Ingenious pain, Andrew Miller [little red riding hood ebook .txt] 📗

the room. Mary. He cannot tell if she is looking at him; the light is too poor, his eyes are too tired. He understands, however, understands perfectly, that he must go.

'Good night to you, then. You both.'

He goes to his room, obscurely troubled. Why does this prickly man, who surely cares nothing for him, provoke his pity so?

He undresses, is briefly naked in the wood-warmed air, then

draws on his nightgown, his pointed nightcap, a pair of thick woollen stockings. When he lies down he prays, the habit resumed after what now seems an unimportant interval of silence. He prays for Dyer, for himself, for his loved ones: a childhood prayer. He snuffs the candle. Strange how the darkness comes all at once. Where is it when the light is there?

The Featherstones, Monsieur About, the Reverend Lestrade, in two hackney sledges, go to see a bear belonging to the Empress baited by dogs. Two dogs

are killed. The dogs look sorry for themselves only at the very end.

A man comes in to hoick their bodies out. The bear is led away to

lick its wounds. Fifteen degrees of frost. The drivers' breath freezes

in their beards.

A supper at Princess D's. Cold soup, caviare and postilla. The ladies are carried up the stairs by servants. For a wager Monsieur About drinks off a bottle of champagne at a single draught. The Princess says to the Reverend: 'Did you not come with one of the English doctors?'

'Ma'am, we did, but he is indisposed.'

Parting, the Reverend kisses the Princess's hand. She says: 'You must come here every day.'

A man called Bootle takes them to the Newski market. The meat is deep-frozen, hard as stone. Bootle asks after Dyer. The Reverend says: 'He would not come out today.'

'He is unwell?'

'He is weary after his journey.'

What of the woman?'

When they are alone, About says that Bootle is a spy. St Petersburg, he says, is full of spies.

Bootle takes them to the bath-house. One rouble for a private room, five copecks for the public. 'Let us not be parted!' says Monsieur About. James Dyer is with them. When they are stripped the Reverend sees a dozen red weals upon Dyer's back, like the marks of a lash, and a mottling of bruises on his chest and legs. There are also marks on his hands, as if he has reached for something through a briar. About is unsettled, offended. He says, loud enough for the Reverend to hear: 'That is too much. Too far.' The day is spoiled.

The adventure is coming to an end. This adventure. About has sold his toys to an agent of the Empress. She is known to be delighted. To have paid handsomely. About says they will amuse the court for a week, then be dropped in their boxes and forgotten. It does not matter. It will happen to them all in time. To the Empress herself! Forgotten, forgotten. He fills their glasses. It is evening at the apartment. The Reverend and About are alone there. James Dyer and Mary are at one place, the Featherstones at another. The stoves are hissing: good Russian stoves, nothing like them in England. The Reverend thinks: I could be home by the New Year. A fresh start. Home.

About comes up, smiles, takes his arm, says: 'I am to go to Warsaw, the first of next week. Then as fast as I can to Paris. Come with me. I should not like to travel without you now.'

The Reverend asks: 'Might we take the doctor? And the woman if he will not part from her?'

About says: 'Why not?'

The next day they call at the palace again, but the Empress is

away. There are only visitors like themselves, w^alking the empty corridors, talking in hushed voices. There are no players at the card tables, no servants running with champagne. The servants sit about on the stairs, drink and eat what they have stolen from the kitchens. Only a few of the lights are lit. It is cold, echoing. A spectacular barracks.

At Millionaya they have an evening of backgammon and Loo, coffee and wine. The Reverend retires at midnight, goes to his room, then, taking his quill and ink-horn, sharpening the tip of the quill with his pocket knife, dipping it in the ink, wiping it, dipping it, he begins another letter to his sister.

Rev J Is Lestrade to Miss Dido Les trade

St Petersburg, 9 December 1767

Dear Dido,

I write now to say I shall be returning to England and may even arrive before you receive this. I shall go to Warsaw with M. About and thence back to Paris and so home. You cannot think how I long to be among you again. Not that I regret my coming here. It is something to be able to say one has met the Empress of Russia. I do wonder how that poor postillion has fared and if we might not have some intelligence of him on the way back. Our little party, soon to disperse, is all well, with the exception ofDr Dyer who has taken his being beat by Dr Dimsdale very hard.

The cold here is shocking but they know how to be warm, and I have been no more uncomfortable than I should have been at home.

Let me tell you of all we have done since my last . . .

He lays down his pen. The letter can wait until morning. He rubs the stubble of his face. Who was that fellow he knew shaved three times a day? Collins? Johnstone? Someone at the University? Paston?

He thinks of his Httle opium pipe and finds the box at the bottom of his bag. He took the drug first as a boy to quieten a persistent cough; took it later as a student for the dreams it brought, and on those occasions when his allowance was all used up it was cheaper and more pleasant to take opium than to eat. He is the mildest of addicts; Dido takes more. He smokes in