by Boris Akunin
That very day, as I was dining in the grill-restaurant The Burnt Offering, I fell into conversation with a certain curious gentleman who was also connected with Korovin's clinic. You are familiar with my theory that reinforcing the body with calories while the eyes and the brain are left unoccupied is a simple waste of time, and therefore I was eating my grilled zander with my eyes glued to your novel. Suddenly a man of rather noble appearance approached my table and said, “Pray forgive me, sir, for distracting you from the double pleasure of consuming both bodily and spiritual nourishment, but I happened to notice the name of the writer on the spine of your book. So you are reading a work by Mr. Dos-toyevsky?” The direct manner in which he addressed me was atoned for by such a pleasant, disarming smile that it was quite impossible to be angry. “Yes,” I replied, “it is the novel The Possessed. Have you read it?” At that he quite literally began trembling all over and his cheek twitched in a highly amusing fashion. “No,” he said, “I have not read it, but I have heard a lot about it. Here on the island there is a library and a bookshop, but the archimandrite will not give his blessing to the sale of worldly books. Of course, from his point of view he is quite right, but I do miss good novels and new plays so badly.”
One thing led to another and we began talking. He took a seat at my table and soon he was telling me the story of his life, which was quite unusual. His name is Lev Nikolaevich, and it is quite clear that he is a fine individual who would never hurt a fly or say a bad word about anyone. As you know, I myself am not like that, and I am not fond of pious hypocrites, but somehow I found this Lev Nikolaevich interesting.
He immediately confessed quite frankly that he used to live in Korovin's hospital, having been brought there from St. Petersburg in an extremely serious condition, almost completely out of his mind following some terrible series of shocks, all memory of which had now been completely erased from his mind. The doctor said that that was for the best: there was no point in raking over the past, and what he needed to do now was to build his life over again from the beginning. Lev Nikolaevich is completely well already, but he does not wish to leave Canaan. He has grown attached to Korovin, and he feels afraid of the world. He said so in as many words: “I'm afraid of the world, in case it breaks me again. But it's calm and peaceful here. God's beauty all around and all the people are very good too. To live on the mainland, you have to be strong—strong enough to bear the entire weight of the world and not be bowed by it. It is a great man who can repeat after Jesus: ‘The yoke is my blessing, and my burden is light.’ But then it is also written: ‘An unbearable burden must not be laid upon the weak.’ I am weak; it is better for me to live on the island.” He is an original character in general, this former resident of St. Petersburg. It would be interesting for you to have a talk with him; you would like each other. But the reason I am telling you about Lev Nikolaevich is that your Possessed are now in his possession. So I shall never know how Verkhovensky's conspiracy turned out. It's a pity, of course, but Lev Nikolaevich was looking at the book with such desperate longing—I could see he wanted to ask for it, but he didn't dare. Well, I gave it to him. In any case, I have no free time for reading novels—I have been sent here as the Holy Inquisitions exorcist.
Do not think, Oh Sheikh al-Islam, that all I do here is sit around in restaurants and coffeehouses and gaze at the Princess Lointaine (Oh, my delight, where are you?). I have already clambered all over this island of Canaan and examined Outskirts Island from every side through binoculars—I very nearly tumbled out of the boat. I have seen all three of the hermits emerge from their burrows for their daily constitutional. They are bent over double and can scarcely hobble along—more like moles than human beings. I can boast of the fact that the abbot (he has a white border to his cowl) has favored me with his most holy attention—he threatened me with his crutch to make sure I didn't sail too close.
I have discovered that the head mole is called Israel, and the story of his life is highly intriguing. Before taking monastic vows he was the kind of rich and idle aristocrat who, for lack of anything useful to occupy his time, takes up some kind of hobby, devoting himself passionately to his chosen whimsy and spending his entire life and fortune on it. This man had chosen a passion that is not particularly rare, but is the most engrossing of all—he collected women, and he applied himself so keenly to this activity that a certain retired vice-chancellor of my acquaintance would seem like a genuine seraphim in comparison. This latter-day Don Juan's thirst for new knowledge was supposedly so insatiable that he compiled a geographical atlas of comparative female anatomy, for which purpose he took special voyages of voluptuousness to various countries, including such exotic destinations as Annam, the kingdom of Hawaii, and Darkest Africa. And the number of highly respectable matrons he seduced and haughty young maidens he perverted within the borders of our own Orthodox fatherland is beyond all count, because he possessed some special talent for casting a spell on female hearts. Reputation plays a great part in this matter too. Ladies will not even spare a glance for some common drab bay, but the moment the news spreads that he is a dangerous seducer, they will immediately discover something in him that is attractive and even irresistible: the eyes, the hands, or, if he has no outstanding features at all, they will invent some kind of magnetic aura.
Ah, but I am only grumbling out of jealousy. To live one's life like the holy man Israel's would not be half-bad: plow your way wildly through all the lush years and then, when you get bored with it all and your health gets a bit shaky, rush to save your immortal soul—and with the same intense passion that you used to put into sinning. Only the debt to the Heavenly Moneylender that the abbot has run up is too great—Israel has already been stuck in this hallway to Heaven for two years and buried six of his cohabitants, but he still cannot pay it off. They say that no one else has overstayed his allotted span on Outskirts Island by so much in the last eighty years—so you can see what a great sinner he is.
