The Gentle Axe

by R. N. Morris

  So engrossed was he in this touching denouement that Porfiry parted the last pair of uncut pages, so that he could continue reading what was written in their closed faces. His eye was caught by a folded sheet of paper that had been slipped between the pages and was adhering to the side that he was interested in reading. He widened the paper sheath and teased out the sheet. Unfolding it, he read the following document, drawn up by hand:

  Being a legally binding and legitimate contract entered into freely and willingly by the parties of both parts, the undersigned:

  Pavel Pavlovich Virginsky.

  [followed by Virginsky’s signature]

  Stepan Sergeyevich Goryanchikov.

  [followed by Goryanchikov’s signature]

  On the twentieth day of the eleventh month of the year of 1866, the party of the first part Pavel Pavlovich Virginsky confers ownership of his soul on the party of the second part Stepan Sergeyevich Goryanchikov, unconditionally and in perpetuity; excepting upon the death of Stepan Sergeyevich Goryanchikov whereupon ownership shall be transferred to the heirs of Stepan Sergeyevich Goryanchikov; or if there are no heirs existent ownership of the soul of Pavel Pavlovich Virginsky shall revert to the abovementioned Pavel Pavlovich Virginsky provided Stepan Sergeyevich Goryanchikov has not otherwise disposed of said possession being the eternal soul of Pavel Pavlovich Virginsky through his last will and testament or any other legally binding document.

  Signed before the presence of witnesses:

  Konstantin Kirillovich Govorov.

  [followed by Govorov’s signature]

  Alexei Spiridonovich Ratazyayev.

  [followed by Ratazyayev’s signature]

  SO YOU HAVE come back to us, mein Herr!”

  Porfiry nodded but did not meet Fräulein Keller’s eye. He could sense her mockery without having to look for it.

  “And you have removed your lovely fur coat this time! Will you have some champagne, I wonder?”

  Again Porfiry nodded without speaking.

  “This time, perhaps, you are not here in an official capacity?” teased Fräulein Keller as she served him the chilled wine.

  “Has Lilya Semenova been back here since my last visit?”

  “No, not Lilya, we have seen the last of Lilya. But there are other girls, mein Herr. You would like to spend some time with Raya again? Or perhaps Raya was not to your taste?”

  “Do you not have anyone younger?”

  He felt Fräulein Keller’s laughter resonate with his own corruption. He was sickened by it but joined in. “We don’t have any virgins, if that’s what you mean!”

  “Lilya was the youngest of your girls?”

  “Lilya, oh, Lilya, it always is Lilya with you! But even Lilya, you know, is not a virgin. And what is it you Russians say? Better a dove on the plate than a wood grouse on the roof?”

  “That is not quite right, but all the same, if I wanted a really young girl, a virgin, is there someone you know who can arrange it for me?”

  “What would you have me do? Snatch a girl off the street?”

  “Is that how it’s done?”

  “There is also your saying about curious Varvara’s nose, no?”

  “Curious Varvara’s nose was torn off.”

  “That’s right. I would not wish that should happen to you.”

  “Do you know a man called Konstantin Kirillovich Govorov?”

  “In my business one hears so many names.”

  “How about Ratazyayev?”

  Fräulein Keller shook her head. “No. I think I would remember that one.”

  “Do you know the old prostitute Zoya Nikolaevna, who looks after Lilya’s child?”

  “Lilya’s child? But she is very young, mein Herr. She is not yet five.”

  “Naturally, I would pay.”

  Even Fräulein Keller’s eyes started at the coolness with which this was delivered. “It might have been possible once, mein Herr. But now that Lilya has found her rich protector, I doubt that you could persuade her, for any price. You can’t break through a wall with your forehead.”

  “But Zoya. Perhaps she would be amenable to negotiation? There will be something in it for you too, of course, if you lead me to the old whore.”

  “You are a determined man. I misjudged you.” Fräulein Keller narrowed her eyes assessingly.

