Boris Akunin - All the World's a Stage

Eliza noticed that Fandorin shuddered and even squirmed at those words. Perhaps he was no stranger to modesty after all? How sweet!

‘Weekends are cancelled!’ Stern boomed. ‘We are going to rehearse every day!’

He was strange, this Erast Petrovich Fandorin. During the days that followed Eliza became more and more convinced of that. He definitely liked her, there was no doubt about it. But then, she had not often encountered men who looked at her without desire. Except for someone like Mephistov, who seemed genuinely to hate beauty. Or Noah Noaevich, with his obsession for the theatre – he was capable of seeing an actress only as an actress, a means for the realisation of his creative concept.

Men who lusted after a woman behaved in one of two ways. They either flung themselves directly into the attack. Or – if they were of a proud disposition – they pretended to remain indifferent, but nonetheless tried hard to make an impression.

At first Fandorin seemed to be trying to appear indifferent. During the rehearsal, or rather, during the break, he struck up a trivial conversation, with a disinterested air. Something about Queen Gertrude’s goblet and the keys to the properties room. Eliza replied politely, smiling inwardly. How funny he is, thinking he can fool me with this twaddle. He just wants to hear the sound of my voice , she thought. And she also thought that he was very handsome. And touching. With the way he glanced out from under his thick eyebrows – and blushed. She had always found men who still possessed the ability to blush, even at a mature age, very appealing.

She had already anticipated that he would break off the conversation, as if he was bored with it, and would walk off with a casual air, but would be sure to squint back at her to see what she was thinking. Had she been impressed or not?

But Fandorin behaved differently. He suddenly stopped questioning her about which members of the company had access to the properties room, blushed even more deeply, raised his eyes resolutely and said:

‘I won’t try to pretend. I’m a poor actor. And I think you cannot be fooled in any case. I am asking you about one thing, and thinking about something completely different. I think I am in love with you. And it is not simply that you are talented, beautiful and all the rest of it. There are special reasons why I have lost my head… It doesn’t matter what they are… I know very well that you are spoilt for admirers and accustomed to ad-doration. It is torment for me to jostle in the crowd of your worshippers. I cannot compete with the freshness of a young hussar, the wealth of Mr Shustrov, the talents of Noah Noaevich, the good looks of the leading men, etc., etc. I had only one chance of attracting your interest – to write a play. For me this was a feat requiring a greater effort than it cost Commodore Robert Peary to conquer the North Pole. If not for the constant g-giddiness that has not left me since the moment we first met, it is most unlikely that I would ever have written a drama, and especially one in verse. Being genuinely in love works miracles. But I wish to warn you…’

Here Eliza interrupted him, alarmed by that ‘But’.

‘How well you speak!’ she said agitatedly, taking hold of his hot hand. ‘No one ever talks to me so simply and seriously. I can’t give you an answer now, I have to puzzle out my own feelings! Swear that you will always be so open with me. And for my part, I promise you the same!’

It seemed to her that her tone and her words had been correct: sincerity in combination with tenderness and a quite clear, but at the same time chaste, invitation to develop their relationship. But he understood her differently and smiled ironically with just his lips.

‘Are we going to be “just friends”? Well, that is the kind of answer I expected. I give you my word that I shall never burden you again with my sentimental c-confessions.’

‘But I didn’t mean it in that way at all!’ she exclaimed in alarm, fearing that this dry stick would keep his promise, that would be just like him. ‘I have friends without you. Vasya Gullibin, Sima Aphrodisina, Georges Nonarikin – he’s a ridiculous man, but selflessly devoted and noble. But all that’s not the thing… I can’t be absolutely candid with them. They’re actors too, and actors are a special kind of people…’

He listened without interrupting. But the way he looked sent an ecstatic tremor through her, like at the most exalted moments when she was onstage. Tears welled up in her eyes, and elation filled her breast.

‘I’m tired of playing parts all the time, of always being an actress! Here I am talking to you and I think: a dialogue like Elena Andreeva’s with Dr Astrov in the third act of Uncle Vanya , only better, much better, because almost nothing breaks through to the outside. That’s the way to keep things from now on: fire on the inside, and on the outside – a crust of ice. My God, how afraid I am of turning into Sarah Bernhardt!’

‘I b-beg your pardon?’ His blue eyes opened wide in surprise.

‘My perpetual nightmare. They say that the great Sarah Bernhardt is never natural. That is the principle of her existence. At home she walks about in a Pierrot costume. She lies down to sleep in a coffin, not a bed, in order to imbue herself with the tragic spirit of existence. She is entirely feigned passion, entirely affectation. That is the terrible danger lying in wait for every actress – to lose oneself, to turn into a shadow, into a mask!’

And she burst into tears, putting her hands over her face. She wept bitterly and in earnest – until her nose turned red and her eyes puffed up – but she still kept glancing through her fingers to see how he was looking at her.

Oh, and how he was looking! She wouldn’t barter a look like that for an ovation from a full house!

Of course, the relationship could not remain at this stage for long. Friendship with a handsome man is something out of a romantic ballad. Such things don’t happen in real life.

On the third day, following the regular rehearsal, Eliza went to his house, to a small annexe hidden away in an old, quiet side street. The pretext for the visit was a respectable one: Erast had suggested that she choose a kimono for her role, as well as some fans and some other Japanese trinkets, of which he had a huge number at home. She didn’t have anything of that sort in mind at all, word of honour. She was simply curious to take a look at how this mysterious man lived. A house can tell a great deal about its inhabitant.

And the house did, indeed, tell her a great deal about Erast Petrovich – almost too much, in fact, she couldn’t make sense of all of it at once. There was ideal order everywhere here. You could even say there was lifeless order, as is often the way with inveterate, pedantic bachelors. There were no traces at all of permanent female inhabitation, but here and there Eliza’s keen glance spotted little bits and pieces that looked like keepsakes from previous passions: a miniature of a young blonde in the depths of a bookcase; an elegant comb of the kind that was fashionable about twenty years ago; a little white glove, seemingly forgotten under a mirror. Well, so he had not lived like a monk all his life, that was only natural.

There were no awkward silences. Firstly, in the company of this man, it was not uncomfortable in the least to say nothing. Erast Petrovich had a quite fantastic mastery of the difficult art of the pause; he simply looked at her and she no longer felt bored. And secondly, there were so many interesting things in the house, she wanted to ask him about everything, and he gladly started telling her, after which the conversation moved on of its own accord, in any direction.