She Lover of Death: The Further Adventures of Erast Fandorin by Boris Akunin Page B

move. He covered my face with a white Venetian mask – a dead, stiff disguise. All I could see through the narrow eye-slits was the ceiling, looking light-coloured in the twilight.
I lay there for a long time without moving. It was very quiet, all I could hear was the quiet crackling of the candle flames. I thought: He’s looking at me, defenceless, with no covering, without even a face. This is not me, this is nameless female flesh, simply a rubber doll.
What did I feel?
Curiosity. Yes, curiosity and the sweet thrill of uncertainty. What would he do? What would his first touch be like? Would he press his lips to mine in a kiss? Or lash me with a whip? Would he scorch me with hot drops of candle wax? I would have accepted anything at all from him, but time passed and nothing happened.
I started feeling cold, my skin was covered with goose-pimples. I said plaintively: ‘Where are you? I’m frozen!’ Not a single sound in reply. Then I took off the mask and sat up.
There was no one else in the bedroom, and this discovery set me trembling. He had disappeared! This inexplicable disappearance set my heart beating faster than even the most ardent of embraces.
I thought for a long time about what this trick could mean. For a whole night and a day I searched desperately for the answer. What was he trying to tell me? What feelings did he have for me? Without a doubt, there was passion. Only not fiery, but icy, like the polar sun, which scorches no less for being cold.
I am only writing this in my diary now, because I have suddenly understood the meaning of what happened. The first time he possessed only my body. The second time he possessed my soul. The initiation is complete.
Now I am his thing. His property, like a key-ring or a glove. Like Ophelia.
There is nothing between them, I am sure of that. That is, the girl is in love with him, of course, but he only needs her as a medium. I cannot imagine any man being inflamed with passion for this sleep-walker. A strange, innocent smile constantly trembles on her face, her eyes have a gentle but abstracted look. She hardly ever opens her mouth – except during the seances. But during those minutes of communication with the World Beyond, Ophelia is completely transformed. As if somewhere deep inside her fragile little body a bright lamp suddenly lights up. Pierrot says that she is actually half-insane and she should be put in a clinic, that she lives in a dream. I don’t know. I think, on the contrary, that she is only alive and fully herself when acting as a medium.
I myself find it hard to distinguish dreams from reality now. The dream is getting up late in the morning, breakfast, all the shopping that has to be done. Waking life only begins as evening approaches, when I try to write poems and get ready to go out. But I only come fully awake after eight, as I walk quickly along Rozhdestvenka Street, with its bright streetlamps, towards the boulevard. The world bears me along on waves of energy, the blood pulses in my veins. My heels clatter along so quickly, so single-mindedly that people turn round to look at me as they walk by.
Evening is the culmination and the apotheosis of the day. Later, after midnight already, I come home and artificially prolong the magic by writing down the details of everything that happened in a Moroccan leather notebook.
Today many things happened.
From the very beginning he behaved quite differently from usual.
But no, I mustn’t write like that – always he, he. I am not writing for myself, but for art.
Prospero was not the same as always – he was lively, almost agitated. Nearly as soon as he joined us in the drawing room, he started talking.
‘Today a man approached me in the street. Handsome, elegantly dressed, very self-confident. He spoke strange words with a slight stammer: “I know how to read faces. You are the one I need. Fate has s-sent you to me.”
‘ “But I can read nothing in your face,” I replied hostilely, since I cannot