She Lover of Death

I. From the Newspapers

This is the Only Way?

In memory of Lorelei Rubinstein (1860–1900)

Hang your heads low, all you lovers of Russian literature. Your hearts will surely be filled not only with grief, but with the even more sombre feelings of bewilderment and despair. For a star that shone brightly in the firmament of Russian poetry in recent years has been tragically extinguished: it has fallen and, in falling, carved a bloody furrow across our hearts.

Suicide always has a terrible effect on those who are left behind. It is as though the person who leaves us spurns and rejects God’s world and all of us who dwell in it. We are no longer necessary or interesting to him. And it is a hundred times more unnatural when the person who acts in this way is a writer, whose bonds with the life of the spirit and society ought, one would think, to be especially strong.

Poor Russia! Her Shakespeares and Dantes seem to be marked down for some special deadly fate: those who are not slain by an enemy’s bullet, like Pushkin, Lermontov and Marlinsky, contrive to carry out the malevolent verdict of destiny themselves.

And now yet another resounding name has been added to the martyrology of Russian literary suicides. We have only just commemorated a bitter anniversary – a quarter of a century since the death of Count A.K. Tolstoy and the effervescent Vassily Kurochkin. They both poisoned themselves. The noble Garshin threw himself down a stairwell, while in his despair Nikolai Uspensky cut his own throat with a blunt knife. Each of these losses has left an open wound on the body of our literature.

And now a poetess, the woman they called the Russian Sappho.

I knew her. I was one of those who believed in her talent, which blossomed at a mature age but promised so very much.

The reason that prompted Lorelei Rubinstein to take up the pen at an age when the first blush of youth was already behind her is well known: it was the death from consumption of the husband she passionately adored, the late M.N. Rubinstein, whom many recall as the most noble and worthy of men. Deprived of the only being dear to her heart, the childless Lorelei turned to poetry for salvation. She opened that passionate, long-suffering heart to us, her readers – opened it unhesitatingly, even shamelessly, because sincere, genuine feeling knows no shame. It was the first time in Russian poetry that sensuality and passion had spoken so boldly through the lips of a woman – following the death of her beloved husband these natural impulses could find no other outlet except in her poems.

Young provincial ladies and schoolgirls secretly copied these spicy lines into their cherished albums. The poor souls were abused for it, sometimes even punished for this enthusiasm for ‘immoral’ poetry that could teach them nothing good. But that was only poetry! Now Lorelei has set these romantic maidens languishing in neurotic passion a far more terrible and tempting example. I fear that many will wish to copy not only her poems, but also her own terrible end . . .

I know quite certainly that she was a member of the ‘Lovers of Death’, where she was known as the ‘Lioness of Ecstasy’. In recent weeks I was fortunate enough to become more closely acquainted with this astounding woman and was an involuntary witness of the fiery fall of her brilliant star.

No, I was not with her at that crucial moment when she took the fatal dose of morphine, but I could see that she was sinking, irrevocably sinking. I could see it, but I was powerless. Not long ago she confided to me in secret that the ‘Tsarevich Death’ was sending her secret signs, and she would not have to suffer the torment of life for much longer. I do not think I was the only one she told about this, but everyone regarded this confession as the fruit of her irrepressible fantasy.

Alas, fantasies can give rise to phantoms: the hard-hearted Tsarevich has come for Lorelei and taken her away from us.

Before she made the transition from this life to the history of literature, the Lioness of Ecstasy left a farewell poem. How little remains in these incoherent, impatient, final lines of the heady brilliance that captivated her female admirers!

What terrible words of farewell! ‘This is the only way.’ Are you not afraid, ladies and gentlemen? I am, very.

Lavr Zhemailo

Moscow Courier, 7 (20)

September 1900, p.1

II. From Columbine’s Diary

Puzzles

I really am terribly fortunate to depart this life in the year that marks the boundary between the old and new centuries. It is as if I have glanced through a door that has opened a crack and seen nothing deserving enough of my attention to open the door wider and walk in. I shall halt on the threshold, flutter my wings and fly away. You can have your cinematograph, self-propelled carriages and tunics à la grecque (terribly vulgar, in my opinion). Live in the twentieth century without me. To depart without looking back – that is beautiful.

And on the matter of beauty. Our members talk about it a great deal, they even elevate it to the level of a supreme standard. Essentially, I am of the same opinion, but a sudden thought: Who is more handsome, Prospero or Genji! Of course, they are very different, and each impressive in his own way. Probably nine women out of ten would say that Genji is more interesting, in addition to being a lot younger (although he is also very old, about forty). But without the slightest hesitation, I prefer Prospero, because he is more . . . significant. When I am with Genji, I feel calm and lucid, sometimes even lighthearted, but I am overwhelmed by an ‘infinite thrill’ only in the presence of the Doge. There is magic and mystery in him, and that weighs more heavily than superficial beauty.

But then, of course, there is quite a lot of mystery about Genji too. In the last few days he has played Death at roulette three times (if one counts those first two times, with the drum of the revolver) and remained alive! It is truly incredible that the ambulance carriage just happened to be driving along the boulevard at the very moment when Genji lost consciousness after drinking the poisoned wine!

Obviously all this is because there is too much vital energy in this man, and he expends it sparingly, holding it inside himself.

Yesterday he declared: ‘I cannot understand, Columbine, why you find the world so disagreeable. You’re young, healthy and rosy-cheeked, and p-perfectly cheerful by nature, even though you do try to assume an infernal air.’

I was terribly upset. ‘Healthy and rosy-cheeked’ – is that all? On the other hand, as they say, you can’t blame the mirror. He is right: I lack subtlety and fatality. But even so, it was very tactless of him to say it.

‘And what about you?’ I retorted. ‘As I recall, you were so outraged with the Doge that you even threatened to break up our club, but you keep coming and you even tried to poison yourself.’

He replied with a serious air: ‘I adore everything mysterious. There are far too many mysteries here, dear Columbine, and mysteries give me a kind of itch – I shall never calm down until I get to the bottom of everything.’ Then suddenly he made a suggestion. ‘Do you know what? Why d-don’t we solve this puzzle together? As far as I am aware, you have nothing else to do in any case. It will be good for you. You might even come to your senses!’

I did not like his didactic tone, but I thought about Ophelia’s inexplicable suicide and remembered Lorelei, without whom our meetings now seemed pale and colourless. And he was right – how long could I just sit at home, waiting for the evening to come?

‘Very well,’ I said. ‘A puzzle to be solved. When shall we begin?’

‘Tomorrow, with no d-delay. I shall call for you at eleven, if you would please be so kind as to be ready on time in full marching order.’

There is one thing I do not understand: whether he is in love with me or not. To judge from his manner of restrained mockery – not in the least. But perhaps he is simply trying to appear interesting? Acting in accordance with that idiotic homily: ‘The less we love a woman, the more she likes us.’ Of course, it is all the same to me, since I love Prospero. But I would still like to know.

Take tomorrow’s outing, for instance – what is his real interest in it? Now that is a genuine riddle.

All right. Let Mr Genji try to solve his puzzle, and I shall solve mine.

