Arseny began reading the prayer service for the departed. He asked God to deliver Ustina fro the snare of the hunter and fro the noisome pestilence, that she not be afraide of any terrour by night, nor for the arrowe that flieth by daye. From time to time he turned and looked at her face. He heard his own voice from afar. At times, it contained the sound of tears. The voice dully announced that God was commanding the angels to keep Ustina safe in all her journeys. Arseny remembered how Ustina had gone, holding Death by the hand, how her shape had diminished until it turned into a dot. It was Death with her then, not angels. Arseny tore his eyes from the sheet.
You should be in the arms of the angels now, he meekly addressed Ustina. They shall beare thee in their handes, that thou hurt not thy foot against a stone.
He turned again and it seemed Ustina’s face had flinched. He could not believe his eyes. He raised the candle slightly and stepped closer. The shadow of Ustina’s nose was shifting around her face. And more than the shadow was moving: Ustina’s face was changing along with the shadow. This change did not look natural. It did not correspond to Ustina’s living facial expressions, but there was also something in it that was not characteristic of a dead person. Even if Ustina was not completely alive, she was not exactly fully dead, either.
Arseny was afraid he might let the small shoots of life he had noticed in Ustina expire. He might let them freeze, for example. Only now did he sense that the house had cooled down over the last day. He rushed to the stove and lit a fire. Arseny’s hands shook from agitation. It suddenly occurred to him that everything depended on how quickly he could now manage to get a fire started. The wood was already crackling a few minutes later. Arseny still did not look at Ustina, giving her time to pull herself together. But Ustina did not get up.
So as not to scare off the shoots of life within Ustina, Arseny decided to pretend he had not noticed them. He continued reading the prayer service for the departed. After that, he began reading the Psalms. He read them unhurriedly, distinctly pronouncing each word. He came to the end of the Psalter and pondered. He decided to read it again. He finished toward morning. To his own surprise, he felt hungry and ate a chunk of bread.
It was as if the food had opened his nostrils; he drew in air. The smell of rotting flesh was apparent. Arseny thought the smell was coming from the baby. And there truly were signs of decomposition on the small body. At dawn, Arseny moved it closer to the window.
You never saw sunbeams, he told the baby, and it would be unjust to deprive you of light, even in such small quantities.
Of course Arseny secretly hoped Ustina would intervene in his conversation with their son. But she did not intervene. And even the position she was lying in remained, outwardly, the same.
He decided to read the Psalter over Ustina a third time. At the tenth Kathisma, he perceived movement on the bench. He continued to observe by keeping his peripheral vision on the bench, but the movement did not recur. Arseny felt bewildered when he finished reading the Psalter. He did not know what else he could read over Ustina, in the shaky position between life and death where, by all appearances, she now resided. He remembered that in life she had loved hearing the Alexander Romance and so he began reading the Alexander Romance. Her reactions to the book about Alexander had always been lively, so now, in Arseny’s opinion, it could play its own positive role.
He read the Alexander Romance over Ustina until the next morning. After a bit of thought, he read The Apocalypse of Abraham, Legend of the Indian Kingdom, and stories about Solomon and the Centaur. Arseny purposely chose things that were interesting and likely to stimulate life. As night fell, he took to reading those of Christofer’s manuscripts that did not contain day-to-day instructions and recipes. Arseny read the last manuscript at dawn: a desecrated robe mayn’t be washed with anything but water and only tears may washe away and cleanse desecration and spiritual feces.
He had wept out all his tears over the previous days and they never came again. He had no more voice: he read the final manuscripts in almost a whisper. He had no strength. He sat on the floor, leaning against the kindled stove. He did not notice when he dozed off. A rustling by the window woke him. A rat was sitting alongside the baby. Arseny motioned with his hand and it ran away. He realized that if he wanted to preserve his son’s body, he should not sleep. He looked at Ustina. Her facial features had swollen.
Arseny stood up, with difficulty, and went over to Ustina. A ripe smell hit his nose when he lifted the bedspread a bit. Ustina’s belly was huge. Much larger than in the days of her pregnancy.
If you truly did die, Arseny said to Ustina, I should preserve your body. I had expected you would need it in the short run but since things have not turned out that way, I will make every effort to preserve it for the impending universal resurrection. First and foremost, of course, we’ll stop stoking the stove, which promotes tissue decomposition. Besides, flies are already circling now and, honestly, their appearance surprises me because this is not typical for November. Our son particularly concerns me: he looks very bad. Essentially, our task is not as complicated as it might appear at first glance. According to my grandfather, Christofer, it is fully possible the end of the world will come in the seven thousandth year since the Creation of the world. If we consider that 6964 is coming right up, our bodies still need to hold out for thirty-six years. You have to agree that is not so long compared to the amount of time that has elapsed since the Creation of the universe. Cold spells are on the way and we will all be lightly frozen. Of course then summer will come thirty-six more times (summer can be hot, even in these parts) but we will manage to settle into our new situation before the warm season, for the first months are not only difficult, they are also decisive.
From that day on, Arseny stopped lighting the stove. He also stopped eating, because he no longer felt like eating. He occasionally drank water from the wooden bucket. The bucket stood by the door and he would notice thin films of ice covering the water in the morning. One time, he thought Ustina was moving when he was drinking water. He turned and saw that her raised leg, the one he had moved aside, was now lying on the bench. He walked over to Ustina. Looks were not deceiving him. Ustina’s leg truly had descended. Arseny took hold of the leg and discovered it would bend again. He took Ustina’s dangling arm and gently placed it on the bench. Arseny knew rigor mortis of the flesh had already gone by, but he forbade his heart to beat faster. A glance at Ustina’s belly killed all hope. It had distended even more and expelled everything that had not managed to come out of her female place on the day of her departure.
Arseny no longer read anything. He saw from Ustina’s condition that she was no longer up for reading. He spoke with her ever less because for now he could not tell her anything reassuring.
I am frightened for our boy, he said one day, because today I saw white worms in his nostrils.
He said that and then regretted it, for what could Ustina do here; she was not in such an easy position herself. Her nose and lips had bloated and her eyelids were swollen. Ustina’s white skin had become an oily brown and was bursting and oozing pus in places. Her veins were unnaturally and distinctly green under her skin. Only her hair, all stuck together, continued to retain its reddish color.