The Sealed Angel

CHAPTER I

It was Christmas time. The weather had become very severe, a cruel snowstorm was raging, one of those which make winter in the Steppes famous; a number of people had been driven by it to take refuge in the lonely post-house standing by itself in the midst of the level, limitless plain. Here were gathered together a crowd of gentlefolk, merchants, and peasants. It was quite impossible to pay attention to differences of rank and office in such a night shelter: wherever you turned you jostled against people; some were drying themselves, others warming themselves, others again were seeking even the smallest corner where they could take refuge. In the dark, low cottage overflowing with travellers the air was foul and a thick steam rose from the wet clothes; there seemed to be hardly a vacant place, either on the floor or on the stove or on the benches, and even on the muddy earthen floor people were lying everywhere. The landlord, a rough peasant, was not pleased either with his guests or his gains. He angrily slammed the door after the last arrivals, two merchants in a sledge; he then locked the door and, hanging up the key in the corner of the hut where the icons hung said decidedly:

“Now whoever you are who wish to come in you may beat your head against the door but I shall not open.” He had hardly finished saying this and having taken off his ample sheepskin pelisse and crossed himself with the ancient great cross, he was prepared to slip on to the hot stove, when a timid hand knocked on the window. “Who is there?” cried the landlord in a loud, impatient voice.

“We,” was answered in a muffled tone through the window.

“Well, and what do you want?”

“For Christ's sake let us in; we have lost our way and are frozen.”

“And how many are you?”

“Not many, not many; we are eighteen in all,” said the speaker at the window, stammering and with his teeth chattering; evidently a man thoroughly frozen.

“I have nowhere to put you, the whole house is crammed with people.”

“Let us in at least to warm ourselves.”

“And. who are you?”

“We are carters.”

“Are your carts empty or full?”

“We are laden with skins of beasts.”

“Skins; you are carrying skins, and you ask to pass the night here? Well, to be sure, nice people appear in Russia now! Be off with you.”

“But what are they to do?” said a traveller lying in a coat lined with bearskin.

“Let them unload their skins and sleep under them, that's what they can do,” answered the landlord; and having soundly rated the carters, he lay down on the stove and never stirred.

The traveller who was under the bearskin made an energetic protest against the cruelty of the landlord, but the latter paid no attention to his remarks. But he was answered from a far-off corner by a small red-haired man with a pointed wedge-shaped beard.

“Oh, don't condemn the landlord, sir,” said he, “his suggestion is right—they are in no danger with their furs.”

“Oh, indeed,” answered in a questioning voice the traveller in the bearskin.

“They are certainly in no danger of freezing, and it is much better that he should not let them come in.”

“And why?”

“Because they have now received his useful suggestion, and besides, if another helpless traveller comes here there will be room for him.”

Then the bearskin speaker said, “But whom is the devil likely to send here?”

The landlord now broke in. “Listen, and don't you chatter idle words. Is it likely that the Enemy would send anyone here where there are such holy pictures? Do you not see that we have here an icon of the Saviour and one of the Mother of God?”

The red-haired man added his testimony. “That's true. No saved soul would be brought here by the devil, but his guardian angel would lead him.”

“Well, I never understood that, and as I am very uncomfortable here I can't believe that my guardian angel brought me,” answered the garrulous bearskin.

Here the landlord spat angrily, and the red-haired man muttered amiably that everyone cannot see the angel's path, and only a real Christian can have an idea of it.

“You speak of this as if you were yourself such a real Christian,” said the bearskin.

“Yes, and so I am.”

“What do you mean? Have you really seen an angel, and did he guide you?”

“Yes, I saw him and he always guided me.”

“Are you joking?

“God forbid that I should joke about this matter.”

“And did you really see him, and how did the angel appear to you?”

“This, dear sir, is a very long story.”

“But it is quite impossible to go to sleep here, and it would be very kind of you if you would tell us that story now.”

“Do you really wish it?”

“Pray tell it to us, we are listening to you. But as you are there on your knees you had better come here to us. Perhaps we can manage to squeeze a little and sit together.”

“No, thank you, why should I crowd you? For this story which I am about to tell you should rather be told on my knees, because it is a sacred matter and a very strange one.”

“Well, as you like; but only begin to tell us quickly how you saw the angel and what he did to you.”

“I will begin as you wish.”

