Free Sister Pelagia and the White Bulldog by Boris Akunin Page B

knees, and therefore Vladimir Lvovich had at first called him “Orangutang,” but later awarded him the less offensive nickname of “Undershirt.” (The point was that Tikhon Ieremeevich was distinguished by such genuinely fervent piety that his every second word, whenever it was appropriate and also when it was not, was a citation from Holy Writ, and he had once been incautious enough to mention to his suzerain that for protection against the devil he wore beneath his frock coat a special shirt, which he called a “blessed baptismal shirt.”) Like a good Christian, Spasyonny did not take offense at his master’s jokes and merely repeated briefly: “Sprinkle me with hyssop and I shall be pure, wash me and I shall become whiter than snow.”
    The provincial secretary followed Bubentsov everywhere like a shadow, and yet despite this he also somehow managed to pop up in the most unexpected places, since he had familiarized himself with Zavolzhsk amazingly quickly. He was seen either in the cathedral, singing along in the choir, or in the market, haggling over the price of honey with the Old-Believer beekeepers, or in Olympiada Savelievna’s salon, conversing with the attorney Korsh, who is regarded as the leading expert on investigative matters in our province.
    It is astonishing how a person like Spasyonny was able to associate and even be on friendly terms with Bubentsov’s beastlike driver. This Murad was a genuine Abrek, a true highway bandit. In Zavolzhsk he was dubbed “the Circassian,” although he had no Circassian blood and came from a quite different mountain tribe. But who can tell all these blackbeards apart? Murad was not only Vladimir Lvovich’s coachman, but also his valet and servant, and when occasion demanded his bodyguard. No one really knew for certain why he evinced such doglike devotion to his master. All that was known was that he had followed Bubentsov around since his childhood and been inherited by him from his father. A long time before that, Bubentsov senior, one of the Caucasian generals, had rescued the young Murad Djuraev from enemies seeking blood vengeance and carried him away to Russia. Perhaps there were some other special circumstances involved, but that was something the Zavolzhians had not been able to discover, and they lacked the courage to ask Murad about it. He looked far too frightening for that, with his shaved head and his face completely overgrown by a thick black beard that grew right up to his very eyes and those teeth—he could bite your arm off at the elbow and spit it out. Murad spoke little Russian and even that badly, although he had lived among the Orthodox for many years. He had also retained his Mohammedan faith, for which he was subjected to onslaughts of missionary zeal by Tikhon Ieremeevich, but so far without any result. He dressed in Caucasian fashion: in an old beshmet and patched soft-leather shoes, with an immense silver-bound dagger at his belt. Murad’s bandy-legged, swaying walk and broad shoulders signaled brute strength, and men felt themselves constrained in his presence, while women of the simpler classes experienced a swooning sense of fright. Strangely enough, among the cooks and the maids Murad had the reputation of a paramour, although he treated them roughly and even violently. During the second week of Bubentsov’s stay the firemen of Zavolzhsk conspired with the butchers of the town to teach the infidel a lesson and stop him from despoiling other people’s girls. But Murad scattered his dozen “teachers” and then pursued them through the streets for a long time. He overtook the butcher Fedka and would surely have beaten him to death had Tikhon Ieremeevich not come upon the scene in time.
    Things did not go as far as murder, but in view of this scandal, and especially the fact that the police had not dared to halt the ruffian, several of the more far-seeing among the townsfolk began to take stock, sensing the approach of troubled