At New Athos monastery in one of the common hostels there were some
hundred peasant men and women, mostly pilgrims. It was after supper;
some of the company were melting away to the dormitories, others
remained talking.
There was one topic of conversation common to all. An old greybeard
palmer had broken down that afternoon and died. He had been almost his
whole life on the road to Jerusalem, and we all felt sad to think that
he had been cut off when he was truly nearing the Holy Land.
"He wished to go since he was a little boy," said old Jeremy, an aged
pilgrim in a faded crimson shirt. Every one paid respect to Jeremy and
listened to him. He was a placid greybeard who had spent all his life
upon the road, full of wisdom, gentle as a little child, and very
frail.
"He wished to go when he was a little boy--that means he began to go
when he was a little boy, for whenever you begin to wish you begin the
pilgrimage. After that, no matter where you are, you are sure to be on
the way. Up in the north the rivers flow under the earth, and no one
sees them. But suddenly the river appears above the land, and the
people cry out, 'See, the river is flowing to the sea.' But it began
to go to the sea long ago. So it was with Mikhail. All his life he was
a pilgrim. He lived in a distant land. He was born of poor parents,
not here, but far away in the Petchora province--oh, far, far away."
Grandfather Jeremy waved his hand to signify how far.
"Four thousand versts at least, and he hasn't come straight by a long
way. Most of the way he walked, and sometimes he got a lift, sometimes
a big lift that took him on a long way."
"Ah, ah!" said a youngster sympathetically, "and all in vain, all in
vain--_naprasno, naprasno_--"
Jeremy paid no attention.
"Big lifts," his voice quavered. "And now he is there. Yes, now he is
there."
"Where, grandfather?"
"There, where he wished to be, in the Holy City. He had got very
tired, and God had mercy on him. God gave him his last lift. He is
there now, long before us."
"I don't see how you make that out," said a young man, a visitor, not
a pilgrim. "God, I reckon, cheated him."
"God never cheats," said Jeremy calmly.
"God..." said the visitor, and was about to raise a discussion and
try to convert these pilgrims from their superstition. But Jeremy
interrupted him. For the old man, though a peasant, had a singular
dignity.
"Hush! Pronounce not His name lightly. I will tell you a story."
"Silence now!" cried several. "Hear grandfather's story!"
The old man then told the story of an aged pilgrim who had died on his
way to Jerusalem. I thought he was repeating the story of the life of
Mikhail, so like were his present words to those that had gone before.
But the issue was different. In this case the pilgrim died and was
buried in a little village near Odessa.
He was a penniless beggar. In grandfather's picturesque language, "he
had no money; instead of which he bore the reproach of Christ. He
found other men's charity....
"All his life he wandered towards Bethlehem. He used to say he
pilgrimaged not towards Calvary, but towards Bethlehem. The thought
that the Roman officials had treated Christ as a thief was too much
for him to bear.
"He who possessed all things they treated as one who had stolen a
little thing...."
The old man paused at this digression, and stared around him with an
expression of terror and stupefaction.
There was a silence.
"Go on, Jeremy," said some one impatiently.
Jeremy proceeded.
"He always journeyed towards Bethlehem, and whenever he saw a little
child, a little baby, he would say to the mother that it foretold him
what it would be like for him at the Holy Land. And of the cradles he
would always say they were just the shape of the manger where the baby
Christ was laid.
"He was very dear to mothers, you may be sure, and he never lacked
their blessing.
"He travelled very slowly, for in Moscow a motor-car ran over his
foot, and he always needed a strong staff. He was ill-treated
sometimes in the towns, where the dogs bit him and the street children
aimed stones. But he never took offence. He smiled, and thought how
little his sufferings had been compared with those of the saints.
"So he grew old.
"'You are old, grandfather; you will never reach Jerusalem,' the
peasant women told him. But he always smiled and said, 'As God wills.
Perhaps if I die I shall see it sooner.'
"And he died, poor, wretched, uncared for, in the streets of a little
village near Odessa, and children came and beat off the hungry dogs
from his body with sticks.
"'What is this?' said one policeman to another.
