My Several Selves, Imaginary and Real 7 страница
‘We can’t just turn them away from the door, can we?’ said my sister.
‘Oh, well, let them in then,’ my mother told Aniuta.
All of us got up from the table except my father who never showed any interest in things of that sort. As we reached the drawing-room, the star-bearers entered the hall through the front door, bringing with them a strong scent of frost and snow. Seven or eight young boys in thick padded coats and felt boots were led by one with a large cardboard star fixed to a short pole. The centre of the star was a colour print representing the adoration of the Magi. It was transparent and glowing with the light of a candle placed behind it. Each arm of the star was of a different colour, also semi-transparent and illuminated from the back. The effect of the whole was magical, as far as I was concerned.
There was a moment of silence as the boys grouped themselves in a tight bunch and stood staring at us. Then all at once they burst into song.
‘Christ is being born, glory to God! Christ is coming down from Heaven! Rejoice! Christ has come down to our earth, rise in joy! Sing the glory of God, let the whole of the earth sing, let all men sing with joy, sing the glory of God!’
Their voices were raw and husky with the cold, their hair hung shaggily from under their caps; as they sang, they turned away to mop their noses with their coat sleeves. And yet the glow of the star, reflected back on their faces, imparted to them an innocence almost of angels. I could hardly recognize them as the same boys whom I had seen about the streets in the summer, clambering over fences, chasing stray cats with stones and shouting swear words at one another. Surely, goodwill was going to prevail this Christmas! Surely they deserved to be given at least twenty kopecks for their singing and the labour they had put into the making of this splendid star.
I did not in fact see what my mother put into the cap the smallest of the boys held out after they had finished singing; the leader was too much on his dignity to betray his pleasure or disappointment. On a sign from him the boys broke into song again, a song of thanks and good wishes to the giver and her family. Then one of them blew out the candle behind the star, and as the light and colour vanished from it, I felt suddenly let down, shocked by the ease with which magic could be destroyed. As the boys trooped out into the frosty night, one of them carrying over his shoulder the uncouth object on a pole, an assemblage of triangles of coloured paper crudely glued together, I wished he had not blown out that candle, but walked with it right through the town, singing, holding it aloft . . .
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My mother called me back to the supper table, and as I passed the door of the zala, my spirits rose again at the sight of the yolka in its freshly decorated splendour with many candles all ready to be lit.
‘Let us light it tonight!’ I begged as if my life depended on it.
My mother thought it was too late for that, but my sister and even my brother supported me, and in the end she consented. All the candles on the tree were connected by an inflammable thread which had to be lit at one end to carry the flame from one wick to another. I claimed the privilege of putting a match to the first candle. A small blue flame ran along the thread and each small candle sprang into life the moment it reached the wick, until the whole of the tree was lit up and held us all standing around in admiration.
Then my mother called out in alarm: there was a smell of burning resin — a loose end of the thread trailed and smouldered, setting light to a branch . . . My sister hastened to blow it out.
‘These inflammable threads are dangerous. We mustn’t use them again,’ said my mother.
Through the open door of the zala I could see my father in the drawing-room, with his back to us in a rocking chair, smoking a cigarette.
‘Papa cannot see the yolka,’ I said quietly.
‘He’s not interested,’ said Maroossia.
My mother called him by his Christian name. It was strange to hear him called thus as if he were a boy.
‘Vitya, come and look at the yolka. It’s alight.’
Unhurriedly, he responded to her call, came and stood in the doorway for a few moments. I turned to see whether he looked pleased: I must have wished, without knowing it, that he should share the feeling the lighted Christmas tree aroused in me — a magical feeling — of wonder, delight and awe, a special Christmas feeling. But his face gave no indication that he felt anything of that sort: he was simply doing what my mother had asked him to do. A minute or so passed without anyone speaking, then he turned and went back to his chair. My mother followed him.
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‘It’s well past your bedtime, króshka,’ said my sister.
We blew out the candles, I with regret, my brother with an obvious enjoyment. Like the star of the carol singers the tree suddenly looked stripped of its glory, and a sadness descended on me. Bright beginnings and sad endings — did everything happen that way? Things and feelings changed towards the end. Was the end itself a sad thing, or was it the change?
As I tossed about in my bed half an hour later, I found myself searching for rhymes in a poem which I was trying to compose — comparing joy with a flame, a flame that flares up, wavers, and is all the time threatened with extinction.
Two Parties and a Memory
Why was Christmas morning always so quiet? You awoke and lay with your eyes open, wondering what the time could be. There was not a sound to be heard in the whole house, not a sign of movement indoors or out of doors. The bedroom windows were bright — not with sunshine but with the brightness of snow outside. As you lay there, looking at the cornice of snow overhanging the eaves, a large, dark-coloured bird fluttered across the window and dusted it with snow . . .
On that first Christmas morning home from school I woke up with a slight shock of alarm. Was it late? Were they all up already? Would I have time to put my presents on the breakfast table before anybody came to the dining-room? But the house was absolutely still, just as it had been on all Christmas mornings I could remember. I got out of bed, extracted my small parcels from the chest of drawers where they had been concealed under some linen, and crept out of my room across the day nursery to the dining-room, where I put my parcels beside each person’s plate already set for breakfast. Then I returned to my room to look for my own Christmas presents.
