Turkish Gambit

Chapter Twelve IN WHICH EVENTS TAKE AN UNEXPECTED TURN

Well now, say we, that is no more than Turkey deserves.

They hadn't said goodbye properly. Sobolev had collected Varya from the porch of the 'field palace', enveloped her in his magnetic aura of success and glory and whisked her away to his headquarters to celebrate the victory. She had barely even had time to nod to Erast Petrovich, and in the morning he was not in the camp. His orderly Trifon said: 'His Honour has gone away. Call back in a month.'

But a month had passed, and the titular counsellor had still not returned. Evidently it was not proving so easy to find McLaughlin in England.

It was not that Varya actually missed him - on the contrary: once they decamped from Plevna, life had become quite fascinating. Every day there were moves to new places, new cities, stupendous mountain landscapes and endless celebrations of almost daily military victories. The commander-in-chief's headquarters first moved to Kazanlyk, beyond the Balkan range, and then still further south, to Germanly. Here there was no winter at all. The trees were all green and the only snow to be seen was on the summits of the distant mountains.

With Fandorin gone there was nothing that Varya had to do. She was still, however, officially attached to the headquarters staff and she received her salary punctually for December and January, plus travelling expenses, plus a bonus for Christmas. She had accumulated quite a tidy sum, but she had nothing to spend it on. Once in Sophia she had wanted to buy a charming copper lamp (it was exactly like Aladdin's), but Paladin and Gridnev had not allowed her. In fact, they had almost come to blows over who would present Varya with the trinket, and she had been obliged to give way.

Concerning Gridnev: the eighteen-year-old ensign had been attached to Varya by Sobolev. The hero of Plevna and Sheinov was kept busy day and night with army affairs, but he had not forgotten about Varya. Whenever he could find a free moment to visit headquarters, he always called in to see her, sent her gigantic bouquets of flowers and invited her to celebrations (they saw in the New Year twice, according to the Western calendar and the Russian calendar). But this was still not enough for the tenacious Michel, so he had placed one of his orderlies at Varya's disposal - 'for assistance on the road and protection'. At first the ensign had sulked and glared hostilely at his superior in a skirt, but quite soon he had grown tame, and even seemed to have developed certain romantic feelings for her. It was funny of course, but flattering. Gridnev was not handsome - that strategist Sobolev would not have sent anyone handsome - but he was as lovable and eager to please as a puppy. In his company twenty-two-year-old Varya felt like a very grown-up and worldly-wise woman.

She was in a rather strange position now. At headquarters they apparently assumed that she was Sobolev's mistress, but since everyone regarded the White General with indulgent adoration, no one condemned her for it. On the contrary, some small portion of Sobolev's halo seemed to extend to her as well. Many of the officers would probably have been quite indignant if they had discovered that she dared to refuse to enter into intimate relations with the glorious Russian Achilles and was remaining faithful to some lowly cryptographer.

To be honest, things were not going all that well with Petya. No, he didn't get jealous and he didn't make scenes, but since his failed suicide Varya found it hard to be with him. In the first place, she hardly ever saw him - Petya was atoning for his guilt with work, since it was impossible to atone for it with blood in the cryptography section. He worked two consecutive shifts each day, slept at his post on a folding bed, no longer visited the journalists in their club and took no part in the general junketing. She had been obliged to celebrate Christmas and Epiphany without him. At the sight of Varya his face lit up with a gentle, quiet joy; and he spoke to her as if she were an icon of the Virgin of Vladimir: she was the light of his life, and his only hope, and without her he would never have survived.

She felt terribly sorry for him. Only more and more often now she found herself pondering the troublesome question of whether it was possible to marry out of pity, and the answer was always that it wasn't. But it was even more unthinkable to say: 'You know, Petya, I've changed my mind and decided not to be your wife.' It would be just like putting down a wounded animal. She was caught in a cleft stick.

A substantial gathering still convened as before in the press club as it migrated from place to place, but it was not as boisterous as in Zurov's unforgettable time. They gambled with restraint, for small stakes, and the chess sessions had ceased with McLaughlin's disappearance. The journalists did not mention the Irishman, at least in the company of Russians, but the two other British correspondents had been made the object of a demonstrative boycott and stopped coming to the club altogether.

Of course, there had been drinking sprees and scandals. Twice matters had almost reached the point of bloodshed, and both times, alas, because of Varya.

