Pilgrims

an excerpt from The Name of Man

by Richard Seltzer

This chapter is an excerpt from a novel in progress entitled The Name of Man, a sequel to The Name of Hero. Comments and suggestions welcome. You can contact the author directly: Richard Seltzer, 33 Gould St., West Roxbury, MA 02132. seltzer@samizdat.com

Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim electronic copies of this novel for non-commercial purposes provided the copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved on all copies. This novel has not yet been published in paper form.

This historical novel is based on the life of Alexander Bulatovich, a Russian who was an explorer in Ethiopia, a cavalry officer during Russia's conquest of Manchuria in 1900, and later, as a monk at Mount Athos, led a group of "heretics" who challenged the hierarchy of the Russian Orthodox Church, asserting the divinity of the Name of God.

The Name of Hero was published by Tarcher/Houghton Mifflin in 1981. You can buy the hard cover edition of that book:

You can buy this book in hardcover:
The Name of Hero by Richard Seltzer. an historical novel based on the life of Alexander Bulatovich, a Russian who was an explorer in Ethiopia, and a cavalry officer during Russia's conquest of Manchuria in 1900. Later, as a monk at Mount Athos, he led a group of "heretics" who challenged the hierarchy of the Russian Orthodox Church, asserting the divinity of the Name of God.

You'll find the full text of The Name of Hero and related material at www.samizdat.com/readers.html#name and www.samizdat.com/readers.html#ethiopia

St. Petersburg, Russia, Saturday, March 1 (February 16 old style), 1902

[draft of April 8, 1989, revised March 1998]
 

Today would be different, Sonya promised herself. This was her husband's nameday -- the day they would celebrate his turning 55. It was also their six-month anniversary.

       She took his bifocal spectacles from the table beside the bed, and put them on. Looking up, everything was a blur. But looking down was like looking through a magnifying glass. She pulled back the covers all the way to the foot of the bed. Then she stretched out, propped her head on her hand, and took a leisurely and loving look at the full length of the famous Professor Tannenbaum.

       He was far taller than her or her father, the Prince General. As he slept, she examined the dark mole on his left cheek, the gentle wrinkles at the corner of his eyes, the curve of his nose, his long curly beard, black with streaks of white.

       She still found it hard to believe that she at 25, was married to this brilliant and charming man, whose deep compelling voice and bold thoughts had enraptured large audiences throughout European Russia.

       Her eyes hovered between blue and green. Now, when she felt loving and playful, they flashed bright blue.

       For weeks she had been planning a nameday party for him, sending invitations to her family and friends as well as his. She knew that he dreaded socializing with her aristocratic connections, but they wouldn't come without coaxing, and she wasn't going to coax them. She sent them invitations just to provoke and surprise the Professor and make him happy despite himself.

       Her teasing irritated him, but he had told her repeatedly that he loved her to irritate him, that her headstrong and unpredictable ways brought him out of his pompous, professorial shell and made him feel decades younger.

       She was sure that the more he dreaded this party, the more pleased he would be when he discovered that it was actually an intimate gathering with a few of his friends. She enjoyed pleasing him, unexpectedly, on her own terms.

       She kissed him, and he awoke with a start.

       She lowered the glasses to the tip of her nose and glanced at him over the top. "Are you ready for your party, Professor?" she asked.

       He rubbed his eyes, raised himself on his elbows, and smiled. "Ready to play some more, my dear?" he answered, reaching round to pull her toward him.

       "Not that kind of party," she said, tickling him and sliding free of his grip. "Your nameday party."

       "Not that again," he mumbled, dropping back on his pillow.

       "It's high time that we mixed with real society, isn't it?" Sonya pursued. "You'll so enjoy meeting Colonel Molchanov and the Zinovievs and, of course, seeing my mother and father again."

       She wanted him to bellow with annoyance and beg her to call it off, claiming the measles or cholera or anything, as he had begged her a dozen times before. Then she would tickle him until he couldn't hold back the laughter, and they would hug and cuddle.

       "You mean you actually mean to go ahead with it? I thought you were joking, that this was just another of your fantasy games. But you really mean it, don't you? You actually did send those invitations?"

