So at last, after all, he had met her face to face. Humiliating though it all was, he looked at her with curiosity. This was the woman whose bed he had hoped to share.

Her face was still fine. The brow was noble. But her short, stout body looked coarser and flabbier than he had realized, and some of her teeth were clearly missing. Her golden autumn had shed nearly all its leaves, and she knew that nothing could disguise it. Alexander gazed at her, and did not envy Platon Zubov any more.

'Who is he?' The empress's voice cut coldly, authoritatively, through the silence.

'Alexander Prokofievich Bobrov,' Zubov answered, and gave Alexander an encouraging smile. 'He came to ask for an appointment,' he added kindly.

Catherine looked at Alexander, apparently searching the large storehouse of her mind for scraps of information, saying nothing while she did so. She might be getting old, perhaps unwell, but her prominent, calm blue eyes were still rather alarming. For years Alexander had vowed that when they met he would astonish her: now, in her presence, after this ridiculous beginning, he was idiotically speechless. He felt himself growing hot. And then he saw a faint recognition in her eyes.

'You are State Councillor Bobrov?'

He bowed. Perhaps Potemkin had spoken of him formerly and she remembered. She must, at least, be aware of his family's ancient services. Was it possible that, after all, his hour had come? God knows I have deserved it, he thought. Then she spoke.

'Aren't you a relation of that tiresome and ridiculous Countess Turova?'

It was not a question. It was a cold, contemptuous accusation. At this signal of royal displeasure, it seemed to him that he could feel the whole room grow instantly cold towards him.

'I am distantly related. I'm afraid she is rather absurd,' he said lamely.

'Quite. Now I know who you are.'

And with that she turned her back and began to walk out of the room. Just before the doorway, and without turning her head, she called: 'Come, Platon.' Then she swept out.

Zubov started after her quickly; from somewhere the monkey reappeared and loped along behind him. At the door, Zubov turned, gave a regretful little shrug to Alexander, and then suddenly grinned. 'Oh, well, Alexander Prokofievich,' he called out, 'at least my monkey liked you! Goodbye.' Then he was gone, and all the room was laughing.

It was over. He would never, as long as he lived, get any court favour. And why? Because the empress associated him with Countess Turova, and her stupid views.

My God, he thought, I might as well have kept on the right side of the old witch and her damned Voltaire.

Sadly, his head down, he left. He was broken. As he made his way back to where his carriage was waiting, he scarcely noticed the old general going into the palace, with a faint smile on his face.

All the way back to St Petersburg he brooded. He was finished. He could see it all. They would move to a smaller house. There would be almost nothing for the children. Even his most modest hopes had been dashed.

Perhaps I should just go and live at Russka, he thought. There would be nothing to do, but it would be cheap. 'A fellow from Riazan,' he muttered. That was the popular phrase for a country bumpkin. Twice during the journey back he put his head between his knees, in a gesture of despair.

It was eight o'clock in the evening when he reached St Petersburg: the bright haze in the streets would continue, growing gradually paler until midnight when the strange, electric luminosity of the White Night would begin. Shortly he would have to face Tatiana with the news of his failure. As his carriage approached the Second Admiralty quarter however, an idea occurred to him and he ordered the coachman not to stop but to continue across the Neva to Vasilevsky Island. Once there, he told him to wait by the Strelka Strelka, the tip of the island, then he proceeded on foot. He would have one last try. After all, he had nothing to lose.

The great house of Countess Turova was quiet. It might have been deserted. It was as though, having no wish to take part in that interminable, pale summer night, it had retreated into itself, behind its large, heavy and slightly dusty facade. Its big, silent pillars and their deep recesses made Alexander think of a mausoleum or a government office on a Sunday. Yet he knew the old woman was in there somewhere.

He approached discreetly, keeping out of sight of the main door where some lackey might observe him, and made instead for the little side entrance that led to Madame de Ronville's quarters. Her note had said she would be out at the Ivanovs' that evening. So much the better. He had no need to involve her, only to get access to the building. When he reached the door he pulled out the ring of keys which he always kept with him. Although they were no longer lovers, he had never been able to bring himself to part With the key to that little side door. He let himself in, and went up the stairs.

How still it was. Inside the house there was not a sound not even a scratch or a whisper. He passed through Adelaide's rooms. The evening sunlight outside softly lit up the tapestries and damasks. There was a faint smell of roses in the salon. A moment later he passed into the main body of the house. Since this, too, was silent he guessed that the old lady had probably retired early. He made his way carefully up the little staircase to the landing, and paused. The door of the maid's room was closed: obviously she had not come up yet. But the door of the countess's bedroom was open. He listened. Was she there?

