Sister Pelagia and the Black Monk by Boris Akunin Read Free Book Online

on the vast bed à la Louis Quinze, insolently surveying their mentor's shameful nakedness and guzzling expensive champagne straight from the bottle—they had already devoured the fruits and chocolate.
It was only then that the miserable vice-chancellor realized he had fallen victim to a conspiracy. Serafim Vikentievich dashed to the door and began tugging at the handle, but he couldn't open it—the vengeful Alyosha had locked it from the other side. The hooting and shouting brought the hotel corridor staff running in through the service door, followed by a police constable from the street. All in all, it was quite the most abominable scandal one could possibly imagine.
That is to say, in the official sense there was no scandal, because the awkward incident was hushed up, but already on the following day the city of K—— and the whole of K—— province knew about the privy counselor's “benefit performance,” complete with all the shocking details, which, as is the way with these things, had been considerably exaggerated.
Nosachevsky voluntarily submitted his resignation and left K——, for it was quite impossible for him to stay there. In the middle of some highly serious, even scholarly discussion, his interlocutor would suddenly start turning crimson, puffing out his cheeks and clearing his throat loudly in order to suppress his laughter—he was clearly picturing the vice-chancellor without his Order of St. Anne, wearing nothing but a lacy mobcap and a pink bandage.
This business also had other sad consequences for Serafim Vikentievich. Not only did he completely lose all interest in the fair sex from that time on, he also acquired an unattractive tremor of the head and a nervous tic in his eye, and his former scientific brilliance disappeared without a trace.
But the joker did not get away with his prank scot-free. Naturally, everyone immediately learned who had played such a vicious joke on the vice-chancellor (Alexei Stepanovich and his comrades took no great pains to conceal who was the instigator of the prank) and the provincial authorities made it clear to the former student that it would be best for him to change his place of residence.
That was when his inconsolable mother wrote to our reverend bishop, imploring him to take Major Lentochkin's wayward offspring under his pastoral supervision in Zavolzhsk, arrange some kind of work for him, and wean him away from his nonsense and mischief.
Mitrofanii had agreed—initially in memory of his comrade-in-arms; but later, when he had come to know Alexei Stepanovich better, he was truly glad to have such an interesting charge.
Lentochkin junior had captured the stern bishop's affection with his reckless daring and his total disdain for his own position, which depended in every respect on His Grace. In Alexei Stepanovich, things that Mitrofanii would never have suffered from anyone else—including disrespect and even open mockery—not only failed to anger the bishop, but they merely amused him, and perhaps even inspired his admiration.
Let us start with the fact that Alyosha was a nonbeliever—and not just one of those agnostics who are now a penny a dozen among the educated classes, so that almost anyone you ask replies, “I can allow the possible existence of a Supreme Reason, but I cannot entirely vouch for it.” Oh, no, he was an absolutely out-and-out, thoroughgoing atheist. At his very first meeting with His Grace at the episcopal residence, right there in the icon room, under the radiant gaze of the evangelists, the holy saints, and the female martyrs, the young man and Mitrofanii had had an argument about the omniscience and grace of the Lord that had ended with the bishop throwing the blasphemer out on his ear. But when Mitrofanii had cooled off, he had ordered Lentochkin to be sent for again, regaled him with clear broth and pies, and spoken to him in a different manner—one that was cheerful and friendly. He had found the young man an appropriate