The Gentle Axe pp-1 Read online

  “You’re not Virginsky,” repeated the pawnbroker.

  “Who is Virginsky?”

  “The man who pawned these books.”

  “Does it matter? I’m paying his debt. I have the money to redeem the pledge on his behalf. Please cut the string.”

  The pawnbroker hesitated, sucking in even farther the cheeks of his death’s-head face. All his vitality was concentrated in his eyes, which were locked on Porfiry as he slipped a penknife under the string.

  The first four books were Russian translations of, in turn, Moleschott’s The Cycle of Life, Büchner’s Force and Matter, Vogt’s Superstition and Science, and Dühring’s Natural Dialectics. The fifth book, in maroon cloth binding, bore the title One Thousand and One Maidenheads.

  “Ah,” came the voice at Porfiry’s shoulder as he investigated this last one, “I see you are an acolyte of Priapos.” Porfiry closed the book hurriedly. He gave the actor a stern, questioning glance. “Priapos,” his new friend explained, “my favorite publishing house.” Porfiry saw that this was the name of the book’s imprint. “There is nothing quite like the thrill of cutting the pages of the latest Priapos. If ever, my friend, you feel the need of another’s hand to guide your blade, I have much experience in such mutually advantageous manipulations.”

  “Sir, I believe you are laboring under a misapprehension.”

  “What’s wrong with two gentlemen enjoying a gentlemanly pursuit together? It is the same as if we were to share a bottle of fine wine or, as the redskins do, a pipe. But why stop at breaching virgin paper when there is virgin flesh to be sundered? There are girls, sir, yes, fresh, sweet, compliant girls…You have only to say. These things can be arranged.”

  “I have no wish.”

  “Of course, I understand. The unique pleasure of the solitary method, if I may put it like that. There is the question too of hygiene, not to mention speed. It is the rational choice. But still, a helping hand would not go amiss, I venture to suggest. Between friends, it is often the most civilized way, I find.”

  “Sir, I am outraged.”

  “And I am at a loss. From your other reading matter, I took you to be a rationalist and a materialist. With such an outlook, what objection could there be?”

  “I have not come so far in my freethinking.”

  “Then I am sorry for you.”

  “And I for you.”

  “Please do not be.”

  “I am a magistrate.”

  “Ah!”

  “I am here on police business.”

  “I bid you-” But the theatrical gentleman flew the shop without completing the farewell.

  Feeling strangely compromised by the encounter, Porfiry turned back to the pawnbroker. The man met him with a look of open impertinence. Those eyes, intense, dark, and fiercely alive, seemed momentarily more obscene than anything in One Thousand and One Maidenheads.

  “This Virginsky,” began Porfiry.

  “Pavel Pavlovich.”

  “You understand now that it is a police matter.”

  “I know nothing of that.”

  “Can you give me a description of him?”

  The pawnbroker shrugged.

  “Is he particularly tall or-how shall I put it? — diminutive?”

  “Not particularly.”

  “I see. So there is nothing especially distinctive about his appearance?”

  “He has a pale complexion and a generally disreputable appearance. But among the students of Petersburg, I dare say there is nothing distinctive about that.”

  “And from your familiarity with him, I take it he is a regular customer of yours?”

  “Regular enough.”

  “Do you happen to know Pavel Pavlovich’s address?”

  “I do.”

  Porfiry added another red note to the first still on the pawnbroker’s counter.

  “You have only to go to Lippevechsel’s Tenements. And ask there for Pavel Pavlovich Virginsky.”

  The pawnbroker picked up the two banknotes and held the second one out to Porfiry. “This is a legitimate credit business. The debt is paid.”

  Porfiry bowed and held the bow.

  “I am a Jew, yes, but I am also a law-abiding citizen.”

  Porfiry lifted his head, looked the pawnbroker in the eye, and met the anger there without flinching. He took back the note that he had offered.

  “Would you please tie up the books for me again?” he said, as he folded it into his wallet. The pawnbroker breathed out sharply through his nostrils before complying.

