Boris Akunin - The Coronation

This time I surmounted the obstacle without the slightest difficulty, thanks to the experience I had accumulated. We made ourway into the thickets, but Fandorinwaswary of approaching the Hermitage.

‘They certainly won’t be looking for us here,’ he declared, stretching out on the grass. ‘But it would still be best t-to wait until dark. Are you hungry?’

‘Yes, very. Do you have some provisions with you?’ I asked hopefully because, I must confess, my stomach had been aching from hunger for a long time.

‘Yes, this.’ He took his catch out of his pocket. ‘Have you never tried raw fish? In Japan everybody eats it.’

Naturally I declined such an incredible meal, and watched with some revulsion as Erast Petrovich gulped down the cold slippery carp, daintily extracting the fine bones and sucking them clean.

After completing this barbarous meal, he wiped his fingers on a handkerchief, took out a box of matches and then extracted a cigar from an inside pocket. He shook the matchbox and announced delightedly: ‘They have dried out. You don’t smoke, do you?’

He stretched contentedly and put one hand under his head.

‘What a picnic we are having, eh? Wonderful. Real heaven.’

‘Heaven?’ I half-sat up at that, I felt so indignant. ‘The world is falling apart before our very eyes, and you call it “heaven”?The very foundations of the monarchy are trembling; an innocent child has been tormented by fiends; the most worthy of women is being subjected, perhaps, at this very moment to . . .’ I did not finish the sentence because not all things can be said aloud. ‘Chaos, that is what it is. There is nothing in the world more terrible than chaos, because from chaos comes insanity, the destruction of standards and rules . . .’

I was overcome by a fit of coughing before I had fully expressed my thoughts, but Fandorin understood me and stopped smiling.

‘Do you know where your mistake lies, Afanasii Stepanovich?’ he said in a tired voice, closing his eyes. ‘You believe that theworld exists according to certain rules, that it possesses m-meaning and order. But I realised a long time ago that life is nothing but chaos. It possesses no order whatever, and no rules either.’

‘And yet you yourself give the impression of a man with firm rules,’ I said, unable to resist the jibe as I looked at his neat parting, which had remained immaculate despite all our alarming adventures.

‘Yes, I do have rules. But they are my own rules, invented by myself for myself and not for the wholeworld. Let theworld suit itself, and I shall suit myself. Insofar as that is possible. One’s own rules, Afanasii Stepanovich, are not the expression of a desire to arrange the whole of creation but an attempt to organise, to at least some degree, the space that lies in immediate proximity to oneself. And I do not manage even a trifle like that very well . . . All right, Ziukin. I think I’ll have a sleep.’

He turned over on to one side, cradled his head on one elbow and fell asleep immediately. What an incredible man!

I cannot say what I found more painful: my hunger, my anger or the awareness of my own helplessness. And yet I do know – it was the fear. Fear for the life of Mikhail Georgievich, for Emilie, for myself.

Yes, yes, for myself. And itwas the veryworst of all the varieties of fear known to me. I was desperately afraid, not of pain or even of death, but of disgrace. All my life the thing of which I had been most afraid was to find myself in a position of disgrace and thereby sacrifice the sense of my own dignity. Whatwould I have left if I were deprived of my dignity? Who would I be then? A lonely ageing man of no account with a lumpy forehead, a bulbous nose and ‘doggy sideburns’ who had wasted his life on something meaningless.

I had discovered the recipe for maintaining dignity a long time before, in my youth. The magical formula proved to be simple and brief: make every possible effort to avoid surprises. This meant that I had to foresee and make provision for everything in advance. To be forearmed, to performmy duties conscientiously and not to go chasing after chimerical illusions. That was how I had lived. And what was the outcome? Afanasii Ziukin was a thief and a deceiver, a scoundrel and a state criminal. At least, that was what the people whose opinion I valued thought of me.

The sun passed its highest point in the sky and began gradually declining towards the west. I grew weary of wandering around the small glade and sat down. An intangible breeze rustled the fresh foliage; a bumblebee buzzed with a bass note among the dandelions; lacy clouds slid slowly across the azure sky.

I won’t get to sleep anyway, I thought, leaning back against the trunk of an elm.

‘Wake up, Ziukin. It’s time to go.’

I opened my eyes. The clouds were moving as unhurriedly as before, but now they were pink instead of white, while the sky had darkened. The sun had already set, which meant that I had slept until about nine o’clock at least.

‘Stop batting your eyes like that,’ Fandorin said cheerfully. ‘We’re going to storm the Hermitage.’

Erast Petrovich took off his long-skirted driver’s coat, and was left wearing a sateen waistcoat and a light-blue shirt – he was almost invisible against the thickening twilight.

We walked quickly through the empty park to the palace. When I saw the brightly lit windows of the Hermitage, I was overcome by an unutterable melancholy. The house was like a white ocean-going yacht sailing calmly and confidently through the gloom, but I, who so recently had stood on its trim deck, had fallen overboard andwas floundering among the darkwaves, and I did not even dare to cry for help.

Fandorin interrupted my mournful thoughts: ‘Whose window is that – the third from the left on the ground floor? You’re not looking in the right place. The one that is open but with no light in it?’

‘That is Mr Freyby’s room.’

‘Will you be able to climb in? All right, forward!’

We ran across the lawn, pressed ourselves against thewall and crept up to the dark open window. Erast Petrovich formed his hands into a stirrup and hoisted me up so adroitly that I was easily able to climb over the window sill. Fandorin followed me.

‘Stay here for a while. I’ll be b-back soon,’ he said

‘But what if Mr Freyby comes in?’ I asked in panic. ‘How shall I explain my presence to him?’

Fandorin looked around and picked up a bottle with brown liquid splashing about in it off the table. I thought it must be the notoriouswhisky withwhich the English butler had once regaled me.

‘Here, take this. Hit him on the head, tie him up and put a gag in his mouth – that napkin over there. There’s nothing to be done about it, Ziukin, this is an emergency. You can apologise to him later. The last thing we need now is for the Englishman to shout and raise the alarm. And stop shaking like that; I’ll be back soon.’

And indeed he did return in no more than five minutes. He was holding a travelling bag in one hand.

‘I have all the most essential items here. They have searched my room but not touched anything. But Masa is not there. I’ll go to look for him.’

I was left alone again, but not for long – the door soon opened again.

This time, however, it was not Erast Petrovich but Mr Freyby. He reached out his hand, turned a small lever on the oil lamp, and the room was suddenly bright. I blinked in confusion.

Grasping the bottle firmly, I took an uncertain step forward. The poor butler, he was not to blame for anything.

‘Good evening,’ Freyby said politely in Russian, glancing curiously at the bottle, then he added something in English: ‘I didn’t realise that you liked my whisky that much.’ He took the dictionary out of his pocket and with impressive dexterity – he had clearly developed the knack – rustled the pages and said: ‘ Ya . . . ne byl . . . soznavat . . . chto vi . . . lyubit . . . moi viski . . . tak . . . mnogo. ’