All the World's a Stage

WHAT A FOOL!

‘An excellent match. Accept.’ How indifferently he had said it!

What a fool she was! How many days she had waited for this conversation, fantasising about all sorts of melodramatic scenes. She would announce her imminent marriage – and his face would be flooded with deadly pallor, he would start speaking fervent words of passion. She would say: ‘My darling, my infinitely dear one, if you only knew…’ and then a pause, that would be all. After that there would only be the trembling of her lips, the teardrop on her eyelashes, the pain in her eyes and the faint smile. Eliza had even glanced into the mirror to see how it would look. The effect was very powerful. The artistic half of her soul recorded the expression for future use. But the pain was genuine, and the tears even more so.

Oh God, oh God, how long he had been away! She had invented this love for herself, it didn’t exist and it never had. If a man loves you, he cannot fail to sense that you need him desperately, madly. Never mind what you might have said or how you might have acted. Words were no more than words, and actions could be impulsive.

There could only be one explanation. He did not love her and he never had. It was all trivial. As Sima would have said: ‘There’s only one thing men want from our sister’. This Mr Fandorin had got what he wanted, he had gratified his male vanity, added a famous actress to his list of conquests, like a true Don Juan – and there was nothing more he needed. Naturally, he had been relieved to hear of her imminent marriage.

It had been stupid of her to wait for his return as if it could change something. It was enough to recall how Erast had behaved on that nightmarish evening when Limbach was killed. Not a word of sympathy, not a single affectionate touch, nothing. A few strange questions, asked in a cold, hostile tone of voice. And afterwards, before the rehearsal… She had been all tenderness, all eagerness to greet him, and he hadn’t even come across to her.

There could be no doubt about it. He blamed her, as so many others did. He thought she had driven the poor youth insane with her flirting and he had laid hands on himself.

And the most horrific thing of all was that she couldn’t tell the truth. Not to anyone. Especially to the man whose advice and sympathy she needed most of all…

Genghis Khan’s fourth blow had been the cruellest.

Eliza had not seen the entrepreneur Furshtatsky and the tenor Astralov die with her own eyes. She had glanced into the dressing room where Emeraldov was lying, but had not yet guessed that he had been poisoned. But this time death – violent and crude – had presented itself to her in all its bloody hideousness and barbarous suddenness. What a spectacle! And the smell, the sickening, raw smell of a life that has just been eviscerated! She could never forget that.

How cruelly the khan had chosen his moment! As if Satan himself had prompted him, whispering when would be the best time to catch her unawares, so that she would be full of the joy of life, in festive mood, open to the entire world.

A premiere is a special day. If the performance has been a success, if you have acted well and the audience has been yours, totally and completely yours, then there is nothing that can compare with it, no other pleasure. To feel that you are the most loved, the most desired! On that evening Eliza, like her Japanese heroine, had felt herself shooting through the sky like a comet.

She had lived the role, but at the same time her eyes and ears had existed in their own right, able to follow the audience. Eliza had seen everything – even things that she could not possibly have seen: the rainbow waves of empathic feeling and rapture, shimmering above the rows of seats. She had even spotted Erast, sitting in the box for important guests. When Eliza was on the stage, he had hardly ever taken the opera glasses away from his eyes, and that had aroused her even more powerfully. She wanted to be beautiful for everybody, but for him more than for anyone else. At moments like that Eliza felt like an enchantress, showering her invisible spells on the audience – and that was what she truly was.

She also sought out her constant admirers. Several of them had come from St Petersburg especially for the premiere. But Limbach wasn’t there. That had seemed strange to her. He had probably landed in the guardhouse again. What bad timing! She had been sure that the cornet would come to congratulate her, and then she could arrange a meeting with him. Not for any stupid nonsense, but for a serious conversation. If he was a paladin or a knight, let him free a lady’s heart from the Dragon, from the vile Pagan Monster!

The monster, of course, was also in the hall. He deliberately came late to draw attention to himself. Khan Altairsky had walked in during her dance and demonstratively stood in the doorway, looking like Mephistopheles with his square, neatly outlined figure. In the reddish light of the little lamp glowing above the exit his bald cranium had gleamed like Satan’s scarlet halo. According to the rules of Noah’s Ark, no one was allowed in after the beginning of a performance, and the terrifying man did not flaunt himself in the doorway for long. An usher hurried over to the late arrival and asked him to go out. Eliza had seen this as a good omen that no one would cast a shadow over the premiere. Oh God, how appallingly mistaken she had been…

Following the performance, during the banquet, she had given herself a present: she had hugged Erast, kissed him, called him ‘darling’ and quietly asked him to forgive her for what had happened. He hadn’t answered, but at that moment he loved her – Eliza had felt it! Everybody loved her! And the inspired speech about the mystery of the theatre that she had extemporised had been incredibly successful. To produce an impression like that on her fellow actors (and especially on her fellow actresses) – that was really a triumph!

When Shustrov asked her to go out to talk about ‘something important’, she had realised immediately that he was going to tell her he loved her. And she had gone, because she wanted to hear how he would say it – he was so very clever and level headed, and Stern himself wagged his tail for him. He had given her a rose, processed in some cunning technological fashion. How funny he was!

Andrei Gordeevich had surprised her. He had not said anything at all about feelings. The very moment they emerged into the corridor, he had immediately blurted out: ‘Marry me. You won’t regret it.’ And he had looked at her with those eyes that never smiled, as if to say: Why waste words, the question has been asked, let’s have an answer, if you please.

But of course, she hadn’t let him off that easily.

‘You have fallen in love with me?’ She had raised the corners of her mouth slightly in a faint suggestion of a smile and lifted her eyebrows – just a tiny little bit. As if she were about to chuckle. ‘You? As Stanislavsky would have said: “I don’t believe it”!’

Shustrov had started detailing the points, as if he were at a meeting of his management committee or board of directors.

‘To be honest, I don’t know what people mean when they talk about love. Probably everyone invests his or her own meaning in that idea. But it is good that you have asked. Honesty is the essential condition of that long and fruitful collaboration called “marriage”.’ He had dabbed at his forehead with a handkerchief. Evidently the millionaire found it hard to talk about feelings. ‘What I love most of all is the work that I engage in. I would give my life for it. I need you both as a woman and as a great actress. Together we will move mountains. Would I give my life for you? Undoubtedly. Will I love you, if you cease to be of interest to my business? I do not know, I tell you that in all honesty, because without honesty…’

‘You have already explained about honesty,’ she had said, trying as hard as she could not to burst out laughing. ‘When you gave me the formula of marriage.’

They were walking along the corridor of the artistes’ floor, with only a few steps remaining to the door of her dressing room.

‘I am not only offering you myself.’ Shustrov took her hand and stopped her. ‘I will lay the entire world at your feet. It will be ours – mine and yours. It will love you, and I shall milk it.’

‘What do you mean, “milk” it?’ She thought she had misheard.

‘Like a cow, by the udder. And we shall drink the milk together.’

They had walked on. Eliza’s mood had suddenly changed. She no longer found this funny. And she no longer wanted to tease Shustrov.

What if he has been sent to me by God? Eliza had thought. In order to save me from a terrible sin. After all, I am intending, out of sheer egotism, to risk the life of a boy who is in love. Andrei Gordeevich is no green youth. He will be able to protect his intended. She had turned the door handle and been surprised – the room was locked.

‘The cleaner must have locked it. I have to get the key from the board.’

The millionaire had waited patiently for her answer, seeming perfectly calm.

‘There is one complication,’ Eliza had said when she came back, without raising her eyes. ‘Formally speaking, I am married.’

‘I know, I was informed. Your husband, a retired guards officer, will not give you a divorce.’ Shustrov shrugged slightly with one shoulder. ‘That is a problem, but every problem has a solution. A very difficult problem may have a very expensive solution, but it always has one.’

‘Are you thinking of buying him off?’

But, really? Genghis Khan is accustomed to living on a grand scale, he loves luxury… No, he’ll refuse. His malice is stronger than his cupidity…

Out loud she had said:

‘You won’t get anywhere with that.’

‘That never happens,’ he had replied confidently. ‘I always get somewhere with everything. Usually precisely the place that I am trying to get to.’

Eliza had recalled the rumours circulating in the company: about the ruthless determination with which this merchant’s son had accumulated his immense wealth. He must have seen all sorts of things and overcome a host of obstacles and dangers. A serious man! A man like that wouldn’t waste time on idle talk. This was probably someone to whom she could tell the truth about Genghis Khan…

‘I’ll start dealing with the question of your legal freedom as soon as I have the right to do so – as your fiancé.’

