“The Enchanted Wanderer” is a story by Nikolai Semenovich Leskov, consisting of twenty chapters and created by him in 1872-1873. Written in simple folk language, it reflects the range of feelings of a Russian person who does not stop in the face of difficulties, but, overcoming them, goes to the intended goal.
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Chapter One: Meeting Ivan Severyanovich
The first chapter tells how a ship sails along Lake Ladoga, among whose passengers a bright personality is a monk, a “hero-monk” who knows a lot about horses. When asked why he became a monk, the man answers this way: he opposed the fact that he had previously done everything according to his parents’ promise.
Chapter Two: The Murdered Monk's Prediction
Golovan is the nickname given to Ivan Severyanovich Flyagin because he was born with a big head. The hero's father was a coachman named Severyan, but he does not remember his mother. The life story that Ivan tells evokes mixed feelings, because the evil committed by Flyagin as a child led to grave consequences. Ivan saw the monk serenely sleeping and lashed him with a whip, but out of fear he got entangled in the reins and fell under the wheel. So the poor man died, and then appeared to Golovan in a dream, prophesying “you will perish many times and will not perish until real destruction comes, and then you will go to the Chernets.”
Very little time passed, and Flyagin found himself in a situation similar to the one in which the monk he killed was: he hung over the abyss at the end of the drawbar, and then fell down. It was a miracle that he remained alive only because he fell on a block of clay, on which he slid down as if on a sled. At the same time, he saved the owners from imminent death, which earned them their favor.
Chapter Three: Cruel Punishment
On new horses, Ivan returned home to his masters. And the young man wanted to have a dove and a dove in the stable. He was happy about the birds, and when they began to hatch pigeons, the cat began to hunt for them. Vanya got angry and beat the harmful animal, cutting off its tail. The boy acted cruelly, and he paid for it: he was mercilessly whipped and kicked out of the stable, and in addition, he was forced to beat pebbles with a hammer for the garden path. Vanya became so annoyed that he decided to hang himself. It’s good that the attempt was unsuccessful - out of nowhere, a gypsy appeared with a knife and cut the rope. The stranger invited Golovanov to live with them, although he admitted that they were thieves and swindlers. So the young man’s fate unexpectedly took a different direction.
Chapter Four: As a Nanny
Immediately the gypsy forced Ivan to steal two horses from the master's stable. The boy didn’t want to steal, but there was nothing he could do – he had to obey, and they rode away on horses.
But the friendship between Ivan and the gypsy did not last long, they quarreled over money, and Flyagin went his own way. Once at the assessor's office, he told his story and took advantage of his practical advice: to buy himself a vacation pay for a fee. So the runaway young man received the right to go to the city of Nikolaev and hire someone as a worker.
Ivan had to serve one master as a nanny, although the boy was completely unprepared for such a position. To my surprise, Ivan did a good job of caring for the child (who, by the way, was taken from his mother). But one day the mother herself appeared and tearfully asked to give up her little child. Golovan did not agree, however, he allowed her to see the baby every day. This continued until the woman’s current husband, an officer, appeared. The child’s mother again began to beg Ivan to have mercy so that the baby would be with her.
Chapter Five: Golovan gives away the child
However, Flyagin was adamant and even began to fight with the officer. And when a gentleman with a pistol appeared on the road, Golovan suddenly changed his mind. “Here's to you, this shooter! “Only now,” I say, “take me away, otherwise he will hand me over to justice,” he said. And he left with the new gentlemen. Only the officer was afraid to keep the “passportless” one and gave him 200 rubles and sent him on his way.
Again the boy had to look for a place in the sun. He went to a tavern, drank, and then went to the steppe, where he saw the famous horse breeder Khan Dzhangar, who was selling his best horses. Two Tatars even started a duel for the white mare - lashing each other with whips.
Chapter Six: Duel
The last to be sold was a Karak foal, which cost a lot of money. And Ivan offered to fight for him in a duel with a Tatar named Savakirei, and when he agreed, using cunning, he flogged him to death.
Having escaped punishment for murder, Flyagin went with the Asians to the steppe, where for ten years he treated both people and animals. To ensure that Ivan would not escape under any circumstances, the Tatars came up with a cunning way to restrain him: they trimmed the skin on his heels and, covering them with horse hair, sewed them up. After such an operation, the guy could not walk normally for a long time, but after a while he got used to it.
Chapter Seven: Prisoner of the Tatars
Although Ivan did not want to live as a prisoner among the Tatars, he still had to live with Khan Agashimola. He had two wives - Tatars, Natasha, and from both of them children were born, for whom the hero did not have paternal feelings. He was troubled by a strong nostalgia for Russia.
Chapter Eight: Asking for Help
The fellow travelers listened to the monk with great interest, and they were especially concerned with the question of how he managed to escape captivity. Ivan replied that at first it seemed completely impossible, but, after a while, hope began to glimmer in his soul, especially when he saw Russian missionaries. They just didn’t want to heed his requests for help to rescue him from captivity. After a while, Flyagin saw one of them dead and buried him according to Christian custom.
Chapter Nine: Release from Captivity
One day, people from Khiva arrived to the Tatars and wanted to buy horses. In order to intimidate the local residents, they began to show how powerful their fire god Talavfa was and, having set the steppe on fire, disappeared. However, leaving hastily, they forgot to pick up the box where Ivan discovered ordinary fireworks. A plan for liberation matured in his head: he began to intimidate the Tatars with flames and forced them to accept Christianity. In addition, Golovan found caustic earth, which was how he managed to etch horsehair from his legs. After this, the hero managed to escape. A few days later he went to the Russians, but they also did not want to accept a person without a passport. The hero went to Astrakhan, but there he drank away the money he earned, after which he ended up in prison, and then he was sent to his homeland - to the province. At home, the count, who was already a widower, whipped the wanderer twice and gave him his passport. Finally, Ivan felt like a free man.
