by Boris Akunin
Vladimir Lvovich paused in a fashion appropriate to these words and then continued in a significantly softer tone: “Your inactivity is damaging to the monolithic unity of the empire and the very idea of Russian statehood; it sets a bad example for the other bishops. I am entirely open with you, Your Grace, because I can see that you are a practical individual and by no means the starry-eyed dreamer you are represented as being by certain people in St. Petersburg. So let us speak without equivocation and to the point. You and I have a common interest. It is essential that the true faith win a genuine victory here in Zavolzhie—complete conversion of all Old Believers to the bosom of Orthodoxy, the baptism of thousands upon thousands of Bashkirs, or something equally impressive. This will be salutary for you, since your bishopric will no longer be listed among those that are out of favor, and extremely useful to me, because these accomplishments will be the direct result of my visit.”
Seeing the displeasure on the bishop’s face and mistakenly taking this grimace for doubt, Bubentsov added: “Is Your Grace uncertain how to go about the business? Please do not be concerned. That is why I have been sent. I shall arrange everything, only do not stick any spokes in my wheel.”
The bishop, being a genuinely straightforward man, did not beat about the bush, but replied in the same tone: “This credo of yours is pernicious nonsense. Konstantin Petrovich was not born yesterday and he knows as well as I do that you cannot win anyone over to a different faith by coercion. It is only possible to speak of the observance of one religious rite or another, and as far as the monolithic unity of the state is concerned, that is of no significance whatever. I believe that the chief procurator is pursuing some other goals that have nothing to do with faith. For instance, the introduction of police methods of management into the spiritual sphere.”
“Well, and what of it?” said Bubentsov with a cool shrug. “If this empire of yours and mine holds firm, it will only be due to the effort of will demonstrated by the powers that be. Every dissenter in thought and faith must remember at every moment that he is under close observation, that he will not be indulged and given a totally free rein. Freedoms are for Gauls and Anglo-Saxons, but our strength lies in unity and obedience.”
“You speak to me of politics, but I speak to you of the human soul.” Mitrofanii sighed and then went on to say something that he should not have done. “I do not have many new conversions in my diocese, because I do not see any point in enticing schismatics, Muslims, and German colonists into Orthodoxy. I say let everyone believe as he wishes, as long as he believes in God and not in the devil. As long as people behave in a godly manner, that is all that is necessary.”
Bubentsov’s eyes glinted and he spoke in a voice that was ingratiating but conveyed an unconcealed threat: “An interesting opinion for a provincial bishop to hold. And far from coinciding with the opinion of Konstantin Petrovich and his majesty the emperor.”
By this point everything had become clear to Mitrofanii, both about his visitor and about his probable subsequent course of action, and His Grace therefore rose unceremoniously to his feet to indicate that the conversation was over.
“I know. That is why I inform you of my opinion with no witnesses present, so that everything will be perfectly clear between us.”
Bubentsov also rose and said briefly, with a bow: “Well, then, I thank you for your frankness.”
He left and did not darken the door of the episcopal see with any further visits. The declaration of war had been made and accepted. The lull that is common before the beginning of a general engagement had set in, and, at the time our tale begins, it was not yet over.
THE UNSUCCESSFUL SALLY against the fortress of faith was followed in short order by a foray against the bulwark of jurisprudence. Enlightened by his well-wishers, who by this time were already numerous, Bubentsov did not make his approach to the chairman of the Chamber of Justice or the provincial procurator, but the latter’s assistant, Matvei Bentsionovich Berdichevsky.
Their conversation took place in the Nobles’ Club, into which Matvei Bentsionovich had been accepted immediately after he was elevated to the personal nobility on the basis of a recommendation from Baron von Haggenau. Berdichevsky dropped into the club quite frequently, not out of the snobbishness typical of parvenus, but for a more prosaic reason: The procurator’s assistant had many children, and his house was filled with such chaotic toing and froing that even this home-loving paterfamilias sometimes needed to take a break. In the evening Matvei Bentsionovich usually sat on his own in the club library and played himself at chess—our town could offer him no worthy opponent for that abstruse pastime.