He had taken hold of her hand again and looked at it, as if trying to decide whether to kiss it or not. But he hadn’t kissed it – he had squeezed it.

‘I need to consider all this… Carefully,’ she had said in a weak voice.

‘Naturally. Every important decision should be weighed thoroughly. Will three weeks be sufficient for your deliberations?’

He had released her hand – like a thing to which he had not yet acquired the rights of ownership.

‘Why three weeks exactly?’

‘Twenty-one days. That is my lucky number.’

Andrei Gordeevich had smiled for the first time since she had known him. And she had been as astounded as if the sun had suddenly peeped out from behind a cloud in the middle of the night.

Only at that moment had Eliza’s heart faltered.

He’s not an arithmometer! He’s a live human being! He will have to be loved. And what if he should want children! After all, ‘the fruitful collaboration called marriage’ really does bring forth fruit. Millionaires always want to have heirs.

‘Very well. I’ll think about it…’

Eliza had turned the key and opened the door – and her nostrils had been assaulted by the smell of death. She had cried out and squeezed her eyes shut, but they had already read the bloody message sent to her by the monster. It said: ‘You are mine. Anyone who dares to become close to you will die a terrible death.’No one apart from Eliza had understood, or could have understood, what had really happened. As usual, Genghis Khan had arranged everything with diabolical ingenuity. Everyone around had gasped, spoken about suicide and pitied the poor boy driven insane by love. They had offered Eliza words of sympathy that were mostly false and stared at her avidly, as if something about her had changed. Noah Noaevich, who was also horrified, had said: ‘Well, Eliza, my congratulations. The suicide of an admirer is the supreme accolade for an actress. At the next performance they’ll be storming the theatre to get seats.’ There really was something frightening about a man who was so obsessed with theatrical effects.

She had sat in the green room, waiting to be summoned by the investigator; Sima had given her drops, Vasya had wrapped her in a shawl. Outwardly she had behaved as the situation and the nature of an actress required: she had sobbed with moderate ugliness, allowed her shoulders to tremble, wrung her hands, pressed them to her temples and so on. But it was the woman in her, not the actor, who was thinking. And in fact there had been only one thought running incessantly through her mind: There’s no choice, I’ll have to marry a man I don’t love. If there was anyone in the world who could save her from this fiend of hell, it was only Shustrov, with his millions, with his confidence and his power.

How longingly Eliza had looked at Erast when he asked her his questions and tried to make sense of a mystery to which only she knew the answer. Fandorin had been magnificent. He was the only one who had not lost his head when everyone else was shouting and running around. Everyone had instinctively started to do as he said. How could it have been otherwise? He had so much innate, natural gravitas! It had always been palpable but it had manifested itself especially clearly at the moment of crisis. Ah, if only he had power and influence, like Shustrov! But Erast was only a ‘traveller’, a solitary. He couldn’t cope with Genghis Khan. In any case, nothing in the world could have made her agree to put Fandorin’s life in danger. Let him live, let him write plays. Marrying Andrei Gordeevich was a way to save not only herself, but also Erast! If the khan, with his satanic ubiquity, should get wind of the fact that she had been intimate with the dramatist, it would be the end of him. She had to stay as far away as possible from Fandorin, although the only thing she wanted to do was bury her face in his chest and cling to him as tightly as possible, with all her strength, and then let come what may.

This criminal desire had become almost unbearable after a long conversation with the Japanese. In the evening, after the rehearsal (it was the seventeenth of October, a Monday), Eliza had asked Masa to see her to the hotel. She hadn’t wanted to ride in the automobile, because it was a glorious autumn evening, and she was afraid to walk on her own – she fancied that Genghis Khan was lurking behind every corner. She had also been frightened by the idea of an evening in an empty room and a sleepless night. And she had wanted to talk about him.

The conversation begun on the way to the hotel had been continued at dinner in the Massandra restaurant and then in the hotel vestibule. Eliza had not invited her stage partner to her room – so that Genghis Khan, if he was following her, would not have any grounds for jealous suspicions. She had no right to endanger darling Mikhail Erastovich’s life. She was very fond of him, and the longer she knew him, the fonder she became. That likeable, slightly lisping accent did not seem funny to her. After five minutes she stopped noticing that Masa pronounced some Russian sounds incorrectly. And the Japanese himself had proved to be more than just a capable actor, he was an extremely pleasant individual. Erast had been lucky to find such a friend.

Ah, how many new and important things Eliza had learned from him about her beloved! She had not even noticed how the night flew by. Following the restaurant, they had reached the ‘Louvre’ after midnight, settled into comfortable armchairs, ordered tea (Masa had asked for Danish pastries with his) and talked and talked. Then when they had looked, it was already getting light outside. She had gone up to her room, tidied herself up and changed her clothes, then they had taken breakfast together in the hotel buffet, and it had been time for the rehearsal. Eliza had never spoken so frankly and confidentially with anyone. And, moreover, about the one thing that concerned her most of all. What a pleasure it was to talk to a man who didn’t look at her lustfully or strike poses, or try to produce an impression. Vasya Gullibin was also a member of the non-philandering tribe, but he was a poor conversation partner, no match for the Japanese in intellect or knowledge of life or aptness of observation.

The night had flown by so fast because they were talking about love.

Masa had told her about his ‘master’ (that was what he called his godfather). How noble, talented, fearless and intelligent he was. ‘He roves you,’ the Japanese had said, ‘and it tortures him. The onry thing in the worrd he is afraid of is rove. Because those he has roved have died. He brames himserf for their death.’

Eliza had shuddered at that. How very similar it was to her own situation.

She had started asking questions.

Masa had told her that he had not seen the first woman whom his ‘master’ had loved and lost. It had been a very long time ago. But he had known the second. It was a very, very sad story that he did not want to remember, because he would start to cry.

But then he had told her after all – something exotic and amazing, in the spirit of the play about two comets. He really had started crying, and Eliza had cried too. Poor Erast Petrovich! How cruelly fate had dealt with him!

‘Do not pray the usuar woman’s games with him,’ Masa had implored her. ‘He is not suited for them. I understand, you are an actress. You cannot behave otherwise. But if you are not sincere with him, you wirr rose him. For ever. That would be very sad for him and, I think, for you too. Because you wirr never meet another man rike my master, even if you rive to be a hundred years old and keep your beauty for the whore hundred years.’

At that she had fallen apart completely. She had burst into floods of tears, quite unconcerned about how she looked as she did it.

‘You do not rook rike an actress now,’ the Japanese had said, handing her a handkerchief. ‘Brow your nose, or erse it wirr be sworren.’

‘What will it be?’ Eliza had asked in a nasal voice, not understanding the word ‘sworren’.

‘Red. Like a prum. Brow your nose! That’s it, very good… Wirr you rove my master? Will you terr him tomorrow that your heart berongs onry to him?’

She had shaken her head and burst into tears again.

‘Not for anything in the world!’

‘Why?’

‘Because I love him. Because I don’t want…’

To destroy him, she had been going to say.

Masa had pondered for a long time before he eventually spoke.

‘I thought I understood a woman’s heart werr. But you have surprised me. “I rove” but “I don’t want”? You are very interesting, Eriza-san. Undoubtedry that is why my master ferr in love with you.’

And for a long time he had tried to persuade her not to be stubborn. However, the more vividly the Japanese described Erast Petrovich’s virtues, the more unwavering her determination to protect him from disaster had become. But she had enjoyed listening to it anyway.

In the morning, when she saw Fandorin at the rehearsal, looking so hurt and so proud, she had been frightened that she might not be able to control herself. She had even appealed in prayer to the Almighty, pleading for His help to resist temptation.

And God had heard her. After that day Erast disappeared. He had gone away.

In her own mind she had held an endless conversation with him, all the time preparing to meet him. And now they had met…

She was a fine one too, of course. All the phrases she had prepared had simply flown out of her head. ‘You know, I have received a proposal.’ She had just blurted it out in passing – and taken fright herself at how frivolous it sounded.

He hadn’t even raised an eyebrow. ‘Aha, well now.’

Apparently the Japanese actor could also be mistaken. Masa didn’t know his ‘master’ all that well after all. Or perhaps there had been love, but it had ended. That happened too. It happened all the time.