Then he heard her. At first he thought she must be talking to someone, she was muttering with such conviction, but after a few moments, hearing no answering voice, he moved into the doorway. Then he was sure: the countess was muttering to herself. What was she saying? He could not make it out but suddenly the thought crossed his mind perhaps the old woman was going a little mad. Mad or not, it was time to act. Calmly he stepped into the room.

She was reading, sitting up in bed, just as she had been that night five years ago. She looked older and frailer now; her hair, tied with ribbons, was getting thin. Her shoulders, slightly exposed, showed the bones sharply through the sagging skin. She was propped up on pillows, leaning slightly forward, following the text of a newspaper by holding a magnifying glass close to the page, and muttering irritably to herself while she did so.

She started with a little cry when she saw him. He saw her swallow with alarm. But then, quickly collecting herself, she noisily slammed down the newspaper on the bedclothes and hissed furiously: 'What do you want? How dare you come here!'

He tried to look soothing.

'I wanted to speak to you, Daria Mikhailovna, but,' he gave a wry smile, 'you would not let me in.'

'Get out.'

He wondered if anyone could hear them, but stood his ground. It was all or nothing now.

'Daria Mikhailovna, permit me at least, and with great respect, to say that you have done me an injustice. And even if you are unfairly angry with me, do not, I beg you, destroy my poor wife and children, who are innocent.'

'You sent them to pester me already once today and I sent them away,' she retorted sharply. 'Now leave my house.'

His wife and children there? What was she talking about? 'I did no such thing,' he replied truthfully.

But the old woman's attention seemed to wander now. She began to mumble, 'First one comes, then the other, pretending they don't know. Liars! They'll get nothing from me.' Could it be, Alexander wondered, that the countess really was becoming senile? The thought had just formed when she abruptly hissed: 'Or their children. Filthy creatures! Snakes!'

This last was said with such vehemence, in a manner so insulting, that he could not help tensing with anger.

'You do not understand, Daria Mikhailovna,' he went on patiently. 'You are angry with me but I assure you, no one admires the great Voltaire more than I do. But at the moment, my dear Daria Mikhailovna, even those of us who think as you do cannot speak. The empress won't hear of it. I'm a State Councillor. Surely you know that I have to be careful.'

He paused, wondering if she had understood. For a moment she did not reply. She stared down at the newspaper that lay before her. Then she looked up at him, with contempt, and spat out a single word.

'Deceitful!'

What a foolish, vicious old woman she was. And now she continued muttering, though whether to herself, or addressing her remarks to him, it was impossible to tell. 'He says one thing to this one, another to that. Two-faced. You can't trust him an inch.' And just because, in his heart, Alexander was ashamed of the way he had deserted his old patron Potemkin, and because it was true that he had altered his views to the prevailing wind, the crazy old woman's accusations made him all the more angry. First the hot drive out to the Summer Palace, then his utter humiliation, now this.

'You don't understand. I assure you ...' he began.

But she cut in: 'You think I don't know you for what you are. This is the second time you've come sneaking in here, you snake.'

'I most certainly have not,' he retorted hotly.

'Liar!' She fell silent, then continued her colloquy with herself. 'Oh, yes, I saw him creeping in here in the middle of the night like a wolf. Thief! Thinks he can just come in here and mock me. Blackguard! Picking up my books, dancing about in front of me like a lunatic. Snake! Viper!' She spat out the words.

My God! Then she had not been asleep that far-off night. Her eyes had been open because she was awake. It had never occurred to Alexander that the old lady had been brooding secretly about his foolish nocturnal visit for the last five years. And how on earth could he explain it now? 'Who do you think you are?' she suddenly demanded furiously. 'You think you can deceive me too? Liar!' she rasped.

He was shattered, yet furious. He was not a liar!

'All this because I said a few words about Voltaire! What about my children your own kinsmen? You mean to disinherit them?'

'You mean to disinherit them?' She mimicked his words with surprising accuracy and a vicious contempt. 'I care nothing for your children. Serpent's brood. Let them starve! Now get out of here. Traitor!'

It was too much. It was cruel beyond reason. The rage and frustration of the day, perhaps of his whole life, suddenly welled up and flooded over.

'You old witch!' he cried out. 'You stupid, senile old hag! What do you know about anything? Damn your Voltaire! Damn you too!' He raised his fists above his head, tightly clenched. 'My God, I'll kill you!' And he took a step towards her.

