Dan Simmons is heartbroken. Dan Simmons - fifth heart Dan Simmons fifth heart download fb2
On a stormy Parisian night, fate brought two strangers together on the banks of the Seine: a sickly-looking gentleman in his late fifties who had recently arrived from England, and a tall man with a Scandinavian accent and an aquiline profile, posing as a Norwegian traveler. Both were brought here by one goal: to commit suicide. But the meeting changed a lot, and after a couple of days this strange couple found themselves on board a ship sailing straight to the North American United States...
Dan Simmons
The Fifth Heart
Novel
Genre: Sherlockian crossover, alternative classic
Output in original language: 2015
Translator: E. Dobrokhotova-Maikova
Publishers: “ABC”, “ABC-Atticus”, 2016
640 pp., 5000 copies.
Similar to:
Neil Gaiman, short story "A Study in Turquoise"
Kim Newman "The Hound of the D'Urbervilles"
Did Sir Arthur Conan Doyle know everything about Sherlock Holmes? The more films and books, TV series and comics about this cult character are published, the stronger the doubts become. So Dan Simmons contributed to discrediting the classic. Holmes, whom the author of The Fifth Heart introduces us to, does not look too much like the hero who allegedly perished in the Reichenbach Falls. He has a slightly different biography, a different character, and the adventures that became the basis for “Dr. Watson’s reports,” according to the detective himself, actually took place completely differently than described in “Copper Beeches” or “A Scandal in Bohemia.” However, making a feasible contribution to the “alternative Sherlockiana” is not the main and far from the only goal of Simmons. If only because the detective’s involuntary partner becomes a figure of no less magnitude: the writer Henry James, a subtle stylist, a classic of pre-modernism, the author of “The Turn of the Screw,” the most famous novel about ghosts in Anglo-American literature of the last two centuries. It was in the first half of the 1890s that James experienced a serious creative crisis, which led to a radical change in his writing style - and ultimately to an unexpected breakthrough when the writer passed fifty. Well, after chasing murderers and bombers, you will inevitably reconsider your life priorities...
Dan Simmons' novel - complex, multi-layered, delicate stylization
In The Fifth Heart, Holmes travels to America to investigate an old murder passed off as suicide, expose a global conspiracy, and at the same time resolve an existential problem: who is he - a person of flesh and blood or just a character invented by a second-rate fiction writer? Meanwhile, Henry James, an American by birth and a Briton by conscious choice, an observant, sensitive and intelligent man, secretly studies his companion - and, it must be said, makes conclusions so psychologically accurate that any detective would be envious. The future classic is no stranger to snobbery, suspiciousness, painful pride, attacks of melancholy, and an overly serious attitude to the conventions of Victorian etiquette - but this is balanced by sincere respect for other people's freedom and life, as well as impeccable taste and broad erudition in the most unexpected areas. Well, there is one more feature in common between him and his partner: recently, James has also been haunted by the question, who is more real - the one born from a man and a woman, or the one created by a word?..
He perceived abuse of language in the same way as unjustified cruelty to dogs or horses. Not to say that his attitude towards horses and dogs was so sentimental, but he once remarked to Watson that the number of people saying “I’m wearing my hat” or “I’m tired” could be significantly reduced with a few well-aimed shots and notes with explanations, pinned to the victims' chests.
A painstaking philologist and a caring historian will find in “The Fifth Heart” material that is enough for several monographs that are not inferior to this book in volume. Simmons' novel is a complex, multi-layered, delicate stylization, and not only of the prose of Henry James and Arthur Conan Doyle... that is, excuse me, Dr. Watson. Other prominent representatives of literature of the late 19th and early 20th centuries appear on the pages of the book: Samuel Clemens, Henry Adams, Rudyard Kipling, Theodore Roosevelt - and each of them makes his own contribution to the narrative, weaving his voice into the general chorus. Historical mysteries that have not yet received an unambiguous explanation, plot twists from the tabloid “yellow series”, direct and veiled references to the author’s previous novels - a variety of tricks are used. For decades, Simmons has been closely exploring the theme of “the relationship between the author and the characters he creates,” between the biographer and the hero of the biography, the writer of historical novels and the actual historical figures he mentions. The task is constantly becoming more complicated, new unknowns are being introduced into the equation: this began back in “The Bell for Ham” (1999) and in subsequent years it continued to grow. In “Terror” (2007), “Drude” (2009), “Black Hills” (2010) and “Abomination” (2013), the author approached this topic from one side or the other, but, in my opinion, he reached its apogee , precisely in “Fifth Heart”. The overall impression is somewhat spoiled by the direct and unambiguous answers that Simmons put into the mouths of the two reasoners in the finale, but what can you do: in a classic detective story, you can’t do without the obligatory “living room scene”, when the detective collects all the suspects and tells them in detail who is really In fact, he knocked down the count and stole the family jewels.
Result: Perhaps “The Fifth Heart” is the best book by Dan Simmons in many years - which is already saying a lot. True, in order to grasp more shades of meaning, the reader will have to dig deep into dictionaries and biographical reference books. But this, it seems to me, is not the kind of work that should scare fans of the creator of Hyperion.