THE DAILY ROUND

It just happened that all the sincerity, all the passion of soul that, in her perplexity and torpor, had not been splashed out onto Fandorin fell to the lot of a man who was good, but unimportant – Vasya Gullibin. He was a faithful, reliable friend and sometimes Eliza had a secure, comforting cry on his shoulder, but she could just as well have buried her face in the fur of her dog, if she had had one.

Vasya glanced out of the auditorium a minute after Erast had turned round and walked away. Eliza’s face wore an unhappy expression and she had tears in her eyes. Gullibin, of course, dashed over to her to ask what was wrong. Well, she told him everything, she unburdened her heart.

That is, not absolutely everything, naturally. She didn’t tell him about Genghis Khan. But she did tell him the story of her drama of love.

She led Vasya into a box, so that no one would disturb them. Then she put her hands over her face and started talking incoherently through her tears – the dam burst. About how she loved one man and had to marry another; that she had no choice; or rather, she did, but it was an appalling one: either drag out a miserable life that was worse than death, or give herself to a man for whom she felt nothing.

On the stage Stern was rehearsing with Swardilin, going through his turn with the tightrope. Masa wasn’t graceful enough. A romantic hero should observe a certain austerity in his gesticulations, but the Japanese spread his knees too wide and stuck his elbows out. The other actors had taken advantage of this break to wander off in all directions.

Gullibin listened agitatedly and stroked her hair cautiously, but he simply couldn’t grasp the most important thing.

‘Who are you talking about, Lizonka?’ he asked eventually. (Gullibin was the only one who called her that, they had known each other from their theatre school days.)

The expression on his face was puzzled and kind.

‘Fandorin, who else?’

As if there was anyone else here she could love!

Vasya frowned.

‘Has he proposed to you? But why are you obliged to marry him? He’s old and completely grey!’

‘You fool!’ Eliza straightened up angrily. ‘You’re the one who’s old and withered. At the age of thirty, you already look forty, but he… he…’

And she started talking about Erast Petrovich – she just couldn’t stop. Vasya didn’t take offence at that word ‘withered’, he wasn’t the kind to take offence anyway, he forgave Eliza absolutely anything at all. He listened, sighed and suffered with her.

‘So you love the playwright,’ he said. ‘But who has proposed to you?’

When she replied, he whistled.

‘Oh boy! Has he now? That’s a real turn-up for the books!’

They both turned round at the sound of the the door opening slightly. There were always draughts wandering about in the theatre.

‘I haven’t accepted yet! I have another four days to think about it, until Saturday.’

‘Think it over, of course… It’s for you to decide. But you know yourself that lots of women, especially actresses, have a way of arranging things. A husband is one thing, love is another. It’s a perfectly normal business. So don’t you go upsetting yourself. Shustrov’s a millionaire, he’ll go a long way. You’d be the owner of our theatre. More important than Stern!’

Yes, Vasya was a real friend. He wished her well. In recent days (there was no point in denying it), Eliza had contemplated this possibility too: giving her hand to Andrei Gordeevich and leaving her heart for Erast Petrovich. But something told her that neither man would agree to a ménage of that kind. They were too serious, both of them.

‘Hey, who’s that eavesdropping out here?’ Vasya suddenly shouted out angrily. ‘That’s no draught, I saw someone’s shadow!’

The door swayed and they heard steps – someone walking away quickly on tiptoe.

While Gullibin was squeezing through the narrow gap between the chairs, the curious listener had time enough to disappear.

‘Who could it be?’ Eliza asked.

‘Anyone at all. This isn’t a theatre company – it’s a jar of spiders! The parish takes after the priest! Stern’s theory of rupture and scandal in action. Well, congratulations, now everyone will find out that you’re going to marry a man like that in four days’ time!’

Wonderful Vasya was genuinely upset. But Eliza wasn’t. So they would find out, and that was just fine. It would be one thing if she had boasted about it herself, but now the news had leaked out without her being party to it. Let them all eat their hearts out with envy. And she would see whether she really would marry ‘a man like that’.

However, it had remained unclear whether the unknown spy had let the cat out of the bag or not. None of the others had started talking to Eliza about Shustrov directly. And as for their tangential, envious glances, she had always received plenty of those. The position of a leading lady was a bouquet of roses with extremely sharp thorns, and when it came to envy a theatre company could easily outdo the harem of a padishah.

But nonetheless, it was a bouquet of roses. Fragrant and beautiful. Every entrance, even during a rehearsal, brought that sweet oblivion in which she was cut off from the darkness and fear of real life. And a performance was sheer unadulterated happiness. The two shows that had been given since the premiere had turned out superbly. Everyone had acted with gusto – the play gave every actor an opportunity to hold the audience for a while, not sharing it with anyone else. And owing to the sudden disappearance of the ticket touts, the composition of the audience had changed noticeably. In the stalls there was less glittering of jewellery and gleaming of starched collars. Fresh, lively new faces had appeared, mostly young, and the emotional pitch had been heightened. The audience had started reacting more willingly and more gratefully, and that, in turn, had electrified the artistes. But most importantly of all, the faces had no longer radiated an avid anticipation of sensation and scandal, those constant companions of Stern’s theatre – those people who once paid speculators twenty-five roubles, and sometimes even fifty, for a place in the front rows had wanted to see more for their money than simply a theatrical performance.

The charm of the role that had come Eliza’s way lay in its difficulty of comprehension. The idea of a geisha – of a beauty that was incarnate and yet not of the flesh – thrilled her imagination. What an intoxicating craft – to serve as an object of desire while remaining inaccessible to embraces! How closely it resembled the existence of an actress, her own beautiful and sad destiny.

When Eliza, still simply Liza at the time, moved from the ballet department to the acting department of the college, a wise old teacher (a ‘noble father’ of the imperial theatres) had told her: ‘Little girl, the theatre will reward you generously – and fleece you of everything. Know that you will have neither a genuine family, nor genuine love.’ And she had replied blithely: ‘Then so be it!’ Afterwards there had been times when she regretted her choice, but for an actress there is no way back. And if there is, then she is not an actress – simply a woman.

Stern, for whom nothing existed in the world apart from the theatre, liked to repeat that every genuine actor was an emotional pauper and explained this, as he did many other things, with the help of a financial metaphor (Noah Noaevich’s innate commercialism was both his strength and his weakness at the same time). ‘Let us assume that an ordinary man has one rouble’s worth of feelings,’ he used to say, ‘and he spends fifty kopecks on his family, twenty-five kopecks on his work and the rest on his friends and his interests. All hundred kopecks of his emotions are expended on the daily round. Not so with an actor! In every role that he plays he invests five kopecks or perhaps ten – it is impossible to play convincingly without this vitally essential mite. In his career an outstanding talent may play ten, at most twenty, first-class roles. What is left over for the daily round of family, friends and lovers? Three and a quarter kopecks.’

Noah Noaevich very much disliked it when people argued with him, and so Eliza listened to his ‘kopecks’ theory without saying anything. But if she had objected, she would have said: ‘It’s not true! Actors are special people, and they have a special emotional constitution. If you don’t possess this special charge of energy, you shouldn’t be on the stage. Let’s assume that initially I only had a rouble’s worth of feelings. But when I act, I don’t spend my rouble, I invest it, and every successful role brings me dividends. It is ordinary people who spend their hundred kopecks’ worth of emotions from birth to death, but I live on the interest and maintain my capital untouched! Other people’s lives, of which I become a part on the stage, are not deducted from my life, but added to it!’

If a show went well, Eliza could physically feel the energy of the feelings that filled her. There was so much of this energy that it saturated the entire audience, a thousand people! But in their turn the people in the audience charged Eliza with their fire. This is a magical effect known to every genuine actor. The late Emeraldov, a lover of vulgar metaphors, used to say that regardless of his or her gender, an actor was always a man, whose responsibility it was to bring the audience to a state of ecstasy, otherwise he would merely break into a sweat and waste his energy, and the lover would leave unsatisfied and seek other embraces.

That was why Eliza was bored by the idea of the cinematograph that Andrei Gordeevich dreamed about. What good was it to her if spectators in hundreds or even thousands of electric theatres sobbed or lusted when they saw her face on a piece of cheap cloth? She wouldn’t be able to touch this love and feel it, would she?

