Sister Pelagia and the White Bulldog

by Boris Akunin

  Stepan Trofimovich Shiryaev answered moodily and unwillingly, looking down at the tablecloth: “Whether it did or it didn’t—what’s the difference? I just dashed off the watercolor for want of anything else to do. We’ve already mown the hay, and it’s too soon to reap…What’s the good of remembering the past? Things worked out as they did, and so be it. Talent or genius, it makes no damned difference. You have to do the task that you’re set to do. And the more diligently you do it, the better.”

  Pelagia thought that Shiryaev seemed to be angry with Poggio about something, and the latter did seem a little put out by this rebuff. Attempting to move the conversation on to humorous ground, he turned to the nun and asked with exaggerated politeness: “And what does the holy church have to say on the matter of genius and talent?”

  The theme of the conversation was one that the nun found interesting, and she liked the parties involved in discussing it, so she did not try to avoid an answer.

  “Concerning the church’s position, it would be better for you to ask one of the hierarchs, but to my own humble understanding the entire meaning of life on earth lies in discovering the genius in oneself.”

  “Life’s meaning lies in that?” Arkadii Sergeevich asked in surprise. “And not in God? This is a fine holy sister.”

  “I think that there is genius hidden in everyone, a little hole through which God is visible,” Pelagia began to explain. “But it is rare for anyone to discover this opening in themselves. Everybody gropes for it like blind kittens, but they keep missing. If a miracle occurs, then someone realizes straightaway that this is what he came into the world for, and after that he lives with a calm confidence and cannot be distracted by anybody else, and that is genius. But talents are encountered far more frequently. They are people who have not found that little magic window, but are close to it and are nourished by the reflected glow of its miraculous light.”

  To add conviction to her words, she swept her hand through the air to point up at the heavens, but so clumsily that her wide sleeve caught on a cup, spilling tea all over the leg of Kirill Nifontovich’s trousers.

  The poor man leapt up on one foot, it was so hot. He hopped about, gasping and misquoting Pushkin’s Golden Cockerel as he intoned,

  “Then this maiden lost to shame,

  Black, but nun in only name,

  Said to that king, ‘You shall not thrive,

  I’ll boil you while you’re still alive.’”

  Pelagia felt so ashamed that she wished the earth would open and swallow her up—she almost burst into tears. And now she could not finish what she had been saying about talent, everybody was laughing so hard.

  Stepan Trofimovich, certainly, did try to continue the conversation, looking closely at the nun and asking: “And what do you think of genius?”

  But Marya Afanasievna, who had become very bored in the course of this theoretical discussion, broke into the conversation unceremoniously.

  “Instead of discoursing on high matters and scalding people with boiling water, holy mother, you would do better to get on with solving the mystery of who poisoned Zagulyai and Zakusai for me.”

  Just then Gerasim carried in a bowl of apples, pears, and plums from the orchard. The gardener’s appearance had an unexpectedly rousing effect on Miss Wrigley, who had so far been sitting there indifferently, smoking a cigarette.

  “You’ve all gone crazy over those bulldogs of yours! Nothing but gluttonous beasts, always running around in the orchard, and they’ve taught the little puppy to do the same. But there’s all sorts of filthy garbage in the garden. Yesterday with my own eyes, I saw a dead raven, on my word of honor! The best thing you could do, dear holy sister, would be to investigate who trampled my lawn.”

  A sound halfway between a sigh and a groan ran around the table, and Pelagia realized that Miss Wrigley’s lawn must be proverbial among the natives of Drozdovka.

  “But then, I can tell you myself the name of the person who trampled it,” the Englishwoman said, raising one finger in a bellicose gesture. “You just help me to find the clues, because everyone here refuses to believe what is perfectly obvious.”

  “What would we want with her ladyship’s lousy lawn?” Gerasim said, speaking to one side as he arranged the fruits to look their best. “Why would we want to go trampling on it?”

  “This is an ancient jihad between him and Miss Wrigley,” Pyotr Georgievich explained to the nun, wrinkling up his reddish nose merrily. “She accuses Gerasim of laziness and for educational purposes she has laid out nine square yards of genuine English lawn over there, beside the cliff. She is trying to show him how the grass in a park ought to look. But Gerasim doesn’t want to learn, and he has apparently even resorted to sabotage. In any case, two days ago, someone gave the precious lawn a thorough trampling.”