       "Of course," she replied, trying hard to sound serious.

       "Good God, woman!" he shouted at last.

       It felt so good to fool him  that for a few more moments she restrained the urge to tell him the truth, to savor his relief, and then give him whatever pleasure she could.

       "It can't be true," he pleaded, softly now. He gave her a look of deep disappointment, as if she were a promising student who had failed an important test.

       She hoped he would throw the pillow at her, and she'd laugh and confess, and it would be a beautiful day. Instead, he got up and pulled on his trousers, as if she weren't there. So she got up too, went straight to her dressing room, and sat in front of the mirror, brushing her long brown hair and making faces at herself, trying on this role, then that, trying to think of a way to punish him for that condescending look of his.

       She called to him, "Maybe I should invite Sasha, too."

       "Sasha?"

       "Yes. You remember Sasha. Alex. Alexander Xavierevich Bulatovich. My former fiance. I hear he just returned from the war in China," she lied with a smile. "It would be so nice to see him again."

       He stormed into the dressing room. "Grow up, young lady. Enough is enough. Use the telephone or send the servants. Make up any excuse, do anything to call off this party of yours."

       Angry that he talked to her like a child, she lashed back, "So you're afraid to associate with people of real quality? Afraid they'll look down on the son of a moneylender and the grandson of a village peddlar? It would have been a lot simpler if I had married Alex," she added for effect. "He was a cavalry officer in my father's regiment, the finest regiment in the Russian army. He'd have no trouble associating with the Tsar himself."

       Enraged, he raised his arm to strike her.

       She jumped back to avoid the blow and fell, banging her hip, sharply on the corner of the dressing table.

       "Elena... Lena... darling..." he said as he sank to his knees. Then, quickly, he corrected himself, "Sonya, darling..." and started babbling apologies.

       That was their first fight. It was also the first time he had made the mistake of calling her by the name of his first wife.

       Sonya would make sure that he remembered this occasion. Now, she would do everything she could to make sure that her parents and their friends actually did come to the party.
________

       "I'm in no hurry!" shouted Sonya. But the cabbie paid no heed, cracking the whip again to force his dappled horse to dash through heavy traffic. "Slow down!" she shouted, as they passed a troika and a motor car and narrowly missed an on-coming sledge.

       She took her hands out of her muff to hold onto her sable hat.

       Counter to the fashion of her time, she didn't tie or knot or braid her hair. She wore it long and loose, with its natural gentle waves, and now it was blowing every which way, as they raced through the crowded city streets.

       "Slow down!" she shouted again. But in the clatter of sleighs and bells and horses' hooves, he couldn't hear her or didn't want to. He probably didn't hear her and was hoping for a generous tip if he got her to the train station early.

       The sun shone brightly, which was rare in St. Petersburg. The reds and greens and blues of private homes and cupola-topped churches reflected on icicles that dangled long and treacherous. A storm had just passed, leaving a foot of snow on the downtown streets and sidewalks.

       The hard-packed snow and ice had made all the streets so smooth that the pavement didn't matter -- not like in the summer when cobblestones against carriage wheels made a nerve-jangling clatter, and with all the bouncing and shaking, on a little trip across town, even with the best springs and cushions, you were lucky to emerge unbruised. Far too few were the broad artistocratic thoroughfares, like Nevsky Prospekt, smoothly paved with blocks of wood or with asphalt.

       In the spring and fall, if anyone had noticed her limping, she would have blamed her sore hip on such a ride. She would probably have elaborated on how the cabbie took a shortcut through a working class neighborhood, where the roads were nothing but dirt, and the horse had stumbled and nearly broken a leg in a pothole. She loved to invent stories like that.

       She was glad it was winter. In spring and fall, the Neva River was a menace -- frequently flooding the low-lying areas of the city. Those were the districts where it was cheapest to live because of the danger and hence they were the most overcrowded, swarming with the poor who couldn't afford to live anywhere else.

       And in the heat of the brief St. Petersburg summer, those same districts suffered from typhoid and cholera and other deadly diseases that seemed linked with the foul waters of that river and the swampy land around.