Let Shustrov think that she had accepted his proposal out of vanity, out of a yearning for worldwide fame. There was only one thing she wanted: for him to rid her of Genghis Khan. For that, she was prepared to be eternally in his debt. A marriage, even without love, could be harmonious. Did Shustrov value the actress in her more than the woman? Well then, she was an actress first and foremost.

But the other half of her nature, the womanly half, fluttered its wings like a bird caught in a trap. How much easier it would be to marry out of calculation, if only Fandorin didn’t exist! In four days’ time she would have to lock herself in a cage voluntarily. It was a cage of pure gold, offering reliable protection against any wild beasts on the prowl, but it meant abandoning for ever the flight of two comets in a starless sky!

If only she could know for certain, without any doubt, that Erast’s feelings for her had cooled. But how could she find out? She didn’t trust her stage partner Masa any longer. He was a very good person, but the soul of his ‘master’ remained as obscure to him as it was to her.

Provoke Fandorin into a frank conversation? But that was the same as flinging herself on his neck. Everybody knew how scenes of that kind ended. She wouldn’t be able to run away from him a second time. Genghis Khan would find out about her infatuation, and she didn’t need to guess what would happen after that… No, no, and a thousand times no!

After pondering over her doubts for a long time Eliza came up with the following solution. Of course, she must not permit any confessions of love. But in the course of some neutral conversation, she could attempt to sense – from his glance, from his voice, from some involuntary movement – whether he still loved her in the same way. After all, she was an actress, was she not, and her heart was particularly responsive to such things. If it didn’t sense any magnetic attraction, then what reason was there to suffer? And if it did… Eliza hadn’t decided what to do in that case.

The day after the encounter in the foyer, on Wednesday, when she arrived for the rehearsal, he was already there. Sitting at the director’s desk, reading the entries in the Tablets, with such an unnaturally intense air that Eliza guessed he was doing it deliberately, in order to avoid looking at her. She smiled inwardly. This was an encouraging symptom.

She had prepared a topic for conversation in advance.

‘Hello, Erast Petrovich.’ He got up and bowed. ‘I have a question for you as a dramatist. I’m reading a lot about Japan now, and about double suicides by lovers – in order to understand my character Izumi better…’

He listened intently, without speaking. The question of magnetism was not clear as yet.

‘And I read something very interesting. Apparently, before the Japanese depart from this life it is customary for them to compose a poem. Only five lines long! I think that is so beautiful! What if my geisha were also to write a poem that would sum up her life in a few words?’

‘It is strange that I did not think of that myself,’ Erast said slowly. ‘Very probably a geisha would have done p-precisely that.’

‘Then write it! I shall read the poem before I press the electric switch.’

He thought about that for a moment.

‘But the play is already written in verse metre. The poem will sound like an ordinary m-monologue…’

‘I know what can be done here. You can retain the Japanese poetic metre: five syllables in the first line, seven in the second, five in the third and seven in each of the last two lines. To the Russian ear that will sound like prose and it will contrast with the iambic trimeter in which the monologues are written. For us, verse will fulfil the function of prose, and prose will fulfil the function of verse.’

‘An excellent idea.’

His eyes flashed admiringly, only it wasn’t clear if the admiration was meant for the idea or for Eliza herself. She had not determined whether Fandorin was radiating magnetism or not. Her own radiation must have interfered, it was too strong…

She had wanted to continue the investigation the next day, but Erast Petrovich had not shown up at the theatre either on Thursday or on Friday, and now the fateful day – Saturday – had arrived.

Eliza had not known what answer to give Andrei Gordeevich. Let come what may, she had thought in her hotel room in the morning, as she stood in front of the mirror, choosing her outfit. In fact, there was no doubt than she had to consent. But at the same time a lot would depend on Shustrov: the words that he said, the way that he looked at her.

The light purple with the black silk belt? Too funereal. Better with the dark green watered silk. A slightly risqué combination, but it suited both possible outcomes… The Viennese hat, of course, with the eye-veil…

At the same time, she had tried to picture what she would wear for the wedding. No corset, lace or frills, of course. And any mention of a bridal veil was absurd – for her third marriage! And all those orange blossoms were not for Eliza Lointaine in any case. The dress would have a close-fitting top and a sumptuous, full-bodied skirt. Quite definitely red, only not just red, but with black zigzags, as if she were being consumed by tongues of flame. She would have to make a sketch and show it to Bouchet, he was a magician, he would sew what she needed.

Eliza had imagined it: there she was, standing there like a blossom of flame, a single column of impulsive, upward aspiration; and there he was, erect and dignified, in black and white. They stood there in full sight of everyone, with flowers and crystal on the table, and her groom kissed her on the lips and she held out her arm in a long straw-yellow glove…

Brrrr! No, it was absolutely impossible for her, wearing a dress of flame, to kiss Shustrov on the lips to the sound of clinking glasses! Eliza only had to visualise this picture to realise immediately that it could not possibly happen. And what happened during the night that followed the wedding banquet was even more impossible.

Quickly, quickly, before the voice of reason intervened, she had dashed to turn the handle of the telephone and asked the operator to connect her with the Theatrical and Cinematographic Company. Eliza had been living in the Louvre again for almost three weeks now, Noah Noaevich had insisted on it – and Eliza had not tried to argue. She had grown accustomed to living without a bathroom, but poor Limbach would not be climbing in at her window again…

The secretary had answered, told her that Andrei Gordeevich was not expected in the office today and politely given her his home number. It must have been a compassionate fate’s attempt to give Eliza a chance to change her mind. But she didn’t take it.

When he heard her voice, Shustrov had said calmly:

‘It’s a good thing that you phoned. I’m just getting ready to come to your hotel. Perhaps you should cancel the rehearsal for an occasion like this? I ordered the table to be laid for breakfast and let the servants go. We can drink champagne together, just the two of us.’

‘No champagne!’ Eliza had blurted out. ‘Nothing is going to happen. It’s impossible. Impossible, and that’s all! Goodbye!’

He had gulped and tried to object, but she had hung up.

For a moment she had felt an incredible sense of relief. And then horror. What had she done? She had spurned her lifeline, now she could only drown.

But the genuine horror was still to come.

LIFE IS OVER

For the first time in her career Eliza was almost late for a rehearsal. But then today she was in especially good form – for two reasons. Nervous agitation always intensified the fervour of her acting; and in addition, when she was performing the fan dance, Fandorin came in and sat down quietly at the back.

‘Eliza’s the only one working!’ Stern shouted irritably (he was out of sorts today). ‘All the others are counting crows! Lev Spiridonovich, once again from the words: “What a beauty! I could just watch and watch!”’

The shimmering Japanese music started up again from the gramophone record and the central doors swung open with a crash. A young man with tousled hair and no hat came running in through the opening. His furious-looking face was flushed, he was dressed foppishly and waving one hand about wildly, with something glinting in it – apparently a little metal box.

At this Noah Noaevich went absolutely berserk.

‘Why is there an outsider here? Who let him in? What is this mayhem? Who is responsible for order in the theatre?’ he yelled at his assistant, who shrugged, and Stern turned his fury on the stranger, who had run up to the stage. ‘Who are you? And what do you think you are doing?’

Looking around, the young man handed him a business card. The director read it and broke into a toothy grin.

‘Monsieur Simon! Dear colleagues, we have a visit from Andrei Gordeevich’s partner! Soyez, so to speak, le bienvenu, cher ami!’

The Frenchman’s wandering gaze settled on Eliza. She was wearing that purple dress with the green belt, but in combination with Japanese lacquered sandals.

‘Madam Lointaine?’ the ill-mannered foreigner enquired.

‘Oui, monsieur.’

She had already guessed that Shustrov had sent his partner Simon to persuade her to change her mind. A rather strange emissary of Cupid, and he was behaving rather strangely!

But Monsieur Simon howled in perfect Russian:

‘You bitch! You murderer! What a man you’ve destroyed!’

He swung his hand and flung the little gold box. It struck Eliza directly on her breasts and fell to the floor, and a wedding ring with a diamond rolled out of it.

The troublemaker clambered up onto the stage, as if he intended to attack the leading lady with his fists. Vasya and Georges grabbed hold of his shoulders, but he shoved them away.

‘What’s happened? What’s going on?’ voices called from all sides.

The rowdy intruder shouted:

‘Coquette, viper! You led him up the garden path for three weeks and then refused! I hate your kind. Tueuse! An absolutely genuine tueuse!’

Frightened and dumbfounded, Eliza backed away. What sort of wild Mexican passion was this?

