She Lover of Death: The Further Adventures of Erast Fandorin by Boris Akunin Read Free Book Online

improbably broad, almost square – appeared on the threshold. But the next moment the man stepped into the room, and it was clear that his build was absolutely normal, he was simply wearing a wide gown like those worn by European university professors or doctors of philosophy.
    No greetings were pronounced, but it seemed to Columbine that the moment those leather doors opened soundlessly, everything around her changed in some elusive manner: the shadows became blacker, the fire became brighter, sounds were suddenly more subdued.
    At first she thought the man who had come in was really old: he had grey hair, cut in an old-fashioned style, the same length all round. Turgenev, Columbine thought. Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev. He looks just like him. Exactly like the portrait in the grammar-school library.
    However, when the man in the gown halted beside the brazier and the crimson glow lit up his face from below, the eyes were not those of an old man at all – they were a refulgent black, and they glowed even brighter than the coals. Columbine made out a thoroughbred aquiline nose, thick white eyebrows and fleshy cheeks. Venerable – that’s what he is, she said to herself. Like in Lermontov: ‘The venerable grey-haired sage’, Or was it really Lermontov? Well, it didn’t matter.
    The venerable sage ran his gaze slowly round the assembled company and it was clear immediately that not a single detail or, perhaps, secret thought could possibly escape those eyes. The calm gaze rested on Columbine for just a moment, no longer, and she suddenly swayed and trembled all over.
    Without even realising it, she pulled her hand away from the ‘teacher of terrible love’ and pressed it to her breast.
    Kriton whispered in her ear in a derisive tone: ‘And this is from Pushkin.
Not only in youth’s downy cheek
And curly locks of tender brown
Will passion its true object seek.
The furrowed brow and elder’s frown
May fire beauty’s imagination
With a consuming conflagration .
     
    ‘Those “curly locks of tender brown” are yours, are they?’ the young lady snapped back, stung. ‘And anyway, who needs you and your Pushkin!’
    She stomped off ostentatiously and stood beside Petya.
    ‘That’s Prospero,’ he told her in a low voice.
    ‘I guessed that without you.’
    Their host cast a brief glance at the two whisperers, and immediately absolute silence fell. The Doge reached out one hand to the brazier, so that he looked like Mucius Scaevola in the fourth-class history book. He sighed and uttered a single word: ‘Dark.’
    And then everybody gasped as he placed a red-hot coal on his palm. He really was Scaevola!
    ‘I think it will be better like this,’ Prospero said calmly, raising the lump of fire to the large crystal candelabra and lighting the twelve candles one after another.
    The light revealed a round table, covered with a dark tablecloth. The darkness retreated to the corners of the room and now that she could finally examine the ‘lovers of death’ properly, Columbine began turning her head in all directions.
    ‘Who will read?’ their host enquired, seating himself on a chair with a high carved back.
    All twelve of the other chairs set around the table were simpler and lower.
    Several people immediately volunteered.
    ‘The Lioness of Ecstasy will begin,’ Prospero declared.
    Columbine stared wide-eyed at the famous Lorelei Rubinstein, She didn’t look as she might have been imagined from her poems: not a slim, fragile lily with impulsive movements and huge black eyes, but a rather substantial lady in a shapeless robe that hung down to her heels. The Lioness looked about forty, but that was in the semi-darkness.
    She cleared her throat and said in a rumbling voice: ‘ “The Black Rose”. Written last night.’
    Her plump cheeks quivered with emotion, her eyes darted upwards, towards the rainbow sparkling of the chandelier, her eyebrows knitted together dolefully.
    Columbine gave Lucifer a gentle slap to