Chapter Ten: Change for the Better
Ivan began an easier life: he went to fairs, offering peasants his help in choosing a good horse. For this he was thanked with money and treated to food. Having learned about Ivan’s special gift, the prince hired him for three years as a coneser. Flyagin’s life was not bad at that time, but, unfortunately, he sometimes drank heavily, although he really wanted to give up this vice.
Chapter Eleven: At the Inn
Often Ivan felt the urge to drink. One day, with the prince’s money, he went into a tavern, where a man accosted him and asked for vodka.
By evening, they were both already pretty drunk, despite the assurances of their new drinking companion that he had magnetism and could get rid of the craving for alcohol. But, in the end, both lovers of fun were kicked out of the tavern.
Chapter Twelve: "Aagnitizer"
At that time, Golovan could not even suspect that this was deliberately set up to defraud him of money. The “magnetizer,” meanwhile, tried to put the hero into a state of hypnosis as skillfully as possible, even giving the so-called “magnetic sugar” into his mouth. And he achieved his goal.
Chapter Thirteen: Gypsy Pear
Through the efforts of a new acquaintance, Ivan found himself near a gypsy house on a dark night. Golovan looks that the doors are open, and curiosity leaps up in him. He later regretted that he entered, but it was too late: a gypsy named Grusha robbed him completely. Ivan was seduced by her charms and beautiful songs and voluntarily gave all the prince’s money.
Chapter Fourteen: Conversation with the Prince
The magnetizer kept his promise: he turned Ivan away from drinking forever. But that day he did not remember how he returned home. Surprisingly, the prince did not scold Golovan much for the lost money, because he himself lost. Flyagin admitted that five thousand all went to the gypsy, and heard: “I’m just like you, dissolute.” It turns out that once upon a time the prince gave not five, but fifty thousand for this same gypsy Grusha.
Chapter Fifteen: The Prince's Story
The prince, according to Ivan Severyanich, was a kind man, but very changeable. He tried zealously to get something, and then did not appreciate what he gained. For a large ransom, the gypsies agreed to give Pear to the prince. She lived in the house and sang songs to him and Ivan. But the prince’s feelings quickly cooled towards the gypsy, unlike this girl, who yearned for him. They hid from the gypsy that the prince had a love on his side - Evgenia Semyonovna, who was known throughout the city and played the piano beautifully. From this love the prince had a daughter.
One day Ivan was in the city and decided to stop by Evgenia Semyonovna. The prince also unexpectedly arrived there. The woman had to hide Golovan in the dressing room, and he became an involuntary listener to their conversation.
Chapter Sixteen: Ivan is looking for Grusha
The point was that Evgenia agreed to mortgage the house, because the prince, who decided to buy a cloth factory and sell all kinds of bright fabrics, needed money for this. But the smart lady understood the true reason for the prince’s request: he wanted to give a deposit in order to win over the leader of the factory and then marry his daughter. The prince admitted that she was right.
After the first, a second question arose: where is the prince going to take the gypsy, to which the assumption was made: he will marry the girl with Ivan and build them a house. However, he never fulfilled his promise, but on the contrary, hid Grusha somewhere, so that Ivan, already in love with the gypsy, had to look for her for a long time. But suddenly, unexpectedly, happiness smiled on Golovan: after, in despair, he went out to the river and began to call Grusha, she answered for no apparent reason. Ivan had no idea what bitter consequences this meeting would bring.
Chapter Seventeen: Gypsy's Despair
Further conversation with Grusha did not bring relief to Ivan. It turned out that she was not herself, and came to the river to die, because she could not bear the betrayal of the prince, who was taking another wife. The upset gypsy woman threatened to kill her rival.
Chapter Eighteen: Grusha's Terrible Request
Grusha told Ivan that the prince forced the one-yard girls to guard her, but under the pretext of playing hide and seek, she managed to escape from them. So the gypsy ended up by the river, where she met Golovan, and after a short conversation she suddenly... asked to kill her, otherwise she would become the most shameful woman. Neither persuasion nor violent resistance helped. In the end, Golovan could not withstand such pressure and pushed the gypsy off the cliff into the river.
Chapter Nineteen: At War
The feeling of guilt for what he had done weighed on Ivan, and when the opportunity arose to help two old men whose son was being recruited, Golovan volunteered to go in his place. And he spent fifteen years in the war. He even received an officer's rank for his feat: Ivan managed to build a bridge across the river while other soldiers' attempts to do the same ended in death. But this did not bring him the desired joy. After some time, Golovan decided to go to the monastery.
Chapter Twenty: Monk
So, the wanderer’s ordeal came to an end. The prediction of the deceased monk regarding him came true. In the monastery, Ivan Severyanich read spiritual books and prophesied about an imminent war. The abbot sent him to Solovki to pray to Zosima and Savvaty. On the way there, Golovan met with those who listened to his amazing story along the way.
On the way to Valaam, several travelers meet on Lake Ladoga. One of them, dressed in a novice cassock and looking like a “typical hero,” says that, having “God’s gift” for taming horses, he, according to his parents’ promise, died all his life and could not die. At the request of the travelers, the former coneser (“I am a coneser, sir, [...] I am an expert in horses and was with repairmen for their guidance,” the hero himself says about himself) Ivan Severyanych, Mr. Flyagin, tells his life.
