Sister Pelagia and the Black Monk (20 page)

And now his bitterness was complete, because his earthly loneliness, which was temporary and limited in space to the island of Canaan, was augmented by a metaphysical loneliness. Forgive, Oh Lord, my lack of faith and my doubt, the assistant public prosecutor began to pray in his fright, turning his head this way and that to see if there was a church nearby, so that he could confess his guilt as soon as possible before an image of the Savior.

And, of course, there was one—after all, this was New Ararat, not St. Petersburg. There was a small church very close, only twenty paces away, but even closer, right in front of Berdichevsky's nose, in fact, there was a large icon hanging under a sheet metal awning on the wall of the monastery college, and not just any holy image, but Saint Veronica's image of the Savior. In this coincidence Matvei Bentsionovich discerned a sign from above and decided not to walk to the church. He threw himself down on his knees in front of the image of the Savior (after the farmyard his trousers were ruined and he would have to change them in any case) and began to pray—passionately, fervently, as he had never prayed before.

Oh Lord, Berdichevsky begged, grant me a simple, childlike faith of the heart that will support me always and never abandon me in the face of any tests. Let me believe in the immortality of the soul and the life hereafter. Let my intellectual pride be replaced by wisdom, so that I will no longer tremble constantly for my family but be mindful of eternity; so that I might have the strength to stand firm against temptations; so that … And what with one thing and another, the prayer turned out to be a long one, for Matvei Bentsionovich had many requests to make of the Almighty, and to list them all here would be tedious.

No one interrupted the pilgrim at his prayers; no one stared at the respectable gentleman rubbing holes in the knees of his trousers in the middle of the pavement; in fact, the people passing by stepped around him respectfully, for in New Ararat scenes like this were perfectly normal.

The only thing that distracted the provincial official from his efforts to purge his soul was the ringing sound of childish laughter coming from the porch of the college. There was a man wearing a soft hat sitting there, surrounded by a pack of small boys, and it was clear that he was enjoying the little scamps’ company, and they were enjoying his. Several times Berdichevsky glanced around at the noise in annoyance, and he was able to note several distinctive features of this child-lover's face, which was extremely pleasant and open, even, perhaps, a little simple.

When Matvei Bentsionovich finally got up from his knees, wiping away his tears, the stranger came up to him, raised his hat politely, and began apologizing: “I beg your pardon for the way we interrupted your prayer with our chatter. The children are constantly pestering me with questions about all sorts of things. It's quite remarkable how little their teachers explain to them about the most important subjects. And they are afraid to ask their teachers too many questions, since the teachers here are all monks, and extremely strict. But they're not afraid of me,” the man said with a smile that made it quite clear there really was no reason for anyone to feel afraid of him. “Pardon me for approaching you so offhandedly. You know, I am an exceptionally sociable individual, and you attracted me with the sincerity of your praying. You don't often see an educated man down on his knees in front of an icon, praying so fervently, with tears in his eyes. At home, perhaps, all on his own, but in the middle of the street! I have taken a great liking to you.”

Berdichevsky bowed slightly and was about to go, but then he took a closer look at the stranger, screwed up his eyes, and asked cautiously, “Er, would you mind, my dear sir, if I were to ask what your first name and patronymic are? Would they by any chance be Lev Nikolaevich?”

In his manners and appearance the present gentleman seemed remarkably similar to the lover of reading mentioned in Alyosha Lentochkin's letter. As an inveterate chess player, Berdichevsky had an excellent memory, and remembering a name like that—the same as Count Tolstoy's—was not difficult.

The man was surprised, but not excessively so. He looked in any case as if he constantly expected surprises from reality—and for the most part happy ones. “Yes, that is my name. But how do you know it?”

With his soul's burden lightened by prayer, Berdichevsky thought he could perceive the providence of God yet again in this chance encounter. “You and I have a mutual acquaintance, Alexei Stepanovich Lentochkin. The young man who gave you a book, one of the works of Fyodor Dostoyevsky.”

Lev Nikolaevich was once again surprised by the other man's preternatural knowledge, but once again not very greatly. “Yes, I remember the unfortunate youth very well. Did you know that something terrible happened to him? He became mentally ill.”

