R. Morris - The Cleansing Flames

He turned, at last, from the memorial table to the coffin, as if to demand an answer. And in the moment of turning his head to make that confrontation, he thought of all the other confrontations with death that Porfiry Petrovich had forced on him: heads severed from their bodies, naked corpses laid out on slabs, and most recently the drenched and partly saponified corpse of Pseldonimov.

At first, he could not understand what he saw. The body in the coffin was that of a woman, a tiny, old woman, as frail as the long stems of the roses with which it was strewn. Virginsky laughed out loud once in savage delight. He turned to the congregation, to see if they were in on the joke. From the stern faces that met his gaze, it seemed that they were not.

Virginsky shook his head in amazement. Surely they had noticed that the body in the coffin was not that of Porfiry Petrovich? And then it occurred to him: he was the only one there who had expected it to be Porfiry.

Virginsky looked down at the old woman again. She was dressed like a doll in a costume that was too big for her, and which appeared never to have been worn before. Her tiny body was swamped by an elaborate gown of the kind worn by ladies of the Court, encrusted with braiding and padded with quilting. Banks of pearls concealed her neck. As if to draw attention away from the deep wrinkles of her face, her head was adorned with a high, crescent-shaped kokoshnik headdress, so that her head seemed massive in comparison to the rest of her body. Virginsky’s eye was drawn to the paper crown that had been placed beneath the kokoshnik . On it were written the words of the Trisagion: Holy God, Holy and Mighty, Holy and Immortal, have mercy on us.

For the first time, he wondered who she was. Something about her extraordinarily diminutive structure seemed familiar. He thought of Tatyana Ruslanovna’s words to him just before they entered the church: Someone you killed, that’s all .

Had she said it simply to make him think of Porfiry Petrovich? She knew as well as he did that Porfiry was not really dead, and that therefore Virginsky could not in any way be said to have killed him.

Indeed, there was no one whose death could be laid at his door. Unless one counted Dolgoruky .

Of course. Now he recognised the woman in the coffin as Princess Dolgorukaya, Dolgoruky’s mother. So Princess Dolgorukaya had died. But how could he be held responsible for her death?

The chanting had come to a stop. Virginsky turned to face the sea of candle flame. Without the auditory accompaniment, the light seemed wan and almost incomplete. The faces of the mourners were turned towards him, in anxious expectation. He saw a number of men in police and gendarme uniforms assembled at the front, forming a kind of human barricade around one part of the congregation. The officers shifted nervously. Among them he recognised Major Verkhotsev, whose expression was wary, although again Virginsky noticed the unmistakable presence of pity. Verkhotsev was standing at the head of the bank of men; immediately next to him, to Virginsky’s surprise, was Totsky. If it was not such an absurd idea, he might have thought the two of them had just been in conference.

Virginsky cast a glance towards the back of the cathedral, seeking out Tatyana Ruslanovna, as if the sight of her face would explain everything. But instead of an explanation, he saw only contempt.

He turned back to the cordon of tense, bristling uniforms. They seemed to be closing in on him, by slow, measured steps. In the shift and bob of the men, he caught sight of the one man who was truly responsible for the terrible predicament he found himself in, the Tsar whose jealous retention of autocratic powers had driven ‘our people’ to the only reasonable course of action open to them: revolution. Everything followed from that, including his own infiltration of the movement, and the ruse that had been required to make that possible.

For the first time he saw that everything that men like Botkin and Tatiscev had argued was not only right, it was also necessary. There could be no justice without social revolution. And the new society could not be founded until the old one had been destroyed. The troubling duality of his conflicted morality was all at once resolved. His convictions clarified. He remembered watching the fire on Alexandrovsky Prospect, and how he had come close to welcoming his own annihilation.

He was a dead man already. He saw now that he had been betrayed by Totsky, who had no doubt informed on him to ensure his destruction.

As always with Virginsky, there was something inescapably personal in this too. Again he looked for Tatyana Ruslanovna. The look of contempt was still in place. She gave a nod that was charged with challenge and mockery. Perhaps that was all it came down to, in the end: her nod propelled him.

He took one step towards the cluster of uniforms. He was aware that his movement seemed to provoke an agitated stir.

A second step, and there was a shout. He had the sense of a mass of blue rushing at him, a wave of twill that hit him with a shocking force. He landed heavily, his head thrown back, his eyes open on the highest tier of the iconostasis, the symbol of the entrance to Heaven. His skull hit the ground with a sickening crack. He felt the glass phials pocketed around his body pop and crumple, heard their brittle splintering, felt here and there the points of their tiny shards prick him through the material of the corset.

He braced himself for the end. But the explosion did not come. Above the screams of havoc filling the church, he thought he heard the sound of broken laughter.

The room that Virginsky was taken to resembled a well-appointed drawing room. He was not held under any kind of restraint but was treated with the utmost civility by Major Verkhotsev and his subordinates. He was given tea, which made him realise how hungry he was, and so he was also brought a meal of cabbage soup, sturgeon and potatoes, accompanied by a palatable French wine. He was rather given the impression that whatever he asked for would be provided.

‘Where is Porfiry Petrovich?’ asked Virginsky, pushing his empty plate away from him. ‘I insist on Porfiry Petrovich being present during my. . interview.’

Major Verkhotsev rolled a waxed moustache between thumb and forefinger. ‘I am afraid that won’t be possible. There was an accident, you see. Your little prank backfired.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘The prank you and Porfiry cooked up between you. It was a very stupid thing you did, you know. And dangerous. To discharge a gun at close range.’

‘But the cartridge was stuffed with a wad of paper. Porfiry prepared it himself.’

‘Something went wrong. There must have been a foreign particle lodged in the chamber. Porfiry Petrovich sustained a slight graze.’

‘A graze!’

‘Which became infected. The infection took hold.’

‘What are you saying? He is not dead? Not really?’

Major Verkhotsev blinked once before continuing: ‘It has not come to that. Yet. However, I warn you, his doctor, Dr Pervoyedov, is far from hopeful. He advises us to prepare for the worst.’

‘No! Porfiry is as strong as a bear. He will not succumb to a graze !’ Virginsky was on his feet. ‘I must go to him.’

‘There will be time for that. First, we need to have a little chat. Please, sit down. You will be taken to see him in due course.’

Virginsky sank back into his seat. ‘Taken? Am I to consider myself under arrest?’

‘One cannot simply overlook the fact that you tried to assassinate the Tsar.’

‘Did I?’

‘That’s certainly how it seems.’

‘But I did not even know that the Tsar was in the church. He was concealed by your men.’ Virginsky hurriedly asserted his lie, the desperation rising in his voice.