The first time, when they were still at Kazanlyk, a newly arrived adjutant who had not fully grasped Varya's status made an unfortunate attempt to joke by calling her 'the Duchess of Marlborough' with the obvious implication that Marlborough himself was Sobolev. Paladin demanded an apology from the insolent fellow, who proved stubborn in his drunken stupor, and they had stepped out to fight a duel with pistols. Varya was not in the marquee at the time, or else she would, of course, have put a stop to this idiotic conflict straight away. Fortunately no harm was done: the adjutant shot wide and when Paladin fired in reply he shot the adjutant's forage cap neatly off his head, after which the offending party sobered up and admitted his error.

On the other occasion it was the Frenchman who was challenged, and once again for a joke, only this time it was quite a funny one - at least Varya thought so. It happened after the youthful Gridnev had begun to accompany her everywhere. Paladin rashly remarked aloud that 'Mademoiselle Barbara' was like the Empress Anna Ioannovna with her famous statue of a little black boy, and the cornet, uncowed by the correspondent's fearsome reputation, demanded immediate satisfaction from him. Since the scene took place in Varya's presence, no shots were ever fired. She ordered Gridnev to be silent and Paladin to take back what he had said. The correspondent immediately relented, acknowledging that the comparison had been an unhappy one and that 'monsieur sous-lieutenant' bore a closer resemblance to Hercules capturing the hind of Arcadia. On that basis they had made up.

At times it seemed to Varya that Paladin was casting glances at her for which there could be only one possible interpretation, and yet outwardly the Frenchman behaved like a genuine Bayard. Like the other journalists, he would spend days at a time away at the front line and they saw each other less often than in the camp near Plevna,- but one day the two of them had a private conversation that Varya subsequently recalled to mind and noted down word for word in her diary (after Erast Petrovich's departure she had felt the urge to write a diary, no doubt for lack of anything to occupy her time).

They were sitting in a roadside korchma in a mountain pass, warming themselves at the fire and drinking hot wine, and after the frost the journalist seemed to get a little tipsy.

'Ah, Mademoiselle Barbara, if only I were not who I am,' Paladin said with a bitter laugh, unaware that he was repeating Varya's beloved Pierre Bezukhov almost word for word. 'If only my circumstances were different, if my character were different, and my fate . . .' He looked at Varya in a way that made her heart leap in her breast as if it were skipping a rope. 'Then I would certainly vie in the lists with the brilliant Michel. Tell me, would I have at least some small chance against him?'

'Of course you would,' Varya answered honestly and then realised that her words sounded as if she were inviting him to flirt. 'By which I mean, Charles, that you would have the same chance as Mikhail Dmitrievich - no more and no less. That is, no chance at all. Almost.'

She had added that 'almost'. Oh that hateful, ineradicable womanly weakness!

Since Paladin seemed more relaxed than he had ever been, Varya asked him the question that had been on her mind for a long time: 'Charles, do you have a family?'

'What really interests you, I suppose, is whether I have a wife?' the journalist said with a smile.

Varya was embarrassed: 'Well, not only that. Parents, brothers, sisters . . .'

But actually, why be hypocritical! she reproached herself. It was a perfectly normal question. She continued resolutely: 'I would like to know if you have a wife as well, of course. Sobolev, for instance, does not hide the fact that he is married.'

'Alas, Mademoiselle Barbara, no wife; no fiancee. I have never had one or the other. I lead the wrong kind of life. There have been a few affairs, of course -1 tell you that quite openly, because you are a modern woman free of foolish affectation.' (Varya smiled, flattered.) 'As for a family . . . only a father, whom I love dearly and miss greatly. He is in France at present. Some day I will tell you about him. After the war, perhaps? C'est toute une histoire.'

So it had turned out that he was not indifferent, but did not wish to set himself up as a rival to Sobolev. Out of pride, no doubt.

This circumstance, however, had not prevented the Frenchman from remaining on friendly terms with Michel. Most of the time when Paladin disappeared he was with the White General's unit, since Michel was always in the very vanguard of the advancing army, where there were good pickings for the correspondents.