Matvei Bentsionovich said nothing, but he raised his eyebrows in an expression of surprise, as if to ask, What are you saying?

“Because of the Black Monk,” said Lev Nikolaevich, lowering his voice. “In the middle of the night he went to a little hut where there is a cross scratched on the window, and he lost his mind. He saw something there. And then afterward, in the very same place, another man I knew slightly shot himself with a pistol. Oh, now I've blurted it out! That was supposed to be a secret,” Lev Nikolaevich exclaimed in fright. “I was told about it in strict secrecy—I gave my word. Don't tell anyone else, all right?”

Well, well, the investigator thought to himself, and he began rubbing the bridge of his nose furiously in order to calm the excited pulsing of his blood. Well, well.

“I won't tell anyone,” he promised, pretending to give a yawn of boredom. “But you know, I find you very likable too, as it happens, and now it turns out that we have a mutual acquaintance. Would you perhaps care to take a cup of tea or coffee with me? We could talk a little about this and that. Perhaps even about Dostoyevsky.”

“I should be delighted!” Lev Nikolaevich replied happily. “You know, it's such a rare thing here to meet anyone who is well read and truly cultured. And then again, not everyone finds it interesting to talk with me. I'm not clever, not educated; sometimes I say ridiculous things. We could sit in the Good Samaritan. They serve an original tea there, smoked. And it's not expensive.”

He was all set to go for a talk with his new acquaintance there and then, but the Breguet in Berdichevsky's pocket jingled loudly four times and once quietly. It was already a quarter past four—what a long time he must have spent praying.

“My dearest Lev Nikolaevich, I have urgent business to attend to, which will take me two or three hours. If it were possible for us to meet after that—?” The assistant public prosecutor broke off his sentence on an interrogative note, waited for a nod, and then continued. “My name is Matvei Bentsionovich, but I will introduce myself more fully when we meet this evening. Where should I look for you?”

“Until seven I usually stroll around the town, watching the people and thinking about anything that comes into my head,” the valuable witness explained. “At seven I take supper at the Five Loaves cookshop and then, if it's not raining and the wind is not too strong—and today, as you can see, the weather is fine—I sit on a bench somewhere, with a view over the lake. For a long time. Sometimes until about ten—”

“Excellent,” Berdichevsky broke in. “Then that's where we'll meet. Name some particular spot.”

Lev Nikolaevich thought for a moment. “Let's say on the waterfront, near the Rotunda. So that you can find it easily. Will you really come?”

“You may be quite certain that I shall,” the assistant public prosecutor said with a smile.

MATVEI BENTSIONOVICH MOPPED his damp forehead and clutched at his heart. Mashenka was absolutely right—he ought to do gymnastics and ride a bicycle, as all enlightened people who were concerned for their physical health did. This was absurd—at the age of thirty-eight he already had a paunch, he suffered from shortness of breath, and he was quite unable to dodge about so rapidly.

“Alexei Stepanich, really, that's enough of these games!” he appealed to the tropical jungle thickets in which he had just heard the rapid rustling of unshod feet. “It's me, Berdichevsky—you know me very well! Bishop Mitrofanii sent me to see you!”

The game of hide-and-seek or catch-me-if-you-can or, more accurately, both at the same time, had been going on for quite a while, and the assistant public prosecutor was already worn out.

Donat Savvich Korovin had stayed at the door of the conservatory. He was smoking a small cigar and observing the maneuvers of the two sides with interest. Matvei Bentsionovich had not actually seen Lentochkin's face yet, but the boy was definitely here—twice the official had caught a glimpse of a naked shoulder through the broad shiny leaves.

“Don't worry, he'll run out of breath in a moment,” said the doctor. “He's getting weaker by the day. A week ago, when I needed to examine him, the attendants had to chase him for half an hour—they even had to bring him down from the palm trees. But two days ago, fifteen minutes was enough. Yesterday it was ten. That's bad.”

He could have lent me those attendants, Berdichevsky thought angrily. He's trying to show that the provincial authorities mean nothing to an international authority like him. He took offense at the tone of my letter, just like the father superior.

