along the way. Anyone laying a finger will be punished!

But the residents of Zara were no longer laying a finger on Arseny. Even earlier, they had begun to suspect that their accusations were not altogether correct, meaning they had most likely been hanging Arseny out of inertia. They had lacked only the tiniest of reasons for stopping, and now it had been found. Their rage ran out just as suddenly as it had arisen.

We are no longer hanging anyone, said the residents of Zara. Your words cleared up all the issues and resolved the situation for us.

The captain ran up, pulled the noose off Arseny, and removed the gag from Ambrogio’s mouth.

My comrade Wilhelm and I just could not figure out what they wanted from us, cried out the pilgrim Friedrich, appealing to everyone. We would like to know the gist of their claims about us and why they suddenly decided to hang Arseny. We see no guilt whatsoever in that person.

Arseny answered them with a grateful bow. Ambrogio began laughing and said:

I just remembered an Irish monk who joked that German was the most important Eastern language for him. His joke turned out to be prophetic: your speech was taken for Turkish!

Once on board the Saint Mark, Arseny asked:

Tell me, Ambrogio, did your gift of foresight tell you we would be saved?

It is hardest of all, O Arseny, to foresee the future of one’s own life, and that is good. But of course I hoped to be saved. If not in this world, then in the next.

‌

The Sirocco quietened two days later and the ship raised its sails. Standing on the port side, Arseny said to the devout Simeon:

Glory to thee, O elder. I think that my waiting has been extended, thanks to your prayers. So pray again, will you, so my waiting will not be in vain.

The next large cities on the ship’s route were Spalato and the wonderful Ragusa. Winds continued to be favorable, though, so they did not stop in either. The Saint Mark’s captain trusted water far more than dry land and did not go ashore unless there was the utmost need.

They first sensed strong rocking motions after entering the Mediterranean Sea. The captain asked those with weak guts to stay very close to the railing: it took a long time to air out the hold after the spewing of seasickness. The Saint Mark tried not to lose sight of shore despite having entered the large sea.

When coming into harbor on the island of Corfu, they successfully avoided a sand bar known to anyone who was involved with navigation in any way. They stopped a half-mile from the island and replenished their supplies of fresh water and provisions. The island-dwellers delivered everything on large barques, shouting as they loaded it onto the ship. Arseny watched as the sailors carried the items into the hold. In addition to greens, they delivered about two dozen crates of live chickens to the ship. The captain personally sampled the flavors of the water and the greens. He sampled the chickens by touch. After drinking half a mug of the water that had been delivered, the captain said:

Fresh water is completely flavorless but, to my great regret, salt water cannot be drunk.

On the Greek island of Cephalonia, where the ship came in to dock, they bought three bulls to replace what had been eaten along the way. One bull gored a sailor when they attempted to drive the bulls into the hold. Arseny examined the sailor and saw the wound was not serious, despite an abundance of blood. The bull’s horn had pierced the soft tissues of the sailor’s buttocks but had not grazed any vitally important organs. Because of the peculiarity of the wound, the sailor could no longer lie in a hammock, so Arseny settled him onto a large kitchen storage chest. The captain thanked Arseny and told the sailor that he should now lie on his stomach more. The sailor knew that—he simply could not lie any other way—but thanked the captain anyway. Arseny most certainly enjoyed the atmosphere of the trip.

It must be said that the captain had taken a liking to Arseny, too. The captain had been watching over Arseny ever since he had managed to save him from certain doom. Once, in a free moment, the captain told Arseny how salt water forms. It turned out that it simply evaporates from regular water in the tropical ocean—thanks to help from the sun’s hot rays—and spreads from there, with the current, into other seas. The changes that the water undergoes are strikingly visible in the example of a lake in the county of Aix, not far from Arles. The water in this lake turns to ice, thanks to help from the winter cold, and then naturally to salt, under the influence of the summer heat. This proves that it is impossible to sail around the world: the ocean that bathes it will freeze in the north but turn to salt in the south.

In essence, we are sailing in a narrow crevice between ice and salt, summarized the captain.

Arseny thanked the captain for the information. Beyond gratitude for being saved, he felt respect for him as a seaman who soberly gauged the limits of his own abilities.

