Sister Pelagia and the Black Monk (5 page)

“But at the first sight of a ghost a woman will faint away or, even worse, have a fit of hysterics,” the bishop teased the nun. “And nothing useful will come of it.”

Pelagia looked at the row of stitches that had gone awry and sighed, but she didn't unknit it—let it come out whatever way it would.

“A woman will never faint or fall into hysterics if there's no man there,” she said. “All women's fainting, hysterics, and weepiness were invented by men. You want to think of us as weak and helpless, and so we adapt to suit you. The best thing for this business, Father, would be for you to give me your blessing to take two or three weeks’ leave. I could go to Canaan, pray at the local holy places, and at the same time see what kind of ghost it is they have floating over the water there. Sister Apollinaria and Sister Ambrosia could take care of my girls in the college for the time being. One can take gymnastics and the other literature, and everything would work out very well.”

“It can't be done,” said His Grace, interrupting his spiritual daughter with evident satisfaction. “Or have you forgotten, Pelagia, that nuns are not allowed into Ararat?”

That immediately shut the nun up.

And it was true that under the strict rules of New Ararat nuns and female novices were forbidden to travel to the islands. It was an ancient ruling, three hundred years old, but it was still rigorously observed.

It had not always been like that. In the old days there had been a nuns’ convent standing beside the monks’ monastery, but this propinquity had given rise to various temptations and indecent incidents, and therefore when the patriarch Nikon, concerned to restore the honor of the monastic estate, made the monastery rules stricter everywhere, the New Ararat Convent was abolished and nuns were forbidden to show their faces on the Blue Lake. The laity could come to pray, and many of them did, but the brides of Christ could not—there were other shrines for them.

Pelagia seemed on the point of making some objection to Mitrofanii, but she glanced at Berdichevsky and said nothing. And so this discussion of the Black Monk begun by the most intelligent triumvirate in the province of Zavolzhie ran into a dead end.

The difficulty was resolved, as usually happened in such cases, by His Grace Mitrofanii—and in his typical paradoxical manner. The bishop had an entire theory about the usefulness of paradoxes, which possess the property of overturning the excessively unwieldy constructions of human reason while at the same time revealing unexpected and sometimes shorter routes to the solutions of problematic tasks. The bishop simply loved to disconcert the person to whom he was talking with a surprising phrase or outlandish decision, after first assuming an air of great wisdom and intense concentration.

And likewise now, when the arguments had been exhausted without leading to any conclusion and a depressed silence had set in, the bishop wrinkled up his white forehead into three vertical folds, knitted his eyebrows together, and began counting off his sandalwood rosary beads with his remarkably white and well-tended fingers. (Mitrofanii paid emphatic attention to the care of his hands and hardly ever appeared outside without silk gloves. He explained this by saying that a cleric who touched the Eucharistic bread and wine should treat his hands with the greatest possible respect.)

His Grace remained sitting like that for about a minute and then opened his blue eyes, which sparkled brightly, and said in a tone that brooked no contradiction, “Alyosha Lentochkin will go.”

Matvei Bentsionovich and Pelagia simply gasped.

It would have been hard, even with a special effort, to imagine a more paradoxical nominee for the secret investigation of a highly delicate internal church matter.

Alexei Stepanovich Lentochkin was still young in years, with cheeks that were still plump and pink, and so behind his back many people called him by the affectionately familiar name of Alyosha—indeed, many even called him that to his face, and he did not take offense. He had appeared in our town only recently, but had immediately become one of the bishops circle of especial favorites.

There were, however, perfectly understandable grounds for this, since Alexei Stepanovich was the son of an old comrade of the bishop, who, as we know, had served as a cavalry officer before he took monastic vows. This fellow officer of Mitrofanii's had died as a major in the last Turkish war, leaving a widow with two small children—a daughter and a son— and almost no means of support.

The little boy Alyoshenka had grown up to be very bright, so that at the age of eleven he could easily perform integral calculus and by the age of twenty he promised to become an absolute genius in the area of natural science or mathematics.

The Lentochkins did not live in Zavolzhsk, but in the large university town of K——, which also stood on the river, but farther downstream, so that when the time came for Alyosha to choose his place of higher study, he was not only accepted at the local university without payment of any fees, he was even given a personal grant, so that he could study and develop his talent to the glory of his native city. Without a grant he would not have been able to attend university, even without paying for it, because his family had no money at all.

As he approached the age of twenty-three, with only a short time remaining to the end of his course, Alexei Stepanovich was definitely all set to become a new Evariste Gaulois or Michael Faraday, as everyone around him acknowledged and he himself was not shy of saying. Indeed, in addition to his great abilities, the youth also possessed an extremely high opinion of himself, which is not unusual among talents that mature early. He was disrespectful to authorities, insolent, sharp-tongued, and overbearing—all of those qualities that, as is well known, prevented Evariste Gaulois from attaining a mature age and astounding the world with the full brilliance of his highly promising genius.

No, Alexei Stepanovich was not killed in a duel like the young Frenchman, but he became embroiled in a certain business that turned out badly for him.

One day he dared to disagree with an assessment of one of his essays on either chemistry or physics, an assessment penned by the hand of none other than Serafim Vikentievich Nosachevsky, a leading light of Russian science who was also a privy counselor and the vice-chancellor of the university in K——. In his assessment this highly experienced scientist had failed to express sufficient admiration of Lentochkin's conclusions, and this had thrown the gifted student into a fury. The young man had added a highly impertinent remark to Nosachevsky's comments and sent the notebook containing the essay back to him.

