As one man, everybody turned to look at the governess. She had stopped crying and was no longer hiding her face in her hands. Her features seemed frozen to me, as if they were carved out of white marble.
She said quietly, ‘Je ferai tout mon possible.’3
‘Yes, yes,’ the sovereign pleaded. ‘Please, do try. And Alice and I will pray to the Almighty. And we will start a fast immediately. According to ancient ritual that is the right thing to do before a coronation . . .’
‘Excellent, everyone will make the best contributions they can.’ Kirill Alexandrovich laughed dismally. ‘Colonel Lasovsky must be removed from command of the search.’ (At these words the high police master hiccuped even more loudly than previously, but he did not apologise any more.) ‘The responsibility will be returned to you, Karnovich, but this time no rash moves.
Let everything be as Fandorin said. You will move into the Hermitage temporarily and run the search from here. There are too many visitors at the Alexandriisky Palace. Ziukin, find the colonel some sort of room and run a phone line to it. That’s all. Let’s go home. We all have a hard day tomorrow and you, Nicky, have to receive the ambassadors. Your bearing must be absolutely irreproachable.’
After the exalted guests had left, I continued serving tea to Their Highnesses for a long time, and many tears were shed – mostly by Pavel Georgievich, but Georgii Alexandrovich also wiped his fleshy cheeks with his cuff more than once, and as for me, I went completely to pieces. On two occasions I was obliged to hurry out of the drawing room in order not to upset the grand dukes even more with the sight of my crooked, tear-stained face.
Some time after three in the morning I was plodding along the corridor in the direction of my room when I came across Mr Masa in a very strange pose outside Fandorin’s door. He was sitting on the floor with his legs folded under him and his head nodding drowsily.
When I stopped in amazement, I heard muffled sobs coming from inside the room.
‘Why are you here and not inside?’ I asked. ‘Who is in there with Mr Fandorin?’
A terrible suspicion made me forget all the other shocks of the day.
‘Pardon me, but there is something I must tell Mr Fandorin,’ I declared resolutely, taking hold of the door handle, but the Japanese rose nimbly to his feet and blocked my way.
‘Not arrowed,’ he said, fixing me with his little black eyes. ‘Genterman cry. Suffering much for ritter boy. Cannot rook. Is shamefur.’
He was lying. I realised immediately that he was lying! Without saying another word, I ran up to the first floor and knocked at Xenia Georgievna’s door. There was no answer. I cautiously opened the lock with my master key. The room was empty. And the bed had not been disturbed.
Everything went hazy in front of my eyes. She was down there, alone with that heartbreaker!
Oh Lord, I prayed, guide me and show me what I must do. Why have you visited such trials on the house of Romanov?
I hurried to the doorkeepers’ room, where I had installed Colonel Karnovich only an hour earlier after laying a telephone line from the hallway.
The head of the court police opened the door to me wearing nothing but his nightshirt and without his usual tinted spectacles. His eyes proved to be small and piercing, with red eyelids.
‘What is it, Ziukin?’ he asked, screwing up his eyes. ‘Have you decided to tell me what your friend is up to after all?’
‘Her Highness is spending the night in Mr Fandorin’s room,’ I announced in a whisper. ‘I heard her crying. And I am afraid . . . that she went there of her own accord.’
Karnovich yawned in disappointment.
‘That is all very racy of course, and as head of the court police it is my business to know with whom the young ladies of the imperial family spend the night. However, you could have told me about it in the morning. Believe it or not, Ziukin, I had gone to bed to get a bit of sleep.’
‘But Her Highness has a fiancé, Prince Olaf! And, apart from that, she is a virgin! Colonel, it may still not be too late to prevent this!’
‘Oh no,’ he said, yawning again. ‘Interfering in grand princesses’ affairs of the heart is more than my life’s worth. They don’t forgive my kind for that sort of indiscretion. And as for being a virgin, I expect she was, but she’s got over that now,’ Karnovich said with a crooked smile. ‘Everyone knows it’s a short step from weeping to consolation, and that Fandorin of yours has a considerable reputation as a ladykiller. But don’t you worry, the prince won’t lose a thing. He’s marrying the House of Romanov, not the girl. Virginity is a load of bunk. But what is not a load of bunk are these sly tricks of Fandorin’s. I’m very concerned about our very own Pinkerton’s maverick activities. If you want to help me and help the sovereign at the same time, tell me everything you know.’
And so I told him – about Khitrovka and about Stump, and about the bandits’ gathering the next day.
‘Bosh,’ Karnovich commented succinctly when he had heard me out. ‘A load of bosh. Which was just what I expected.’
Sleep was entirely out of the question. I walked up and down the corridor of the first floor, wringing my hands. I was afraid that I mightwake Georgii Alexandrovich with my tramping, but at the same time in my heart that was what I wanted. Then His Highness would have asked what I was doing there and I could have told him everything.
But this was a petty and unworthy hope. After what the grand duke had been through that day, I could not add this to his burdens. And so I stopped walking about and sat down on the landing.
At dawn, when the newborn sun timidly extended its first rays across the gleaming parquet, I heard light steps on the stairs, and I saw Xenia Georgievna walking up, wrapped in a light lace shawl.
‘Afanasii, what are you doing here?’ she asked, not so much in surprise, more as if she didn’t think our meeting like this at such an unusual hour was of any great importance.
Her Highness’s face was strange. I had never seen it look like that before – as if it were completely new.
‘How incredible all this is,’ Xenia Georgievna said, sitting down on one of the steps. ‘Life is so strange. The horrible and the beautiful side by side. I’ve never felt so unhappy or so happy before. I’m a monster, aren’t I?’
Her Highness’s eyes and lips were swollen. The eyes – that was from her tears. But the lips?
I simply bowed without saying anything, although I understood the meaning of her words very well. If I had dared, I would have said: ‘No, Your Highness, it’s not you who is the monster, but Erast Petrovich Fandorin. You are only a young, inexperienced girl.’
‘Good night, Your Highness,’ I said eventually, although the night was already over, and went to my room.
I slumped down in an armchair without getting undressed and sat there blankly for awhile, listening to the dawn chorus of birds whose names I did not know. Perhaps they were nightingales or some kind of thrushes? I had never known much about such things. I went on listening and fell asleep without realising it.
I dreamed that I was an electric light bulb and I had to illuminate a hall full of waltzing couples. From my position up on high I had an excellent view of the gleaming epaulettes, glittering diamond coronets and sparkling gold embroidery on the uniforms. There was music playing, and the echoes of many voices washing about under the high vaulted ceiling, merging into a single, indistinct rumbling. Suddenly I saw two dancing couples collide. Then another two. And another two. Some people fell over, and some of them were taken by the arms and helped up, but the orchestra kept playing faster and faster, and the dancers never stopped circling even for a second. Suddenly I realisedwhat the problem was. I was not coping with my job – my light was too dim, that was what was causing the turmoil. Panic-stricken, I strained as hard as I could to burn brighter, but I failed. In fact the twilight in the hall was growing thicker and thicker with every second that passed. Two resplendent couples flew straight towards each other, spinning as they went, and they could not see that a collisionwas inevitable. I did not know who theywere, but the respectful way in which the other couples moved aside to make way for them suggested that they were no ordinary guests but members of the royal family. I made an absolutely incredible effort that set my thin glass shell tinkling, strained with all my might and a miracle happened: I and the world around me were suddenly flooded with a blinding light that illuminated everything. The intense bliss I experienced in that magical moment set me trembling, I cried out in rapture – and woke up.