  “Not everyone who wears a cowl is a monk,” said Porfiry. He avoided Fräulein Keller’s admiring gaze and bowed his head to his champagne glass. But he found that he was suddenly chilled to the bone, and the thought of the champagne in his mouth was nauseating.

  14

  The Man Without a Soul

  IN HIS DREAM, the cabinetmaker Kezel was constructing an interminable twisting staircase for the tsar’s new palace. He wanted to explain that he had no experience or knowledge of building staircases. But it was as if someone had nailed his tongue to the floor of his mouth. The timber was white oak from the Terskaya region, conveyed to Petersburg at great expense. He knew that the quantity of wood had been precisely calculated to build the staircase according to the plan that he had been given. He could not afford to make one mistake. All this had been made clear to him. But a draft of wind kept lifting the plan and folding it in two so that he repeatedly had to break off from his work to lay it flat. In the end, he decided to abandon the plan. He was sawing the wood and fitting it together from memory. To begin with, everything went well. It was as if he weren’t working in the heavy, unyielding medium of his craft. He hefted and chiseled beams without any effort at all. Dovetailed joints slotted together at the touch of his finger. Doweling plugs sank into wood as if into butter. But then something made him look up, and he saw that the staircase he was building was diverging hopelessly from the landing that was awaiting it. And now the pieces that he had shaped would no longer fit together. Joints that he had carefully measured refused to marry up. He was forced to fasten the pieces together with enormous nails. But no matter how hard he hammered the first of these nails, he couldn’t drive it into the wood. He hammered and hammered on the head of the nail. With each hammer blow, he felt the nail advance minutely, only to see it a moment later retreat, as if the sundered timber were healing itself and in the process forcing the nail out. Now there was an air of desperation to his labors. The hammer blows fell faster and harder. But it made no difference. The evil nail would not go in.

  Frustrated by the dream, and losing patience with its unreasonableness, Kezel woke up, only to hear that the sounds his dreaming mind had interpreted as hammer blows were in fact coming from the front door of the apartment. It was pitch-black and cold. Caught between fear and anger, he was little inclined to get out of bed to answer the pounding. But suddenly the issue was decided for him as the door crashed open. A lantern beam lit up the apartment and was in his eyes. Behind the beam he could make out a huddle of men in dark uniforms.

  “The student Virginsky!” one of them shouted. “Where is he?”

  Kezel pointed at the door to Virginsky’s room.

  Two men separated themselves from the huddle and rushed the door, shouting. Their shouts were inarticulate, the tension of their act finding voice. The door flew open. The shouting continued inside Virginsky’s room.

  Another man strode into the apartment now, a short, stout individual wrapped up in a shuba. He bowed gravely to Kezel, without speaking.

  Virginsky’s voice could be heard: “All right! All right! Let me get my boots on!”

  A moment later he was hauled out by the arms. The unfastened laces of his boots whipped out as he kicked his feet in protest.

  He was taken before the man in the shuba.

  “So first you bring me presents. Now you have me arrested!”

  “That is the man,” said Porfiry Petrovich, blinking rapidly. “That is Virginsky.”

  VIRGINSKY WAS GIVEN something to eat and then taken to Porfiry’s chambers. An armed polizyeisky was stationed at the door.

  Porfiry laid the contract on the desk in front of him. Virginsky re
ad it in a few seconds and then snorted derisively, “It was a joke. The whole thing was a joke. You think I killed him because of this?”

  “Who are these men? Govorov and Ratazyayev?”

  “I don’t know. They were friends of Goryanchikov’s. Goryanchikov knew all sorts of people. They were just two men who happened to be in the tavern at the time. I’d never met them before. They were actors, I think. Or had been.”

  “They were both actors?”

  “I think so. I can’t really remember. I was drunk at the time. That’s how they knew each other, I think.”

