As he parted with Anfim’s soul, Arseny whispered:
Listen, I want to ask you a favor. If you meet a little boy there, he is even smaller than you… You will recognize him easily, he does not even have a name. He is my son. You tell… Arseny pressed his forehead to an oak and felt its woodenness pour into him. You give him a kiss for me. Just give him a kiss.
Here is how mornings began for holy fool Karp. He would stand outside Samson the loaf baker’s house, his arms folded behind his back.
Karp, Karp, Karp, holy fool Karp would say to passersby.
When Samson came outside with his hawker tray hanging around his neck, Karp grasped a half-coin loaf with his teeth and sprinted away. He ran very fast for a person holding a loaf in his teeth. He was, by necessity, silent. And did not unlink his arms, which were behind his back. People of modest means ran behind the holy fool because they knew the loaf would eventually fall. When the loaf fell, they would pick it up. Whatever remained in the holy fool’s mouth was his daily food.
Baker Samson did not run after holy fool Karp. Even if he had wanted to run, it would have been impossible with his hawker tray. But the baker did not want to run. He was not angry with holy fool Karp: business was good after his encounters with the holy fool, and his loaves sold out very quickly. If the holy fool was late due to his busyness, loaf baker Samson patiently waited for him by his home in Zapskovye.
Loaf baker Prokhor from Zavelichye was different. He was reputed to be a rather gloomy person and not inclined to hand out loaves. Since Zavelichye was within Arseny’s sphere of responsibilities, Arseny happened to run across loaf baker Prokhor. This occurred in late summer.
Arseny was deeply rattled when he saw Prokhor with his loaves. He looked at Prokhor up close and his look grew ever more bitter.
What dost thou need, O holy fool? asked Prokhor.
Without uttering a word, Arseny struck Prokhor’s hawker tray from below. The loaves jumped off the tray, all at once, thudding into the August dust. Passersby wanted to brush off the loaves and take them for themselves, but Arseny would not allow it. He began breaking loaf baker Prokhor’s goods into small pieces, kicking and stomping them into the dust. Only when the loaves had been transformed into clumps of dirt did Prokhor seem to come to life. He moved slowly toward Arseny and each blow was like a loaf. He struck Arseny in the face with those blows, without making any special preparatory swings. Arseny fell to the ground and the loaf baker kicked him.
Do not touch him, he is a man of God, shouted passersby.
And scattering my loaves around, does a man of God do that? And stomping them with his feet, does a man of God do that?
With each question, loaf baker Prokhor struck Arseny with his foot. Arseny lay there, bouncing like a pile of rags with each strike. He might well have been a pile of rags, for hardly any of his body remained. Shrieking, the loaf baker jumped on Arseny’s back with both feet and everyone heard ribs crack. The gathered men then threw themselves at loaf baker Prokhor and twisted his arms behind his back. Someone bound them with a belt. The strong Prokhor tried to shake off those who had bound him so he could go after Arseny again.
Go away, O man of God, the people told Arseny.
But Arseny did not go away. He did not move. He lay there, his arms stretched out, and a reddish-brown puddle spreading under his hair. Everyone was watching loaf baker Prokhor, who was calming down, bit by bit. Holy fool Foma was walking from the direction of the ferry.
From now on, your name is not loaf baker but blow-maker, Foma shouted at Prokhor. And now I will acquaint you, you shits (he looked around at those standing there), with the following facts. Yesternight, this mutt copulated with his wife. Then he kneaded dough and shaped his loaves without cleansing. In the morning he wanted to sell this impure product to Orthodox people and, if it had not been for our brother Ustin, he would have sold them, as sure as certain.
Is that true? asked those present.
Loaf baker Prokhor did not answer but his silence was already an answer. Everyone knew holy fool Foma spoke only the truth. They decided to take Prokhor away to the cellar prison. They postponed his punishment until Arseny’s fate had been determined. They said:
Yf a man of God dies, this sinne shall be on thee.
They laid Arseny on bast matting and headed for the John the Baptist Convent.
The sisters wept upon meeting them at the convent gates, for they had become attached to Arseny. They already knew of the misfortune that had occurred. Taking the mat by its edges, the sisters carefully carried Arseny through the convent so as not to inflict needless pain upon him. But Arseny was not in pain: he felt nothing. The sisters tried to walk with small steps and in rhythm as they carried him; Arseny’s head jiggled slightly.
The abbess said:
A stranger to your own people, you endured everything with joy for the sake of Christ, searching for an ancient, perished fatherland.
The abbess’s face was covered by her hands and her voice was muffled but intelligible.
They had emptied a remote cell for Arseny, where the presence of a male could not embarrass any of the pilgrims. The sisters themselves were not embarrassed since the holy fool Ustin was sexless in their eyes and, to some extent, incorporeal. As they carried the patient to the faraway cell, they hoped for his recovery and prepared for his departure.
It should be stated, with some bitterness, said the abbess, that the injured person’s injuries are extremely critical. Death, however, is not a completely unfamiliar topic for our brother Ustin: our brother Ustin is already deade within his living body. The holy fool Ustin goes about, worthie already of mourning, however the person within him has been restored to life. After living without a home, he, our brother, will have his tentes pitched in heven.
In the event of a mortal outcome, the sisters had designated for Arseny the spot by the cemetery wall where he had settled back in the spring. To them, Arseny’s dwelling almost seemed to be a ready crypt. A cozy and habitable structure.
But Arseny survived. He regained consciousness a few days later and his bones began knitting together, bit by bit. Arseny felt their knitting just as unmistakably as he had felt them break earlier. It was soundless but obvious.
The sisters fed Arseny with a spoon. He silently opened his mouth and tears streamed down his cheeks. Tears streamed down the sisters’ cheeks, too. They asked the carpenter Vlas to wash Arseny, who could not stand.
On the first of September, holy fool Foma came to see Arseny and wish him a happy new year. He brought a dead rat as a gift: Foma held the rat by the tail and it swung sorrowfully back and forth.
After laying the rat at Arseny’s headboard, holy fool Foma pressed its front paws against its snout and turned to the patient:
I am heartily glad, colleague, that you did not take on a wretched appearance such as this. After all, everything was headed in that direction. And so I wish you a happy new year, 6967, which we are celebrating for old time’s sake on this bright September day, thirty-three years before the seven thousandth year.
The sisters were displeased by the arrival of the rat but they dared not object to Foma. And their anger ceased when they saw Arseny’s smile. This was his first smile in many months. He sneezed when holy fool Foma tickled his nostrils with the tip of the rat’s tail.