But these people are not all-powerful, they are vulnerable and prone to weaknesses. For instance, a certain Erast Petrovich Fandorin, faced with a catastrophe not on the scale of the universe, but on the scale of a doll’s house, almost allowed the model of existence to be destroyed. It must be admitted that in this absurd story his behaviour has been pitiful.
Of course, there are extenuating circumstances.
Firstly, he was not himself. Blinded and deafened, he forfeited his clarity of thought and lost his self-control. In this case both parties – the criminal and the investigator – were in a state of insanity, each in his own way.
Secondly, it is hard not to lose one’s way in the labyrinths of an unnatural world where play is more genuine than reality, the reflection is more interesting that the essence, the articulation replaces the underlying feelings and the face under the make-up cannot be discerned. Only in the theatre, and among people of the theatre, could a crime take place with such motives and in such a setting.
The little officer from the distant edge of the empire would have dragged out a dreary army career, like Chekhov’s Solyony, acting out demonic poses for the garrison ladies. But the swirling tornado of the theatre flew down to the Asiatic backwoods, swooped down on the lieutenant, tore his feet off the ground, swirled him round and bore him off.
The little man wished to become a big artist, and in order to satisfy this unassuageable hunger, he was prepared to sacrifice absolutely anything and absolutely anyone, including himself.
His love for Eliza was a desperate attempt to take a grip on life, to move away from the self-destruction to which his obsession with art was leading. And in his love Nonarikin behaved exactly like Lieutenant Solyony: he conducted an absurd siege of the object of his passion, suffered fierce jealousy and exerted cruel revenge on his unfortunate Tuzenbach rivals.
What could possibly be more absurd than the trick with the viper? Georges was there beside Eliza and was the only one out of all of them who did not lose his head, because he was the one who put the snake in the basket. In the steppes of Central Asia Nonarikin had probably learned to handle reptiles – a hobby of that kind would suit the demon lieutenant. (Let us not forget that Nonarikin kept a phial of cobra venom, with which he smeared the tip of a rapier.) He knew that the bite of a viper in September is not particularly dangerous and deliberately offered it his hand. He was counting on arousing in his Fair Lady a passionate gratitude that would subsequently grow into love. Georges certainly did arouse her gratitude, but was unaware that in women gratitude and love are administered by different departments.
Simultaneous with this disappointment there was another, an artistic one. Nonarikin was not given the role of Lopakhin for which he had been hoping so badly. It went to Hippolyte Emeraldov. Devastated by the ingratitude of Stern, his adored teacher, the assistant director rebelled – as another assistant, the angel Satan, once rebelled against the Eternal Teacher. Any personality with a maniacal bent, teetering on the edge of insanity, can undergo a sudden qualitative shift. Something clicks in the brain, a certain idée fixe arises and takes shape, and its false irrefutability is absolutely blinding, it takes over the mind and that’s it, there is no way back.
For Georges it was the crazy idea of eleven 1s and one figure 9 that became such an epiphany. Apparently it arose suddenly, in a moment of total despair, and Nonarikin was spellbound by its brilliance. And yet at the beginning he was still prepared to spare the world and not destroy it. The first entry in the Tablets says: ‘Take thought!’
The future benefit performance artist gave the theatre world a chance to do that. He killed Emeraldov, who had not only ‘stolen’ his role, but was also pressing his attentions on Eliza in a way that was provocative and insolent. Nonarikin’s calculation was obvious and at first seemed to have proved correct. The director instructed his assistant to play the part of Lopakhin at rehearsals, until a worthy replacement could be found for Emeraldov. There can be no doubt that if Stern had done as he intended and invited in a celebrity from outside – Leonidov or someone else – then Russian theatre would have suffered another loss. On the eve of the premiere, some accident would have happened to Lopakhin, and Nonarikin would have had to be allowed out onto the stage. But Fandorin had appeared with his Japanese drama and the plan, composed with the thoroughness of an engineer, collapsed.
And when it became clear to the assistant director that it was pointless to hope that his feelings for Eliza might be requited, he gave himself over completely to his apocalyptic idea. In the subsequent entries, which were made as a new 1 appeared in the calendar, there was no ‘Take thought!’ The sentence had been pronounced and confirmed. The theatre world would be sent flying to kingdom come and Eliza, having failed to become his bride on earth, would become his Heavenly Bride.
A bride must maintain her chastity until the wedding. Therefore the ‘bridegroom’ killed those whom he suspected of endangering her virtue.
And so the young fool Limbach died. Of course, the cornet received his pass to the actors’ floor from the assistant director. The boy must have been tremendously pleased by the idea of waiting for Eliza in her own changing room – in order to congratulate her on the premiere tête-à-tête.
The scene was set skilfully. It is well known that maniacal personalities in the grip of their overarching idea can manifest incredible ingenuity. The blow with the knife across the stomach was intended as a reminder of the hussar’s threat to commit hara-kiri. In case that trick didn’t work (and by this time Nonarikin already knew that Fandorin was conducting an investigation and that he was a man of experience) the criminal took precautionary measures. Firstly, he acquired a clasp knife – the preferred weapon of Moscow’s bandits. Secondly, he wrote the letters ‘Li’ in blood on the door. This was a cunning trick, and it achieved its purpose. If the investigation or Fandorin did not believe in the ‘hara-kiri’, a different interpretation of the incomplete name could be hinted at – which Nonarikin did very deftly. Apparently by chance he turned the conversation to the subject of Mr Whistle’s past, and before the former policeman’s real name – Lipkov – could be pronounced, the maniac immediately withdrew into the shadows – he knew that the bait would be swallowed.
It was painful for Erast Petrovich to realise how many mistakes he had made. How long he had allowed the murderer to lead him around by the nose!
The most annoying thing of all was that his very first theory, the most obvious of all, had led him directly to Nonarikin, but the assistant director had managed to wriggle his way out of things and even gain Fandorin’s trust… How shameful, how very shameful!
The initial miscalculation had been that Erast Petrovich thought the poisoning of the leading man to be a cold-blooded, carefully planned murder, but in actual fact it was the action of an artist who unhesitatingly laid his own life on the line. Unfortunately, Fandorin failed to guess that the poisoner had played a game of equals with Emeraldov, tempting his own fate. Strictly speaking, it had not been a murder, but a dual. Only poor Hippolyte had not been aware of that, he had not known that in selecting a goblet he was deciding his own fate. It is quite possible that the drinking companions clinked goblets and both drank – the ‘demonic personality’ also wanted to test Fate, to confirm his own chosen status.