Not a bug
In The Fifth Heart, anachronisms appear from time to time and logical failures occur, the characters contradict themselves and get confused in their testimony. But don’t worry ahead of time: according to Simmons, the errors were made deliberately and work towards the overall author’s intent. “Not a bug, but a feature,” comrades!
Fifth Heart Dan Simmons
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Title: Fifth Heart
Author: Dan Simmons
Year: 2016
Genre: Detective fiction, Foreign fiction, Foreign detective stories, Classic detective stories
About the book “The Fifth Heart” by Dan Simmons
Sherlock Holmes is a literary character who managed not only to outlive his creator, but also his time. His name has long become a household name. He even felt a little cramped in his native work, and he went on a long journey through times and countries, he now becomes older, now younger, now immersed in the past, now transported to the distant future.
In The Fifth Heart, Dan Simmons tells us about the years in the life of Sherlock Holmes that followed his fall into the Reichenbach abyss. An unknown side of the biography of the great detective opens before us. Having avoided death, he swims across the ocean. Such a journey becomes for him something of a pilgrimage and self-exile at the same time.
He is consumed by an internal conflict brought about by the method of deduction: Sherlock Holmes is a literary hero. Holmes' companion - Henry James. He is a writer and playwright, and is a respectable citizen of the United States and Great Britain.
Eight years before these events, the wife of historian Henry Adams, Mrs. Clover Adams, committed suicide. However, her death took place under very suspicious and strange circumstances. Her family, which has a famous name and influential friends, cannot calm down; a dark secret does not allow them to live in peace. And now, after so many years, Henry James and Sherlock Holmes begin an investigation into the death of a woman...
Dan Simmons, in his traditional style, slowly leads the narrative. The premise is quite ambitious, and the ending is completely reminiscent of action. The book “The Fifth Heart” is filled with a huge number of historical events, many descriptions of landscapes and architectural structures, the author depicts in great detail the way of life and way of life. This is not to say that there is a lot of action in this work; rather, you will get more pleasure from long tea parties, conversations around the fireplace and leisurely walks through spring in New York, Washington and Chicago.
Reading “The Fifth Heart” will be interesting for those who love US history and everything related to the personality of Sherlock Holmes. You will love how masterfully Dan Simmons juggles historical figures - he introduces Mark Twain and William James into the plot, the writer beautifully mixes real historical events, all this forms a most interesting literary universe.
In addition to the fascinating plot, you will also enjoy excellent humor and irony. The book “The Fifth Heart” is a high-quality, action-packed retro novel that is enjoyable to read for many reasons.
On our website about books, you can download the site for free without registration or read online the book “The Fifth Heart” by Dan Simmons in epub, fb2, txt, rtf, pdf formats for iPad, iPhone, Android and Kindle. The book will give you a lot of pleasant moments and real pleasure from reading. You can buy the full version from our partner. Also, here you will find the latest news from the literary world, learn the biography of your favorite authors. For beginning writers, there is a separate section with useful tips and tricks, interesting articles, thanks to which you yourself can try your hand at literary crafts.
Quotes from the book "The Fifth Heart" by Dan Simmons
As a teenager, Holmes read Darwin and took from him the conviction that man should realize his insignificant place in the world and not think about it anymore, and that even the pyramids and other “miracles of architecture” are short-lived, like sand castles on Brighton beach.
He perceived abuse of language in the same way as unjustified cruelty to dogs or horses. Not to say that his attitude towards horses and dogs was so sentimental, but he once remarked to Watson that the number of people saying “I’m wearing my hat” or “I’m tired” could be significantly reduced with a few well-aimed shots and notes with explanations, pinned to the victims' chests.
America doesn't want to grow up. She is an eternal baby, huge, plump and pink, and now also wielding a deadly weapon that she doesn’t know how to use.
“History is a strange mechanism,” Holmes remarked, puffing on his pipe. “It needs the blood of martyrs, whether real or imaginary, like a machine needs lubrication.”
