Alexei Tolstoy - Cagliostro

"Do not move, concentrate, follow my instructions… I begin," Cagliostro said imperatively, took a long stiletto from the little table, entered the circle and traced the great sign of Makropozopus. Standing inside the circle, he threw up his arms, and his deeply lined face with the drooping nose turned to stone.

Behind his back Alexei heard the sweet sounds of the mandolin. "I am locked in. I am securely protected by all the signs,

I am strong. I order," spoke Cagliostro in a sing-song voice, which mounted and mounted in volume. "O spirits of the air, Sylphs, I call you in the name of the Inexpressible which is pronounced as the word Esha… Do what you must…"

Alexei stared at the candle-lit haughty face of Praskovia Pavlovna, proudly set on the tall neck. In that minute he remembered all the anguish of his dreamings, all the longing of his sleepless nights, and now her face, so beloved only yesterday, appeared frightening, hurtful, feverishly sallow like an illness. However, feeling that he should obey just the same, he looked down from the face to Praskovia Pavlovna's bared shoulders, and forced himself to picture her as told. The blood rushed to his face. He felt a stab of shame and a sharp pain in his chest.

When Cagliostro uttered the word Esha, the candle-flames began to waver, and a whiff of rancid air ran through the room. Alexei dug his fingers into the arms of his chair. Cagliostro continued in an ever stronger voice:

"Spirits of the earth, Gnomussi, I call you in the name of the Inexpressible which is pronounced as the syllable El. Do what you must."

He raised the stiletto and lowered it, and suddenly the whole house shook as from an earthquake, the crystal chandelier tinkled, doors banged everywhere in the house, the door of the book-case flew open and a book fell out. Cagliostro continued:

"Spirits of the waters, Nymphs, I call you in the name of the Inexpressible which is pronounced as the sound Ra… Come and do what you must…"

At these words Alexei heard the distant sound of the surf and never taking his eyes off Praskovia Pavlovna noticed to his horror that her features were becoming hazy and elusive…

"Spirits of the fire," Cagliostro now spoke in a thunderous voice. "The mighty and the wilful, I call you in the name of the Inexpressible which is pronounced as the letter Y. Spirits of the fire, Salamanders, I call you and adjure you with the sign of Solomon to obey and do what you must…" He raised both arms and strained upward on tiptoe in extreme tension. "Do what you must according to the laws of nature, without digressing from the form, without mocking and without breach of your obedience to me…"

Whereupon, a soundless, dancing flame ran round the carved frame, it was so bright that the candle-flames blushed, and all of a sudden blinding rays of light started from Praskovia Pavlovna's image. The herbs in the copper bowl caught fire. Maria's voice, quavering and feeble, sang something not Russian behind Alexei.

But before she had finished singing, Alexei cried out wildly: Praskovia Pavlovna, freeing herself, released her head from the canvas and unsealed her lips.

"Give me your hand," she said in a thin, cold and spiteful voice.

In the ensuing silence, Alexei heard the mandolin fall on the floor with a thump, Maria's quick sigh, and Cagliostro's wheezing breath.

"Give me your hand, I said, and I shall be free," said Praskovia Pavlovna.

"Your hand, give her your hand!" cried Cagliostro.

As in a trance Alexei went to the portrait. Praskovia Pavlovna quickly thrust out her small hand and gripped Alexei's with cold, dry fingers. He sprang back and she, pulled along by him, stepped out of the portrait and jumped down on to the carpet.

This was a thin, very beautiful and posturing woman of the medium height. Her movements were somewhat erratic like the flight of a bat. She ran up to the pier-glass and, looking at herself this way and that, spoke as she patted her hair in place:

"Surprising… Was I asleep or what? What a sallow colour! And my gown all crumpled… The cut is funny too, too tight in the chest… Oh dear, I can't remember rightly… I've forgotten… (And she rubbed her eyes.) I've forgotten everything…"

Holding up her full skirt with the tips of her fingers, she walked up and down the room, and then brought her dark, lustreless eyes to rest on Alexei. Slowly she smiled, revealing her small, sharp teeth and pale gums, and took his arm.

"You look at me so strangely, you frighten me," she said with a coy little laugh, and drew him to the balcony door. "We must have a talk."

When they left the room, Cagliostro hugged himself under his fur-lined overcoat and laughed.

"That was an excellent cadaver," he said, his whole body shaking with laughter. Then, he turned on his heels and, no longer laughing, fixed his stare on Maria. "Crying, are you?" She quickly brushed away her tears and, rising from her chair, stood before her husband with lowered head. "Even this has not convinced you of my enormous power over dead and living nature, isn't it so?" Without lifting her head Maria glanced at her husband with obstinate hatred. The fright she had gone through and the aversion she felt distorted her sweet face. "And your Prince Charming chose to find consolation with that nauseating cadaver and not you."

"You will answer for practising black magic on Judgement Day," Maria said in a low yet firm voice.

At this Cagliostro turned quite purple, pulled his hands out from under his overcoat, and glowered at her ferociously from under his bushy eyebrows. Maria, however, stood perfectly still before him, and he said with utmost unctuousness:

"For three years, madam, I have been patiently waiting for your love without resorting to any art at all, while you have nothing but escape on your ungrateful little mind. You should not let my patience run thin."

"You have no power over my love anyway," Maria retorted. "You can't make me love you…"

"Yes, I can." Maria smirked at this, and instantly the blood rushed to his eyes. "I shall seal you into a little phial, madam, and carry you about in my pocket."

"Just the same you have no power over my love," Maria repeated. "If I survive I'll give my love to another man, never to you."

"This time you've said too much," muttered Cagliostro and snatched up the stiletto from the table, but in the nick of time Margadon, who until then had been standing motionless behind his back, sprang forward and caught hold of his hand with amazing agility. Cagliostro growled, hit Margadon on the face with his left hand, flung away the stiletto, noisily exhaled a chestful of air and strode out of the room.

Alexei with the thing that had a likeness to a woman and was addressed as Praskovia Pavlovna by him, walked along the path across the lawn to the ponds. The air was damp. The moon had risen over the garden, and its greyish light illumined the whole of the wide lawn. Spider webs, already stretched by their busy weavers, glinted here and there in the dark-blue grass. The flowers made whitish blots, a copious dew had fallen and the drops sparkled prettily. In the distance beyond the ponds the vapour rose in a silvery halo.

Alexei walked without speaking, clenching his teeth and staring under his feet. Praskovia Pavlovna talked without a pause as she looked at the silver ball of the moon hanging over the lush greenery.

"Ah, the moon, the moon! Alexis, how insensitive you are to this magic!"

The words her cold thin voice dropped were like bits of glass, the swish of her silk skirt scraped at Alexei's nerves unbearably with its whistling sound, making him clench his teeth. His heart felt like a heavy lump of ice. It did not surprise him that walking arm in arm with him was something which an hour ago had lived only in his imagination. This jabbering, posturing creature in the full-skirted gown with a narrow bodice, pale-faced from the moonlight with deep shadows in the eye hollows, seemed as incorporeal to him as his dream. And in vain he told himself again and again: "Gratify your desire, come on, she's yours to enjoy…"-he simply could not overcome his aversion.