CHAPTER II

“I am, as you may easily see, quite a plain man, nothing more than a peasant, and I have been brought up and educated in a village. I don't belong here, but come from far away, and by trade I am a stone-mason, and brought up in the old Russian Orthodox Church. As I was an orphan I went from my youth up with other masons from the village to distant work in various places, but always in the same guild under a peasant from our own place, Luke, son of Cyril. This Luke is alive to this day, and is our best contractor. His business was an old-established one carried on from the time of his ancestors, and he did not lessen it but rather increased it and lived in comfort and abundance, and was an excellent man and not quarrelsome. And therefore we were ready to follow him everywhere. Whither did we not go? It seemed to me that we went all over Russia, and I never knew a better or more serious master. We lived with him, as it were with a kind patriarch, and he was our instructor not only in our trade but in our religion. We followed him in our labours, as the Jews followed Moses in their wanderings in the desert. We even had our tabernacle with us, and never parted from it: that is, we had the divine blessing with us. Luke loved his holy pictures dearly, and he possessed, dear sir, the most wonderful pictures, painted in the best taste of ancient times, either genuine Greek, or by the best artist of Novgorod. Each of those pictures seemed to surpass the rest, not only by its setting but by the subtlety and delicacy of the artist's talent. Such excellence I never saw anywhere, and there were ever so many different subjects in whose name the icons were painted, such as reverent fathers, martyrs, and apostles. There were three angels with Abraham bowing down to them by the oak of Mamre; in a word, all this beauty cannot be expressed, and no one paints such pictures now anywhere either in Moscow or Petersburg or Palekov; I say nothing of Greece, for this art has long ago been lost there. We all loved these holy pictures with a passionate love and burnt holy oil before them, and at the expense of the guild we kept a horse and a special cart on which we carried everywhere two great cases of them wherever we went. We generally had with us two icons, one from the Moscow copies of old Greek artists: the holy Virgin praying in the garden and before her all the old cypresses and olive trees are bowing down to the earth. But the other was the Guardian Angel which came from Stroganov. It is impossible to describe what artistic beauty there was in these two pictures. You look at the Virgin and see the simple soulless trees bowing down before her, and your heart is touched and trembles; you look at the Angel . . . Joy! This Angel was in truth too wonderful to describe; his countenane, as I always see it, seemed shining with divinity and readiness to help. His glance was compassionate, his dear little ears were pointed as if ever ready to hearken, his vesture shone and his tunic seemed powdered with gold; wings sprang from his shoulders, he wore a girdle; on his breast was the face of the babe Emmanuel: a cross in his right hand and in his left a fiery sword. Wonderful, wonderful! The locks on his dear little head were curly, and auburn, winding beneath his ears, and every hair was painted as if with a needle, and every curl nestled against the next curl. His wings were broad and white as snow, and each feather lay side by side, but the background of the picture was azure blue. You look at these wings and awe overpowers you; you pray ‘Overshadow me,’ and at once you grow calm, peace dwells in your soul. What a wonderful icon this was. These two pictures were to us what the Holy of Holies was to the Jews.

“All those icons of which I told you before we carried in a special case on a horse, but these two we did not even put on a horse, but we carried them ourselves. The wife of Luke, Michaela, used to carry the icon of the Virgin, but the picture of the Angel, Luke bore himself on his breast. He made for this icon a bag of gold brocade fastened with a button, and on the front was a red cross made of some rich scarlet stuff, and a thick green cord was sewn above, that he might hang it round his neck; and as Luke always carried this icon on his breast, and wherever we went it went before us, so this Angel guided us. We went from place to place to some new works on the steppes, Luke going before us, and, instead of a stick, waving a measuring rod; after him went the cart carrying the icon, the Mother of God, and after them we, the whole guild, marched. And here were grassy fields and flowery meadows, and there herds pastured, and pipers played on their pipes . . . all this was delightful to heart and mind. All went well with us, and it was astonishing how successful we were in all our undertakings; all our labours prospered, harmony reigned amongst us and good news reached us from home, and all this time the Angel that went before us blessed us, and it seemed that it would be harder to part with this wonderful icon than with life.

“Indeed you may well imagine that nothing would induce us to part with this sacred picture. In the meanwhile such a sorrow awaited us! and was prepared for us, as we afterwards understood, not by the subtlety of man, but by our Guardian Angel himself. He desired for himself this insult in order to make us understand that affliction is sacred, and to point out to us the true path, in comparison with which the road we had hitherto trodden was a dark and pathless forest.

