The Bear and the Nightingale(35)



As he chanted, Konstantin pulled the crowd to him until they echoed his words in a daze of fascinated terror. He drove them on and on with the supple lash of his voice until their answering voices broke and they listened like children frightened during a thunderstorm. Just as they were on the verge of panic—or rapture—his voice gentled.

“Have mercy on us and save us, for He is good and the Lover of mankind.”

A heavy silence fell. In the stillness, Konstantin raised his right hand and blessed the crowd.

They trickled out of the church like sleepwalkers, clutching one another. Anna had a look of exalted terror that Vasya couldn’t understand. The others looked dazed, even exhausted, the trailing ends of fearful rapture in their eyes.

“Lyoshka!” Vasya called, darting over to her brother. But when he turned to her, he was pale like the others, and his gaze seemed to meet hers from a long way away. She slapped him, frightened to see his eyes blank. Abruptly Alyosha came back to himself and gave her a shove that should have put her in the dust, but she was quick as a squirrel and wearing a new gown. So she writhed backward and kept her feet, and then the two were glaring at each other, chests heaving and fists clenched.

They both recovered their senses at the same time. They laughed, and Alyosha said, “Is it true then, Vasya? Demons among us and torments in store if we do not cast them out? But the chyerti—is he talking about the chyerti? The women have always left bread for the domovoi. What care has God for that?”

“Stories or no, why should we cast out the household-spirits on the word of some old priest from Moscow?” snapped Vasya. “We have always left them bread and salt and water, and God was not angry.”

“We have not starved,” said Alyosha hesitantly. “And there have been no fires or sickness. But perhaps God is waiting for us to die so that our punishment might never end.”

“For heaven’s sake, Lyoshka,” Vasya began, but she was interrupted by Dunya calling. Anna had decreed a meal of special magnificence, and Vasya must roll dumplings and stir the soup.

They dined outside, on eggs and kasha and summer greens, bread and cheese and honey. The usual cheerful muddle was subdued. The young peasant women stood in knots and whispered.

Konstantin, chewing meditatively, wore a glow of satisfaction. Pyotr, frowning, swung his head here and there like the bull that scents danger but has not yet seen the wolves in the grass. Father understands wild beasts and raiders, thought Vasya. But sin and damnation cannot be fought.

The others gazed at the priest with terror and a hungry admiration. Anna Ivanovna glowed with a kind of hesitant joy. Their fervor seemed to lift Konstantin and carry him, like a galloping horse. Vasya did not know it, but in the silence of the nave after all the people had gone, the priest had thrown that feeling into his exorcism, thrown it all, until even a man without the sight would swear he could hear devils crying out and running for their lives, out of Pyotr’s walls and far away.



THAT SUMMER, KONSTANTIN WENT among the people and listened to their woes. He blessed the dying and he blessed the newborn. He listened when spoken to, and when his deep voice rang out, the people fell silent to hear him. “Repent,” he told them, “lest you burn. The fire is very near. It is waiting for you and for your children, each time you lie down to sleep. Give your fruits to God and God alone. It is your only salvation.”

The people murmured together, and their murmurs grew more and more fearful.

Konstantin ate at Pyotr’s table every night. His voice set their honey-wine rippling and rattled their wooden spoons. Irina took to putting her spoon against her cup, giggling to hear them click together. Vasya abetted her in this; the child’s gaiety was a relief. Talk of damnation did not frighten Irina; she was too young.

But Vasya was frightened.

Not of the priest, and not of devils, nor of pits of fire. She had seen their devils. She saw them every day. Some were wicked, and some were kind, and some were mischievous. All were as human in their way as the folk they guarded.

No, Vasya was frightened of her own people. They did not joke on the way to church anymore; they listened to Father Konstantin in heavy, hungry silence. And even when they were not in church, the people made excuses to visit his room.

Konstantin had begged beeswax from Pyotr, which he would melt and mix with his pigments. When the daylight shone into his cell, he would take up brushes and open phials of crushed powders. And then he would paint. Saint Peter took form under his brush. The saint’s beard was curly, his robe yellow and umber, his strange, long-fingered hand raised in benediction.

Lesnaya Zemlya could talk of nothing else.

One Sunday, desperate, Vasya smuggled a handful of crickets into the church and dropped them among the worshippers. Their chirping made an amusing counterpoint to Father Konstantin’s deep voice. But no one laughed; they cringed and whispered of evil omens. Anna Ivanovna had not seen, but she did suspect who was behind it. After the service, she called Vasya to her.

Vasya came unwillingly to her stepmother’s chamber. A length of willow lay ready in Anna’s hand. The priest sat by the open window, grinding a scrap of blue stone to powder. He did not seem to listen while Anna questioned her stepdaughter, but Vasya knew the questions were for the priest’s benefit, to show her stepmother righteous and mistress in her own house.

The questioning went on and on.

“I would do it again,” snapped Vasya at last, exasperated beyond caution. “Did not God make all creatures? Why should we alone be allowed to raise our voices in praise? Crickets worship with songs as much as we.”

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