I assume, Vissarion Vissarionovich, that it will not be difficult for you to check the correctness of the information adduced by the Stammerer through your own professional connections, but I do not have the slightest doubt concerning its authenticity – it was enough for me to see the Doge’s response. He covered his face with his hands, sobbed several times and generally looked pitiful in the extreme. If the aspirants had been shown their godlike Teacher at that moment, it would have caused a real furore. I remember thinking: It is beyond all understanding how Death could choose a sniveller like this as her instrument! Surely a more worthy helper could have been found? I even felt sorry for her, the poor noseless creature.
There was another lengthy pause. The Doge carried on sobbing and blowing his nose, and the Stammerer waited for him to pull himself together. Eventually Blagovolsky (how strange it feels for me to call him that) said: ‘Are you from the police? Yes, of course, how else could you have found out . . . But then, no, you can’t be from the police – you wouldn’t have toyed with Death so lightly when you spun the drum of the Bulldog. It’s my revolver, after all, and the bullets in it were real, I ought to know. Who are you? By the way, would you like to sit down?’ He indicated a heavy oak armchair facing the desk.
The Stammerer shook his head, laughed and said: ‘Well, let’s just say that I represent the secret club of “Lovers of Life”. Consider that I have been sent to inspect your establishment – to see if you are breaking any of the rules, not playing fair. I am resolutely opposed to suicide, with the exception of certain special cases when to leave this life is not really suicide at all. At the same time, unlike the fathers of the Christian church, I believe that every man is free to do as he wishes with his own life, and if he has decided to destroy himself, then that is his right. But only if, Sergei Irinarkhovich, the fatal decision was really taken independently, with no urging or compulsion. It is quite a different matter when someone else soaps the noose for an individual who is highly impressionable or easily influenced, especially someone very young, or helpfully hands them the revolver, or sets out the cup of poison.’
‘Oh, how mistaken you are about me!’ the Doge cried out in extreme agitation, interrupting the Stammerer (who, as it happens, had not stammered even once in the course of the above speech). ‘I am a weak, sinful man! Yes I am terribly afraid of Death, she petrifies me! More than that, I hate her! She is my very worst enemy. I am scorched and poisoned forever by the foul stench that she has breathed into my face three times. No doubt you were only speaking figuratively about the “Lovers of Life”, but if such an organisation really did exist, I would be its most fanatical member!’
The Stammerer shook his head incredulously. ‘Really? Then how am I to explain your activities?’
‘By this very thing, my dear sir! Explain them by this very thing! I have entered into single combat with the cruel, ravenous monster that has been abducting the purest and most precious of society’s children. In recent times how many people, mostly young and unspoiled, have been taking their own lives! This is a terrible degenerative disease of the soul, a gift to us from a jaded and faithless Europe. I do not destroy my disciples, as you imagined on the basis of external appearances. I do not kill tender young souls, I try to save them!’ He jerked his chin nervously. ‘Listen, would you not like to sit down? I have arthritis, it’s devilish uncomfortable for me to hold my head back all the time.’
‘You chose a strange way of saving delicate young souls,’ said the Stammerer, sitting down in the armchair.
‘Certainly it is strange! But effective, very effective. My club, the “Lovers of Death” is a kind of clinic for the mentally ill, and I am like the psychiatrist. After all, I do not accept as members romantically inclined youths who have succumbed to fashionable influences and simply wish to appear interesting to their friends, but only those who are genuinely obsessed with the idea of death, who have already set the revolver to their temple. I catch them at this dangerous moment, engage their morbid attention and try to lead them away from taking the fatal step. First of all, I free the potential suicide from his isolation and the feeling of his own infinite loneliness. A desperate man sees that there are many others like him and there are people whose suffering is possibly even worse than his own. This is extraordinarily important! That is the way we are all made – in order to survive we need to know that there is someone in the world who is less fortunate than ourselves. The second major component of my “treatment” is the resurrection of curiosity. The near-suicide has to stop being concerned only with himself and start looking in amazement at the world around him. To this end all means are good, even those that use quackery. I shamelessly dupe the seekers with all sorts of cunning tricks and impressive trumpery.’
The Doge pointed casually to his Spanish beret and medieval dagger.
The Stammerer nodded: ‘Oh yes, like lighting candles with a knife-blade that has been smeared with phosphorous. That’s an old trick.’
‘Or holding a burning coal on a hand that has been rubbed with a mixture of egg-white, resin and starch, which protects the skin from burning,’ the Doge put in. ‘Anything that impresses them and makes them submit to your will is useful . . . Oh, don’t smile in that shrewd fashion! You think I have given myself away by mentioning submission. Believe me, I am only too well aware of my weaknesses. Of course, apart from the main goal, I also derive a lot of pleasure from this game. I won’t try to pretend that I don’t enjoy having power over people’s souls, I find their adoration and boundless trust intoxicating, but I swear to you that I never use the power I have acquired for evil! I invent all these complicated and basically ludicrous rituals only in order to mesmerise the potential suicide, to distract him, to stimulate interest in the eternal mystery of existence! For my observations suggest that people most often arrive at the idea of self-destruction not out of grief or hopelessness, but out of a lack of any interest in life, out of boredom! But if the true cause of the suicidal impulse lies only in poverty (which also happens quite often), then I try to help the seeker concerned with money – as far as possible in some discreet way that is not humiliating for these morbidly proud individuals.’ At this point the Doge hesitated and spread his arms in a gesture of helplessness. With one finger he caught the cover of a bronze inkwell in the form of a heroic Russian warrior, raised the helmet that had been lying open, and started stroking it nervously. ‘But I am not all-powerful. There are too many neglected, incurable cases. My disciples die one after another, and every one lost costs me years of my life. But still, I can see that some are close to being cured. You must have noticed from the way the seekers behaved today that some of them no longer wish to die at all. I shall not be surprised if some are frightened by the dispassionate roulette wheel and do not come here again, and that will be a genuine victory for me. I would have saved many more of my wards, if only . . .