Sister Pelagia and the Black Monk Read Online Free Page A

me from the father superior: I had to take a boat from Canaan to Ukatai, the most distant of the islands, and live there from then on, at the viper nursery.”
“Why is there a viper nursery?” Mitrofanii asked in amazement.
“The archimandrite's doctor, Donat Savvich Korovin, thought of it. A man with a cunning mind, His Reverence listens to him. He said the Germans are paying good money for viper venom nowadays, so let's breed the snakes. We squeeze the venom out of their repulsive jaws and send it off to the land of Germany. Ugh!” said Antipa, spitting angrily and crossing his mouth in order not to be defiled, and then he reached under his cassock with his hand. “Only then the most experienced and godly-wise of the senior monks met together in secret and told me not to go to Ukatai but to flee from Ararat without permission and come to Your Grace and tell you everything that I had seen and heard. And they gave me a letter to bring with me. Here it is.”
The bishop took the gray sheet of paper with a frown, set his pince-nez on his nose, and began to read. Pelagia peered over his shoulder without standing on ceremony.
Our most Reverend and Just Lord!
We, the undernamed monks of the New Ararat Communal Monastery, fall at Your Grace's feet in humility, imploring you in your great wisdom not to turn your archpastoral wrath upon us for our willfulness and audaciousness. If we have dared to disobey our most reverend archimandrite, then it is not out of obstinacy, but only out of the fear of God and the zeal to serve Him. The labor of this earthly life is but a fleeting dream, and men are subject to empty fancies, but everything that Brother Antipa will relate to Your Grace is the absolute truth, for he is a monk known among us as a truthful and generous-hearted brother who is not inclined to vain dreaming. And also all of us who have signed this letter have seen the same thing as he did, although not as closely.
Father Vitalii has hardened his heart against us and will not listen to us, but meanwhile there is confusion and vacillation among the brothers, and we are also afraid: What can this oppressive sign mean? Why does Saint Basilisk, the protector of this glorious monastery, raise his finger in threat and lay a curse on his own most holy hermitage? And the words “it shall be cursed”— what do they mean? Were they spoken of the hermitage, of the monastery, or perhaps with a wider meaning of which we of little wit are afraid even to think? Only to Your Grace is there granted the possibility of expounding these terrible visions. Therefore we implore you, most just lord, do not order us or Brother Antipa to be punished, but pour forth on this terrible event the light of your wisdom.
Imploring your holy prayers and bowing low before you, we remain your unworthy brothers in prayer and your sinful servants.
Hieromonk Ilarii
Hieromonk Melchisedek
Monk Diomid
“Father Ilarii wrote it,” Antipa explained respectfully. “A very learned man, an academic. If he had wanted, he could have been a father superior or someone even higher, but instead of that he works to save his soul with us and dreams of getting to Basilisk's Hermitage; he's the first in the queue. And now such a bitter disappointment for him …”
“I know Ilarii,” Mitrofanii said with a nod, examining the request. “I remember him. Not stupid, with sincere faith, only very fervent.”
The bishop removed his pince-nez and looked the messenger over, sizing him up.
“But why do you look so tattered, my son? And why have you no hat? You didn't drive your horses all the way from Ararat, surely? That would hardly be possible across the water, unless, of course, you can walk on water like Basilisk.”
No doubt the bishop was hoping to raise the monk's spirits and lead him into the calmer state of mind required for a more detailed conversation, but the result was the direct opposite.
Antipa suddenly leapt up out of his chair, ran over to the narrow window of