Vladimir Lvovich walked up, introduced himself, and suggested a game. He was granted the right to make the first move and for a certain time there was complete silence in the library, with only the malachite chess pieces occasionally tapping against the board. Berdichevsky discovered, to his surprise and delight, that he had a serious opponent and he was obliged to make some effort, but even so little by little the black pieces won the upper hand.
“Oh, for a little trial,” Bubentsov suddenly sighed, breaking the silence.
“What was that?”
“You and I are berries from the same field,” Vladimir Lvovich said amiably. “We climb upward, tearing our nails, with everyone around us only trying to knock us back down. You are a converted Jew; it is hard for you. Your only support comes from the governor and the bishop. However, I assure you that neither the one nor the other will remain in his post for long. Then what will become of you?” He set down a rook and declared: “En garde.”
“A little trial?” asked Matvei Bentsionovich, looking intently at the board and twisting the tip of his long nose with his fingers (a rather unpleasant habit of his).
“Exactly. Of schismatics. Some acts of sacrilege or other, or better still of savagery. Mockery of Orthodox sacred objects isn’t bad, either. We need to start with some merchant or other, one who is particularly respected. A rich man’s purse always comes before his faith. Press him hard enough, and he will soon realize where his best interests lie and back down, and many others will follow him. As things are, no doubt the police and the consistory staff and your court officers all receive bribes from the Old Believers, but we won’t make them pay with money, only by making the sign of the cross with three fingers, them and every last member of their households. How’s that?”
“They don’t receive anything,” Matvei Bentsionovich replied, figuring out some baffling sequence of moves.
“How do you mean?”
“From the schismatics. The police and the consistory staff. Or the court officers, either. That is not the practice in our province. I’ll take your pawn.”
“What about your queen?” Bubentsov asked in surprise, but immediately took the queen with no hesitation. “Your protectors will be gobbled up in exactly the same way, and in the very near future, too. I shall be needing an experienced man of the law, Mr. Berdichevsky, someone well acquainted with the local conditions. Think on it. This has the whiff of a great career about it, even perhaps not purely in the field of jurispridence, but that of canon law. Even your Jewishness is no hindrance there. Many pillars of ecclesiastical law have been drawn from your nation, and even now the converted Jews include some of the most zealous propagators of Orthodoxy. And give some thought as well to the consequences of stubbornness.” He waved the captured queen eloquently. “After all, you have a family. And I have heard that another addition is on the way.”
Desperately afraid, and therefore avoiding raising his eyes from the board, Matvei Bentsionovich mumbled: “I beg your pardon, sir, but, first, you are in checkmate. And second”—he spoke these words almost in a whisper, with a powerful tremor in his voice—“you are a scoundrel and a base individual.”
As he said it he squeezed his eyes tightly shut, recalling all at once the double duel, and his twelve children and the addition that was on the way.
Bubentsov laughed as he looked at this br
ave soul’s pale face. He glanced around to make sure that there was no one nearby (there was not), gave Matvei Bentsionovich’s long nose a highly painful tweak, and left. Berdichevsky twitched his nostrils, depositing two cherry-red drops on the chessboard, and made an unconvincing attempt to overtake his insulter, but the tears welling up in his eyes veiled everything in a rainbow-colored mist. Matvei stood there for some time and then sat back down.
AND NOW ALL that remains is for us to tell you about the retinue of the unusual synodical inspector, for in their own way this pair were no less colorful than Vladimir Lvovich himself.