  “You’re the last one I’d expect that from, Pyotr Georgievich,” Gerasim said in an offended tone. “It would make me sick to step on that shaven stubble—I wouldn’t even spit on it. Nature shouldn’t be defiled like that; let all the green things and the trees grow tall, the way the Lord intended.”

  “And he even calls God to witness!” was Miss Wrigley’s comment on this doctrine. “Men are only interested in finding excuses for not doing anything.”

  The quarrel, however, was a rather lazy one, with no true heat to it, and in any case the close August evening was not conducive to anger.

  There was a lengthy pause, perfectly relaxed, and then Naina Georgievna suddenly spoke, not entirely to the point and addressing no one in particular: “Yes, men are cruel and criminal, but without them there would be absolutely nothing in the world to do.”

  Throughout the meal the general’s granddaughter had remained sad and thoughtful, not taking part in the general discussion and apparently not even listening to it. Pelagia had kept looking at her, trying to understand whether this was how she always behaved or if something special was happening to Naina Georgievna today. Perhaps the explanation for her strange aloofness lay in the conversation of which the nun had overheard a fragment just before supper?

  And Pelagia marveled at the capricious way in which Providence had treated the brother and sister, arranging the same set of features quite differently. Pyotr Georgievich, still a young man (he looked about thirty years old), had black hair, eyebrows and eyelashes bleached by the sun, and a face as white as flour, with a large red nose stuck clumsily at its center. But in Naina Georgievna the distribution of colors was the precise opposite: golden hair, black brows and eyelashes, tender-pink cheeks, and a fine-chiselled, charmingly aquiline little nose. A beauty like that was certainly capable of turning a man’s head and driving him to commit any act of insanity. From Pelagia’s point of view, the young lady’s looks were rather spoiled by the stubborn curve of her mouth, but it is very probable that this broken line was the feature that drove men out of their minds more certainly than all the others.

  Naina Georgievna’s position at Drozdovka appeared to be rather special—the incomprehensible phrase that she had dropped was followed by a tense silence, as if everybody was waiting for her to add something else.

  And Naina Georgievna did add something, but since it followed the train of her own inner thoughts, it did not make things any clearer: “Love is always an evil, even if it is happy, because that happiness is inevitably built on someone else’s misery.”

  Shiryaev jerked his head as if he had been struck and Poggio smiled in a strangely forced fashion, while the rich man Sytnikov asked: “In what way do you mean, if I might ask?” And he gathered up his gray-streaked reddish beard between his strong, short fingers.

  “There is no love without betrayal,” Naina Georgievna continued, staring straight ahead, her black eyes wide. “Because the one who loves betrays his parents, betrays his friends, betrays the entire world for the sake of one person who is perhaps not worthy of this love. Yes, love is also a crime, it is absolutely obvious…”

  “What do you mean when you say ‘also’?” Sytn
ikov asked with a shrug. “What is this strange manner you have of not saying everything you mean?”

  “She’s just trying to sound interesting,” the brother snorted. “She read somewhere that modern young ladies always speak in riddles, and she’s practicing on us.”

  Just then Tanya came up to Pyotr Georgievich to pour his tea, and Pelagia noticed the young man give her fingers a momentary squeeze.

  “Thank you, Tatyana Zotovna,” he said affectionately, and the maid blushed, casting a rapid glance at Marya Afanasievna. “And what do you think about love?”

  “It’s not our place to think,” Tanya babbled. “There are educated folk to do that.”

  “I must say, our nun has a quite excellent appetite,” observed Krasnov, indicating the empty plate from which Pelagia had just taken the final slice of ham. “Is it permitted to eat meat, sister?”

  “It is,” Pelagia said shyly. “Today is the Festival of our Lord’s Transfiguration; the rules allow it.”

  She pretended to be raising the ham to her mouth. Zakidai indignantly thrust his face against her knee to remind her not to forget her place. Pelagia dropped her hand without anyone noticing, thrust the ham into the extortionist’s mouth, and patted her hand gently against the cold, wet nose: That’s it, there’s no more. Zakidai instantly disappeared.