Coming from the courtyard people of Count K. from the Oryol province, Ivan Severyanych has been addicted to horses since childhood and once, “for fun,” beats to death a monk on a cart. The monk appears to him at night and reproaches him for taking his life without repentance. He tells Ivan Severyanich that he is the son “promised” to God, and gives a “sign” that he will die many times and never die before real “death” comes and Ivan Severyanich goes to the Chernetsy. Soon Ivan Severyanich, nicknamed Golovan, saves his masters from imminent death in a terrible abyss and falls into favor. But he cuts off the tail of his owner’s cat, which is stealing his pigeons, and as punishment he is severely flogged, and then sent to “the English garden for the path to beat pebbles with a hammer.” Ivan Severyanich’s last punishment “tormented” him, and he decided to commit suicide. The rope prepared for death is cut by a gypsy, with whom Ivan Severyanych leaves the count, taking the horses with him. Ivan Severyanych breaks up with the gypsy, and, having sold the silver cross to the official, he receives leave and is hired as a “nanny” for the little daughter of one master. Ivan Severyanych gets very bored with this work, takes the girl and the goat to the river bank and sleeps above the estuary. Here he meets a lady, the girl’s mother, who begs Ivan Severyanich to give her the child, but he is relentless and even fights with the lady’s current husband, a lancer officer. But when he sees the angry owner approaching, he gives the child to his mother and runs away with them. The officer sends the passportless Ivan Severyanich away, and he goes to the steppe, where the Tatars are driving schools of horses.
Khan Dzhankar sells his horses, and the Tatars set prices and fight for the horses: they sit opposite each other and lash each other with whips. When a new handsome horse is put up for sale, Ivan Severyanych does not hold back and, speaking for one of the repairers, screws the Tatar to death. According to “Christian custom,” he is taken to the police for murder, but he runs away from the gendarmes to the very “Ryn-Sands.” The Tatars “bristle” Ivan Severyanich’s legs so that he doesn’t run away. Ivan Severyanich moves only at a crawl, serves as a doctor for the Tatars, yearns and dreams of returning to his homeland. He has several wives “Natasha” and children “Kolek”, whom he pities, but admits to his listeners that he could not love them because they are “unbaptized”. Ivan Severyanych completely despairs of getting home, but Russian missionaries come to the steppe “to establish their faith.” They preach, but refuse to pay a ransom for Ivan Severyanich, claiming that before God “everyone is equal and it’s all the same.” After some time, one of them is killed, Ivan Severyanych buries him according to Orthodox custom. He explains to his listeners that “Asians must be brought into faith with fear,” because they “will never respect a humble God without a threat.” The Tatars bring two people from Khiva who come to buy horses in order to “make war.” Hoping to intimidate the Tatars, they demonstrate the power of their fiery god Talafa, but Ivan Severyanych discovers a box with fireworks, introduces himself as Talafa, converts the Tatars to the Christian faith and, finding “caustic earth” in the boxes, heals his legs.
In the steppe, Ivan Severyanych meets a Chuvashin, but refuses to go with him, because he simultaneously reveres both the Mordovian Keremet and the Russian Nicholas the Wonderworker. There are Russians on the way, they cross themselves and drink vodka, but they drive away the “passportless” Ivan Severyanich. In Astrakhan, the wanderer ends up in prison, from where he is taken to his hometown. Father Ilya excommunicates him from communion for three years, but the count, who has become a pious man, lets him go “on quitrent,” and Ivan Severyanych gets a job in the horse department. After he helps the men choose a good horse, he becomes famous as a sorcerer, and everyone demands to tell him the “secret”. Including one prince, who takes Ivan Severyanych to his position as a coneser. Ivan Severyanych buys horses for the prince, but periodically he has drunken “outings”, before which he gives the prince all the money for safekeeping for purchases. When the prince sells a beautiful horse to Dido, Ivan Severyanych is very sad, “makes an exit,” but this time he keeps the money with himself. He prays in church and goes to a tavern, where he meets a “most empty” man who claims that he drinks because he “voluntarily took on weakness” so that it would be easier for others, and his Christian feelings do not allow him to stop drinking. A new acquaintance puts magnetism on Ivan Severyanych to free him from “zealous drunkenness”, and at the same time gives him a lot of water. At night, Ivan Severyanych ends up in another tavern, where he spends all his money on the beautiful singing gypsy Grushenka. Having obeyed the prince, he learns that the owner himself gave fifty thousand for Grushenka, bought her from the camp and settled her in his house. But the prince is a fickle man, he gets tired of the “love word”, the “yakhont emeralds” make him sleepy, and besides, all his money runs out.
Having gone to the city, Ivan Severyanich overhears the prince’s conversation with his former mistress Evgenia Semyonovna and learns that his master is going to get married, and wants to marry the unfortunate Grushenka, who sincerely loved him, to Ivan Severyanich. Returning home, he does not find the gypsy, whom the prince secretly takes to the forest to a bee. But Grusha runs away from her guards and, threatening that she will become a “shameful woman,” asks Ivan Severyanych to drown her. Ivan Severyanych fulfills the request, and in search of a quick death, he pretends to be a peasant’s son and, having given all the money to the monastery as a “contribution for Grushin’s soul,” goes to war. He dreams of dying, but “he doesn’t want to accept either land or water,” and having distinguished himself in the matter, he tells the colonel about the murder of the gypsy woman. But these words are not confirmed by the sent request; he is promoted to officer and sent into retirement with the Order of St. George. Taking advantage of the colonel’s letter of recommendation, Ivan Severyanych gets a job as a “reference officer” at the address desk, but he ends up with the insignificant letter “fitu”, the service does not go well, and he goes into acting. But rehearsals take place during Holy Week, Ivan Severyanych gets to portray the “difficult role” of a demon, and besides, having stood up for the poor “noblewoman,” he “pulls the hair” of one of the artists and leaves the theater for the monastery.
