Columbine had not noticed the young girl until Petya mentioned her, but now she found her more interesting than the other members of the club. She took envious note of the clear white skin, the fresh little face, the long wavy hair which was so blonde that in the semi-darkness it appeared white. A perfect angel from an Easter card. Lorelei Rubinstein didn’t count – she was old and fat, and an Olympian figure in any case, but in Columbine’s opinion, this nymph was clearly superfluous. Ophelia had not uttered a single word the whole time. She just stood there as if she couldn’t hear the poems or the conversations and was listening to something completely different; her wide-open eyes seemed to look straight through the other people there. What sort of ‘special position’ could she have? the new visitor thought jealously.
‘She’s strange, somehow,’ said Columbine, delivering her verdict. ‘What does he see in her?’
‘Who, the Doge?’
Petya was about to explain, but Prospero raised his hand imperiously and all talking ceased immediately.
‘Now the mystery will begin, but there is a stranger among us,’ he said, without looking at Columbine (her heart skipped a beat). ‘Who brought her?’
‘I did, Teacher,’ Petya replied anxiously. ‘She is Columbine. I vouch for her. She told me several months ago that she is weary of life and definitely wishes to die young.’
Now the Doge turned his magnetic gaze to the swooning damsel and from feeling cold, Columbine turned feverish. Oh, how his stern eyes glittered!
‘Do you write poetry?’ Prospero asked.
She nodded without speaking, afraid that her voice would tremble.
‘Recite one verse, any will do. And then I shall say if you can stay.’
I’ll muff it straight away, I know I will, Columbine thought mournfully, batting her eyelids rapidly. What shall I recite? She feverishly ran through all of her poems that she could remember and chose the one she was most proud of – ‘The Pale Prince’. It was written on the night when Masha read Rostand’s Distant Princesses and then sobbed until the morning.
The ‘Pale Prince’ was Petya, the way he had seemed to her in Irkutsk. At that time she had still been a little bit in love with Kostya Levonidi, who had been planning to propose to her (how funny it was to remember that now!) and then Petya, her dazzling Moscow Harlequin, had appeared. The poem about the ‘pale prince’ had been written to make Kostya understand that everything was over between them, that Masha Mironova would never be the same again.
Columbine hesitated, afraid that one quatrain was not enough. Perhaps she should recite a little more, to make the meaning clearer? The poem went on like this:
But thank God that she didn’t recite that part, or she would have spoiled everything. Prospero gestured for her to stop.
‘The Pale Prince, of course, is Death?’ he asked.
She nodded hastily.
‘A pale prince with green eyes . . .’ the Doge repeated. ‘An interesting image.’
He shook his head sadly and said in a quiet voice: ‘Well now, Columbine. Fate has brought you here, and fate will not be gainsaid. Stay, and do not be afraid of anything. “Death is the key that opens the doors to true happiness.” Guess who said that.’
She glanced in bewilderment at Petya, who shrugged.
‘It was a composer, the very greatest all composers,’ Prospero prompted her.
Bach was the gloomiest of all the composers that Columbine knew, and so she whispered uncertainly: ‘Is it Bach?’ And then, remembering her unfortunate gaffe with Goethe, she explained: ‘Johann-Sebastian, wasn’t it?’
‘No, it was the radiant Mozart who said it, the creator of the Requiem,’ the Doge replied and turned away.
‘That’s it, now you’re one of us,’ Petya murmured behind her back. ‘I was so nervous for you!’
He looked just as if it was his birthday. Obviously he thought that now the candidate he had proposed had passed the examination, his own status among the ‘lovers’ would be enhanced.
‘Well then,’ said Prospero, gesturing invitingly towards the table. ‘Please be seated. Let us listen to what the spirits will tell us today.’
Ophelia took the seat to the right of the Doge. The others also sat down, placing their hands on the tablecloth so that their little fingers touched each other.
‘This is a spiritualist figure,’ Petya explained. ‘It’s called “the magic wheel”.’
Spiritualist seances were known even in Irkutsk. Columbine had done a little table-spinning herself, but that had been more like a jolly game of Yuletide fortune-telling: there was always someone tittering, gasping or giggling, and Kostya always tried to squeeze her elbow or kiss her cheek under the cover of darkness.
But here everything was deadly serious. The Doge extinguished the candles, leaving only the dull glow of the brazier, so that the faces of everyone sitting there were red below and black above – as if they had no eyes.
‘Ophelia, your time has come,’ their chairman said in a deep, resonant voice. ‘Give us a sign when you hear the Beyond.’
So that’s who Ophelia is, Columbine realised. A genuine medium, and that’s why she seems so much like a sleepwalker.
The blonde nymph’s face was still and absolutely expressionless, her eyes were closed and only her lips were trembling slightly, as if she were soundlessly whispering some incantation.
Suddenly Columbine felt a tremor run across her fingers and a cold draught blow on her cheeks. Ophelia raised her long eyelashes and threw her head back, and her pupils were so wide that her eyes were completely black.
‘I see you are ready,’ the Doge declared in the same solemn tone. ‘Summon Moretta to us.’
Columbine remembered that was the name of the girl whose vacancy she had filled. The poor creature who had shot herself together with that other one, Lycanthrope.
Ophelia was absolutely still for a few seconds, and then she said: ‘Yes . . . Yes . . . I hear her . . . She is far away, but coming closer every moment . . . It is I, Moretta. I have come. What do you want to know?’ she suddenly said in a quite different voice – a low, breathy contralto.
‘That’s Moretta’s voice!’ Lorelei Rubinstein exclaimed. ‘Do you hear?’
The people at the table stirred and their chairs creaked, but Prospero shook his head impatiently and everyone was still again.
‘Moretta, my girl, have you found your happiness?’ he asked. ‘No . . . I don’t know . . . It all feels so strange . . . It’s dark here, I can’t see anything. But there is someone beside me, someone who touches me with his hands and breathes in my face . . .’
‘It is he! The Eternal Bridegroom!’ Lorelei whispered passionately.
‘Quiet!’ the bookkeeper Caliban bellowed at her.
The Doge’s voice was gentle, almost unctuous.
‘You are not yet accustomed to the World Beyond, it is hard for you to speak. But you know what you must tell us. Who will be next? Who should expect the Sign?’
The silence was so intense that they could hear the coals crackling in the brazier.
Ophelia didn’t say anything. Columbine noticed that Petya Lileiko’s little finger was trembling rapidly – he was sitting on her right – and she suddenly started trembling herself: what if the spirit of this Moretta were to name her, the new aspirant? But her sense of grievance was stronger than her fear. How unjust that would be! Before she had really even become a member of the club, before she had really understood anything properly. There, take that!