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By Root 271 0

’s guests were dancing now, their eyes still afire with the divine Spirit and their souls at peace with all humanity. Arkady had climbed into the carriage with the warmth of the drug dying down within him and his back stinging from the comradely slaps of the men. He could still feel the swift farewell kisses and furtive squeezes of his stones bestowed on him by the women. The carriage cushions were soft, and there was a bucket of iced champagne, should he feel the urge for a drink on his way home. By slow degrees the last embers of indwelling sanctity were fading gently to ash.

How stupid of him to have taken the rasputin immediately after dinner, rather than waiting for the orgy to begin, as the others had! Had it only been otherwise, Arkady would even now be laughing, dancing, gossiping about the ways of angels with his erstwhile comrades in lust. He would be engaged in the pleasant après-sex social activities with which the aristocracy customarily eased the transition from ardor back to everyday life.

He would not now be alone with his thoughts. With his memories. With the images that, try though he might, he could not dispel from his mind. He would not be tormented by the horrific knowledge of what he had done.

In the carriage’s dark interior, Arkady wept bitterly.

...8...

The merchant from Suzdal strolled down Teatralny proezd, tapping his cane on the sidewalk in time with a hummed tune. Idly, he noted a string of posters pasted one after the other on the lantern-poles lining the street:

LOST

Diamond Necklace with Gold Leaf Clasp

in the vicinity of Red Square

5000 SILVER RUBLES REWARD!!!

Apply to A. Kozlenok, Hotel New Metropol

Five thousand rubles was good money for whatever lucky soul found the bauble and was honest enough to return it—more, indeed, than the merchant normally earned in a month. However, this business trip had been an exceptionally profitable one; he had sold all the house-gourd seeds he had brought at a considerable markup—word had not yet reached Moscow of the fast-spreading blight that would attack and kill the gourds before they reached bungalow size—and so he could contemplate the necklace without suffering too greatly the pangs of avarice.

Nevertheless, he could not refrain from peering into the gutters in the furtive hope of seeing a diamondy glitter.

He was thus occupied when, abruptly and without warning, a street urchin slammed into him, almost knocking him to the ground and sending his cane clattering onto the sidewalk.

Clapping one hand to his wallet (for he was well acquainted with the tricks of pick-pockets), the merchant snatched up his cane and rounded upon the young rascal, prepared to thrash him soundly for his insolence. But the face that the child lifted to him was streaked with tears and his expression so distraught that the merchant stayed his wrath and asked, “Are you in pain?”

“Mister, you got to help me.” The waif pointed to the Hotel New Metropol. “The doorman there won’t let me in.”

The merchant, who was himself staying at that very hotel, could not help feel a twinge of amusement. “I should hope not. You’d track mud on the carpets and leave stains on everything you touched.”

“But I gotta get in!”

“Oh? And why is that?”

To the merchant’s astonishment, the boy reached into his jacket and pulled out a diamond necklace. It was only exposed for an instant before being stuffed back away, but that was long enough for him to see the leaf-shaped gold clasp. “I found the necklace fair and square. But I can’t get in to see the guy what’s offering the reward. That bastard doorman won’t even let me tell him what I want.”

“Yes, well, naturally he—”

The boy’s face twisted, as if he had just come to a desperate decision. “Look, mister, get me in and I’ll split the reward with you, fifty-fifty. That’s fair, ain’t it? Twenty-five katies for me and twenty-five for you. That’s an easy day’s work. C’mon, waddaya say?”

The merchant contemplated the boy solemnly. “There is no way that one such as you would be allowed into a decent hotel under any circumstances whatsoever.