Sister Pelagia and the Black Monk (24 page)

“Do not even think of it!” said His Grace, speaking more sternly. “Enough! We have sinned and angered God, but it is time to call a halt. I repent, I am at fault for giving you my blessing for such an obscenity— all in the name of the search for truth and the triumph of justice. I took the sin entirely on myself. And if the synod knew about these pranks, they would throw me out of my see; they might even defrock me. However, I have not forsworn it because I fear for my episcopal robes, but because I fear for your safety. Have you forgotten that last time this playacting almost cost you your life? It is over, Lisitsyna will not return, and let me hear no more of it!”

Their argument over the mysterious woman Lisitsyna continued for a long time, but neither could convince the other, and so they parted having agreed to differ.

The next morning, however, the post delivered a letter to His Grace from the medical psychiatrist Korovin on the island of Canaan.

The bishop opened the envelope, read its contents, clutched at his heart, and fell.

The episcopal residence was thrown into unprecedented turmoil. Doctors came running, the governor arrived at a gallop on an unsaddled horse, without his hat, and the marshal of the nobility came dashing into town from his country estate.

And of course, Sister Pelagia was there too. She came very quietly and sat in the reception room for a while, with fright in her eyes, watching the doctors bustling about, and then seized her chance to lead the bishop's secretary, Father Userdov, off to one side. He informed her how the catastrophe had occurred and showed her the disastrous letter about the new patient in Dr. Korovin's hospital.

The nun spent the rest of the day and the whole night praying in the bishop's icon room—not on the prie-dieu, but kneeling directly on the floor. She prayed fervently for the recovery of the sick man, whose death would be a great misfortune for the entire region and for the many people who loved the bishop. Pelagia did not intrude in the bedchamber where the doctors were treating their patient—there were more than enough people caring for him without her, and in any case she would not have been allowed in. An entire council of physicians were practicing their arcane arts on the unconscious body, and three of Russia's leading specialists in ailments of the heart were already on their way from St. Petersburg, summoned by telegram.

In the morning the youngest of the doctors came out of the room, sullen and pale-faced. He approached the kneeling nun and told her: “He is conscious and he is asking for you. Only do not be long. And for God's sake, sister, no weeping. He must not be upset.”

Pelagia rose to her feet with difficulty, rubbed the bruises on her knees, and went into the bedchamber. Mitrofanii was lying there on his high old bed with the blue canopy that was decorated with a depiction of the vault of heaven, wheezing heavily. Pelagia was astounded by the deathly pallor of the bishop's complexion, the strange sharpness of his features, and above all by the stillness that was so far out of keeping with the bishop's energetic character.

The nun sobbed, and the angry doctor immediately cleared his throat loudly behind her back. Then Pelagia smiled fearfully and approached the bed with that pitiful, inappropriate smile on her lips.

The man lying in the bed glanced sideways at her and lowered his eyelids slightly—he had recognized her. He moved his purple lips with a struggle, but no sound emerged.

With the smile still on her face, Pelagia fell to her knees and crawled to the bed so that she could guess what he was saying from the movement of his lips.

His Grace gazed into her eyes, not with the glance of calm benediction that would have been appropriate at such a moment, but sternly, even menacingly. Summoning all his strength, he whispered three strange words: “Don't you dare …”

The nun waited to see if he would say anything more, and when he did not, she nodded reassuringly, kissed the sick man's feeble hand, and got to her feet. The doctor nudged her in the side as if to say, Come on now, be on your way.

Pelagia walked slowly through the rooms, whispering the words of a prayer of repentance: “Take pity on me, Oh God, in Thy great mercy, and in the multitude of Thy bounties purge my iniquity, for I do know my own iniquity, and my sin against myself.”

