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

Columbine said mistrustfully, looking into the visitor’s calm eyes.
    ‘I assure you, Mademoiselle Columbine, that I am a desperate man, c-capable of the most extreme, quite inconceivable actions.’
    Once again he spoke in a way that made it impossible to tell if he was serious or joking. But then she suddenly remembered the Doge’s story about ‘a highly interesting character’. He wasn’t like any of the other aspirants. In fact, she had never seen anyone of his type before.
    ‘Well, now you’re here, let’s go,’ she said coolly, so that he wouldn’t get too high an opinion of himself. ‘You still have to pass the test.’
    They entered the salon just as Gdlevsky was completing his recitation and Rosencrantz was preparing for his performance.
    Telling the twins apart had turned out to be quite easy. Guildenstern spoke quite faultless Russian (he had studied at a Russian grammar school) and his disposition was noticeably more cheerful. Rosencrantz was always writing something down on a thick notepad and he sighed frequently. Columbine often caught his doleful Baltic glance on her, and although her own response was uncompromising, she enjoyed this silent adoration. It was a pity that the young German’s poetry was so appallingly bad.
    This time he had taken up that solemn pose again: feet in position three, the fingers of the right hand spread out like a fan, his eyes fixed on Columbine.
    The pitiless Doge interrupted him after the very first stanza.
    ‘Thank you, Rosencrantz. You can’t say “weeping with a sighfully pure tear” in Russian, but you did do a little better today. Ladies and gentlemen! Here is the candidate for Avaddon’s place,’ he said, introducing the newcomer, who had halted in the doorway and was surveying the drawing room and the people gathered in it with a curious glance.
    Everyone turned towards the candidate and he gave a light bow.
    ‘It is our custom to hold a kind of poetic examination,’ the Doge told him. ‘I only need to hear a few lines of a poem written by a candidate and I can tell immediately if his way lies with us or not. You write verse that is unusual for our literature, with no rhymes or rhythm, and so it is only fair if I ask you to extemporise on a theme that I set.’
    ‘By all means,’ Genji replied, not disconcerted in the least. ‘What theme would you l-like to suggest?’
    Columbine noticed that Prospero addressed him in a rather formal tone, which was unusual in itself. This formidable gentleman had obviously made quite an impression.
    The chairman paused for a long moment. Everyone held their breath and waited: they knew that in a moment he would dumbfound the self-confident novice with some paradox or sudden surprise.
    And so he did. Flinging back his lacy cuff (today the Doge was dressed as a Spanish grandee, which suited his beard and long hair very well), Prospero took a red apple out of a bowl and sank his firm teeth into it with a crunch. He chewed, swallowed and glanced at Genji.
    ‘There is your subject.’
    They all looked at each other. What kind of subject was that?
    Petya whispered to Columbine: ‘He did that on purpose. Now he’ll shoot him down, just you see.’
    ‘A b-bitten apple, or an apple in general?’ the probationer enquired.
    ‘That is for you to decide.’
    Prospero smiled contentedly and sat on his throne.
    With a shrug of his shoulders, as if this was all the merest of trifles, Genji recited:
The apple is beautiful,
Not on the branch or in the stomach
But in the moment of its fall .
     
    Everybody waited for the continuation. But none came. Then Cyrano shook his head and Kriton giggled rather loudly, although Gdlevsky nodded approvingly and the Lioness of Ecstasy even exclaimed: ‘Bravo!’
    Columbine had been about to pull a disdainful face, but instead she assumed a thoughtful air. If the two leading luminaries had seen something in Prince Genji’s outlandish composition, it couldn’t be entirely irredeemable.