“Pray tell me now whether you understand my story, and if I am not wearying you in claiming your attention?

“No, not at all, not at all,” we all cried out, “be so kind as to continue; we are much interested in this story.”

“As you wish, I will obey you and tell you as well as I can the wonderful deeds of the Angel that happened amongst us.”

CHAPTER III

“We went to a large city to carry out some great works there; we had to build a wide and important stone bridge over a great body of water, the river Dnieper. The city stood on the right bend of the shore, but we were on the left, on an outlying meadow, and a wonderful landscape spread before us. Ancient churches, holy monasteries with many dried bodies of saints, well-planted gardens and trees, the tall spires of poplars, such as you see depicted in old books. You gaze at all this and exclaim in your heart, ‘How beautiful’! You know we are but simple people, and yet we can feel the beauty of natural scenery which God has given to us, and we admired this place so much, that even on the first day we began to build a temporary dwelling. And, first of all, we drove in high piles, because the place was low and near the water; then we began to build a chamber for the holy pictures, and near to it a storehouse. In the chamber we placed all the holy pictures, as is right, according to the laws of our fathers; along the walls we ranged the icons in three rows the first for the large icons, and higher up the two shelves for the smaller ones, and thus they led like a ladder to the crucifix itself. But the Angel we placed on the reading-desk from which Luke read the Scriptures. But Luke and Michaela lived in the storehouse, and we ourselves lived in a small wooden hut close by. Thus we began to build, as men who have to stay in a place for a long time, and our little town sprang up on piles over against the handsome, solidly-built city. We began our work, and everything went on as well as possible. Our money was punctually paid by the Englishman at the office. God gave us such good health that no one was ill during the summer. But Luke's wife, Michaela, even began to complain, saying of herself, ‘I am not pleased, for I am getting too stout.’ But we, the Old Believers, were specially glad that we who had suffered persecution everywhere at this time for our ceremonies, were here free to worship; for here was neither a governor of the city, nor a provincial governor, nor a priest: we saw no one, and no one raised any obstacles to our religious rites. We were at liberty to pray, and when our hours of work were over, we gathered together in the chamber, and there so many lamps burnt before the holy pictures that our hearts grew warm. Luke started the hymn-singing himself, and we all joined in so heartily, that sometimes in still weather we could be heard in the far-off suburb. No one disturbed our worship, and many even came to it; it pleased not only the simple peasants who were accustomed to the Russian service, but even those of another faith. Many Church people who were of respectable character, but never went to the churches by the river, would come under our windows to listen, and even begin to pray. We never drove them away; in fact, it was impossible to drive them all away, for strangers who were interested in the old Russian service came to listen with approbation. The chief architect, an Englishman, Jacob Jacobovitch, even came with a notebook under our window and listened attentively that he might note down our tunes, and would sometimes return to his work humming to himself what he had caught up of the tune, ‘The Lord God hath appeared to us,’ but, of course, he sang it in a different way, because it was impossible in the new western notation to seize accurately the hymn set in the old measure. The English, let us do them this credit, are a most strict and devout people, and they loved us much and praised us, and considered us worthy folk. In a word, the Guardian Angel had guided us into a happy country, and opened to us the hearts of everyone, and the beautiful face of Nature.

“And in such a peaceful spirit as I have described to you we lived for about three years. We prospered in everything, and success poured down on us as it were from the horn of plenty, when suddenly we perceived that we had amongst us two vessels chosen by God for our punishment. One of these was the blacksmith Maroe, and the other the accountant Pemen Ivanoff. Maroe was quite a simple fellow and uneducated, which is rare amongst the Old Believers, but he was a singular man; awkward to look at, something like a camel, with a chest like a boar, one shoulder higher than the other. On his forehead was a mat of thick hair, and on the top of his head was a smooth place like a threshing-floor. His speech was thick and difficult to understand; he kept smacking his lips. His mind worked slowly, and his thoughts were so incoherent that he never could learn the prayers by heart, but now and then he would pick out a word and go hammering at it. But he was sharp-witted as to the future, and had the gift of prophecy, and could give hints which would come true. But Pemen, on the contrary, was a precise man, who liked to be important, and spoke with such acuteness and eloquence that his speeches astonished his hearers. His character also was lively and fascinating. Maroe was an old man of seventy, but Pemen was middle-aged and smart-looking. He had curly hair with a parting in the middle, bushy eyebrows and a ruddy face. In a word he was a dandy. These were the two vessels of wrath, and suddenly we had to drink a bitter draught.