On the approach to Crete, the captain introduced those present to the story of how Zeus kidnapped Europa. The Brandenburg pilgrims protested, accusing the captain of being gullible. Paying no mind to their objections, the captain also expounded on his available bits of knowledge about the Minotaur, Theseus, and Ariadne’s thread. To help them visualize it better, he even ordered a sailor to fetch a skein of thread and unwind it on deck, weaving it between the masts and rigging. The pilgrims offered skeptical commentary to these actions. The captain went on speaking in an unnaturally calm tone, and it was clear to everyone who knew even the slightest thing about people that his nerves were at breaking point. The pilgrim Wilhelm, who knew nothing about people, said:

These are all pagan tall tales and it is shameful to believe in them during our time.

Without saying a word, the captain swept the pilgrim Wilhelm into his arms and took a step toward the side of the ship. The pilgrim Wilhelm, who may have wished to suffer in this confrontation with paganism, put up not the slightest resistance. Everyone else was just far enough from the captain that they simply lacked the time to come to the unfortunate man’s assistance: the distance from the captain with the pilgrim in his arms to the side of the ship really was measly. They saw Wilhelm already flying over the side, for the captain’s intentions were written on his face and contained no secrets. They saw Wilhelm hanging over the deep sea. All of them, including Arseny, saw him being swallowed up there.

But Arseny saw it an instant before the others: no sooner had the captain lifted the pilgrim Wilhelm over the side, than Arseny stood before him. He clutched at the pilgrim with all his might, not allowing him to be tossed overboard. The battle for the body of Wilhelm, who limited himself to being an external observer, as before, turned out to be brief. The captain was not a bloodthirsty person, so he released the pilgrim Wilhelm when his momentary rage subsided. Deep down in his heart, the captain felt no malice toward the pilgrim.

Have a look, my love, Arseny told Ustina, I managed to forestall time just now, and that shows that time is not all-powerful. I forestalled time by only an instant, but that instant was worth an entire human life.

After calming somewhat, the captain proposed that he and the Brandenburg pilgrims go ashore together and go to a labyrinth that was, according to him, still in existence. The pilgrims refused, regarding it as a waste of time, but someone standing on deck—Brother Jean from Besançon—confirmed the labyrinth’s existence.

Not very long ago, he and some other monks had even visited there when they were in Crete. According to Brother Jean, the labyrinth’s difficulty came not so much from the intricacy of its caves as from its darkness, and so one brother immediately lost his way when his candle was extinguished by a flittermouse flying past. They could not find the brother for three days and it was only thanks to the local population, who were more or less familiar with the labyrinth, that the brother was finally discovered, tormented by hunger, thirst, and a temporary lunacy that went away, however, as the result of good care. The labyrinth itself had not made any real impression on Brother Jean; it reminded him of an abandoned quarry.

The captain then repeated his proposal to the Brandenburg pilgrims, but they again rejected it. The pilgrims announced that they had seen countless quarries, for life had done nothing but bring them to quarries, though nowhere else had the extraction of stone been accompanied by such quantities of tall tales.

The infantrymen left the ship upon arrival in Crete. They were met at the dock by no fewer than 120 women.

Are those the same women who saw them off in Venice? asked Ambrogio.

Yes, they look like them, replied Arseny, but they are different women. Completely different. As it happens, I thought in Venice about how there is no repetition on this earth: only similarity exists.

‌

Cyprus came after Crete. They arrived in Cyprus late in the evening and did not go ashore. They saw the contours of a mountain range and the tops of cypresses. They heard the singing of unfamiliar birds, one of which was even sitting on the mast. The bird liked to sway as it sang.

Who are you, bird? the captain asked, joking.

There was no answer, it sang what it wanted, interrupting itself only to groom its feathers. It observed, from above, the replenishment of supplies of water and provisions. The Saint Mark set sail when the contours of the mountains began to brighten.

It was already swelteringly hot in the early morning. The travelers did not even want to think about what the afternoon would be like. The captain hastened their departure, hoping it would be cooler at sea. To cheer passengers drooping from the heat, he shared more of the knowledge of natural science that he possessed in such great quantities. As he looked at the sun blazing in the heavens, the captain told of waters that bathed the atmosphere and cooled the luminaries. He had no doubt those waters were salted. In his view, he was talking about the most ordinary of seas, which, for certain reasons, was located over the heavenly firmament. Otherwise why is it, the captain asked, that people in England recently left church and discovered an anchor that had been lowered from the heavens on a rope? And after that they heard, from above, the voices of sailors who were attempting to raise the anchor and when some sailor finally descended on the anchor rope, he died just after reaching earth, as if he had drowned in water.