But they did not set out at eleven the following day – and not at all because the young mistress of the flat had overslept or failed to make her preparations in time. On the contrary, Columbine was waiting for Prince Genji in perfect readiness and fully kitted out. Little Lucifer had been given food and drink and left to rustle about in a large plywood crate full of grass, and Columbine herself had put on an impressive outfit: a Bedouin burnous with little bells (she had spent half the night sewing them on).

His Japanese Majesty politely praised the costume but requested her to change into something a little less eye-catching, citing the particularly delicate nature of their mission. So it was his own fault that they were a little late.

With reluctant loathing, Columbine dressed up in a blue skirt and white blouse from Irkutsk, with a modest grey bolero, and put a beret on her head – the perfect image of a female student, only the spectacles were missing. But the earthbound Genji was pleased.

He did not come alone, but with his Japanese, to whom Columbine was formally introduced on this occasion, with endless bowing and scraping (on Mr Masa’s side, that is). In introducing his Man Friday, Genji called him ‘observant and sharp-witted’ and even ‘an invaluable assistant’ and the Oriental drew himself erect and puffed out his smooth cheeks so that he looked like a carefully polished samovar.

When the three of them got into the droshky, Columbine was helped in by both elbows, like a queen.

‘Where are we going, to Ophelia’s place?’ she asked.

‘No.’ Genji replied and gave the driver a familiar address, ‘Basmannaya Street, the Giant c-company’s apartment building. Let’s start with Avaddon. I can’t get that Beast out of my head – the one that howled on the night of the suicide.’

The sight of the large, grey five-storey block made the young woman feel rather unwell – she recalled the iron hook and the rope end hanging from it. Genji, however, did not walk into the left entrance, where the flat of the deceased Nikifor Sipyaga was located. He walked into the entrance on the right.

They walked all the way up to the top and rang the bell at a door with a plaque that said ‘A.F. Stakhovich, painter’. Columbine remembered that this man, Avaddon’s neighbour, had been mentioned by the yard keeper, who had taken Lucifer for an alcoholic hallucination.

The door was opened by a young man with a fiery ginger beard that covered his face almost right up to the eyes. There could be no doubt that this was the artist in person – he was wearing a dressing gown smeared with paint from top to bottom and clutching an extinct pipe in his teeth.

‘A thousand apologies, Alexei Fyodorovich,’ said Genji, politely doffing his top hat (so he had already found out the man’s first name and patronymic, how very meticulous). ‘We are friends of your neighbour, the late Mr Sipyaga, who met such an untimely d-death. We would like to reconstruct the woeful sequence of events.’

‘Yes, I felt sorry for the student,’ Stakhovich sighed, gesturing for them to go in. ‘Though of course, I hardly even knew him. A neighbour on the other side of the wall is not like one from the door opposite. Come in, only be careful, it’s chaos in here.’

His comment on the chaos was greatly understated. The small flat, an exact mirror image of Avaddon’s, was absolutely crammed with frames and canvases and there was all sorts of rubbish underfoot – empty bottles, rags, flattened paint tubes.

The room which Avaddon had made his bedroom served Stakhovich as a studio. Standing by the window was an unfinished painting of a female nude on a red divan (the nude’s body had been painted in detail, but the head was still missing), and placed against the opposite wall was the divan itself, covered in a red drape, and there really was a naked damsel reclining on it. She had a snub nose, freckles and loose straw-coloured hair, and she gazed at the visitors with idle curiosity, making no attempt to cover herself up.

‘This is Dashka,’ the painter said, nodding towards his model. ‘Stay there, Dunya, don’t move, it cost me a real effort to get you set out properly. They’ve come to make enquiries about that young fool from next door who hanged himself. They’ll be gone in a minute.’

‘A-a-ah,’ drawled Dashka, alias Dunya, and sniffed. ‘The one who hammered on the wall with his fist every time we started arguing a bit too loud?’

‘That’s the one.’

At this point Prince Genji proved that he was terribly old-fashioned and a total martyr to philistine prejudices. At the sight of the naked model he became embarrassed, turned his head away a full hundred and eighty degrees and started stammering twice as much as usual: in his place Prospero wouldn’t have batted an eyelid.

However, the Japanese Masa wasn’t even slightly embarrassed. He stared at the recumbent girl, clicked his tongue in approval and declared: ‘Beeootifur young rady. Round with fat regs.’

‘Masa!’ Genji protested, blushing. ‘How many times m-must I tell you? Stop staring! This isn’t Japan!’

But Dunya was obviously flattered by the comment from the Japanese.

‘What exactly are you interested in?’ asked the artist, squinting at each of his visitors in turn. ‘I really didn’t know him at all. I was never in his flat. He gave the impression of being a bit of a cold fish. No socialising, no binges, no women’s voices. A real hermit.’

‘The poor thing wasn’t much to look at either, his face was all covered in furuncles,’ Dunya put in, scratching her elbow and looking at Masa. ‘But he was interested in the female sex all right. When he ran into me in the entrance, he used to frisk me all over with those eyes of his. If he’d been a bit more perky, he could have been likeable enough. You get furuncles from loneliness. But he had good eyes, sort of sad, and the colour of cornflowers.’

‘Shut up, you fool,’ Stakhovich shouted at her. ‘To hear you talk, you’d think men have nothing on their minds but how to get their hands on your body. But she’s right: he was shy, you couldn’t get a word out of him. And he really was lonely, a lost soul. He was always muttering something in the evenings. Something rhythmical, like poetry. Sometimes he used to sing a bit out of tune – mostly Little Russian songs. The partition walls here are made of planks, you can hear every sound.’

All the walls of the room were hung with sketches and studies, most of them showing a female torso in various positions and from various angles, and it required no great gift of observation to realise that Dashka-Dunya’s body had served as the model for all of them.

‘Tell me,’ Columbine enquired. ‘Why do you always paint the same woman? Is it some kind of style you have? I’ve read that in Europe there are artists who only paint one thing – a cup, or flowers in a vase, or spots of light on glass – always trying to achieve perfection.’

‘What’s perfection got to do with it!’ Stakhovich exclaimed, turning round to take a look at this curious young lady. ‘Where would I get the money for any other models? Take you, for example. You wouldn’t pose for me out of the simple love of art, would you?’

Columbine felt as if the gaze of his narrowed eyes had pierced straight through her bolero, and she cringed slightly.

‘You have an interesting profile. The line of the hips is quite captivating. And the breasts must be pear-shaped, slightly asymmetrical, with large areolae. Am I right?’

Masha Mironova would probably have turned numb and blushed bright red at words like that. But Columbine didn’t turn a hair and even smiled.

‘C-come now sir, how d-dare you say such things?’ Genji exclaimed in horror, apparently prepared to intervene there and then for the honour of the lady and tear the insolent fellow into little pieces.

But Columbine saved the artist from the inevitable duel by saying in a perfectly calm voice: ‘I don’t know what areolae are, but I assure you that my breasts are perfectly symmetrical. However, you are quite right about them being pear-shaped.’

There was a brief pause. The artist examined the intrepid maiden’s waist. Genji mopped his forehead with a batiste handkerchief. Masa walked over to the model and offered her a boiled sweet in a green wrapper that he had taken out of his pocket.

‘From Landrine?’ Dashka-Dunya asked. ‘Merci.’

Columbine imagined Stakhovich, having become world-famous, bringing an exhibition of his work to Irkutsk. The most important canvas was a nude – Columbine Seduced. Now that would be a real scandal. It was probably worth thinking about.