Fandorin and Masa darted out onto the stage simultaneously from both sides. They grabbed hold of the madman’s arms – and more securely than Gullibin and Nonarikin. Erast Petrovich turned Monsieur Simon to face him.

‘Why do you call Madam Lointaine a murderer? Explain yourself immediately!’

From the side Eliza saw the Frenchman start to blink.

‘Erast… Petrovich?’ he babbled. ‘Mr Masa?’

‘Senka-kun?’ Masa released his grip. ‘Odoroita na!’

Apparently he had recognised the stranger, And Fandorin also exclaimed:

‘Senya, you? It’s ten years since we last saw each other!’

‘Eleven, Erast Petrovich! Almost eleven!’

Simon shook hands with Fandorin and exchanged bows with Masa, and the Frenchman (although what kind of Frenchman could he be, if he was ‘Senya’) bowed low, from the waist. All this was extremely bewildering.

‘I was sure that you were in Paris… But wait, we’ll come to that later. Tell me what has happened. Why did you attack M-madam Lointaine?’

The young man sobbed.

‘Andriusha phoned me this morning. Disaster, he said. She turned me down. And his voice was so bleak. I got in my automobile. I have a Bugatti, Erast Petrovich, fifteen horse power – not like the old kerosene lamp we used to trudge around in, remember?’ He livened up for a moment and then his face fell again. ‘I got to Andriusha’s house on Prechistenka. And there were policemen at the door, a crowd of people, flashguns flaring…’

‘But what has happened? T-tell me in plain language!’

‘In his desperation he slit his throat, with a razor. I saw it – it was horrible. Everything covered in blood. Slashed away at himself as if he was slicing sausage… And in the other hand he was holding the box with the ring…’

Eliza didn’t hear how their conversation ended, or find out how Simon and Fandorin knew each other. The moment she heard about the razor and the slit throat, everything went dark and then something struck her hard on the back of the head. She had fainted and fallen, banging her head against the floor.

Eliza came round only a minute or two later, but Erast and Senya-Simon were no longer in the hall. Sima and Vasilisa Prokofievna were fussing over her, Sima waving a fan and Vasilisa Prokofievna thrusting sal volatile in her face – the theatre always had substantial reserves of that, because the actresses’ nerves were easily agitated. Gloomy-faced Swardilin was sitting on the floor in the corner of the stage, with his legs crossed Japanese-style. The other members of the company were huddled round the director.

‘…A tragic event, but there is no need to despair!’ Noah Noaevich declared. ‘The deceased was a great-hearted man, and he made provision for us! As you recall, he settled on the Ark a capital sum that will allow us to exist quite comfortably. And in addition, his partner has made a very pleasant impression on me – emotional and impetuous. I think we shall hit it off. My friends, one must seek the positive aspects of every misfortune, otherwise life on earth would have come to an end long ago! Imagine what the scene will be like at our next performance, as soon as the public learns of the reason for the latest suicide!’

At that point everyone looked round and saw that Eliza had recovered consciousness. How expressive all those glances turned towards her were! How much they said about each member of the company! It was clear from Vulpinova’s face that she was bitterly envious of a woman for whose sake men killed themselves and who would be written about in the newspapers tomorrow. The ‘philosopher’ Lev Spiridonovich had a sad, sympathetic air. Vasya was sighing pitifully. Nonarikin was frowning disapprovingly. Mephistov ran one finger across his throat and applauded silently. Gullibin’s face was contorted into a grimace that signified: ‘Ah, gentlemen, what idiots you all are’. Shiftsky winked, as if to say: ‘Well, you certainly played that faint well, bravo’.

And Noah Noaevich came across to Eliza and whispered:

‘Hang on, little girl! Keep your head up! Nationwide fame, that’s what this means!’

If anything, he was even more repulsive than Mephistov.

There won’t be any performance for you, so you can stop rubbing your hands, Eliza told Stern in her own mind. The moment she came round she knew what to do. The idea had simply come to her. But don’t take it hard, Noah Noaevich. You’ll soon recover your losses. A concert in memory of a great actress, immense box-office takings, newspaper headlines about the theatre – you’ll have all that. Only without me.

It was pointless to explain to them all that this was a murder. They wouldn’t believe it. They liked the fairy tale of a Belle Dame Sans Merci, who drove admirers to their death with her cruelty. Well, so be it. If people wanted to remember Eliza Lointaine like that, so be it.

She felt a ghastly, infinite lassitude. She had no strength left to flutter her little wings. It was time to put an end to everything: the horror, the malevolence, the endless dance of death. No one else was going to die because of Eliza, no one. She had had enough. She was quitting.

Eliza didn’t take the decision. It manifested itself as the only possible, natural one.

Noah Noaevich was in a state of high excitement. In anticipation of a siege by reporters and idle gawpers, he took measures: he moved Eliza to the Metropole hotel, where there was a special floor for important guests – with a special doorman who didn’t allow strangers in. Of course, it wasn’t a matter of protecting her from the press. The important thing for Stern was to demonstrate what a luxurious life was led by the leading actress of his theatre.

Eliza didn’t argue. Aphrodisina and Gullibin took her to her new quarters in a luxurious three-room apartment with a piano and a gramophone, with a canopy above the bed, with voluptuous bunches of flowers in crystal vases.

She sat in the armchair without taking off her hat or cape, watching dully as Sima hung her clothes in the wardrobe. Killing herself also required an effort. And she didn’t have any strength left at all. Absolutely none.

Tomorrow, she told herself. Or the day after tomorrow. But I won’t live any longer than that, that’s quite certain.

‘I’ve set everything out,’ said Sima. ‘Shall I sit with you for a while?’

‘Go. Thank you. I’m all right.’

They went.

She didn’t notice it get dark. The street lamps came on outside in Theatre Square. There were lots of gleaming surfaces in the room – bronze, gilt, lacquer – and it all glittered and glimmered, casting little spots of light.

Eliza ran one hand over her thickly powdered face and frowned. She needed to have a wash.

As she wandered slowly to the bathroom, every step was a struggle.

She turned on the light and looked in the mirror at the white face with blue circles under the eyes, the face of a suicide.

There was something white lying on the toilet table, between the little bottles and boxes. A folded piece of paper. Where from?

She mechanically picked it up and unfolded it.

‘I warned you that you are mine for ever. Anyone you get mixed up with will die,’ Eliza read. Recognising the handwriting, she screamed.

Tomorrow won’t do, let alone the day after tomorrow! This torment must be stopped immediately! Even in hell it can’t be more terrible than this!

She didn’t rack her brains over how Genghis Khan had found out about the move and how he had managed to slip the note into the bathroom. Satan, he was Satan himself. But the apathy and lassitude had been dissipated, as if scattered by a gust of wind. Eliza was shuddering in impatience.

No more! No more! Out of this world! Quickly!

Turning on the lights everywhere, she started dashing through the rooms in search of a suitable means of exit.

Death stood ready to take her into its embrace everywhere. The window was an open door into Non-existence – she only had to step across the threshold. The candelabra glittered with pendants, among which a place could easily be found for a dangling body. Lying in the medicine cabinet was a little phial of laudanum. But an actress could not leave this life like an ordinary woman. Even in death she had to be beautiful. The final scene, just before the curtain, had to be choreographed and played so that it would be remembered.

The preparations for this scene occupied Eliza’s mind, distracting her, and the horror was replaced by a feverish animation.

She took the flowers out of the vases and scattered them across the floor in a bright, fragrant carpet. She positioned the armchair. With a crystal vase on each side of it.

She telephoned reception and told them to bring a dozen bottles of red wine, the very best, to her room.

‘A dozen?’ the velvety voice asked. ‘Straight away, madam.’

While they were delivering it, Eliza got changed. The black silk dressing gown with Chinese dragons was like a kimono – a reminder of her final role.

Here was the wine. She told them to remove all the corks.

‘All of them, madam?’ the waiter asked, but he wasn’t really surprised. You could expect absolutely anything from an actress.

‘Yes, all of them.’

Eliza emptied six bottles into one vase and six into the other.

It was no accident that when women with a highly developed sense of beauty decided to do away with themselves, they usually slit their veins open. Some lay in a bath, after first filling it up it with lilies. Some lowered their slashed wrists into a basin of water. But crystal vases with red Bordeaux, so that the noble wine would consume the blood with its own colour – Eliza had never read about anything like that. It was exotic, it would be remembered.

