Read Online Sister Pelagia and the Black Monk by Boris Akunin - Free Book Online Page A

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