Free The Winter Queen by Boris Akunin, Andrew Bromfield Page A

I don’t even think of them as creatures of the female sex. How old are you, Fandorin?”
    “Twenty-one,” said Fandorin, adding a year to his age.
    “Well, I’m twenty-three, and I’ve already seen a lot. Don’t gawp at the whores—they’re a complete waste of time and money. And it leaves you feeling disgusted afterward. If you must love, then love a queen! But then, why am I telling you that? You didn’t end up at Amalia’s by sheer chance, after all. Has she bewitched you? She likes doing that—adding to her collection—and the exhibits have to be continually renewed. How does that song in the operetta go, ‘ Elle nepense qu’à exciter les kommes’ *? But everything has its price, and I’ve already paid mine. Would you like me to tell you a story? Somehow I like you. You’re remarkably good at keeping quiet. And it will be useful for you to know what kind of woman she is. Maybe you’ll come to your senses before you get swallowed up like me. Or have you already been swallowed up, eh, Fandorin? What were you whispering to her back there?”
    Erast Fandorin lowered his eyes.
    “Then listen,” said Akhtyrtsev, launching into his story. “Not long since you suspected me of cowardice, because I let Hippolyte off and didn’t call him out. But I’ve fought a duel the likes of which your Hippolyte has never even dreamed of. Did you hear the way she forbade us to talk about Kokorin? I should think so! His blood’s on her conscience—on hers. And on mine, too, of course. Only I’ve redeemed my mortal sin by fear. Kokorin and I were in the same year at the university—he used to go to Amalia’s place too. We used to be friends once, but because of her we became enemies. Kokorin was a bit more free and easy than me, with a cute kind of face, but entre nous ,* once a merchant always a merchant, a plebeian, even if you have studied at the university. Amalia had her fill of amusement out of us—first she would favor one of us, then the other. Called me Nicolas, and spoke to me familiarly, as if I were one of her favorites, and then for some stupid trifle or other she’d consign me to disgrace. She’d forbid me to show my face for a week, and then she was back to formal terms—Mr. Akhtyrtsev, Nikolai Stepanich. Her policy is to never ever let anyone off the hook.”
    “And what is this Hippolyte to her?” Fandorin asked cautiously.
    “Count Zurov? I can’t say exactly, but there’s something special between them…Either he has some hold over her, or she has over him…but he’s not jealous—he’s not the problem. A woman like that would never allow anyone to be jealous of her. In a word, she’s a queen!”
    He fell silent, because at the next table a company of tipsy businessmen had begun kicking up a racket—as they were getting ready to leave an argument had broken out about who was going to pay. In a trice the waiters had carried off the dirty tablecloth and spread out a new one, and a minute later the free table was already occupied by an extremely drunken functionary with whitish, almost transparent, eyes (no doubt the result of hard drinking). Flitting across to him, a pudgy girl with brown hair put her arm around his shoulder and theatrically flung one of her legs over the other. Erast Fandorin gazed admiringly at a knee clad in tight red de Perse .
    Meanwhile, Akhtyrtsev drained a full glass of Rhine wine, prodded at a bloody beefsteak with his fork, and continued. “D’you think, Fandorin, that it was the misery of love that made him lay hands on himself? Not a bit of it! I was the one who killed him.”
    “What?” Fandorin could not believe his ears.
    “You heard me,” Akhtyrtsev said with a nod, looking proud. “I’ll tell you all about it. Just sit quietly and don’t go interrupting me with questions.”
    “Yes, I killed him, and I don’t regret it in the least. I killed him, fair and square in a duel. Yes, fair and square! Because no duel since time immemorial has ever