At midday on the 8th of January Sobolev sent a captured carriage and a Cossack escort for Varya - he had invited her to visit the newly conquered city of Adrianople. There was an armful of hothouse roses lying on the soft leather seat. Mitya Gridnev became very upset, because he tore his brand-new gloves as he was gathering the flowers into a bouquet. Varya tried to console him as they rode along and mischievously promised to give him her own gloves (the ensign had small hands, almost like a girl's). Mitya frowned, knitting his white eyebrows, sniffed in offence and sulked for about half an hour, fluttering his long, fine eyelashes. Those eyelashes were perhaps the only point of his appearance in which nature had been kind to him, thought Varya. Just like Erast Petrovich's, only lighter. Her thoughts moved on in a perfectly natural manner to Fandorin and she wondered where his wanderings had taken him. If only he would come back soon! When he was there things were . . . Calmer? More interesting? She couldn't quite put her finger on the right word, but she definitely felt better when he was there.

It was already getting dark when they arrived. The town was quiet, with not a soul out on the streets, only the echoing clip-clop of horses' hooves as mounted patrols rode by, and the rumbling of artillery being moved up along the highway.

The temporary headquarters was located in the railway-station building. Varya heard the bravura strains of music from a distance: a brass band playing the anthem 'Rejoice'. All the windows in the new, European-style station building were lit up, and in the square in front of it there were bonfires burning and field-kitchens with their chimneys smoking efficiently. What surprised Varya most of all was the perfectly ordinary passenger train standing at the platform: neat little carriages and a gently panting locomotive - as if there were no war going on at all.

In the waiting room they were celebrating, of course.

A number of tables of various sizes had been hastily pushed together and the officers were sitting round them, banqueting on simple fare augmented by a substantial number of bottles. Just as Varya and Gridnev entered, they all roared out 'Hurrah', raised their tankards and turned towards the table at which their commander was sitting. The general's famous white tunic contrasted sharply with the black army and grey Cossack uniforms. Sitting with Sobolev at the table of honour were the senior officers (the only one Varya recognised was Perepyolkin) and Paladin. They all had red, jolly faces - they must have been celebrating for some time already.

'Varvara Andreevna,' Achilles shouted, jumping to his feet. 'I am so glad that you decided to come! "Hurrah", gentlemen, in honour of our only lady!'

Everybody stood up and roared so deafeningly that Varya was frightened. She had never been greeted in such an energetic manner before. Perhaps she ought not to have accepted the invitation after all? She recalled the good advice given by Baroness Vreiskaya, the head of the field infirmary (with whose employees Varya was quartered), to her female wards: 'Mesdames, keep well away from men when they are excited by battle or, even worse, by victory. It rouses an atavistic savagery in them, and any man, even an alumnus of the Corps of Pages, is temporarily transformed into a barbarian. Leave them in their male company to cool off, and afterwards they will return to civilised manners and become manageable once again.'

In fact, apart from the exaggerated gallantry and excessively loud voices, Varya noticed nothing particularly wild about her neighbours at table. They seated her in the place of honour, on Sobolev's right. Paladin was on his left.

After she had drunk some champagne and calmed down a little, she asked: 'Tell me, Michel, what is that train doing here? I can't remember the last time I saw a locomotive standing on the tracks and not lying at the bottom of an embankment.'

'So you haven't heard!' exclaimed a young colonel sitting at the side of the table. 'The war's over! The truce envoys arrived from Constantinople today! By railway, just like in peacetime!'

'And just how many of these envoys are there?' Varya asked in surprise. 'A whole trainload?'

'No, Varya,' Sobolev explained. 'There are only two envoys; but after the fall of Adrianople the Turks were afraid to waste any more time, so they simply hitched their staff carriage on to an ordinary train. Only without any passengers, of course.'

'Then where are the envoys now?'

'I sent them off to the grand duke in carriages. There's a break in the track further up.'

'Oh, it's ages since I had a ride in a train,' she sighed dreamily. 'Lie back on your soft seat, open a book, drink some hot tea . . . The telegraph posts flicking past the window, the wheels hammering . . .'

'I would take you for a ride,' said Sobolev, 'but unfortunately the route is rather limited. The only place you can go to from here is Constantinople.'

