“She…I could not compete with his lies. Or his wealth. They married. My mother has been dead for many years.”
“It seems to me this girl is not worthy of you. And perhaps it’s because you realize this that you are so angry with your father. You blame him for her imperfection.”
“And is that why I murdered Goryanchikov, according to your…psychology?” Virginsky sneered sarcastically.
“It was why you were able to enter into this bizarre agreement. You had reached a point of such despair, of such nihilism, that this seemed preferable to asking your father for money.”
“But this is nothing. It’s a worthless scrap of paper.”
“And yet you returned to the house in Bolshaya Morskaya Street two nights ago to try to retrieve it from Goryanchikov’s room.”
Virginsky winced and looked away in embarrassment. “I went there. I admit it. I went there to try and get it back. I don’t believe in it. I don’t believe in any of it. I’m a rationalist. You might call me a materialist, and I wouldn’t argue with you. But still, I felt easier having it in my possession.”
“And that was why, on the following day, you wouldn’t go into the house with me. The maid would have said something. You would have been discovered.”
“I had nothing to be ashamed of.”
“Except that you had pretended to Katya that Goryanchikov was still alive when you knew perfectly well that he was dead.” Porfiry pursed his lips when he put this to Virginsky, as if he disapproved of this lie most of all.
“I wasn’t thinking straight. I panicked.”
“Let us return to Konstantin Kirillovich. The man was known to you. You can’t deny that. And yet you did not say so when you had the opportunity.”
“I tell you, I didn’t know him as Konstantin Kirillovich. I didn’t know him by any name. He was just some loathsome old lecher Goryanchikov bumped into.”
“A girl at Fräulein Keller’s told me that he takes pornographic photographs.”
“I can believe it.”
“Of very young girls.”
“Why are you asking me about this? I know nothing about any of this.”
“This document is highly incriminating. There are some who would see in it a motive for murder.”
Virginsky shook his head.
“They would say you murdered Goryanchikov and framed Borya,” insisted Porfiry. “This fellow Ratazyayev is also missing. It is conceivable that you murdered him too. And Govorov, the other witness to your contract? Where is he? The motive is certainly here. A case could be made that it is in your interest to eradicate everyone connected with this strange piece of paper.”
“But it’s not true,” said Virginsky wearily.
Porfiry shrugged. “Ah, the truth! If ever you do become a lawyer, Pavel Pavlovich, you will quickly learn not to rely overmuch on the truth.”
The snow-covered pavement of the Nevsky Prospect was mottled with black footprints. Porfiry kept his head bowed as he walked, looking at the footprints, following them, as if he expected the footprints to lead him to the solution of the mystery; to the murderer, in other words. But really he was looking at the pavement to avoid looking at the sky, for the sky above this great broad strip of openness was too much a reminder of the infinite. He felt the mediating presence of immense buildings. He was aware too, in a similar way, of the wooden cross that hung around his neck and touched his skin.
It was late morning, but the gloom of a northern winter clung to the city. The shopwindows glowed. Carriage lights trailed in the damp air. The crowds, in places, stretched across the pavement. Sometimes he felt himself jostled along and had to match his pace to the tread of those around him. Sometimes the pedestrians coming toward him were like the ranks of an opposing army.
Tiny sharp snowflakes began to swirl in the air and fell over them all.
Number 22 was a three-story building on the north side of the street, identical twin to number 24, on the other side of the Lutheran church. In the summer this would have been the sunny side. But there was no sunny side today. The ground floor was taken up with a number of shops, a delicatessen, a grocery store, its facade brightly painted, a furrier’s, a gentlemen’s outfitter’s, and a shop selling various mechanical devices. The floors above and behind were given over to business premises. It was here that the famous publishing house Smyrdin had its offices. It was also the address given as the home of the publisher Athene in the title pages of the philosophy books Porfiry had redeemed from Lyamshin’s.
He left his galoshes in the marbled foyer, under the steady gaze of the senior commissionaire, an immovable mound of a man around whom, it seemed, a monumental desk had been built. He concentrated his vitality into his eyes and could convey enormous meaning in a single blink. His more energetic colleague, a wiry old soldier whose face showed the strain of enforced inaction, leaped up to escort Porfiry to the Athene offices. “You’ll never find it, your excellency,” he cried gleefully, as if this were something to celebrate. “Never in a thousand years.”
Of course, there were stairs to be climbed and corridors to be tramped, corners to be turned. And rows of numbered doors, some of them also bearing the names of the businesses conducted within. “You see, it’s as well that I came with you, your excellency,” commented the energetic commissionaire. But it was soon apparent that he himself was lost, although he would not admit it. His pace, however, did begin to flag. At last he angrily accosted a young man hurrying toward them with a sheaf of papers under one arm: “Athene?”
“Next floor down. Suite seventy-two.”
“Ah! They’ve moved, have they?”
“Always been suite seventy-two,” shouted the young man over his shoulder, picking up his step.
“Young fool doesn’t know what he’s talking about,” said Porfiry’s escort snappily. “They were on this floor the last time I came along here.”
They retraced their steps, this time with Porfiry leading.
The door to suite 72 was open. Before they drew level with it, Porfiry could hear the voices inside, two male voices, the first light and relaxed, the other a forced baritone. The debate was passionate but good-natured. Porfiry had a sense of the friendship, the mutual fondness even, between the two men.
“…but I insist a philosopher’s thought is enwrapped in his language.”
“What you are saying, more or less, is that the endeavor of translating philosophy is either futile or impossible.”
“If it is the latter, it is also the former.”
“But it is the endeavor to which you have devoted your life. It is what we do. It is our business.”
“There is nothing nobler than to devote one’s life to a futile enterprise.” This was said after a slight pause, with a cheerful, almost mischievous lilt.
Porfiry dismissed his guide with a deep bow and stepped into the doorway. He drummed his knuckles lightly on the open door, and the two men looked up.
They were as he had imagined them from their voices, almost exactly. The younger man was tall and thin, his legs especially so. He had a high-domed forehead and thinning hair. Perched on the edge of a desk behind which his companion sat, he looked up at Porfiry over a book, the pages of which he turned distractedly with long fingers. His face was pale, his expression somewhat severe: a small pinched mouth was drawn together in readiness for denial. His eyes were gray and cold. The seated man was portly but neat. He kept his beard trimmed, and his hair, though thick and long, was tidily combed. His age was approaching fifty, and he wore silver-framed reading glasses. Behind their glinting lenses, his quick black eyes shone with intelligence and humor. Though his figure was spreading and his face filling, he was still a handsome man, or at least he was still able to carry himself like one. A long straight nose gave his face strength in profile. Viewed frontally, a small cleft at the tip arrested the gaze. His mouth, which was generous in comparison to his companion’s, curved into a ready smile, whereas Porfiry noticed the other man’s frown deepen.