The Enchanted Wanderer and Other Stories

The Enchanted Wanderer

and Other Stories

This Is a Borzoi Book

Published by Alfred A. Knopf

Translation copyright © 2013 by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky

Introduction copyright © 2013 by Richard Pevear

All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, a division

of Random House, Inc., New York, and in Canada by Random House of Canada

Limited, Toronto. Originally published in Great Britain, in somewhat different

form, by Impress Books Ltd., Devon, in 2012.

www.aaknopf.com

Knopf, Borzoi Books, and the colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

Portions of this work were originally published in the following: “The Pearl

Necklace” and “A Flaming Patriot” in The Hudson Review (Summer 2011); “The

Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk” in The Hudson Review (Winter 2012); and “The

Spirit of Madame de Genlis” in The Threepenny Review (Winter 2013).

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Leskov, N. S. (Nikolai Semenovich), 1831–1895.

[Works. English. Selections. 2013]

The enchanted wanderer and other stories / by Nikolai Leskov; translated by

Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky.

pages ; cm

Includes bibliographical references.

eISBN: 978-0-307-96236-2

I. Pevear, Richard, [date], translator. II. Volokhonsky, Larissa, translator. III. Title.

PG3337.L5A255 2013

891.73′3—dc23

2012025416

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the

product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to

actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Jacket design by Peter Mendelsund

v3.1

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Introduction

Translators’ Note

The Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk

The Sealed Angel

The Enchanted Wanderer

Singlemind

The Devil-Chase

Deathless Golovan

The White Eagle

A Flaming Patriot

Lefty

The Spirit of Madame de Genlis

The Toupee Artist

The Voice of Nature

A Little Mistake

The Pearl Necklace

The Spook

The Man on Watch

A Robbery

Notes

A Note About the Author

Other Books by This Author

Introduction

Leskov is a writer who yields enormous pleasure, breaking past sectarian literary and ideological premises. But more: we live in a moment of lowered cultural and emotional expectations, after the fall of modernism but with nothing very strong to replace it. To go back to certain earlier writers is to regain a sense of human possibility. To go back to Leskov is to regain a sense of the passion, sometimes the joy, that can be part of the human enterprise.

IRVING HOWE, “JUSTICE FOR LESKOV”

I