Sister Pelagia and the Black Monk (2 page)

A few years ago a special government commission, led by the minister of trade and industry himself, the highly intelligent Count Litte, came to investigate the New Ararat “economic miracle” and see whether the model of such successful development could be adopted for the good of the whole empire.

It transpired that it could not. On returning to the capital, the count reported to the sovereign that Father Vitalii was an adept of a dubious economic theory that assumed that a country's true wealth does not lie in its natural resources, but in the industry of its population. It was easy for the archimandrite—he had a population of a special kind: monks who performed all the labor as works of penance, and without any salary. When a worker like that stood by his butter-making machine, say, or his metalworking lathe, he wasn't thinking about his family or his bottle of vodka—he was getting on with saving his soul. That was why the product was so high-quality and cheaper than competitors could even dream of.

This economic model was definitely of no use to the Russian state, but within the limits of the archipelago entrusted to Father Vitalii's care it brought forth truly remarkable fruits. Indeed, in some respects the monastery, with all its settlements, farmsteads, and utilities, resembled a small state—not a fully sovereign one, but one that was at least completely self-governing and was accountable only to the provincial bishop, His Grace Mitrofanii.

Under Father Vitalii the number of monks and lay brothers on the islands grew to fifteen hundred, and the population of the central estate—which, in addition to the holy brothers, was also home to a large number of hired workers and their entire households—was large enough to rival a district town, especially if you counted the pilgrims who, despite the father superior's concerns, continued to stream in in ever increasing numbers. With the economy of the monastery already firmly established, the reverend father would have been quite happy to manage without the pilgrims, who only distracted him from his urgent work in administering the New Ararat community (for among their numbers there were important and influential people who required special attention), but there was nothing he could do on that score. People came on foot and by other means from far away, and then they sailed across the immense Blue Lake on the monastery's steamboat, not to take a look at the zealous pastor's industrial achievements, but to bend a knee at the holy places of New Ararat, including the foremost among them, Basilisk's Hermitage.

This latter site was actually completely inaccessible to visitors, since it was located on a small forested rock that bore the name of Outskirts Island, located directly opposite Canaan—not, however, facing the inhabited side, but rather the deserted one. The pilgrims who came to New Ararat were in the habit of going down on their knees at the water's edge and gazing reverently at the little island that was the dwelling place of holy ascetics who prayed for the whole of mankind.

However, let us now speak at greater length, as promised, about Basilisk's Hermitage and its legendary founder.

A LONG, LONG time ago, about six hundred or perhaps even eight hundred years ago (the chronology of the
Life of Saint Basilisk
is somewhat confused), a hermit was wandering through a remote forest. All we know about him for certain is that he was called Basilisk, was no longer young in years, and had lived a hard life that had been exceptional for its lack of righteousness at the beginning; but in his declining years he had seen the light of true repentance and been illuminated by the thirst for Salvation. In expiation of his earlier years lived in transgression of the moral law, the monk had taken a vow to walk around the whole world until he found the place where he could serve the Lord best. Sometimes in some devout monastery or, on the contrary, in the midst of godless pagans, it had seemed to him that this was it, the place where Basilisk, the humble servant of God, should stay; but soon the elderly monk would be overtaken by doubt—what if someone else who stayed there might serve the Almighty equally well?—and, driven by this thought, which was undoubtedly sent down to him from on high, the monk had continued on his way, never finding what he sought.

But then one day, when he parted the thick branches of a fir grove, he saw blue water before him, extending away from the very edge of the forest toward the gray, lowering sky and merging into it. Basilisk had never seen so much water before, and in his simplemindedness taking this phenomenon for a great miracle from the Lord, he bent his knee and prayed until darkness fell, and then for a long time in the dark.

And the monk had a vision. A finger of fire clove the sky into two halves, so that one became bright and the other became black, and then plunged into the waters, setting them heaving and frothing. And a voice of thunder spoke to Basilisk: “Seek no more. Go to the place that has been shown. It is a place that is close to Me. Serve Me not among men and their vanity, but in the midst of silence, and in a year I shall summon you to Myself.”

In his salutary simple-heartedness the monk did not even think to doubt the possibility of fulfilling this strange demand to walk into the middle of the sea, but set off straightaway, and though the water bowed and sagged beneath his weight, it held him up, which did not greatly surprise Basilisk, for he recalled Christ walking on the water in the Gospels. He walked on and on, reciting the Credo in Russian for a whole night and a whole day, and the next evening he began to feel afraid that he would not find the place the fiery finger had indicated to him in the middle of this watery wilderness. And then the monk was granted a second miracle in a row, something that does not happen often, even in the lives of the saints.

When darkness fell, he saw a small spark of light in the distance and turned toward it. A short while later he saw that it was a pine tree blazing on the top of a hill that rose straight up out of the water. Behind it there was more land, lower and broader (that was the present-day Canaan, the main island of the archipelago).

And Basilisk made his home in a cave under the scorched pine. He lived there for a while in total silence and incessant inward prayer, and a year later the Lord did as He had promised and summoned the repentant sinner to Himself and gave him a place beside His Throne. The hermitage and monastery that subsequently sprang up nearby were named New Ararat in commemoration of the mountain that had remained towering alone above the waters when “the depths stirred and the heavens opened” and had saved the lives of the righteous.

