by Boris Akunin
Matvei Bentsionovich was about to start apologizing for his politeness, but the physicist shouted at him even more peremptorily, and the sick man fell silent.
When the doctor and his visitor began to take their leave, the unhinged investigator timidly asked Mrs. Lisitsyna, “Have we met somewhere before? No? I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I must be mistaken. I feel so awkward. Please don't be angry …”
Polina Andreevna almost burst into tears.
A Scandal
ON THE WAY back to the house Mrs. Lisitsyna looked sad and thoughtful, but Donat Savvich, on the contrary, was in a quite excellent mood. Every now and then the doctor glanced at his companion with a mysterious smile, and once he even rubbed his hands together, as if in anticipation of something interesting or pleasant.
Finally Donat Savvich broke his silence: “Well now, Polina Andreevna, I granted your request and showed you Lampier. Now it is your turn. You remember our agreement? One good turn deserves another.”
“So how am I to repay you?” asked Lisitsyna, turning to the doctor and noticing a cunning gleam in the psychiatrist s eyes.
“In a manner that could not possibly be easier. Stay and have supper with me. No, really,” Korovin added hastily, noticing the shadow that briefly clouded the lady's face. “It will be an entirely innocent evening: in addition to you another lady has been invited. And I have an excellent chef, Maître Armand, brought specially from Marseilles. He does not accept the rules of monastic cuisine, and today he has promised to serve fillets of newborn lamb with sauce délicieuse, young zander stuffed with crayfish tails, patties mignon, and all sorts of other delicious things as well. And afterward I will drive you into town.”
This unexpected invitation suited Polina Andreevna very well, but she did not accept immediately. “What kind of lady?”
“A rather lovely young lady, extremely picturesque,” the doctor replied with an incomprehensible smile. “I'm sure the two of you will like each other.”
Mrs. Lisitsyna raised her face to the sky, looked at the moon creeping out from behind the trees, and made some kind of calculation. “Well now, the stuffed zander certainly sounds tempting.”
NO SOONER HAD they sat down at the table set for three than the “picturesque young lady” arrived. There was a faint clatter of horse s hooves outside the window and a minute later a beautiful young woman in a black silk dress came rushing into the dining room. She threw back the flimsy veil from her face and exclaimed in ringing tones, “André!” then stopped short when she saw that there was a third person in the room.
Lisitsyna recognized the impetuous young lady as the same individual who had been waiting on the landing stage for Captain Jonah, and there could be no doubt that the beautiful woman had also recognized her. Just as they had done then, on the dockside, the stranger's subtle features contorted into a grimace, but this time it was even more hostile: her nostrils quivered, her slim eyebrows bunched together over the bridge of her nose, and her overlarge eyes (in Polina Andreevna's opinion they were actually disproportionate) glittered and sparkled malevolently.
“Well, now we are all here!” Donat Savvich declared cheerfully, getting to his feet. “Allow me to introduce you to each other. Lidia Evge-nievna Boreiko, the fairest of all Canaan's maidens. And this is Polina Andreevna Lisitsyna, a pilgrim from Moscow.”
The red-haired lady nodded to the black-haired one with an extremely pleasant smile that went unanswered.
“André, I have asked you a thousand times not to remind me of my appalling surname,” Mademoiselle Boreiko exclaimed in a tone that a man would no doubt have described as ringing, but Mrs. Lisitsyna thought unpleasantly shrill.
“What is so appalling about the name Boreiko?” Polina Andreevna asked with an even more friendly smile, and then repeated it, as if she were seeing how it tasted. “Boreiko, Boreiko … a perfectly ordinary name.”
“That is the problem,” the doctor explained with a straight face. “We cannot bear anything ordinary—that is vulgar. ‘Lidia Evgenievna’: now that has a melodic, noble ring to it. Tell me,” he said, turning to the brunette and maintaining the same polite manner, “why are you always in black? Are you in mourning for your life?”
Polina Andreevna laughed in appreciation of Korovin's literary reference, but Lidia Evgenievna seemed not to have recognized the quotation from the fashionable play of the moment.
“I am mourning the fact that there is no true love left in the world,” she said gloomily, taking her seat at the table.
