‘Was your companion Japanese?’ she asked, struck by a sudden insight. ‘The one I saw on Basmannaya Street? Is that why he kept talking about samurais and cutting out stomachs?’
‘Yes, he is my valet and closest friend. By the way, you were wrong to call us cl-clowns.’ Genji shook his head reproachfully. ‘Masa has great respect for the institution of suicide. As, indeed, do I. Otherwise I would not be here, would I?’
She rather doubted the sincerity of that last assertion – the tone in which it was made was far too flippant.
‘You don’t look as if you were particularly keen to leave this world,’ Columbine said mistrustfully, looking into the visitor’s calm eyes.
‘I assure you, Mademoiselle Columbine, that I am a desperate man, c-capable of the most extreme, quite inconceivable actions.’
Once again he spoke in a way that made it impossible to tell if he was serious or joking. But then she suddenly remembered the Doge’s story about ‘a highly interesting character’. He wasn’t like any of the other aspirants. In fact, she had never seen anyone of his type before.
‘Well, now you’re here, let’s go,’ she said coolly, so that he wouldn’t get too high an opinion of himself. ‘You still have to pass the test.’
They entered the salon just as Gdlevsky was completing his recitation and Rosencrantz was preparing for his performance.
Telling the twins apart had turned out to be quite easy. Guildenstern spoke quite faultless Russian (he had studied at a Russian grammar school) and his disposition was noticeably more cheerful. Rosencrantz was always writing something down on a thick notepad and he sighed frequently. Columbine often caught his doleful Baltic glance on her, and although her own response was uncompromising, she enjoyed this silent adoration. It was a pity that the young German’s poetry was so appallingly bad.
This time he had taken up that solemn pose again: feet in position three, the fingers of the right hand spread out like a fan, his eyes fixed on Columbine.
The pitiless Doge interrupted him after the very first stanza.
‘Thank you, Rosencrantz. You can’t say “weeping with a sighfully pure tear” in Russian, but you did do a little better today. Ladies and gentlemen! Here is the candidate for Avaddon’s place,’ he said, introducing the newcomer, who had halted in the doorway and was surveying the drawing room and the people gathered in it with a curious glance.
Everyone turned towards the candidate and he gave a light bow.
‘It is our custom to hold a kind of poetic examination,’ the Doge told him. ‘I only need to hear a few lines of a poem written by a candidate and I can tell immediately if his way lies with us or not. You write verse that is unusual for our literature, with no rhymes or rhythm, and so it is only fair if I ask you to extemporise on a theme that I set.’
‘By all means,’ Genji replied, not disconcerted in the least. ‘What theme would you l-like to suggest?’
Columbine noticed that Prospero addressed him in a rather formal tone, which was unusual in itself. This formidable gentleman had obviously made quite an impression.
The chairman paused for a long moment. Everyone held their breath and waited: they knew that in a moment he would dumbfound the self-confident novice with some paradox or sudden surprise.
And so he did. Flinging back his lacy cuff (today the Doge was dressed as a Spanish grandee, which suited his beard and long hair very well), Prospero took a red apple out of a bowl and sank his firm teeth into it with a crunch. He chewed, swallowed and glanced at Genji.
‘There is your subject.’
They all looked at each other. What kind of subject was that?
Petya whispered to Columbine: ‘He did that on purpose. Now he’ll shoot him down, just you see.’
‘A b-bitten apple, or an apple in general?’ the probationer enquired.
‘That is for you to decide.’
Prospero smiled contentedly and sat on his throne.
With a shrug of his shoulders, as if this was all the merest of trifles, Genji recited:
Everybody waited for the continuation. But none came. Then Cyrano shook his head and Kriton giggled rather loudly, although Gdlevsky nodded approvingly and the Lioness of Ecstasy even exclaimed: ‘Bravo!’
Columbine had been about to pull a disdainful face, but instead she assumed a thoughtful air. If the two leading luminaries had seen something in Prince Genji’s outlandish composition, it couldn’t be entirely irredeemable. But of course, the important opinion was the Doge’s.
Prospero walked up to Genji and shook him firmly by the hand.
‘I was not mistaken in you. Precisely so: the essence lies neither in dreary existence nor in decay following death, but in the catharsis that transforms one into the other. Precisely so! And so terse, not a single superfluous word! So help me, the Japanese have something to teach us.’
Columbine squinted sideways at Petya. He shrugged – like her, he had clearly failed to find anything exceptional in the aphorism he had just heard.
The new aspirant strolled across the salon and declared in a tone of surprise: ‘I was certain that the interview with the high priest of the suicide club p-printed in the Courier was a stupid hoax. However, the description of the way the room is furnished was exact, and the worthy Doge himself seems to have been drawn from the life. Is such a thing really possible? Did you meet with a c-correspondent, Mr Prospero? But what for?’
There was an awkward silence for, without knowing it, Genji had touched on a sore point. The calamitous article, which had expounded Prospero’s views rather precisely and even directly quoted some of his favourite maxims, had caused a real storm in the club. The Doge had formally interrogated every one of them in an attempt to discover if one of his followers had been too open with outsiders, but he had failed to identify the informant.
‘I didn’t talk to any correspondent!’ Prospero said angrily and gestured round the aspirants. ‘There’s a Judas here, among my own disciples! Either out of vanity, or for a few silver pieces, one of them has held me and our society up to the mockery of the crowd. Genji, to be quite honest, I have special hopes for you. You impressed me with your remarkable analytical abilities. With only a few scattered crumbs of information to go on, you unerringly followed the trail to the “Lovers of Death” and identified me as the leader of the club. So perhaps you will assist me to expose the mangy sheep that has insinuated itself into my flock?’
‘I expect that will not be difficult,’ said Genji, glancing round at the faces of the hushed ‘lovers’. ‘But first I shall have to g-get to know these ladies and gentlemen a little better.’
No one liked the sound of these words at all, they sounded far too menacing.
‘Only hurry,’ Kriton laughed. ‘The acquaintance might prove to be short, since we stand on the edge of a gaping grave.’
Cyrano wrinkled up his monumental nose and declaimed with a sneer:
Even prim, starchy Horatio, the bard of the anatomist’s art, who did not open his mouth very often, was outraged: ‘The last thing we need here is detectives and informers!’
Columbine suddenly felt afraid. This was a genuine revolt. Well, now the troublemakers would get what they deserved! Prospero would unleash the withering force of his wrath against the rebels.