The only lack of clarity here concerned whether the waters that lie over the firmament are joined to the waters in which we sail. One might say the safety of seagoing depended upon the answer to that question because the captain (he wiped away the sweat that had broken out on his forehead) could not guarantee to anyone that he could successfully drop his ship into the lower sea again if he were to unknowingly ascend to the upper sea.

Danger was much closer that morning, though. It was located under the heavenly firmament and issued from the same sea where the captain had sailed the Saint Mark for many years. Heat gave way to stuffiness after noon. The wind calmed and the sails sagged on the masts. The sun disappeared in the hazy heat. It lost its intensity and crept along the sky in an immense, formless mass. Leaden clouds formed on the horizon and quickly began approaching. A gale was coming from the east.

The captain ordered the sails be taken down. He hoped the gale would pass to the side but he understood they would not have time to take in the sails at the last minute. It appeared the clouds actually were veering more to the south instead of coming toward the ship. And though a wind had come up and whitecaps were now visible, the gale itself was developing fairly far away, off the starboard side. Over there, halfway between the ship and the horizon, the leaden clouds had released rays just as leaden into the water: the union of the waters the captain had spoken of had come into being. Lightning kept appearing against a black and blue backdrop but no thunder could be heard, which meant it truly was far away. Light was still pouring down from the heavens to the port side. The Saint Mark stood at the very edge of the gale.

Arseny felt nauseous from the rocking of the ship. He made several swallowing motions. He bent over the side, vacantly observing the dribbling fluid that stretched from his throat. The dribble got lost below, where the seawater raged. Where it frothed and swirled in maelstroms. Playfully flexed the muscles of its waves. Arseny sensed a huge mass of water behind him, too. He regarded its slow swooping even without seeing it, as someone’s back feels a murderer approach. This was the first large wave that flew up (Ambrogio raised his head) over the stern. It froze (Ambrogio attempted to take a step toward Arseny) over the deck and lowered itself (Ambrogio attempted to shout) on Arseny’s back, easily tearing him from the railing and pulling him overboard.

Ambrogio leans over the railing. There is nothing below but water. Arseny’s face gradually shows through the water. Set free in the water, his hair glows like a rippling halo. Arseny looks at Ambrogio. The captain and several sailors run to Ambrogio. Ambrogio sits on top of the railing, throws his second leg over it, and pushes off. Swallows air as he flies. Arseny looks at Ambrogio. The captain and sailors are still running. A wave covers Ambrogio. He comes to the surface and swallows air once again. Arseny is not visible. Ambrogio dives. A thought slowly rises toward him from the leaden depths: the ocean is mighty and he will never find Arseny. That he will find him only if he drowns. Only then would he have time to search. That thought releases him from the fear of drowning. Fear had fettered his movement. Ambrogio rises to the surface and inhales. Dives. Senses the slippery surface of the side of the ship with his hand. Inhales. Dives. Feels Arseny’s hand with his hand. Clings to it with all his might. Resurfaces and lifts Arseny’s head above water. A rope with a log is tossed from above. Arseny grasps the log and they begin pulling him up. Arseny falls. Ambrogio helps him grab the log again. The log slips out of Arseny’s hands. A log tied to a rope ladder is tossed from the side of the ship. Ambrogio slips the ladder on Arseny’s legs as if it were a swing. Arseny grasps at the ropes. Ambrogio seizes Arseny with one hand and holds the ladder with the other. Ten pairs of hands pull them up. They are swinging back and forth over the water. They will be battered (they are no longer afraid) if they hit the side of the ship. Sailors’ sad eyes. A wave rolls away from the side of the ship (the last of the water flows down over the seaweed and shells that have been revealed) and the whole sea leaves with it. The ladder hangs over the abyss that has emerged. The next wave comes up to Ambrogio and Arseny’s waists and swallows the side of the ship whole. Half the sky is still free of clouds. They are pulled on deck.

The sea was agitated but this was not yet the gale. The gale, which had initially gone south, had undeniably changed its course. The captain silently watched a leaden wall move in the direction of the Saint Mark. Its movement was slow but steadfast. The bright part of the sky grew ever smaller and thunder began to accompany distant flashes of lightning.

It got dark. Not as dark as night because nighttime darkness has its own tranquility. This was a restless gloom that devoured light, contradicting the established changes from day to night. It was not uniform: it swirled, thickened, and dissolved depending on the density of the clouds, and its border was at the horizon itself, where a thin ribbon of sky still shone.

