Ride, yf thou wylt, O man of God. Me thinketh your visit is good fortune.
Holy fool Foma greeted Arseny on the other shore.
Aha, shouted Foma, I see you are the realest of holy fools. Real. You can rest assured that I have a first-class nose for matters of this sort. But did you know, my friend, that each part of the Pskov soil supports but one holy fool?
Arseny kept quiet. Holy fool Foma then grabbed him by the arm and dragged him away. They were nearly running along the kremlin walls but Arseny saw no chance to halt their movement: Foma turned out to be very tenacious. Another river appeared before them. This was the Pskova, whose waters carried into the Velikaya River.
Out there, beyond the Pskova, said holy fool Foma, lives holy fool Karp. His speech is meager and unintelligible. Sometimes he only announces his name in quickspeache: Karp, Karp, Karp. A very worthy person. Even so, I have to pound his face in, on average, once a month. This occurs on the days when he crosses the river and comes to the city. And I, by inflicting bloody wounds on holy fool Karp, induce him not to leave Zapskovye, the area beyond the Pskova. That is your lot, I teach him, to stay in the Zapskovye part of town. Keep in mind, I tell him, that Zapskovye would be like a lonesome orphan without you, and you’d create an excess of our sort in my part of town. And excess is depravity that leads to spiritual devastation… Come he must, collecting no dust!
Holy fool Foma folded his arms on his chest and looked at the opposite shore. Holy fool Karp threatened him with a fist from the other side.
Go ahead and threaten, you shithead, threaten, shouted holy fool Foma, without malice. If I shall ever see thee here one daye, I will mercilessly smash your members. Like as the smoke vanisheth, so shall you be driven away!
He takes me for a holy fool, Arseny told Ustina.
And who else could you be taken for? said Foma, surprised. Just take a look at yourself, O Arseny. You really are a holy fool, for thou hath chosen a life for yourself that is wild and disparaged by people.
And he knows my christened name.
Foma began laughing:
How could I not know when it is written all over every christened person’s face? Of course it is more complicated to guess about Ustin but you yourself are informing everybody about him. So go ahead and holyfool it, dear friend, don’t be shy, otherwise they’ll all get to you with their reverence in the long run. Their deference is not compatible with your goals. Remember how things were in Belozersk. Do you need that?
Who is this one who knows my secrets? Arseny turned to Foma:
Who are you? Who?
A prick wearing one shoe, answered Foma. You are asking about things of secondary importance. But I will tell you the main thing. Go back to Zavelichye, the part of town beyond the Velikaya River, where the John the Baptist Convent stands on the future Komsomol Square. I suspect you already spent the night in the convent cemetery. Stay there and believe me: Ustina could have been in that convent. I think she just never got that far. Though you made it here. Pray for her and for yourself. Be her and be yourself, simultaneously. Be outrageous. Being pious is easy and pleasant, go ahead and make yourself hated. Don’t let the Pskovians sleep: they are lazy and incurious. Amen.
Foma drew his arm back and hit Arseny in the face. Arseny silently looked at him, feeling the blood flow from his nose and run down his chin and neck. Foma embraced Arseny and his face got bloody, too. Foma said:
By giving yourself to Ustina, you are, I know, exhausting your body, but disowning your body is only the half of it. As it happens, my friend, that can lead to pride.
What else can I do? thought Arseny.
Do more, Foma whispered right into Arseny’s ear. Disown your identity. You have already taken the first step by calling yourself Ustin. So now disown yourself completely.
Arseny settled in at the cemetery that same day. Near one of its walls, he saw two oaks that had grown entwined: they became the first wall of his new home. The cemetery wall became his second wall. Arseny constructed the third wall himself. While walking along the river, he gathered logs that were lying around, bricks from demolished walls, scraps of nets, and many other objects essential for building. Arseny did not need a fourth walclass="underline" there was an entrance there instead.
The nuns kept an eye on the work but said nothing to Arseny. They never heard any words whatsoever from his end, either. The construction was conducted under a mutual tacit agreement. When construction concluded, the convent’s abbess, accompanied by several sisters, came to Arseny’s home. When she saw Arseny lying on last year’s yellow grass, she said:
He who lives here has the earthe as a bed, the heavens as a roof.
Indeed, this cannot be called full-fledged construction, the sisters confirmed.
It is simply that he is building his main home in the heavens, said the abbess. Pray to the Lord for us, O man of God.
By order of the abbess, they brought Arseny a bowl with porridge. Arseny’s hands loosened as soon as they felt the warmth of the bowl. The bowl fell with a dull thud but did not smash. The grass slowly swallowed the porridge. The first greenery that made its way through the yellow clumps was noticeable.
This grass, Arseny told Ustina, requires feeding, too. May it grow and bring glory to our little boy.
Afterwards, they brought him porridge more than once, and the same thing happened to it each time. Arseny finished eating only what the grass left for him. He carefully extracted remainders of the food from the grass, raking through it with his fingers. Sometimes dogs ran into the cemetery through the gap and lapped up the porridge with their long, red tongues. Arseny understood that they needed to eat, too, so he did not chase away the dogs. Besides, they reminded him of Wolf, from his childhood. It was as if Arseny was feeding him by feeding the dogs. The memory of him. The dogs ate up what Wolf had not had time to finish. When they would leave, Arseny yelled words of parting after them, asking them to say hello to Wolf.
You are all kin, Arseny shouted, so I think you know how to do it.
When they saw the particulars of Arseny’s eating habits, the sisters began laying food out on the grass for him. He would bow, not turning toward them, and he did not watch as they walked away. He was afraid he would not see Ustina’s features in the sisters who came to him.
During the first weeks of his life in Pskov, Arseny would get up at sunrise and head out for a walk around Zavelichye. He sized up the people who lived there. He would stop and then fix a special gaze on them: it was the gaze of someone whose state of mind differs from what is generally accepted. He peered behind fences. He pressed his forehead to windows and observed the innermost life of Pskovians. This generally failed to inspire delectation in him.
Smoke mixed with steam inside the houses of Zavelichye. Clothes dried and cabbage soup boiled there. They beat children, yelled at old people, and copulated in the house’s common space. They prayed before meals and sleep. Sometimes they collapsed to sleep without a prayer—they had worked so much they lost their strength. Or drunk so much. They cast booted feet on old rags their wives laid on their sleeping benches. Loudly snored. Wiped away spit that trickled when they slept and shooed away flies. Ran a hand over a face, making a grater-like sound. Cursed. Fouled the air with a crackle. All that without waking up.
As he walked along the streets of Zavelichye, Arseny threw stones at pious people’s houses. The stones bounced off the logs with a dull wooden thud. Arseny crossed himself and bowed to the residents when they came out of their houses. He walked right up to the houses of the depraved or those who behaved themselves inappropriately. He sank to his knees, kissed the walls of those houses, and quietly said something. And when many people showed surprise at Arseny’s behavior, Foma said: