Sister Pelagia and the Red Cockerel Read online

At any other time Muffin would have been very interested to hear about a sin committed together by a bishop and a nun. But what time did he have for that now? They’d made up and stopped shouting, and praise be to Thee, Lord, for that.

  Down on his knees again, he crawled back under the prophet’s window. He took hold of the frame and lifted himself up a little bit.

  Still dozing, the darling. He hasn’t woken up.

  At the very last moment, when there was nothing he could do about it, Muffin heard a rustling sound behind him. He tried to turn around, but it was too late.

  Something crunched and exploded inside Muffin’s head. And for him there was no more spring evening or river mist—there was nothing at all.

  Two strong hands grabbed hold of the limp body by the feet and dragged it across to the edge of the deck—quickly, before a lot of blood could flow. The swag bag, that little underarm sack for Muffin’s loot, snagged on the leg of a table. A jerk, the string snapped, and the movement was continued. And then Muffin went flying through the air, sent up a fountain of spray in a final farewell to God’s world, and was united with Mother River.

  She welcomed her ne’er-do-well son into her loving embrace, rocked him a little, lulled him a little, and laid him down to sleep in her deepest, darkest little bedroom, on a soft downy mattress of silt.

  Troubles in the capital

  “BUT IT’S STILL amazing how Konstantin Petrovich could have found out,” His Eminence Mitrofanii repeated yet again, with a brief glance in the direction of a muffled sound from outside the window—as if someone had dropped a bundle or a bolt of cloth on the deck. “He truly does sit high and see far.”

  “That is what His Excellency’s duty of service requires of him,” Father Serafim Userdov put in from his corner. The conversation between His Eminence, his spiritual daughter Pelagia, and the bishop’s secretary always about one and the same subject, was already in its third day. It had begun in St. Petersburg, following an unpleasant interview with the Chief Procurator of the Holy Synod, Konstantin Petrovich Pobedin. This unpleasantness had been spoken of in the train, and in the Moscow hotel, and now on the steamer that was carrying the provincial prelate and his companions to their native Zavolzhsk.

  The Chief Procurator’s disagreements with the bishop were of long standing, but hitherto they had not reached the stage of direct confrontation. Konstantin Petrovich had seemed to be taking a close look, respectfully measuring up his venerable opponent, according his strength and his truth due respect, for he himself was a powerful man and he had his own truth, although it was clear that sooner or later these two truths would clash, for they were too different from each other.

  Mitrofanii had been prepared for absolutely anything after receiving the summons to appear before the Chief Procurator in the capital city; he had been ready for any pressure, but not on the flank from which the blow came.

  Konstantin Petrovich had begun in his customary manner—quietly as if he were treading cautiously. He praised his guest from Zavolzhsk for his good relations with the temporal authorities, and especially for the fact that the governor took Mitrofanii’s advice and went to him for confession. “This is an example of the inseparability of the state and the church, on which alone the edifice of the social order can stand secure,” Pobedin had said, raising one finger for greater effect.

  Then he had delivered a mild rebuke for the bishop’s spineless and insipid approach in dealings with members of different creeds and faiths, of whom there were very many in Zavolzhie: there were Protestant colonists there, and Catholics descended from the old Poles in exile, and Moslems, and even pagans.

  His Excellency had a distinctive manner of speaking—as if he were reading a report from a written text. A smooth and fluent manner, but somehow dry and wearisome for his listeners. “The state church is a system under which the authorities recognize one confession as the true faith and exclusively support and patronize one church, to the greater or lesser diminution of the honors, rights, and privileges of other churches,” Konstantin Petrovich had pontificated. “Otherwise the state would lose its spiritual unity with the people, of whom the overwhelming majority adhere to Orthodoxy. A state without a faith is nothing other than a utopia that is impossible to realize, since the absence of faith is the direct negation of the state. What trust can the Orthodox masses have in the authorities if the people and the authorities have different faiths, or if the authorities have no faith at all?”

  Mitrofanii tolerated this lecture for as long as he could (which was not for very long, since patience was definitely not one of the bishop’s strong points) and eventually interrupted the exalted orator.

