Sister Pelagia and the White Bulldog (3 page)

IN THE MORNING they blessed the fruit in the bishop’s chapel on the occasion of the Lord’s Transfiguration, otherwise known as the Feast of Our Savior of the Apples. Mitrofanii loved this festival, though it was not the greatest of the twelve, for its brilliance and pious frivolity. He did not lead the service himself but stood at the back, on the bishop’s dais at the side, which afforded him a better view of the apple-bedecked church, the large congregation, and the priests and deacons in their special “apple” chasubles of blue and gold with a pattern of fruits and leaves embroidered around the top. As they walked in from both sides, the choristers of the famous bishop’s choir thundered so loudly that up under the white vault the rainbow-bright pendants on the heavy crystal chandelier began to shake. Father Amfiteatrov began blessing the apples: “Our Lord and God, Who hast vouchsafed the use of Thy creations to those who believe in Thee, we pray Thee, bless these fruits we offer with Thy word…”

It was good.

The service at Transfiguration is short and joyful. The cathedral is filled with the smell of fresh fruit, because everybody has brought their baskets along to have their apples sprinkled with holy water. Even the table beside Mitrofanii bore a silver dish with immense red king-pineapple apples from His Grace’s orchard—succulent, sweet, and aromatic. When the reverend bishop gave these to someone, it was a mark of special distinction and favor.

Mitrofanii sent the servant who looked after his bishop’s crook to the left-hand choir, where the nuns appointed to serve by teaching in the diocesan school for girls were standing placidly in a row. The emissary whispered into the ear of the tall, gaunt directrix, Sister Christina, that the reverend bishop wished to give her an apple, and she glanced around and made a slow grateful bow. Standing on her right, I think (one cannot be certain at first glance from the back), was Sister Emilia, who taught arithmetic, geography, and several other subjects. Then came the lopsided Sister Olympiada, the one who taught Scripture. After her came two equally stooped sisters, Ambrosia and Apollinaria, and there was no way to distinguish one from the other; one taught grammar and history and the other taught the domestic arts. And at the end, by the wall, stood the short, thin Sister Pelagia (literature and gymnastics). Even if one wished, it would be impossible to confuse her with anyone else: Her wimple had slipped over to one side, and protruding from under its edge in a manner quite shameful and impermissible for a nun was a lock of ginger hair, shimmering with a bronze sheen in a ray of sunlight.

Mitrofanii sighed, wondering yet again whether he had not committed an error when he gave his blessing to Pelagia’s taking the veil. It had been impossible not to give it—the girl had been through such great grief and terrible suffering that not every soul would have withstood it, but she was really not cut out to be a nun: She was far too lively, fidgety, curious, and undignified in her movements. But you are just the same yourself, you old fool, the reverend bishop rebuked himself, and he sighed again even more ruefully.

When the nuns lined up to receive an apple each from His Grace, he greeted each of them in a distinctive manner—some he allowed to kiss his hand, some he patted gently on the head, at some he simply smiled, but with the last of them, Pelagia, there was a mishap. The clumsy girl stepped on the father subdeacon’s foot, started back, apologizing, threw her arms out, and knocked the bowl over with her elbow. A loud rumbling, the ring of silver against the stone floor, red apples tumbling merrily in all directions, and the boys from the seminary, who were not supposed to have any apples because they were mischief-makers and scamps, had already grabbed up the precious king-pineapples and left nothing for the worthy and deserving people waiting their turn behind Pelagia. And so it always was with her—she was not a nun, but a walking disaster with freckles.

Mitrofanii gnawed his lips, but he refrained from rebuking her, because this was the house of God and it was a holiday.

He merely said as he blessed her: “Tuck away that lock of hair; it’s shameful. And get along to the library. I have something to say to you.”

