by Boris Akunin
But the police chief had no time for prohibited reading matter now. “What concern is that of mine?” he growled irritably. “And what way is that to carry on, pestering a stranger with all sorts of nonsense …” And he walked on to go down the path toward the town.
The talkative gentleman said to his back, “Donat Savvich reproaches me, too, for being too importunate and pestering people. I'm sorry.”
There was not a hint of offense in the voice that pronounced those words. Lagrange stopped dead in his tracks, not because he regretted having been rude, but at the sound of the doctor's name.
The colonel went back to the arbor and took a closer look at the stranger. He noted the trusting gaze of the wide blue eyes, the soft line of the lips, the childishly naïve inclination of the head with its light-colored hair.
“You must be one of Mr. Korovin's patients, then?” the chief of police asked in an extremely polite manner.
“No,” the blond man replied, again without taking the slightest offense. “I am perfectly well now. But I used to be in Donat Savvich's care. He still keeps an eye on me even now. Gives me advice, supervises my reading. I am terribly uneducated; I've never really studied anything properly anywhere.”
Lagrange seemed to have been presented with a convenient opportunity to gather additional information about the acerbic doctor. It was clear straightaway that this sissy wouldn't conceal a thing, but just come straight out with whatever he was asked for.
“Would you permit me to sit here with you for a while?” asked La-grange, walking up the step. “The view here is so very fine.”
“Yes, it is very fine—that's why I like it here. Just recently, when the air was particularly clear, do you know what thought occurred to me?” The light-haired man moved over to make way and laughed again. “Put some arrant, hardened atheist here, one of those who are always demanding scientific proof of the existence of God, and show that skeptic the island and the lake. There's the proof, and no others are needed. Do you agree with me?”
Felix Stanislavovich immediately expressed his passionate agreement, trying to figure out how he could exchange this theme for a more productive subject, but the verbose stranger appeared to have his own plans for the forthcoming conversation.
“Your joining me here is most timely. I have read a lot of important things in a certain novel, and I would really like to share my thoughts with someone. And I have a lot of questions too. You have a clever, energetic face. I can see straightaway that you have firm opinions about everything. Tell me, which human crime do you regard as the most monstrous of all?”
After thinking for a moment and recalling the provisions of the criminal code, the police chief replied, “State treason.”
“Oh, how similar our ways of thinking are! Just imagine, I also think there can be nothing worse than betrayal! That is, I don't mean the betrayal of a state (although breaking an oath is not a good thing, of course), but the betrayal of one person by another. Especially if someone weak has put his total trust in you. To pervert a child who has idolized you and lived only for you—that is really terrible. Or to mock some wretched creature who is oppressed by everyone and weak-minded and has believed in no one but you in the whole world. To violate trust or love must surely be worse than murder, even though it is not punished by the law. For it is the destruction of your own soul! What do you think about that?”
Felix Stanislavovich wrinkled up his forehead and replied at length: “Well, for the perversion of juveniles the law prescribes hard labor, but as far as the other everyday forms of treachery are concerned, things are a little more complicated, unless, of course, it's a matter of financial fraud. Many people, especially men, do not regard unfaithfulness in marriage as a sin at all. But even among our sex, there are exceptions,” he said, brightening up as he recalled a certain spicy story. “I had a classmate by the name of Bulkin. A more virtuous man you could never hope to meet; he absolutely adored his wife. After classes were over, all of our group would go off to Ligovka, to a bawdy house, but he would always go home—that's the kind of eccentric he was. When we graduated, he was appointed to the Baltic Squadron—the secret service, naturally.” The colonel hesitated, afraid that he had given himself away, and glanced anxiously at the other man. He need not have worried—there was not the slightest hint of a cloud on his countenance; he was still gazing at Lagrange with exactly the same calm interest as before. “Yes, well. Naturally, then the voyages began, sometimes long ones, for months at a time. In port all the officers dashed straight to the bordello, but Bulkin sat in his cabin, showering kisses on a medallion with a portrait of his wife. He spent about a year sailing like that until he decided he'd suffered enough torment and found an excellent compromise.”
“Yes?” the blond man asked. “But I didn't think any compromise was possible in such a case.”
“Bulkin was a bright one! Always first in our class when it came to analytical tasks!” Felix Stanislavovich exclaimed with an admiring shake of his head. “And this is what he thought up. He found a theater design artist and commissioned a papier-mâché mask that was exactly like his adored wife's face—he even glued a golden-haired wig onto it. Now when they arrived in port, Bulkin was the very first into the whorehouse. He took some slag—begging your pardon—who had a face as ugly as sin, so she'd be cheaper, naturally, put the mask of his wife on her, and after that his conscience was absolutely clear. He used to say, ‘Perhaps I am being unfaithful in body, but not in spirit, not in the least.’ And he was right! In any case, his comrades used to respect him for it.”
The story Lagrange had told seemed to present the other man with some difficulty. He began blinking his sheep's eyes and spread his hands. “Yes, I suppose that is not being entirely unfaithful … Although I don't understand very much about that kind of love …”
All his life Felix Stanislavovich had never been able to stand sentimental milksops, but for some reason he had taken a real liking to this eccentric. Indeed, he liked this fellow so much that, incredible as it seemed, he even lost all desire to winkle anything out of him by some devious deception. The colonel was quite amazed at himself.