"'A _Bogo-moletz_ (God-prayer) dead, that's all,' was the reply.
"'No money?'
"'None. If he had any his pockets have been picked.'
"By his passport he belonged to Petchora province, far away. No one
knew him. No one claimed him.
"'It means he must be buried at the public expense,' said the head man
of the village, and spat upon the ground.
"In the whole village only the coffin maker rejoiced, and he had small
cause, since a pauper's coffin costs but a shilling.
"'He must be buried on the common,' said the head man. 'There's no
room in the churchyard.'
"'But a pilgrim,' said an objector. 'You must bury him in consecrated
ground; you can't shut him out of the Heavenly Kingdom.'
"'No matter. Ask the priest. If the dead man can pay for a plot
of ground for a grave, well and good; or if the villagers will
subscribe....'
"The head man looked at the little crowd assembled. They were a poor
and needy crowd. No one answered him. Then, without doing any more,
the head man walked away, and the dead body remained in the street.
"It seemed no one would pay for the grave, but in the afternoon a
woman who lived on the outskirts came and claimed the pilgrim as a
distant relative. He could scarcely have been a relative, except
inasmuch as we are all descended from Adam.
"The head man and the village priest rejoiced, and the woman took the
dead body home and washed it, and clothed it in white linen, and she
ordered a three-rouble coffin covered with purple cloth.
"But she was a very poor woman, and when she had paid for the grave
she had no money to pay for singers and for prayers.
"'God will have mercy,' she said. 'And belike he was a good man, a
pilgrim.'
"And that woman was a virgin," added Jeremy abruptly and, as I
thought, irrelevantly. But the chambers of that old man's mind were
strangely furnished.
"She was a virgin. What remains to be said? She hired a man to dig a
grave, and another to wheel the barrow with the coffin. She had no
friends who would follow the coffin with her, but in the main street
she found a cripple whom she had once befriended, and two little boys
who liked to sing the funeral chant.
"Thus the old pilgrim was taken to the grave, and in his honour a
simple woman, two street children, and a cripple followed his corse."
* * * * *
There was a long pause.
"You think he died," old Jeremy went on. "Oh, no; he did not die, he
only went on more quickly. When he fell down dead in the street his
soul suddenly began a new life, a life like a dream. Whilst the dogs
were barking and snapping at his old legs he suddenly saw in front of
him in the darkness a great bright star beckoning him, and in his new
life he got up from the road and rushed towards that star--rushed, for
he felt young again, younger than any boy, and all the lameness and
tiredness were passed away.
"Suddenly, in front of him, and coming to meet him, he saw a horse,
draped all in silk, and attendants. A man came up to him and saluted
him, offered him a crown, and bade him rise up upon the horse. He sat
upon the horse, and, looking at himself, saw that he was dressed in
cloth of gold. Behind him was a great train of attendants, carrying
gifts. And they all journeyed forward, towards the star.
"Eh, brothers," said Jeremy, looking round, "what a change in the
estate of our poor friend! He has now become one of the first, because
on earth he was one of the last. He is a king."
The listeners were all silent, and the narrator enjoyed a triumph.
* * * * *
Jeremy's cracked old voice went on, and now again somewhat
irrelevantly. "And the woman, who was a virgin, conceived and bore a
child, and she was so poor that the child was laid in a manger. And
three kings arrived, bearing precious gifts, and they did homage
unto the child. It was at Bethlehem. One of these kings was the poor
pilgrim who died on his way to the Holy Land."
"What woman was this?" said the visitor contemptuously. "Your wits are
wandering, old man. Do you mean it was the same woman who buried him?"
"The same," said Jeremy huskily, "only in a different world. There are
other worlds, you know. But it is very true. He came as one of the
kings. And the woman now has a beautiful child. She knows.... So we
shan't be very sad about Mikhail. I think he also to-day is following
that star, and will be at Bethlehem to-night."
"Only it doesn't happen to be Christmas Eve," said the sceptical
visitor.
"Eh, hey," said another pilgrim, breaking in, "there's a man--he
doesn't know that it is Christmas every day in the year at Bethlehem."