The Fourth Circle (22 page)

So vast was my impotent rage, that in my paroxysm the question of who might have come nigh while I slept in the darkness of the cellar under the iguman's residence flashed only belatedly into my mind. I had been alone there when, an unknown number of hours ago this night, I dropped into sleep to seek illusory salvation. One of the robed ones, surely, inhibited by fear and trembling, had unwillingly come to bring me a frugal meal or some order from the bewildered iguman whose holy House of God had been transformed overnight into a mustering place for the most unclean of all forces? Or could it be—and here my rage quickly lost its earlier ferocity—a new uninvited visitation, come to addle with perverse marvels what little sense remained in my grey head?

This fearful thought, icier than the cold before dawn, chilled me for a moment, and miserable and cowardly again, I longed to return to my warm dream, to seek once more the protection of my mother's lap, not to open my wrinkled eyelids.

But for me there was no going back, for the iron grip of a ruthless hand, already sending currents of pain through my shoulder, chased away the last deceitful vestiges of the comforting dream—and I had no choice but to finally open my eyes.

Open—and see something that filled me at once with gladness and mortifica-tion. Not one form, but two, stood bent over me, faces wreathed in chaste, innocent smiles, like two angels come riding down from Paradise, the bearers of good news. I knew they were no angels because their immeasurable, blasphemous sin, in which I—still able to recall the spark-throwing, darting fire that had united their lecherous bodies into a single flame of carnal desire—also took shameful part, occurred in this very cellar, before my lustful, hidden eyes.
The Master's firm grip on my painful, numbed shoulder now eased, and he extended a hand to me, exactly as had my mother in my interrupted dream, while Marya, standing on the other side, made the same gesture, but with the softness of a woman, turning to my confused face her white, velvety palm bathed in the radiance of dawn. We stood thus, unmoving, for many moments—I fogged by sleep and disbelief, not knowing what to do, whether to accept the angelic hand of which I was not worthy, or to shrink back from this new temptation of the devil. The two of them continued to smile invitingly, guided by some hidden intent that did not require any forced urgency.

This stiff, stony posture, which seemed to have descended from one of the Master's pictures on some wall into this dark cellar where it surely did not belong, would have lasted who knows how long had not the sudden thought of my broken dream, in which I had almost reached my mother's hands, prevailed in me—so I took their outstretched ones, resigned in advance to the uncertain outcome of this imprudent act.

At the moment of this sinful touch, there came first a prickling, then a fiery, stabbing feeling; it made the sparse white hairs below my elbows rise on my tough skin, exactly as they did in the moments of ecstasy while I was lustfully spying on their blasphemous coupling. I felt this effect most strongly from Marya, whose frail, childlike hand filled only half of mine and which, in comparison to the Master's, looked even smaller.

Small though it was, it proved as firm as his when it began to help me rise to my unsteady legs, benumbed and rheumaticky after a cold night spent on the earthen floor of the cellar. Moreover, it seemed that an abundant invisible sap began to flow directly into my old dried-up veins, filling them with strength and vigor, which at my advanced age happens but rarely, usually following a long sojourn in the midday sun.

I stood up firm, even joyful, no longer beset by anxieties and fears, to face the new destiny that Marya and the Master had prepared for me. Why else would they raise me from the sweetest sleep at this early morning hour but for a purpose? I assumed they intended to take me outside, despite the door's being barred. With indecorous but sinfully sweet glee, I pictured in my mind the robed ones staring unblinkingly at us and crossing themselves in the fear of God before this new miracle, which would outshine by far all the previous ones.

But I was not destined to take contemptuous pleasure in the monach's bewilderment because Marya and the Master were guiding me in a direction quite opposite to the iron-bound cellar door, to its darkest corner, into which I deemed no beam of sunlight had penetrated since the laying of the foundation, and which
must shelter a nest of the most unhallowed creatures dwelling this side of Hell.

My pleased anticipation quickly waned at this gloomy sight, but because the flow of life-giving, joyful juices kept pouring into me from Marya's hand, forti-fying my flagging courage, I did not step back. Nothing more came from the Master, who had released my hand from his clasp to kneel on the floor in the corner where he began to cast strange spells.

At first I thought these were acts of witchcraft to summon up evil spirits, and old forebodings filled my miserable soul. But a moment later it became clear that he was only brushing away the dirt that had accumulated there, though I could not immediately see to what purpose. Soon he had pushed the damp dirt aside, and a trapdoor could be seen, wooden and partly rotten, reinforced in places with rusty iron. Through the cracks, my weak eyes caught a muted reddish glow from below.

Not even the secretion of propitious juices that steadily flowed through Marya's little hand into my body sufficed to keep me from shrinking from this unearthly sight. I started in terror, but Marya turned to me, then took my other hand in hers, looking so intently into my eyes with the endlessly deep blue of her gaze that I took the remaining few steps to the closed trapdoor, yielding to the inaudible command of her will.

The Master raised his head to me once, wearing an expression on his face that I could not read, then pulling with his augmented strength, raised the sealed hatch from the floor. With a creaking of rusty hinges, it began to leave its ancient housing. A gory light spewed forth, its ominous glow filling the dark corner, accompanied by a pestilent odor that gushed up from the bosom of the underworld, filling my nostrils with the loathsome smell of excrement.

No further doubt was possible: despite all their gentleness, Marya and the Master were but merciless executioners whom the Lord Himself had assigned to throw me alive into the jaws of hell, my only rightful place because of the countless sins in thought and deed that I had committed in life; because of my infidel doubts and perverse, filthy lusts, to which I, insolently, had succumbed in moments of spiritual weakness and carnal desire; but most of all because of my indecent, shameless spying on their act of divine union, twice sacred, which I had deceitfully thought had another purpose.

