R. Morris - The Gentle Axe

“His nibs is out of sorts,” Zakhar confided to himself as he carried the tray away, swallowing down the anticipatory build of saliva. “Well, I have done my duty by him,” he decided. This was the license he needed to devour the remains.

Porfiry had not asked for wine to be brought. The month before Christmas was, after all, a period of fasting in the Orthodox calendar. But he had consented to a pot of strong black coffee. And although he relinquished the food, Porfiry let out a warning yelp when Zakhar threatened to take the coffee. That was the only communication he had all evening with the human being who shared his apartment.

Spread out in front of him were the books he had redeemed from Lyamshin’s. He also had the French book that Goryanchikov had been working on, together with Goryanchikov’s unfinished translation. He felt that he should continue to examine this text for its discrepancies with its source. But a sullen lethargy possessed him. Perhaps it was not lethargy; he had after all been forbidden from working on the Goryanchikov case. Perhaps it was submission. At any rate, he was beginning to feel the over-stimulating effects of the coffee. Why had he let Zakhar take the sturgeon away? He lit a cigarette to quell the hunger pangs and aid his concentration. But even smoking, he was not up to conducting a close textual comparison between a French philosophy book and its handwritten Russian translation.

He halfheartedly turned to the other philosophical titles, the Russian editions of The Cycle of Life, Force and Matter, Superstition and Science, and Natural Dialectics. But his study of these books only went as far as the title pages, where he discovered that they were all published by the same house, Athene. There was a St. Petersburg address given: 22 Nevsky Prospect.

But then he surrendered completely to his mood and turned to the other book. He was aware that he had been avoiding this book, aware too that it disgusted him, but equally aware that he had wanted to look at it ever since it had been put into his hands by the pawnbroker. He was salivating every bit as copiously as he knew Zakhar to have been.

Of course, he could not now pretend, not since his interview with Liputin, that his reasons for looking at One Thousand and One Maidenheads had anything to do with the investigation. But in a way, that interview freed him. He was like the officer who had appropriated Ratazyayev’s suitcase to store paperwork. The books no longer counted as evidence. They had belonged to a man who was now dead. It would not be frowned upon if he used them for his own purposes.

The title page of this book gave no address, only the imprint, Priapos, and the name-or rather pseudonym-of the translator. An inscription read: “Translated from the French by ‘Alcibiades.’”

The pages of the book were uncut. And he found himself strangely reluctant to take his paper knife to them. It was not, however, the kind of book that required its pages to be cut for its qualities to be appreciated. At a little under two hundred pages long, Porfiry calculated an average of five maidenheads per page. There was not much room left for narrative complexity, or even continuity. And yet even from the truncated version he allowed himself to read, Porfiry found that the author had quite cleverly constructed the story to avoid monotony and build interest. Although the first maidenhead was breached on page one, the episode itself covered several pages, as the erstwhile maiden quickly acquired a taste for the activity responsible for the loss of her virginity. For the whole of the first third of the book, as far as Porfiry could tell, all the deflowerings occurred consecutively. By the middle of the book, it seemed the hero was able, somehow, to increase the number of virgins who were willing to share his bed at any one time. The final climactic episode took place in a private girls’ boarding school, when the remaining tally of three hundred and twenty-one maidenheads was accounted for in one endless white night and twelve exhausting pages; the final maidenhead being that of the school’s headmistress, a sixty-three-year-old virgin, who wept uncontrollably at the discovery of what she had missed out on for so many years.

So engrossed was he in this touching denouement that Porfiry parted the last pair of uncut pages, so that he could continue reading what was written in their closed faces. His eye was caught by a folded sheet of paper that had been slipped between the pages and was adhering to the side that he was interested in reading. He widened the paper sheath and teased out the sheet. Unfolding it, he read the following document, drawn up by hand:

Being a legally binding and legitimate contract entered into freely and willingly by the parties of both parts, the undersigned:

Pavel Pavlovich Virginsky.

[followed by Virginsky’s signature]

Stepan Sergeyevich Goryanchikov.

[followed by Goryanchikov’s signature]

On the twentieth day of the eleventh month of the year of 1866, the party of the first part Pavel Pavlovich Virginsky confers ownership of his soul on the party of the second part Stepan Sergeyevich Goryanchikov, unconditionally and in perpetuity; excepting upon the death of Stepan Sergeyevich Goryanchikov whereupon ownership shall be transferred to the heirs of Stepan Sergeyevich Goryanchikov; or if there are no heirs existent ownership of the soul of Pavel Pavlovich Virginsky shall revert to the abovementioned Pavel Pavlovich Virginsky provided Stepan Sergeyevich Goryanchikov has not otherwise disposed of said possession being the eternal soul of Pavel Pavlovich Virginsky through his last will and testament or any other legally binding document.

Signed before the presence of witnesses:

Konstantin Kirillovich Govorov.

[followed by Govorov’s signature]

Alexei Spiridonovich Ratazyayev.

[followed by Ratazyayev’s signature]

" So you have come back to us, mein Herr !”

Porfiry nodded but did not meet Fräulein Keller’s eye. He could sense her mockery without having to look for it.

“And you have removed your lovely fur coat this time! Will you have some champagne, I wonder?”

Again Porfiry nodded without speaking.

“This time, perhaps, you are not here in an official capacity?” teased Fräulein Keller as she served him the chilled wine.

“Has Lilya Semenova been back here since my last visit?”

“No, not Lilya, we have seen the last of Lilya. But there are other girls, mein Herr. You would like to spend some time with Raya again? Or perhaps Raya was not to your taste?”

“Do you not have anyone younger?”

He felt Fräulein Keller’s laughter resonate with his own corruption. He was sickened by it but joined in. “We don’t have any virgins, if that’s what you mean!”

“Lilya was the youngest of your girls?”

“Lilya, oh, Lilya, it always is Lilya with you! But even Lilya, you know, is not a virgin. And what is it you Russians say? Better a dove on the plate than a wood grouse on the roof?”

“That is not quite right, but all the same, if I wanted a really young girl, a virgin, is there someone you know who can arrange it for me?”

“What would you have me do? Snatch a girl off the street?”

“Is that how it’s done?”

“There is also your saying about curious Varvara’s nose, no?”

“Curious Varvara’s nose was torn off.”

“That’s right. I would not wish that should happen to you.”

“Do you know a man called Konstantin Kirillovich Govorov?”

“In my business one hears so many names.”

“How about Ratazyayev?”

Fräulein Keller shook her head. “No. I think I would remember that one.”

“Do you know the old prostitute Zoya Nikolaevna, who looks after Lilya’s child?”