  Porfiry looked down at the document. “Konstantin Kirillovich. A strange coincidence. Yet another strange coincidence concerning your friend Lilya. I asked you once if the name meant anything to you, do you remember?”

  “I don’t know. I suppose so. I can’t remember.” Virginsky gave a sudden angry scowl and came back fiercely: “No, actually. I don’t remember. I don’t remember you asking me that. What you asked me, I seem to remember, was if I had ever heard Lilya mention him.”

  “Ah! You would make a fine defense counsel. A nice distinction. It does not, however, persuade me of your innocence. First you say you can’t remember, and then you seem to remember only too well.”

  “It just came back to me. I’m tired. I was dragged from my bed. You can’t expect me to be in full control of my faculties. But of course, that’s exactly the way you want it, isn’t it? That’s why you do this, to catch me napping.”

  “I don’t pretend to understand what you thought you were doing when you entered into this contract.”

  “I was drunk. We had been gambling. I owed Goryanchikov a lot of money that I didn’t have. I didn’t want to renege on the bet. There is such a thing as honor. He suggested this way out. I thought, why not? It was either this or writing to my father. This seemed the lesser of two evils.”

  “Where was the contract drawn up?”

  “Some filthy drinking den near the Haymarket. Where did you find it?”

  “It was tucked away in the pages of one of those books you hocked.”

  Virginsky quaked with wheezing laughter.

  “I take it you didn’t put it there?” said Porfiry, a note of incredulity in his voice.

  Virginsky shook his head.

  “So how did it get there? Do you have any idea?”

  “I imagine Goryanchikov put it there.”

  “Why would he do that? Why would he put it in one of your books?”

  “They weren’t my books. They were his.”

  “But you pawned them?”

  “All right, I confess. I will admit to a crime. I stole them from him. I stole the books from him and pawned them for the money. I would have redeemed them and given them back to him, I swear. Once I’d got the money together.”

  “How did you intend to get the money? Your father?”

  “No, I—I don’t know. There are ways. Goryanchikov always seemed to manage. I had thought of journalism.”

  “I think perhaps Goryanchikov took the contract rather more seriously than you. That is why he stole the pawn ticket from you. Because he was determined to get the contract back.”

  “Perhaps he simply wanted the books back because they were his. I mean, because he had translated them.”

  “He translated all the books?” Porfiry raised an eyebrow.

  “I know that he translated the philosophy books. He was hired by that fellow.”

  “What fellow would this be?”

  “The one who lodged in Anna Alexandrovna’s house.”

  Porfiry nodded. “Osip Maximovich. So he is responsible for publishing the Athene books?”

  Virginsky gave a half shrug in answer.

  “Your father must be a terrible monster,” said Porfiry abruptly.

  “Yes. You’re right. The worst kind of monster.” Virginsky was not inclined to elaborate.

  “And you have got yourself into an awful mess because of your unwillingness to accept help from him.”

  “I will never accept anything from that man.”

  “Some would say your feelings for him are unnatural.”

  “Shall I tell you what is unnatural!” cried Virginsky hotly. “A father who steals from his son all hope, all possibility of happiness.”

  Porfiry raised his eyebrows to ask the question how.

  “There—was—a girl,” said Virginsky heavily.

  “Ah.”

  “I loved her. There! What do you say to that? He knew. He knew it all. But he—he wanted her. He wanted to consume her in the same way he consumes everything. And the fact that I, his own son, was in love with her, only added spice to his appetite.”

  “But what of the girl? What did she want?”

  “She…I could not compete with his lies. Or his wealth. They married. My mother has been dead for many years.”

  “It seems to me this girl is not worthy of you. And perhaps it’s because you realize this that you are so angry with your father. You blame him for her imperfection.”

  “And is that why I murdered Goryanchikov, according to your…psychology?” Virginsky sneered sarcastically.

  “It was why you were able to enter into this bizarre agreement. You had reached a point of such despair, of such nihilism, that this seemed preferable to asking your father for money.”