  The Gamble

  Lippevechsel’s tenements in Gorokhovaya Street was one of those sprawling apartment buildings that seemed to have grown like an organism rather than been built to any rational plan. Ramshackle and crumbling, its various fronts and wings clustered around a series of dirty yards into which sunlight never penetrated. When the wind blew through it, it was felt by every occupant, even those huddled around one of its stoves or samovars, even one buried under a mound of rags or bent double in a cupboard. Close to Kameny Bridge, the building overlooked the Yekaterininsky Canal, which was frozen now but in the summer served as an open drain. The stench, in those high hot days, seeped in through the gaping cracks in its walls and spread throughout the building. It mingled with the smells of cooking, insinuating itself into the lives of the residents, so that it shared their intimacies and infected their dreams.

  The interior of the building was divided by flimsy partitions and lit here and there by oil lamps. Doors hung open or were lacking altogether. Families lived side by side and almost on top of one another, every room divided and sublet to meet the rent. From one side of a curtain came the cries and cracks of a beating, from the other the frenzied thump of copulation. Everywhere in the background could be heard a gentle snagging sound, as regular and constant as the lapping of the sea, an anonymous, muffled weeping.

  Porfiry, still carrying the bundle of books in one hand, stood at the threshold of an endless twilit maze. He took off his fur hat and breathed in a damp atmosphere that was heavy with the smell of waste. Clotheslines were strung across the corridors. Ragged, shrieking children ran beneath them, without any sense of the invisible boundaries of so many abutting lives. Somewhere, out of sight, a card game was in progress. Porfiry could hear the laughter and abuse, the slap of the cards, the jangle of coins.

  As he sought vainly for the source of these sounds, he saw a figure emerge from one of the crisscrossing corridors. It was a girl. He couldn’t be sure because she was moving briskly with her face angled down and swallowed by gloom, but he felt that he knew her.

  He called out. His cry drew her gaze. But when she saw him, a look of panic came over her face. She turned and ran, disappearing from his sight. Porfiry cradled the books to his chest and gave chase. In the moment that her face had been lifted toward him, he recognized her. It was Lilya, the young prostitute who had been brought in to the bureau.

  He followed the heel of her shoe and the hem of her swaying skirt, which was all of her he ever saw as she vanished around succeeding corners and even through vaguely partitioned rooms. His pursuit invaded privacy after privacy but without provoking a single complaint. It was almost as if he were invisible. The only time his presence was commented upon was when he stumbled into the table of card players, who swore at him for upsetting their piles of coins. His apologies delayed him long enough for the trail to go cold. When he peered around the next corner, there was no sight of any part of her, however fleeting, just her scent in the air.

  He returned to the card players.

  “Gentlemen, if I may interrupt your game for a moment.” A collective growl arose from the table. But no one looked up. They were too intent on their cards. There was a grumbled joke and a crackle of harsh laughter at Porfiry’s expense, but essentially this was a grim endeavor for them all. He had the sense that his use of the word game had been ill judged. “The young lady who just passed through here,” he pressed. “Did any of you happen to see…?”
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br />   But they were ignoring him now, not even bothering to make him the butt of their jokes. There was a nearly empty bottle of vodka on the table, and most of the men smoked pipes. Nothing outside the absorbing tobacco fug had meaning for them.

  Porfiry pulled over a rickety chair and joined the table, placing the books on his lap. He waited for the game to play itself out, then said, “I’m looking for Pavel Pavlovich Virginsky.”

  A significant look was passed around the table and settled on one of the players, a stubble-jowled man with silky black hair, a greasy frock coat, and dirty nails. He was the only one not dressed in workmen’s overalls. His sharp, calculating eyes assessed Porfiry for a good minute. “Do you know Schtoss?” said this man, at last.

  “Schtoss? Who is Schtoss?”

  Loud, unrestrained laughter erupted around the table. Some even banged their fists. The hilarity died down. They watched the man in the frock coat with nervous expectation.

  “Schtoss, my friend, is not a man. Schtoss is a game.”

  “I don’t know it,” said Porfiry. “I’m not much of a card player.”