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For the first time in Russian - the newest novel by the modern classic Dan Simmons, a kind of completion of the conventional trilogy begun by the novels Terror and Drood, or the Man in Black. So, traveling incognito after his death at the Reichenbach Falls, Sherlock Holmes meets in Paris the American writer Henry James - a modern classic, author of such books as Portrait of a Lady, Bostonians, The Turn of the Screw. He recognizes the famous detective, despite all the disguise, and finds himself drawn into the orbit of his new investigation. Together with Holmes, James goes to America, where he has not been for many years; the master of words must help the father of the deductive method unravel the mystery of the death of Clover Adams, the wife of the historian Henry Adams (heir to the dynasty that has already given America two presidents), and also answer the question that has been tormenting Holmes for the last few years: is he a fictional character?.. |
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| 171; “The Fifth Heart” is a book that you can dive into headlong, wrote the Guardian newspaper. - A good old detective story, cozy and thorough, but taken from a modern perspective 187;. So... - ABC, (format: 84x108/32, 288 pages) | 2018 | 166 | paper book | ||
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| ““The Fifth Heart” is a book you can immerse yourself in,” wrote the Guardian newspaper. “A good old detective story, cozy and thorough, but with a modern twist... - (format: 115x180 mm, 672 pp.) | 2016 | 74 | paper book | ||
| For the first time in Russian - the newest novel by the modern classic Dan Simmons, a kind of completion of the conventional trilogy begun by the novels “The Terror” and “Drud, or the Man in Black.” So, traveling... - ABC-Atticus, (format: 84x108/32, 288 pages) e-book | 2014 | 249 | eBook | ||
| For the first time in Russian - the newest novel by the modern classic Dan Simmons, a kind of completion of the conventional trilogy begun by the novels “The Terror” and “Drud, or the Man in Black.” So, traveling... - ABC-Atticus, (format: 115x180 mm, 672 pages) | 299 | paper book | |||
| “The Fifth Heart is a book you can dive into,” the Guardian wrote. “A good old detective story, cozy and thorough, but with a modern twist.” So, the traveler... - ABC, (format: 115x180 mm, 672 pages) | 2018 | 463 | paper book | ||
| The Fifth Heart is a book you can immerse yourself in, the Guardian newspaper wrote. A good old detective story, cozy and thorough, but with a modern twist. So, traveling incognito... - ABC, (format: 115x180 mm, 672 pages) | 2018 | 238 | paper book | ||
| 1974 edition. The condition is good. In his book, the author not only poses and solves scientific and theoretical problems, but also introduces the reader to how he introduced his students to the world of knowledge... - Radyanska School, (format: 84x108/32, 288 pp.) | 1974 | 280 | paper book | ||
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Reviews about the book:
Sign of five. Another literary parody game from Dan Simmons was, in my opinion, a great success. I read it not so much in one sitting, but - with some pauses - in just over a year. So, Holmesiad. I remember, at a fairly tender age, I read some story in the magazine “Science and Life”, it seems, by Ellery Queen, about the new adventures of the famous detective from Baker Street, and I wondered how this was possible: about Holmes and suddenly - not Conan Doyle? To Simmons’ credit, he managed not only to contribute, but to notice some nuances that, admittedly, he had not paid attention to before. And this is a successful attraction of Henry James, so elusively similar to poor Wilkie Collins, who suffered so cruelly in another Simmons novel, “Drood,” but in which, like a drop of water, not only Holmes was reflected, but also the very spirit of the time. “And he gradually understood why his educated friends liked these “Adventures” so much... The essence of “The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes” was not in the adventures as such (they did not seem particularly exciting to James), but in the friendship between Holmes and Watson, in their joint breakfasts , in rainy days, when they sat together by the crackling fire, and Mrs. Hudson brought them food on a tray and messages from the outside world. Holmes and Watson lived in a universe of boys' adventures and, like Peter Pan (despite Watson's rather confused references to his marriages ), did not grow up." And here is another - a very unexpected case of infantilism: "America does not want to grow up. She is an eternal baby, huge, plump and pink, and now also wielding a deadly weapon that she does not know how to handle." A very bold phrase for a Yankee writer. Another time, the author won my applause by revealing an inimitable example of English humor: “He perceived abuse of language in the same way as unjustified cruelty to dogs or horses. Not to say that his attitude towards horses and dogs was so sentimental, but he "I once remarked to Watson that the number of people saying 'I'm wearing my hat' or 'I'm tired' could be significantly reduced with a few well-aimed shots and notes with explanations pinned to the victims' chests." Bravo, Holmes, and bravo, Simmons! Well, and of course, since we’re talking about classical English literature, where would we be without Gothic? “He looked at Holmes through his outstretched fingers, like a child looking into the darkness where a monster might be hiding.” The number of familiar names I encountered on the pages of this book is incalculable. One of the most amazing and unexpected meetings was the mention of the Indian leader Crazy Horse, who, together with Sitting Bull, pretty much spoiled the impression of the World's Fair in Philadelphia, defeating the cavalry under the leadership of George Armstrong Custer at the Battle of Little Beehorn and freeing - according to the old Indian tradition - Paleface the skull of the latter from the hairline. True, in an article in the magazine "Around the World", where I first met Tasanke Witke, his name was Crazy Horse. In my opinion, it was much more harmonious and romantic. I cannot help but mention another absolutely wonderful and unique side effect from reading this book. As soon as I opened it to one of those pages where the characters delve into philosophical, theo- and other “sophical” disputes, my consciousness within a few sentences slipped away from the bustle of everyday reality into the tender embrace of morpheus. I’m afraid that the producers of Valium and similar drugs will sooner or later have to chip in, hire a hitman and kill the author of “The Fifth Heart” in order to avoid unfair competition on his part. For it is enough to spend once on a volume of Dan Simmons, and sound healthy sleep will be provided to you at any time of the day or night of your choice, and without any pharmacological tricks. In conclusion, I must thank the main characters of the novel. Firstly, Mr. Holmes, who was damn convincing in the role of Taras Bulba. And secondly, Mr. James, who, it seems, was only needed by the author in order to receive a dubious compliment in the finale from the mouth of the main bastard of the story: “I like your books. Reading them is torment, and I love pain. Write on.”
