‘Blind chance,’ Prospero declared triumphantly. ‘Nothing has keener sight than blind chance! It is the will of the Supreme Judge. A spiritualist seance is an unnecessary affectation, an entertainment for bored, hysterical ladies. But here everything will be simple and clear, without words.’
And, so saying, he jerked the shawl off the table. Something brightly coloured and round glinted with a hundred brilliant points of light. A roulette wheel! An ordinary roulette wheel, the kind to be seen in any casino.
However, when the seekers crowded round the table and examined the wheel more closely, it transpired that this wheel of fortune had one unusual feature: where the double zero ought to have been, there was a white skull and crossbones.
‘This invention is called the “Wheel of Death”. Now everyone will be able to ascertain his own relationship with the Eternal Bride,’ said Prospero. ‘And here is your new medium.’ He opened his hand, and there, glittering on his palm, was a small golden ball. ‘This whimsical piece of metal, which at first glance would not appear to be subject to anybody’s will, will become the messenger of love.’
‘But surely messages can be sent by other means too?’ the Lioness of Ecstasy asked in anxious alarm. ‘Or can it now only be through the roulette wheel?’
She’s worried about her Signs, Columbine guessed. After all, the Lioness and the Tsarevich have established their own secret relationship. I wonder what it is. What kind of Signs does he send her?
‘I am not Death’s personal interpreter,’ the Doge said in a stern, sad voice. ‘I do not have absolute mastery of her language. How would I know what means she might choose to inform her Chosen Ones that their feelings are reciprocated? But this means of communicating with fate appears irrefutable to me. It is similar to the means used by the ancients to elicit from the oracle the will of Morta, the Goddess of Death.’
The Lioness of Ecstasy seemed completely satisfied with this answer, and she walked away from the table with an air of superiority.
‘Every one of you will have an equal chance,’ Prospero continued. ‘Anyone who feels ready, whose spirit is sufficiently strong, may try his or her luck today. The lucky player who throws the ball so that it lands on the death’s head is the Chosen One.’
Cyrano asked: ‘What if everyone tries their luck and no one wins? Do we carry on spinning the wheel all night long?’
‘Indeed, the probability of success is not very high.’ Prospero agreed. ‘One chance out of thirty-eight. If no one is lucky, then Death has not yet made her choice and the game will be continued the next time. Agreed?’
The first to respond was Caliban.
‘An excellent idea, Teacher! At least everything will be fair, with no favourites. That Ophelia of yours couldn’t stand me. I’d have been waiting till the end of the century with her seances. And by the way, some people who arrived after me have already scooped the prize. But now everything will be fair. Fortune can’t be duped! Only you ought to let us keep on trying our luck until we get a result.’
‘It will be as I have said,’ the Doge interrupted him sternly. ‘Death is not a bride who can be dragged to the altar by force.’
‘But surely only someone who is morally prepared can throw the ball? Participation in the game is not compulsory?’ Kriton asked in a quiet voice. When the Doge nodded in agreement, he declared in relief: ‘I’d really had quite enough of all that spiritualist wailing. The roulette is quicker, and there are no doubts.’
‘I think the idea of this game of chance is vulgar,’ Gdlevsky said with a shrug. ‘Death is not a croupier in a white shirt-front. Her Signs must be more poetic and exalted. But we can spin the little ball round and round to titillate our nerves. Why not?’
Lorelei exclaimed passionately: ‘You are right, my radiant boy. This device does belittle the majesty of Death. But there is one thing you have not taken into account. Death is no snob, and he will talk to anyone who is in love with him in a language that she can understand. Let them spin their wheel, what does that matter to you and me?’
Columbine noticed that Caliban, who envied both of the poetical luminaries and was jealous of their relationship with the Doge, cringed at these words.
The anatomist Horatio cleared his throat, adjusted his pince-nez and enquired in a businesslike voice: ‘Very well, let us assume that one of us has landed on the skull. Then what? What action, so to speak, is taken after that? Does the lucky winner immediately go dashing off to hang himself or drown himself ? Surely you agree that performing this act requires a certain degree of preparation? But if it is postponed until the next morning, then weakness may stir in a person’s soul. Would it not be an insult to Death and all of us if her Chosen One were to . . . mmm . . . leave her standing at the altar? Pardon me for being so direct, but I am not entirely sure of all our members.’
‘Are you . . . Are you alluding to me?’ Petya cried out in a trembling voice. ‘How dare you! Just because I have been in the club for a long time and am still alive, it doesn’t mean that I am avoiding it or playing the coward. I have been waiting for a message from the spirits! And I’m willing to spin the roulette wheel first!’
Petya’s emotional outburst took Columbine by surprise – she had imagined that the anatomist’s thrust was directed against her. But if the cap fits . . . She had just that moment imagined that she would have to die today, and the thought had been so unbearable that she had started trembling in fear.
Prospero raised his hand to call for silence.
‘Do not be concerned, I have taken care of everything.’ He pointed to the door. ‘Through there, in the study, there is a glass of malmsey. And dissolved in the wine is cyanide, the most noble of poisons. The Chosen One will drain the wedding cup, then walk along the street to the boulevard, sit on a bench, and a quarter of an hour later he or she will fall into a quiet sleep. It is a good way to depart. With no pain and no regrets.’
‘That’s a different matter,’ said Horatio, chewing on his lips. ‘In that case I’m in favour.’
The twins exchanged glances and Guildenstern spoke for both of them: ‘Yes, we like this method better than spiritualism. Mathematical Wahrscheinlichkeit1 is more serious than the voices of the spirits.’
Someone touched Columbine’s elbow. Turning round, she saw Genji.
‘How do you like Prospero’s invention?’ he asked in a low voice. ‘You’re the only one who hasn’t s-said anything.’
‘I don’t know. I feel like all the others.’
It was strange – never before had she felt so alive as during these moments that might be the last before her death.
‘Prospero is a genuine magician,’ Columbine whispered excitedly. ‘Who else could fill our souls with this tremulous, all-embracing rapture of existence? “All that threatens ruin is fraught with delight for the mortal heart.” Oh, how true that is! “Perhaps the pledge of immortality”!’
‘You mean to say that if your ball lands on the skull, you will d-dutifully drink that lousy muck?’
Columbine imagined the treacherous wine flowing in a rivulet of fire down her throat and into her body, and she shuddered. And the most terrible thing would be to get through those final fifteen minutes, with your heart still beating and your mind still wakeful, but with no way back, because you are already a living corpse. Who would find the dead body on the bench, and when? And what if it was sitting there slumped over with its eyes goggling and saliva dribbling from its open mouth?
She imagined it so vividly that it set her lips trembling and her eyelashes fluttering.
‘Don’t be afraid,’ Genji whispered, squeezing her elbow to reassure her. ‘You won’t land on the skull.’