According to Ivan Severyanych, monastic life does not bother him, he remains with the horses there, but he does not consider it worthy to take senior tonsure and lives in obedience. In response to a question from one of the travelers, he says that at first a demon appeared to him in a “seductive female form,” but after fervent prayers, only small demons, “children,” remained. One day Ivan Severyanych hacks the demon to death with an ax, but he turns out to be a cow. And for another deliverance from demons, he is put in an empty cellar for a whole summer, where Ivan Severyanych discovers the gift of prophecy. Ivan Severyanych ends up on the ship because the monks release him to pray in Solovki to Zosima and Savvaty. The wanderer admits that he expects imminent death, because the spirit inspires him to take up arms and go to war, but he “wants to die for the people.” Having finished the story, Ivan Severyanych falls into quiet concentration, again feeling within himself the influx of the mysterious broadcasting spirit, revealed only to babies.
CHAPTER I
A ship sailing along Lake Ladoga from the island of Kovevets to Valaam moored along the way at Korela, and passengers, out of curiosity, rode horses to this deserted and poor, although very old, Russian village. Having gone further, the passengers reasoned why “inconvenient people in St. Petersburg” should be exiled far away, when very close there is a place where the apathy of the population and the stingy, nondescript nature will overcome all free-thinking. One of the passengers who travels here often says that at different times people were actually exiled here, but all the exiles could not stand it here for long. One, for example, hanged himself. “And he did a great job,” noted the passenger, “prone to philosophical generalizations and political playfulness.” Another, apparently a merchant, a religious man, objects - after all, suicides will suffer for a whole century. No one can even pray for them.
And then a passenger spoke out against both opponents, to whom they somehow did not pay attention, which was strange. “He was a man of enormous stature, with a dark, open face and thick, wavy, lead-colored hair: his gray streak was so strange. He was dressed in a novice cassock with a wide monastic belt and a high black cloth cap... This new companion of ours... looked like he could be over fifty years old; but he was in the full sense of the word a hero, and, moreover, a typical, simple-minded, kind Russian hero, reminiscent of grandfather Ilya Muromets in the wonderful painting by Vereshchagin and in the poem of Count A.K. Tolstoy.”
It was clear that he was an experienced man who had seen a lot. He behaved boldly and self-confidently, although somewhat cheekily. He said that there is a person who makes the situation easier for suicides. This is a drunkard priest in a village of the Moscow diocese who prays for suicides. He was almost cut off. They say that there has already been a decision to deprive him of his place. Out of grief, the priest even stopped drinking and decided to commit suicide - in this case, the bishop would take pity on his family and give his daughter a groom, who would take his place.
And the bishop once dozed off after a meal and saw that the Monk Sergius was entering his cell and asking him to take pity on the unworthy priest. The bishop decided that it was just a dream and did nothing. So he goes to bed again, and dreams of how an army under a dark banner is dragging behind it a crowd of boring shadows, and they all nod sadly to the ruler and ask: “Let him go! “He alone prays for us.” The bishop calls this same priest to himself, and he confesses that yes, he really does pray for suicides. Vladyka blessed the priest and sent him back to his place. During the conversation, it became clear that the talkative passenger was just a monk, and had once been a horseman, that is, he was an expert on horses and was with the repairers for their guidance; he selected and rode more than one thousand horses. The passenger says that he has experienced a lot in his life, he had the opportunity to be on horses, and under horses, and was in captivity, and fought, and he himself beat people, and he was mutilated. And he came to the monastery only a few years ago. “All my life I was dying and could not die,” he says. Then everyone approached him asking him to tell him about his life. He agreed, but he will only tell from the very beginning.
CHAPTER II
Former coneser Ivan Severyanych, Mr. Flyagin began his story by saying that he comes from the courtyard people of Count K. from the Oryol province. His mother died in childbirth, his father was a coachman, and the boy grew up with his father in the coachman's yard. His whole life was spent in the stable, he fell in love with horses and studied them well. At the age of eleven they began to use him as a postilion, and since he was still physically quite weak for a long journey, he was tied with straps to the saddle and girths. It was very difficult, on the road, it happened that he even lost consciousness, but gradually he got used to it. Postilions had a bad habit of whipping anyone who blocked the road. This is how one day Ivan, when he was taking the count to the monastery, killed an old man who was sleeping on a cart. The count settled the matter with the abbot by sending a convoy with oats, flour and dried crucian carp to the monastery in the fall. And at night the monk whom he spotted comes to Ivan in a dream and cries. He informs Ivan that he had a mother’s son, the one who was promised. That is, the mother promised him to God. “You will die many times and never die until your real death comes, and then you will remember your mother’s promise for you and go to the monks,” said the monk and disappeared.
After some time, the count and countess decided to take their daughter to Voronezh to see a doctor. In the village of Krutoy they stopped to feed the horses, and that monk appeared again and advised Ivan to quickly ask the gentlemen to enter the monastery - they would let him go. Ivan didn't want to. Together with their father, they harnessed the horses and rode off, and there was a very steep mountain, with a cliff on the side, where many people died. During the descent, the brake burst, and the entire six rushed down to the cliff. The father jumped off the goat, and Ivan threw himself onto the drawbar and hung on it. The leading horses disappeared into the abyss, and the carriage stopped, running into the roots, whom Ivan crushed with a drawbar. Then suddenly he came to his senses and out of fear he himself flew down. But miraculously he survived - he fell onto a block of clay and slid down as if on a sled. The count invited Ivan, whose nickname was Golovan, to ask for whatever he wanted, but he foolishly asked for an accordion and immediately threw it away.