Pomerantsev Dmitry 0
The fashion for Sherlock Holmes has also caught up with Dan Simmons. The author skillfully interweaves historical events and characters with the heroes of Conan Doyle in their classic and modern readings. It is felt that Simmons was well prepared not only in terms of US history, but also watched all the new TV series about Holmes. The look at Holmes is somewhat similar to the one in the latest Russian series. Only there Petrenko-Holmes is emphatically unrecognizable, and on the pages of Simmons the nostalgic, familiar image of the consulting detective comes to life. For which many thanks to Simmons. Simmons's interpretation of Holmes' biography and the events narrated by Watson does not look like just a modern interpretation; it seemed to me that Simmons' Sherlock Holmes is more Sherlock Holmes than Doyle's Sherlock Holmes. True, I gorged myself a little on the novel, the way one gorges on an exquisite and very tasty dish, which turned out to be too much.
Vyacheslav Dubina 0
The book is wonderful! It’s written in a captivating, humorous way that you just can’t put down! The execution of the book is also excellent - good white paper, easy-to-read size and font style. The book was individually packaged in cellophane. I recommend!
Tatiana 0
Simmons has written a thoroughly enjoyable novel using tried-and-true techniques. The book about Holmes is inferior to both The Terror and Drood, but it is also simpler. Henry James absolutely takes the place of Dr. Watson and, by the way, the author didn’t screw it up with James. An ambitious premise, but in the ending everything came down to clear action. Holmes somehow forgot about his doubts about whether he was a literary character, James remained to his own. The author's juggling with VIPs, including Mark Twain or William James, mixing historical facts and facts, building his own literary universe with intersecting characters (from “The Black Hills,” for example) cannot but inspire respect. This is all pure Akuninism of the Fandorin style - a high-quality commercial action-packed retro novel, multi-page and enjoyable in all respects. Simmons added too many guns during the action, so as not to forget about them by the end. Everything is fine with humor and irony, the style is quite good. I enjoyed it, but I will note that “Dog” by Kim Nyman in the conventional Holmesian version is a much more ambitious and non-standard work, somewhat sloppily written, it’s true.
Disadvantages: Surprisingly, there are none Comment: I read “The Terror” before. Fear and horror. I don't like horror books like this. I don’t understand how, in principle, I decided to take on Simmons again - they talk too much about him, apparently. In general, I was pleasantly surprised - a completely different twist, the author clearly works on contrast, and he succeeds.
Bobrov Sergey 0
Dan Simmons
| Dan Simmons | |
| Dan Simmons | |
| Date of Birth: | |
|---|---|
| Place of Birth: | |
| Occupation: | |
| Years of creativity: | |
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| Awards: |
Hugo, Locus Award, World Fiction Award |
| Works on the website Lib.ru | |
| Dan Simmons - Official Web Site | |
Dan Simmons was born in Peoria, Illinois on April 4, 1948. He grew up in small Midwestern towns, including Brimfield, Illinois, which was then the inspiration for his fictional Ilm Haven in his novels Summer of Night (1991) and Deep Winter (2002). Dan received a bachelor's degree in English Literature from Wabash College in 1970, winning the national Phi Beta Gamma Award for excellence in fiction, journalism, and the arts during his senior year.
Dan became a professional teacher in 1971 at Washington University in St. Louis. After which he taught for 18 years - 2 years in Missouri, 2 years in Buffalo, New York, one year as a senior teacher, and another as a sixth grade teacher, after which he taught for 14 years in Colorado.
For the next four years, Simmons, a teacher, was one of the organizers, coordinators and teachers of APEX, an extensive special program for identifying and developing the abilities of especially gifted children, which included 19 elementary schools and about 15,000 potential students. During these years, he managed to win the Colorado Education Association award, and also reached the finals of the Colorado Teacher of the Year competition. In addition, he was a national consultant on English language theory, taught the Writing Well course, and had his own class. Simmons' 11 and 12-year-old 6th grade students were children who had increased writing abilities. By the way, in one of his interviews, he stated that it was there that every day, for six months, he told the children the story of “Hyperion,” and they, in turn, helped him identify errors and inaccuracies in the intricacies of this novel. So whenever someone says “writing can’t be taught,” Dan says the opposite and cites his own successful experiences to prove it. Even after he became a professional writer, Dan always lovingly attended his college writing class, taught writing in New Hampshire in adult courses, and ran his own symposium, Windwalker Writers.
The first story Dan wrote, "The River Styx Flows Backward," appeared on February 15, 1982, the same day his daughter, Jane Catherine, was born. Therefore, in the future, according to him, he always felt the same close connection between his literature and his life.