       But in winter, from November to early April, travel in Petersburg was often a pleasure. The hard-packed snow and ice made all streets, regardless of their paving and regardless of the poverty of the neighborhood, a smooth and comfortable surface for sleighs to glide on. And the river itself, frozen smooth and hard two or three feet thick became a sparkling highway. Temporary roadways were marked across the ice -- complete with electric lights -- connecting the many islands of the city and making travel far more convenient.

       Sonya lurched forward as the sleigh came to an abrupt halt.

       "You're in time for the early train, ma'am," the cabbie announced proudly. "I'll wager you never figured on that."

       "No, indeed," she replied with a forced smile. As she carefully stepped down onto the soft snow, her corset rubbed against the top of her hip bone, aggravating the bruise.

       Seeing a crowd milling about in front of the station, she whispered to the cabbie, "Is that a political demonstration?"

       "No, ma'am," he answered loudly. "Don't think so, ma'am. But there's no telling, with even students and teachers on strike."

       "Thank you," she replied, hurriedly paying him the fare.

       He joyfully exclaimed his thanks, "May the Lord bless you and your husband and all your young ones and..."

       Sonya blushed, realizing she had given him three times too much. Then she hurried on through the crowd, limping slightly from her bruise. Near the entrance, she slowed, remembering her own words -- "I'm in no hurry." She was going to see her father. She missed the odor of cigar smoke that clung to his uniform, the cold brass buttons and scratchy gold braid as he held her close, the tickle of his bushy mustache as he kissed her cheek. But she had stayed away too long and been curt with him and distant even when she lived at home.

       Her parents, from aristocratic families with ten and twelve children, had been pleased to have only one child so they could dote on her. Sonya, however, looked forward to having many children.

       Having wandered far from the crowd, she stopped by a snow drift, tempted by its bluish sparkle in the shadow of the gate. She was in no hurry to catch the train to the town of her childhood, to the palaces, the parks, and the barracks of Tsarskoye Selo, to her father the Prince General. Rather, she had an urge to sit down in the freshly fallen snow, to stretch out on her back and look up at the glorious light-blue sky. Quietly, she laughed at herself for having such notions -- with all these people about, and now a swarm of soldiers emerging from the station. The impulse was so childish.

       She checked the clock above the station entrance. The early train was due to leave in ten minutes. Her feet started forward, then stopped, and she let herself fall gently on the soft snow.

       Up rushed an officer, and another, and another -- six of them, all anxious to help her to her feet.

       "Are you all right?" asked one.

       "That was a nasty fall," offered the next.

       "Yes, yes, I'm fine, thank you. It wasn't an accident. The snow's so soft, I..." she started to explain, then blushed, realizing from their broad grins that they thought she had fallen deliberately to catch the attention of one or more of them; not only that, but that she was so brazen a flirt as to admit it to their faces. "How dare you think such thoughts!" she snapped, glaring at them. They laughed good-naturedly. She shook her arms free of their support and limped off quickly, into the station and onto the waiting train, without looking back.

       Walking down the corridor of the first-class carriage, she passed everal empty cmopartments, but couldn't decide.  At the end of the corridor, she entered a compartment that looked empty, only to discover that someone was there -- a venerable priest, inconspicuous in his cylindrical black hat and his long black robes.

       "In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit," he intoned softly, crossing himself. The words, so familiar, irked Sonya now. Hesitating there in the doorway, she almost said aloud, "Father and son; why always father and son? Why not mother and daughter or father and daughter?"

       She'd have to talk to the Professor about this bitterness of hers toward the religion of her childhood. He'd understand. He had alienated himself from the Jewish religion of his ancestors.

       "Ah, Princess Vassilchikova," the priest suddenly greeted her. "Lord be praised. You grow so beautiful. And your mother, she is well, I trust? Still active in her charity work? A fine energetic woman."

       Sonya hesitated, then, recognizing him, she smiled broadly. "Father Theofan, so good to see you." She took his hands and felt their knobby roughness, then stroked the sagging muscles of his cheek and neck. His long curly white beard smelled of incense and the soft smoke of candles. He hugged her and she hugged back, tightly, surprised at her own surge of tenderness, remembering just such an embrace five, maybe six years ago at her parents' house. Her mother was always raising money for one cause or another. Father Theofan, then confessor of the Tsarina Alexandra, was a frequent guest. Was it when they were collecting for the Red Cross Mission to Ethiopia? On that occasion, Sonya had felt particularly close to her mother and her mother's friends because Alexander Bulatovich, her fiance, or rather the man she was then sure would soon be her fiance, had volunteered as a member of that Mission.