'Gentlemen, gentlemen!' exclaimed Paladin in his French accent. 'An excellent idea! La guerre est en fait finie, the Turks are not shooting any more! And anyway, the train is flying the Turkish flag! Why don't we take a ride to San Stefano and back? Aller et retour, eh Michel?' He changed completely into French as his enthusiasm mounted ever higher. 'Madamoiselle Barbara will ride in a first-class carriage, I shall write a splendid article about it, and someone from headquarters staff will ride along with us and take a look at the Turks' rear lines. My God, Michel, it will all go off without a hitch! They'll never suspect a thing! And even if they do, they won't dare fire a single shot -you've got their envoys! And then, Michel, from San Stefano it's only a stone's throw to the bright lights of Constantinople! The Turkish viziers have their country villas at San Stefano! Ah, what an opportunity!'

'Irresponsible adventurism,' snapped Lieutenant-Colonel Perepyolkin. 'I trust, Mikhail Dmitrievich, that you will have the good sense not to be tempted.'

Eremei Perepyolkin was so annoying, such a dry stick. In fact, during the last few months Varya had developed quite an active dislike for the man, even though she accepted on trust the superlative administrative abilities of Sobolev's head of staff. If only he wouldn't be so zealous about everything! It was less than six months since he had leapfrogged from captain to lieutenant-colonel, and picked up a George Medal, not to mention a Sword of St Anne for being wounded in action - all thanks to Michel. And still he glared at Varya as if he thought she'd stolen something that was his by right. But she could understand him: he was simply jealous,- he wanted Achilles to belong to him and nobody else. Perhaps Eremei Ionovich was tainted with Kazanzaki's old sin? One day she had even tried hinting at it when she was talking to Sobolev, but the idea had made him laugh so hard that he almost choked.

This time, however, the repugnant Perepyolkin was absolutely right. Varya thought Charles's 'excellent idea' was absolute lunacy. But the carousing officers were all fully in favour of the project: one Cossack colonel even slapped the Frenchman on the back and called him a 'crazy fool'. Sobolev smiled, but he didn't say anything.

'Let me go, Mikhail Dmitrievich,' a dashing cavalry general suggested (Varya seemed to remember that his name was Strukov). 'I'll fill up the carriages with my Cossack lads and we'll ride down the line like the wind. Who knows, we might even capture ourselves another pasha or two. We still have the right, don't we? We haven't received any orders to cease military operations yet.'

Sobolev glanced at Varya and she noticed an unusual glint in his eyes.

'Oh no, Strukov. Adrianople was enough for you.' Achilles smiled rapaciously and raised his voice. 'Gentlemen, listen to my orders!' The room fell silent immediately. 'I am transferring my field headquarters to San Stefano. The third battalion of chasseurs is to board the train. I want every last one of them in those carriages, even if they have to squeeze in like sardines. I will travel in the staff carriage. The train will then immediately return to Adrianople for reinforcements and go backwards and forwards continuously. By midday tomorrow I shall have an entire regiment. You, Strukov, are to arrive with your cavalry no later than tomorrow evening. In the meantime one battalion will be all I need. According to reconnaissance reports, there are no battleworthy Turkish forces ahead of us - only the sultan's guards in Constantinople itself, and they are busy guarding Abdul-Hamid.'

'It is not the Turks that we need to be afraid of. Your Excellency,' Perepyolkin said in his squeaky voice. 'We may assume that the Turks will not touch you, they've run out of steam. But the commander-in-chief will not be pleased at all.'

'Ah, but that's not quite true, Eremci Ionovich,' said Sobolev, squinting cunningly. 'Everybody knows what a madcap yours truly Ali-pasha is, and we can use that as an excuse for all sorts of things. You know, it might prove very handy indeed for His Imperial Highness if news that one of the suburbs of Constantinople has been captured were to arrive just as the negotiations are in full swing. They might rebuke me in public, but they'll thank me in private. It wouldn't be the first time by any means. And kindly be so good as not to discuss matters when an order has already been issued.'

'Absolument!' declared Paladin, shaking his head in admiration. 'Un tour de genie, Michel! My idea wasn't the best after all. This article is going to be even better than I thought.'

Sobolev got to his feet and offered Varya his arm with a grand gesture. 'What would you say to a glimpse of the lights of Constantinople, Varvara Andreevna?'