Should she put on some music? She ran through the gramophone records and chose Saint-Saens. But then she put him back. When the record played through to the end, her own consciousness might not yet have faded away. She would have to die to the repulsive scratching of the needle instead of the beautiful music.

She imagined to herself what a furore would be stirred up by her death and – it was stupid, of course – regretted that she would not see it all. She could picture the kind of funeral that Noah Noaevich would arrange. The crowd behind the hearse would extend for miles and miles. And what they would write in the newspapers! What headlines there would be!

She wondered who Stern would take on for the role of Izumi. He would have to introduce the replacement urgently, before all the ballyhoo died down. He would probably lure Germanova from the Art Theatre. Or summon Yavorskaya by telegram. The poor things. It was hard to rival the ghost of someone whose blood had flowed out into wine.

Another idea also occurred to her. Should she not leave a letter, telling the whole truth about Genghis Khan? She could attach his note to it, that would be proof.

But no. That would be too flattering. The villain would milk the part, revelling in his role as the diabolical fiend who drove the great Eliza Lointaine into her grave. And he might even get clean away with it. One note would probably not be enough for the court. Better to leave everyone pondering and guessing at what kind of impulse had carried off the mysterious comet into the starless sky.

And so she sat down in the armchair, rolled up her wide sleeves and took out her sharp little manicure scissors. In an article about some decadent young woman who had committed suicide (there was, after all, an entire epidemic of suicides in Russia at the time) Eliza had read that before she slit open her veins the woman had held her hands in water for a long time – it assuaged the pain. Not that a mere trifle like pain was of any consequence now, but it was still best to avoid the intrusion of coarse physiology into an act of the pure spirit.

Ten minutes, she told herself, lowering her hands into the vases. The wine had been cooled, and Eliza realised that she wouldn’t be able to sit like that for ten minutes – her fingers would go numb. Five minutes would probably do. Without thinking, almost indifferently, she started watching the clock. A minute proved to be a terribly long time, an eternity in fact.

Three times the minute hand shifted from one division to the next, and then the telephone rang.

At first Eliza frowned. Just at the wrong moment! But then she felt curious: who could it be! What signal was this that life was sending her at the final moment, and from whom?

She got up and shook off the red drops.

The hotel operator.

‘A Mr Fandorin is asking for you. Shall I connect him?’

‘Him! Surely he couldn’t have sensed anything! Oh God, and she hadn’t thought about him at all during these terrible hours. She hadn’t allowed herself to. In order not to undermine her resolution.

‘Yes, yes, connect us.’

Now he would say: ‘My darling, my only one, come to your senses! I know what is on your mind, stop!’

‘P-please forgive this late call,’ said the dry voice in the earpiece. ‘I have done as you asked. I wanted to give it to you at the theatre, but circumstances of which you are aware prevented me. I mean the verse. The pentastitch,’ he explained when he heard no response. ‘Do you remember, you asked me?’

‘Yes,’ she said in a quiet voice. ‘It’s very kind of you not to have forgotten.’

But what she wanted to say was: ‘My beloved, I am doing this for you. I am dying, so that you can live…’

Eliza found this unspoken line very moving. She wiped away a tear.

‘Will you write it down? I’ll d-dictate it.’

‘Just a moment.’

Oh God, this was just what was needed to render her departure ideally beautiful! Her beloved had telephoned to dictate her deathbed poem! It would be found on the table. But no one, no one apart from Erast Petrovich, would know all the beauty of what had happened. This truly was genuine ‘yugen’!

He dictated it in a monotonous voice and she wrote it down without thinking about the words, because she was looking into the mirror all the time. Ah, what a scene! Eliza’s voice, repeating the lines, tranquil, even cheerful, a smile on her lips and tears in her eyes. It was a pity that no one would see or hear it. But it was absolutely the best thing she had ever played in her life.

She wanted to say something special to him at the end, so that the meaning would be revealed later, and he would remember those words to the end of his days. But nothing adequate to the moment occurred to her, and Eliza did not want to spoil it with banality.

‘There, b-basically that’s all. Goodnight.’

There was a note of anticipation in his voice.

‘Are you not going to ask about Shustrov?’ he asked after a pause. ‘Are you not interested?’

‘That does not interest me,’ Eliza gasped in a rustling half-whisper: ‘Goodbye…’

‘Goodnight,’ Erast said, even more coolly than at the beginning of the conversation.

The line went dead.

‘Ah, Erast Petrovich, how cruelly you will repent,’ Eliza told the mirror.

She looked at the piece of paper and decided to make a fair copy of the verse. Because her left hand had been occupied with holding the receiver, the lines had sprawled in higgledy-piggledy fashion, it looked untidy.

Only now did she really read it and grasp the meaning.

The part about ‘another birth’ was clear, the Japanese believed in the transmigration of the soul, but what was the sense of ‘not a flower, but a bee’? What did that mean?

Suddenly she understood.

Not to be the eternal object of others’ lust, but to be transformed oneself into desire, into resoluteness, oneself. To choose one’s own flower, to buzz and to sting!

To wither and wilt without resistance or to be picked – that was the lot of a geisha and the lot of a flower. But a bee had a sting. And if an enemy attacked, a bee made use of its sting, with no concern for the consequences.

This was the signal that life had sent Eliza at the final moment.

She must not surrender without a struggle! She must not capitulate in the face of Evil. Eliza’s mistake was that she had behaved too much like a woman: she had wanted other men to protect her against Genghis Khan, and when there were no defenders left, she had simply lost heart, dropped her hands and squeezed her eyes shut. What shameful weakness!

But she would become a bee right here and now, in her present incarnation! She would exterminate the enemy, save the one she loved and be happy as well! ‘Only he is worthy of happiness and freedom who da-de-da-de-da follows them into battle!’ In her agitation, part of Goethe’s strophe had slipped her mind, but that was not important.

To strike down the Dragon herself! To appear before Erast strong and free!

The superb magnificence of this idea filled Eliza with ecstasy.

She called reception.

‘Collect two crystal vases of Bordeaux from my room. Take them to the Madrid lodging rooms for the actors of the Noah’s Ark theatre, from me,’ she said. ‘Let them drink to the victory of Light over Darkness!’

‘How very high-tone that is, madam,’ the receptionist exclaimed admiringly.

THE BATTLE WITH THE DRAGON

Kill him, in the same way that a mad dog is killed – with no moral compunctions, no Christian commandments. So that he can never bite anyone again.

And the most miraculous thing was that there would be no penalty for this deed. That is, of course, there would be a sensational trial, with a jury, with a crush in the courtroom, with journalists. The idea of a trial did not frighten Eliza at all. Quite the contrary. A deliberately casual hairstyle. Clothes that were simple, but eye-catching – all in mourning style, with a light glint of steel, as befits a female warrior. They would definitely acquit her. The case would definitely create a furore right across Europe. And quite definitely no Sarah Bernhardt or Eleanor Duzet had ever seen such glory, even in their sweetest dreams.

All this was wonderful and theatrical, with guaranteed applause. But first she had to kill a man. Not that Eliza felt sorry for Genghis Khan, she most certainly did not. She didn’t even consider him to be a human being – he was an ugly anomaly, a cancerous tumour that had to be excised as soon as possible. But Eliza had no idea of how to kill a man. She had done it on stage many times – for instance, when she played the Comtesse de Teroir in The Victim of Thermidor. It had all been very simple there: she raised her hand holding the pistol, a worker behind the scenes struck a copper sheet, and the cruel Commissar of the Convention dropped to the ground with a howl. But in real life it must all be more difficult.

And it became clear to Eliza that she couldn’t manage without a consultant or a second – in short, an assistant.

She started running through the potential candidates.

Erast was excluded immediately. In her play a completely different role was allotted to him: ashamed, admiring and forgiven.

Swardilin? Too conspicuous, with his oriental appearance. And then he was a celebrity too now. She didn’t want to divide the glory between two actors.

Vasya? In the Japanese play he was a great swordsman, but in real life he was a ditherer. She was certain he had never held a gun in his hand in his life. What was needed here was some kind of military man…

What about Georges? Firstly, he was a former officer. Secondly, he was devotedly and quite patently in love with her. Thirdly, he was a genuine knight, a man of honour. Fourthly, he was a hero – it was enough to recall how he had grabbed hold of that snake, brrrr… He was discreet. And – very importantly – he was accustomed to remaining in the shade.