Arseny and Ambrogio were brought to the hold. Arseny turned before going down. Lightning struck as if it had noticed his motion, and then came a clap of thunder unlike anything he had ever heard. With that sound, the heavenly firmament split, and its crack stretched along a line of lightning that resembled a root with countless branches. Water gushed from the crack. Perhaps this was water from the upper sea.

Seawater gushed out of Arseny, too, until it had all gone. He and Ambrogio were thrown from their hammocks and rolled along the floor. Both were semi-conscious. The candle toppled and went out. Arseny was turned inside out but there was no longer anything left to come out, so only bile came. He thought that at least he would stop vomiting if the ship sank. The sea’s cold tranquility would seize him there, below.

It was dark and stuffy for Arseny in the hold. Two disasters had come together and deepened one another. Dark stuffiness. Stuffy darkness. They were one indivisible essence, one entity. Arseny thought he was dying. That he would die right now if he did not swallow some air. Ambrogio did not see him grope for the door that led to the stairs and the deck. He pushed the door. He slipped on the stairs. Crawled up on all fours. Slid down and crawled again. He was knocked into the banisters. He crawled up to the door onto the deck and opened it. The hurricane stung him.

Horrified at what he had seen, he began shouting but did not hear his own shout. It was the grandeur of the elements—rather than impending death—that horrified. The hurricane ripped Arseny’s shout from his lips and instantly carried it a hundred miles off. That shout could sound only in a place where there was still a ribbon of clear sky. But that thin ribbon was already pink, making it clear that night was falling and that this last strip of sky would disappear. And Arseny began shouting again because the all-encompassing gloom that was advancing carried hopelessness.

Waves pounded at the side of the ship and everything on the vessel shook, and after each blow Arseny was surprised that the vessel was still intact. Huge waves alternately propped up the vessel and came out from under it. It tipped awkwardly onto its railing: its side bowed to the waves and the tops of its masts nearly touched them. It spun in the maelstroms, bobbed, and dove.

Arseny was still standing in the doorway. Two sailors were making their way past him along the deck. They moved, hunched, their feet set widely apart. And spreading their arms as if for embraces. They were pulling some sort of rope from the mast to the side of the ship, attempting to tighten it, but they themselves were tied to the mast with ropes. They kept slipping and falling to their knees. Their work, which was incomprehensible to Arseny, resembled either a dance or supplication. Perhaps they actually were praying.

Arseny saw an enormous frothy wave moving along the port side of the ship. The wave was very visible despite the darkness, and its crest glistened in a light that seemed to come out of nowhere. This glimmering was the most frightening thing. The wave was much higher than the deck. The ship seemed small, almost toylike, compared to the wave. Arseny soundlessly shouted to the sailors, telling them to flee, but they continued their strange motion. Their hoods, pulled low, made them look like astonishing creatures from the Alexander Romance. And the ropes dragged behind them like tails.

The wave did not strike the ship, it simply crushed it under itself and swept over it. Arseny was thrown below, where he could no longer see what was happening on deck. When he recovered, he again attempted to climb up toward the exit. The captain was standing in the doorway. He was praying. The deck was empty. Much of what Arseny had seen before from this vantage point was missing. Cannons, rails, masts. The two sailors who had been pulling the rope were missing. Arseny wanted to ask the captain if they had saved themselves in time but he did not ask. The captain sensed his presence and turned. He shouted something to Arseny. Arseny did not catch what he said. The captain bent right to Arseny’s ear and yelled:

Did you see Saint Germanus?

Arseny shook his head, no.

Well, I did. The captain pressed Arseny’s head to his own. I believe we can be saved by his prayers.

It was not that the gale had quietened—it had stopped intensifying. The ship was still being tossed from side to side, but that was no longer so frightening. Perhaps because the last light had disappeared with the arrival of night and the huge waves were no longer visible. The ship was no longer resisting its element: it was a part of it.

‌

The sun was shining in a cloudless sky when Arseny went on deck in the morning. A light wind was blowing. Two of the three masts were broken and everything that had been on the deck had been washed away or mangled. The sailors and pilgrims said a memorial prayer. Their arms and faces were covered with scratches.

Arseny did not see several familiar faces. He did not know the names of the dead sailors and had barely heard more than a sentence or two—simple greetings—from them when they were alive, but their absence was gaping. He knew that from now on he would be deprived of their greetings forever.

Forever, whispered Arseny.

He remembered their final dancing motions. He imagined the sailors floating now in the seawater. At a depth where they would be inaccessible to any storms.