The train hurtled on through the darkness so fast that Varya could scarcely manage to read the names of the stations: Babaeski, Luleburgaz, Chorlu. They were ordinary railway stations, just like stations somewhere in Tambov province, only they were white instead of yellow. Flickering lights, the elegant silhouettes of cypress trees and once, through the iron lacework of a bridge, a glimpse of a moonlit swathe of river water. The carriage was comfortable, with plush-covered divans and a large mahogany table. The escort and Sobolev's white mare Gulnora were riding in the accompanying retinue's compartment. Every now and again Varya heard the sound of neighing from Gulnora, who still hadn't settled down after the anxious process of boarding. The company riding in the main compartment consisted of the general, Varya, Paladin and several others, including Mitya Gridnev, who was sleeping peacefully in the corner. A group of officers were smoking and crowding round Percpyolkin as he marked off the train's progress on a map, the correspondent was writing something in his notepad, and Varya and Sobolev were standing apart from everyone else by the window, making awkward conversation.

'. . . I thought it was love,' Michel confessed in a soft voice, seeming to stare out into the darkness through the window; but Varya knew that he was looking at her reflection in the glass. 'But I won't try to lie to you. I never actually thought about love. My true passion is my ambition, and everything else comes second. That's just the way I am. But ambition is no sin if it is directed to an exalted goal. I believe in my star and my fate, Varvara Andreevna. My star shines brightly, and my fate is special. I feel it in my heart. When I was still a young cadet . . .'

'You were telling me about your wife,' said Varya, gently guiding him back to the more interesting subject.

'Ah, yes. I married out of ambition, I admit it. I made a mistake. Ambition may be a good reason to face a hail of bullets, but not to get married - not under any circumstances. How did it all happen? I came back from Turkestan to the first glimmerings of fame and glory, but I was still a parvenu, an upstart, a jumped-up peasant. My grandfather served his way up all the way from the lower ranks. And suddenly, there was Princess Titova, with a line going all the way back to Rurik. I could move straight from the garrison into high society. How could I not be tempted?'

Sobolev spoke jerkily, in a bitter voice, and he seemed sincere. Varya valued sincerity; and, of course, she had guessed where all this was leading. She could have put a stop to it in good time, turned the conversation in another direction, but she wasn't strong enough. Who would have been?

'But very soon I realised that high society was no place for the likes of me. The climate there doesn't suit my complexion. I was away on campaigns and she was back in St Petersburg. And that was our life. When the war's over, I'll demand a divorce. I can afford to, I've earned it. And no one will rebuke me - after all, I am a hero.' Sobolev grinned cunningly. 'So what do you say, Varya?'

'About what?' she asked with an innocent expression. It was her abominably flirtatious character leading her on again. She knew this declaration was not what she really wanted - it could only cause complications; but it still felt wonderful.

'Should I get divorced or not?'

'That's for you to decide.' This was the moment: now he would say those words.

Sobolev sighed heavily and plunged head first into the whirlpool.

‘I have been keeping an eye on you for a long time. You are intelligent, sincere, bold, strong-willed. Just the kind of companion I need. With you I would be even stronger. And you would never regret it, I swear . . . And so, Varvara Andreevna, you may consider this an official . . .'

'Your Excellency!' shouted Perepyolkin (Damn him, why can't he just disappear!). 'San Stefano! Shall we disembark?'

The operation went off without a single hitch. They disarmed the dumbfounded guards at the station (no more than a joke - six sleepy soldiers) and spread out through the little town in platoons.

Sobolev waited at the station while the sparse shooting continued in the streets. It was all over in half an hour. Their only casualty was one soldier wounded, and he had apparently been winged by mistake by their own men.

The general made a cursory inspection of the centre of the town with its gas street lamps. Further on there was a dark labyrinth of crooked little alleys - it made no sense to go poking his nose in there. For his residence and defensive stronghold (in the case of any unpleasantness) Sobolev chose the local branch of the Osman-Osman Bank. One company of men was stationed in the bank and immediately outside it, another was left at the station and a third was divided into teams to patrol the surrounding streets. The train immediately set off again to bring reinforcements.

They were unable to inform the commander-in-chief's headquarters by telegram that San Stefano had been taken, because the line was dead. Obviously the Turks' doing.

'The second battalion will be here by midday at the latest,' said Sobolev. 'Nothing very interesting is likely to happen in the meantime. We can admire the lights of Constantinople and pass the time in pleasant conversation.'

The temporary staff office was established on the second floor, in the director's office - firstly, because from the windows you really could see the lights of the Turkish capital twinkling in the distance,- and secondly, because there was a steel door in the office that led directly into the bank's strongroom. There were little sacks with wax seals lying in neat rows on the strongroom's cast-iron shelves. Paladin read the Arabic script and said that each bag contained a hundred thousand lire.