But by now the artist was looking at the Japanese instead of her.

‘What an incredible face!’ Stakhovich exclaimed, rubbing his hands together in his excitement. ‘And you don’t notice it straight away. The way those eyes sparkle, and those folds! Chingiz Khan! Tamerlaine! Listen, good sir, I absolutely must paint your portrait!’

Columbine was stung. So she only had an interesting silhouette, but he thought this snuffling Oriental was Tamerlaine? Genji also stared at his valet with a certain degree of amazement, but Masa wasn’t even slightly surprised – he merely turned sideways so that the artist could appreciate his flattened profile as well.

Genji cautiously took the artist by the sleeve: ‘Mr Stakhovich, we have not come here to p-pose for you. The yard keeper told me that on the n-night of the suicide you supposedly heard some unusual sounds on the other side of the wall. Try to describe them in as much detail as possible.’

‘That’s the sort of thing you don’t forget in a hurry. It was a foul night, the wind was howling outside, the trees were cracking, but I could still hear it.’ The artist scratched the back of his head as he remembered. ‘Well, it was like this. He came home just before midnight – he slammed the front door very loudly, which was something he never used to do.’

‘That’s right!’ Dashka-Dunya put in. ‘And I said to you: “He’s drunk. Now he’ll start bringing whores back.” Remember?’

Genji cast an embarrassed sideways glance at Columbine, which she found very amusing. Was he concerned for her morals now? It was already quite clear that Dashka spent the nights here as well as the days.

‘Yes, that was exactly what you said,’ the artist confirmed. ‘We go to bed late. I work and Dunya looks at the pictures in the magazines until I finish. He was dashing around on the other side of the wall, stamping his feet and muttering something. He burst out laughing a couple of times, and then started sobbing – in general, he seemed a bit upset. And then, well after midnight, it suddenly started. This howling – very sinister it was, and it came and went. I’ve never heard anything like it in my life. At first I thought my neighbour had brought a stray dog home. But it didn’t sound like that. Then I imagined he’d gone barmy and started howling himself, but a man couldn’t have made sounds like that. It was a sort of deep, hollow sound, but at the same time it was articulate. As if it was chanting something, one word, over and over again. Two, three, four times in a row.’

‘O-o-o-oh!’ Dashka-Dunya howled in a deep bass voice. ‘Right, Sashura? Absolutely terrifying. O-o-o-oh!’

‘Yes, it was kind of like that,’ the artist said with a nod. ‘Only louder, and it was really weird. I’d say it wasn’t just “O-o-o-oh”, but more like “D-o-o-oh” or “K-o-o-oh”. It started with this vague, low sound, and then got louder and louder. Well, we make a bit of noise in here sometimes, so at first we put up with it. But when we went to bed – that was after three in the morning, we couldn’t take it any more. I banged on the wall and shouted: ‘Hey you, student, what kind of concert is that?’ But there was no answer. And it went on right until dawn.’

‘Just remembering it gives me goose pimples,’ the model complained to Masa, who was standing beside her, and he stroked her bare shoulder reassuringly, then left his hand where it was. Dashka-Dunya didn’t object.

‘Is that all?’ Genji asked pensively.

‘Yes,’ Stakhovich said with a shrug, observing Masa’s manoeuvres with amazement.

‘Thank you and g-goodbye. Madam.’

Genji bowed to the model and set off rapidly towards the door. Columbine and Masa went dashing after him.

‘Why didn’t you ask him about anything else?’ she asked him furiously, when they were already on the stairs. ‘He’d only just started talking about the most interesting part!’

‘He had already told us the most interesting part. That is one,’ Genji replied. ‘We wouldn’t have learned anything else interesting from him. That is two. Another minute and there could have been a scandalous incident, because someone was behaving with extreme impudence. That is three.’

After that he started speaking some kind of gibberish – it must have been Japanese, because Masa understood it very well and started gibbering away in reply. From his tone of voice he seemed to be making excuses.

Outside in the street Columbine suddenly felt as if she had been struck by lightning.

‘The voice!’ she cried out. ‘During the seance Ophelia mentioned some voice! Remember, when she was talking to Avaddon’s spirit!’

‘I remember, I remember. Don’t shout like that, p-people are looking at you,’ said Genji, the staid guardian of propriety. ‘But did you realise what that voice was singing? What it was calling on Avaddon to do? And in a way that left absolutely no room for doubt?’

She tried howling quietly: ‘Do-o-o-oh! Ko-o-o-oh!’

She imagined it was the dead of night, with a storm outside the window, a flickering candle flame, a white sheet of paper with crooked lines of writing. Oh my God!

‘Go-o-o!, g-o-o . . . Oi!’

‘Yes, “oi!” indeed. Just imagine it, a terrible inhuman voice repeating over and over again “Go, go, go”, hour after hour. And just b-before that Avaddon had been openly named as the Chosen One. That’s more than enough. Just write your farewell poem and p-put the noose round your neck.’

Columbine stopped and squeezed her eyes tight shut in order to remember this moment for ever. The moment when the miraculous had entered her life with all the incontrovertibility of scientific fact. It was one thing to dream of the Eternal Bridegroom, without being completely sure that he really existed. It was quite another thing to know, to know for certain.

‘Death is alive, he sees and hears everything, he is here beside us!’ Columbine whispered. ‘And Prospero is his servant! It’s all absolutely true! It’s not just a fantasy, it’s not a hallucination! Even the neighbours next door heard it!’

The surface of the pavement swayed beneath her feet. The young lady squeezed her eyes shut again in fright and grabbed hold of Genji’s arm, knowing that afterwards she would be angry with herself for being so weak and impressionable. Why, of course Death was a thinking, feeling being, how could it be otherwise?

She recovered quite quickly. She even laughed as she said: ‘Isn’t it wonderful that there are so many strange things all around us?’

It was well-put, impressive, and she glanced at Genji in the right way, throwing her head back slightly and half-lowering her eyelashes.

It was just a pity that he was looking off to one side and not at Columbine.

‘Mmm, yes, there are certainly many strange things,’ he murmured, not really seeming to have heard what she said. ‘ “Go, go” is impressive enough. But there is another circumstance even m-more surprising.’

‘What’s that?’

‘It is strange, surely, that the voice carried on howling right until dawn?’

‘Why is it?’ Columbine asked after thinking for a moment.

‘Avaddon hanged himself no later than three o’clock in the morning. There was no answer when Stakhovich started hammering on the wall some time after three. And the results of the autopsy indicate that d-death occurred at about three. If the Beast was sent by Death to summon her lover, then why would it carry on howling until d-dawn, when the guest had already arrived?’

‘Perhaps the Beast was mourning him?’ Columbine suggested uncertainly.

Genji looked at her reproachfully.

‘From the Beast’s point of view, it ought to have been rejoicing, not mourning. And then, long after the man had died, the Beast was still wailing “Go, go”. Doesn’t Death’s emissary strike you as being rather stupid?’

Yes, this is a very strange and mysterious story, thought Columbine. And the greatest mystery of all is why you brought me with you, sir.

The look in the prince’s blue eyes was warm and friendly, but she could not sense any hidden motive.

In short, it was a puzzle.