It was a gesture of frustration. He had meant, perhaps, to shock her. He hardly knew himself. But now to his horror he saw her shudder, watched her eyes open very wide, then roll up. Then she fell back on her pillow.

He stood still. It was very quiet. He glanced at the door, expecting to see servants, but there was nobody. It suddenly occurred to him that in that huge house, the servants on other floors had probably not heard them. He looked back at her. Her mouth had fallen open, making a small, rather pathetic little O. Her few yellow teeth seemed very long, like a rat's. She did not seem to be breathing.

Trembling, he went over to her. What should he do? Gingerly he felt her pulse. He could feel nothing. He continued to gaze at her nervously for some time before he fully realized that she was dead.

Because he was so afraid of her, a simple and obvious fact had never entered his mind that the frail old woman had been terrified of him. He must have given her a heart attack. He crossed himself.

And only after several moments more, as he stood there wondering what to do next, did the true significance of what had happened occur to him.

'Praise be to God,' he whispered. She was dead and she hadn't yet altered her Will. 'I'm saved after all.'

Cautiously he went to the door and looked out on to the landing. Everything was quiet, just as it had been before. He glanced back once more at the figure of the countess. She had not moved. He went out, descended the staircase to the main body of the house, then slipped quietly along the passage to Madame de Ronville's quarters.

A few minutes later, he was letting himself out of the little street door. No one saw him. He locked the door behind him. Then, walking swiftly, he made his way through the tenuous late evening light to the Strelka Strelka where his carriage was waiting. where his carriage was waiting.

It was just as his carriage was rolling over the bridge towards Peter's Square that, in the great house on Vasilevsky Island, Countess Turova's eyes fluttered and slowly opened.

The dead faint into which she had fallen had lasted some time. She had, indeed, been lost to the world and had herself no idea how long she had been unconscious. Nor was it surprising that Alexander should have believed her dead: for having little experience of old people he did not know that their pulses often become almost impossible to feel. For some while she lay very still, collecting her strength. She called for her maid, but obviously the woman was still downstairs somewhere. Her face puckered up into an expression of disgust and she muttered something to herself. Carefully, she levered herself round, so that her legs hung over the side of the bed, and slowly lowered them to the floor. Holding the bedside table, she made sure that she could walk. Then she went over to the little writing table. Feeling in one of the drawers, she pulled out a piece of paper and looked at it thoughtfully; she had no idea what it meant, but she was sure it meant something.

It was the letter Alexander had unknowingly dropped from his pocket when he had done his foolish little dance in her room that December night, five long years before. And it was signed 'Colovion'.

Then, unaided, Countess Turova started to make her way towards the stairs.

Alexander could not sleep that night; perhaps it was the excitement of what had passed, or perhaps it was merely the season, but a little after midnight he set out from his house and began to walk.

There were others about, in that pale gloaming: young couples, even children, walking along the broad embankments of the Neva or beside the silent canals with their little bridges, enjoying the warm magic of those early hours. Sometimes a little party would go by, singing and laughing in the glimmering greyness.

Alexander made his way to the embankment. Slowly he walked along, across the great square where Peter's mighty statue reared up, past the long, bare walls of the Admiralty, and out on to the broad expanse before the Winter Palace and its extension, the Hermitage. On his left lay the wide pale expanse of the Neva. On the Strelka Strelka, in mid-river, a light was glowing. Now and then, people passed by like shadows. And as he stood gazing north-wards, the little flashes of the Aurora, like silent lightning, ignited past the horizon, over the Arctic wastes.

Unreal season. Unreal city. As he looked back over the last ten years of his life, and thought of the strange events of that day, it seemed to Alexander that his whole existence had been like a tiny walk-on part on this huge St Petersburg stage-set. For wasn't it all just a play? Wasn't poor Empress Catherine with her young lovers a pathetic personal sham? Wasn't this huge city, built on a northern marsh, with its Italian facades gazing over an icebound wasteland, another kind of improbable deception? The city is built on wooden piles, he thought. One day they will rot and it will all fall back into the marshes. Wasn't the enlightened noble class to which he belonged the greatest sham of all speaking of Voltaire, yet ruling as it did over a vast empire of villages and serfs, stuck in the Middle Ages, or even the Dark Ages, if truth be told? Was Peter the Great's vision of Russia as a great Continental Empire wasn't the boundless energy and ambition of the Bronze Horseman just a wild dream, impossible ever of being achieved? As he stared over the huge river and then looked back at the great open space beside the palace, he suddenly had an overwhelming sense that the vast Russian land of marsh and forest might advance, at any moment, into the emptiness of this unnatural city.