Although forcibly thrust back from the opening by the light of the flames of hell and by noxious gusts of unimaginable decay, I summoned up my faltering will and stepped voluntarily toward the opening, to demonstrate by this final humility my belated repentance, my acceptance of this terrible punishment that the Almighty, in His infinite righteousness, had prepared for me, His poor servant.

Yet my destiny was not to enter the eternal domain of the demon torturers below all alone, for before I had managed to lower my quivering foot into that awful abyss, the Master went first, quickly descending into the gaping hole, where he surely did not belong.

Confused by this mad act, I turned my terrified eyes to Marya, but found that the smile still played on that angelic face. Her virginal white hands released my wrinkled ones, then laying a hand on my bony shoulder, she guided me gently in the footsteps of the vanished Master. Again I accepted her silent order with a believer's total obedience, and I started down into the chasm of Hell with mixed emotions: my earlier resignation to my hopeless fate and a new hope kindled by Marya's unvarying gentleness.

Hardly had my head sunk below the level of the floor as I lowered myself down the wooden ladder, half-rotten as the damp trapdoor above it, than I understood from unmistakable sounds that here was another madness, greater even than the Master's: the white queen of darkness, whom I had thought was Marya, was following me down the ladder into her kingdom of the underworld.

3. SHERLOCK HOLMES'S LAST CASE (1) THE LETTER

"WHAT DO YOU think of this, Watson?"

Holmes extended to me an opened envelope. It departed from the standards of the Royal Mail: elongated and bluish, it had a rectangular, not triangular, flap on its reverse side. There was no stamp or any trace of a postmark. On the front were inscribed Holmes's name and address, in neat, gently slanting handwriting with something of a tendency to ornamentation. The sender had made no effort to leave any trace of his own identity.

Not wishing to disappoint my friend, who in circumstances like this always goodheartedly expects that I will be nearly, if not quite, as astute as he is, I held the envelope to my nose. Doing just this, he had many times gleaned precious information. I was aware of a slight, bitter smell but could not place it, though for some reason I thought of the shock to which the sense of smell is exposed upon entering a shop selling Indian spices.

Holmes looked unblinkingly at me, with that penetrating stare of his, a stare that filled even the most confident criminals with unease and caused the ladies to squirm uncomfortably; but he remained silent, though I noticed a slight curling of the fine lines at the corners of his mouth, which I knew indicated a barely controlled impatience.

"How did this arrive?" I asked him, taking the letter out of the envelope. It was of the same bluish tint, on stiff paper, folded in three. I did not unfold it at once.

"Somebody pushed it under the front door. Between four o'clock, when I returned from my walk, and a quarter-past six, when Mrs. Simpson went off to do the evening shopping. She did not bring it to me immediately, but only after she had returned and served my meal. She said she thought it could not be of great consequence, since it had been delivered in this manner; in truth, it was too much of an effort for her to climb the stairs to the drawing room a second time, though she would never admit it. I myself tend to breathe a little harder after those nineteen steps, especially when I take them at a run, while she is sixty-seven and arthritic, but that is unimportant. Come, open the letter."

He was right about the staircase. I could still feel my heart beating faster from the climb, as well as from my brisk walk from home. It seemed that I was not exactly young myself, but the communication from Holmes had been categorical.

"Come at once! Very urgent!" Hurrying here, even running part of the way, I
imagined a multitude of troubles that might have befallen him. Thank God, all it was was an unusual letter. I was careful not to say this aloud, though; it obviously had special importance for Holmes. Why else would he have called me with such urgency?

When I unfolded the stiff paper, a surprise awaited me: only a large circle was drawn on it. Nothing else was there—no text, no signature, no initials, nor, indeed, any sign at all. My first thought on perceiving the precision of the circle was that it must have been made with a pair of compasses, but when I looked more closely at the place where the center should have been, I could not see the little hole, which would inevitably have been made by the sharp point. Evidently, the drawing had been made with the assistance of some round object, probably some kitchen vessel; a largish cup, perhaps, or a saucer.

"A circle," said I rather feebly, nothing more intelligent crossing my mind.

"Excellent, my dear Watson! A circle!" replied Holmes. His voice bore no hint of ridicule, though my perspicacity had warranted it. He spoke the words as if I really had reached a brilliant conclusion.

"Someone has decided to play a prank on us, no doubt," I continued. "However, even from a prankster one would have expected something more clever than an ordinary circle."

Holmes's reaction was so strong and violent that I almost flinched back.

"Nonsense!" he exclaimed. "Balderdash! A circle is anything but ordinary! The only perfect...complete...like...like...."

Holmes was not rarely given to rages like this, but I do not remember when last I saw him speechless. What looked to me like someone's stupid joke, to him seemed, for some reason, altogether more serious. I knew from experience that at such times he should not be contradicted. Indeed, when he spoke again his voice was perfectly calm, with the usual ironic undertone that had the effect of constantly making his companion reexamine the reasonableness of what was being said.

"All right, let's leave the circle aside for the time being," said he. "We will return to it later. Observe the letter carefully and tell me what else you see."

I brought the letter and the envelope closer to my eyes and looked attentively.

After a few long moments of examination, I humbly admitted, "I fail to notice anything further...The format is unusual, though. I have never seen anything like it, but from that I can deduce nothing."

"Indeed," replied Holmes. "Unusual it is, at least here in England. On the continent you will come across it more often. What does the paper tell you?"

I felt it again, more carefully. Now I gained the impression that it possessed,
apart from stiffness, the quality of antiquity, a patina. For a moment it seemed to me that I held something very old, a parchment perhaps, between my fingers, though my eyes were telling me that it was a newly made sheet of paper.

"I don't know," I said finally. "It gives the impression of being somehow...foreign. Most probably it also originates from the Continent."