The Cathedral Clergy: A Chronicle

Chapter 18

Chapter 18 The authorities did indeed “get up their courage,” crawl out of hiding, and proceed to restore order. They put a dry prisoner’s overcoat on Danilka, who was soaking wet and barely breathing, and began to interrogate him in earnest. He confessed that, rejected by everyone and driven away from everyone because of his dissolute habits, cold and starving, he had walked and wandered until he finally thought of dressing up as the devil, and in that guise he had frightened people at night, relieved them of their possessions , sold whatever he got to a Jew, and fed himself that way. Achilles listened to everything attentively. The interrogation ended, but he kept looking at Danilka and began to notice that, without rhyme or reason, Danilka was moving up and down, up and down before his very eyes. Achilles blinked hard, and then another strange thing happened. First Danilka would turn bright gold, then silvery white, then a flaming red so dazzling that it hurt to look at him, and then he would be extinguished altogether and vanish, even though he was still there. Following all those kaleidoscopic transformations was unbearably painful, but if Achilles closed his eyes, everything was even more colorful and hurt even more. “Good grief! What’s going on?” the deacon thought to himself and as he rubbed his face with his hand, he noticed that when his palm passed over the skin of his face, it rustled and caught like a piece of cloth clinging to flannel. Then he became oblivious for a moment; a fiery current blazed through his blood, hit the top of his head, and clouded his memory . The deacon forgot why he was there and why Danilka was standing there like a plucked chicken, lightheartedly describing how he had frightened people, how he had made off with all sorts of things, and how, at last, he had unexpectedly fallen into the deacon’s clutches. “Well, now, tell us,” Zacharias asked him again, “tell us, my friend, how you walked upside down across the father archpriest’s ceiling.” “That was easy, Father,” Danilka replied. “I took off my boots, stuck them on sticks, and then made tracks on the ceiling.” “All right, let him go now. You’ve tormented him long enough,” Achilles suddenly put in, blinking his eyes. Everyone turned and looked at him in amazement. “What are you talking about? How can we possibly let someone go when he’s committed a sacrilege?” Gratsiansky said, stopping him. 348 PART V “What does sacrilege have to do with this, for heaven’s sake? He did it because he was starving. Come on now, let him go! Let him go home.” With his back to Achilles, Gratsiansky observed that his intercession was out of line. “What’s wrong with … with standing up for a poor man who’s starving?… The apostles plucked heads of grain—”17 “What are you trying to say?” the archpriest asked sternly, turning around. “Are you a socialist or something?” “‘Socialist’ my foot! I’m telling you that when the holy apostles were walking through a field, they tore off heads of grain and ate them. You city boys whose fathers were priests don’t know this, of course, but when those of us from sacristans’ families were in school, we would often steal stuff to eat. So let him go, for the love of Christ, or else I simply won’t give him to you.” “What’s the matter with you? Are you out of your mind? You wouldn’t dare!…” But the deacon found those last words so unbearably insulting that he turned completely crimson and, snatching his wet undercassock and pulling it on, he cried: “Now I’ll never give him to you, and that’s final! He’s my prisoner, and I have every right to him.” With that the deacon walked unsteadily over to Danilka, shoved him through the door, and, grabbing hold of the doorjambs with both hands to prevent anyone from following Danilka, tried to say something else, but he instantly felt himself growing, expanding, blazing with heat, and disappearing. He closed his eyes for a moment and that very moment he fell to the floor, unconscious. Achilles was in the blissful state of oblivion that a fever bestows. The deacon heard the words outrage, indictment, stroke. He felt hands touching him, turning and lifting him; he heard a commotion and the humble pleas of Danilka when he was caught...