She shook the crystal teardrop from her lashes

From Basmannaya Street they drove for a long time past places that looked like hospitals and barracks, then the buildings on the streets gradually shrank and changed from stone to wood, until eventually the landscape became entirely rural. Columbine, however, did not look around much, she was still under the impression of the revelation that had been granted to her. Her companions did not speak either.

But then the carriage halted in the middle of a dusty, unpaved street lined with small, single-storey houses. On one side she could see the steep bank of a small river or a narrow ravine through the gap between two wooden fences.

‘Where are we?’ Columbine asked.

‘On the Yauza,’ Genji replied, as he jumped down from the footboard. ‘According to the description, th-that house over there is the one we need. This is where Ophelia used to l-live. Or to use her real name, Alexandra Sinichkina.’

Columbine could not help smiling at the funny name. Alexandra Sinichkina was even worse than Maria Mironova. No wonder the girl had preferred to be called Ophelia.

It turned out that the oracle of the ‘Lovers of Death’ had lived in a tidy little house that had four windows with white shutters, embroidered curtains and flowers on the window-sills: behind the house there was a green, leafy apple orchard, and the branches of the trees were bowed under the weight of gold and red fruit.

The knock at the gate was answered by a neat old woman of about forty-five, dressed in black.

‘Her mother,’ Genji explained in a low voice as the old woman walked towards them. ‘A provincial secretary’s widow. She and her daughter lived alone.’

When Ophelia’s mother came closer, her eyes proved to be as bright and clear as her daughter’s, but the eyelids were red and swollen. That was from crying, Columbine guessed, and she felt a sharp tingling in her nose. How could you explain to the poor woman that what had happened was not a misfortune at all, but the greatest possible blessing? She would never believe it.

‘Good afternoon, Serafima Kharitonovna,’ Genji said with a bow. ‘P-pardon us for disturbing you. We knew Alexandrovna Ivanovna . . .’

He hesitated, evidently uncertain how to introduce himself. After all, he wasn’t really a Japanese prince. But he was spared the need.

The widow opened the wicket gate and sobbed.

‘So you knew my Sashenka? She did have some friends after all? Thank you for coming to see me, I’ve been sitting here all on my own, with no one at all to talk to. The samovar’s all ready. We don’t have any relatives, and the neighbours don’t call, they turn their noses up. Of course, a suicide is a disgrace to the entire street.’

Their hostess led them into a small dining room where there were embroidered covers on the chairs, a portrait of some bishop on the wall and an old-fashioned clock ticking in the corner. She obviously really was in desperate need of company, because she started talking immediately and carried on with hardly a pause. She poured tea, but didn’t drink any herself, just ran her finger round the rim of the full cup.

‘While Sashenka was alive, we had plenty of lady visitors, everyone needed my daughter. They wanted her to read the candle wax, or cure a headache, or turn away the evil eye. Sashenka could do everything. Even tell if someone’s betrothed was still alive in a faraway country. And she did it all out of the goodness of her heart, she didn’t accept any gifts, she said that was wrong.’

‘Was it a talent that she was born with?’ Columbine asked sympathetically.

‘No, dear young lady, she wasn’t born with it. She was a weak child, always ailing. The Lord didn’t grant me children for long. He gave them to me for a year or two, or four at the most, and then took them back again. I buried six of them, and Sashenka was the youngest. I was so happy that she stayed in this world. She was sickly, but she was still alive – at five, and six, and seven. Every extra day was like a holiday for me, I praised God for it. And on Whit Sunday, when Sashenka was just eight, God worked a genuine miracle . . .’

Serafima Kharitonovna stopped talking and wiped away a tear.

‘Miracuw? What sort of miracuw?’ asked Masa, who was listening closely – he even stopped slurping from his saucer and put down his honeycake with a bite taken out of it.

‘Lightning struck the tree where she and two of the neighbours’ children were sheltering from the rain. The people who saw it said there was a loud crack and blue smoke, and the little boys dropped down dead, but my Sashenka just stood there without moving, with her fingers stretched out and sparks flying off her fingertips. She was unconscious for three days, and then she suddenly came round. I sat by her bed and all that time I didn’t eat or drink a thing, all I did was pray for the Holy Virgin’s intervention. Sashenka opened her eyes, and they were as bright and clear as a holy angel’s. And she was all right, she got up and started walking. And she wasn’t just alive, she was never ill again, never. But even that gift wasn’t enough for the Lord. In His mercy he decided to make Sashenka someone really special. At first I was frightened, but then I got used to it. I knew that when my daughter’s eyes turned transparent, it meant she was in her special state – she was hearing and seeing things that ordinary people couldn’t. At moments like that she could do all sorts of things. The year before last a little three-year-old boy went missing from round here and no one could find him. But Sashenka just sat for a while, then she moved her lips and said: “Look in the old well”. And they found him, alive, only he had a broken arm. That’s what she was like. And always talking about miracles and mysteries. She has a whole cupboard full of books in her room. Fairytales and fortune-telling and novels about all sorts of fairies and enchantresses.’

Ophelia’s mother glanced at Columbine.

‘And you were her friend? Such a fine-looking girl. And you dress modestly, not like these modern girls. Don’t you cry. I cried a bit myself, but then I stopped. What’s the point of crying? Sasha’s in heaven now, no matter what Father Innokentii might say about suicides.’

At that Columbine started crying in earnest. She felt so sorry for Ophelia and her wonderful gift that had been lost, she just couldn’t stand it.

Never mind, the whimpering worshipper of death told herself, hiding her red eyes from Genji and blowing her nose into a handkerchief. I’ll describe everything differently in the diary. So as not to seem like a fool. Like this, for example: ‘A crystal teardrop glinted in Columbine’s eyes, but the giddy girl shook her head and the teardrop flew off. There is nothing in the world that is worth feeling sad over for more than a minute. Ophelia did what she thought was right. The crystal teardrop was not dedicated to her, but to the poor old woman.’ And she could write a poem too. The first line simply wrote itself:

She shook the crystal teardrop from her lashes

‘Tell me, what happened that night?’ Genji asked, tactfully turning away from Columbine. ‘Why d-did she suddenly run off and drown herself ?’

‘Why, it didn’t happen like that at all,’ said the widow, holding up her hands. ‘She came home late, later than usual. My Sashenka lived as she liked. I knew she wouldn’t get up to anything bad. She often came back late, almost every day, but I always waited up for her, and I never pestered her with questions about where she’d been and what she’d been doing. I knew she’d tell if she wanted to. She was special, not like the other girls. I used to sit here, with the samovar all ready. Sashenka didn’t eat much, she was like a bird, but she liked her tea, with lime flowers . . . Well, I heard a cab drive up, and then a minute later she came in. Her face was really glowing, I’d never seen her like that before. I couldn’t help myself, I just had to find out why: “What’s happened to you? Another miracle? Or have you fallen in love?” “Don’t ask, mama,” she said. But I know her, and I wasn’t born yesterday. I could tell she’d been meeting a lover. It made me feel afraid, but happy too.’

Columbine shuddered when she remembered that evening and the way Prospero had told Ophelia to stay after the seance. Oh, tormentor! Oh, tyrant of poor helpless puppets! But what point was there in feeling jealous of a dead woman? And in any case, jealousy was a banal and unworthy feeling. If you had a lot of rivals, it meant you had chosen a worthy object for your love, she told herself, and suddenly wondered who actually was the object of her love – Prospero or Death? It didn’t really matter. She tried to picture the Eternal Bridegroom, and he appeared to her, not as a young Tsarevich, but as a wise, hoary-haired old man with a stern face and black eyes.