The following day she withdrew into an empty box with Nonarikin and, after making him take an oath of silence and obedience, she told him everything. He listened with his eyes blazing, sometimes even grinding his teeth at the villain who had caused her so much grief and had killed five entirely innocent people with impunity. Eliza’s story did not arouse any doubts in Nonarikin, and she was especially grateful to him for that.

‘So that’s what it’s all about…’ the assistant director whispered, striking his fist against his forehead. ‘Ah, it’s all so… Fate, destiny! Now it’s all clear. And we…’

‘Who is this “we”?’ Eliza asked cautiously. ‘Who do you mean?’

‘It is of no consequence. I am bound by my word of honour, obliged to maintain silence.’ Georges set his hand over his lips. ‘And I am eternally grateful to you for your trust. You don’t have to tell me any more. Do you know the address at which I can find the ogre? Don’t worry, I shall manage things without the police. I shall force him to shoot at two paces, by lots, with no chance. And if he refuses, I shall kill him on the spot!’

This was what Eliza had been afraid of.

‘I have to kill him myself. With my own hands. The last thing I want is for you to be exiled to hard labour because of me!’

‘My lady, for your sake I would do more than serve hard labour – for your sake I… I… am prepared to save the entire accursed world from destruction!’ And he reached his arm out above the hall of the theatre in such a funny, touching manner. ‘Ah, if only your eyes could be opened, if only you could see what I am really like! If only you could love me – that would change everything!’

‘Nowhere beyond the bounds of the stage has anyone ever declared their love for me so… majestically…’ – it took Eliza a moment or so to find the right word. ‘You are my knight, and I am your lady. That is a beautiful relationship. Let us not move beyond it. And there is no need for you to intercede for me. At the moment I am not in need of a protector, but an assistant. Remember, you swore an oath to obey. You are a man of your word, are you not?’

His fervour was extinguished. His shoulders fell and his head slumped.

‘Have no fear. Nonarikin keeps his word. And the role of a deputy is nothing new to me. One in nine persons, as Noah Noaevich likes to joke…’

Feeling calmer now, she explained that his assistance would be clandestine. Otherwise it would not be a crime committed in a state of passion, motivated by the impulse of the moment, but a premeditated murder involving conspiracy – a horse of quite a different colour.

‘Command me, my sovereign. I shall do everything you say,’ Georges said in a voice that still sounded bitter, but calmer.

‘Get me a pistol and teach me how to shoot with it.’

‘I have a revolver, a Nagant. A little heavy for your hand, but you will be shooting point blank, will you not?’

‘Oh, yes!’

This conversation took place on the sixth of November. For three days in succession, after the rehearsal they went down into the stone-vaulted basement, where the scenery from long-forgotten productions was stored, and Eliza learned to fire the gun without squeezing her eyes shut. The shots sounded deafening, the thunder rumbled and rolled about, unable to find any way out from under the heavy vaulting. But upstairs – they checked – the shooting could not be heard.

On the first day nothing went well. On the second, at least Eliza did not drop the revolver after a shot. She emptied the entire cylinder, but failed to hit the dummy even once. Eventually, on the third day, holding the heavy revolver in both hands and shooting at extremely close range, she shot holes in the dummy with five bullets out of seven. Nonarikin said that was quite a good result.

There was no more time left to practise. The next day, Thursday, after the performance, vengeance was due to be enacted.

Eliza had no doubt that Genghis Khan would show up at the theatre. He had never missed a single performance previously and now, over the freshly dug grave of the man who could have been her husband, he would certainly want to put in an appearance. Two days earlier, in the evening, she had seen him following her across the square from the theatre to the hotel, concealed in a gaggle of admirers. After the newspapers had reported – not openly, but in perfectly transparent hints – that the suicide of ‘the young millionaire’ had resulted from the intransigence of a certain ‘only too well-known actress’, curious theatregoers had lain in wait for Eliza at the stage door and dogged her footsteps but, thank God, they had not pestered her, only gaped reverentially from a distance.

That evening she played breathtakingly, as if there were some magical force bearing her round the stage, and at times it seemed that at any moment she would fly up into the air, flapping the sleeves of her kimono like wings. Never before had the public devoured her so avidly with its eyes. Eliza could feel that avid attention, she revelled in it and was intoxicated by it. In the wings Vulpinova, who had also been given a highly dramatic role, hissed: ‘This is theft! Stop stealing my moves! Aren’t your own enough for you?’

Genghis Khan was in the terraced stalls. Eliza didn’t see him at first, but during the love scene in the third act a familiar silhouette suddenly rose up, towering over the seated viewers. The murderer, whose fate today was to be the victim, stood up and leaned against a column, crossing his arms. If he was counting on putting the actress off, then he miscalculated – Eliza only embraced Masa with even greater passion.

After the performance, as usual, they drank a glass of champagne. Stern was very pleased and said he would record his impressions of how they had each played their parts in the Tablets.

At the very end of the brief gathering Fandorin suddenly appeared. He congratulated the company on a successful performance – probably out of politeness, because Eliza had not seen him in the hall. She looked at him only once, briefly, and turned away. He didn’t look at her at all. Just you wait, Erast Petrovich, you’ll be sorry, she thought in sweet gloating. And very soon.

Then Nonarikin made an announcement: ‘Ladies and gentlemen, tomorrow, as usual, we rehearse at eleven. But please bear in mind that from now on those who are tardy will be subject to the appropriate measures, without any exceptions. A fine of one rouble for every minute that you are late!’ Everyone grumbled about that, clamoured briefly in outrage and started going home.

‘The khan is here,’ Eliza whispered to her second. She was trembling. ‘Be prepared and wait. Today all will be resolved!’

‘I simply can’t settle my nerves,’ Nonarikin said when they were left alone. ‘What if you hesitate and he shoots first? Come to your senses! What sort of business is this for a woman?’

‘Not for anything. The die has been cast.’

Eliza smiled bravely and flung up her chin. The sudden movement set her head spinning and she felt afraid that she might faint. But it was all right, it passed off. Only her knees were trembling.

Then Georges sighed and took something small, made of black metal, out of his pocket.

‘You are a heroine. Who am I to stand in the way of your heroism? This is for you, take it.’

She took the light pistol that almost fitted her hand.

‘What is this? What for?’

‘A Bayard. A noble weapon with a noble name. I spent everything I had left over from my salary on it. And I’ll keep the Nagant. If you are in danger, I shall be ready. This at least you cannot deny me!’

Tears welled up in his eyes.

‘Thank you… Now I shall not be afraid. Almost… But how do I fire it?’

‘Let’s go down into the basement. I’ll show you.’

They walked down the steps and she fired an entire clip. This was an entirely different matter! She could hold the weapon in one hand, she hardly felt any recoil at all, and the bullets made a neat, close pattern in the dummy.

Georges was pleased too. He put in new bullets, clicked something and handed the pistol back to Eliza.

‘Now just take off the safety catch and fire away! Remember, I’m here. I’m watching out.’

On the way to the exit she repeated her instructions to her second.

‘No matter what, do not look round. Do not interfere in anything. Only if I call out for you to help, all right?’

He nodded, becoming gloomier by the moment.

‘Don’t even think of taking out your Nagant. That will be the end of both of us!’

He nodded again.

‘Only if the khan prepares to shoot. Is that all clear?’

‘Yes, it’s clear…’ Nonarikin muttered.

At that moment they were walking through the auditorium.

‘Wait a moment.’

She felt a sudden urge to look at the stage curtain. Perhaps she would never see it again. And if she did, it would not be soon. They would probably put her prison for the duration of the trial, wouldn’t they?

The cleaners were already completing their work: they brought in Noah Noaevich’s desk and stood it beside the stage – for the next day’s rehearsal. Then they stood a lamp on it, precisely at the centre, as Stern preferred. Then they set out fresh sheets of paper and sharpened pencils and – with special respect – the Tablets.

Eliza suddenly felt a desire to read what Noah Noaevich had written about the way she had acted today.

It made pleasant reading: ‘For E.L. – Miraculous nervous tension! The recipe for success: stretch the string to the limit. But do not snap it!’

That was on the stage. But in real life sometimes it had to be snapped.

Before she went outside, Eliza filled her lungs with air and looked at her watch. Precisely midnight. An ideal hour for bloodshed.

She stepped out onto the pavement like Mary Stuart stepping onto the scaffold.

Despite the late hour, there was a crowd standing at the entrance. There was clapping and exclamations, several men handed her bouquets, someone asked her to sign a photocard. A flashgun flared.

