I do not know what answer to give.
I think it might well interest you to know how the members of the club regard what has happened. Naturally, the story has made a very grave impression on everyone. The predominant feeling is fear, and fear of a mystical nature. Everyone is terribly frightened. No one mentions the idea of a robber who happened to climb in through the window. The general opinion is that Gdlevsky angered the Goddess with his boundless presumption, and she smashed his arrogant head to pieces. ‘No one should dare try to lure the Eternal Bride to the altar by deceit,’ is how our chairman expressed his own response.
As you know, I am a materialist and refuse to believe in the work of the Devil or evil spirits. I would sooner believe in the coincidental burglar. Only, if it was a burglar, why was he carrying a piece of metal pipe? And furthermore, you write that nothing was taken from the flat. Of course, it is possible to find an explanation for everything. We could assume that he took the weapon with him just in case, simply for use as a threat. And he didn’t steal anything because he took fright at what he had done and fled. Well, that is certainly possible.
In any case, I am well aware that you asked for my opinion largely out of politeness, remembering my rebuke about airs and graces, and what you actually require are observations, not hypotheses. Well then, by all means.
I observed the behaviour of all the aspirants very carefully today, looking for anything suspicious or strange. Let me say straight away that I saw nothing suspicious, but I did make one astonishing discovery, which you will no doubt find interesting.
We did not play roulette today. Nobody did anything but discuss Gdlevsky’s death and what it might mean. Naturally, the general mood was alarm and agitation, everyone tried to talk louder than everyone else, and our Doge was like a captain struggling at the helm of ship that is out of control. I also made a few comments for the sake of appearances, but most of the time I observed the others’ faces keenly. Suddenly I saw Cyrano (the one whom I have referred to in previous reports as Big Nose) casually walk over to the bookshelves and run his eye over them – he seemed to do it quite absentmindedly, and yet I had the impression that he was looking for something very specific. He glanced round to make sure that no one was watching (which immediately made me even more curious), took out one of the volumes and started leafing through the pages. For some reason he looked up at the light, licked his finger and ran it over the edges of the pages. And then he even touched them with his tongue. I do not know the significance of these manipulations, but I was intrigued.
What happened next was remarkable. Cyrano put the book back in its place and turned round. I was astounded by the expression on his face – it was completely red, and his eyes were gleaming. He strolled slowly round the room, pretending to be bored, and when he reached the door, he slipped out into the hallway.
I cautiously left the room after him, expecting that now he would go out into the street and I would follow him – he really was behaving very strangely. However, Cyrano walked down the dark corridor leading into the apartment and darted into the study. I went after him without making a sound and put my ear to the door. The study can be reached by a different route – from the sitting room through the dining room, but that could have attracted attention, which Cyrano clearly wished to avoid, and I soon realised why. The reason for the entire manoeuvre was the telephone in Prospero’s study.
Cyrano twirled the handle, gave a number in a low voice – I remembered it, in case it was important: 3845. Then he put his hand across the opening of the mouthpiece and said: ‘Romuald Semyonovich? It’s me, Lavr Zhemailo. Have you put the edition to bed? Excellent! Hold it. Leave a column on the first page. About sixty lines. No, better make it ninety. I assure you, this will be a bombshell. Wait for me, I’m leaving straight away.’ His voice was trembling with excitement.
So much for Cyrano! A fine aspirant he is! And our smart alecks kept wondering how the reporter from the Courier could be so well-informed about the internal life of the club. But what a newspaperman! He has known for ages where the future suicides gather, but he carries on duping the public, pretending that he is searching incessantly, and meanwhile he has made a name for himself and also, no doubt, earned himself a tidy sum. Who had ever heard of Lavr Zhemailo even a month ago? But now he is the star of Russian journalism.
The reporter darted back out of the study so quickly that I barely managed to press myself against the wall in time. He did not notice me, because he hurried off towards the front door. The door into the study was left slightly ajar. And then something else strange happened. The opposite door – the one leading into the dining room, was also slightly ajar, but it suddenly squeaked and closed of its own accord! I swear to you that I am not making this up. There was no draught. That ominous creaking sound made me feel quiet unwell. My knees started trembling, my heart started pounding so rapidly that I was even obliged to swallow two tablets of cordinium. When I finally pulled myself together and ran out into the street after the journalist, he had already disappeared.
But then what point would there have been in following him, when it was already clear that he was going to his newspaper’s office?
I wonder what ‘bombshell’ he had in store for his readers. Never mind, we shall find that out from the morning edition of the Moscow Courier.
With every assurance of my heartfelt respect,
ZZ
17 September 1900
1. Pleasures of the flesh
2. What does twirling mean?
3. A drink made from berries, but also ‘Death’ in Latin
4. Most beloved
CHAPTER 5
I. From the Newspapers
Lavr Zhemailo is Dead
Active opponent of suicide takes his own life
The world of Moscow’s newspapers has been shaken by woeful news.
Our trade has lost one of its most brilliant pens. A bright star that only recently made its appearance in the journalistic firmament has been extinguished.
The police are conducting an investigation and following every possible line of enquiry, including the possibility of a ritual execution carried out by the ‘Lovers of Death’, although it is quite clear to all those who have read Lavr Zhemailo’s brilliant articles in the Moscow Courier that the members of that secret club are in the habit of ending their own lives, not those of others. No, what happened was not a murder, but a tragedy that is in some ways even more lamentable. Our colleague took too heavy a burden upon his own shoulders, a burden that was perhaps too onerous for any mortal to bear, and that burden broke him. Now he is on the far side of that fatal dividing line, he has joined the ‘majority’ of which he wrote in his visionary article that caused such a stir, ‘There are more things in heaven and earth . . .’
We knew Lavr Zhemailo as a tireless opponent of the terrible phenomenon which many of us call ‘the plague of the twentieth century’ – the epidemic of apparently motiveless suicides that is mowing down the ranks of our educated youth. The deceased was a genuine crusader, who threw down the gauntlet to this insatiable, bloodthirsty dragon. How long is it since he came to conquer Moscow, this self-effacing reporter from Kovno who won his reputation at the provincial level and then, like many before him, moved to Russia’s Old Capital? He had to start again here, from the very bottom of the journalistic hierarchy – as a journeyman reporter, recording the petty chronicle of everyday life, describing house fires and other insignificant events. But talent always breaks through, and very soon the whole of Moscow was following with bated breath as the indefatigable journalist tracked the sinister ‘Lovers of Death’. In recent weeks Lavr Zhemailo appeared only rarely in the offices of the Courier. Our colleagues told us that his enthusiasm for the investigation was so great that he had virtually turned his entire life into a secret operation and submitted his reports only via the municipal post – no doubt he was afraid of being exposed by the ‘Lovers of Death’, or of attracting too much attention from the gentlemen of the police force. An outstanding example of a man’s genuine dedication to his profession!