‘She only drank one cup of tea,’ the provincial secretary’s widow continued. ‘Then she stood right here, in front of the mirror, which she’d never done before in her life. She turned round this way and that way, laughed quietly and went to her room. But she came back less than a minute later, she hadn’t even changed her shoes. And her face was still the same, special. But her eyes were transparent, like two pieces of ice. I was frightened. “What is it?” I asked. “What’s happened?” She said: “Goodbye, mama, I’m leaving now.” She wasn’t here any more, she was far away, she wasn’t looking at me. “I’ve been given a Sign,” she said. I dashed over to her and held her hand, I couldn’t make sense of anything. “Where are you going in the middle of the night? And what sort of sign do you mean?” Sashenka smiled and said: “The kind of sign you can’t mistake. Like King Balthazar’s. It’s meant to be. It’s fate. I’m used to listening to fate. Let me go. There’s nothing to be done.” She turned towards me and gave me a sweet look. “It’s only goodbye until we meet again. We will definitely meet again.” She said it very calmly. And like a fool, I let go of her hand. Sashenka kissed me on the cheek, put on her shawl and walked out of the door. I should have kept her here, stopped her, but I wasn’t used to gainsaying her when she was in that special state . . . I didn’t follow her outside. Later I followed the tracks of her heels and I saw she’d gone straight into the orchard, down to the river and into the water . . . without even stopping once. As if someone was waiting for her there.’

Genji asked quickly: ‘When she went out, d-did you go into her room?’

‘No, I sat here until the morning, waiting.’

‘And in the morning?’

‘No, I didn’t go in there for two days. I kept running to the police station, or hanging about by the gate all the time. I never even thought of going down to the river. It was only later, when I came back here from the mortuary after the identification, that I tidied her room. And I don’t go in there any more. Let everything stay the way it was when she was here.’

‘May we take a look?’ Genji asked. ‘Just through the d-doorway? We won’t go in.’

Ophelia’s room was simple, but comfortable. A narrow bed with metal balls on the uprights and a heap of pillows. A dressing table with nothing but a comb and a hand mirror on it. An old bookshelf of dark wood, crammed full of books. A small writing desk with a candlestick under the window.

‘Candurs,’ said the Japanese.

Columbine raise her eyes to the ceiling, assuming that this simple-minded son of the Orient named every object that he saw – she had read somewhere that primitive peoples had that habit. Now he would say: ‘Table. Bed. Window.’ But Masa glanced sideways at his master and repeated: ‘Candurs.’

‘Yes, yes. I see,’ Genji said with a nod. ‘Well done. Tell me, Serafima Kharitonovna, did you put new candles in the candelabra?’

‘I didn’t put them in. They hadn’t been touched.’

‘So when your daughter came in here she d-didn’t light them?’

‘I suppose so. I’ve left everything just as it was, I haven’t disturbed anything. That book lying open on the windowsill – let it stay there. Her slippers under the bed. The glass of pear compote – she loved that. Perhaps her soul will look in every now and then to take a rest . . . Sashenka’s soul has no place of its own. Father Innokentii wouldn’t allow her to be buried in hallowed ground. They buried my daughter outside the fence, like a little dog. And he wouldn’t let me put up a cross. Your daughter’s sin is unforgivable, he said. But what sort of sinner is she? She was an angel. She stayed on earth for a little while and brought me joy, and then flew away again.’

As they walked back to the carriage and then drove along the streets shrouded in the shadows of early evening, Masa kept muttering angrily in his strange squawking language.

‘Why has he suddenly forgotten how to speak Russian?’ Columbine asked in a whisper.

Genji said: ‘He is being t-tactful. He does not wish to offend your religious sensibilities. He is roundly abusing the Christian Ch-church for its attitude to suicides and their families. And he is absolutely right.’

Black roses

At the entrance to the wing of a building on Povarskaya Street, where Lorelei Rubinstein had still lived only three days earlier, there were three heaps of flowers lying on the pavement. Most of them were black roses, which she had mentioned in a poem written shortly before her death – the one she had read for the first time one evening at Prospero’s apartment and then printed shortly afterwards in The Refuge of the Muse. There were notes, too – white spots against the background of the flowers. Columbine picked one out, opened it and read the inscription in small girlish handwriting:

T.R.

She picked up another: ‘Oh, how right you are, dear, dear one! Life is vulgar and unbearable! Olga Z.’

Genji also read it, looking over her shoulder. He knitted his elegant black eyebrows and sighed. Then he resolutely rang the bronze doorbell.

The door was opened by a rather wizened lady with an anxious, tearful face who kept dabbing at her red, wet little nose with a handkerchief. She introduced herself as Rosalia Maximovna, one of ‘poor Lyalechka’s’ relatives, although the subsequent conversation made it clear that she had lived with Lorelei as her housekeeper, or simply as a dependent.

Genji spoke to her quite differently from the way in which he had spoken to Ophelia’s mother. He was dry and businesslike. Masa didn’t open his mouth at all, he sat down at the table and didn’t move, staring straight at Rosalia Maximovna through narrowed eyes.

The pitiful creature gazed at the severe gentleman in the black tails and the taciturn Oriental with a mixture of fright and obsequiousness. She answered Genji’s questions at length, with masses of detail, and from time to time he was obliged to bring her back to the point. Every time Rosalia Maximovna became flustered and began batting her eyelids helplessly. The conversation was also seriously impeded by a lapdog – a vicious dwarf bulldog that kept yapping at Masa and snapping at his trouser leg.

‘Had you lived with Madam Rubinstein for a l-long time?’ was the first question that Genji asked.

It turned out that she had been there for seven years, ever since Lorelei (whom she also referred to as ‘Lyalechka’ and ‘Elena Semyonovna’) had been widowed.

When she was asked whether the deceased had ever attempted to take her own life before, the answer was very long and confused.

‘Lyalechka never used to be like this. She was cheerful, she used to laugh a lot. She loved her husband Matvei very much. They had an easy, happy life together. They didn’t have any children – they were always going to the theatre and at-homes, they often went to resorts and to Paris, and all sorts of places abroad. But when Matvei Natanovich died, it was as if she lost her mind, the poor thing. She even took poison,’ Rosalia told him in a whisper, ‘only not enough to kill her that time. But after that she was all right, she seemed to have got used to things. Only her character had changed, completely changed. She started writing poems and in general . . . she wasn’t quite herself, somehow. If not for me, she wouldn’t have eaten properly, she just drank coffee all the time. Do you think it was easy for me keeping house for Elena Semyonovna? She spent all the money that Matvei Natanovich left on the memorial for his grave. She was only paid a pittance for her poems at first, then it was more and more, but that was still no help. Lyalechka used to send tenrouble wreaths to the cemetery every single day, and sometimes there wasn’t a crust of bread in the house. The number of times I told her: “You should put something aside for a rainy day!” But would she listen? So now there isn’t anything. She’s dead, and what am I supposed to live on? And the flat’s only paid up until the first of the month. I have to move out, but where to?’ She buried her face in the handkerchief and started sobbing. ‘Zhu . . . Zhuzhechka is used to eating well – a bit of liver, marrow bones, cottage cheese . . . But who needs us now? Oh, I’m sorry, just a moment . . .’