  “But this is nothing. It’s a worthless scrap of paper.”

  “And yet you returned to the house in Bolshaya Morskaya Street two nights ago to try to retrieve it from Goryanchikov’s room.”

  Virginsky winced and looked away in embarrassment. “I went there. I admit it. I went there to try and get it back. I don’t believe in it. I don’t believe in any of it. I’m a rationalist. You might call me a materialist, and I wouldn’t argue with you. But still, I felt easier having it in my possession.”

  “And that was why, on the following day, you wouldn’t go into the house with me. The maid would have said something. You would have been discovered.”

  “I had nothing to be ashamed of.”

  “Except that you had pretended to Katya that Goryanchikov was still alive when you knew perfectly well that he was dead.” Porfiry pursed his lips when he put this to Virginsky, as if he disapproved of this lie most of all.

  “I wasn’t thinking straight. I panicked.”

  “Let us return to Konstantin Kirillovich. The man was known to you. You can’t deny that. And yet you did not say so when you had the opportunity.”

  “I tell you, I didn’t know him as Konstantin Kirillovich. I didn’t know him by any name. He was just some loathsome old lecher Goryanchikov bumped into.”

  “A girl at Fräulein Keller’s told me that he takes pornographic photographs.”

  “I can believe it.”

  “Of very young girls.”

  “Why are you asking me about this? I know nothing about any of this.”

  “This document is highly incriminating. There are some who would see in it a motive for murder.”

  Virginsky shook his head.

  “They would say you murdered Goryanchikov and framed Borya,” insisted Porfiry. “This fellow Ratazyayev is also missing. It is conceivable that you murdered him too. And Govorov, the other witness to your contract? Where is he? The motive is certainly here. A case could be made that it is in your interest to eradicate everyone connected with this strange piece of paper.”

  “But it’s not true,” said Virginsky wearily.

  Porfiry shrugged. “Ah, the truth! If ever you do become a lawyer, Pavel Pavlovich, you will quickly learn not to rely overmuch on the truth.”

  THE SNOW-COVERED pavement of the Nevsky Prospect was mottled with black footprints. Porfiry kept his head bowed as he walked, looking at the footprints, following them, as if he expected the footprints to lead him to the solution of the mystery; to the murderer, in other words. But really he was looking at the pavement to avoid looking at the sky, for the sky above this great broad strip of openness was too much a reminder of the infinit
e. He felt the mediating presence of immense buildings. He was aware too, in a similar way, of the wooden cross that hung around his neck and touched his skin.

  It was late morning, but the gloom of a northern winter clung to the city. The shopwindows glowed. Carriage lights trailed in the damp air. The crowds, in places, stretched across the pavement. Sometimes he felt himself jostled along and had to match his pace to the tread of those around him. Sometimes the pedestrians coming toward him were like the ranks of an opposing army.

  Tiny sharp snowflakes began to swirl in the air and fell over them all.

  Number 22 was a three-story building on the north side of the street, identical twin to number 24, on the other side of the Lutheran church. In the summer this would have been the sunny side. But there was no sunny side today. The ground floor was taken up with a number of shops, a delicatessen, a grocery store, its facade brightly painted, a furrier’s, a gentlemen’s outfitter’s, and a shop selling various mechanical devices. The floors above and behind were given over to business premises. It was here that the famous publishing house Smyrdin had its offices. It was also the address given as the home of the publisher Athene in the title pages of the philosophy books Porfiry had redeemed from Lyamshin’s.

  He left his galoshes in the marbled foyer, under the steady gaze of the senior commissionaire, an immovable mound of a man around whom, it seemed, a monumental desk had been built. He concentrated his vitality into his eyes and could convey enormous meaning in a single blink. His more energetic colleague, a wiry old soldier whose face showed the strain of enforced inaction, leaped up to escort Porfiry to the Athene offices. “You’ll never find it, your excellency,” he cried gleefully, as if this were something to celebrate. “Never in a thousand years.”