Simmons became a professional writer in 1987 and settled in Front Range, Colorado - the same town where he taught for 14 years - with his wife, Karen, and his daughter, Jane, when she returned home. from Hamilton College), and their dog, Fergie, a rare breed of Pembroke Welsh Corgi in Russia. He writes mostly at Windwalker, their mountain estate, a small cabin at 8,400 feet in the Rocky Mountains, not far from the National Park. An 8-foot sculpture of the Shrike—the spiky, scary character from the four Hyperion and Endymion novels—that was made by his former student and now friend, Clee Richison, now stands nearby, guarding the lodge.
Dan is one of the few writers who writes in almost all genres of literature - fantasy, epic science fiction, horror, suspense, historical fiction, detective fiction and mainstream fiction. His works have been published in 27 countries.
Many of Simmons’s novels may be filmed in the near future, and he is currently in negotiations to film the adaptation of “The Bells of Ham,” “Darwin’s Razor,” four “Hyperion” novels, and the story “The River Styx Flows Backward.” He also wrote an original script based on his novel “Phases of Gravity”, created two teleplays for the low-budget series “Monsters” and adapted the script based on the novel “Children of the Night” in collaboration with European director Robert Seagle, with whom he hopes to film his other novel - “Fierce Winter.” And the first film from the pair “Ilium/Olympos” is generally scheduled for release in 2005. In 1995, Dan's alma mater, Wabash College, awarded him an honorary doctorate for his many contributions to education and literature.
This book is dedicated to Richard Curtis, an invaluable literary agent and dear friend who shares my love of baseball and Mr. Henry James.
Copyright © 2014 by Dan Simmons
© E. Dobrokhotova-Maikova, translation, notes, 2016
© Edition in Russian. LLC "Publishing Group "Azbuka-Atticus"", 2016
Publishing house AZBUKA®
* * *
Stephen King
Dan Simmons towers over modern writers like a giant.
Lincoln Child
Simmons has an excellent grasp of the Holmesian canon and builds his original edifice on its foundation.
Publishers Weekly
A great novel in every sense of the word... Simmons does not lose the reader's interest for a moment.
Sherlock Holmes Society
Part one
Chapter 1
On a rainy March 1893, for a reason unknown to anyone (mainly because no one except us knows about this story), the American writer Henry James living in London decided to spend his birthday, the fifteenth of April, in Paris and there, in the very birthday or the day before, commit suicide by drowning in the Seine.
I can tell you that James was deeply depressed that spring, but I can't tell you exactly why. Of course, he experienced the death of a loved one: a year earlier, on March 6, 1892, his sister Alice died of breast cancer, but for her ill health had been a way of life for many decades, and the terrible diagnosis became the hope for deliverance. As Alice admitted to her brother Henry, she had long desired death. Henry himself, at least in letters to friends and family, expressed complete agreement with his sister’s sentiments, even going so far as to describe how charming her dead body looked.
Perhaps the depression, not documented by chroniclers, was intensified by the fact that in previous years James's books sold rather poorly: "The Bostonians" and "Princess Casamassima", written in 1886 and inspired by Alice's slow death, as well as her "Boston marriage" to Catherine Loring , failed in both England and America. Therefore, by 1890, James began writing for the theater. Although his stage adaptation of The American had only moderate success, and even then not in London but in the provinces, he convinced himself that it was the theater that would bring him wealth.
However, by the beginning of 1893, James began to realize that he was flattered by unrealistic hopes. Before this role was taken over by Hollywood, it was the English theater that attracted writers who - like Henry James - had no idea how to write a successful play for the general public.
Biographers would have better understood this sudden deep depression if it had happened not in March 1893, but in the spring of 1895, when James, carelessly taking his bow after the London premiere of Guy Domville, was hissed and booed by the audience. People who paid for the tickets (unlike the society ladies and gentlemen to whom James would send countermarks), who have not read his novels or even heard of him as a writer, will whistle and boo based on the merits of the play itself. And Guy Domville will be a very, very bad play.
Even earlier, just a year later, when in January 1894 his friend Constance Fenimore Woolson jumped out of the window of a Venetian house (perhaps because Henry James would not come to see her in Venice, as he had promised), the writer would fall into a terrible depression, intensified by a sense of self-worth. guilt.
By the end of 1909, the aging James would fall into an even deeper depression—so deep that his older (and dying of heart disease) brother William would cross the Atlantic to literally hold Henry's hand in London. During those years, Henry James would bemoan the “crushingly poor sales” of the so-called New York Collection of his works, for which he would spend five years rewriting long novels and providing each with a lengthy preface.
However, in March 1893, this last depression was sixteen years away. We don’t know what exactly James was depressed about that spring and why he suddenly decided that committing suicide in Paris was his only option.
One of the reasons could be a severe attack of gout, which James suffered in the cold English winter of 1892/93 - then he was forced to give up daily exercise and became even more fat. Or perhaps it was simply the fact that in April he was turning fifty - a milestone that made even stronger natures sad.
We'll never know.