The cuisine was indeed truly delightful—the doctor had been quite right there. Polina Andreevna was hungry after her long day and she did ample justice to the tartlets with grated artichokes and patties mignon with veal hearts and the tiny canapés royaux—her plate, rapidly emptied in magical fashion and then refilled with hors d'oeuvres, was soon standing empty again.
However, Korovin had been mistaken about one thing: the women clearly did not like each other. This was particularly noticeable from Lidia Evgenievna's manner. She barely even sipped her wine, did not touch her food at all, and regarded the woman facing her with unconcealed hostility. In her usual persona as a nun, Polina Andreevna would undoubtedly have found a way to soften the heart of her enemy through genuine Christian humility, but her present role as a society lady justified a different style of behavior.
Mrs. Lisitsyna demonstrated a perfect mastery of the English art of looking down on people—in a metaphorical sense, of course, since Mademoiselle Boreiko was taller than she was. But that did not prevent Polina Andreevna from gazing at her over a haughtily raised freckly nose and from time to time indicating surprise by raising her eyebrows gently in that manner so wounding to any provincial lady's heart when it is employed by a denizen of the capital.
“Charming shoulder pads,” Lisitsyna might say, for instance, indicating Lidia Evgenievna's shoulders with her chin. “I used to adore them myself. Such a terrible shame that everyone in Moscow has moved on to close-fitting dresses.”
Or she would suddenly stop paying any attention to the brunette, leaving her to her pale-faced fury, and strike up a long conversation with their host about literature, in which Mademoiselle Boreiko either did not wish or was unable to participate.
The doctor seemed highly amused by the bloodless battle unfolding before his eyes, and he did his best to pour oil on the flames.
First he declaimed an entire panegyric in honor of red hair, which he asserted was a certain sign of an exceptional character. Polina Andreevna enjoyed listening to this, but she could not help squirming under Lidia Evgenievna's intense gaze—the local beauty would probably have taken pleasure in tearing out every last hair of those “fiery locks” extolled so highly by Donat Savvich.
Even the Moscow lady's miraculous appetite served Korovin as a pretext for a compliment. Noticing that Polina Andreevna's plate was empty yet again, Donat gestured to his servant and said, “I have always liked women without affectation, who eat well and enjoy their food. It's a sure sign of a taste for life. Only a woman who knows how to enjoy life is capable of making a man happy.”
This remark effectively marked the end of supper, which concluded suddenly, with high words. Lidia Evgenievna tossed down her gleaming fork, still unsullied by any contact with food, and flung her hands up like a wounded bird flapping its wings. “Torturer! Butcher!” she screamed so loudly that it set the crystal ware on the table jingling. “Why do you torment me? And she, she—” Casting a brief glance at Lisitsyna, Lidia Evgenievna dashed out of the room. The doctor clearly had no intention of running after her; in fact he seemed quite pleased.
Shaken by the departing glance of the impassioned young lady— a withering glance blazing with hatred—Polina Andreevna turned inquiringly to Korovin.
“I'm sorry,” he said with a shrug. “Let me explain the meaning of this scene to you …”
“Please don't bother,” Lisitsyna replied coldly, getting up. “Spare me your explanations. I understand only too well that you foresaw t
his outcome and exploited my presence for some base, ignoble purpose of which I am unaware.”
Donat Savvich leapt to his feet, seeming confused now rather than pleased. “I swear to you, there was nothing ignoble. That is, of course, from one side I owe you an apology for—”
Polina Andreevna did not allow him to finish. “I am not going to listen to you. Goodbye.”
“Wait! I promised to drive you into town. If… if my company is so repellent to you, I will not go, but at least allow me to give you a carriage!”
“I do not need anything from you. I cannot bear intriguers and manipulators,” Lisitsyna said angrily as she threw her cloak over her shoulders in the hallway. “There is no need to drive me to town. I'll manage somehow on my own.”
“But it's late, it's dark!”
“Never mind. I have heard that there are no bandits on Canaan, and I am not afraid of ghosts.”
She turned haughtily on her heels and walked out.