  “One thing I really love about the prescriptions of our Orthodox Church,” said Krasnov, “are its well-thought-out dietary arrangements. From a medical point of view, the entire system of fasts and the first meals that follow them regulates the working of the stomach and the intestines in an ideal fashion. No, really, why are you laughing, I’m serious! The autumn and winter periods when meat is allowed are designed to maintain the necessary level of nutrition during the cold part of the year, and the Lenten fast provides excellent cleansing of the intestines before the largely vegetable diet of spring and summer. Timely evacuation of the intestines is the cornerstone of intellectual and spiritual life! I, for instance, compensate for my non-observance of the fasts by taking enemas of infusion of chamomile every evening and I recommend everyone do the same. I have even composed a quatrain on the subject:

  Sleep not, sweet maid, tarry a while,

  Or you may err in your confusion,

  Omitting to take your infusion

  Of purifying chamomile.”

  “Why, get away with you, Kirill Nifontovich,” exclaimed Marya Afanasievna, gesturing with a laugh. “Don’t you listen to him, holy mother, he’s our local agent of progress. He rides around the meadow on a bicycle, frightening the cows. And don’t you ever think of visiting him without advance warning; he often sits up on the roof naked—taking sunbaths. Bah, for shame! And you see that hedgehog stubble around his bald patch? At the beginning of every summer he shaves all his hair off; that way he lets the back of his head breathe, you see. Just recently he remortgaged his estate to have a telegraph wire installed from Zavolzhsk to his house. And why, do you think? So that he can play checkers with the postmaster. It wouldn’t be so bad if only he were a good player, but he keeps losing all the time.”

  “And what of it?” asked Kirill Nifontovich, not in the least offended. “I don’t play out of vanity, but to teach our Zavolzhsk savages a thing or two. Let them know what progress is. Why, in Europe there are new discoveries and inventions every day. In America they build houses that reach right up to the clouds, but our two-fingered reactionaries in long coats even shy away from a steam engine, they close their eyes when they see a gas lamp in the street, to avoid being defiled by Satan’s flame.”

  “It’s true that our Old Believers are mistrustful of things that are new, but not all of them,” said Sytnikov, intervening on behalf of his own. “When the young ones grow up, everything around here will change. Why, only a few days ago a merchant from the priestless Old Believers, Avvakum Silych Vonifatiev, came around to see me and made a deal to sell me some forest. Surely you should remember it—just before I went to meet him, we were having tea here and I was telling you how he was married off to a bride of thirty at the age of fifteen. You weren’t here, Pyotr Georgievich, you’d gone into Zavolzhsk.”

  Stepan Trofimovich nodded.

  “Of course, a picturesque story in the spirit of the local customs. Bubentsov also said that the reason the authorities wish to eradicate your wild schismatic ways is to put an end to that kind of barbarism. And you, Donat Abramovich, quarreled with him.”

  “Yes, that’s it—it was that Vonifatiev.”

  “Well, then, did he sell you the forest?” asked Shiryaev. “What kind is it? How many acres?”

  “Good forest, nothing but pine. Very nearly eight thousand acres, only it’s a fair distance away, on the upper reaches of the Vetluga. He took a pretty high price for it, too, thirty-five thousand. But that’s all right, I’ll give that forest another five or ten years to grow. They’re going to build a narrow-gauge railway all the way to it, and then I’m bound to get a good three hundred thousand out of it. But that’s not what I was talking about. Vonifatiev had his son with him, an amusing little lad. While his father and I were behaving the way people do around these parts, agreeing on a price, disagreeing, spitting and agreeing on a new one before we shook hands on a deal, I sat the lad in the library with some apples and spice cakes so he wouldn’t get bored. I glanced in to see if he’d gone to sleep, and there he was reading my textbook on electric motors (I ordered it recently from Moscow, it’s an interest of mine). I was amazed. I asked him what the fascination was. And he said to me: When I grow up, mister, I’m going to drive an electrical road through the forest. Clearing a road and laying rails takes a long time and costs a lot of money. And so, he says, I’ll set up strong pillars and run cable cars along them. That way it will be cheaper, quicker, and more convenient. And you and Bubentsov call them savages—”

  “Zakidai!” Marya Afanasievna suddenly screeched, fluttering her hands in sudden alarm. “My little Zakidai! Where’s Zakidai? I haven’t seen him in ages.”