However, we know that it is with this depression - and the resulting intention to commit suicide by drowning in the Seine on the fifteenth of April or earlier - that our story begins. So, in mid-March 1893, Henry James (he stopped adding “Junior” to his surname shortly after his father’s death in 1882) wrote from London to family and friends that he planned to “take a little break from the daily labors of writing and welcome the spring, as well as my sesquicentenary in sunny Paris before joining brother William and his family in Florence.” But the writer did not intend to go to Florence at the end of April.
Having packed the snuff-box containing the stolen ashes of his sister Alice, James burned the letters from Miss Woolson and several young people he knew, left the neatly tidied apartment in Devir Gardens, boarded the train to the Cherbourg packet boat, and arrived in the City of Light the evening of the next day - more damp and colder than even chilly London in March.
He checked into the Westminster Hotel on the Rue de la Paix, where he once stayed for a month, writing stories, including his favorite “The Apprentice.” However, the word “stayed” in this case is not entirely appropriate: the writer did not intend to spend several weeks in the hotel before his birthday, and besides, the price for a room at the Westminster was excessively high due to his current cramped circumstances. He didn’t even begin to unpack his suitcase, because he didn’t plan to live another night - here, or indeed on earth, because he suddenly decided not to delay his decision.
After a walk through the damp and cold Tuileries Gardens and a lonely lunch (he did not seek to meet with Parisian friends or visiting acquaintances in the city), Henry James drank his last glass of wine, put on his woolen coat, made sure that the sealed snuffbox was still in his pocket, and, knocking on the wet stones with the bronze tip of a closed umbrella, he walked through the darkness and drizzling rain to his chosen place near the Pont Neuf - the New Bridge. Even with the leisurely gait of a corpulent gentleman, it was less than a ten-minute walk to get there.
The greatest master of words did not leave a suicide note.
Chapter 2
The place where James planned to give up his life was located only sixty yards from the wide, brightly lit Pont Neuf, but here, under the bridge, it was dark, and even darker on the lower tier of the embankment, where the cold black Seine splashed against the mossy stones . Even during the day this place was almost deserted. James knew that prostitutes sometimes stood here, but not on such a chilly March night - today they stayed closer to their hotels on the Place Pigalle or caught clients in the narrow streets on either side of the sparkling Boulevard Saint-Germain.
By the time James, knocking with his umbrella, reached the arrow of the embankment, which he had noticed in the light of day - it was exactly the same as he remembered it from previous visits to Paris - it was already so dark that he could not see where he was going . The rain decorated the lanterns on the other side of the Seine with ironic halos. There were almost no barges or boats. James had to grope for the last steps with an umbrella, like a blind man with a cane. The puddles and increasing rain partly muffled the creaking of wheels and the clatter of hooves on the bridge, so that the usual sounds seemed distant and partly even unreal.
James felt, heard and smelled the enormity of the river rather than seeing it in the pitch darkness. Only when the tip of the umbrella, not finding the pavement, hovered over the void, did James freeze at the narrow end of the arrow. He knew there were no more steps, just a six- or seven-foot drop to the rushing black water. One more step and everything will be over.
James took an ivory snuffbox from his inside pocket and stroked it with his fingers. The movement reminded him of an article in The Times last year, which stated that the Eskimos do not create ornaments for the eyes, but grind stones to please the sense of touch during the long months of the northern winter. The thought made James smile. He felt that the northern winter had been too long for him.
When a year ago in the crematorium he stole a few pinches of Alice's ashes - meanwhile, Katharine Loring was waiting just outside the door to take the urn to Cambridge and bury it in the cemetery where the Jameses had their own corner - he sincerely intended to scatter them where his younger sister was happiest. However, as the months passed, James became increasingly aware of the impracticability of this idiotic mission. Where? He remembered Alice's fragile happiness when they were both much younger and traveling around Switzerland with Aunt Kate, a thorough lady who was inclined to interpret everything literally, like Hamlet's gravedigger. During the weeks away from her family and American home, Alice's predisposition to nervous illness, even then quite pronounced, had noticeably weakened - so that at first James thought of going to Geneva, where they laughed together and competed in wit, while poor Aunt Kate did not understand them ironic word games, they cheerfully teased each other and their aunt, walking through the formal gardens and promenades by the lake.
However, in the end, James decided that Geneva was not quite the right place for the plan. On that trip, Alice only pretended to recover from her illness, and he, in turn, pretended to be complicit in her fragile joy.
In this case, the plot of land near Newport where Alice built her little house and lived for a year, outwardly completely healthy and happy with everything.
No. This was the beginning of her friendship with Miss Loring, and in the months that had passed since her sister's funeral, James had felt more and more keenly that Miss Catharine P. Loring already occupied an inordinately large place in Alice's life.
As a result, he never figured out where to scatter these pitiful pinches of ashes. Perhaps Alice was close to happiness only in the Newport and then Cambridge months or years before what she called the “terrible summer” when, on July 10, 1878, their elder brother William married Alice Gibbens. For many years, William himself, her father, her brother Harry, brothers Bob and Wilkie, and countless guests joked that William would marry her, Alice. She had always been angry at the routine joke, but now - after many years of her self-inflicted illness and then death - Henry James realized that Alice had partly believed in her marriage to William and was completely crushed when he married someone else - a girl, according to cruel irony of fate, also named Alice.