       For a moment, Sonya felt like the overgrown tomboy and impish flirt she'd been back then. Her blue-green eyes flashed bright green with delight. She laughed to herself, thinking of how she must have looked sitting in the snow in front of the train station.

       "Well, princess," Father Theofan continued, "How many suitors do you have now? And how's that favorite of yours -- that African explorer you were pining over -- what was his name?"

       "Bulatovich, Staff-Rotmister Alexander Xavierevich Bulatovich," she replied, quickly covering her wedding ring. What harm? she thought. Why burden this nice old man with explanations? She was enjoying and wanted to prolong these few moments of return to a world that she had never realized she had missed.

       She opened her handbag, took out a comb and a mirror, and slipped the ring inside. She smiled when she saw herself in the mirror -- she always looked her best when, as of late, she took no pains about her appearance. Her light brown hair hung long, loose, and uncomplicated. He cheeks were naturally rosy from the chill weather, and blue-green eyes glistened with nervousness as she thought of tonight's party and her upcoming meeting with her father.
______________

       For five years now, Sonya had been drifting away from her family and the traditional role and pursuits of a Russian princess. She knew by uniform and by face all the "great princes and princesses" or grand dukes and duchesses -- brother and sisters, sons and daughters, and grandsons of tsars. She also knew many of the numerous other princes and princesses, like herself descendants of tsars or of ministers or high-ranking military officers. Her French was flawless. She played the piano, not brilliantly, but with a verve that many in her circle appreciated. She knew all the eligible young men of appropriate breeding, finances and prospects, and she had cultivated the fine art of flirtation and courtship, as was fitting. But instead of settling down with any of the fine young men who sought her out, she became absorbed in the study history and philosophy.

       It was Bulatovich who had unintentionally aroused these interests, when he left his comfortable niche as an officer in her father's regiment to experience first-hand the mountains, jungles, and deserts of Ethiopia, and to learn the languages and cultures of the people who lived there. At first, Sonya shared his adventures vicariously and studied to make herself a better helpmate for him. She helped him organize his notes from his first trip into book form. She presumed that after they were married, his work in Ethiopia would continue, that she would go there with him. But there was little time for them to be together before he was sent by imperial order for a second and then a third trip to Ethiopia.

       She continued to pursue her studies, ever more seriously, gaining confidence in her own intelligence and abilities, becoming familiar with the liberal and radical ideas that were then current at the university, losing all touch with her old friends as she made new ones from all social classes, no longer using the title "princess," not even thinking of herself as one.

       Her parents had resisted this trend; but she insisted and had her way.

       When she was younger, any form of resistance had just strengthened her will. Now she was more reasoned in her judgments, more certain in her convictions, and even more strong willed. She greatly admired Professor Tannenbaum in particular. She read all his works and frequented his lectures.

       Bulatovich worte infrequently and coldly. When he returned from his third trip to Ethiopia, they had a brief rendezvous, shopping on Nevsky Prospekt, that left them both aggravated and distant. Shortly thereafter he had volunteered for the war in Manchuria, leaving her without any explanation or even a goodbye.

       For months she had been too angry even to write to him. She didn't love him, she told herself. They had drifted far apart, she told herself. But it wounded her that he didn't seem to care at all. Finally, she wrote him a long passionate letter she was sure would win him back; not that she wanted him back, but she wanted him to want her, to need her -- only then could she, delicately and compassionately, finally break with him.

       But Bulatovich didn't answer; and the Professor proposed; and, much to her own surprise, she accepted immediately.

       In her younger days, she would have been flattered but indecisive if she had been offered such a proposal. She would have told her father and savored the drama and excitement of his disapproval. Maybe she would have gone ahead with it or maybe not.