The
Life
omits any mention of how Basilisk's successors came to learn about the Miracle of the Finger if the hermit maintained such a rigorous silence, but let us be indulgent toward ancient tradition. We can also make a concession to the skepticism of a rationalistic age, and accept that the holy founder of the hermitage did not reach the islands by walking miraculously across the water, but on some kind of raft or, say, in a hollowed-out log—let it be so. But here is a fact that is indisputable, attested to by many generations, and can even, if you so wish, be confirmed by documentary evidence: none of the ascetics who have settled in the underground cells of Basilisk's Hermitage have ever waited long for God to summon them to Himself. After six months, a year, or at the most a year and a half, all of the select few thirsting for salvation have achieved their hearts desire and, leaving behind a small heap of dusty bones, have soared aloft from the kingdom of earth to that other, Heavenly Kingdom. And it is not at all a matter of a meager diet or the severity of the climate. There are, after all, many other hermitages where the hermits have performed even greater feats of asceticism and mortified the flesh more fervently, but God has been less quick to grant them His pardon and take them to Himself.

And so the rumor spread that of all places on earth, Basilisk's Hermitage is the very closest to God, located on the very outskirts of the Kingdom of Heaven—which is the reason for its other name, Outskirts Island. On visiting the archipelago for the first time, some people used to think the island was given that name because of its closeness to Canaan, where all the churches stand and the archimandrite lives. But this little island was not close to the archimandrite—it was close to God.

The hermitage has always been inhabited by three especially distinguished monks, and there has never been any greater honor for the monks of New Ararat than to complete their earthly journey in the caves there, on the bones of the righteous men who have preceded them.

Of course, not all of the brotherhood have always thirsted fervently after a rapid ascent to that Other Kingdom, because even among monks there are many to whom the earthly life appears more attractive than the next one. Nonetheless, there has never been any shortage of volunteers; on the contrary, there has always been a long queue of avid applicants, and just as there must be in any queue, there have been quarrels, disputes, and serious intrigues, so impatient have certain monks been to cross as soon as possible the narrow channel that separates Canaan from Outskirts Island.

One of the three ascetics was regarded as senior and given the rank of abbot. He was the only one whom the hermitage rules permitted to open his mouth and speak—but not to say more than six words, which had to come directly from Holy Writ, and another one or two which could be chosen freely; these latter words usually conveyed the basic sense of what was said. They say that in olden times the abbot was not even permitted this much, but after the monastery on Canaan was revived, the hermits no longer wasted time on gathering meager food to eat—berries, roots, and worms (nothing else that was edible had ever been found on Outskirts Island as long as it had existed)—but received everything they needed from the monastery. So now the holy hermits whiled away the time carving cedarwood rosaries, for which the pilgrims paid the monastery good money—sometimes as much as thirty rubles for a single string.

A boat landed on Outskirts Island once a day to collect the rosaries and deliver necessities. The head of the hermitage came out to meet the boat and recited a brief quotation that contained a request, usually of a practical nature: to deliver certain food supplies or medicines or shoes or a warm blanket. Let us assume that the abbot said, “Unto him he gave
a blanket”
or “Let there be brought
pear-water.”
The beginnings of these utterances were taken from the book of Genesis, where Isaac addresses his son Esau, and the final words were added to express what was urgently needed. The boatman remembered what had been said and conveyed it word for word to the father steward and the father cellarer, and they tried to penetrate its meaning—sometimes unsuccessfully. Take, for instance, the aforementioned “pear-water.” They say that one day the hermitage's abbot indicated one of the other monks with his staff and declared darkly, “All his innards poured forth.” The senior monks leafed through the Holy Writ for a long time and eventually found these strange words in the Acts of the Apostles, in the passage describing the suicide of the contemptible Judas, and were greatly alarmed, thinking that the ascetic must have committed the very worst of mortal sins and laid hands on himself. For three days they tolled the bells, observed the strictest possible fast, and offered up prayers to be purged of the pollution of sin, but then it turned out that the venerable monk had simply suffered a bout of diarrhea and the abbot had been asking for him to be sent some pear liquor.

When the senior hermit told the boatman, “Today dost Thou release Thy servant,” it meant that one of the hermits had been admitted into the presence of the Lord, and then someone would be chosen from the queue to fill the vacancy. Sometimes the fateful words were not spoken by the abbot, but by one of the other two unspeaking brothers. In that way the monastery learned that the former elder had been summoned to his Bright Dwelling in Heaven and henceforth the hermitage had a new steward.

On one occasion, about a hundred years ago, a bear that had swum from the farthest islands fell on one of the ascetics and began tearing the unfortunate soul's flesh. He began crying out, “Brothers! Brothers!” The other two came running up and drove the beast away with their staffs, but after that they refused to live with the man who had broken the vow of silence and sent him away to the monastery, as a result of which the exile fell into a mournful state and soon died, without ever opening his mouth again, but whether he was admitted into the Radiant Sight of the Lord or is now dwelling among the sinful souls, no one can say.

What else can be said about the hermits? They wore black vestments that took the form of a coarsely woven sack, belted around with string. The cowl that the ascetics wore was narrow and pulled down over the entire face, with the edges sewn together in a sign of their total isolation from worldly vanity. Two holes were made in this pointed hood for the eyes. If the pilgrims praying on the shore of Canaan happened to see one of the holy ascetics on the little island (which happened extremely rarely and was regarded as an exceptional piece of luck), the sight that met their observant eyes was of a black sack meandering slowly between the mossy boulders as if it were not a man at all, but some kind of disembodied shadow.

And now that we have told you everything about New Ararat and the hermitage and Saint Basilisk, it is time to return to the courthouse archive room, where His Grace Mitrofanii has already begun interrogating the New Ararat monk Antipa.