And she ran out of the room in floods of tears.

‘Masa, how did you manage to m-make the dog shut up?’ Genji asked. ‘Thank you, it was bothering me rather badly.’

Columbine suddenly realised that the bulldog had not barked once, but only grunted malevolently under the table during the entire monologue, which had been extended to some considerable length by nose-blowing and sobbing.

Masa replied in a steady voice: ‘Dog sirent because eating my reg. Masta, have you arready asked everyfin you want? If not I can howd for ronger.’

Columbine glanced under the table and gasped. The mean little beast had grabbed poor Masa by the ankle and was growling viciously and shaking its round head from side to side! No wonder the Japanese looked a bit pale and he was smiling painfully. He was a real hero! Just like the Spartan boy with the fox cub!

‘Oh, Lord, Masa,’ Genji sighed. ‘That’s g-going too far.’

He leaned down swiftly and squeezed the dog’s nose between his finger and thumb. The little beast snorted and immediately opened its jaws. Then Genji took it by the scruff of the neck and tossed it into the hallway with a remarkably accurate throw. There was a squeal, followed by hysterical barking, but Masa’s tormentor didn’t dare come back into the room.

And at that point Rosalia Maximovna returned, a little calmer, but Genji had already assumed a relaxed pose, leaning back slightly in his chair, with his fingers clasped across his stomach in a most innocent fashion.

‘Where’s Zhuzhechka?’ Rosalia Maximovna asked in a voice hoarse from sobbing.

‘You still have not told us what happened that evening,’ Genji reminded her sternly, and Lorelei’s aunt started blinking in fright.

‘I was sitting in the drawing room, reading the Home Doctor, Lyalechka subscribes to it for me. She’d just got back from somewhere or other and gone into her boudoir. Then suddenly she came running into the room with her eyes blazing and her cheeks bright red. “Aunty Rosa!” she cried. I was frightened, I thought it must be a fire or a mouse. But Lyalechka shouted: “The last Sign, the third one! He loves me! He loves me! There is no more doubt. I must go to him, to the Tsarevich! My Matvei has waited too long”. Then she put her hand over her eyes and said in a quiet voice: “No more, my torment is over. Now dost Thou release Thy servant, oh Lord. No more playing the jester for me.” I didn’t understand anything. You can never tell with Elena Semyonovna if something has really happened or she’s just fantasising. “Who is it who loves you?” I asked her. “Ferdinand Karlovich, Sergei Poluektovich or that one with the moustache, who arrived with the bouquet yesterday?” She had lots of admirers, you couldn’t remember them all. Only she didn’t care a brass farthing for any of them, so her raptures seemed strange to me. “Or has someone else turned up?” I asked her, “Someone completely new?” But Lyalechka laughed, and she looked so happy, for the first time in all those years. “Someone else, Aunty Rosa,” she said. “Someone quite different. The genuine one and only. I’m going to go to bed now. Don’t come into my room until the morning, whatever happens.” And she walked out. In the morning I went in, and she was lying on the bed in her white dress, and she was all white too . . .’

The aunt burst into tears again, but this time she didn’t go running out of the room.

‘How am I going to live now? Lyalechka didn’t think about me, she didn’t leave a single kopeck. And I can’t sell the furniture – it’s the landlord’s . . .’

‘Show me where Elena Semyonovna’s b-boudoir is,’ said Genji, getting to his feet.

Lorelei’s bedroom was startlingly different from Ophelia’s simple little room. It had Chinese vases as tall as a man, and painted Japanese screens, and a magnificent dressing table with a myriad bottles, jars and tubes standing in front of a triple mirror, and all sorts of other things too.

There were two portraits hanging above the luxurious bed. One was a perfectly ordinary photograph of a bearded man in a pince-nez (obviously the deceased husband Matvei himself), but Columbine found the second one intriguing: a swarthy, handsome man dressed in blood-red robes, with immense half-closed eyes, sitting astride a black buffalo and holding a club and a noose in his hands, and there were two terrifying four-eyed dogs huddling against the buffalo’s legs.

Genji walked up to the lithograph, but it was not the image that interested him, it was the three black roses on the top of the frame. One had not completely wilted yet, another was badly wrinkled, and the third was absolutely dry.

‘My God, who is that?’ Columbine asked, looking at the picture.

‘The Indian god of death, Yama, also known as the King of the Dead,’ Genji replied absentmindedly, staring hard at the gilded frame. ‘The dogs with four eyes are searching for p-prey among the living, and Yama uses the noose to pull their souls out.’

‘Tsarevich Death, come in your bloody-red apparel, give me your hand, lead me into the light,’ said Columbine, reciting two lines from Lorelei’s last poem. ‘So that was who she meant!’

But Genji failed to appreciate her astuteness.

‘What roses are these?’ he asked, turning to the aunt. ‘From whom?’

‘They . . .’ she said, and started blinking very, very fast. ‘How can I remember, when so many people used to give Lyalechka flowers? Ah yes, I do remember. She brought the bouquet home on that last evening.’

‘Are you sure?’

Columbine thought Genji was being too severe with the poor old woman. Rosalia Maximovna pulled her head down into her shoulders and babbled: ‘She brought them, she brought them herself.’

There seemed to be something else he wanted to ask her, but glancing at Columbine, he obviously realised that she disapproved of his manner and, taking pity on the unfortunate woman, left her in peace.

‘Thank you madam. You have been a g-great help.’

The Japanese gave a ceremonial bow, from the waist.

Columbine noticed that as Genji walked past the table he inconspicuously placed a banknote on the tablecloth. Was he feeling ashamed then? Yes, that must be it.

The expedition was over. Columbine had still not found out if Genji was in love with her, but that was not what she thought about on the way back. She suddenly felt quite unbearably sad.

She imagined how her mother and father would feel when they found out that she was gone. They would probably cry and feel sorry for their daughter, and then, like Ophelia’s mother, they would say: ‘She stayed in the world for a short time, and then she flew away.’ But it would be easier for them than for Serafima Kharitonovna, they would still have their sons, Seryozha and Misha. They’re not like me, Columbine comforted herself. They won’t get picked up by the wild east wind and carried away into the sunset to meet their doom.

She felt so moved that the tears started pouring down her cheeks.

‘Well, how did you like our excursion?’ Genji asked, looking into his companion’s wet face. ‘Perhaps you will l-live for a little longer after all?’

She rubbed her eyes, turned towards him and laughed in his face.

‘Perhaps I will, perhaps I won’t,’ she said

In front of her house she jumped out of the carriage, gave a careless wave and ran into the entrance with a light clatter of heels.

Sitting down at the table without even taking off her beret, she dipped a pen in the inkwell and wrote a poem that came out in blank verse, like Lorelei’s. And for some reason it was in traditional folk style – could that be because of Ophelia’s mother, the old provincial secretary’s widow?

She wondered what Prospero would say about the poem.

III. From the ‘Agents’ Reports’ File

To His Honour Lieutenant-Colonel Besikov

(Private and confidential)

Dear Lieutenant-Colonel,

I always knew that helping you was a risky and dangerous business – both for my reputation as a decent individual and, possibly, for my very life. Today my very worst fears have been confirmed. I really do not know what causes me greater torment, the physical suffering or the bitter realisation of how little you value my self-sacrificing efforts.