  “Konstantin Petrovich, I am convinced that the Orthodox confession is the truest and most beneficent of all faiths, and I am so convinced not for reasons of state, but by the acceptance of my soul. However, as Your Excellency is aware from our previous conversations, I consider it harmful and even criminal to convert those of other faiths to our religion by means of force.”

  Pobedin nodded—not in agreement, but in condemnation, as if he had expected nothing else from the bishop but impolite interruptions and obduracy.

  “Yes, I am aware that your Zavolzhsk faction” (Pobedin emphasized this unpleasant, even ominous, word in his intonation) “is opposed to all violence …”

  At this point the Chief Procurator paused before striking a crushing blow that had, beyond the slightest doubt, been prepared in advance.

  “… violence and criminality” (again that emphatic intonation). “But I had never before suspected just how far your zealousness in eradicating the latter extended.” After waiting for an expression of caution to appear on Mitrofanii’s face following these strange words, Pobedin asked in a menacingly ingratiating tone: “Just who do you and your entourage imagine you are, bishop? The new Vidoques? Or Sherlock Holmeses?”

  At this point Sister Pelagia, who was present at the conversation, turned pale and could not suppress a quiet exclamation. Only now had she realized why His Eminence had been ordered to bring her, a lowly nun, to the audience.

  The Chief Procurator immediately confirmed her dark surmise: “It was not on a whim that I asked you to bring with you the head of your famous convent school. No doubt, Sister, you thought that we would be discussing education?”

  That really was what Pelagia had thought. It was only six months since the bishop had given his blessing for her to take over as head of the Zavolzhsk school for young girls, following the death of Sister Christina, but during that brief period Pelagia had managed to introduce more than enough reforms to draw down on her head the displeasure of the head of the Holy Synod. She was prepared to defend every one of her innovations and had armed herself for this defense with numerous highly convincing arguments, but on hearing mention of Vidoque and some unknown Sherlock (he must be a detective too, like the famous Frenchman), she was completely taken aback.

  Meanwhile, Konstantin Petrovich was already drawing a sheet of paper out of a calico-bound file. He searched for something on it and jabbed a dry white finger at one of the lines of writing. “Tell me, Sister, have you ever heard of a certain Polina Andreevna Lisitsyna? A highly intelligent individual, so they say. And extremely brave. A month ago she rendered the police invaluable assistance in the investigation into the heinous murder of the archpriest Nektarii Zachatievsky” And he fixed Pelagia with his owlish stare.

  She blushed as she babbled: “She’s my sister …”

  The Chief Procurator shook his head reproachfully. “Sister? That’s not the information I have.”

  He knows everything, the nun realized. How shameful! And the most shameful thing of all was that she had lied.

  “You even lie about it. A fine Bride of Christ,” said Pobedin pricking her on her most painful spot. “A detective in a nun’s habit. Well, what can I make of that?” However, the powerful man’s gaze was curious rather than wrathful. How could this be—a nun investigating criminal cases?

  Pelagia no longer
attempted to deny anything. She lowered her head and tried to explain.

  “You see, sir, when I see evildoing triumph, and especially when someone innocent is accused, as happened in the case you mentioned … or if someone is threatened by mortal danger …” She broke off and her voice began to tremble. “It feels here”—the nun pressed one hand to her heart—“as if a little ember catches fire. And it burns, it will not let me be until truth and justice are restored. In keeping with my vocation, I ought to pray, but I cannot. Surely what God requires from us is not inaction and futile lamenting, but help—such as each of us is capable of. And he only intervenes in earthly matters when human powers are exhausted in the struggle with Evil.”

  “It burns, here?” Konstantin Petrovich echoed. “And you cannot pray? Ai-ai-ai. Why, that’s a devil sitting in you, Sister. All the signs are there. You have no business being a nun.”

  At these words Pelagia went numb and Mitrofanii dashed to her aid. “Your Excellency, she is not to blame. I ordered her to do it. With my blessing.”

