Laurus

by Eugene Vodolazkin

It was his way of warning us that everyone remains alone with God at the final moment.

Into Thy hands, I comende my spirite; have mercy on me and grant me eternal life. Amen.

Philo said the just man is not he who will not offend but he who could offend but does not wish to;

Even their lot, though, was not hopeless, thanks to the boundless mercy of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Angels do not tire, said the Angel, because they do not scrimp on their strength. If you are not thinking about the finiteness of your strength, you will not tire, either. Know, O Arseny, that only he who does not fear drowning is capable of walking on water.

Go ahead and threaten, you shithead, threaten, shouted holy fool Foma, without malice. If I shall ever see thee here one daye, I will mercilessly smash your members. Like as the smoke vanisheth, so shall you be driven away!

He takes me for a holy fool, Arseny told Ustina. And who else could you be taken for? said Foma, surprised. Just take a look at yourself, O Arseny. You really are a holy fool, for thou hath chosen a life for yourself that is wild and disparaged by people.

Arseny asked: If history is a scroll in the hands of the Creator, does that mean that everything I think and do is my Creator’s thinking and doing, rather than mine? No, that is not what it means: the Creator is good but not everything that you think and do is good. You were created in God’s image and likeness, and your likeness consists, among other things, of freedom. But if people are free in their intentions and actions, then it works out that they create history freely. People are free, Ambrogio replied, but history is not free. As you say, there are so many intentions and actions that history cannot bring them all together, and only God can holde them all. I would even say that it is not people that are free but the individual person. I liken the confluence of human wills to fleas in a container: their movement is obvious but do they really have a common purpose? That is why history has no goal, just as humanity has none. Only an individual person has a goal. And even then, not always.

A city of saints, whispered Ambrogio, following the play of the shadow. They present us the illusion of life. No, objected Arseny, also in a whisper. They disprove the illusion of death.

been

I am going to tell you something strange. It seems ever more to me that there is no time. Everything on earth exists outside of time, otherwise how could I know about the future that has not occurred? I think time is given to us by the grace of God so we will not get mixed up, because a person’s consciousness cannot take in all events at once. We are locked up in time because of our weakness.

You know, O friend, any meeting is surely more than parting. There is emptiness before meeting someone, just nothing, but there is no longer emptiness after parting. After having met someone once, it is impossible to part completely. A person remains in the memory, as a part of the memory. The person created that part and that part lives, sometimes coming into contact with its creator. Otherwise, how would we sense those dear to us from a distance?

The Jaffaites who flocked around the travelers were primarily Arabs: they were noisy, guttural, and seemed to have many hands.

me

Holy fool Foma closed his eyes and died after he had made sure everything had been written down. Then he opened his eyes for a moment and added: Postscriptum. Arseny should keep in mind that Abba Kirill’s monastery is expecting him. That’s all. After saying that, holy fool Foma died forever.

Arseny’s hands quickly remembered their forgotten work and now they treated the pestilent sores on their own. As he watched the deft motions of his own hands, Arseny began to fear their actions would become routine and frighten off the astonishing power that flowed through them into the patients but had no direct relation to the art of medicine. Arseny noticed ever more frequently when he was healing people that their recoveries came from that power, not from the ground sulfur and egg yolk. The sulfur and egg yolk did no harm but (or so it now seemed to Arseny) they did not substantially help. It was Arseny’s inner work that was important: his ability to concentrate on prayer while simultaneously dissolving himself within the patient. And if the patient recovered, it was Arseny’s recovery.

If the patient died, though, Arseny died with him. And when he sensed he was alive, he would shed tears and feel ashamed the patient was dead and he was alive. Arseny came to the understanding that blame for a death lay not in the power of the illness but in the weakness of his prayer. He began considering himself a direct culprit in those deaths that occurred and he went to Confession daily, lest the weight of blame become overwhelming for him. And he came to each next patient as if that person were his first, as if he had not examined hundreds of people before this one. So his astonishing power came to the ill as if untouched, for that was all that gave hope for recovery.