       But at the mature age of 24, she had simply married the Professor in a private ceremony, not even telling her parents until a week later, and then not even in person, but by telephone. She didn't give her parents a chance to be either resentful or understanding. She simply ignored them and their world as she immersed herself in the academic world of her husband. Her first Christmas away from her family had passed unmarked, almost unnoticed, while she helped her husband correct the galleys for his latest book on the revolutions of 1848. She had surprised herself with her  indifference to traditions and memories she used to cherish.

       But now, less than a month later, on irrational impulse, she had decided that this party would actually include not only the Proessor's friends, but also her family and her old childhood friends as well. Although she had made this decision partly to spite the Professor, it pleased her as a sign of her growing self-confidence that now she could deal with both the world of her husband and the world of her parents at once.
_____________________

       As Sonya looked through train the window, they left behind the factory smoke that contaminated the air around Petersburg and raced through snow-covered fields and pastures. A few miles to the west, the frozen Gulf of Finland was a swirl of snow extending as far as the horizon.

       Tsarskoye Selo, the Tsar's Village, lay on a range of hills just fifteen miles south of Petersburg. The train line, opened some 65 years before, was the oldest in Russia. It shuttled dignitaries, bureaucrats, and military men back and forth between their palaces, offices, and barracks.

       The haze and the freshly fallen snow combined to make magical the wide straight streets, the villas and the palaces. Instead of hiring a cab at the station, despite her hip, Sonya decided to walk, as she often had, with her governess or her father, as a child.

       To the right shone the five gilded cupolas of St. Catherine's Cathedral. She meandered, in no hurry, kicking at the snow with her black boots and watching mischievous boys run and wrestle in snow drifts.

       A young officer, riding by on a white horse, tipped his hat to her, then smiled flirtatiously as he twisted the end of his mustache. She pretended to ignore him. Then as he rode away, she picked up a chunk of hard-packed snow, hit him on the back with it, and ducked around the corner, laughing quietly as she heard him curse and chase the boys.

       Now she ran, not because she was in a hurry, but because, even with her bruised hip, she enjoyed the feel and sound of fresh snow crunching under her feet. She went far out of her way, along the high iron fence outside the imperial park, past the Alexander Palace, (favorite home of Tsar Nicholas) and the Catherine Palace, then along the perimeter of the artificial lake, to Volkovskaya Street and the long row of hussar Guard barracks.

       Finally, she arrived at the headquarters of the Second Guard Cavalry Division, where her father, General-Prince Vassilchikov, was now chief of staff.

       The waiting room was empty, except for two bedraggled peasants whose questions the orderly ignored as he led Sonya past them and into her father's office. As the General rose to greet her, she was struck by how short he was compared to Professor Tannenbaum. Of course, he was a cavalry officer, with the compact build of a jockey. He was no taller than her. But he looked magnificent in his uniform with all the medals and insignia, in this vast office, with its Persian rugs and paintings of the Tsar and Tsarina and previous Guard Division commanders and chiefs of staff.

       Sonya felt proud to be his daughter, proud to be part of this beautiful, artificial world, with all its traditions and history. She looked at him, eyes moist with a hazy sense of regret, wanting to make up to him for having taken his love for granted, for selfishly forgetting his wants and sensitivities in her rush to become a "modern woman."

       He hesitated, taken by surprise. So she ran up to him and threw her arms around him, ready to blurt out how happy she was to see him. But he looked at her hand before he looked her in the face, and cut short her exuberance, turning away, "I see that you don't even wear a wedding ring."

       She blushed deeply, embarrassed to admit that she usually did and to explain why she had taken it off today. It was all so ridiculous.

       "Father, why let such nonsense destroy a perfectly beautiful day? Here I've come all this way just to see you and to make sure that you and mother will be coming to St. Petersburg today."

       "Of course, I'll be going to St. Petersburg."

       "Fantastic!" she exclaimed, giving him a warm hug. "And mother, too?"

       "What does your mother have to do with it?"

       "Well, I invited you both, of course."

       "Invited? What are you talking about?"

       "The party, of course. The Professor's nameday party."

       "Don't be ridiculous. Your mother and I never gave that a second thought."

       Sonya cringed and hesitated, then asked, "What are you going to St. Petersburg for?"