  That was apparently just what the leader of the Synod was waiting for. Or rather, his response seemed to indicate that this was the last thing he had been expecting, and he threw his hands up in the air in great astonishment as if to say: I don’t believe it, I don’t believe it! You? You? The provincial archpastor?

  He seemed to have been struck dumb. His face darkened and he knitted his brows together in a frown. After a pause, he said wearily: “Go now, bishop. I shall pray to God for enlightenment as to what to do with you.”

  SUCH WAS THE conversation that had taken place in St. Petersburg. And it was still uncertain what it would lead to, what intuition concerning the Zavolzhsk “faction” would be vouchsafed to the Chief Procurator by the Almighty.

  “The right thing would be to apologize to Konstantin Petrovich,” Userdov said, ending a pause. “With a man like that, there’s no shame in yielding to humility.”

  That was probably right. Konstantin Petrovich was a special kind of man. As a character in one of Ostrovsky’s plays remarked, for him there was “little that is impossible” in the entire Russian Empire. The Zavolzhians had been presented with evidence of that at the very beginning of the audience in St. Petersburg, when one of the telephones on His Excellency’s desk had rung—the most beautiful one: mahogany with gleaming mouth-and earpieces. Pobedin had broken off in midword and raised a finger to his lips while he used his other hand to turn the handle and press the earpiece to his ear.

  Secretary Userdov, sitting on the very edge of his chair with a briefcase containing a report on the affairs of the diocese, was the first to guess who was calling—he had jumped to his feet and stood to attention like a soldier. In the whole of Russia there was only one person for whom Konstantin Petrovich would have interrupted himself. And it was well known that a special line had been installed from the Palace to the Chief Procurator’s office.

  The visitors could not, of course, hear the monarch’s voice, but even so they had been greatly impressed, especially by the strict paternal tone in which Pobedin addressed God’s anointed: “Yes, Your Majesty, the text of the decree as received from you did not strike me as satisfactory. I shall draft a new one. And clemency for a state criminal is also absolutely out of the question. Some of your advisers have become so perverted in their thinking that they consider it possible to do away with capital punishment. I am a Russian and I live among Russians, I know what the people feel and what they demand. Let not the voice of flattery and dreams insinuate itself into your heart.” At that moment Father Userdov’s expression was a sight to behold: a compound of fear and awe, mingled with an awareness of complicity in the great mystery of the Supreme Power.

  His Eminence’s secretary was a fine man in almost every respect—in deed, as far as industry and efficiency were concerned, he was above reproach—but in his heart Mitrofanii was not truly fond of him. Evidently this was the very reason why the bishop was especially charitable to Father Serafim, employing an affectionate attitude to subdue the sin of groundless irritation. Nonetheless sometimes he would burst out, and once he had even flung his episcopal hat at Userdov, but afterward he would always apologize. The mild-mannered secretary would take fright, and for a long time be unable to find the courage to pronounce the words of forgiveness, but eventually he would babble: “I forgive you—forgive me, too,” following which peace would be restored.

  With her restless mind, Pelagia once expressed to Mitrofanii a seditious idea concerning Father Serafim: that the world has real live people in it, but there are also other creatures who only try to be like people, as if they have been planted among us from a different world, perhaps from a different planet, in order to observe us. Some of them are better at their pretense, so that you can hardly tell them apart from genuine people: others are not so skillful, and you can spot them right away. Userdov, now, was one of the less successful examples. If you took a look under his skin you were bound to find nuts, bolts, and gearwheels.

  The bishop had roundly abused the nun for this theory. However, Pelagia was not infrequently visited by foolish thoughts, and His Reverence was accustomed to this; he rebuked her largely as a matter of form.

  As for Father Serafim, the bishop knew that the secretary dreamed of a high clerical position. And why not? He was learned, of good conduct, and quite charmingly handsome. The secretary kept his hair and beard clean and well groomed, anointing them with sweet fragrances. He polished his nails with a brush. He wore only cassocks of fine woolen cloth.