CHAPTER III
Golovan got a couple of pigeons in his stable. Chicks have appeared. Golovan himself accidentally crushed one while caressing him, and the second was eaten by a cat who got into the habit of climbing on pigeons. He caught her and cut off her tail. It turned out that this was the countess's maid's cat. Golovan was taken to the office of the German manager, ordered to be flogged and set to beat pebbles with a hammer for paths in the garden. He couldn’t stand this and decided to hang himself. He went into the forest with the rope, set everything up, jumped off the branch and fell to the ground, and a gypsy stood over him, who cut the rope. He invited him with him. “Who are you and what do you live for? You're probably thieves, aren't you? ...And on occasion, perhaps, you also cut people?” That's exactly what happened. Ivan thought and thought, waved his hand, cried and became a robber.
CHAPTER IV
The cunning gypsy, in order not to let the guy come to his senses, says that in order for him to believe him, let him take out a couple of the best horses from the count's stable. They rode all night, then they sold the horses, and the gypsy deceived Golovan, giving him almost nothing. The guy went to the assessor to announce that he was a runaway serf, and the clerk to whom he told his story told him that for a fee he would make him look like he was on vacation. I had to give everything: a silver ruble, an earring from my ear and a pectoral cross. Golovan came to the city of Nikolaev and stood where those looking for work gathered. A huge, enormous gentleman, larger than Ivan himself, pushed everyone away from him, grabbed him by both hands and dragged him along. At home I asked him who he was and what he was doing, and when he learned that he was sorry for the pigeons, he was very happy. It turned out that he hires Golovan as a nanny. His wife ran away from him and he was left with a little daughter, but there was no one to look after him. “How will I cope in this position?” - Nonsense... After all, you are a Russian person. A Russian person can handle everything,” says the new owner. They bought a goat, and Ivan became a nanny and became very attached to the child. This continued until the summer. Ivan noticed that the girl had crooked legs - he began to carry her to the estuary and, on the advice of the doctor, bury her legs in the sand. But one day, a lady, the girl’s mother, suddenly appears and begins to ask Ivan to give her his daughter. Golovan in no way. The next day he again takes the goat and the child with him and goes to the estuary. And the lady is already there. And so on day after day, for quite a long time. And finally she comes for the last time to say goodbye and says that her repairman will come himself. He won a lot at cards and
wants to give Ivan a thousand rubles in exchange for a child. Ivan does not agree. And then Ivan sees a repairman lancer walking across the steppe, so dignified, with his hands on his hips... Ivan looked at the lancer and thought: “I wish I could play with him out of boredom.” And he decides that if the lancer says something wrong, Ivan will be rude to him, and then maybe it will come to a fight, which Ivan really wanted.
CHAPTER V
Ivan stands and thinks how best to tease this officer so that he himself begins to attack him? And the lady complains that they are not giving the child away. The repairman pats her on the head and says that it’s okay, now he’ll show the money, Ivan’s eyes will run wild, and if not, then he’ll simply take the child away by force. He hands Ivan a bunch of banknotes, and he tore out the papers, spat on them and threw them away - they say, pick them up yourself. The repairman blushed and rushed at Ivan, but with such a build, no one could cope with him. He only slightly pushed the repairman, and he flew away. Although this repairman was physically weak, he was proud and noble in character. He did not pick up his money from the land. Ivan shouts at him to pick him up, but he doesn’t pick him up, but runs and grabs the child. Ivan took the girl by the second hand and said: “Well, pull it: whose half will come off more.” The repairman cursed, spat in Ivan’s face, let go of the child and pulled the lady along with him, and she was sobbing, turned her face to her daughter and stretched out her hands to her, “as if she were alive, torn in half, half to him, half to the child”... And then The gentleman, the girl’s father, runs from the city, fires a pistol and shouts: “Hold them, Ivan! Hold it!” But Ivan instead caught up with the lady and the uhlan and gave them the child; He only asked that they take him with them, because the master would hand him over to justice, he had a fake passport.
We arrived in Penza, and the officer told Ivan that he could not keep him with him, because he did not have a passport. He gave him two hundred rubles. Ivan really didn’t want to go anywhere, he loved the girl very much, but there was nothing to do. He only asked that the lancer hit him for beating him there, near the estuary. The officer just laughed. Ivan decided to go and surrender to the police, and first have tea at the tavern. He drank for a long time, then went for a walk. I crossed the Sura River, and there were shoals of horses and with them Tatars in wagons. Around the motley crowd there is a crowd of people: civilians, military men, landowners. In the middle sits a long, sedate Tatar in a golden skullcap on a motley felt felt. This was, as Ivan learned, Khan Dzhangar, the first steppe horse breeder. His herds went from the Volga to the Urals. Although all this land belongs to Russia, Khan Dzhangar reigns there. At this time, the Tatar boy drove a white filly of extraordinary beauty to the khan. The bargaining has begun. Soon everyone refused, except for two - these had already begun to offer not only money, but also a saddle, a robe, and even a daughter. Then all the Tatars began to shout so that they would not bring each other to ruin. The Russian, standing next to Ivan, explains to him how the matter will be resolved. Khan Dzhangar will be given as much as he asks, and whoever takes the horse will be allowed to go forward with general consent. The neighbor did not explain what it was, he said that he would see for himself. Both opponents, stripped to the waist, sat down on 304
the ground against each other and grabbed the left hand with their left hand, spread their legs and rested their feet. Each was given a whip, and they began to whip each other. Meanwhile, Ivan’s neighbor was explaining to him the subtleties - how to hit in order to outlast his opponent. Whoever wins will take the mare. The winner, covered in blood, put his robe and beshmet on the mare's back, threw himself onto her with his belly and rode away. Ivan was about to leave, but his new acquaintance detained him - something else must happen.