CHAPTER IV

“The bridge which we were building on eight granite piers had already risen high out of the water, and in the summer of the fourth year we began to clamp the iron chains on the pillars. But here a small obstacle occurred; when we began to fasten the chains to the piers many of the bolts were found to be too long. Now these bolts were made in England of the best steel, and were as thick as the arm of a stout man. We could not heat these bolts, as it would spoil the steel, and no tool could saw them through.

“Maroe, the blacksmith, found out suddenly a means to cut off a piece of the bolt. He put a layer of cart grease mixed with sand round the place, then he plunged it into snow, heaped salt round it, and began to turn it round and round in the snow; then he snatched it out of the snow, put it on a hot anvil, and as he brought his hammer down with all its force, the end of the bolt flew off like a piece of wax candle cut off by scissors. All the English and Germans came to look at this ingenious device of Maroe. They looked and they looked, and suddenly they burst out laughing, and began to talk among themselves, and said in our tongue: ‘You Russian, you are a brick; you understand something about chemistry.’ I cannot say how much of a chemist he was, but he understood nothing of science, but only used the wits God had given him. But our Pemen Ivanoff began to boast about this, and the workmen were divided into two parties, and began to dispute. Some attributed the matter to science, of which our Maroe was ignorant; but others said that evidently God had blessed us by a miracle such as we had never seen before, and this last idea was the beginning of our trouble. I have already told you that Pemen Ivanoff was a weak and pleasure-loving man, and now I must explain why we kept him in our guild. He went into the town to get provisions for us, he bought whatever was necessary; we sent him to the post office to arrange about our passports and money, and he brought back our new passports. All this he did exceedingly well—indeed, I may say in truth that in this capacity he was quite necessary to us and most useful. The real serious-minded Old Believer always disliked such business very much, and always avoided having anything to do with Government clerks, but Pemen enjoyed the bustle of affairs, and had a large acquaintance in the city on the other side of the river. He met merchants and gentlemen whom he had to see about the affairs of the guild; they all respected him and recognised him as one of our chief men. We, of course, laughed at this fancy of his, and his delight in drinking with the gentlemen and talking big. They spoke of him as our chief; he only smiled, but he chuckled inwardly—in a word, he was a braggart, and this brought our Pemen to acquaintance with a man in a good position. His wife was a native of our district; she was literary, and had read about us in some new books in which, unknown to us, we had been described, and suddenly, I don't know why, she declared she liked the Old Believers very much. Here was an astonishing affair for which she was chosen as a means! Well, she liked us, and she went on liking us, and when our Pemen had to call on her husband she always asked him to stay and drink tea. This pleased him, and he would talk very freely with her.

“Then she chattered with her woman's tongue: ‘I know that you Old Believers are so holy and so moral, and such a blessing rests upon you.’ At this the eyes of our dandy twinkled; he put his head on one side and smoothed his beard, and began in a honeyed voice: ‘We are indeed, lady; we keep the laws of our fathers, we do such and such things, we keep the rules and observe the good customs one toward another.’ In a word, he told her all sorts of things which are not suitable in a conversation with a fashionable lady. But she was interested, and went on to say: ‘I have heard that God's Benediction has appeared to you in a visible form,’ and he directly assented and answered, ‘It is indeed so, lady; it appeared in a visible form.’ ‘Visible?’ ‘Visible, yes, lady, quite visible; for just in these last days one man broke through strong steel as if it were a cobweb.’ The lady threw up her little hands in surprise. ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘how interesting. Oh, I am so fond of marvels, and I believe in them! I wish,’ she said, ‘that you would kindly order your Old Believer to pray for me that God would give me a daughter. I have two sons, but I do so wish to have a daughter. Is it possible?’ ‘Why not? It is possible,’ answered Pemen; ‘quite possible, only on such occasions it is always necessary that you should give holy oil for the lamps.’ The lady with great pleasure gave him ten roubles for the oil, and he put the money in his pocket and said, ‘That is well, be of good hope and I will arrange it.’