       "There's an important military ceremony at the Tauride Palace this afternoon."

       She forced a smile. "Then, surely, if you are already going to be in the city, you could stop by our house afterwards."

       "You expect me to hobnob with those radical friends of yours from the University? You expect me to be seen in such company? When you honor none of our traditions -- not even wearing a wedding ring?" He rushed on, spitting words out quickly and hoarsely through the shaggy hairs of his mustache. For months he had been rehearsing his grievances, and now he wanted to say it all before she disappeared again or before he forgot his angry intent in a rush of weakness and tenderness. He had to have his say for her good as well as his. "You're my only child, and you will always be welcome here, no matter what. I don't mean to be gruff with you. But you need someone to drill sense into you. I should have done it long ago. I was too soft with you. I should never have let you go off to that hellish city and get mixed up with that crowd of radicals: strikers and revolutionaries, all of them. You should never have married that Professor," he bellowed, slapping the side of his desk with his calloused palm. "If you were going to marry below your station, you should at least have married a bright young man with prospects, who might make something of himself in government service. But no, you picked an old Jew..."

       "Son of a converted Jew."

       "No difference," he asserted with a short wave of his hand. He stared over her head at the wall beyond to keep control of his emotions. "He's an old man, as old as me. How could you possibly get along with such a man?"

       Sonya blushed again, and turned away quickly, hoping he hadn't noticed. "We hope that you can come tonight," she said as firmly as she could, staring at the door through which she had entered. "If you can't... well, that's your affair. Good day, your highness." With that she left, none too quickly, deliberately leaving the door open behind her, hoping that he would call her back and take her in his arms, as he had when she was a little girl.

       But he said nothing.

       When she reached the orderly's desk at the far end of the waiting room, she turned and noticed again that two filthy pilgrims were waiting, humble and intimidated at the end of a long white bench. She looked back at her father across the expanse of both large rooms and loudly addressed the orderly, "What are these two gentlemen waiting for?"

       The orderly reluctantly replied, "They are Cossacks from Siberia. They say that they knew Staff-Rotmister Bulatovich in Manchuria."

       "Bulatovich is back?" asked Sonya.

       "Yes," answered the orderly. "He has been, for six months or more. But he's not around today. That's why regimental headquarters sent these two here, and here they've sat for hours. I've  told them repeatedly that Staff-Rotmister Bulatovich is out, but they insist on waiting for him. His Highness, your father, has been kind enough to let them wait here rather than outside in the snow."

       "How kind," she replied sarcastically. "Gentlemen, how would you like to come to a party?"

       They looked at each other and then around the room, then back at her, in disbelief.

       "Yes, you," she smiled, looking them straight in the eye. "You look like you could use a meal. No point in letting good food go to waste. Come with me now, and we'll catch the next train to Petersburg."

       Sonya had intended to visit her mother and Colonel Molchanov and the Zinovievs. But that was impossible now. Coming out of division headquarters, she walked briskly, with single-minded determination, straight up Volkovskaya Street toward the station. The peasants, with feet wrapped in rags and bundles over their shoulders, stumbled along behind her.

       The street looked narrow now, and the snow more gray than white in the shadow of the guards barracks that loomed, tall, rectangular, stone.

       The peasants were muttering unintelligibly, in the rhythm of prayer. She didn't know what to say to them. They had helped her stage a dramatic insult to her father -- far too dramatic. She must learn to curb her temper. She must learn humility, she told herself. She must cultivate the courage to admit her mistakes; to be considerate and tender and gracious. She should run back now and throw herself at his feet and beg for forgiveness. But thanks to her impulsive invitation, these filthy peasants, with their stink of horse manure, were at her heels. They stood between her and her father. She must get away from them at all costs.

       She started to run toward the station. Her corset was too tight for her to breath properly. Her hip hurt. She kept tripping over her long skirt and petticoats.

       An officer rode up -- the same one who had tipped his hat to her, the same one she had hit with a snowball. Sonya smiled at him warmly, as if he were an old friend. But he rode right by as if he hadn't seen her.

       The peasants were close behind. She could smell them. The wind gusting at her back, wafted their pungent aroma at her, around her; she couldn't escape from it.

