Unavoidably, the reader finds himself closer to the passengers of the ship than to Fliagin, an eloquent but impenetrable narrator. His exotic dwellings, incredible survivals, hyper-masculine physicality, bizarre religiosity, immoral hubris, deep contact with animals, and lack of human touch and connection all make him an impossible target for identification. If he is a Superman, he is depicted with a healthy dose of irony.
Sadness
Born into the poor family of a priest in provincial Orel, Leskov finished two classes at the local school and learned everything else as an autodidact. He matured into a sophisticated ironist, British-style liberal, and soul-seeker who became a follower of one of the greatest dissidents of all times, Lev Tolstoy. Misunderstood by Walter Benjamin (1968) as an exemplary storyteller who was still close to the "immediate" oral tradition, Leskov was prone to narrative games and mocking experiments with his characters and readers.
Leskov started his novella with a brief visit by passengers to a small coastal town, Korela, on the lake of Ladoga. "This poor, though extremely ancient, Russian town was so sad that it was hard to imagine a place on earth that was more sad than this one." Founded by a Finnish tribe, Korela was colonized by Novgorod in 1310, taken by the Swedes in 1580, by the Muscovites in 1595, by the Swedes in 1617, by the Russians in 1710; it became a part of Finland in 1920, and was taken by the USSR in 1940. Having changed its name four times and now known as Priozersk, the town has survived as a hub of dacha-style resorts on the lake of Ladoga. Many times colonized and never liberated, the town had no reason to cheer, but its record- winning sadness is perhaps an overstatement. In Fliagin's narrative, sadness is projected onto the deserts, where natives enslaved and mutilated him; onto his native province of central Russia, where his life was all about whipping; and onto the imperial capital, where he played the devil on the stage of a theater. But for Leskov, the heart of sadness was Korela, a town like myriad others. Leskov did not specify what exactly was so sad in Korela, but in another story he described another Russian town, Penza, where he lived for a while and where Fliagin also spent some time:
Penza was one of the darkest. . . . Everything there was instituted the other way around. . . . The streets were like swamps and the sidewalks were made of boards; nails slid away and a pedestrian fell down in the cesspit. . . . The police robbed people on the square; the marshal's dogs tore people apart . . . in front of the city officials; the governor whipped people on the street with his own hands; there were terrible but true rumors about violence toward the women, who were invited to parties in the homes of the nobility. (Leskov 1958: 9/369)
Fliagin emerges out of this environment very organically. Leskov gave him a narrative gift, merged it with a muscular, destructive character, and reserved the irony for himself. Born as a serf, Fliagin grew up in a stable and fled from his master after being whipped for cutting the tail of a cat. He wandered with the Gypsies before taking part in a Tartar competition, in which the rivals whipped each other, "as in a duel among nobles." Having mastered this "Asian practice," Fliagin whipped his rival Tartar to death. His prize was a beautiful horse, but he had to flee again. Far out in the desert, he was captured by an Asian tribe, which mutilated him by cutting his heels and putting bristles into the cuts. He lived among these "Tartars" for 11 years, learned their language, healed them with herbs and magic, married their women, and fathered many children. He combined his success among the natives with an entire lack of interest toward them. Nothing among the "Tartars" was of any value, with the only exception being horses. In the desert, he met Russian missionaries. "An Asian should be brought to God by fear, so that he would be trembling with awe," believes Fliagin; but the missionaries preached a humble Christ and were killed by the natives.
Then British spies came to the desert from India by way of Khiva. In this variant of Kipling's Kim, fantasized from the other side of the Himalayas, the Brits are preparing for a war with Russia and want to buy horses from the natives somewhere in Central Asia. When Fliagin destroys this trade, the Brits frighten the tribe with fireworks, steal the horses, and disappear. Fliagin used the remaining fireworks to baptize the tribe with lightening and thunder. After he turns himself into their god, they let him flee across the desert. The Russians return him to his old master, who diligently flogs him for running away.
Fliagin resumes his horse trade, with Asians as before. For a while, he trades on behalf of a prince who entrusts Fliagin with his money, horses, and women. But both of them then fall in love with a Gypsy beauty, Grusha. Selflessly, Fliagin buys Grusha for his patron and secures their romance. When the prince gets tired of the pregnant Grusha, she begs Fliagin to kill her. Because of his love for her, he throws her into the river, thereby creating another sacrificial plotline with a female offering (see Chapter 12). Fliagin then flees again to serve in the standing army in the Caucasus. After heroic service and other adventures, he finds his ultimate destination as a horse groom in a northern monastery. The ghosts of Grusha and the others whom he killed chase him, but he repels them by fasting and bowing to the ground.
After Fliagin tells the passengers about the murder of Grusha, something happens to his storytelling. His rich, creative narrative becomes an inarticulate sermon. There is no end to his story; it deteriorates into wordy, meaningless speculation. Grusha's ghost is still with him, despite his bows and chanting.
What Conrad calls darkness, Leskov calls sadness. Three stories unfold on boats that have made freshwater tours, with "pilgrims" on board. The Heart of Darkness and The Enchanted Pilgrim are both shaped as first-person narratives installed within a third-person frame. Both stories create a superhuman image only to demolish it. Having unusual gifts like Kurtz, Fliagin failed to realize them. A true hero of the empire, he knew animals, not humans. His life was punctuated by murders. He loved a woman and killed her: it is a sad story indeed. Fliagin "is magnificent and appalling," writes one historian (Franklin 2004: 109); it is instructive to note the similarity of this perception to Marlow's words with which he concluded his story of the Roman colonizer of England: "The fascination of the abomination - you know" (Conrad 1988: 9-10).
Sitting on the deck and telling the story of his wonders and wanderings in distant lands, Fliagin is both a witness to and an agent of colonialism, Marlow and Kurtz in one person, a narrative position that is less analytical but more enchanting than Marlow's. Fliagin is also a native informer, a third position that is conspicuously absent in The Heart of Darkness, where subalterns do not speak. In contrast to Fliagin, Marlow and Kurtz have never been whipped; in contrast to the black victims of Kurtz, Fliagin is able to tell his story. Marlow's is also not a nice story, but he feels compelled to tell it because he is doing so for others who cannot speak. In Russia, the natives were colonized and colonizing, and they did speak. And so does Fliagin.