I indignantly reject your repeated offer to ‘pay my expenses generously’, although it is unlikely that any of your highly paid ‘collaborators’ demonstrates as much zeal and devotion to the cause as does your humble servant. However, my unselfish scrupulousness does not change the essence of the matter – you have in any case effectively transformed me from a principled opponent of nihilism and devilry into a vulgar spy!

Have you never entertained the thought, dearest Vissarion Vissarionovich, that perhaps you underestimate me? You regard me as a pawn in your game, whereas perhaps I am a piece of an entirely different calibre!

I am joking, only joking. How can we grains who have fallen between the millstones ever grow up to the heavens above? But even so, you should be more tactful with me, a little more formal. After all, I am a cultured man and also of European stock. Do not take this as an attack on yourself or an out-burst of Lutheran arrogance. I only wish to remind you that the fancy social graces mean more to a ‘pepper-and-sausage German’ than they do to a ‘Russak’. As it happens, you are not a Russak, you are a Caucasian, but that does not change the essence of the matter.

I have re-read what I have written and I feel sick with myself. How amusing you must find my rapid transitions from voluptuous self-abasement to unbending pride.

Ah, but it is not important, really it is not. The important thing is to remember that what is good for the Russian is death for the German.

And apropos of death.

From the latest instructions that I have received from you it is clear to me that you are no longer much concerned about the fate of the poor ‘Lovers of Death’, who dwell on the very edge of the precipice. You demonstrated far more interest in one of the members of the club, whom in previous reports I have dubbed the Stammerer. I have the feeling that you know far more about this man than I do. Why do you find him so intriguing? Do you really believe in the existence of a secret organisation called ‘Lovers of Life’? And who is this ‘very highly placed individual’ whose personal request you are carrying out? Which of your superiors has taken an interest in this man?

Whatever the answer might be, I have dutifully performed the strange assignment you set me, although you did not even condescend to tell me the reasons for it. I followed the Stammerer, and although I was not able to establish his place of residence, it was not, as you shall see, due to my own fault.

No, this really is absolutely outrageous! Why can you not set your own police agents to follow the Stammerer? You write that he is not a criminal ‘in the strict sense of the word’, but when has that circumstance ever been an obstacle for you and your kind? Or is your reluctance to attach official agents to the Stammerer explained by the fact that he has, as you informed me rather vaguely, ‘too many well-wishers in the most surprising places’? Surely not in the Department of Gendarmes too? Are you concerned that one of your colleagues might inform the Stammerer that he is being followed? Then who is this man after all, if even you are being so cautious? Why must I be left to wander in the dark? I absolutely demand explanations! Especially after the monstrous incident of which I, through your good services, have been the victim.

Nonetheless, I am presenting my report. I do not know if you will extract anything useful from it. I abstain from making any comments of my own, for I do not understand very much myself – I simply present the facts.

Tonight there was another game with the Roulette Wheel of Death, again without any result (we must assume that Blagovolsky has indeed installed a more powerful magnet). We have new members to replace the lost Ophelia and Lioness of Ecstasy. Since Lorelei Rubinstein’s suicide, the young maidens of Moscow have gone absolutely insane – the number of them wishing to join the mysterious club has increased several times over, for which we must thank the press’s fondness for carrion. The most persistent of these young persons attain their goal. This time Prospero introduced Iphigenia and Gorgon to us. The former is a plump student with bushy golden hair, very pretty and very stupid. She read a poem about a drowned child: ‘The little mite could not be saved, they lowered him into his grave’, or something of the kind. Why a foolish sheep like that is drawn to the embraces of death is a mystery. The latter is a nervous brunette with sharp features, she writes jerky and extremely indecent poems, although she herself is probably still a virgin. But then, our voluptuous Doge will soon put that right.

Gdlevsky read some new poems. Prospero is right, he is a true genius, the hope of the new Russian poetry. But then, you are not interested in poetry, I believe. Even so, there is something worthy of note here. Recently Gdlevsky has been in a constant state of excitement. I wrote you once that he is literally obsessed with the mystic nature of harmony and rhyme. He read in some spiritualist book that it is only possible to associate with the World Beyond on Friday, and therefore this day of the week is special. Every event that takes place on a Friday has a magical significance, it is a message, a sign, one only needs to know how to decipher it. And Gdlevsky is putting all his energies into deciphering these messages. It started last Friday, when he declared that he would tell his fortune from a rhyme. He took the first book that came to hand down off the shelf, opened it, jabbed his finger at the page and hit upon the word ‘breath’. He became indescribably agitated and started repeating ‘breath – death, breath – death’. Since today was also a Friday, as soon as he had greeted us, he grabbed a book that was lying on the table, opened it and – can you imagine – it happened to be Shakespeare, and it opened at the first page of Macbeth! Now the boy is absolutely certain that Death is sending him messages. He is waiting impatiently for the third Friday in order finally to make certain, and then he will feel perfectly entitled to do away with himself. Well, let him wait, coincidences like that don’t happen three times in a row.

We went home early, at half past nine – the entire ceremony lasted no more than twenty minutes. Blagovolsky effectively pushed everyone out of the door, leaving behind only Gdlevsky. He was obviously frightened for his favourite and wanted to distract him from his malign fantasy. It would be a pity if the new sun of Russian poetry were to be extinguished before it has even risen. Although, of course, there would be one more beautiful legend: Venevitinov, Lermontov, Nadson, Gdlevsky. The death of a young talent is always beautiful. But that does not interest you, so I shall proceed to my report proper.

As you requested, I followed the Stammerer, meticulously observing all the recommendations I had been given: proceeding on foot, I always remained on the opposite side of the street and maintained a distance of at least fifty paces; in a cab I increased the distance to two hundred paces; I diligently took notes in a notebook, not forgetting to include the time, and so forth.

And so.

On Rozhdestvensky Boulevard the Stammerer halted a cabby and told him to drive to the corner of Borisoglebskaya Street and Povarskaya Street. In the evening sounds carry a long way, and the cabby repeated the address very loudly, which made my task easier. I got into the next free carriage and told the driver to drive rapidly to the place, without bothering to follow the Stammerer, and therefore arrived there before him. I hid in a gateway, from where I had a good view of the entire crossroads. I only had to wait for two or three minutes.

The Stammerer (or, to follow the usual terminology in your spheres, the ‘mark’) knocked on a door and entered the wing of house number eighteen. At first I thought that he was lodging there, and the assignment you had set me was completed. But then after a little thought it seemed strange to me that a man would knock at the door of his own home. I decided to check. It was a single-storey wing, so it was not difficult to glance into the lighted windows, since at that late hour the street was already deserted and my manoeuvre would not attract any attention from passers-by. I picked up an empty box from outside a general shop, set it by the wall and peeped in through the gap between the curtains.

The Stammerer was sitting at a table with an elderly lady dressed in black. Since his top hat and gloves were lying there at his elbow, I realised that he was only visiting, and evidently not for very long. I could not hear their conversation. The Stammerer said nothing for most of the time and only nodded occasionally, but the woman almost never closed her mouth – she was telling him about something, glancing beseechingly into his face and constantly dabbing at her tearstained eyes with a handkerchief. He asked her several brief questions and she replied with obvious eagerness, looking as if she felt guilty and was trying to justify herself. Eventually the Stammerer got up and left, leaving a banknote on the table. His hostess greedily grabbed it and hid it behind a picture hanging on the wall.