As she nodded and smiled, out of the corner of her eye Eliza followed the movements of a figure in a long black coat and a gleaming top hat.

He was here, here!

She handed the flowers to Nonarikin, who just barely managed to wrap his left arm round them, while keeping his right hand in his pocket.

Twenty steps farther on Eliza took her powder compact out of the pocket of her muff, in order to glance into the little mirror. About half a dozen admirers, both male and female, were following her at a respectable distance, and striding along at the head of them, with his heels clattering loudly, was Genghis Khan.

It would be easier to carry out her intentions in public view. She would just have to imagine that she was playing a part.

Eliza swung round. She shuddered, as if she had only just noticed the man in the long coat. He grinned under his black moustache.

She cried out and lengthened her stride a little.

The clatter of heels behind her also speeded up.

I mustn’t hit the people walking behind him, Eliza thought. She counted to five in her mind.

‘Torturer! Monster!’ she exclaimed in a resounding voice. ‘I can’t take any more!’

Genghis Khan, startled, shied away to one side. Now she could fire at will, behind him there was nothing but the dark, empty square.

‘As God is my judge!’ Eliza improvised. ‘I may perish, but you will also meet your end!’

She drew the pistol out of her muff with an elegant gesture and took a step forward. Her hand did not tremble, her supreme artistic elation rendered every movement irreproachable.

The khan shuddered and dropped his top hat.

‘Die, Satan!’

She squeezed her forefinger as hard as she possibly could, but there was no shot. She pressed the trigger again and again – but it didn’t yield.

‘The safety catch! The safety catch!’ Nonarikin hissed behind her.

Everything went dark in front of Eliza’s eyes. This was a disaster!

The admirers started shouting and waving their arms about. Genghis Khan also came to his senses. He didn’t reach into his coat to take out a gun, but simply turned up his collar, swung round and darted away at a trot, dissolving into the darkness.

A flashgun flared again. The camera recorded Eliza Altairsky-Lointaine in a most effective pose: with her arm extended and a pistol in her hand.

‘Bravo! Is that from a future production?’ the admirers babbled. ‘How original! We adore you!’ a woman exclaimed. ‘I haven’t missed a single one of your performances! I absolutely idolise you! I’m a reporter for the Evening News, will you allow me to ask a question?’

‘What went wrong?’ Eliza asked her second in an appalling whisper. ‘Why didn’t it fire?’

‘But you didn’t take off the safety catch…’

‘What safety catch? What safety catch are you talking about?’

Georges took her by the arm and led her away.

‘Oh, come on now! We fired in the basement, didn’t we… You saw it! And I reminded you…’

‘I don’t recall. I was agitated. And then, when I fired the Nagant, there wasn’t any safety catch.’

‘Good Lord, every grammar school boy knows that, unlike a revolver, a pistol has a little lever like this, look, there it is!’

‘I am not a grammar school boy!’ Eliza sobbed hysterically. ‘This is all your fault! Call yourself a second! You didn’t explain anything properly! My God, get them away from me, will you? And you go away too! I don’t want to see anyone!’

She ran on ahead, choking on her sobs. Nonarikin obediently hung back.

‘Madam Altairsky is tired! Please show her some consideration!’ she heard his voice say behind her. ‘Please come to the performance, ladies and gentlemen. Please allow the artistes to have a private life of their own!’

The world of theatre is full of legends about the most shameful, monstrous fiascos. Not even the most famous of actresses does not have a nightmare in which she forgets her part or makes an appalling blunder that results in malevolent silence from the audience and then whistling and booing and the shuffling of chairs. Eliza had been certain that nothing of the sort would ever happen to her. But now she had flunked the most important entrance of her life quite disgracefully. As she stumbled blindly along the hotel corridor, she was not thinking of the consequences of her attack on Genghis Khan (there would definitely be some), but about her own absolutely hopeless incompetence.

Real life was not a theatre. There was no worker to strike a sheet of metal behind the scenes to make the shot ring out, and the villain would not tumble over of his own accord. The curtain would not descend to save her from the raging public. She could not simply take off her costume and her make-up.

I am talentless, my life is mediocre, and I have deserved my fate, thought Eliza. She sat there in the dark room, without taking off her hat, like some little bird huddling up in its feathers to warm itself, broken and exhausted. She fell asleep without realising it.

And she had a dream that was quite unbearable, absolutely terrifying. She was sitting in her dressing room, all the walls were covered with mirrors and she tried to look at herself – but there was no reflection. No matter which way she turned or which mirror she looked into – there was nothing. And although she had the feeling that there was something black right there beside her, she couldn’t catch a glimpse of it. She sat there, turning her head faster and faster, right and left, right and left, but there was still no Eliza to be seen. I’ve taken off my stage costume and make-up, and without the part I don’t exist, she realised, and felt so afraid that she woke with a groan and with tears in her eyes.

If the sun had been shining outside the window, perhaps she would have felt some relief. But the dirty November dawn was even worse than the darkness, and her entire body was numbed from her uncomfortable pose during the night. Eliza felt dirty, unwell and old. She glanced fearfully round the room. The vague outlines of things, visible through the dim light, frightened her. A large mirror glimmered on the wall, but not for anything in the world would Eliza have glanced into it now. The real world pressed in on her from every side, it was menacing and unpredictable, she didn’t understand the way its plot lines developed and she didn’t dare to surmise what the denouement would be.

She jumped up and started dashing aimlessly round the room. She had to get away from here, away! But where to?

To where everything was familiar and predictable. To the theatre! Its walls were like an impregnable fortress. It denied access to strangers, and to real life with all of its dangers. There she would be in her own kingdom, where everything was familiar and comprehensible and nothing was frightening.

Following poor Limbach’s death, Eliza had been given a new dressing room, at the opposite end of the corridor, a very bright and cheerful room – Noah Noaevich had given the instructions. And now she suddenly felt an irresistible urge, this very second, to run out of this appalling, absolutely alien hotel room and dash across the square, so that she would be there, among the posters and the photographs that reminded her of her former triumphs… that reminded her that Eliza Lointaine really did exist.

It was only the habit of discipline in everything that concerned her appearance and her clothes that prevented her from dashing out immediately. With quite incredible haste – in about an hour – Eliza tidied herself up, changing her clothes, putting on her perfume and arranging her hair in a tight style. That lent her a certain amount of strength. She was at least reflected in the mirror. Well, she was pale and her eyes were sunken, but in combination with medium-blue velvet and a wide-brimmed hat, this morbid air actually looked rather interesting.

As Eliza walked along the street, men looked round at her. She was gradually starting to calm down. Once inside the echoing foyer of the theatre, she sighed in relief. There was more than an hour and a half remaining until the rehearsal. She would recover her spirits before eleven. And after that… But she didn’t allow herself to think about what would happen after that.

Ah, how good it felt in the theatre when it was empty. The twilight wasn’t frightening, and even the rustling of her footsteps was comforting.

She also loved the dark, deserted auditorium. Without actors, this wide space was lifeless; it was waiting obediently and patiently for Eliza to fill it with her light.

She opened the door slightly – and stopped.

In the distance the lamp was lit on the director’s desk in front of the stage. Someone who was standing with his back to her swung round sharply at the creak. The figure was tall, with broad shoulders.

‘Who’s there?’ Eliza called out in fright.

‘Fandorin.’

So that is the force that drew me here! Eliza suddenly realised. It is destiny. It is salvation. Or final annihilation – it is all the same now.

She moved forward quickly.

‘Did you also feel the call?’ she asked tremulously. ‘Was it instinct that drew you here?’

‘It was chemistry that drew me here.’

Eliza was surprised for a moment, then she realised that he meant internal chemistry, the chemistry of hearts!

Only Fandorin’s voice did not sound the way it ought to. Not agitated, but preoccupied. When she drew closer, Eliza saw that he was holding the Tablets in his hands.

‘L-look. This was not here yesterday.’

She glanced absent-mindedly at the page with today’s date on it. Written at the top in sprawling characters was: ‘FOUR 1S UNTIL THE BENEFIT PERFORMANCE. PREPARE!’

‘No, it wasn’t. I was the last to leave, after midnight,’ Eliza said with a shrug. ‘But why are you concerned about this endless, stupid joke?’

What deep eyes he has, she thought. If only he would look at me like that for ever.

Fandorin replied in a quiet voice.

‘Where there is murder, there are no jokes.’