“A CERTAIN ASS once imagined himself to be a racehorse and began flaring his nostrils and stamping his hoof on the ground.” (This was how His Grace began the conversation.) “‘I’ll beat you all!’ he shouted. ‘I’m the swiftest and the fleetest!’ And he shouted so convincingly that everyone believed him and began repeating what he said: ‘Our ass is no ass at all; he is the purest possible thoroughbred. Now we must run him in the races so that he can win every last prize.’ And from that time on the ass knew no peace; whenever there was a race anywhere, they immediately bridled him and dragged him off to it, saying: ‘Come on, long-ears, don’t let us down.’ And so the ass now led a quite wonderful life.”

The nun, long since accustomed to the bishop’s allegories, listened intently. At first glance she seemed a young girl: the clear, sweet, oval face was winsome and naïve, but this deceptive impression was created by the snub nose and the astonished look of the raised eyebrows, while the round brown eyes gazed out keenly through equally round spectacles with a look that was far from simple, and from the eyes one could tell that this was certainly no young innocent—she had already known suffering, seen something of life, and had time to reflect on her experiences. The air of youthful freshness came from the white skin that often complements ginger hair, and from its speckling of ineradicable orange freckles.

“Tell me then, Pelagia, what is the point of this fable?”

The nun pondered, taking her time before she answered. Her small white hands reached involuntarily for the canvas bag hanging at her belt, and the reverend bishop, knowing that Pelagia found it easier to think with her knitting in her hands, told her, “You may knit.”

The pointed steel needles began clacking furiously and Mitrofanii frowned as he recalled what dreadful creations those deceptively deft hands brought into the world. At Eastertide the sister had presented the bishop with a white scarf adorned with the letters CA for “Christ is Arisen,” rendered so crookedly that they seemed already to have celebrated the ending of the fast with some gusto.

“Who is this for?” His Grace inquired cautiously.

“Sister Emilia. A belt; I shall run a pattern of skulls and crossbones along it.”

“Very good,” he said, relieved. “Well, what about the fable?”

“I think,” sighed Pelagia, “that it is about me, sinner that I am. With this allegory, father, you were trying to say that I make as good a nun as an ass makes a racehorse. And you have reached this uncharitable judgment about me because I spilled the apples in the cathedral.”

“Did you spill them deliberately? To create a commotion in the cathedral? Confess.” Mitrofanii glanced into her eyes, but then he felt ashamed, because the response he read in them was meek reproach. “All right, all right, I didn’t mean that…but that is not the point of my fable; you have guessed wrong. What is it about the way we human beings are constituted that makes us think every event that occurs and every word that is spoken center on ourselves? That is pride, my daughter. And you are too small a bird for me to go concocting fables about you.”

Feeling suddenly annoyed, he rose, put his hands behind his back, and paced up and down the library.

The bishop’s library, to which it is probably worth our while to pay some attention, was maintained in perfect order under the management of his secretary, Userdov, a most assiduous worker. The bookcase with the works on theology and patrology was located at the center of the longest of the walls (the one that had no windows or doors). It contained doctrinal compositions in Church Slavonic, Latin, Greek, and ancient Hebrew. Extending to its left were the bookcases of hagiography, with lives of the saints, both Orthodox and Roman Catholic; to the right were works on ecclesiastic history, liturgics, and canonics. A separate place was accorded to a broad bookcase with tracts on asceticism, a reminder of His Grace’s former enthusiasm. The same bookcase also contained extremely precious bibliographical rarities such as a first edition of Saint Teresa Avila’s
The Internal Castle
and Reisbruck the Amazing’s
Robes of the Spiritual Marriage.
Lying on a long table running the entire length of the room were bound files of Russian and foreign newspapers and magazines, among which pride of place was given to
The Zavolzhsk Diocesan Gazette,
a provincial newspaper that the bishop himself edited.

