Sister Pelagia and the Black Monk (8 page)

But that is nothing when one considers that the archimandrite has leased out several
desyatines
of the finest land outside the town for use as a private psychiatric clinic, for which he receives fifty or perhaps even seventy thousand rubles a year. This doleful establishment is owned by a certain Donat Savvich Korovin, from the same Korovin family that owns half the mines and factories in the Urals. And so the good doctor's cousins drink the blood and sweat of the brothers in Christ, but Donat Savvich Korovin, on the contrary, heals wounded souls. They do say, though, that he accepts only a select few into his miraculous hospital, only those patients whose insanity this millionaire Aesculapius finds interesting from the scientific point of view.

I have seen his clinic. No walls, no locks, nothing but grassy meadows, little groves of trees, little dolls’ houses, pagodas and pergolas, ponds and streams, conservatories—a heavenly spot. I wouldn't mind a week or two of that kind of treatment myself. Korovin's method is extremely advanced, even revolutionary for the field of psychiatry. They come to him from Switzerland and even—oh,
horribile dictul—
from Vienna itself to learn. Well, perhaps not to learn, rather simply out of curiosity, but it is still flattering even so.

Korovin's method is revolutionary in that he does not keep his patients under lock and key, as has been the custom in civilized countries since olden times: they are entirely at liberty to go where they will. This lends the crowd on the streets of New Ararat a certain risqué variety: one is hard put to tell which of the people one meets are normal and have come to the islands to pray purge their souls, and drink the holy water, and which of them are Korovin's crazy clients. Sometimes, it is true, there is no need to puzzle over this question. For example, I had barely disembarked from the steamer when I was approached by one highly colorful character. Imagine a man with a big bushy beard, but with his mustache shaved completely off; a folded umbrella under his arm (ah, I remember, it was still spitting with that repulsive icy rain); a beret in the Doctor Faustus style on his head; and on his nose a huge pair of spectacles with immensely thick violet lenses.

This Faust, or, rather, Captain Fracasse, stared at me in a most unceremonious manner, fiddled with some little metal levers on the frame of his spectacles, and muttered in a highly agitated tone of voice, “Ai-ai! The rib cage—aura in the cold gray-green range, the forehead hot and crimson. Very, very dangerous. Take especial care of your reason.” Then he turned to my cabinmate, a portly gentleman who is a barrister from Moscow, and said something equally revolting to him: “And you have a reddish brown emanation from the left cerebral hemisphere. Do not drink wine and do not eat fatty foods, otherwise you will be keeping an appointment with the Grim Reaper.” It was not the lawyer's first time in Ararat; he comes here to relish the freshly smoked local salmon and the monastery's cranberry vodka, drink the holy digestive water, and breathe the bracing air. The Noah's Ark Hotel was his recommendation. My Cicero reacted to the strange prophecy by the violet Fracasse with absolute imperturbability and explained to me about the psychiatric clinic, adding, “Don't you worry, Monsieur Lentochkin, Donat Savvich doesn't have any violent patients.”

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 than 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.