Sister Pelagia and the Black Monk by Boris Akunin Page B

finger at the husband and wife, who were frozen in terror, and then he drew something on the glass with that selfsame finger, making a horrible scraping sound (it turned out later that it was a cross—the old kind, with two extra crosspieces set at an angle).
    Then the specter disappeared, but the woman suffered a miscarriage because of the shock, and while her husband went running to fetch help, she bled to death. The buoy keeper told the monastery authorities about the nocturnal vision and set about making two coffins: one for his wife and the other for himself, for he said quite definitely that he did not wish to go on living. That evening he got into his boat, rowed out into open water, tied a stone around his neck, and threw himself overboard—many people on the shore saw it. They searched for the drowned man, but failed to find him, and so the second coffin remained unused.
    The town has changed beyond recognition now. That is to say, during the day it is still as populous as ever—none of the pilgrims is in any hurry to leave the island, since people's curiosity and fascination with things mystical are stronger than their prudence and fear—but by night the streets are completely deserted. Bad things are said about Basilisk's Hermitage. They say there is no place worse than one that used to be blessed, but has turned bad —whether it is an abandoned church or a defiled graveyard, and especially a hermitage intended for salvation through repentance. The opinion is gaining ground among the holy brothers and the local population that they should heed these warnings from the monastery's patron and remove the hermits from Outskirts Island—for fear of angering the Black Monk even more.
    The archimandrite led a procession bearing icons right across Canaan and sprinkled the buoy keeper's hut with holy water, but even so, no one goes to that place now. I, by the way, have visited it (but in the morning, when the sun was shining). I have seen the notorious cross scraped on the windowpane, and even touched it with my finger.
    Please do not believe, great sorcerer Merlin, that your knight's courage has failed completely. I am ready to concede the possibility that the universe does not consist exclusively of physical matter, but this signifies not so much capitulation as a change of methodology. Apparently I shall have to doff one suit of armor and don another. But I do not intend to surrender and I am not yet asking for your help.
    Your Lancelot of the Lake
    This letter, so remarkable in every respect, produced different impressions on the three individuals consulting on it.
    “He's putting a brave face on things, but he's really scared to death,” said the bishop. “I know from my own experience how terrifying it is when the whole world is turned upside down. Only for me it was all the other way around: ever since I was a child I had believed that the world was ruled by the spirit, and when I suspected for the first time that there was no God, and nothing but matter existed, I became depressed, I had a feeling of homelessness. That was when I became a monk, in order to turn everything the right way up again.”
    “What?” said Berdichevsky, amazed. “You mean that you once had doubts like that? And I thought that …” He stopped in confusion.
    “That you were the only one?” said Mitrofanii, completing Berdichevsky's thought with a wry laugh. “And that I am full of nothing but holy certainty? No, Matvei, only the dull of intellect have nothing but holy certainty inside them; a thinking man is visited with grievous temptations and trials. It is not he who is not tempted that is blessed, but he who overcomes. The soul of a man who never doubts anything is dead.”
    “Then do you believe in all these wonders, Father?” asked Pelagia, looking up from her knitting. “In the ghost, the walking on water, and all the rest of it? That's not what you said before.”
    “What does the boy mean by changing his armor?”