Vladimir Galaktionovich Korolenko

“ Absolute silence reigned in the temple, and the gleaming idol looked down on the two sages with its enigmatic and strange smile.
Fruit ripened and fell from the trees, the brook bubbled on, white clouds sailed across the blue sky and looked down into the interior of the temple and the sages sat on without manifesting any signs of life—one in the blessedness of denial, the other in the blessedness of submission to Necessity. ”

“ He looked at us joyfully, and then became embarrassed, stopped talking, and straightened his cassock, but Avtonomov waved his hand and added like a teacher:
“Behold the birds of heaven. We, signor, are the same kind of birds. We sow not, neither do we reap, nor gather into barns....”
“You studied in the seminary?” I asked.
“Yes. I could tell a lot about that; only there’s little worth hearing. But, as you see, the horizon is being covered with clouds. Up, Ivan Ivanovich; rise, comrade, rise. The portion of the wanderer is journeying, not resting. Let us wish you every sort of blessing.” ”

“ Finally he said to himself:
“I’m a foolish man far removed from truth, and that’s why I have such foolish cares. Isn’t it because this good deity is so slow with her revelations? Here before me on the tree is ripe fruit and my stomach is empty.... But doesn’t the law of necessity say: ‘where there is an hungry stomach and fruit, the latter must of necessity enter the former’?... So, kind necessity, I submit to your power.... Isn’t that the greatest blessedness?”
Thereupon he buried himself in complete contemplation like Darnu, and he waited for necessity to manifest herself. ”

“ You have never done a single thing in your whole life: not a single thing of good or evil.... You have never given a coin to a beggar in a moment of pity nor dealt a single blow with hatred in your heart ... you have never cared for a single rose in your monastery gardens nor felled a single tree in the forest ... you have never fed a single animal nor killed a single gnat which was sucking your blood.... ”

“ When you entered a square to teach fools what to do or what to avoid,—I was laughing and saying to myself: [171] just see wise Darnu reveal his wisdom to those naïve fools and share his sanctity with sinners. Not because Darnu is wise and holy, but because I, ‘Necessity,’ am like a stream and Darnu is like a leaf carried away by the current. Poor Darnu, you thought that you had been led hither by your search for truth.... But on these walls among my calculations was marked the day and the hour when you had to cross this threshold. Because I am Necessity.... Poor sage! ”

“ On the square merchants and market women called out their wares from under their linen curtains; from the “institution” came the sounds of harmonicas and cymbals; in the huts of the village one set of pilgrims kept replacing another at the tables on which steamed enormous samovars.
Towards evening a hard rain suddenly came up and drove the crowds and the merchants from the bazaar. The square and the streets became quiet and no sound was to be heard save the splashing of the huge drops in the puddles and the flapping and blowing of the wet curtains, as they were tossed by the storm wind. ”

“ So passed a time, more slowly than with Darnu, for the kindly Purana often interrupted his contemplation to enjoy the water and the juicy fruit. Finally out of the navel of the second wise man sprang a bamboo trunk and this attained a height of fifty joints, the number of the years of his life. On the top again sat “Necessity,” but in his semi-conscious state she seemed to him to smile pleasantly and he replied in the same way.
“Who are you, kind deity?” he asked.
“I am Necessity, who has governed the fifty years of your life. ”

“ And I remember how the monastery bell sounded for early matins,—it was Sunday. Gavrilo stopped in a broad bay of the alley, took off his cap, held the broom in his left hand, and crossed himself with [106] his right. The whole seemed to me so extraordinarily bright and beautiful. The man stood in the centre of a world of light, where everything was very good, that is, all his relations to earth and heaven.... In a word, it was so soothing a sight that I went to my room and fell fast asleep after so many sleepless nights. There’s something healing and calming in honest human happiness. ”

“ Again as in times of yore, a foolish shepherd from a neighboring hillside drove hither his flock and from another direction a young and foolish shepherdess drove hither her flock. They met by the brook and the recess out of which the deity looked at them with its strange smile, and while the thunder roared, they embraced and cooed, just as 999,999 pairs had done in the same situation. ”