On that note I conclude the discourse required of me and call down upon your luminous personage, Oh sovereign lord, the blessings of Allah.
Slave of the Lamp Alexei Lentochkin
P.S. And now that you have finally decided that in this letter I shall do no more than amuse you with idle gossip about the local curiosities here, I shall move on to the actual matter at hand.
Know then, Oh most wise of the wisest, that I almost have the solution to the riddle of your Black Monk in the bag. Yes, indeed. And it seems likely that this solution will prove to be highly comical. That is to say, I already understand what the actual trick consists of; all that is unclear is who is amusing himself by playing the part of Basilisk, and to what end, but I shall obtain the answers to these questions today, because all the signs are that there will be a clear moon tonight.
My routine for these last three days has been as follows: in the morning I have slept late and then launched into my expeditions by land and sea, and with the onset of darkness I have settled to wait in ambush on the Lenten Spit, which extends out in the direction of Outskirts Island. I have not observed any supernatural events, but that is probably because the nights have been pitch-black with no moon and, as we know, the holy saint prefers celestial illumination. For lack of any other occupation, I have spent some time jumping from one rock to another and rowing backward and forward in a rocker (that is a small kind of boat they make here that I have rented from a local resident), hoping to find out if it is possible to balance on one of the boulders so that you appear to be standing on the water. It is perfectly possible to balance on a boulder, but it is quite impossible to move even two or three steps. Having become convinced of this, I was inclined to think that in their fright the monks have simply imagined the walking on water. Then on the third night, that is, yesterday, I discovered a certain highly suggestive detail that has made everything clear. But for now—mum's the word.
The effect will be more spectacular if I write and tell you the full story all at once, and that will happen no later tha
n tomorrow. In two hours, as soon as it gets dark and the moon rises, I shall set out for my duel with the phantom. And since doing battle with the world beyond always carries the danger of death or, in the very best case, the loss of reason, I am prudently dispatching this letter in advance by the evening packet boat. Now pine in suspense until tomorrows post, Archbishop of Rheims, languish in your curiosity and impatience.
Girding on his sword of damask steel
And donning his stout hauberk of chain mail,
See the audacious warrior of good
Prepare to face the insuperable giant.
And if his fate in this ferocious battle
Should be to sacrifice his valiant head,
Remember him, Your Reverence, in a word of prayer,
And you, bright Princess of the coffee shop,
Water the hero's body with your tears.
Ah-oo!
So that was the letter. At first Matvei Bentsionovich and Pelagia listened with a smile—they were amused by the comparison of His Grace to Turpin, the Archbishop of Rheims, the indefatigable exterminator of Moors and comrade-in-arms of Roland of Roncesvalles. But by the end of this verbose epistle the faces of the nun and the assistant public prosecutor both wore puzzled expressions, and Berdichevsky even called Alexei Stepanovich a rotten so-and-so for his posturing. They decided definitely not to succumb to Alyosha's attempted provocation or to indulge in any speculation concerning the mysterious hints contained in the postscript, but to wait for the following day's delivery from New Ararat and then discuss everything in detail.
But the post that arrived the following day did not include the promised letter from Lentochkin. Nor did it arrive on the second day, or the third. His Grace became extremely alarmed and began wondering if he ought to write to Father Vitalii about his missing emissary, and the only reason he did not was that it would have been awkward to have to admii to the archimandrite that Alexei Stepanovich had been sent to Ararai unbeknownst to the monastery's father superior.
On the seventh day, just when Mitrofanii, haggard and tormented by insomnia, was on the verge of setting out for the Blue Lake in person (the bishop was so fearful for Alyosha that he was no longer concerned about the diplomatic complications), the letter finally arrived, but it wa: quite different in kind from the first. The bishop once again summoned his advisers and read them the epistle he had received, but, unlike the previous occasion, he seemed puzzled rather than pleased. On this occasion Alyosha went straight to the business at hand, without any introductory remarks or exhortations.
Alexei Stepanovich's Second Letter
I realize that I am quite impossibly late with this continuation, but there are serious grounds for that. Precisely serious grounds, not humorous ones. The Black Monk is no trick played by some adroit swindler, as I assumed at first; this is something different. But so far I have not been able to understand exactly what.
I had better tell you everything that has happened in the right order—first, to avoid any confusion, and second, because I need to clarify for myself how it all happened, what came first and what came later. Because my head is spinning.
After sending off my last letter to you and eating a hearty supper (was that really only a week ago? It feels like months or even years), I set out for Lenten Spit as if I were on my way to a jolly picnic, savoring in advance the cunning trap in which I would catch the presumptive hoaxer who had decided to frighten the peace-loving monks. I took up my position between two large boulders in a spot I had noted earlier, settling in with every possible comfort. I spread out the blanket I had brought with me from the hotel, and I had tea with rum splashing in my thermos flask and a bundle of small cakes from the remarkable local confectioner The Temptation of St. Anthony. I sat there, enjoying my snack and chuckling to myself as I waited for the moon to rise. The lake was as dark as could be—you couldn't have spotted a water sprite, if there had happened to be one—and Outskirts Island was no more than a vague outline.