As her sister once told Henry James, the summer William married, she “sank into the depths of the sea and the dark waves swirled over her head.”
So on this last night he decided that he would simply clutch the snuffbox with the remains of Alice’s unfulfilled existence in his hands and step with it into the black waters of oblivion. James knew he had to suppress his writer's imagination and not wonder whether the river would be bitterly cold and whether, driven by an atavistic lust for life as the dirty water of the Seine rushed into his lungs, he would flounder in a desperate attempt to swim to the sheer mossy ledge .
No, you need to think about one thing: that the pain will be left behind. Completely clearing his brain was a task that had never been given to him.
James raised his foot above the void.
And he suddenly realized that the black silhouette he had thought was a pillar was in fact a person standing less than two feet away from him. Now James saw a face with an aquiline profile, partly hidden by a soft hat pulled down low and the raised collar of a traveling cloak with a cape; moreover, he even heard the stranger’s breathing.
* * *
With a strangled cry, James awkwardly took a step back and to the side.
– Pardonnez-moi, Monsieur. Je ne vous ai pas vu l?-bas,1
Sorry, monsieur. I didn't notice you (French).
– he said, without bending his soul at all, since he really didn’t notice this man at first.
“You are English,” said the tall silhouette.
His English had a clear Scandinavian accent. Swedish? Norwegian? James couldn't tell for sure.
- Yes. – James turned to the steps to walk away.
And at that time, the Bato Mouche, a Parisian water bus, rare for such a time, passed by; bright lights on its starboard side snatched the face of a tall stranger from the darkness.
- Mr. Holmes! – James involuntarily burst out.
In surprise, he backed away. His left heel hung over the void, and the unlucky suicide would still have ended up in the river if the tall gentleman, with lightning speed, had not grabbed him by the chest and jerked him back onto the switch.
Back to life.
-What did you call me? – the stranger asked, still holding James tightly by the coat. The Scandinavian accent has completely disappeared. The voice was distinctly cultured English, and nothing else.
“My apologies,” James stammered. - Apparently, I made a mistake. Sorry for disturbing your solitude.
Saying these words, Henry James not only knew that it was Holmes in front of him - although the tall Englishman’s hair was darker and thicker than at their last meeting (then it was slick, now it was bristling harshly), a lush mustache appeared above his upper lip, and the shape of the nose was slightly changed due to the actor's putty or something like that - he was no less clearly aware of something else: a moment before his appearance from the darkness, announced by the rhythmic tapping of the umbrella, the detective himself intended to throw himself into the Seine.
Henry James felt like a fool, but once he saw the face and heard the last name, he remembered them for the rest of his life.
He tried to step away, but strong fingers still held his coat.
-What did you call me? – the tall gentleman repeated demandingly. His tone was cold, like steel in the cold.
“I mistook you for a man I met once.” “His name was Sherlock Holmes,” James squeezed out, dreaming of one thing: to find himself in bed in his comfortable hotel on the Rue de la Paix.
– Where did we meet? – asked the gentleman. - Who you are?
James answered only the second question:
- My name is Henry James.
“James,” repeated Mr. Sherlock Holmes. – Younger brother of the great psychologist William James. You are an American writer mostly based in London.
Even in the confusion of physical contact with another man, James felt a sharp resentment: he was called the younger brother of the “great” William James. Until his elder brother published his “Foundations of Psychology” in 1890, he was generally unknown outside the narrow Harvard circle. The book, for reasons unknown to Henry, brought William international fame among intellectuals and other students of the human mind.
“Please let me go immediately,” James said in the sternest tone he could muster.
Furious at the stranger's touch, he forgot that Holmes - and it was definitely Sherlock Holmes - had just saved his life. Or maybe the rescue increased his score with the hook-nosed Englishman.
“Tell me where we met, and I’ll let you go,” Holmes replied, still squeezing his lapels. – My name is Jan Sigerson, I am a fairly famous Norwegian traveler.
“In that case, a thousand apologies, sir,” James said, not feeling a hint of guilt. - I was obviously mistaken. For a moment in the darkness I thought you were the gentleman I met four years ago at a tea party in Chelsea. The reception was given by an American friend of mine, Mrs. T. P. O'Connor. I arrived with Lady Wolseley and other members of the literary and theatrical world: Mr. Aubrey Beardsley, Mr. Walter Besant... Pearl Craigie, Maria Corelli, Mr. Arthur Conan Doyle, Bernard Shaw, Genevieve Ward. During the tea party I was introduced to Mrs. O'Connor's guest, a certain Sherlock Holmes. Now I see that the similarity is... purely superficial.
Holmes let him go.
- Yes, now I remember. I lived at Mrs. O'Connor's house for a short time while investigating the mystery of the missing jewelry. The servant, of course, stole it. As it always turns out to be.
James straightened the lapels of his coat and tie and leaned firmly on his umbrella, intending to leave Holmes' company without further words.
As he climbed the steps, he was unpleasantly surprised to find Holmes walking next to him.