The meaning of this prayer was soon revealed. From the icon room the nun did not turn into the reception room; instead she slipped into the bishop's dark, empty study. Without the slightest hesitation, she unlocked the drawer of the writing desk and took out the bronze casket in which Mitrofanii kept the personal savings that he usually spent on books and the requirements of episcopal vestments, or help for the poor—and with a steady hand she thrust the entire wad of banknotes inside her habit, leaving not a single ruble behind.

The courtyard was crowded with the carriages of well-wishers. Pelagia walked across it unhurriedly, with decorum, but the moment she turned in to the garden in front of the episcopal college, she broke into an unseemly run.

She called into the cell of the head of the college and told her that at the behest of His Grace Mitrofanii she had to go away for a time, although it was not yet clear for how long, and asked her to find a replacement teacher for her lessons. Kind Sister Christina, accustomed to the sudden absences of her teacher of Russian and gymnastics, asked no questions about Pelagia's destination, but merely inquired if she had enough warm things to avoid catching cold on her journey. The nuns embraced each other shoulder to shoulder, then Pelagia collected a small chest from her room, found a cabbie, and ordered him to take her to the landing stage at top speed—there was less than half an hour left before the steamboat was due to leave.

AT NOON THE following day she was already walking down the gangway onto the quayside in Nizhni Novgorod, no longer wearing her nun's habit, but a modest black dress that she had taken out of the trunk. And that was only the first stage of her metamorphosis.

In her hotel the redheaded guest first asked for a pile of the latest fashion magazines to be brought to her room, then armed herself with a pencil and began copying out all sorts of abstruse phrases onto a sheet of paper:
capote écossaise, velvet peplos, wooln. talma
, and more in the same vein.

Having completed this research as painstakingly as possible, spending no less than two hours on the task, Pelagia paid a visit to Nizhni Novgorod's very finest ready-made clothing emporium, Dubois et fils, where she gave the shop assistant remarkably precise and detailed instructions, which were received with a respectful bow and put into effect without delay.

An hour and a half later, having dispatched to the hotel an entire coachload of bundles and boxes, the plunderer of the bishop's private treasury, now decked out in that mysterious “velvet peplos” (a straight-cut dress of Utrecht velvet with no fitted bodice), committed a quite unimaginable act for a nun: she went to a
salon de coiffures
and had her short hair curled in the latest Parisian style,
joli cherubin
, which suited her oval, slightly freckled face very well.

As is the way with women, having dressed more smartly and paid some attention to her appearance, this lady from Zavolzhsk was transformed inwardly as well as outwardly. Her gait became lighter, as if she were gliding along, her shoulders straightened, and her neck held her head higher, with the face inclined upward instead of downward. Men walking past her glanced around; two officers actually stopped—one of them even whistled, and the other reproached him: “Fie, Michel, such manners!”

At the entrance to the office of the tourist agency Cook and Kan-torovich the stylish lady was pestered by a dirty, spiteful gypsy woman who began threatening her with inevitable disaster, nightmares, and death by drowning, and demanded ten kopecks to ward off her misfortune. Pelagia was not at all alarmed by this prophetess, especially since in the none-too-distant past she had successfully evaded a watery grave, but even so she gave the witch some money—a whole ruble, not just ten kopecks—so that in the future she would be more good-natured and not regard everybody as her enemy.

Inside the agency, which incorporated a shop selling traveling accessories, another one hundred and fifty rubles of the bishop's savings was spent on two wonderful Scottish suitcases, a manicure set, and a little mother-of-pearl spectacle case that could be attached to a belt (both elegant and convenient), in addition to the acquisition of a ticket to the monastery of New Ararat, which could only be reached by taking the railway to Vologda, then traveling by coach to Sineozersk, and finally boarding a steamship.

“Are you going on pilgrimage?” the assistant inquired politely. “Just the right time, madam, before the cold weather sets in. Perhaps you would like to book a hotel straightaway?”

“Which do you recommend?” the traveler asked in reply.

“The mayor's wife and her daughter recently booked their journey with us. They stayed at the Holofernes’ Head and were most complimentary about it.”