After the prayer, the captain told those gathered on deck:

This night past, I saw Saint Germanus seven times. He appeared, as always, as a candle flame that could be described, if one wishes, as a distinct star. The flame might be bright one minute, then muted the next, the size of half the mast, always prominent. If you want, for example, to take the flame, it goes away; if you motionlessly recite Oure Father it will stay in place for about a quarter-hour, half an hour maximum, and when it appears, the wind always grows quieter and the waves smaller. When ships sail in a caravan, the ship to which Saint Germanus appears will be saved but he who does not see him will be wrecked. If two candles appear, which is a rarity, then the ship will certainly be lost, for two candles is a ghost, not an appearance from the saint.

That, said the pilgrim Wilhelm, is because demons never appear one at a time, but always in multitudes.

All that is Divine and true is one, said the pilgrim Friedrich, all that is demonic and false is in multiples.

The Brandenburg pilgrims no longer argued with the captain, for which he was glad.

Ambrogio was looking pensively to the north. He saw a gale in the White Sea on October 1, 1865. The Solovetsky Monastery’s steamer Faith was sailing from Anzer Island to Big Solovetsky Island. It was carrying pilgrims from Verkhny Volochok. Dinghies were ripped from the side of the boat and the bilge pump broke down. The ship was flung around like a twig. The pilgrims were nauseous. The gale was astonishing in that it arose under conditions of full visibility. A hurricane-force wind blew but there were neither clouds nor rain. And Big Solovetsky Island looked like a glistening white dot off the starboard side. One of the pilgrims asked the captain:

Why are we not sailing straight for the island?

Without moving from the ship’s wheel, the captain indicated that he could not hear the questioner.

Why are we sailing away from the island instead of sailing toward it? the pilgrim shouted directly into the captain’s ear.

Because we are tacking, answered the captain. Otherwise a lateral wave will smash us.

The Faith captain’s long beard fluttered in the wind.

The crew, composed of Solovetsky monks, was calm. This was the calm of those who do not even know how to swim. Sailors in the White Sea do not generally know how to swim. They do not need to know anyway. The water of the White Sea is so cold they could not endure for more than a few minutes.

The Saint Mark’s captain brushed aside a tear because he was mourning the lost mariners so immeasurably. The captain gave thanks to God and Saint Germanus that he had remained alive. He stood on the sun-drenched deck, delighting in the length and sharpness of a morning shadow. He inhaled the scent of drying wood. He felt like falling on the deck’s boards, lying there, and feeling their roughness on his cheek but he did not. As captain, he must be in possession of his own feelings. A captain should generally never be sentimental, he thought, otherwise the crew would mutiny. He took the decision to bring the ship to the nearest shore on her one remaining sail. The captain had no other choice. The Saint Mark, all gilded by the evening sun, approached the port of Jaffa after a day of quiet sailing.

‌

This was the East. The East Arseny had heard so much about, though he had no definite image of it. He had seen goods from the East in Pskov. He had even seen Eastern people in Pskov, but those people had adapted to a northern-Russian way of life that was neither showy nor loud. Eastern people in Pskov were meek and well-groomed. They spoke in soft voices and smiled enigmatically. The smell of non-Russian herbs and fragrances accompanied them. They turned out to be completely different in Jaffa.

The Jaffaites who flocked around the travelers were primarily Arabs: they were noisy, guttural, and seemed to have many hands. They kept grabbing at the arrivals’ clothing, attempting to attract attention. They would open their holey robes and beat themselves on the chest. They wiped sweating foreheads and necks with grimy sleeves.

What do these people want? Arseny asked Ambrogio.

Ambrogio shrugged:

I think they want the same as everyone else: money.

One of the Arabs led a camel to Arseny and attempted to insert the camel’s reins into Arseny’s hand. He pressed on Arseny’s fingers with both hands but the reins kept slipping out because Arseny would not hold them. The Arab showed the price for the camel with his fingers. The number of fingers decreased each time he raised his hands. Arseny looked at the marvelous animal, and the animal looked at Arseny, from somewhere above. This creature sure has a haughty gaze, thought Arseny. The Arab pounded himself on the chest, finally inserting the reins in Arseny’s hands, and pretended to walk away.

Arseny tugged at the reins for some reason and the camel looked at him pensively. He was, in terms of character, the antithesis of his master, who seemed to have rather worn him out. The animal took the Arab’s unexpected disappearance as a blessing and did not look in the departed man’s direction. When he saw Arseny’s hand move, the Arab appeared again next to the camel and again showed his price. All the fingers that had been bent were back in their places. Arseny smiled. The Arab thought a bit and also smiled. The camel showed his teeth, too. Despite life’s less-than-simple circumstances, they were all capable of finding a reason to smile.