“Amazing,” said the tall Englishman with the slight Yorkshire accent that James had heard at his tea party in 1889. – I chose the guise of Sigerson two years ago and since then I’ve met him more than once – in daylight! - people who remember me very well. In New Delhi, I stood for ten minutes in the square a few steps away from Chief Inspector Singh, with whom I spent two months investigating a sensitive murder in Lahore, and the experienced policeman did not even look at me a second time. Here in Paris, I ran into English acquaintances and asked directions from an old friend, Henri-Auguste Lauzet, the recently retired prefect of the French police, with whom he had solved dozens of cases. Lohse was accompanied by the new prefect of the Somme, Louis Lepine - I also worked with him. None of them recognized me. And you admitted it. In the dark. Under rain. When all your thoughts were on suicide.
“Excuse me...” James began.
Out of indignation at such impudence, he even stopped. They had already risen to street level. The rain had eased a little, but the lanterns were still surrounded by luminous halos.
“I won’t tell anyone your secret, Mr. James,” said Holmes.
He tried, despite the drizzle, to light his pipe. When the match finally lit, James saw even more clearly that this was the “consulting private detective” he had been introduced to at Mrs. O’Connor’s tea party four years earlier.
“You see,” Holmes continued, blowing smoke from his mouth, “I was here for the same purpose, sir.”
James couldn't think of an answer. He turned on his heel and walked west. Long-legged Holmes caught up with him in two steps.
“We need to go somewhere, Mister James, for a drink and something to eat.”
“I’d rather be left alone, Mr. Holmes... Mr. Sigerson... or whoever else you want to pretend to be.”
“Yes, yes, but we need to talk,” Holmes insisted, not at all embarrassed or annoyed at being exposed. There was no sense of confusion in him from the failed suicide - the detective was so fascinated by the insight of the writer, who was not deceived by his changed appearance.
“We have absolutely nothing to discuss,” James muttered, trying to speed up his pace, which, given his corpulence, looked funny and stupid, but did not at all help to break away from the tall Englishman.
“We can discuss why you tried to drown yourself while tightly clutching in your right hand the snuffbox containing the ashes of your sister Alice,” said Holmes.
James froze. Only after a moment did he manage to say:
– You... can't... know... such things.
“However, I know,” Holmes replied, still puffing on his pipe. “And if you will join me for dinner and good wine, I will tell you how I know this and why I am sure that you will not carry out today’s dark plan, Mr. James.” Besides, I just know a clean, brightly lit cafe where we can talk.
He grabbed James by the left elbow, and so, arm in arm, they walked out onto Avenue del Opera. The indignation, amazement - and now also curiosity - of Henry James was so strong that he no longer resisted.
Chapter 3
Although Holmes had promised a "brightly lit café", James expected it to be a dimly lit eatery in a narrow back street. However, Holmes took him to the Café de la Paix, very close to James's hotel at the intersection of the Boulevard des Capuchins and the Place del Opera in the Ninth Arrondissement of Paris.
The Café de la Paix was one of the best establishments in the city; the sophistication of its decoration and the number of mirrors was rivaled only by Charles Garnier's Opera on the other side of the square. James knew that the cafe was built in 1862 for guests of the nearby Grand Hotel de la Paix and that real fame came to it during the 1867 World Exhibition. It was one of the first electrically lit buildings in Paris, but - as if hundreds or thousands of electric lamps weren't enough - bright gas lamps with focal prisms still cast beams of light into the huge mirrors. Henry James avoided this place for decades, if only because - according to a common Parisian phrase - to dine at the Café de la Paix meant running into friends and acquaintances, it was so popular. And Henry James preferred to choose where to “collide” with his friends.
Holmes seemed not at all embarrassed by the crowd, the buzz of conversation, the dozens of faces turning towards them as soon as they entered. In perfect French, the imaginary Norwegian asked the head waiter for his “always table”, where they were shown - to a small round table in the least noisy part of the cafe.
– You come here so often, do you have a “always table”? - James asked when they were alone - as far as this was possible amid the noise and bustle.
“During my two months in Paris I dined here at least three times a week,” Holmes replied. – I saw dozens of acquaintances, clients and former colleagues in investigations. None of them paid any attention to Ian Sigerson.
For the first time in Russian - the newest novel by the modern classic Dan Simmons, a kind of completion of the conventional trilogy begun by the novels “The Terror” and “Drud, or the Man in Black.” So, traveling incognito after his “death” at the Reichenbach Falls, Sherlock Holmes meets in Paris the American writer Henry James, a modern classic, author of such books as “Portrait of a Lady,” “The Bostonians,” and “The Turn of the Screw.” He recognizes the famous detective, despite all his disguise, and finds himself drawn into the orbit of his new investigation. Together with Holmes, James goes to America, where he has not been for many years; the master of words must help the father of the deductive method unravel the mystery of the death of Clover Adams, the wife of the historian Henry Adams (heir to the dynasty that has already given America two presidents), and also answer the question that has been tormenting Holmes for the last few years: is he a fictional character?..
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