       She nearly fell, but righted herself. The wind, stronger now, helped push her along.

       She looked back as she ran, but the wind-driven snow swirled in her face. The world had changed in a matter of minutes. She could barely see her own boots. But back there, somewhere, all too close, she heard the dull thud of the peasants' rag-shod feet. She cursed herself for bringing this curse upon herself. She raised her coat, skirt, and petticoats and raced ahead.

       At last she reached the shelter of the station. She had out-distanced them. With any luck, she could lose them here. They wouldn't have the fare to pass the gate, and she would be done with this nightmarish episode.

       The line at the ticket window was short, but the clerk was unbearably slow.

       "I'm in a hurry, can you please..."

       "Just wait your turn, miss. I'll be with you in good time," the clerk replied, seeming to move even more slowly in reaction to her impatience.

       "Please, my good man," she insisted, looking back anxously over her shoulder.

       "No need to rush, miss. The train's not due to leave for another seven minutes."

       "I'll gladly pay you three times the fare. Just let me through the gate."

       "I beg your pardon, miss," protested the lackey of the woman ahead of her in line. "My mistress is the Countess of Courland. This gentleman is being so kind as to check her itinerary against his schedules. Surely, you understand..."

       "But..." Sonya started to reply, but the Countess herself glared at her through a lorgnette with such disdain, that Sonya stared back at her, impudently, prepared to make a scene.

       Then the Countess stiffened in shock. The lorgnette dropped from her hand.

       Sonya smiled in triumph, until she realized the cause of the Countess' dismay. First she smelled the peasants. Then she heard their plodding and heavy breathing. In a few moments, they were standing on either side of her, and the Countess of Courland and her lackey were backing away from the ticket counter in disgust.

       "Are these creatures bothering you, miss?" The clerk asked, poised to signal for the police.

       "On the contrary, sir," replied Sonya, casting an angry glance at the Countess. "These are my travelling companions. I'd like three tickets to St. Petersburg. First class."

       "I'm sorry, miss, but these... They can't ride first class. Here are two third class for them and a first for you."

       "Then make that three third class," she replied, taking pleasure in the shock she caused the Countess.

       "But surely, miss, you don't intend..." The clerk objected.

       "I most certainly do. Thank you, good sir," snapped Sonya. Then she led the way onto the green third class coach.

       The coach was crowded with construction workers and conscript soldiers, half on narrow wooden benches, the rest sitting on the muddy, wood floor. As Sonya and the peasants entered, everyone edged away from them, vacating the end of the bench, in deference to the lady and astonishment at her incongruous company.

       The peasants, still winded from their run, collapsed on the floor and dropped their bundles beside them. The bearded one knelt, bent forward, and prayed. With his shortness of breath, the words, at first, were barely audible; but the liturgical rhythm was familiar. "The Lord be praised. Let us rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice always; pray constantly; give thanks in all circumstances." His solemn, educated tones belied the poverty of his filthy gray rags.

       The other peasant lay down near Sonya's feet, leaned back against the wall, and rubbed his sweaty brow. His chin was smooth, as if he had never needed to shave, but his arms, seen through rips in the grimy cloths that covered them, were hairy like the arms of a bear. He had a scar on his forehead that pulled upward on the skin near the corner of his left eye, giving his face an oriental look.

       Sonya took out a handkerchief and covered her nose with it, trying to block out the horse-manure stink, but unobtrusively, as if she were suffering from a cold.

       Noticing that she was staring at him, the one with the scar stared back at her in wide-eyed wonderment.

       She looked away -- everyone in the car was staring at her. She looked back -- the peasant was still staring, with that same look on his face. She shut her eyes. "Thank God they've been taught to keep their distance," she thought, shivering at the image of all these third-class passengers setting upon her to rob her and rape her. Only their superstitious respect, their reverence for their "betters" -- attitudes that she considered a bar to democracy, attitudes that she helped undermine with impulsive gestures like inviting these two to her party -- only that archaic mindset of theirs protected her now.

       Finally, she asked the one with the scar, "Who are you?"

       He mumbled inaudibly.

       "What is your name?" she repeated sharply, surprised at how quickly she fell into the tone of a mistress disciplining a servant.

