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Authors: Boris Akunin
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does not count, because he is not an independent individual) was his alliance with the police chief, Lagrange.
There were specific reasons for this. Felix Stanislavovich Lagrange was a man new to the town, sent to replace the recently deceased Lieutenant-Colonel Gulko, who was for many years a faithful helper of Anton Antonovich and His Grace Mitrofanii in all their undertakings. Everybody here had loved the dead man, they were all used to him, and they greeted the new ministerial appointee with caution. The new police chief was a large, handsome man with hair neatly trimmed at the temples and a picturesquely waxed mustache. He seemed to be obliging, and deferential to his superiors, but the bishop did not like him—he had asked to be allowed to take confession with His Grace, but the words he spoke were insincere and he tried far too hard to make a show of his piety.
Zavolzhsk was not to the police chief’s liking, either, primarily because it was a very quiet and uneventful town. Fortunately, the province was entirely uninfected by the revolutionary plague, because before Mitrofanii and the baron’s time it had not managed to gain a foothold, and after that it had no opportunity. We have no large factories or universities, nor are there any particular social injustices to be observed here, and, it being possible to complain to the authorities about those that do exist, there does not really seem to be any point in rebelling. Contrary to normal state practice, there is not even a department of gendarmes in the province, because when there used to be one, idleness drove the men to drink, or they lapsed into melancholy. In Zavolzhie the police chief is also in charge of all gendarme business, a fact that had initially tempted Felix Stanislavovich into accepting this appointment. It was only afterward that he realized what a cruel joke fate had played on him.
The circumstances under which Bubentsov and the chief of police struck up a friendship remained unknown to the local inhabitants, although there is generally little that escapes their attention, and this close relationship developed with such rapidity that it gave rise to a rumor: Supposedly the inspector’s visit was not routine, but had been prompted by secret information passed on by Lagrange, who had decided that he would attract the attention of higher authorities to his own person by hook or by crook. In any case, following the arrival of the synodical inquisitor, Felix Stanislavovich made a demonstrative gesture by ceasing completely to attend confession with His Grace.
And so in the space of a mere few days Bubentsov effected a genuine coup d’état in Zavolzhsk, seizing almost all the strategic positions: the administration in the person of Ludmila Platonovna, the police in the person of Felix Stanislavovich, and public opinion in the person of Olympiada Savelievna. It only remained for him to take in hand the church and judicial authorities, but here his plans misfired.
THE BISHOP, TO whom Bubentsov presented himself on Friday, on the morning following his first visits, was cool to his uninvited visitor. Avoiding making any empty conversation, he immediately asked what exactly the purpose of the synodical emissary’s visit was and what authority he possessed. Vladimir Lvovich thereupon changed his manner (he had begun in a tone of mellow piety, with quotations from Holy Writ) and expounded the essential core of his mission briefly and succinctly.
“Your Grace, as you are well aware, the present state policy in relation to the religious situation in Russia consists in strengthening in every possible way the leading and guiding role of Orthodoxy as a spiritual and ideological bulwark of the empire. Ours is a great power, but an unstable one, because some believe in Christ with three fingers, some with two fingers, and some from left to right, while others acknowledge Jehovah but reject Christ and others again even worship Mohammed.
There were specific reasons for this. Felix Stanislavovich Lagrange was a man new to the town, sent to replace the recently deceased Lieutenant-Colonel Gulko, who was for many years a faithful helper of Anton Antonovich and His Grace Mitrofanii in all their undertakings. Everybody here had loved the dead man, they were all used to him, and they greeted the new ministerial appointee with caution. The new police chief was a large, handsome man with hair neatly trimmed at the temples and a picturesquely waxed mustache. He seemed to be obliging, and deferential to his superiors, but the bishop did not like him—he had asked to be allowed to take confession with His Grace, but the words he spoke were insincere and he tried far too hard to make a show of his piety.
Zavolzhsk was not to the police chief’s liking, either, primarily because it was a very quiet and uneventful town. Fortunately, the province was entirely uninfected by the revolutionary plague, because before Mitrofanii and the baron’s time it had not managed to gain a foothold, and after that it had no opportunity. We have no large factories or universities, nor are there any particular social injustices to be observed here, and, it being possible to complain to the authorities about those that do exist, there does not really seem to be any point in rebelling. Contrary to normal state practice, there is not even a department of gendarmes in the province, because when there used to be one, idleness drove the men to drink, or they lapsed into melancholy. In Zavolzhie the police chief is also in charge of all gendarme business, a fact that had initially tempted Felix Stanislavovich into accepting this appointment. It was only afterward that he realized what a cruel joke fate had played on him.
The circumstances under which Bubentsov and the chief of police struck up a friendship remained unknown to the local inhabitants, although there is generally little that escapes their attention, and this close relationship developed with such rapidity that it gave rise to a rumor: Supposedly the inspector’s visit was not routine, but had been prompted by secret information passed on by Lagrange, who had decided that he would attract the attention of higher authorities to his own person by hook or by crook. In any case, following the arrival of the synodical inquisitor, Felix Stanislavovich made a demonstrative gesture by ceasing completely to attend confession with His Grace.
And so in the space of a mere few days Bubentsov effected a genuine coup d’état in Zavolzhsk, seizing almost all the strategic positions: the administration in the person of Ludmila Platonovna, the police in the person of Felix Stanislavovich, and public opinion in the person of Olympiada Savelievna. It only remained for him to take in hand the church and judicial authorities, but here his plans misfired.
THE BISHOP, TO whom Bubentsov presented himself on Friday, on the morning following his first visits, was cool to his uninvited visitor. Avoiding making any empty conversation, he immediately asked what exactly the purpose of the synodical emissary’s visit was and what authority he possessed. Vladimir Lvovich thereupon changed his manner (he had begun in a tone of mellow piety, with quotations from Holy Writ) and expounded the essential core of his mission briefly and succinctly.
“Your Grace, as you are well aware, the present state policy in relation to the religious situation in Russia consists in strengthening in every possible way the leading and guiding role of Orthodoxy as a spiritual and ideological bulwark of the empire. Ours is a great power, but an unstable one, because some believe in Christ with three fingers, some with two fingers, and some from left to right, while others acknowledge Jehovah but reject Christ and others again even worship Mohammed.
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