Boris Akunin - The Coronation

No, I did not understand this at all, but I remembered the mysterious words spoken by my nymph the previous day and suspected that there might just be a grain of truth in Endlung’s strange theory.

I felt better about the whips and the chains, but I had enough reasons to feel distressed even without them.

Firstly, there was my own fate. Were they really going to leave us here to die of hunger and thirst?

We went over to the outside wall and the lieutenant stood on my shoulders and shouted out of the window in a stentorian voice for a long time, but we clearly could not be heard from the street. Then we started hammering on the door. It was covered with felt on the inside, and our blows sounded muted. We could not hear a single sound from the outside.

Secondly, I was depressed by the stupidity of the situation in which we found ourselves. Yesterday Mademoiselle Declique was supposed to have identified Lind’s location; today Fandorin would carry out his operation to rescue Mikhail Georgievich; and I was sitting here like a mouse in a trap, all thanks to my own stupidity.

And thirdly, I was very hungry. After all, we had not eaten supper the day before.

I sighed involuntarily.

‘You, Ziukin, are a fine fellow,’ Endlung said in a voice hoarse from shouting. ‘That’s what I’ve always said about people like you – still waters run deep. A man for the lovely ladies, a smart comrade and no sniveller. Why the hell are you a menial servant? Join us on the Retvizan as a senior quartermaster. Our lads will give you a hearty welcome – I should think so, grand ducal butler. We’d bring all the other ships down a peg or two. Really, I mean it. You could transfer from court service to the navy – that can be arranged. You’d be accepted as an equal in the mess. Just how much longer can you carrying on pouring coffee into other people’s cups? We’d have great fun, by God we would. I remember you have no trouble with the ship rolling and pitching. Ah, Ziukin, you haven’t been to Alexandria!’ The lieutenant rolled his eyes up and back. ‘ Himmeldonnerwetter , the brothels they have there! You’d be sure to like it, with your taste for petite ladies – they serve up little dolls that you can sit on the palm of your hand, but they still have the full set of tackle. I tell you, a tiny little waist like that, but up here they’re like this, and like that!’ He demonstrated with rounded gestures. ‘I myself have always adored well-built women, but I can understand you too – the petite ones have their own special attraction. Tell me about Snezhnevskaya, as one comrade to another.’ Endlung put his hand on my shoulder and looked into my eyes. ‘What has that Polish girl got that that gives them all such a thrill? Is it truewhat they say, that at moments of passion she makes special sounds that drive men insane, the same way the sirens’ song affected Odysseus’ companions? Comeon!’Henudgedmewith his elbow and winked at me. ‘Paulie says he didn’t hear any special kind of chanting during their only date, but Paulie’s still a pup – he probably wasn’t able to arouse genuine passion in that little Polish piece of yours – and you’re a man of experience. Come on, tell me. What is it to you? We’re not going to get out of here alive anyway. I’d really like to know what kind of sounds they are.’ And the lieutenant broke into song: ‘I hear the sounds of a Polish girl, the heavenly sounds of the beautiful Pole.’

Of course I did not know anything about any passionate sounds supposedly produced by Izabella Felitsianovna, and even if I had, I would not have revealed what I knew about such matters. I tried to indicate this by assuming the appropriate expression.

Endlung sighed in disappointment.

‘So it’s a lie? Or are you just being cagey? All right, don’t tell me if you don’t want to, although that’s not the way good comrades behave. Sailors don’t play cagey like that. You know, when you don’t see dry land for months at a time, it’s good to sit in the mess, telling each other all sorts of stories . . .’

There was a mighty rumbling of bells from somewhere far away, as if it was coming from the very bowels of the earth.

‘Half past nine,’ I said excitedly, interrupting the lieutenant. ‘It has begun!’

‘I’mso unlucky,’ Endlung complained bitterly. ‘I’mnever going to see a tsar crowned, even though I am a gentleman of the bedchamber. I was still in the Corps at the last coronation, and I won’t live until the next one – the tsar’s younger than I am. I really wanted to see it! I even have a ticket for a good spot put away. Right opposite the porch of the cathedral. I expect they’re coming out of the Cathedral of the Assumption right now, aren’t they?’

‘No,’ I answered, ‘they’ll be coming out of the cathedral later. I know the entire ceremony off by heart. Would you like me to tell you about it?’

‘I should say so!’ the lieutenant exclaimed, pulling his legs up under him, Turkish style.

‘Well then,’ I began, trying to recall the schedule of the coronation. ‘At the present moment Sergii, the Metropolitan of Moscow, is addressing His Majesty and explaining to him the heavy burden of serving as the tsar, and also the great mystery of anointment. In fact he has probably already finished. In the place of honour, by the royal gates, among the gold-embroidered court uniforms and pearl-trimmed ceremonial dresses, there are simple white peasant shirts and modest crimson kokoshnik head-dresses – these are the descendants of the heroic Ivan Susanin, saviour of the Romanov dynasty, who have been brought here from the province of Kostroma. And now the emperor and empress proceed along the scarlet carpet towards the thrones, set high up facing the altar, and a special throne has been installed for Her Majesty the dowager empress. Today the emperor is wearing his Preobrazhensky Regiment uniform with a red sash over his shoulder. The empress is wearing silver-white brocade and a necklace of pink pearls, and her train is carried by four pages of the bedchamber. The tsar’s throne is an ancient piece of work, made for Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, and it is known as the Diamond Throne because there are eight hundred and seventy diamonds embedded in it, as well as rubies and pearls. The foremost dignitaries of the empire hold the state regalia on velvet cushions: a sword, a crown, a shield and a sceptre surmounted by the illustrious Orlov diamond.’ I sighed, closed my eyes and saw the sacred stone there in front of me, as large as life. ‘It is absolutely clear, as transparent as a teardrop, with a very slight greenish-blue tinge, like seawater in sunlight. Weighing almost two hundred carats and shaped like half an egg, only larger, there is no more beautiful diamond in the entire world.’

Endlung listened as if he were spellbound. I must confess that I also got carried away and went on for a long time describing to my appreciative listener the entire great ceremony, occasionally checking my watch in order not to get ahead of events. And just at the very moment when I said ‘And now the emperor and empress have come out onto the porch and are performing the low triple bow to the ground before the entire people; and now there will be an artillery salute,’ there really was a rumble of thunder in the distance, and it lasted for several minutes for, according to the ceremonial, the cannon had to fire one hundred and one times.

‘How wonderfully you described it all,’ Endlung said with feeling. ‘As if I had seen it all with my own eyes. I just didn’t understand about the lacquered box and the man turning the handle.’

‘I don’t understand that toowell myself,’ I admitted.’ However, I have seen with my own eyes the announcement in the Court Gazette that the coronation will be recorded using the very latest cinematographic apparatus, for which a special handler has been hired. He will turn the handle, and that will produce something like moving pictures.’