  “No matter,” said the other. “Schtoss is a game of luck. There is nothing to it but luck.”

  “I see. How do you play it?”

  “It’s very simple. Alexei, give the gentleman the pack.” A young painter, to judge by the specks of color on his overalls, handed Porfiry the cards. “You have that pack,” said the man in the frock coat, “and I will have this one.” He withdrew a second pack from one of his pockets. “First we must agree on the stake. The game is between you and me. If you win, I will tell you where you can find Virginsky.”

  “And if I lose?”

  “If you lose, you will swap your fur shuba for my frock coat.” There were murmurs of amused dissent. The feeling seemed to be that the man had gone too far.

  “That is hardly fair,” said Porfiry. “This is fairer. If I win, you tell me where I can find Virginsky. If I lose, I send out for a second bottle of vodka to be shared among you all.” Porfiry’s view was that even if he lost the bet, he would win over the company. One of the others, looking favorably on his generosity, would be sure to tell him what he needed to know. The proposal was met with such a cheer that Porfiry’s opponent was forced to bow his agreement.

  “Very well. We will play. Pick any card you like from your pack, and place it facedown on the table without letting me see it. Very good. Now then, this is my pack. Here, I want you to cut my pack for me. You know what it means to cut the cards, I take it?”

  Porfiry nodded and obeyed.

  “Thank you.” The other man put the two halves of the pack together. “In this game, the game of Schtoss, I turn over the first two cards from my pack. The first card goes on the right, the second on the left. Like so.” He dealt up the nine of hearts followed by the three of spades. “If the number of your card matches the first of my cards-that is to say, if it is a nine of any suit-then you lose. If it matches the second-the card on the left-then you win. If neither matches, we deal again, a third and fourth card, and so on until we encounter a match. Are you willing to play?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then, please, be so good as to turn over your card.”

  Porfiry turned over the queen of spades.

  “No match,” said his opponent. “No matter. We keep going.”

  He dealt two more cards, the six of diamonds followed by the ten of diamonds. Again Porfiry’s card, the jack of clubs, failed to produce a match.

  The man in the frock coat nodded grimly and dealt two more cards, neither of which was matched by Porfiry’s.

  The two players stared unflinchingly into each other’s eyes, as if this would have a bearing on the cards they dealt. Porfiry’s hands shook. His palms began to sweat. And yet he did not want the game to end. In each turning of a card, he felt the heavy hammering of his heart, reminding him with renewed insistence that he was alive. Whatever the outcome of the game, he knew he would miss this feeling.

  It was about ten deals later when Porfiry turned over a seven of clubs, matching the seven of hearts on top of the left-hand pile of cards.

  “I win, I believe,” said Porfiry. It was as he had expected. His delight at winning was tempered by regret that the game was over. He wanted to play again.

  The other man nodded, admitting defeat. “To the left, over there, past that woman with the cough. There is a door. It leads to the annex. Virginsky lodges in there, on the ground floor, with the cabinetmaker Kezel.”

  After the tension of the confrontation, the mood returned to the earlier one of brash amusement. The laughter now, however, was at the expense of the man in the frock coat, who took in good humor their jibes at his failure to secure them a fresh bottle of vodka.

  Porfiry left the table reluctantly, almost disappointed; depressed, despite his success. He had the sense that they had finished with him. And all that he had to turn to was his duty.

  The name Kezel was chalked on the door.

  Kezel himself was not in, but his wife-a silent, cowed woman whose face bore the marks of her last beating-showed Porfiry to the door of the tiny cell occupied by the student Virginsky. He was as the pawnbroker had described him, pale and shabbily dressed. He was also, Porfiry noted, underfed to the point of stupor. His glazed eyes were sunk in dark circles of exhaustion. He was shivering. It struck Porfiry that Virginsky showed no sign of surprise at his arrival. It was almost as if he had been expecting him. But perhaps he was simply incapable of registering any emotion. As soon as Virginsky admitted Porfiry to his room, he fell back on the bed. As there was nowhere for Porfiry to sit other than on the bed, he remained standing. He sniffed the air, which was-unexpectedly-scented.

