He set off at random and no longer tried to remember his way. Several streets at the beginning seemed familiar to him. But then, the next instant, he would discover balconies and bas-reliefs he had not seen before and understand that similarity was brazenly passing itself off as repetition. After it had grown completely dark, Arseny came upon Piazza San Marco. The rising moon brightened the basilica, which in the murk resembled a dark mountain. Ambrogio had told Arseny it was made of stones from sacked Constantinople. He touched a marble column and sensed the warmth it had absorbed during the day. He thought this was likely the warmth of Byzantium.
Arseny sat down to the right of the entrance and leaned against a column. He could feel that he was tired. As he was settling in more comfortably, Arseny touched on something soft. A young woman was sitting in a niche between the columns, and her child-like face seemed to be one of the bas-reliefs, perhaps because it was motionless. Arseny brought his hand to her eyes and she blinked.
Peace to thee, childe, Arseny uttered. I wanted only to know that life had not left you.
She looked at him, unsurprised.
My name is Laura and I do not understand your language.
I see you are somehow dispirited but I do not know the reason for your sorrow.
Sometimes it is easier to speak when people do not understand you.
Maybe you are pregnant and your child will not be legitimate because its father has not become your husband.
Because when you live in despair, you want to express your pain but are afraid it will become known to everyone when it leaves your lips.
You know, there is nothing irreparable about that. The child’s father can still become your husband. Or another person might become your husband, that does happen. Believe me, I would take you as my wife to help you, but I cannot because I have an eternal love and an eternal wife.
But you could say I am no longer afraid. I know of a way to reconcile all my problems. If things get completely awful for me, my despair will give me the strength to use it.
In my life, I had Ustina and I had a little boy without a name, but I did not keep them safe.
A few days ago I heard that I am sick, with leprosy. When the spots appeared on my wrists, I did not know, at the time, what they meant. And I did not figure things out when the tickle started in my throat in the middle of the summer, either. But some chance person on the street saw me and said: why, you have leprosy. He said: abandon this city and go to the leper colony, so you do not become a curse upon your house. And I went to a doctor and the doctor confirmed that person was correct.
I have been trying to talk with them ever since, but they just cannot seem to answer me. The boy was small when he died so he cannot answer. But even Ustina is not answering. Of course in their position, things are not all that simple. How could I not understand that? I understand… but I am still waiting. Maybe not for a word but for a sign. Sometimes this is very difficult for me.
And I have not gone back home since. I knew my loved ones would not let me go and would prefer to slowly die with me.
But I am still not giving in to despair. And I do try, to the best of my ability, to tell Ustina about what happens here. She did not live out her life, after all, so I am trying to somehow fill in what was left unlived. But that is very difficult. You just cannot tell about an entire life in all its details, you know?
A wall has been built between me and the rest of the world. It is glass for now because nobody knows about my troubles. But it will be noticeable later. The doctor told me everything. It seemed like that gave him satisfaction. Or maybe he wanted to rid me of hopes and disappointments.
All you can truly convey to them there is a general idea, the main things that are happening. My love for her, for an example.
They will send me to a leprosarium. In time, I will have a saddle nose. Leonine facies. I will be ashamed that the sun that belongs to everyone falls on this face. I will know that I have no right to it. I have no right whatsoever to what is beautiful. It is possible to die while still living.
Arseny took Laura by the hands, looked her in the eye, and then the essence of what was happening was revealed to him. He kissed Laura on the forehead.
Be in good health, childe. Much is reparable as long as a person is on this earth. Know that not every illness remains in the body. Even the most terrible. I cannot explain this with anything but the mercy of the Almighty, but I see the leprosy will leave you. So you return to your loved ones and embrace them and do not ever part with them.
When he saw that Laura had no more strength, Arseny helped her stand and brought her home. A light nocturnal rain began to fall. The sky was still free of clouds in the part where the moon was. Wet gondolas glistened, rocking, in the moonlight. Water splashed at the gondolas’ hulls with a resonant smacking sound. On the threshold of her home (in the embraces of her parents), Laura turned to Arseny.
But Arseny was not there. The spectral city was made so one could vanish within it. Dissolve in the rain. Laura knew this and was not surprised. Arseny had not seemed like a real creature to her even when he was alongside her. Laura could not have repeated his words but they had filled her with endless joy, for their main meaning had already been disclosed to her. She now perceived recent days as a dreadful dream. She herself did not understand what had happened to her and she wanted, more than anything on earth, to awaken.
Arseny walked toward the monastery. It had become more or less clear to him which direction to take now that the sky had completely clouded over and rain was falling like a solid wall. Brother Hugo and Ambrogio did not know of his absence. They were sleeping and dreaming.
Brother Hugo was dreaming of his donkey—affectionate, with a groomed mane, and elegantly decorated. He slowly soared over a precipice, his appearance reminiscent of Pegasus. A white horsecloth fluttered ever so slightly on his back. I always knew that nothing of what has been disappears, Brother Hugo whispered in his sleep. Not a person, nor an animal, nor even a sheet of paper. Deus conservat omnia. His face was wet with tears.
Ambrogio dreamt of a street in the city of Orel. A group of five people was being photographed on the steps of the Russian Linen store. Left to right: Nina Vasilyevna Matveyeva, Adelaida Sergeyevna Korotchenko (top row); Vera Gavrilovna Romantsova, Movses Nersesovich Martirosian, Nina Petrovna Skomorokhova (bottom row). May 28, 1951. Director Martirosian had suggested the group organize a celebration in honor of the Russian Linen store’s fifth anniversary. The women made jellied meat, stuffed cabbage, beet salad, and rice pilaf at home. They brought all that to work in pots and set it out in dishes and salad bowls. They licked the spoons after stirring up the beet salad and rice pilaf, one after the other. Movses Nersesovich brought two bottles of Champagne and a bottle of Ararat cognac. He arrived wearing medals. The women smelled of perfume and ironed dresses. There was the smell of a sunny May day. They said toasts (Movses Nersesovich), it was lots of fun. The medals on the store director’s chest jingled pleasantly when he raised his glass. Then the photographer came and took pictures of them, with the store in the background. When she examined the yellowed photograph in 2012, Nina Vasilyevna Matveyeva said: Then Movses announced the store would close early that day. Of everyone you see in the photograph, only I am still alive. I cannot even visit their graves because I moved to Tula and they stayed in Orel. Could that all really have happened to us? It’s as if I’m looking at them from the great beyond. Lord, how I do love them all.