“ But I see that I am unpleasant and disagreeable to your sight.”
“You are incomprehensible,” answered Darnu.
“Listen, Darnu. Do you see the fifty joints of the reed?”
[170]
“The fifty joints of the reed are my years,” said the sage.
“And I sit above them, for I am ‘Necessity,’ the mistress of every movement. Every act, every breath, everything existing, everything living is impotent, powerless, helpless; under the control of necessity it attains the aim of its existence, which is death. I am that which has guided the fifty joints of your life from the cradle to the present moment. ”

“ I got intimate with several boys from my classes, among them Rogov.... Gave them books, and they visited me. You understand, over a samovar, simply, heart to heart. I remember this as the finest time of my life.... Every time you open a new journal, you find conversation, discussion, argument. I listened, without interfering at first, to the way they wandered and argued, and then I explained,—carefully but pleasantly. You see, you get one thought and then another, and again it comes so sharp that it scratches you.... And you feel how you need to restrain yourself and think and study. ”

“ An involuntary, timid joy sprang up in my soul when an unseen brook began to babble ahead of us, when this murmur increased and then died away behind us, or when a sudden breath of wind stirred the scarcely visible clumps of willows beside the road and then died away, a sign that we had passed them....
“It’s night now all right,” said Andrey Ivanovich quietly, and this was very unusual for him. “A man’s a fool to walk the roads a night like this. ”

“ Out of his abdomen grew a green trunk of bamboo tipped with a knot like an ordinary stem. From the knot grew another section and thus, rising ever higher, the trunk grew to consist of fifty joints, a number corresponding to the years of the sage. At the top, instead of leaves and blossoms, grew a something resembling the idol in the temple. This something looked down on Darnu with an evil smile.
“Poor Darnu,” it said finally. “Why did you come here and take so much trouble? What do you want, poor Darnu?”
“I seek the truth,” answered the sage. ”

“ Ivan Ivanovich shook his head sadly as he tied up his wallet with trembling hands. “A most learned man! But he falls to nothing just as I. On the same plane ... we wander together. God forgive us, the last....”
“Why?”
“Why? How? The modern wanderer has a good wallet, a cassock or kaftan, boots, for example,—in a word, equipment for every circumstance, so to speak. And we! You see yourself. I’m coming, I’m coming, Gennady Sergeich, I’m coming. ”

“ Far in the distance were the winding rivers, the white houses of the villages and cities where people lived their normal lives, busied with cares, passions, love, anger and hate, where joy was changed for sorrow, and sorrow was healed by new joy, and where amid the roaring torrent of life men raised their eyes to heaven, seeking a star to guide them.... ”

“ The merchant saw a dread and leafless forest standing on the mountain side, and, like ripe fruit, the bodies of good young men hanging on the trees, with crows flapping their wings and picking out the eyes of the dead. ”

“ Therefore, the welts on the back of Jebaka had to be in the great chain of events, and every one of them has been written since eternity in the book of necessity. And you wish me, the same kind of a stone, the same kind of a lizard, the same kind of a leaf on the great tree of life, the same kind of an insignificant stream as this brook which is driven by an unknown power from source to mouth.... ”

“ Drenched with blood, the naïve and rebellious dream of the people for a free life died away until new outbreaks commenced, a dream closely connected with the old cross and the beard, with Cossack bands, and with confused memories of the freedom of the steppes. ”

“ But when he realized that it was not the goddess but his companion Darnu who was stirring around him, he felt himself rather insulted and said:
“Eight mountain ranges and seven seas, the sun and the holy gods, you, I, the universe,—all are moved by Necessity.... Why did you awaken me, Darnu? I was on the threshold of blessed peace.”
“You were like a corpse, friend Purana.”
“He who like a blind man sees nought, like a deaf man hears nought, like a tree is insensible and immovable, has attained rest.... ”

“ The sage scooped up some water out of the cold brook and gathered some fruit which an old fig-tree had shed and then he began his preparations according to all the rules in the books on contemplation. First of all he sat down facing the idol, drew up his legs, and looked at the image [168] a long time, for he wanted to impress it upon his mind. Then he bared his abdomen and gazed upon that spot where he was bound to his mother before his earthly birth. For it is well known that all knowledge lies between being and not being and hence must come the revelations of contemplation.... ”