'And they say Turkey's bankrupt,' said Mitya in amazement. 'There are millions here!'

'That's why we're going to be based in this office,' Sobolev said firmly. 'To keep it all safe. I've been accused once of making off with the khan's treasury. Never again.'

The door to the strongroom was left half-open, and everyone forgot about the millions of lire. They brought a telegraph apparatus from the station to the waiting room and ran a wire straight out across the square. Every fifteen minutes Varya tried to contact at least Adrianople, but the apparatus gave no signs of life.

A deputation arrived from the local merchants and clergy to ask them not to loot homes or destroy mosques but specify the sum of a contribution instead, perhaps fifty thousand - the poor citizens of San Stefano would not be able to raise any more than that. However, when the head of the delegation, a fat, hooknosed Turk in a tail coat and fez, realised that he was facing the legendary Ak-pasha himself, the sum of the proposed contribution immediately doubled.

Sobolev assured the natives that he was not empowered to levy any contribution. The hook-nosed gentleman shot a sideways glance at the half-open door of the strongroom and rolled his eyes respectfully.

'I understand, effendi. For such a great man a hundred thousand is a mere trifle.'

News travelled quickly in these parts. No more than two hours after San Stefano's petitioners had left, a deputation of Greek traders arrived to see Ak-pasha from Constantinople itself. They did not offer any contributions, but they had brought sweets and wine 'for the brave Christian warriors'. They said that there were many Orthodox Christians in the city, asked the Russians not to fire their cannons, and if they really had to fire, then not at the Pera quarter, where there were shops and warehouses full of goods, but at the Galata quarter, or - even better - the Armenian and European quarters. When they tried to present Sobolev with a golden sword set with precious stones, they were shown out and apparently left feeling reassured.

'Constantinople!' said Sobolev, his voice trembling with feeling as he gazed out through the window at the glittering lights of the great city. 'The eternal, unattainable dream of the Russian tsars. The very roots of our faith and civilisation are here. This is the key to the whole of the Mediterranean. So close! Just reach out and grasp it. Are we really going to go away empty-handed again?'

'Impossible, Your Excellency!' Gridnev exclaimed. 'His Majesty will never allow it!'

'Ah, Mitya. You can be sure that the big brains in the rear, the Korchakovs and the Gnatievs, are already horse-trading and fawning to the English. They won't have the courage to take what belongs to Russia by ancient right. In 'twenty-nine Dibich stopped at Adrianople, and now we've got as far as San Stefano. So near and yet so far. I see a great and powerful Russia uniting the Slavs from Arkhangelsk to Constantinople and from Trieste to Vladivostok! Only then will the Romanovs fulfil their historical destiny and finally be able to leave these eternal wars behind them and devote themselves to the improvement of their own long-suffering dominion. But if we pull back, then our sons and grandsons will once again spill their own blood and the blood of others along the road to the walls of Constantinople. Such is the cross the Russian people must bear!'

‘I can just picture what is going on in Constantinople now,' Paladin said absent-mindedly, also gazing out of the window. 'Ak-pasha in San Stefano! There is panic in the palace, the harem is being evacuated, the eunuchs are running around with their fat backsides wobbling. I wonder if Abdul-Hamid has already crossed to the Asiatic side yet? And it will not even occur to anyone, Michel, that you have come here with only a single battalion. If this were a game of poker, it would make a fine bluff, with the opponent absolutely guaranteed to throw in his hand and pass.'

'This is getting worse and worse,' Perepyolkin cried in alarm. 'Mikhail Dmitrievich, Your Excellency, don't listen to him! It would be the end of you! You've already put your head in the wolf's mouth! Forget about Abdul-Hamid!'

Sobolev and the correspondent looked each other in the eye.

'What have I got to lose?' said the general, crunching the knuckles of his fist. 'If the sultan's guard doesn't panic and opens fire, I'll just pull back, that's all. Tell me, Charles, is the sultan's guard very strong?'

'The guard is a fine force, but Abdul-Hamid will never let it leave his side.'

'That means they won't pursue us. We could enter the city in a column, flags flying and drums beating; I'd be riding at the front on Gulnora,' said Sobolev, warming to his theme as he strode round the room. 'Before it gets light, so they can't see how few of us there are. And then to the palace. Without a single shot being fired! Would they bring me out the keys of Constantinople?'