I am apparently growing accustomed to what one cannot grow accustomed to, he told Ustina. This proves yet again, my love, that, although there is cowardice, there is no shortage of strength.

Arseny slept for two or three hours each day but could not free himself from the sorrow around him, even when he slept. He saw swollen patients in his colorful dreams and they asked him for cures but he could not help them at all because he knew they had already died. There were no more fantasies in his dreams: these were true dreams, dreams about what had been. Time truly was going backwards. It did not accommodate the events designated for him—those events were too grand and raucous. Time was coming apart at the seams, like a wayfarer’s traveling bag, and it was showing its contents to the wayfarer, who contemplated them as if for the first time.

So you say faith is not enough for you and you want knowledge, too. But knowledge does not involve spiritual effort; knowledge is obvious. Faith assumes effort. Knowledge is repose and faith is motion.

I want only to know the general direction of the journey, said Arseny. The part that concerns me and Ustina. But is not Christ a general direction? asked the elder. What other kind of direction do you seek? And how do you even understand the journey anyway? As the vast expanses you left behind? You made it to Jerusalem with your questions, though you could have asked them from the Kirillov Monastery. I am not saying wandering is useless: there is a point to it. Do not become like your beloved Alexander who had a journey but had no goal. And do not be enamored of excessive horizontal motion. Then what should I be enamored of? asked Arseny. Vertical motion, answered the elder, pointing above. In the center of the church’s cupola there gaped a round, black opening reserved for the sky and stars. Stars were visible but they were fading from sight. Arseny understood day was breaking.

Monastic time truly does lie close to eternity, said Elder Innokenty, but they are not equal. The path of the living, O Amvrosy, cannot be a circle. The path of the living, even if they are monks, has been opened up because, as one might ask, how could there be freedom of will if there is no way out of a vicious circle? And even when we replicate events in prayer, we do not simply recall them. We relive those events once again and they occur once again.

There are events that resemble one another, continued the elder, but opposites are born from that similarity. The Old Testament opens with Adam but the New Testament opens with Christ. The sweetness of the apple that Adam eats turns into the bitterness of the vinegar that Christ drinks. The tree of knowledge leads humanity to death but a cross of wood grants immortality to humanity. Remember, O Amvrosy, that repetitions are granted for our salvation and in order to surmount time.

The elixir of immortality is in there and there is enough for everyone.

Laurus is a good name, for the plants that carry this name, laurus, are medicinal. Being evergreen, they signify eternal life.

Being a mosaic does not necessarily mean scattering into pieces, answered Elder Innokenty. It is only up close that each separate little stone seems not to be connected to the others. There is something more important in each of them, O Laurus: striving for the one who looks from afar. For the one who is capable of seizing all the small stones at once. It is he who gathers them with his gaze.

If God and His Most Blessed Mother forget about me in that place, then why would I be needed?

Are you refusing me because you are afraid of destroying your soul? asked Anastasia. I am afraid I have already destroyed it, Laurus said quietly.

Before bed, Anastasia asks him to tell her a story. Laurus wants to tell about his journey to Jerusalem but cannot remember it.

You know, I have a favor to ask, too. When I leave my body, do not be very ceremonious with it, for I have, after all, synned with it. Tie a rope to the legs and drag it into the swampy wilds for the animals and vipers to tear to pieces. That’s basically it.

He takes her pain into his hands. Absorbs drop after drop.

What kind of people are you? says the merchant Zygfryd. A person heals you, dedicates his whole life to you, and you torture him his whole life. And when he dies, you tie a rope to his feet, drag him, and tears stream down your faces. You have already been in our land for a year and eight months, answers blacksmith Averky, but have not understood a thing about it. And do you yourselves understand it? asks Zygfryd. Do we? The blacksmith mulls that over and looks at Zygfryd. Of course we, too, do not understand.