  There didn’t really seem to be anything reprehensible in all this—Mitrofanii himself appealed to the clergy to keep themselves neat and presentable—but even so he found his assistant irritating. Especially on this journey, when the heavenly spheres had rained down bolts of fiery lightning on His Reverence. He was unable to talk heart-to-heart with his spiritual daughter or to express his most intimate thoughts while this six-winged angel sat there, tending his thin little mustache with a small comb. He would say nothing for ages, and then he would put in something entirely out of place and ruin the entire conversation—like now, for instance.

  In response to the appeal to apologize to the Chief Procurator, Pelagia said hastily: “I would, gladly. I would even swear on a holy icon: Never again, not for anything, will I ever stick my nose into a criminal investigation. Not even if it is absolutely the most mysterious mystery possible. I won’t even give it a sideways glance.”

  But Mitrofanii merely cast a sideways glance at his secretary, without saying a word.

  “Come, Pelagiushka, let us take a stroll around the ship. To stretch our legs … No, no, Serafim, you stay here. Get those documents on the consistory ready for me. I’ll read through them when I get back.”

  And the two of them left the cabin with a sigh of relief, leaving Userdov alone with his briefcase.

  Of every kind a pair

  THEY DIDN’T WALK on the lower deck, because the fog made it quite impossible to distinguish the River or the sky (or even the deck). They went up higher, where the passengers of the very cheapest category were sitting around in small groups.

  Glancing around through the semitransparent gloom at all this human variety, Mitrofanii said in a low voice: “Of the pure cattle, and of the impure cattle, and of all the reptiles that crawl upon the earth, of every kind a pair …”

  He blessed the peasant pilgrims and let them kiss his hand, merely casting a sad glance over the others, who were leaving Russia forever and had no need of an Orthodox pastors blessing.

  Speaking to his companion in a quiet voice, he said: “Behold, such a highly intelligent man, who truly wishes his fatherland well, and yet he is in such a state of spiritual error. Just look how much harm he causes.”

  He did not mention anyone by name, but it was quite clear whom he had in mind—Konstantin Petrovich.

  “Feast your eyes on the fruits of his struggle for good,” His Reverence continued bitterly as he walked past the members of dissenting sects and
different faiths. “If anyone is not like the majority, if they are strange—out of the state with them! No need to drive them out by force, they will leave of their own accord, fleeing oppression and the hostile attitude of the state. He imagines that as a result Russia will be more firmly united, stronger. That may be so, but her colors will be the poorer for it, she will be impoverished. Our Procurator is convinced that he alone knows how the fatherland should be organized in order to save it. In the times we live in, prophets have become a fashion. We are surrounded by them. Some are laughable, like our neighbor here, Manuila. Others are more serious, like Count Tolstoy or Karl Marx. And even Konstantin Petrovich imagines that he is a messiah. Not on a global scale, though—a strictly local messiah, such as they had in Old Testament times, when a prophet was sent not to the whole of mankind, but only to a single people …”

  The bishop’s dour complaints were interrupted by a respectable family who had also come up to the boat deck for a stroll: a thickset gentleman, a lady with her knitting, and two youngsters—a cute schoolboy and a pretty young lady with light hair.

  The boy pulled off his cap and bowed, asking for a blessing.

  “What is your name, young man?” Mitrofanii asked the charming lad, making the sign of the cross over the entire family.

  “Antinous, Your Reverence.”

  “That is a pagan name, for domestic use only. What is your baptismal name?”

  “Antip, Your Reverence.”

  “A fine name, a name of the people,” the bishop said approvingly.

  The boy gently pressed his lips against the bishops hand, and Mitrofanii, touched, patted Antip-Antinous on the back of the head.

  The bishop walked on unhurriedly, but Pelagia hung back—the pious schoolboy’s mother was knitting her stitches in such a very skillful manner. The nun, an enthusiastic knitter herself, always carried a little bag with her handiwork hanging around her neck, but her fingers were so stupid that she was always getting her rows confused and making a mess of her knots. “Tell me, madam, how do you manage to cast on so cleanly?” she was about to ask, but instead she suddenly blinked and pressed her spectacles back against the bridge of her nose.