CHAPTER VI
That's how it all turned out. A young Tatarch galloped up on a Karak stallion, which cannot be described. Hot bargaining began again. There was a repairman he knew among the crowd, but he didn’t even hope to get this horse. Ivan invited him to get it - he would fight with his rival. And he won. He flogged his opponent to death, which he reported to the amazed passengers good-naturedly and dispassionately. Seeing the horror in their eyes, I felt it necessary to give an explanation. This Tatar was considered the first batyr in all Run-sands, so he did not want to give in for anything, and Ivan was greatly helped by the penny he put in his mouth. He gnawed at it all the time so as not to feel pain, and “to distract his thoughts” he counted the blows in his mind, although later he lost count. The Russians decided to take Ivan to the police. He started to run, disappeared into the crowd, and the Tatars helped him. And together with the Tatars, Ivan went to the steppes, where he stayed for eleven years, not of his own free will. The Tatars treated him well, but to prevent him from running away, they performed a cruel operation on him: they cut off a layer of skin on his heels and stuffed chopped horsehair into it, then the wounds were closed and sewn up. After such manipulation, the person could not step on his heel, he could only walk in a prone position or on his knees. And at the same time, the Tatars treated him well, gave him a wife, then another one, and another khan, Agashimola, who stole Ivan from Otuchev, gave him two more wives. This Agashimola was from a distant horde and called Ivan to treat his khansha, for which he promised Ivan’s owner many heads of cattle. He let him go. But Agashimola deceived him - he galloped with Ivan in a completely different direction. Passengers asked what else happened to Ivan. He continued the story.
CHAPTER VII
Agashimola never let Ivan go again. He gave him two more wives. Ivan didn't like them. All his wives gave birth to children, whom he did not consider his own, because they were not baptized. I didn’t feel any parental feelings towards them. I missed Russia very much. All around there is steppe and steppe... Sometimes he imagined a monastery or a temple, then Ivan remembered the baptized land, and he cried. Ivan describes the life and everyday life of the Tatars on the salt marshes above the Caspian Sea. He remembers how he prayed - he prayed so much that “even the snow under your knees would melt and where the tears fell, you would see grass in the morning.” “But everything passed, thank God!” - he said, taking off his monastery cap and crossing himself.
Everyone was interested in how Ivan Severyanych managed to pull out his heels, how did he escape from the Tatar steppes and end up in a monastery? And he continued his story.
CHAPTER VIII
On the way to Valaam, several travelers meet on Lake Ladoga. One of them, dressed in a novice cassock and looking like a “typical hero,” says that, having “God’s gift” for taming horses, he, according to his parents’ promise, died all his life and could not die. At the request of the travelers, the former coneser (“I am a coneser, sir,<…>I am an expert in horses and was with repairmen for their guidance,” the hero himself says about himself) Ivan Severyanych, Mr. Flyagin, tells his life.
Coming from the courtyard people of Count K. from the Oryol province, Ivan Severyanych has been addicted to horses since childhood and once, “for fun,” beats to death a monk on a cart. The monk appears to him at night and reproaches him for taking his life without repentance. He tells Ivan Severyanich that he is the son “promised” to God, and gives a “sign” that he will die many times and never die before real “death” comes and Ivan Severyanich goes to the Chernetsy. Soon Ivan Severyanich, nicknamed Golovan, saves his masters from imminent death in a terrible abyss and falls into favor. But he cuts off the tail of his owner’s cat, which is stealing his pigeons, and as punishment he is severely flogged, and then sent to “the English garden for the path to beat pebbles with a hammer.” Ivan Severyanich’s last punishment “tormented” him, and he decided to commit suicide. The rope prepared for death is cut by a gypsy, with whom Ivan Severyanych leaves the count, taking the horses with him. Ivan Severyanych breaks up with the gypsy, and, having sold the silver cross to the official, he receives leave and is hired as a “nanny” for the little daughter of one master. Ivan Severyanych gets very bored with this work, takes the girl and the goat to the river bank and sleeps above the estuary. Here he meets a lady, the girl’s mother, who begs Ivan Severyanich to give her the child, but he is relentless and even fights with the lady’s current husband, a lancer officer. But when he sees the angry owner approaching, he gives the child to his mother and runs away with them. The officer sends the passportless Ivan Severyanich away, and he goes to the steppe, where the Tatars are driving schools of horses.
Khan Dzhankar sells his horses, and the Tatars set prices and fight for the horses: they sit opposite each other and lash each other with whips. When a new handsome horse is put up for sale, Ivan Severyanych does not hold back and, speaking for one of the repairers, screws the Tatar to death. According to “Christian custom,” he is taken to the police for murder, but he runs away from the gendarmes to the very “Ryn-Sands.” The Tatars “bristle” Ivan Severyanich’s legs so that he doesn’t run away. Ivan Severyanich moves only at a crawl, serves as a doctor for the Tatars, yearns and dreams of returning to his homeland. He has several wives “Natasha” and children “Kolek”, whom he pities, but admits to his listeners that he could not love them because they are “unbaptized”. Ivan Severyanych completely despairs of getting home, but Russian missionaries come to the steppe “to establish their faith.” They preach, but refuse to pay a ransom for Ivan Severyanich, claiming that before God “everyone is equal and it’s all the same.” After some time, one of them is killed, Ivan Severyanych buries him according to Orthodox custom. He explains to his listeners that “Asians must be brought into faith with fear,” because they “will never respect a humble God without a threat.” The Tatars bring two people from Khiva who come to buy horses in order to “make war.” Hoping to intimidate the Tatars, they demonstrate the power of their fiery god Talafa, but Ivan Severyanych discovers a box with fireworks, introduces himself as Talafa, converts the Tatars to the Christian faith and, finding “caustic earth” in the boxes, heals his legs.
