Sister Pelagia and the Black Monk by Boris Akunin Page A

hammer, and made me draw geometrical shapes. Finally he declared, “You are perfectly well, only in a state of severe, almost hysteroid fright. Well then, now I can listen to what you have to say about the hallucination.” I told him. He listened to everything very closely, nodding, and then propounded the following explanation, which at the time I found entirely satisfactory.
    “During the autumn nights here on the islands,” said Korovin, “the exceptionally high level of ozone in the air and the effect of light reflected from the surface of the water frequently give rise to various kinds of optical illusion. Sometimes, especially when the moon is shining, a black pillar can be seen moving across the lake, and a poetically or religiously inclined sensibility might well be reminded of a monk in hermit's dress. In actual fact it is merely a small waterspout.” “What?” I asked incredulously. “A waterspout, a small one, that is. It can be very localized: still air all around, but at one spot some whimsical trick of atmospheric pressure suddenly produces a flow of air, and a rather rapid one too. It can pick up fallen leaves and fine litter from the shore of the lake, swirl them around, twist them into a cone—and there you have your Black Monk. Especially if you were already expecting to see him.”
    I left the doctor feeling completely reassured, apart from my regret for the ill-fated Kubovsky but the farther I moved away from the clinic, the louder the voice of inner doubt became. What about the unearthly light? And the words that I had heard so clearly? And it couldn't possibly have been a waterspout—it had moved slowly, no more than a few paces, and its outlines had really been very distinct.
    Subsequent events confirmed that waterspouts and the ozone level in the air had nothing at all to do with the business.
    Having destroyed one life, Basilisk seemed suddenly to cast off his shackles and break free of the bounds of Lenten Spit.
    The following night he appeared to Brother Kleopa, the boatman who is the only person in New Ararat allowed to visit Basilisk's Hermitage: once a day he ferries necessities to the hermits and collects the rosary beads that they have made. That night, when Kleopa was making his way back to the monastery from some friend's house, Basilisk appeared before him just beside the monks’ graveyard. He gave the boatman a mighty shove in the chest that sent him tumbling to the ground and forbade him in a thunderous voice to take his boat to Outskirts Island, because “the place is cursed.”
    The impact of this sensational news was lessened somewhat by the general knowledge of Brother Kleopa's intemperance with regard to wine—he had been walking back to his cell tipsy on that night too. Even the eyewitness himself could not swear that he had not imagined seeing the saint. But nonetheless the rumor immediately spread throughout the whole of Canaan.
    And then, two nights after that, an event occurred that could not be doubted, one that had very grave, even tragic, consequences.
    The specter had failed to frighten Brother Kleopa, since he sailed to the hermitage by the light of day, and by the time the night came and the Black Monk appeared, he was usually already intoxicated and not afraid of anything. But there is another person who often visited the strait separating Canaan from Outskirts Island—a buoy keeper whose duties include setting out the spar buoys in the channel, which were frequently shifted by the current and the wind. This buoy keeper is not a monk, but a layman. He lives in a small log hut on the north side of Canaan, which is almost uninhabited, with his heavily pregnant young wife. Or rather, they used to live there, since now the hut stands empty.
    The day before yesterday the buoy keeper and his wife were woken by a loud knocking on the window. In the moonlight they saw a black cowl, and immediately realized who was there. Their midnight visitor shook a threatening