But then a yellow stripe of moonlight appeared on the smooth surface of the water, the color of the night changed from an inky black monotone to a shimmering gleam, and the darkness shrank away to the edges of the sky, leaving the moon enthroned on high at its center. And at that very instant, right in front of me, a black silhouette appeared, partly blocking out the pale disk of the lamp of night. I am prepared to swear on anything at all that only a second before, it had not been there, and then suddenly there it was—elongated, with a pointed top, swaying slightly. And not exactly in the place I had been expecting it, where a flat rock protruded only slightly above the water, but a little to one side, where there were no rocks at all.
At first I was simply astounded. Where could he have come from? It had been dark before the moon rose, but not so dark that I could have failed to see a man only a dozen paces away!
According to my plan, the moment “Basilisk” appeared, I should have emerged from my hiding place, wearing a long cloak with a hood, very similar to the hermit's own robes, and howled in a sepulchral voice, “I am the blessed Saint Basilisk! Go to hell, you impostor!”—I imagined that in that way I would scare the scarecrow, so that he would tumble off his rock into the water.
But at the sight of the black figure that seemed to be hanging above the surface of the lake, something happened to me—an absolutely specific, physiological reaction. I felt an unaccountable cold sensation run across my skin, and while my arms and legs didn't exactly lose the power of movement (I remember quite clearly setting the thermos flask down on the ground and feeling my icy forehead with my hand), they moved slowly and reluctantly, as if I were underwater. I have never felt anything like it before in my life.
Light began streaming out from behind the silent silhouette, light far brighter than that of the moon. No, I can't describe it very well, because “streaming” is not the right expression, and I don't know how to explain it any better. A moment earlier there was nothing except the moonlight, and then it was as if the entire world had been lit up so brightly that I had to screw up my eyes and shield them with my hand.
I was almost deafened by the pounding of the blood in my ears, but I still heard four words very distinctly, even though they were spoken very quietly: “Not salvation, but decay”—and the black figure gestured toward Outskirts Island. And then, when it began moving straight toward me over the water, the numb torpor fell away and I took to my heels in a most shameful fashion—I believe I was even sobbing as I ran. See what a bold paladin you have chosen for yourself, oh short-sighted prince of the church!
Afterward, when I had run as far as the chapel, I felt ashamed. If this was, after all, some especially cunning hoax, I could not allow myself to be made a fool of, I told myself. And if it was not a hoax … Well, then the Lord God existed, the world was created in seven days, there were angels flying in the sky, and the lamps of heaven rotated around the earth. Since all of that was quite impossible, Basilisk could not exist either. Having reached this conclusion, I strode off with the utmost determination in the direction I had come from and arrived back at the spit, but there was no longer any mysterious glow or black silhouette to be seen. I walked up and down the shoreline, stamping my feet loudly to keep up my courage and whistling a song about a priest who had a dog. When I had finally convinced myself of the unshakably material nature of the world, I retrieved the thermos flask and hotel property and came back to the Ark.
But I decided not to write a report until I had seen Basilisk again and made absolutely certain either that he was a hoaxer's trick or that I had lost my mind and the best place for me was in Dr. Korovin's clinic.
As ill luck would have it, the next two nights were overcast. I strolled around the streets of Ararat, which now seemed so tedious, drank fizzy holy water and Jamaican coffee, and read all sorts of nonsense in the monastery's reading hall just to pass the time. During this period of enforced idleness my nerves were tormented so badly with the agonizing anticipation and my mental arguments with myself that on the
eve of the expedition my courage almost deserted me completely. However, it was not possible to let such an opportunity slip, so I made a decision that seemed to me as wise as any of Solomon's.
I have already mentioned in my last letter the barrister from Moscow who is a devotee of smoked salmon and fresh air. His name is Kubovsky and he has been coming to Canaan every autumn for several years. They say that November is an especially fine month here. We had taken rooms in the same hotel and dined together a few times, when he had eaten and drunk about five times as much as I (and my appetite is far from poor, as your chef and my benefactor, Kuzma Savelievich, can testify). I thought Kubovsky to be a man of sober, even clinical cast of mind, without the slightest interest in the supernatural. For instance, he was inclined to explain absolutely all the manifestations of human psychology exclusively from the viewpoint of the ingestion, digestion, and evacuation of food. If he saw me, for instance, in a state of pensiveness while I was considering the mystery of the Black Monk, he would say, “Hey my dear fellow, what you need is a bit of something spicy, and then your melancholy will disappear.” Or if I pointed out from a distance the romantic lady who had almost distracted me from your mission (ah, Princess Lointaine, how can I think of you now?), Kubovsky would shake his head and say, “Ah, look how pale she is, the poor soul. No doubt she eats food that is not nutritious, and not enough of it, and that makes the stomach sluggish and causes constipation. A bit of sturgeon with cranberry syrup is good for that, and then, of course, a little glass of Italian grappa or French calvados. That will bring the bowels back to life.” Well, anyway, you can see the sort of man he is.