In the steppe, Ivan Severyanich meets a Chuvashin, but refuses to go with him, because he simultaneously reveres both the Mordovian Ke-remeti and the Russian Nicholas the Wonderworker. There are Russians on the way, oh-
They don’t cross themselves and drink vodka, but they drive away the “passportless” Ivan Severyanych. In Astrakhan, the wanderer ends up in prison, from where he is taken to his hometown. Father Ilya excommunicates him from communion for three years, but the count, who has become a pious man, lets him go “on quitrent,” and Ivan Severyanych gets a job in the horse department. After he helps the men choose a good horse, he becomes famous as a sorcerer, and everyone demands to tell him the “secret”. Including one prince, who takes Ivan Severyanych to his position as a coneser. Ivan Severyanych buys horses for the prince, but periodically he has drunken “outings”, before which he gives the prince all the money for safekeeping for purchases. When the prince sells a beautiful horse to Dido, Ivan Severyanych is very sad, “makes an exit,” but this time he keeps the money with himself. He prays in church and goes to a tavern, where he meets a “most empty” man who claims that he drinks because he “voluntarily took on weakness” so that it would be easier for others, and his Christian feelings do not allow him to stop drinking. A new acquaintance puts magnetism on Ivan Severyanych to free him from “zealous drunkenness”, and at the same time gives him a lot of water. At night, Ivan Severyanych ends up in another tavern, where he spends all his money on the beautiful singing gypsy Grushenka. Having obeyed the prince, he learns that the owner himself gave fifty thousand for Grushenka, bought her from the camp and settled her in his house. But the prince is a fickle man, he gets tired of the “love word”, the “yakhont emeralds” make him sleepy, and besides, all his money runs out.
Having gone to the city, Ivan Severyanich overhears the prince’s conversation with his former mistress Evgenia Semyonovna and learns that his master is going to get married, and wants to marry the unfortunate Grushenka, who sincerely loved him, to Ivan Severyanich. Returning home, he does not find the gypsy, whom the prince secretly takes to the forest to a bee. But Grusha runs away from her guards and, threatening that she will become a “shameful woman,” asks Ivan Severyanych to drown her. Ivan Severyanych fulfills the request, and in search of a quick death, he pretends to be a peasant’s son and, having given all the money to the monastery as a “contribution for Grushin’s soul,” goes to war. He dreams of dying, but “he doesn’t want to accept either land or water,” and having distinguished himself in the matter, he tells the colonel about the murder of the gypsy woman. But these words are not confirmed by the sent request; he is promoted to officer and sent into retirement with the Order of St. George. Taking advantage of the colonel’s letter of recommendation, Ivan Severyanych gets a job as a “reference officer” at the address desk, but he ends up with the insignificant letter “fitu”, the service does not go well, and he goes into acting. But rehearsals take place during Holy Week, Ivan Severyanych gets to portray the “difficult role” of a demon, and besides, having stood up for the poor “noblewoman,” he “pulls the hair” of one of the artists and leaves the theater for the monastery.
According to Ivan Severyanych, monastic life does not bother him, he remains with the horses there, but he does not consider it worthy to take senior tonsure and lives in obedience. In response to a question from one of the travelers, he says that at first a demon appeared to him in a “seductive female form,” but after fervent prayers, only small demons, “children,” remained. One day Ivan Severyanych hacks the demon to death with an ax, but he turns out to be a cow. And for another deliverance from demons, he is put in an empty cellar for a whole summer, where Ivan Severyanych discovers the gift of prophecy. Ivan Severyanych ends up on the ship because the monks release him to pray in Solovki to Zosima and Savvaty. The wanderer admits that he expects imminent death, because the spirit inspires him to take up arms and go to war, but he “wants to die for the people.” Having finished the story, Ivan Severyanych falls into quiet concentration, again feeling within himself the influx of the mysterious broadcasting spirit, revealed only to babies.
Year of writing:
1873
Reading time:
Description of the work:
Speaking about Nikolai Leskov’s work The Enchanted Wanderer, which he wrote in 1873, it is interesting to note that a year earlier, in 1872, Leskov went on a short trip around Lake Ladoga and visited Valaam and Korelu, where monks lived. At that moment, Leskov’s idea of creating a story about a Russian wanderer arose.
The story The Enchanted Wanderer is a tale or a reproduction of oral speech, and contains 20 chapters. The narrative is not told in chronological order, but is based on the memories and associations of the narrator.
Read below for a summary of the story The Enchanted Wanderer.
On the way to Valaam, several travelers meet on Lake Ladoga. One of them, dressed in a novice cassock and looking like a “typical hero,” says that, having “God’s gift” for taming horses, he, according to his parents’ promise, died all his life and could not die. At the request of the travelers, the former coneser (“I am a coneser, sir,<…>I am an expert in horses and worked with repairmen to guide them,” the hero himself says about himself) Ivan Severyanych, Mr. Flyagin, tells his life.
Coming from the courtyard people of Count K. from the Oryol province, Ivan Severyanych has been addicted to horses since childhood and once, “for fun,” beats to death a monk on a cart. The monk appears to him at night and reproaches him for taking his life without repentance. He tells Ivan Severyanich that he is the son “promised” to God, and gives a “sign” that he will die many times and will never die before real “death” comes and Ivan Severyanich goes to the Chernetsy. Soon Ivan Severyanich, nicknamed Golovan, saves his masters from imminent death in a terrible abyss and falls into favor. But he cuts off the tail of his owner’s cat, which is stealing his pigeons, and as punishment he is severely flogged, and then sent to “the English garden for the path to beat pebbles with a hammer.” Ivan Severyanich’s last punishment “tormented” him, and he decided to commit suicide. The rope prepared for death is cut by the gypsy, with whom Ivan Severyanych leaves the count, taking the horses with him. Ivan Severyanych breaks up with the gypsy, and, having sold the silver cross to the official, he receives a leave certificate and is hired as a “nanny” for the little daughter of one master. Ivan Severyanych gets very bored with this work, takes the girl and the goat to the river bank and sleeps above the estuary. Here he meets a lady, the girl’s mother, who begs Ivan Severyanich to give her the child, but he is relentless and even fights with the lady’s current husband, a lancer officer. But when he sees the angry owner approaching, he gives the child to his mother and runs away with them. The officer sends the passportless Ivan Severyanich away, and he goes to the steppe, where the Tatars are driving schools of horses.