As his secretary he had with him Provincial Secretary Tikhon Ieremeevich Spasyonny, the same respectable-looking gentleman who had nodded so amiably through the window of the black carriage. From this official’s surname, which means “saved,” and even more from his behavior and conversation it was clear that he came from the priestly estate. They said that Konstantin Petrovich had moved him close to his own person by advancing him from the rank of simple sexton—evidently he had spotted something exceptional in this modest junior clergyman. In the synod Tikhon Ieremeevich held a low, insignificant, and poorly paid post, but he was frequently honored with confidential tête-à-têtes with the chief procurator himself, so that there were many, even among the hierarchs, who were a little afraid of him.
This lowly official, as quiet as a mouse, had been attached to Bubentsov as the eye of the church authorities, who preferred to keep a check even on those they trusted. At first he had performed his duties conscientiously, but by the time the aforementioned carriage arrived in Zavolzhsk, he had fallen completely under the spell of his temporary superior and become his unquestioning minion, evidently having come to the conclusion that no man can serve two masters. How Vladimir Lvovich won him over we do not know, but we imagine that for such an inventive and talented man it was not a very difficult task. Tikhon Ieremeevich remained true to his trade, only instead of spying on and nosing things out against Bubentsov, he now did so exclusively for his benefit—it is quite possible that being a man of far-seeing intelligence, he had identified some advantage to himself in such a change of vassalage. Though he was short, with a habit of constantly pulling his head down into his shoulders, Spasyonny possessed clawlike hands on unnaturally long arms that hung down almost as far as his knees, and therefore Vladimir Lvovich had at first called him “Orangutang,” but later awarded him the less offensive nickname of “Undershirt.” (The point was that Tikhon Ieremeevich was distinguished by such genuinely fervent piety that his every second word, whenever it was appropriate and also when it was not, was a citation from Holy Writ, and he had once been incautious enough to mention to his suzerain that for protection against the devil he wore beneath his frock coat a special shirt, which he called a “blessed baptismal shirt.”) Like a good Christian, Spasyonny did not take offense at his master’s jokes and merely repeated briefly: “Sprinkle me with hyssop and I shall be pure, wash me and I shall become whiter than snow.”
The provincial secretary followed Bubentsov everywhere like a shadow, and yet despite this he also somehow managed to pop up in the most unexpected places, since he had familiarized himself with Zavolzhsk amazingly quickly. He was seen either in the cathedral, singing along in the choir, or in the market, haggling over the price of honey with the Old-Believer beekeepers, or in Olympiada Savelievna’s salon, conversing with the attorney Korsh, who is regarded as the leading expert on investigative matters in our province.
It is astonishing how a person like Spasyonny was able to associate and even be on friendly terms with Bubentsov’s beastlike driver. This Murad was a genuine Abrek, a true highway bandit. In Zavolzhsk he was dubbed “the Circassian,” although he had no Circassian blood and came from a quite different mountain tribe. But who can tell all these blackbeards apart? Murad was not only Vladimir Lvovich’s coachman, but also his valet and servant, and when occasion demanded his bodyguard. No one really knew for certain why he evinced such doglike devotion to his master. All that was known was that he had followed Bubentsov around since his childhood and been inherited by him from his father. A long time before that, Bubentsov senior, one of the Caucasian generals, had rescued the young Murad Djuraev from enemies seeking blood vengeance and carried him away to Russia. Perhaps there were some other special circumstances involved, but that was something the Zavolzhians had not been able to discover, and they lacked the courage to ask Murad about it. He looked far too frightening for that, with his shaved head and his face completely overgrown by a thick black beard that grew right up to his very eyes and those teeth—he could bite your arm off at the elbow and spit it out. Murad spoke little Russian and even that badly, although he had lived among the Orthodox for many years. He had also retained his Mohammedan faith, for which he was subjected to onslaughts of missionary zeal by Tikhon Ieremeevich, but so far without any result. He dressed in Caucasian fashion: in an old beshmet and patched soft-leather shoes, with an immense silver-bound dagger at his belt. Murad’s bandy-legged, swaying walk and broad shoulders signaled brute strength, and men felt themselves constrained in his presence, while women of the simpler classes experienced a swooning sense of fright. Strangely enough, among the cooks and the maids Murad had the reputation of a paramour, although he treated them roughly and even violently. During the second week of Bubentsov’s stay the firemen of Zavolzhsk conspired with the butchers of the town to teach the infidel a lesson and stop him from despoiling other people’s girls. But Murad scattered his dozen “teachers” and then pursued them through the streets for a long time. He overtook the butcher Fedka and would surely have beaten him to death had Tikhon Ieremeevich not come upon the scene in time.