  Porfiry looked down at the pitiful figure of the young man and felt the stirrings of a deep anxiety. He couldn’t help being reminded of the student double-murderer whose case had so engaged him the year before.

  “You are Pavel Pavlovich Virginsky?” His voice sounded harsher than he had meant it to.

  “Yes.”

  “Allow me to introduce myself. I’m Porfiry Petrovich. I’m an investigating magistrate. I’ve come here from the Department of the Investigation of Criminal Causes.”

  Virginsky made no comment.

  “Do you recognize these books?”

  Virginsky glanced apathetically at the books and nodded.

  “Do you know to whom they belong?”

  Again Virginsky nodded. “How did you get them?” he roused himself to ask, his voice hoarse and lethargic. But Virginsky showed no real curiosity about the answer. In fact, he closed his eyes.

  “I redeemed them from Lyamshin’s,” said Porfiry.

  “Impossible,” said Virginsky, without opening his eyes.

  “Why do you say that, Pavel Pavlovich?”

  “Because I have the ticket.”

  “You have the ticket?”

  Virginsky nodded.

  “Please, this is very important. Could you show me the ticket?”

  Virginsky finally opened his eyes. For a moment, Porfiry saw in them an engaged intelligence that eased his fears for the student. But this look did not last. The eyes swam. An instant of confusion gave way to simple blankness.

  “Pavel Pavlovich,” said Porfiry sternly. “When did you last eat something?”

  “Eat?”

  “Yes, eat.”

  “I…do you have food?”

  “No. But I can get some.”

  Virginsky managed four rasps of empty laughter. It was as if he were laughing at the folly of a man who promised him infinite riches.

  “I have only to talk to your landlady.”

  “She…I owe…rent.”

  “Of course, but it is a question of common humanity. She will not let you starve.”

  “Her husband.” Virginsky raised one hand hopelessly and let it fall.

  “I understand,” said Porfiry, laying down the books on the edge of the bed. “I will arrange it.”

  Porfiry foun
d Madame Kezel in the kitchen stirring a large pot of broth. She flinched away from his gaze.

  “That boy,” he began. “How can you let him starve when there is food in the house?”

  “My husband forbids it.”

  “But your husband is not here.”

  “He will find out.”

  “How will he find out?”

  “He always finds out. Pavel Pavlovich tells him.”

  “How much does Pavel Pavlovich owe you?”

  “My husband knows.”

  “If Pavel Pavlovich paid all the rent that is due, your husband would allow you to feed him?”

  The woman nodded.

  “I am a magistrate. I undertake to pay Pavel Pavlovich’s debts to you and your husband. Please, in God’s name, take him a bowl of broth.”

  “My husband has forbidden me to go into his room.”

  “Give me the broth, and I will take it to him.”

  “You are a magistrate, you say?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you will leave money?”

  “Yes.”

  Madame Kezel fetched a bowl from a cupboard and ladled in the brown fatty broth. She handed it to Porfiry with a spoon and a crust of stale bread.

  “If you could ask Pavel Pavlovich not to express his gratitude to my husband…”

  “I understand.”

  “Or to myself. There is no need for his gratitude.”

  Porfiry carried the broth back to Virginsky’s room. The student lay with his eyes closed, his face torpid and drained. But gradually his expression changed as he became aware of the savory aroma. His nostrils twitched. He licked his lips and swallowed. A smile showed. It seemed he was dreaming of a marvelous feast. Then the point came where he was able to disassociate the smell of food from his dream, and he understood that this tremendous, overwhelming sensation was real. A look of wonder, almost of fear, showed as he finally opened his eyes and looked around.

  “Can you sit up?” asked Porfiry.

  Virginsky lifted himself up on his elbows and allowed Porfiry, now perched next to him on the bed, to spoon-feed him. Every now and then he took a mouthful of the bread, which he was only able to chew by soaking it well in the broth. By the time he had eaten the last spoonful, he had regained his strength enough to wipe the last remaining piece of bread around the bowl.