'Why, the whole city,' he murmured aloud, 'is just a huge Potemkin village a facade. And if so, what has my life been my gamble for power, my love of display, my desire for earthly and even heavenly rewards? Was it all a great illusion?'

It seemed to him, at that moment, that it was so. As he slowly made his way home, revolving this thought in his mind, he would glance up from time to time to notice a piece of broken-off stucco here, or the rotting bricks on the corners of the houses there, and murmur to himself: 'Yes, it is vanity. All is vanity.'

And so deep in contemplation of this grand futility was Alexander that, returning at last in the early morning, he did not even notice the little carriage standing in front of his house, or the group of men who stood waiting to receive him. So that he looked up in astonishment as one of them stepped forward and said to him quietly: 'State Councillor Bobrov, you are to accompany us. You are under arrest.'

The cell was pitch black. There was no light from any source.

He did not know how long he had been there but since the door had half opened, twice, and a hand had pushed in a crust of bread and a small pitcher of water, he supposed it must be between one and two days.

The cell was very small. If he stood with his back to the heavy door and reached out his right hand and his left, he could place the palms flat against the two walls. From this position he discovered he could take two full paces before his head hit the wall opposite. The first few hours he thought there was a rat in one corner; but now he was not sure. Perhaps it had found a hole somewhere and gone away. For this was the dreaded Peter and Paul Fortress. He wondered whether the cell was above or below the water level. Below, he thought.

Only one thing puzzled him. Why had they arrested him? For what crime? The arresting officer had not told him probably had not known. And since they had thrown him in here, no one had spoken to him. There was only one thing to do: keep calm.

Another day passed. No one came. He wondered if they would leave him there to die. Then, at the end of the third day, the door opened and they pulled him out, and a few minutes later he found himself standing, rather unsteadily, in a large room, blinking at the pain of the light, and becoming vaguely aware of the fact that, after his confinement, he was stinking. There was a single guard in the room and when Alexander asked him what was going on he replied gruffly: 'You'll be questioned.'

'Oh. By whom?'

'Don't you know?' The guard grinned. 'By Sheshkovsky himself, of course.' Then he laughed. 'You'll talk.'

And now, despite his determination to be calm, Alexander trembled. Everyone knew about Sheshkovsky the most feared inquisitor in all Russia. The great interrogator had easily broken poor Radishchev, the radical writer. They said that his victims were lucky if they lived. Yet, Alexander reminded himself, I am a noble. By law he can't torture me. He can't give me the knout. The court had to strip him of his noble status before he could suffer those indignities.

He was still thinking nervously about these matters when he felt hands forcing him to sit on a bench. A table was put in front of him, with a lamp on it. Then, a moment later, he became aware of another figure in the room somewhere out in the shadows, past the bright lamp a figure he could not see but whose voice he could hear.

'So,' said the voice quietly, 'tell me about Colovion.'

In the three weeks that followed, Alexander Bobrov was often confused. Some days they would leave him alone in his cell; but usually they would wait until he was falling asleep and then drag him back to the lighted room and shine the lamp in his eyes, or force him to move about so that he could not sleep.

His inquisitor came at irregular intervals. At first Alexander thought this was a ploy, but after a time it seemed to him that the inquisitor had other business elsewhere, and that he, Alexander, might be of only marginal interest. Yet each time he asked why they were keeping him there, the reply was indirect, and therefore all the more frightening: 'I think you know, State Councillor,' or, 'Perhaps you would like to tell me, Alexander Prokofievich.'

They did not use torture: they did not threaten him with the knout. Yet no torture, he realized, can be worse than never being allowed to sleep. As for the interrogator, Alexander understood now why he was so feared. It's not what he does to your body, he thought. It's what he does to your soul.

For gradually, session after session, day after day, the inquisitor was taking over his mind.

It was a subtle process. When, for instance, he had denied all knowledge of Colovion, the interrogator had not contradicted him. But towards the end of the session, quietly, imperturbably, he had let Alexander know by a few words that he knew about the professor and the Rosicrucian circle. So he had probably been interrogating the professor too, Alexander realized. Yet how did he know about their connection? There were no written records. Had the professor talked? Perhaps. It began to occur to him that the interrogator might not be seeking information from him at all, but only trying to discover how much he would lie.