Khan Dzhankar sells his horses, and the Tatars set prices and fight for the horses: they sit opposite each other and lash each other with whips. When a new handsome horse is put up for sale, Ivan Severyanych does not hold back and, speaking for one of the repairers, screws the Tatar to death. According to “Christian custom,” he is taken to the police for murder, but he runs away from the gendarmes to the very “Ryn-Sands.” The Tatars “bristle” Ivan Severyanich’s legs so that he doesn’t run away. Ivan Severyanich moves only at a crawl, serves as a doctor for the Tatars, yearns and dreams of returning to his homeland. He has several wives “Natasha” and children “Kolek”, whom he pities, but admits to his listeners that he could not love them because they are “unbaptized”. Ivan Severyanych completely despairs of getting home, but Russian missionaries come to the steppe “to establish their faith.” They preach, but refuse to pay a ransom for Ivan Severyanich, claiming that before God “everyone is equal and it’s all the same.” After some time, one of them is killed, Ivan Severyanych buries him according to Orthodox custom. He explains to his listeners that “Asians must be brought into faith with fear,” because they “will never respect a humble God without a threat.” The Tatars bring two people from Khiva who come to buy horses in order to “make war.” Hoping to intimidate the Tatars, they demonstrate the power of their fiery god Talafa, but Ivan Severyanych discovers a box with fireworks, introduces himself as Talafa, converts the Tatars to the Christian faith and, finding “caustic earth” in the boxes, heals his legs.
In the steppe, Ivan Severyanych meets a Chuvashin, but refuses to go with him, because he simultaneously reveres both the Mordovian Keremet and the Russian Nicholas the Wonderworker. There are Russians on the way, they cross themselves and drink vodka, but they drive away the “passportless” Ivan Severyanich. In Astrakhan, the wanderer ends up in prison, from where he is taken to his hometown. Father Ilya excommunicates him from communion for three years, but the count, who has become a pious man, lets him go “on quitrent,” and Ivan Severyanych gets a job in the horse department. After he helps the men choose a good horse, he becomes famous as a sorcerer, and everyone demands to tell him the “secret”. Including one prince, who takes Ivan Severyanych to his position as a coneser. Ivan Severyanych buys horses for the prince, but periodically he has drunken “outings”, before which he gives the prince all the money for safekeeping for purchases. When the prince sells a beautiful horse to Dido, Ivan Severyanych is very sad, “makes an exit,” but this time he keeps the money with himself. He prays in church and goes to a tavern, where he meets a “most empty” man who claims that he drinks because he “voluntarily took on weakness” so that it would be easier for others, and his Christian feelings do not allow him to stop drinking. A new acquaintance puts magnetism on Ivan Severyanych to free him from “zealous drunkenness”, and at the same time gives him a lot of water. At night, Ivan Severyanych ends up in another tavern, where he spends all his money on the beautiful singing gypsy Grushenka. Having obeyed the prince, he learns that the owner himself gave fifty thousand for Grushenka, bought her from the camp and settled her in his house. But the prince is a fickle man, he gets tired of the “love word”, the “yakhont emeralds” make him sleepy, and besides, all his money runs out.
Having gone to the city, Ivan Severyanich overhears the prince’s conversation with his former mistress Evgenia Semyonovna and learns that his master is going to get married, and wants to marry the unfortunate Grushenka, who sincerely loved him, to Ivan Severyanich. Returning home, he does not find the gypsy, whom the prince secretly takes to the forest to a bee. But Grusha runs away from her guards and, threatening that she will become a “shameful woman,” asks Ivan Severyanych to drown her. Ivan Severyanych fulfills the request, and in search of a quick death, he pretends to be a peasant’s son and, having given all the money to the monastery as a “contribution for Grushin’s soul,” goes to war. He dreams of dying, but “he doesn’t want to accept either land or water,” and having distinguished himself in the matter, he tells the colonel about the murder of the gypsy woman. But these words are not confirmed by the sent request; he is promoted to officer and sent into retirement with the Order of St. George. Taking advantage of the colonel’s letter of recommendation, Ivan Severyanych gets a job as a “reference officer” at the address desk, but he ends up with the insignificant letter “fitu”, the service does not go well, and he goes into acting. But rehearsals take place during Holy Week, Ivan Severyanych gets to portray the “difficult role” of a demon, and besides, having stood up for the poor “noblewoman,” he “pulls the hair” of one of the artists and leaves the theater for the monastery.
According to Ivan Severyanych, monastic life does not bother him, he remains with the horses there, but he does not consider it worthy to take senior tonsure and lives in obedience. In response to a question from one of the travelers, he says that at first a demon appeared to him in a “seductive female form,” but after fervent prayers, only small demons, “children,” remained. One day Ivan Severyanych hacks the demon to death with an ax, but he turns out to be a cow. And for another deliverance from demons, he is put in an empty cellar for a whole summer, where Ivan Severyanych discovers the gift of prophecy. Ivan Severyanych ends up on the ship because the monks release him to pray in Solovki to Zosima and Savvaty. The wanderer admits that he expects imminent death, because the spirit inspires him to take up arms and go to war, but he “wants to die for the people.” Having finished the story, Ivan Severyanych falls into quiet concentration, again feeling within himself the influx of the mysterious broadcasting spirit, revealed only to babies.
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