Things did not go as far as murder, but in view of this scandal, and especially the fact that the police had not dared to halt the ruffian, several of the more far-seeing among the townsfolk began to take stock, sensing the approach of troubled times. And they were right, for there was a rumbling of thunder in the atmosphere above our province and the black sky was ominously illuminated by flashes of lightning.
HOWEVER, HAVE WE not perhaps deviated too far from the central theme of our tale? Sister Pelagia has long since passed in through the wide-open gates of the Drozdovka park, and now we shall have to catch up with her.
CHAPTER 3
Dear People
THE RAIN OVERTOOK Pelagia at a distance of fifty paces from the gates. It came in a concerted, copious, merry downpour, instantly making clear that it intended to soak every last thread, not only of the nun’s habit and headscarf, but also of her undershirt, and even of the knitting in the bag at her waist. Pelagia took fright. She glanced around to make sure that no one was coming, hoisted up her habit, and set off sprinting along the road with a quite remarkable alacrity, in which she was assisted by the English gymnastics that, as we have already said, the sister taught at the diocesan school.
Having attained the sanctuary of the avenue, Pelagia leaned back against the trunk of an old elm that offered her the secure protection of its dense crown, wiped the drops of water from her spectacles, and turned her gaze to the sky.
Her gaze was well rewarded. The nearer half of the high, arching firmament had turned a blackish hue of violet—not that murky, somber color of gloomy overcast days, but with an oleaginous shimmer, as if some mischievous heavenly schoolboy had overturned a bottle of purple ink onto a light-blue tablecloth. The stain had not yet spread to the firmament’s more distant half, where the sun still reigned unchallenged, but two rainbows had sprung up there, arching from one side of the sky to the other, one brighter and smaller, the other dimmer but larger.
A quarter of an hour later everything had changed: The nearer half of the sky had become bright and the more distant half dark, which indicated that the cloudburst was over. Pelagia offered up a prayer of thanks for her safe deliverance from the torrential downpour and set out along the interminably long avenue that led up to the manor house.
The first of the inhabitants of
the estate to greet the traveler was a snow-white pup with a brown ear who came bounding out of the bushes and immediately, without the slightest hesitation, sank his teeth into the edge of the nun’s habit. The pup was still at an infantile age, but his character was already most determined. He tugged at the dense fabric, twisting his bulbous head this way and that and growling, and it was clear that he would not easily abandon this occupation.
Pelagia picked this bandit up and saw a pair of mischievous blue eyes, a pink nose speckled with black, and two little velvety cheeks drooping at the sides, which were for some strange reason smeared with earth, but she was unable to observe any other details, because the pup thrust out a long red tongue and licked her nose, forehead, and spectacles with quite exceptional dexterity.
Temporarily blinded, the nun heard someone forcing his way through the bushes. A breathless male voice said: “Aha, now you’re caught! You’ve been eating soil somewhere again, you devil’s spawn! Pardon me, sister, for mentioning the Evil One. It’s this foolish creature’s pa and grandpa as got him into that habit. Oof, thank you for catching the pest; I just can’t keep up with him. He’s cunning, the little devil. Oh, beg your pardon again.”
Pelagia pressed the warm, resilient body against herself with one hand and removed her slavered spectacles with the other. The bearded man she saw standing in front of her was dressed in a collarless cotton shirt, velveteen trousers, and a leather apron—he looked like the gardener.