“ The young fellow looked round upon his auditors with a joyously radiant face and was about to give the answer to the riddle when he heard at one of the tables the impatient tapping of a spoon on a glass.
The fellow jumped up as if he had been shot. In an instant he was at the other end of the deck, grabbed the tea-pots, ran to the machinery and back, set the table, shook himself, ran below again, put up the orders and passed them around the tables, and all the while the conversation continued before an enchanted audience.
“He’s beside himself!” said the farmer. ”

“ The little wanderer coughed, and, squinting at Andrey Ivanovich, he said:
“What can we do, sir?”
He bent toward me and whispered:
“The old dissenters think Gennady Sergeich is a runaway priest. It’s dark. What can we do? We may not get anything. And, besides, there’s nothing else to do. Won’t you come in?”
“Let’s go in, Andrey Ivanovich.”
“What I haven’t seen there?” he answered, turning away. “Go,—kiss them. I think enough of myself not to do this, for I wear a cross.”
“So do we,” Ivan Ivanovich spoke with a mild tone of reproach. ”

“ After a short conversation Avtonomov permitted the poor fellow to follow him at some distance.
Ivan Ivanovich soon returned alone. His bird-like face beamed with surprise and delight.
“They received him,” he said, clearing his throat [64] joyfully. “That’s the solemn truth. He really has a sister. And a brother-in-law.... Please go past, accidentally.... You’ll see it, too.... As God is true, they’re sitting in a garden entertaining him ... like a brother. His sister’s weeping from joy....”
From the breast of the little wanderer came strange sounds like hysterical laughing and weeping. ”

“ But, if she was, a woman’s stupidity is often very peculiar.... A naïve and sleeping innocence of soul. She felt her situation very keenly. As is said in Uspensky, she was all shame.... M. Budnikov tried to teach her and lift her [95] up, so to speak, to his level. She seemed incapable of it. She sat usually with a book, spelled it out with her fingers, and her face was interested like a child’s. She seemed to become dull and stupid when Budnikov was around. He got sick of her actions and then of Yelena, especially as other things took up his attention. ”

“ It was almost perfectly quiet but a breeze stirred the tops of the trees, and a leaf fell at the feet of Purana. While the sad gaze of Kassapa was directed upon this, a stone broke off from the heated cliff and rolled down to the bank of a brook, where a large lizard was resting at this moment.... Every day at the same hour it crawled to this spot. ”

“ M. Budnikov felt attracted to religion.
“I remember one fall evening.... It was one of those evenings when nature touches your soul especially. The stars seem to be waving and whispering in the heavens, and the earth is covered with light and shade.... Our little city, as you know, is quiet and filled with foliage. You go out in the evening and sit down on your steps. And so with the other houses along the street; here’s one person on a bench by the gate, another on the dirt bank, another on the grass.... ”

“ And mother again! stay there in the monastery.... That’s an easy life. And the superior loves you.... That’s the truth: the father superior did love me and took me as a novice under his own charge. But if a man is doomed, fortune will become misfortune. I’ll tell you the truth: I fell because of an angel ... not because of the devil....”
“What are you telling us?” said Andrey Ivanovich in surprise. ”

“ Flies hung in clouds over the horses, the bells rang unevenly, and the wheels dragged in the deep sand.... Half way up the hill a monastery nestled among the trees and as it looked down on the river out of the rising mist, it seemed to be suspended in midair.
Suddenly the coachman stopped his weary team at the very foot of the hill and ran along the bank. A quarter of a verst away on the rocky and pebbly edge of the river was a black group of people directly between us and the sun. ”

“ The sages stood and looked at the picture of life spread out at the entrance to the old temple.
“Where shall we go, friend Darnu?” asked the blinded Purana. “Are there no directions on the walls of the temple?”
“Leave the temple and its deity in peace,” answered Darnu. “If we go to the right, that will [186] be in accordance with Necessity. If we go to the left, that too is in accordance with her. Don’t you understand, friend Purana, that this deity acknowledges as its laws everything that our choice decides upon. Necessity is not the master but merely the soulless accountant of our movements. ”