Book IX
THE RED DEATH
CHAPTER I
In the forest along the Vetlouga there stood a Raskolnik settlement of the “Old Believers” called “the Bank of Mosses.” The roads leading to it were impassable on account of the swamps. It was not an easy task to get there in summer, along the narrow raised paths, which led through thickets quite dark even in the day time. In winter it was accessible on snow shoes.
According to the legend of its origin, three monks from the forests of Olonetz, near the lake Tolveoye, had come here after the destruction of their monastery by the Nikonians; they had followed the lead of a miraculous icon of the Virgin, which had gone before them, suspended in the air. On the spot where the icon descended to the earth they built a hut, and began to live the austere life of hermit monks. They tilled the ground and, burning down the wood along the ridges, sowed rye-corn among the ashes. Disciples collected around them. When the three old men died, they did so on the same day, at the same hour, saying to their disciples: “Children, continue living in this blessed retreat. You may roam far and wide but you will not come across another refuge like it. It has been predestined for the foundation of a large and glorious monastery.”
The prophecy was fulfilled; the settlement grew in the thickly wooded dale, like a lily of Paradise under the protection of the Virgin.
“A miracle!” cried the settlers. “Holy Russia has grown dark while the gloomy regions of the Vetlouga have become radiant; the desert has been peopled with saints who have assembled there like the six-winged seraphim.” It was here that, after long roaming in the forests of Kerjenetz and Tchernoramensk, Father Cornelius, the prophet of the Red Death, and his disciple the runaway Tichon Zapólsky, son, as the reader will remember, of a Streletz rebel, had taken up their abode.