Instead of interrogating the ideal informant about his suspect (for Dr. Korovin had, after all, been noted down by Felix Stanislavovich for special attention), the police chief suddenly began talking in a manner that was quite untypical of him. “Tell me, sir, this is only my third day on the island … that is, strictly speaking, my second, since I arrived the evening before last. It's a strange place, quite unlike any other. Whatever you take hold of, whatever you look at just evaporates, like mist. Have you been here long?”
“More than two years.”
“So you're used to it. Tell me frankly, without any mist—what do you think about all this?”
The colonel accompanied the last two words, so indefinite and even rather strange for a man used to clear, concise formulations, with an equally vague gesture that seemed to take in the monastery, the town, the lake, and something else as well.
Nonetheless, the other man understood him perfectly well.
“You mean the Black Monk?”
“Yes. Do you believe in him?”
“That many people have actually seen him? I do believe that, without the slightest doubt. It is enough to look into the eyes of the people who tell you about it. They are not lying; I can sense a lie immediately. It's a different question whether they have seen something that really exists, or only what they have been shown.”
“Been shown by whom?” Lagrange asked cautiously.
“Well, I don't know. We all, every one of us, only see what we are shown. Many things that really do exist, and which other people see, we do not, but then sometimes we are presented with something that is intended for our eyes only. Not even sometimes—it happens quite often. I used to have visions almost every day. As I now understand, that was what my illness consisted of. When someone is shown too often what is intended for only his eyes, that is probably what constitute
s insanity.”
Oh, brother, I can see I won't get far with you, the colonel thought in exasperation. It was time to put an end to the useless conversation—he'd wasted almost half the day already as it was. In order to garner at least something useful from this unnecessary meeting, Felix Stanislavovich asked, “Could you tell me which way Lenten Spit lies from here, where the phantom is seen most often?”
The blond man got up politely, walked across to the railings of the arbor, and began showing him: “You see the edge of the town? Beyond it there's a large field, then the fishing boat cemetery—you can see the masts sticking up. To the left there's a white abandoned lighthouse. That reddish brown cone is the Farewell Chapel, where they hold the hermits’ funerals. And beyond that there's a narrow strip of land reaching out into the water, like a finger pointing to the island. That island is the hermitage, and the strip of land is Lenten Spit. Over there, between the chapel and the buoy keeper's hut.”
“Hut?” the colonel asked with a frown. Could that be the one that Lentochkin had been talking about?
“Yes. Where the terrible event took place. In fact two terrible events. First with the buoy keepers wife, and then with that young man who came running to the clinic naked. It was there, in that hut, that he lost his reason.”
The police chief glared hard at the local man. “How do you know it was precisely there?”
The other man turned toward him, fluttering his light eyelashes. “Why, it's clear. In the morning they found his clothes in the hut, all neatly folded. On a bench. And his shoes and his hat. So he must have arrived there dressed decently, as normal, and run out already totally insane, and he clearly ran straight to Donat Savvich's house without even stopping.”
It was only then that the colonel remembered Alexei Stepanovich's final letter, in which the young man had indeed mentioned the buoy keeper's cottage and his intention of going there that night. Felix Stanislavovich, however, had read that part inattentively, since it had been obvious that by the time of his third report, Lentochkin was already as mad as a hatter and what he wrote was obviously nonsense.
But now it had turned out not to be quite such absolute nonsense at all. That is, as far as the mysticism and the incantations were concerned, of course it was all wild, delirious rubbish. What was that he had said today? “You go there, to the hut on chicken legs. At midnight. And you'll see everything for yourself. Only take care not to get squeezed, or your heart will burst.” Well, let's assume the final phrase could be attributed to his insanity, but as far as the place and the time were concerned, there was certainly something worth thinking about here.
And at that moment a certain idea began stirring in the police chief's head.
THAT NIGHT THE plan of action had matured and taken such a perfectly rational and simple form that it had completely displaced the plan of going to Lenten Spit and standing on guard there, waiting for the rampaging Basilisk.
The final change in Lagrange's intentions had been facilitated by yet another significant circumstance: as the sun set and darkness fell over the island, it had become clear that the new moon was still as yet too small and slim—no more than a nail paring in the sky—and it would not be able to illuminate Lenten Spit properly, which meant there was no point in lying in ambush there.
But the dilapidated hut with the eight-pointed cross scratched on the window was a different matter (when he went back to his room, the colonel had read the letter very closely indeed and committed all the details to memory). Lagrange had learned from the locals that the night when the skitter bug had visited the spot, with such sad consequences for himself, had been cloudy and dark, but that had not prevented whatever had happened from happening. So the absence of moonlight was no hindrance to the business at hand.
He would arrive there exactly at midnight, as the madman had written, pronounce the incantation, and see what would happen this time. That, basically, was the entire plan.