“The Holofernes’ Head?” the lady echoed with a frown. “Are there not any other hotels, a little less bloodthirsty, perhaps?”

“Why, of course there are. The Noah's Ark Hotel and the Promised Land boardinghouse. And those ladies who wish to isolate themselves completely from male company put up at the Immaculate Virgin. A most devout establishment for noble and well-to-do female pilgrims. The charges are not high, but each guest is expected to make a donation of at least a hundred rubles to the monastery treasury. Those who give three hundred or more are accorded a private audience with the archimandrite himself.”

This final item of information seemed to be of great interest to the prospective pilgrim. She opened her new reticule, took out a bundle of banknotes (still quite substantial), and began counting them. The assistant followed this procedure with tactful reverence. At five hundred rubles his client stopped and put the money back into her handbag without completing her count.

“Will your servant be sharing your room or in separate accommodation?”

“How can you ask?” the lady objected, tossing her bronze curls reproachfully. “Take a servant on a pilgrimage? Why, that's not Christian. I shall do everything myself—dress and wash, and perhaps even brush my own hair.”

“I beg your pardon. I'm afraid not everybody is quite so scrupulous, madam.” The clerk began scribbling on a blank form, deftly dunking his steel-nibbed pen in the inkwell. “In whose name shall I make out the order?”

The pilgrim sighed and for some reason crossed herself. “Write: ‘Polina Andreevna Lisitsyna, widow, hereditary noblewoman of the Moscow Province.’ ”

Travel Sketches

SINCE THE HEROINE of our narrative, having cast off her nun's habit, has chosen to call herself by a different name, we shall also call her by it—out of respect for the conventual calling and in order to avoid any blasphemous ambivalence. Let her be a noblewoman, and let her be Lisitsyna—after all, she should know.

Especially since, to all appearances, the spiritual daughter of the arch-pastor of Zavolzhsk felt quite as much at ease in her new persona as she had in her old one. It was easy to see that she did not find traveling wearisome; quite the contrary, it was a joy and a pleasure to her.

Riding along in the train, the young lady occasionally cast a favorable glance out of the window at the empty fields and autumnal forests, which had still not completely shed their farewell finery. In the tourist agency, as a complimentary gift to go with her various purchases, Polina Andreevna had been given a fine velvet needlework bag, which was now resting cosily on her chest, and she was whiling away the time knitting a warm merino pullover, which His Grace Mitrofanii was sure to need in the cold winter season, especially after such serious problems with his heart. It was extremely complicated work, with alternating bouclé and stocking stitches and colored inserts, and it was not going well: the stitches lay unevenly, the colored threads were drawn too tight, completely distorting the pattern, and yet Lisitsyna herself seemed pleased with the results of her creative efforts. Every now and then she would break off and survey her clumsy handiwork with evident satisfaction.

When the traveler grew weary of her knitting, she took up her reading, and she somehow managed to pursue this activity not only in the peaceful railway carriage, but also in a jolting omnibus. She was reading two books alternately, one of which was perfectly suited to a pilgrimage
—An Outline of Christian Morality
by Theophanes the Anchorite. The other was a very strange choice
—A Textbook of Firearms Ballistics: Part 2—
but she read it with no less care and attention.

Once on board the steamship
St. Basilisk
in Sineozersk, Polina Andreevna demonstrated in full measure one of her most distinctive characteristics—irrepressible curiosity. She walked around the entire vessel, spoke with the sailors in cassocks, watched the huge paddle wheels straining against the water. She visited the engine room and listened to the engineer telling those passengers who were interested how the flywheels, the crankshafts, and the boiler worked. Lisitsyna even put on her spectacles (which, following the transformation of the nun from Zavolzhsk into the hereditary noblewoman from Moscow, had been banished from the pilgrim's nose to the mother-of-pearl case) and glanced into the furnace, where the red-hot coals flashed and crackled in a most frightening fashion.