Last of the Bishop's Men
ONCE OUTSIDE KOROVIN'S house, Polina Andreevna began walking more quickly. When she was past the bushes, she pulled the hood up over her head, drew the black cloak around her more tightly, and became almost completely invisible in the darkness. It would be hard for Korovin to find his touchy guest in the autumn night now, no matter how much he might wish to do so.
In all honesty, however, Polina Andreevna was not even slightly offended with the doctor, and on closer consideration it would probably have remained unclear who had manipulated whom during the supper that had concluded in such an unfortunate manner. Undoubtedly the doctor had had some reasons of his own for provoking the black-eyed beauty, but Mrs. Lisitsyna had not played the part of a metropolitan snob without reasons of her own. And everything had turned out just as she had intended: Polina Andreevna had been left completely alone in the middle of the clinic, with total freedom of movement. That was why the talma had been swapped for the long cloak, in which she could move through the darkness so conveniently, while remaining almost invisible.
The purpose of the comic performance that had led to the scandalous quarrel had been achieved, and the task that she now faced was less difficult—to locate among the grove of pine trees the conservatory in which the unfortunate Alyosha Lentochkin dwelt among the tropical plants: she had to see him in secret—no one else must know, especially the owner of the clinic.
Mrs. Lisitsyna stopped in the middle of the avenue and tried to identify some landmarks. Earlier, when she and Donat Savvich were walking to the mad artist's house, she had glimpsed a glass dome on the right, above the hedge—that must have been the conservatory. But where was that spot? A hundred paces away? Or two hundred? Polina Andreevna set off, peering into the gloom.
Suddenly someone came around the bend toward her, walking with rapid, jerky steps, and the spy barely managed to press herself against the bushes in time and freeze.
The lanky, stooped figure was swinging its long arms as it walked along. Suddenly it stopped only two paces away from the hiding woman and muttered, “Right. Once again, more precisely. The infinite extent of the Universe means that the possible combinations of molecules are repeated an infinite number of times, and that means that the combination of molecules known as me is also repeated a countless number of times, from which it follows that I am not alone in the Universe, but there is a countless multitude of mes, and exactly which one of this multitude is present here at this present moment is absolutely impossible to determine …”
Another one of Dr. Korovin's collection of “interesting people,” Lisit-syna guessed. The patient nodded to himself, pleased, and marched on by.
He hadn't noticed her: Whew! Polina Andreevna took a deep breath and moved on.
What was that glinting in the moonlight to her right? It looked like a glass roof—the conservatory?
It was the conservatory, and it was absolutely huge—a genuine crystal palace.
The transparent, almost invisible door opened with a quiet squeak, breathing a mingled scent of exotic aromas and damp heat into Lisit-syna's face. She took several steps along the path, stumbled over a hose or a creeper, pricked her hand on some sharp thorns, and cried out in pain.
She listened. Not a sound.
She raised herself up on tiptoe and called: “Alexei Stepanich!”
Nothing stirring. Not a sound.
She tried again, louder: “Alexei Stepanich, Alyosha! It's me, Pelagia!”
What was that rustling sound nearby? Footsteps? She moved quickly toward the sound, parting the branches and stems as she went. “Answer me! If you hide, there's no way I'm ever going to find you!”
Her eyes gradually grew accustomed to the darkness, which was not really so impenetrable: passing unhindered through the glass roof, the pale light was reflected from the broad glossy leaves and glinted in the drops of dew, intensifying the fantastic shadows.
“A-ah!” Polina Andreevna gasped in fright, clutching at her heart. There, swaying gently right in front of her nose, was a human leg—entirely naked, emaciated, as white as sour cream in the wan glow of the moon. And there, only a few inches away, not in the light but in the shadow, was a second leg dangling in the air.
“Oh Lord, Oh Lord …” Mrs. Lisitsyna exclaimed and began crossing herself, but she was afraid to look up—she already knew what she would see: a hanged man, with his eyes bulging, his tongue lolling out of his mouth, and his neck stretched.
Gathering her courage, she cautiously touched one of the legs to see if it was already cold. The leg suddenly jerked away and Polina Andreevna heard someone giggling above her head. She gave an even more piercing howl than before and leapt back.