It was the same when they discussed other matters. His interrogator wanted to know about the articles he had written, years ago, on subjects like the emancipation of serfs. Yet those articles had been anonymous. No one knew who had written them. How was it then that, each time he denied having done so, the invisible voice would quietly accept his assertion and then, with incredible accuracy, recite a line or two that he had written perhaps an entire decade before?

Slowly, as the process continued and the gentle, reasonable voice, never accusing, allowed him to see, again and again, that he knew the truth, Alexander, to his own surprise, began to feel guilty.

By the seventh day, it seemed to Alexander that the interrogator knew everything there was to know about him. By the fourteenth day, it seemed to his confused brain that the interrogator knew more about him than he did himself. By the twentieth day, Alexander knew that the interrogator was all-knowing, god-like. What reason was there to try to hide anything from this voice this kindly voice, which was only helping him to open his heart, and then at last to sleep?

On the twenty-first day, he talked.

It was a cool, damp October morning when Alexander Bobrov left the Peter and Paul Fortress, with his hands and feet manacled, and sitting in the back of a little open cart. In the front sat the driver and a soldier with a musket. There were two outriders.

The sky was grey. The waters of the Neva were high, and above the Admiralty he could see the little flags flying which warned that there was a risk of flooding. For it was not unusual, at such a season, for the waters of the Gulf of Finland to sweep in past Vasilevsky Island and take over the cellars and even the streets of the city of Peter.

Strangely, Alexander felt at peace with the world. Though manacled, he sat quite calmly, almost cheerfully, and watched the great city go by. His clothes were in tatters, his head bare, yet it did not seem to concern him unduly. In the distance, across the river, he caught a glimpse of the Bronze Horseman. There was the Winter Palace and the Hermitage. The empress and her lover Zubov were in there somewhere, no doubt. Good luck to them.

It was odd: he had lost everything, yet he actually felt more comfortable now than he had done in years. Here in a cart, his head bare to the elements, he felt absolved of all earthly cares. Perhaps it was personal to Alexander, or perhaps it was a trait often found in Russia, but he realized that he only felt truly himself at life's extremes. It was as though he had never really felt comfortable when he was striving for mediocrity, as he had been these last few years. Give me a palace, he considered, or a monk's cell.

Anyway, he had been lucky. He had only been sentenced to ten years.

He had learned of it the day before. For several weeks now, he had been in a small cell with a window. He had not been allowed any visitors, nor any news of the outside world. He still did not even know what crimes he had been charged with. Then, that morning, the interrogator had come and told him his sentence.

'Your trial went well,' he blandly announced. Like other such trials, it had been a brief, informal affair at which the accused himself had not been present. 'The empress had wanted to give you fifteen years. That's what we gave your friend the professor. But your wife wrote to the empress a very fine letter, I must say and so we've been lenient. In fact, you've been even luckier than that. But I'll let your wife tell you about it.'

Tatiana had come a few hours later. It was only now that he learned that the countess was still alive. 'But she has told everyone in St Petersburg that you tried to murder her,' Tatiana explained. 'She went to the police that very night and told them to arrest you. And then,' she paused, 'it seems there were other charges.' She looked at him anxiously. 'They say you were a Freemason. I do not understand.'

He sighed. He thought he was beginning to.

The crackdown of Catherine the Great on the Freemasons in the summer of 1792 was sudden. It was probably caused by Novikov when, under questioning, he had inadvertently revealed the existence of the secret inner order of Rosicrucians. Historical evidence shows that, even afterwards, the authorities had only a very imperfect idea of how the order worked. Since the Rosicrucians always burned all their correspondence, the full membership was never established. The links to Grand Duke Paul were never proved; the international network only vaguely understood. But the empress was adamant. The order was secret, its members probably radical; they might be plotting with her son. She trusted no one, nowadays. They were to be eliminated.

The business, it must be said, was planned intelligently. The men with important connections, like the prince, were to be quietly exiled to their estates. The bookseller who had sold Masonic tracts would be arrested and let out with a terrible warning. The professor was to be made an example of. 'But I wish,' the empress had declared, 'we had someone to make an example of from St Petersburg as well as Moscow.'

It was most fortunate therefore, on the very eve of the crackdown, that the inquisitor Sheshkovsky should have come to her with the surprising news: 'I think we may have discovered just the man we need. Moreover,' he added, 'it seems the fellow's a dangerous radical.' And the empress, when she heard who it was, had been delighted.