Sister Pelagia and the Black Monk by Boris Akunin

mind, without the slightest interest in the supernatural. For instance, he was inclined to explain absolutely all the manifestations of human psychology exclusively from the viewpoint of the ingestion, digestion, and evacuation of food. If he saw me, for instance, in a state of pensiveness while I was considering the mystery of the Black Monk, he would say, “Hey my dear fellow, what you need is a bit of something spicy, and then your melancholy will disappear.” Or if I pointed out from a distance the romantic lady who had almost distracted me from your mission (ah, Princess Lointaine, how can I think of you now?), Kubovsky would shake his head and say, “Ah, look how pale she is, the poor soul. No doubt she eats food that is not nutritious, and not enough of it, and that makes the stomach sluggish and causes constipation. A bit of sturgeon with cranberry syrup is good for that, and then, of course, a little glass of Italian grappa or French calvados. That will bring the bowels back to life.” Well, anyway, you can see the sort of man he is.
    And so I had the idea of taking him with me under the guise of a nighttime promenade for the sake of the digestion. First, I thought that if I had company I would not be so frightened, and second, if Basilisk was a hallucination, the barrister would not see him. And third, if it was some kind of circus trick, a prosaic man like him would never fall for it. I deliberately did not warn my companion in advance, in order to maintain the purity of the experiment.
    And that was clearly a mistake, for which I now feel guilty.
    Everything happened exactly as it had the previous time. I deliberately seated Kubovsky with his face toward Outskirts Island and sat down with my own eyes glued to the same place. There was nobody there, nobody and nothing—there is absolutely no doubt about that. But no sooner did the moon break through the thin clouds than the familiar phantom appeared on the water and was almost immediately shrouded in a blinding radiance.
    I didn't hear any voice this time because my cynic—who was just about to dispatch a chocolate bonbon into his mouth—began yelling loudly in a wild voice and went dashing away from the spot with the most surprising agility. I could not keep up with him (oh, yes, the very instant that repulsive, deathlike chill crept across my skin, all of my determination evaporated) and I probably would not have caught up with him before the outskirts of the town if halfway there Kubovsky had not suddenly fallen flat on his face. I squatted down beside him and saw that he was wheezing and rolling his eyes, showing no desire to leap up and run on …
    He died. Not there on the road, but in the morning, in the monastery's infirmary. A cerebral hemorrhage. In other words, the Grim Reaper that the violet-eyed Faust warned him about had come calling after all.
    What do you think, Your Reverence: Who was it that killed the poor glutton—I or the Black Monk? Even if it was the monk, I am still an accomplice.
    When the infirmary monks (all wearing beards, with white coats over their black cassocks) had taken the dead man away to the ice room, I set out straightaway for Dr. Korovin's clinic and, although it was still early in the morning, I demanded an immediate meeting with this leading light of neuropsychological medicine. At first they absolutely refused to let me through without a recommendation from anyone, but you know me: if necessary, I will creep through the eye of a needle. I had two questions for the medical luminary. The first was, Is a group visual and auditory hallucination possible? The second was, Had I lost my mind?
    Korovin dealt with the second question first, and it was an hour later before he answered it. He asked me questions about my daddy and mummy and various ancestors going all the way back to my great-grandfather Pantaleimon Lentochkin, who died of alcohol poisoning. Then he shone a light into my eyes, tapped on my joints with a little