There was Alyosha Lentochkin, not hanging, but sitting on the spreading branch of some unfamiliar tree, and placidly swinging his legs. His face was flooded with moonlight, but Polina Andreevna could scarcely recognize the former Cherubino, he had become so thin. His limp hair was dank and matted, his cheeks had lost their childish plumpness, and his collarbones and ribs stuck out like the spokes of a taut umbrella.
Mrs. Lisitsyna hastily averted the gaze that had involuntarily slipped below the permissible limit, but then immediately reproached herself for her false modesty: this was not a man she saw before her, but an unfortunate, starving creature. No longer the boisterous puppy who had once snapped at the heels of the condescending Father Mitrofanii, but more like an abandoned wolf cub—hungry, sick, and mangy.
“That tickles,” said Alexei Stepanovich, and he giggled again.
“Come down, Alyoshenka, get off there,” she told him. Previously she had always addressed Lentochkin formally, by his first name and patronymic. But it would have been strange to stand on ceremony with a boy who was mentally ill, and naked as well.
“Come on, now,” said Polina Andreevna, holding out both hands to him. “It's me, Sister Pelagia. Surely you recognize me?”
In former times Alexei Stepanovich and His Grace's spiritual daughter had greatly disliked each other. On a few occasions the insolent youth had attempted to play spiteful tricks on the nun, but had been rebuffed with unexpected firmness, after which he had pretended not to take any notice of her. But this was no time to be thinking of old jealousies and settling stupid scores from the past. Polina Andreevna's heart was breaking out of sheer pity.
“Here, look what I've brought you,” she said gently, as if she were talking to a little child, and she began taking food out of the handiwork bag hanging around her neck: tartlets, canapés, and patties mignon, all cunningly stolen from her plate during supper. Apparently Dr. Korovin's guest did not possess such a gigantic appetite after all.
The naked faun sniffed the air greedily and jumped down to the ground. But he lost his balance, swayed, and fell.
He is terribly weak, Polina Andreevna thought with a sigh as she put her arm around the boy's shoulders. “Here, take it, eat.”
Alexei Stepanovich did not have to be asked twice. He grabbed two small patties at once and greedily stuffed them int
o his mouth, then reached out for more before he had even finished chewing.
One more week, two at most, and he will die, Lisitsyna remembered the doctor saying, and she bit her lip to avoid bursting into tears.
What good had it done for her to demonstrate such miraculous ingenuity to get here? How could she help? And it was clear that Lentochkin could not assist her in the investigation either.
“Be patient, my poor boy,” she said over and over again, stroking his tangled hair. “If this is the Devil's work, God is stronger anyway. And if it is a cunning plot by evil people, I will unravel it. I will save you. I promise!”
The madman could hardly have understood the meaning of these words, but her quiet, gentle tone of voice found an echo somewhere in his lost soul. Alyosha suddenly pressed his head against his comforter's breast and asked in a quiet voice, “Will you come back again? Do come. Or else he'll take me soon. Will you come?”
Polina Andreevna nodded without speaking. She could not speak— the tears she was struggling to hold back were choking her.
Not until she had left the conservatory's glass walls behind, as she walked into the pine grove, did she finally surrender to her feelings. She sat down on the ground and wept for all of them at once: for Lentochkin with his mind destroyed; for Matvei Bentsionovich with his spirit extinguished; for Lagrange, driven to suicide; and for His Grace Mitrofanii, whose heart had given way under the strain. She wept for a long time, perhaps half an hour, perhaps even an hour, but still she could not calm herself.
The moon had already ascended to the center of the vault of heaven; somewhere in the forest an eagle-owl had begun hooting; the lights in the windows of the clinic's cottages had all gone out, one by one; and still the disguised nun shed her bitter tears.
The unknown enemy was fearsome—he struck with a sure aim, and every blow inflicted a terrible, irreparable loss. The valiant forces of the Bishop of Zavolzhsk, defender of Good and persecutor of Evil, had been shattered, and the general himself lay in his bed, brought low by a grave illness that could yet prove fatal. Of all Mitrofanii's warriors only she was left, a weak and defenseless woman. The entire burden of responsibility now lay on her shoulders, and she had nowhere to retreat.