Life in Jaffa truly was less than simple. The city, which the Mamluks had turned into a heap of ruins two centuries ago, simply could not revive itself. It led a spectral, almost otherworldly, existence at the expense of occasional vessels that, for some reason or other, moored in what remained of the port. No, Jaffa was not a dead city. Spending two days in Jaffa, Arseny and Ambrogio noticed that a life with its own adventures and passions flowed along here, too, in the evenings. They also discovered that the residents of Jaffa, whose energy had struck them so much on the first evening, were no strangers to contemplation.

It was contemplation that defined Jaffaites’ lives during the daytime hours. These people spent the sweltering days in small yards outside earthen homes, their softened bodies catching faint sea breezes. They lay on the damaged port’s parapets and observed fishing boats and (much rarer) ships as they entered the bay. Sometimes they helped unload them. But only in the evenings were Jaffaites truly active and animated. The energy and warmth they accumulated during the day spilled over, spreading to one another and out-of-towners. All sales, barter, agreements, and murders were completed during the two hours preceding sunset.

During the pre-sunset time the next day, Arseny, Ambrogio, and the other pilgrims managed to come to an agreement with the Arabs about their passage to Jerusalem. They proposed the travelers hire a camel or donkey, their choice, for half a ducat. Many, including Arseny and Ambrogio, wanted to walk but they were told they would lag behind the caravan.

A caravan usually moves slowly, Ambrogio told the Arabs, through an interpreter.

Usually but not now, answered the Arabs. You will be there before you know it.

The proposal to hire donkeys and camels was obviously not a topic for discussion. Remembering Brother Hugo’s two donkeys, Arseny and Ambrogio had chosen camels. Friedrich and Wilhelm decided to ride donkeys, though.

There was still some time before the caravan’s departure but the pilgrims stayed in port rather than returning to the city. Several slept, leaning against stones that had warmed during the day. Others conversed or mended clothing that had worn through during their wanderings. Ambrogio took out the icon lamp and installed the adamants. He was already in the Holy Land and had decided to restore the lamp’s initial beauty. He placed each of the six stones in the bottom of the groove and squeezed the pins, as Mayor Gavriil had shown him.

The Arabs that the pilgrims had hired to protect the caravan wordlessly observed Ambrogio’s work. They had demanded half a ducat from each traveler for their services, which seemed too expensive to the pilgrims because the journey to Jerusalem was not really that long.

The journey is not long but it is dangerous, retorted the Arabs. Death lurks everywhere here. And life has its costs.

‌

Getting on a camel is not the same as getting on a horse. The Arab made the camel drop to its knees as he helped Arseny get on. Arseny was surprised at the animal’s ability to kneel; he took a seat between the two humps. Arseny nearly fell to the ground when the camel stood. A camel’s hind legs are the first to straighten, which tosses the rider forward. The camel looked at Arseny with sadness after it stood. What made it sad and what premonitions did it have?

The caravan set off at dawn. Contrary to the Arabs’ promises, it moved unhurriedly. The pilgrims’ faces reflected all the colors of the brightening desert. The sun rose improbably fast and coolness gave way to heat at the same rate. The pilgrims’ faces were covered with sweat and dust from the hooves of the Arabian horses that preceded the caravan.

Two hours into the journey, the Arabs demanded each person add another ducat. They explained this by saying they had seen a band of Mamluks off in the distance and protection from Mamluks cost extra. As they were bargaining, one of the Arabs galloped off ahead, saying he would check the road. They each added another ducat for the Arabs.

From time to time, the Arabs lagged behind the caravan and conferred about something. Their behavior, along with the band of Mamluks they had sighted, troubled the Brandenburg pilgrims, so they began insisting on returning to Jaffa. The Arabs refused to return and, as far as the Mamluks were concerned, they hastened to admit they were a mirage that quite often pursues travelers in the desert. Then the Brandenburg pilgrims, followed by the others, began demanding that the additional ducats they had paid to their escorts be returned, but the Arabs also refused to refund them.

I have this burdensome feeling, said Ambrogio, but I cannot say anything definite about our future, for these events lie too close. There was no reason to expect an easy journey, nobody promised us that anyway, and things were not easy before, either. We are approaching the holy city and the opposition to our approach is tripling.