  Everyone began gazing around and Sister Pelagia even glanced under the table. There was no bulldog on the terrace. Little Zakusai was snoring peacefully with his paws spread out beside his empty bowl, but his father had vanished.

  “He’s run off into the woods,” declared Miss Wrigley. “That’s not good. He’ll go guzzling more garbage now.”

  The general’s widow clutched at her heart.

  “Oh, I can’t bear it…Oh, God…” and she gave a heart-rending shriek. “Zakidai, my love! Where are you?”

  Pelagia watched in amazement as the large, hysterical tears welled up out of Tatishcheva’s eyes. The mistress of Drozdovka attempted to stand up, but she could not manage it and slumped back helplessly into her wicker chair.

  “Dear people, good people…” she muttered. “Run, quickly…Find him. Gerasim! Oh, be quick! Get away, Tanya, you and your drops. Run with the rest of them, look for him. The holy mother here can give me the drops, she doesn’t know the park anyway…Find him for me!”

  The terrace emptied in an instant—everybody, even the shrewish Miss Wrigley and the capricious Naina Georgievna dashed away to find the fugitive. The only ones left were Marya Afanasievna and Sister Pelagia.

  “Twenty’s not enough, put in thirty…”

  Tatishcheva took the glass of heart drops with a trembling hand and drank.

  “Give me Zakusai!” she demanded and took hold of the puppy, clutching the warm, sleepy little body to her breast.

  Zakusai almost opened his little eyes, he gave a shrill yelp, but then thought better of waking up. He floundered about for a while, working his way in deeper under the old woman’s ponderous bust, and then lay still.

  From beyond the trees came the sound of voices and laughter as the searchers called to one another after spreading out across the extensive park, and poor Marya Afanasievna sat there more dead than alive, talking on and on, as if she was trying to drive away her alarm with words: “Ah, holy mother, don’t you pay any attention to me having a hou
se full of people here, when it comes right down to it I’m terrible lonely, nobody really loves me except for my little children.”

  “Is that not enough?” Pelagia tried to comfort her. “Such fine young people.”

  “You mean Pyotr and Naina? I meant my little dogs. As for Pyotr and Naina…I’m no more than a nuisance to them. The Lord has gathered in all my children. The youngest, Polina, lasted the longest of all, but even she had a short life. She died in childbirth, when Naina arrived. She was wonderful, so full of life, with a passionate heart, but a total fool of a woman, and Naina takes after her. Polina went and got married against Apollon Nikolaevich’s will and mine to a mangy little Georgian princeling who was good for nothing but cutting a dashing figure. I didn’t even want to know him, but when our Polina passed on, I felt sorry for the orphans. I bought them back and took them into my own home.”

  Pelagia was astonished.

  “How do you mean, you bought them?”

  The general’s widow waved her hand in a disparaging gesture.

  “It’s very simple. I promised that father of theirs that I’d pay his debts if he signed a paper promising never to come near his son and daughter again.”

  “And he signed it?”

  “What else could he do? He either signed or ended up in debtor’s prison.”

  “And so he never showed up again?”

  “Oh, yes, he did. About fifteen years ago he sent me a tearful pleading letter. Not pleading to be allowed to see his children, but looking for financial support. And after that, they say he left and went away to America. I don’t know if he’s alive or dead. But he spoiled my grandchildren with his coxcomb’s blood. Petya’s grown up into a good-for-nothing, the clumsy oaf. He was thrown out of grammar school for his pranks and excluded from university for sedition. I barely managed to get the minister to agree to send him here and leave him in my care; they wanted to send him straight off to Siberia. He’s a kind-hearted boy, sensitive, but far too…stupid. He has no character and there’s nothing he’s any good at. He tries to help Stepan Trofimovich, but he’s about as good for that as a nun is for breeding.”