However, he actually liked the doctor, unlike the father superior. The doctor was calm, businesslike, and slightly sarcastic, but without being insulting. Having heard the investigator out, he had suggested quite reasonably, “First take a look at your Lentochkin, and then we'll come back here and talk.”

But, as we have already said, taking a look at Alexei Stepanovich had proved to be far from simple.

After a few more minutes, he succeeded in driving the wild inhabitant of the jungle into a corner and then, at last, the running about came to an end. He could see a curly head of hair protruding from behind a luxuriant bush, with a pair of blue eyes goggling in fright (beyond the bush, with its scattering of unnaturally blue flowers, there was nothing but a glass wall). The boy had grown terribly thin and lost all the color in his cheeks, Matvei Bentsionovich noticed, and his hair hung down in matted tangles.

“Don't,” Alyosha said in a whining voice. “I'll fly away into the sky soon. He'll come to collect me. Wait a while.”

On Donat Savvich's advice, Berdichevsky did not try to creep any closer to the patient, in order not to provoke a fit. He stopped, spread his arms, and began as gently as he could: “Alexei Stepanich, I have reread your last letter, where you wrote about the magical incantation and the buoy keeper's little house. Do you remember what happened there in that house?”

Korovin chuckled behind Berdichevsky's back. “You're going at it very fast. You think he'll just tell you everything like that?”

“Don't go there,” Alyosha suddenly told Berdichevsky in a thin little voice. “It will be the end of you.”

The doctor walked up to the assistant public prosecutor and stood beside him. “My apologies,” he whispered. “I was wrong. You really do have some special kind of effect on him.”

Encouraged by his success, Matvei Bentsionovich took half a step forward. “Alexei Stepanovich, my dear friend, the bishop is so worried about you that he can't sleep. He can't forgive himself for sending you here. Let's go back to him, eh? He ordered me not to come back without you. Let's go.”

“Let's go,” Alyosha muttered.

“And we'll talk about that night?”

“We'll talk.”

Berdichevsky glanced around triumphantly at the doctor: How's that then! Korovin frowned anxiously.

“Something incredible must have happened to you there, I suppose?” Matvei Bentsionovich said in a very quiet voice, drawing out his words like an angler paying out his line.

“Something incredible.”

“Did Basilisk appear to you?”

“Basilisk.”

“And he gave you a bad fright?”

“A bad fright.”

The doctor moved the investigator aside a little. “Wait, will you. He's just repeating the most important words you say—can't you see that? It's a habit he has developed over the last three days. Obsessive recitation. He can't focus his attention for longer than a moment. He doesn't really hear you.”

“Alexei Stepanovich, can you hear me?” the assistant public prosecutor asked.

“Hear me,” Lentochkin repeated, making it clear that Donat Savvich was, unfortunately, right.

Matvei Bentsionovich sighed in disappointment. “What is going to happen to him?”

“A week, two at the most, and …” The doctor shook his head eloquently. “Unless, of course, a miracle happens.”

“What sort of miracle?”

“If I can discover a means of halting the disease process and reversing it. All right, let's go. You won't get anything out of him, just like your predecessor.”

Once they were back in Korovin's study, they began talking, not about poor Alexei Stepanovich, but about Berdichevsky's “predecessor,” that is, about the deceased Colonel Lagrange.

“In my line of work I have to be a good physiognomist,” said Donat Savvich, switching his gaze from Berdichevsky to the window and back. “And I am very, very rarely mistaken about people. But I must confess that your police chief's behavior has left me baffled. I would have guaranteed quite confidently that he was a well-balanced character with a high level of self-esteem and a primitive, object-related view of the world. People like that do not tend to commit suicide, or to go insane due to psychological trauma. If they do away with themselves, then it's only out of a sense of total hopelessness—when they are threatened with a shameful trial, or when their noses collapse and they go blind from neglected syphilis. If they go insane, then the reason is always something vulgar and uninteresting: their superiors have passed them over for promotion, or the winning ticket in a lottery had the next number to theirs—that was what happened to a certain captain of dragoons. I would never take on a patient like your Lagrange, not for anything. It's not interesting.”