The scientist was terribly offended (the remark had cast doubt on the discoveries that he had made, and on the value of his excellency's contribution to science in general) and he used his administrative authority to have the impudent rogue's personal grant rescinded.

Alexei Stepanovich's wild act had, of course, been quite outrageous, but, bearing in mind the student's youth and undoubted talent, Nosachevsky could have limited himself to a less severe punishment. Losing the grant meant that Lentochkin would have to leave the university and take some kind of job—even as an accountant in a shipping line—as a matter of urgency, and that would mean the end of all his great dreams; he could bury them all.

The cruelty of the vice-chancellor's verdict was condemned by many, and there were some who urged Alexei Stepanovich to go and apologize, saying that although Nosachevsky was stern he did not bear grudges, but the young student's pride would not allow him to do it. Instead he chose a different path, imagining himself to be a knight joining battle with a dragon. And he dealt the perfidious beast a fatal blow. The revenge he took was so comprehensive that the privy counselor was obliged …

But let us not run ahead of ourselves. This is a story that deserves to be told properly, from the beginning.

Serafim Vikentievich Nosachevsky had one weakness, which was known to the entire city—he was a martyr to voluptuousness. This high priest of science, although he was already advanced in years, could not see a pretty little face or a curling lock above a dainty ear without instantly being transformed into a cloven-hoofed satyr, and in this matter he made no distinction between respectable ladies and
demi-mondaines
of the very lowest sort. If this immoral behavior was forgiven by society in K——, it was only out of respect for the city's leading light of scholarship, and also because Nosachevsky did not make a show of his escapades and sensibly kept them private.

This was the Achilles’ heel at which our young Paris struck the fatal blow.

Alyosha was wonderfully good-looking, but with a beauty that was not so much manly as girlish: curly-haired, with thick eyebrows and long, elegantly curved eyelashes, and with a peachy fuzz on his ruddy cheeks—in short, he was one of those good-lookers who do not age for a very long time, retaining a fresh complexion and smooth skin until about forty, but thereafter rapidly beginning to shrivel and wrinkle, like an apple that has been bitten and then forgotten.

Alyosha's age was not so great, but he appeared even younger than he really was—a genuine page Cherubino from
The Marriage of Figaro.
And therefore, when he dressed up in his sister's best party dress, donned a sumptuous wig, glued on a beauty spot, and painted his lips with lipstick, he made such a convincing she-devil that the lustful Serafim Vikentievich could not possibly fail to notice her, especially since the seductive wench was always strolling, as if by design, in the vicinity of his excellency's town house.

Nosachevsky sent his butler out to the pretty stroller, and he reported that the mademoiselle was indeed a streetwalker, but a very choosy one, and she took her strolls along Paris Street, not in order to earn money, but for the sake of exercise. Then the satyr immediately ordered his servant to lace him into his corset, put on his satin waistcoat and velvet frock coat with the gold sparkles, and set out to conduct negotiations in person.

The enchanting girl laughed and shot Serafim Vikentievich seductive glances from her glittering eyes over the top of her fan, but she refused to go to him and soon took her leave, having completely turned the man of science's head.

He stayed at home for two days without once going out, always gazing out the window in case the nymph appeared again.

And she did appear—on the third day. This time she submitted to his blandishments, that is, to the promise of a sapphire ring in addition to two hundred rubles. But she set one condition: her admirer had to rent the very finest apartment in the Sans-Souci Hotel—a luxurious establishment, but one with a somewhat dubious reputation—and arrive for the rendezvous at ten o'clock that evening. Nosachevsky happily agreed to all of this, and at five minutes to ten he was already knocking at the door of the apartment he had rented in advance, clutching an absolutely huge bouquet of roses.

The drawing room was lit by two candles and smelled of oriental incense. The tall, slim figure in white first reached out its arms to the vice-chancellor, then immediately pulled back with a laugh and began flirting gently with Nosachevsky, who was consumed with passion. She ran playfully around the table until Serafim Vikentievich was completely out of breath and begged for mercy, and then she delivered her ultimatum: he must unquestioningly obey all of his conqueror's instructions.

His excellency gladly capitulated, especially since the conditions sounded so seductive: the beauty would undress her lover with her own hands and lead him into the boudoir.

Trembling in sweet anticipation, Nosachevsky allowed her light, fleeting fingers to remove all of his clothes. He did not resist, even when the fantasist blindfolded him with a head scarf, put a lace cap on his head, and bound his rheumatic knee with a pink bandage.

“Let us proceed into the abode of dreams, my little duckling,” the perfidious temptress whispered, and began nudging the blind vice-chancellor toward the bedroom.

He heard the door squeak as it opened, and then he received a rather powerful push in the back, so hard that he ran forward several steps and almost fell. The door slammed shut behind him.

“Sweetie pie!” Serafim Vikentievich called out, bewildered. “Lovey-dove! Where are you?”

The reply was a thunderous chorus of laughter from a dozen coarse male voices, and then a discordant choir began bellowing:

We have a welcome visitor,
Serafim Vikentievich, our dear friend!

And that was followed by a truly hideous refrain, complete with mewing and howling:

Serafima, Sima, Sima,
Sima, Sima, Sima,
Sima, Sima, Sima,
Sima, Serafima, drain your glass!

Horrified, Nosachevsky tore off his blindfold and saw before him some of the most dissolute desperadoes among the students at the university of K——, sitting in a row on the vast bed à la Louis Quinze, insolently surveying their mentor's shameful nakedness and guzzling expensive champagne straight from the bottle—they had already devoured the fruits and chocolate.