“Of course Pemen said nothing to us of all this, but the lady bore a daughter. And oh, what a fuss she made about it, and even before she had quite recovered she called our good-for-nothing to her, and honoured him as if he were a wonder-worker, and he accepted it all. To such a point had the man come, his mind was darkened and his feelings were congealed. In the course of the year the lady made another request to our God that her husband might take a country house for the summer, and again her wish was fulfilled, and again she gave Pemen money for holy oil and candles; and these offerings he stored away somewhere, but not on our side of the river. In fact it was wonderful what miracles were accomplished. The lady's eldest son was at school; he was an idle fellow and would learn nothing, but when the time of examination drew near she sent for Pemen, and ordered him to pray that her son might be put into a higher class. ‘This is a difficult matter. I shall have to drive all my people together, and make them pray all night, and they shall howl by candle-light till morning.’ But she made no difficulty about this, but gave him thirty roubles if only they would pray! And what do you suppose happened? Her truant son had such good luck that he was removed into a higher class. The lady almost went out of her mind with joy that our God had done so much for her. She made one request after another to Pemen, and he was so importunate with God that he obtained for her health, and a legacy, and a good post for her husband, and so many orders that they could not all be hung on his breast, and he carried one in his pocket, as they say. Such wonders happened, but we knew nothing about it. But the hour drew near when all this would be cleared up, and these wonders would be changed for others.

CHAPTER V

“There was some trouble in a Jewish town of the province among the Jewish merchants. I cannot tell you exactly whether it was about money frauds or about cheating the custom dues; but it so happened that the Government found it out, and it was foreseen that the matter would be very profitable for those who had to examine into it. For this reason the lady came to our Pemen and said: ‘Pemen Ivanovitch, here are twenty roubles for the holy oil and candles; tell your people to pray as heartily as they can that my husband may be sent to this town to look into the affair.’ This was no trouble to him. By this time he was quite accustomed to collect his oil duties; and he answered, ‘Very well, lady, I will give the order.’ ‘Oh, let them pray very earnestly, for I want this very much.’ ‘If they dared, lady, to neglect my orders and not to pray earnestly,’ said Pemen, reassuring her, ‘I would make them fast until they had prayed.’ Then he took the money, for he was a rogue; but the lady that very night heard her husband had received the appointment. The lady was so struck by the blessing she had received, that she was not satisfied to trust to our prayers, but was very anxious to give thanks in her own person to the holy icon.

“She spoke of this to Pemen, but he was frightened, because he knew that she would not be allowed to visit our icons; but the lady would take no refusal. ‘If you will allow me,’ said she, ‘I will take a boat and come to you this evening with my son.’ Pemen tried to persuade her that it was better that they should pray for her, adding, ‘We have such a Guardian Angel before whom you can burn the holy oils, and we will entrust your husband's safety to his care.’ ‘I am very glad,’ said she, ‘very glad that there is such an Angel, and here is money to burn holy oil in three lamps for him, and I will come to see it.’ Pemen was much disturbed; he came back to us and told us the lady's purpose, and excused himself, saying, ‘I tried to dissuade her, but as she insisted I could not refuse because her husband is a man who is useful to us.’ He told them a lot of rubbish, but not exactly the truth.

“Well, however unpleasant the visit would be to us, there was nothing to be done. We quickly took down the icons from the walls and hid them in boxes, and out of other boxes we took icons to replace them, which were of no value and were kept there by us only in case the officials made a search. We put them on shelves and awaited our guest. The lady came, but she was so befurbelowed that she was fearful to see, sweeping everything with her ample garments, and with her eyeglass she looked at all the sham icons we had there. And she asked, ‘Pray tell me where is the wonder-working Angel?’ Here was the difficulty. We tried to divert her attention. ‘We have no such Angel,’ we said; and though she went on questioning Pemen, we would not show her the Angel, and took her away and offered her tea and other refreshments.

“She did not please us at all, but why, I cannot say. Her appearance revolted us, although she was considered to be a beauty. She was tall and willowy and thin like a goat, and she had very marked eyebrows.”

“And how was it this beauty did not please you?” said the man in the bearskin coat, interrupting the story-teller.

“Excuse me, how could a serpentine form please us?”

“Then you don't reckon a woman a beauty unless she is like a clod of earth.”

“A clod of earth!” the story-teller repeated, without being offended. “What do you take us, for? We have a Russian idea of what a woman's figure should be, and it does not answer to the present flighty, fashionable type. But still we do not admire a clod; we do not admire the long-legged maypoles, and we like a woman to stand not on long legs but on strong legs, so that she may not stumble but roll about everywhere like a ball, and the willowy one will run and get her legs entangled. We do not like a serpent-like slimness, but we like something solid and plump; although it is not so supple, yet one feels motherhood in it, and good-humour and kindness.