Wait, I want to say it in my own words. (He pressed his forehead to the floor, which made his voice sound more muffled.) Lord, let her live. I need nothing else in the world. At all. I will give thanks to you for centuries. You know, after all, that if she dies I will be left all alone. (He looked out from under his arm at the Savior.) With no help.
Silvester did not fear for himself when he informed the Savior of these possible consequences: he thought of his mother and chose the weightiest arguments in favor of her return to health. He hoped he could not be refused. And Arseny saw that. He believed the Savior saw it, too.
Then they prayed to the Mother of God. Arseny glanced back when he did not hear Silvester’s voice. Still kneeling, Silvester slept, leaning against a storage chest. Arseny carefully carried him to the bed and prayed, now alone, to the healer Panteleimon. At around midnight he went in to begin taking care of Kseniya.
For several days, Kseniya did not improve. But she was not dying, either. In this Arseny saw a display of God’s boundless mercy and an encouragement to fight for her life. And he continued to fight. He lifted Kseniya’s head a little, pouring into her mouth remedies for the plague as well as infusions to strengthen her flesh during her struggle with death. He held Kseniya by the hand, whispering a prayer and feeling how the help from Him to Whom he appealed poured into his patient through him.
When Arseny left her room, Silvester greeted him in the entry room. They went to the lake for a short time after praying for Kseniya’s good health. The days in Belozersk had become hot, so the coolness of the lake was pleasant. They did not go out onto the ice because it was already unreliable: underwater springs had created melted patches and pools in the ice. The ice had changed from dark blue to black, from stable to fragile.
You will marry my mother, won’t you? asked Silvester as they walked along the shore.
Arseny stopped from the unexpectedness.
I want for us to always be together, said Silvester.
You see, Silvester...
After walking a bit ahead, the boy slowly returned to Arseny.
Do you have another woman?
You ask very adult questions.
That means there is?
One might say so.
Arseny saw the boy’s eyes fill with tears. Silvester kept himself in hand, and the tears would not roll down his cheeks.
What is her name?
Ustina.
Does she live in your village?
No.
In Belozersk?
She does not live on this earth.
The boy took Arseny’s hand and they walked on, silent.
On the fifth day of her illness, Kseniya began to recover. She had no strength whatsoever but death no longer threatened her. She looked with gratitude at Arseny, who helped her drink, fed her porridge with a spoon, and brought her the chamber pot.
I do not feel embarrassed around you, she said. This surprises even me.
The flesh loses its sinfulness during illness, said Arseny, after thinking. It is becoming known that the flesh is only a shell. So there is no need to feel embarrassed about it.
I do not feel embarrassed around you, said Kseniya at another time, because you have become close to me.
Kseniya improved. On one of the following evenings, she got up and boiled a turnip. She cut the turnip into regular little circles and placed them in bowls. She watched the men with a happy gaze. Arseny looked at Silvester: the boy was hardly eating. It began to worry him that Silvester had been listless all day.
After supper, Arseny took Silvester by the wrist. As he approached the boy he already knew things were bad but he did not understand how bad until he felt Silvester’s pulse. Arseny felt as if his own blood had reversed its flow and would now gush from his nostrils, ears, and throat. Kseniya still kept talking but Arseny could not even part his lips, distinctly feeling his inability to help. He looked at the child and again he wanted to die.
Silvester did not sleep that night. He thrashed around in his bed, seized by an inexplicable restlessness. He tossed and turned and could not find a comfortable position for sleep. The muscles in his arms and legs ached. After falling asleep for a few minutes, he would quickly wake up and ask if Kseniya and Arseny were there. He thought they had gone. But they were beside him: they sat by his bed and never ceased watching over him. Kseniya did not speak; tears ran down her cheeks. Toward morning, Silvester lost consciousness.
Kseniya lifted her head.
Save him, O Arseny. He is my life.
Arseny fell to the floor next to her, buried his head in her knees, and sobbed. He wept from the fear of losing Silvester and from his inability to help him. He wept for all those he had not succeeded in saving. He felt his own responsibility for them, a responsibility he had to bear alone. He wept from his own loneliness, which now burned at him with an unexpected sharpness.
In trying to cure Silvester, Arseny used every measure against the plague that Christofer had ever taught him. He employed several methods whose usefulness he had discovered himself, through observation. He sat the child on his lap and held him that way, not letting him go. Arseny feared the angel of death might come for Silvester in his absence. Arseny knew that, at the crucial moment, he would press the child to himself, pushing waves of life from his heart to Silvester’s. He felt dread when Silvester began coughing. When he wiped the bloody slime from the boy’s lips, Arseny feared Silvester’s soul would fly out with the dreaded cough, for the position of the soul within the body was not stable.
Arseny remembered what Silvester had said and appealed to God:
Help him, this is so easy for You. I understand that my request is impertinent. And I cannot even offer my life for the boy’s because my life is already devoted to Ustina, before whom I am guilty for the ages. But still I trust in Your boundless Mercy and beg You: save the life of Your servant Silvester.
Arseny did not sleep for five days and five nights: another reason he could not let Silvester out of his arms was that the boy needed to be held in a semi-sitting position. When Silvester lay down, his lungs quickly filled with phlegm and he began violently coughing it out. On the sixth day, Arseny sensed changes: they were not yet outwardly visible but they did not escape Arseny.
Without explaining anything, he ordered Kseniya to pray harder. Falling down from exhaustion and lack of sleep, Kseniya prayed harder. She genuflected before the icons in the sacred corner and remained that way for hours. Her hoarse voice now intoned continuously. Her hair came loose from under her headscarf but she had no strength to neaten it. And her tears came to an end, no longer flowing down her cheeks. On the seventh day, the boy opened his eyes.
Arseny collapsed on a bench after uttering a prayer of thanksgiving. He slept for two days and two nights but still did not feel rested. He understood that he needed to get up, and he dreamt that he was getting up. He wanted to examine Silvester and he dreamt that he was examining him: the examination showed that everything was fine with Silvester. Arseny knew that he was dreaming but he knew that he was dreaming the way things truly were. Otherwise, something else would have come to him in his dream.
A cool touch to Arseny’s hand woke him. Kseniya’s lips. Seeing that Arseny had opened his eyes, Kseniya pressed his palm to her forehead. Silvester stood behind her. The boy was pale and thin after the illness. He was transparent, almost spectral. A crease in his shirt stuck out from behind his back as if it were an angel’s wing. He smiled at Arseny, not trying to come closer. Letting his mother go first.