Any other man might have been afraid to plunge headlong into such a murky enterprise with nothing in the regulations or the standing instructions to guide him, but not Colonel Felix Stanislavovich Lagrange.
As the chief of police approached the miserable hut in the pitch darkness (it was precisely five minutes to midnight), his heart was beating calmly, his hands were steady, and his step was firm.
But it was not a pleasant place to be: an eagle-owl hooted in the distant forest, and the surface of the water seemed to give off a draft of cold, damp air and fear. Apart from that there was only an absolute, dead silence, and he could hear the pounding of his own living blood as loudly as if he had stopped his ears. Lagrange's eyes, already accustomed to the darkness, made out the crooked outline of the little log house ahead of him, and it seemed incredible to the colonel that only a few days ago a young, and no doubt happy, married couple had lived here, occupying themselves with the ordinary business of life as they waited for their first child. In this dead place nothing warm or joyful could possibly happen.
Felix Stanislavovich shuddered—he suddenly felt chilly despite the woolen sweater he had put on under his jacket and waistcoat. Just in case (in case of what, damn it?), he took his Smith & Wesson out from under his arm and stuck it into his belt.
The door had been nailed shut with two boards set in a cross. The chief of police set his fingers in the crack, tugged with all his might, and almost fell over, so easily did the nails slide out of the rotten wood. The silence was broken by a sickening crack and a creak, and some large bird launched itself off the roof, flapping its wings frantically.
Lagrange spotted the window immediately, a gray square against the blackness.
So, he had to go up to it, cross himself, and say, “Come, blessed spirit, to the trace that you have left, according to the agreement between Gabriel and the Evil One.” Holy Moses, he'd better not get it mixed up.
Felix Stanislavovich held out his hands and cautiously moved forward. His fingers caught the edge of something wooden, something big. A chest? A crate?
The Third Expedition
THE ADVENTURES OF THE MAN OF INTELLIGENCE
THE NEWS OF Colonel Lagrange's suicide did not reach Zavolzhsk until three days after the terrible event because there was no telegraph on the island and all messages, even those that were extremely urgent, were still delivered in the old manner—by post or special messenger.
The letters that the father superior addressed to the lay and clerical leaders of the province provided only the briefest information on the circumstances of the fatal drama. The police chief's body had been discovered in an abandoned house previously occupied by the family of a buoy keeper who only a few days earlier had also laid hands on himself. But whereas on that occasion it had been possible to understand the reason for this insane and—from the viewpoint of the church—absolutely unforgivable act, the archimandrite did not undertake to discuss, even provisionally, the reasons that had driven the chief of police to take the fatal step. He laid especial emphasis on the fact that he had not been aware of the arrival in New Ararat of a high-ranking police official (the visitor's status had only been discovered postmortem, during the search of his hotel room and possessions), and he requested, nay, demanded an explanation from the governor.
The only details of the incident contained in the letter were as follows: The colonel had committed suicide by shooting himself in the chest with a revolver. There was, unfortunately, absolutely no doubt that it had indeed been suicide—the dead man had been found clutching a revolver with one bullet missing from its chamber. The lethal shot had struck the heart itself, tearing the vital organ apart, and death appeared to have been instantaneous.
The letter to Governor von Haggenau concluded at this point, but the epistle to the bishop continued at some considerable length. The archimandrite drew His Grace's attention to the possible consequences of this shameful occurrence for the peace, calm, and reputation of the holy monastery, which had already been darkened by all sorts of alarming rumors (this reserved expre
ssion was no doubt a reference to the notorious appearances of the Black Monk). By the merciful providence of God, the father superior wrote, only a small number of people knew about this misfortune: the sexton who had found the body, three of the monastery's peacekeepers (that was what Ararat's police monks were called), and the attendant at the hotel where the suicide had been staying. A vow of silence had been extracted from all of them, but even so, it was doubtful whether it would be possible to keep the scandalous news entirely secret from the local inhabitants and the pilgrims. Father Vitalii's letter concluded with the words, “I am even concerned that this formerly serene island might find itself dubbed—as proud Albion once was—‘The island of suicides,’ for in only a short space of time the most heinous of all the mortal sins has been committed here twice.”
The bishop blamed himself entirely for the tragedy. Suddenly aged and stooping, he told his trusted advisers, “This is all the result of my pride and self-assurance. I listened to no one, but decided as I wanted, and not just once, but twice. First I destroyed Alyosha, and now La-grange. And the most unbearable thing is that I have not only condemned their mortal bodies to profanation, but also their immortal souls. The soul of the first has been struck down with a grave illness, and the second has destroyed his own soul utterly. It is a hundred times worse than mere death. I was mistaken, cruelly mistaken. I thought that a military man, with his straightforward approach and lack of fantasy, could not be affected by spiritual despair and mystical horror. But I failed to take account of the fact that when people of that character encounter phenomena that completely violate their simple, clear picture of the world, they do not bend, but break. You were right, my daughter, a thousand times right, in what you said to me about the Gordian knot. Evidently our colonel came across a knot that he was not capable of untying. His natural pride would not permit him to retreat and so he swung his sword at the knot from the shoulder. And the name of that Gordian knot was the world of God.”