Afraid of being discovered, I jumped down off the crate, ran off smartly to a short distance and stood behind a tree. I had not let my carriage go, but told the driver to wait round the corner. And I was right to do so, because at that time it would not have been easy to find another cab.

The Stammerer, for instance, stood on the pavement for eight whole minutes before he was able to continue his journey. If it were not for my foresight, the chase would have been broken off at that point.

I told my driver to keep his distance and only urge the horse on when the droshky in front of us turned a corner. We drove out on to Sadovaya Street, where it was possible to increase the distance even more, and drove straight for twenty-six minutes before turning on to Basmannaya Street. The Stammerer got out in front of a five-storey house (5B). I thought that this time he must surely have come home, but it immediately became clear that I was mistaken yet again. This time he did not even let his cab go. I drove on past as far as the next turning and told my driver to wait again.

Both entrances to the house were locked, but the Stammerer did not wake the yard keeper. I saw him go into the courtyard, and I followed him cautiously. Looking round the corner I saw him fiddle briefly with a lock, open the back door and go inside. This seemed most curious to me. Why would such an impressive gentleman, in an English redingote and a top hat, be creeping into back entrances in the middle of the night?

I checked the lock and saw that it was very primitive – it could easily be opened with a tie pin, which was evidently what the Stammerer had done. In the battle between caution and excitement, the latter won the upper hand and I made up my mind to go in. In order not to make a racket I took off my boots and left them outside before slipping through the door.

I could hear the mark’s footsteps as he climbed up to the top floor, the fifth. What he did there, I do not know – I did not venture to clamber up after him. I thought I heard something squeak quietly, then there was total silence. I waited impatiently for fifteen minutes and decided that was enough. I went outside and what do you think? My boots had disappeared! Oh, the fine people of Moscow! An empty yard in the middle of the night, but some villain had still spotted them. And how deftly it had been done – I was only five paces away, but I hadn’t heard a thing!

Imagine my position. Cool weather, and it was damp – there had been a shower of rain recently – and there was I in my socks. I was absolutely furious. I wanted to run to my carriage and go home. But then I thought: why don’t I take a look up at the fifth floor and see if any of the windows are lit?

No, there weren’t any lights on, but I suddenly noticed some kind of white spot run across the glass of one of the windows – the one next to the staircase. On looking closer I could see it was someone with an electric torch. Who else could it be if not the mark?

Now you must appreciate the full extent of my devotion to the cause. Chilled through, with wet feet, I nonetheless decided to see the assignment through to the end.

The Stammerer came out twenty minutes later, and the pursuit continued. There were no carriages about on the streets now, so the clatter of wheels and hooves on cobblestones carried very far, and I had to drop back a long way, so that I almost lost him twice. I was only hoping that the Stammerer had finally finished his business and was going home for the night, and I could hurry home, soak my feet in hot water and drink raspberry tea. You should know that I have a tendency to catch colds, followed every time by a stubborn cough.

Beyond the Yauza we drove into the suburbs, and I remember how surprised I was that the Stammerer could have chosen such a disreputable area in which to reside. I was finally convinced that his travels were over when I saw him let his driver go. I told mine to wait again, although he complained that the horse was tired and it was time for his tea. I had to give him an extra fifty kopecks for the wait – but it soon emerged that the money had been wasted. By the way, my outgoings today in carrying out your assignment amounted to a substantial sum: three roubles and fifty kopecks. I am not telling you this out of mercenary interest, but so that you will understand how much my altruism costs me in every possible way.

I concealed myself very successfully behind a well, in the thick shade of a spreading tree, whereas the Stammerer was brightly illuminated by the moon, so that I could observe all his movements while remaining completely safe, if, that is, one does not take into account the danger to my health from my frozen feet.

The house that the mark approached seemed quite unremarkable to me. A log building with four dark windows and a planking fence with a gate at the side. This time the Stammerer did not attempt to gain entry. He approached the second window from the left and started making movements that I could not understand. I thought at first that he was drawing a rectangle round the edge of the frame. But then I heard a slight rasping sound, and I realised that the Stammerer was scraping something on the glass. Then he took some item that I could not see out of his pocket, there was a plopping sound, the glass glinted in the moonlight and came out of its frame. I realised that the Stammerer had cut it out with a glasscutter. I do not know for what purpose. He took off his redingote, carefully wrapped his strange booty in it, and set off along the street in the direction from which he had come. Now it was clear why he had let his cab go. The glass could have been broken by jolting over the cobbled surface of the road. I was obliged to part company with my driver too, following which I set off after the mark, taking every possible precaution.

As I have already written, following the evening rain it was a clear, moonlit night, and so the Stammerer’s tall figure was visible from a long distance. I followed about a hundred and fifty paces behind, for obvious reasons making no sound, and he could not have noticed me.

We walked for a terribly long time – across a bridge, then down a long street, the name of which I do not know, then past Kolanchovskaya Square and the railway station. I bruised my feet all over against the cobblestones and tore my socks, but I firmly resolved to see the job through to the end. The restless Stammerer had to be on his way home now. It was impossible to imagine that he would engage in yet another escapade while carrying such a fragile load.

However, I was not able to discover his address, which was the main purpose of the assignment that you had set, because something terrible and mysterious happened to me in Ascheulov Lane off Sretenka Street.

I had to increase my speed, because the Stammerer had disappeared round a corner and I was afraid of losing him. As a result I let my guard down somewhat and walked past a gateway without even glancing into it. However as soon as I drew level with the dark aperture, I suddenly found myself grabbed by the collar from behind with monstrous, superhuman strength, so that I was almost lifted up off the ground. There was a terrible, bloodcurdling hissing sound and a baleful, whistling voice, the very memory of which freezes the blood in my veins, uttered a word that sounded like a curse: ‘TIKUSYO!’ I would pay dearly to know what it means. The next moment a blow of terrible force came crashing down on my poor, unfortunate, dumbfounded head and consciousness mercifully abandoned me.

I came to in the gateway. According to my watch, I must have lain there unconscious for at least half an hour. I do not know what disaster befell me, but it was not a robbery – I still had my watch and wallet and all my other things. Trembling in terror, I ran as far as Sretenka Street, stopped a night cab and drove home.

Now, as I write this report to you, my feet are soaking in a basin of hot water and I have a bag of ice tied to the back of my head, where a huge lump has come up. The soles of my feet are battered and bloody, and it is highly likely that I have a severe chill. I hardly need mention my shattered nerves – I sat down to write this letter to you because I am afraid to go to bed. I am sure that as soon as I fall asleep I shall hear that nightmarish, hissing voice. And I am very upset about my stolen boots. They were goatskin and almost brand-new.

And so, highly respected Lieutenant-Colonel, now that you know all the details of what I have suffered, through your good services, I shall make my demand. You may, if you wish, regard it as an ultimatum.

You must give me an absolutely exhaustive explanation of the reasons why your ‘very highly placed individual’ is interested in the Stammerer, who this mysterious gentleman is and what this devilish business is all about in the first place.

Affronted and perplexed,

ZZ

12 September 1900