Non-religious literature of the most various kinds, from mathematics to numismatics and from botany to mechanics, stood on the stout oak shelves that completely covered the surface of the other three walls of the library. The only kind of reading that the reverend bishop avoided and considered of little value was fiction. He used to say that the Heavenly Creator had contrived more than enough miracles, mysteries, and unique stories in this world, so there was no point in mere mortals inventing their own worlds peopled with puppets; besides, anything contrary to God’s own inventions would certainly be wretched and fail to delight. Sister Pelagia argued this point with the bishop, claiming that since the Lord had implanted the desire to create in the soul of man, He was the best judge of whether there was any sense and benefit in the writing of novels. However, this theological dispute was not initiated by Mitrofanii and his spiritual daughter and it will not conclude with them, either.

Halting in front of Pelagia, who was waiting meekly for her spiritual teacher’s rather incomprehensible irritation to subside, Mitrofanii suddenly asked: “Why is your nose shiny? Have you been bleaching your freckles with elixir of dandelion again? Is that the right sort of thing for a bride of Christ to concern herself with? You are an intelligent woman, after all. And as the blessed Diadochus teaches us: ‘She who adorns her flesh is guilty of love of the body, which is the sign of disbelief.’”

From his jesting tone of voice, Pelagia realized that the cloud had blown over, and she replied spryly: “Your Diadochus, my lord, is a well-known obscurantist. He even forbids us to wash. How does he put it in his
Love of Virtue
? ‘It is best, for the sake of abstinence, to avoid the bathhouse, for our body is weakened by its sweet wetness.’”

Mitrofanii knitted his brows.

“I’ll have you make a hundred bows to the ground for speaking so disrespectfully of an ancient martyr. And his teaching on the adornment of the flesh is correct.”

Embarrassed, Pelagia launched into voluble excuses, claiming that she waged war on her freckles not for the sake of bodily beauty, God forbid, but exclusively out of a sense of decorum—a nun with a freckly nose was a ridiculous sight.

“Oh, indeed?” said the bishop, shaking his head dubiously, still putting off getting down to the important business.

Sister Pelagia’s transitions from boldness to meekness and back again always occurred with such lightning speed that it was impossible to keep track of them. And now again she asked in a bold voice, with a glint in her eye: “Your Grace, surely you did not summon me because of my freckles?”

And once more Mitrofanii could not bring himself to speak of his business. He cleared his throat and walked up and down the length of the library yet again. He asked how her pupils were doing in school. Were they diligent, did they want to learn, were the sisters not perhaps teaching them anything superfluous that would not help, but merely hinder them, in their life?

“I am told that you have begun to teach them swimming. Why? They say you have ordered a bathing hut to be set up on the River and you splash about with them there. Is this a good thing?”

“Swimming is essential for girls, in the first place because it is good for their health and develops the flexibility of their limbs, and in the second place because it is good for their figures,” the nun replied. “They are from poor families, and most of them have no dowries. When they grow up, they will have to find husbands…Your Grace, you did not summon me here because of the school, either. We spoke about it only two days ago, and about the swimming, too.”

Pelagia was not one of those people who can be duped for long, and so Mitrofanii finally began talking about the idea he had conceived before he fell asleep the night before.

“The ass that I spoke of is myself. Acceding to your requests, and even more to the promptings of my own wretched vanity, which is absolutely improper for a pastor, I keep it a secret from everyone that it is not I who am the genuine expert in the field of unraveling obscure secrets and piercing through false appearances, but you, the meek and mild nun Pelagia. And now, like the ass who was so fond of fame, I am expected by everyone to produce new miracles and new revelations. Now no one will ever believe that the whole business was entirely your doing, and I did no more than to set you a work of penance.”

The needles stopped clacking against each other and bright sparks sprang to the surface of the round brown eyes.

“What has happened, father? It clearly can’t be in our province, or I should know about it. Has someone stolen the church treasury again, as they did last year at Shrovetide?” the sister asked with impatient curiosity. “Or, God forbid, killed a clergyman? What work of penance will Your Grace set me to perform this time?”

“No, nobody has been killed,” said Mitrofanii, turning away in embarrassment. “This is something different. Not a criminal matter. At least, it is not a matter for the police…I’ll tell you what it is, and for the time being, you just listen. You can tell me afterward what you think. Yes, do knit. Knit and listen.”