'Of course they would!' Paladin exclaimed passionately. 'And that would be total capitulation!'

'Face the English with a fait accompli!' said the general, sawing the air with his hand; 'Before they know what's happening, the city is already in Russian hands and the Turks have surrendered. And if anything goes wrong, I might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb. No one authorised me to take San Stefano either!'

'It would be an absolutely glorious finale! And to think that I would be an eyewitness to it!' the journalist said excitedly.

'Not a witness - one of the actors,' said Sobolev, slapping him on the shoulder.

'I won't let you out!' said Perepyolkin, blocking the doorway. He looked absolutely desperate, with his brown eyes goggling insanely and his forehead covered in beads of sweat. 'As the chief of staff I protest! Think, Your Excellency! You are a general of His Imperial Highness's retinue, not some wild Bashi-Bashouk! I implore you!'

'Out of the way, Perepyolkin, I'm sick of you!' the fearsome Olympian shouted at the rationalist pygmy. 'When Osman-pasha tried to break out of Plevna, you implored me then not to act without orders too. You went down on your knees! But who was right that time! You'll see: I shall have the keys to Constantinople!'

'How marvellous!' exclaimed Mitya. 'Isn't it wonderful, Varvara Andreevna?'

Varya said nothing, because she was not sure whether it was wonderful or not. Sobolev's impetuous derring-do had set her head spinning; and there was the little question of what she was supposed to do. Was she to march to the sound of drums with the chasseurs, holding Gulnora's reins?

'Gridnev, I'm leaving you my escort; you'll guard the bank, or the locals will loot it and then blame Sobolev,' said the general.

'But Your Excellency! Mikhail Dmitrievich!' the ensign howled. 'I want to go to Constantinople too!'

'And then who would protect Varvara Andreevna?' Paladin asked reproachfully, burring his r's.

Sobolev took a gold watch out of his pocket and the lid rang as he flicked it open.

'Half past five. In two hours or two and a half it will start to get light. Hey there, Gukmasov!'

'Yes, Your Excellency,' said the handsome cornet as he dashed into the office.

'Assemble the companies! Fall in the battalion in marching order! Banners and drums to the fore! Let's march in style! Saddle up Gulnora! Look lively! We depart at six hundred hours!' The orderly dashed out.

Sobolev stretched sweetly and said: 'Well now, Varvara Andreevna, I shall either be a greater hero than Bonaparte, or finally lose my foolish head at last.'

'You won't lose it,' she replied, gazing at the general in sincere admiration - he looked so wonderfully fine just at the moment: the Russian Achilles.

'Touch wood,' said Sobolev superstitiously, reaching for the table.

'It's not too late to change your mind!' Perepyolkin piped up. 'With your permission, Mikhail Dmitrievich, I can call Gukmasov back!'

He took a step towards the door, but just at that very moment . . .

At that moment there was a loud clattering of numerous pairs of boots on the staircase, the door swung open and two men entered the room: Lavrenty Arkadievich Mizinov and Fandorin.

'Erast Petrovich!' Varya squealed and almost flung herself on his neck, but she stopped herself just in time.

Mizinov rumbled: 'Aha, here he is! Excellent!'

'Your Excellency!' Sobelev said with a frown, spotting the gendarmes in blue uniforms behind the first two men. 'Why are you here? Of course, I am guilty of acting on my own initiative, but arresting me is really going rather too far.'

'Arrest you?' Mizinov was amazed. 'What on earth for? We barely managed to get through to you on handcars with half a company of gendarmes. The telegraph isn't working and the railway line has been cut.

We came under fire three times and lost seven men. I've got a bullet hole here in my greatcoat.' He showed Sobolev his sleeve.

Erast Petrovich stepped forward. He hadn't changed at all while he had been away, but he looked a real dandy in his civilian clothes: a top hat, a cloak with a pelerine, a starched collar.

'Hello, Varvara Andreevna,' the titular counsellor said cordially. 'How well your hair has grown. I think perhaps it is better like that.'

He bowed briefly to Sobolev.

'My congratulations on the diamond-studded sword, Your Excellency. That is a great honour.'

He nodded quickly to Perepyolkin and finally turned towards the French correspondent.

'Salaam aleichem, Anwar-effendi.'