       "Not fitting," he mumbled again.

       "Answer me," she ordered with authority.

       "Yakov."

       "What?"

       "Yakov Shemelin, your ladyship. Yakov the Cossack, from Trans-baikal."

       "That's better. Now what's not fitting?"

       "The likes of me riding and talking with the likes of you, begging your pardon."

       "You told the orderly back at headquarters that you know a Staff-Rotmister Alexander Bulatovich. Is that so?"

       "Aye, your ladyship."

       "Well, if it's fitting for you to have dealings with him, it's fitting for you to have dealings with me."

       "Begging your pardon, your ladyship, but he and us are comrades. We'd follow him to hell, and glad for it."

       "From the looks of you, you've already been to hell."

       "So you might say, your ladyship. We're pilgrims, Sofronov and me."

       "You mean beggars, I'm sure."

       "If you will, your ladyship. It's not fitting for me to tell you what is and what's not. We walk and pray and stop where folks want to pray with us and share a crust for a good word to God."

       "Your highness," the other peasant intoned. His voice was cultivated, almost melodic, in contrast to the harsh tones of his friend. "Yakov is far too modest. With the Lord's grace, we have travelled from the farthest reaches of Siberia, many thousands of miles, mostly on foot. We have visited the greatest monasteries in Russia," he boasted. "The Lavra of the Caves in Kiev, the St. Sergius and Holy Trinity Lavra at Zagorsk, and the Pochaevsky Uspensky Lavra in Volynsky Province. Soon we will visit the Alexander Nevsky Lavra in Petersburg."

       "And why, may I ask, are you doing this?" she inquired, scrutinizing his face, not weathered and scarred like the other's.

       "For myself, it is a penance. Once I was a student at the Theological Academy in Kazan. But I fell away from the church.  I was foolish and weak. I fell on hard times and volunteered for the war in Manchuria. There I met Yakov. There Yakov had a vision of the Lord Jesus Christ. For weeks you could see the glory of the Lord reflected in Yakov's eyes," he recounted, his own eyes flashing with enthusiasm in the telling of it. "Through him I saw that glory, and like him I was reborn in Christ. Now I have come these many miles to do penance for my years of foolish sin."

       "But why do you seek Bulatovich?" Sonya pursued, so curious now that she forgot her distaste and her fears, forgot that dozens of eyes were still trained on her.

       "We would look for God, but don't know how," he replied. "So we look for the man who was near when God was near. We look for Bulatovich -- a man so blessed and cursed with luck he must be close to God."

       The coach became dead quiet -- the only noise that of the train itself: the whistle, the steam released from brakes, steel scraping against steel, the distant slow chugging of the engine as it pulled out of the station.

       Lulled to drowsiness by the swaying rhythm of the train, Sonya grew passive.  Strange thoughts wandered through her mind. She imagined her father standing on the platform at the station. The relentless rattling race of the train was putting distance between her and him.  No, her father, as she imagined him, wasn't alone. He was holding a naked baby. The baby was crying. She could hear him from even this far away, above the whistle of the train; the son she wished she could have. He was begging to be born, to be a son and then a father himself: to be bound with love, hate and regret to this whole mad world, from creation to kingdom come. Amen.

To correspond with the author, send email to seltzer@samizdat.com

Related material, such as books by Bulatovich about Ethiopia

This site is published by B&R Samizdat Express, 33 Gould St., West Roxbury, MA 02132. 617-469-2269 seltzer@samizdat.com

Links to the complete novel, The Name of Hero.

To contact Richard Seltzer send email to seltzer@samizdat.com

Article about Bulatovich.

Sample chapters from The Name of Man

Complete text of From Entotto to the River Baro

Complete text of With the Armies of Menelik II

Related materials

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You can buy this book in hardcover:
The Name of Hero by Richard Seltzer. an historical novel based on the life of Alexander Bulatovich, a Russian who was an explorer in Ethiopia, and a cavalry officer during Russia's conquest of Manchuria in 1900. Later, as a monk at Mount Athos, he led a group of "heretics" who challenged the hierarchy of the Russian Orthodox Church, asserting the divinity of the Name of God.

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