Russian children were not brought up on stories of Father Christmas, not even of Saint Nicholas like Dutch and German children. The old D’ed Moroz of the fairytales was not a specially Christmas figure. We knew that whatever we received came from our parents and there was no mystery about it. Nor was there the custom of adults exchanging presents at Christmas or of children giving presents to their parents. So my decision to imitate Stassia (who was Polish and a Catholic) was quite a new departure and I felt very nervous about it.
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My presents were on a chair beside my bed. It was a measure of my concern for the fate of my own gifts that I had not looked at them before. They were a splendidly bound book from my mother (Biblioteque Bleu-et-Argent, a story in French by Madame de Segur), and a box of chocolates from Yelisyeev’s of Petersburg, as well as a picture, from my sister. The picture was of an extremely pretty dark-haired boy in a red velvet suit sitting on a rock. I guessed at once that it must be a portrait of Lord Byron as a child: my sister had spoken of Byron to me — she had been attending a course of lectures on him — and I knew she admired him very much. He was soon also to become one of my heroes. There were no presents from the males of my family. This was not unexpected, but I felt a faint twinge of triumph, imagining their surprise when they received one from me!
I dressed without waiting for Aniuta to call me and was in the diningroom before anybody else. Aniuta brought in the samovar. She had seen the parcels on the table and was curious about them.
‘Whatever are these?’ she asked me. ‘And you up so early, lovey! Did you bring them from school with you?’
‘It’s a surprise, ’ I put her off impatiently.
Then my mother and sister came in. I kissed them, thanking them for my presents. They unwrapped their parcels and were lavish in praise for my painstaking embroidery. But the critical moment came when my father took his seat at the head of the table. I doubt that he would have noticed the small packet near his plate if my mother had not drawn his attention to it.
‘Look, Vitya, what Leda made for me,’ she said, showing him my handiwork. ‘She embroidered it very nicely, I think.’
My father looked. ‘What is it for?’ he asked.
‘A dressing-table mat. And look: there’s something she made for you as well.’
As he looked uncomprehending, she picked up the parcel by his plate, unwrapped it and displayed the miniature velvet mule embroidered with imitation pearls.
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My father gazed at it, obviously puzzled.
‘What is it for?’ he asked again.
My mother explained. The expression on my father’s face changed slowly to something which looked like embarrassment.
‘Made it herself? . . . ’ he repeated my mother’s words. ‘Yes . . . I see . . . it’s quite well made . . . ’Flushed to the roots of my hair, I felt tremendously relieved. He had not asked: ‘But what use is it to me?’ I did not expect him to smile or even look at me. He put it beside his plate. Perhaps he would even use it for his watch when he went to bed . . .
Meanwhile my brother had unwrapped his present and was weighing it up on the palm of his hand.
‘A nice lump of metal! A weighty present from my young sister!’ he clowned. ‘I’m not accustomed to being so favoured. Thanks all the same. I promise not to throw it at you when you annoy me . . . ’
‘More likely that she’ll be tempted to throw it at you,’ my sister joked.
The ordeal was over. Now only the pleasant things lay ahead, and the first on the list was the Club Christmas party on Boxing Day, which in Russia we called simply the Second Day of Christmas.
My hair was put in curlers the night before, and as I had not had my hair curled ever before, I awaited the results with some anxiety. I was hoping for heavy clusters of curls such as I had seen in the pictures of Greek gods, and when the curlers were taken out I was shocked to see my hair spreading around my face like a cloud of pollen. My sister, murmuring that it was too fine for curlers, gathered it away from my forehead and tied the flying strands on the top of my head with a bow of blue ribbon. I studied myself closely in a full-length mirror, wishing I could have a different face, a really pretty one, perhaps a little more like Mílochka’s.
My brother came in. He was wearing his ‘parade’ school uniform, a long dark-blue tunic with white metal buttons. He commented mockingly on my vanity, but as soon as I withdrew from the looking-glass, he went up to it and turned about, studying his own reflection. ‘I must see if this tunic really fits . . . ’ he muttered.
My sister, in a white tulle dress with long sleeves and a high collar, joined us, and again they practised waltz steps while I watched. I loved the waltz — but I liked dancing it with a grown-up partner who could carry me along. My brother looked awkward . . . boys had no ear for rhythm ... I hoped M. Rodionov, my father’s assistant who had taught me all the dances before I went to boarding school, would ask me to waltz with him.
The windows of the club house were glowing brightly through the trees as our sleigh stopped before the porch. My father was not with us: he would be arriving later, when the children’s party was over, and the grown-ups would gather in the other rooms to play cards or snooker.
In the vestibule, two men in white gloves were helping people to take off their wraps, heavy overcoats and galoshes. As we emerged from them, my mother looked us over and told my sister to powder her nose. It looked rather red and my sister was obviously embarrassed by it. My brother passed a comb through his perfectly smooth blond hair. The sounds of shuffling feet and of a polka being played came from the adjoining room. We entered, I walking ahead of my mother, my brother and sister following.
The children, with their hands linked to form a ring, were walking round the Christmas tree. Monsieur Rodionov was in charge: four of his own children were among them. On seeing us, he came up to greet my mother, and after kissing her hand, he kissed mine as well ... I flushed with the unexpectedness of this gesture, and as he led me towards the ring, wondered why he had done that. Was it because I was at the boarding school? ... or because he liked the way I looked? . . . or . . . But before I could solve this puzzle he inserted me into the ring between two grinning boys in my brother’s school uniform and urged us all to go faster, faster round the tree.
The two boys were undoubtedly brothers, both wearing tightly belted black tunics with white metal buttons, both showing slightly rabbity teeth. Their faces were vaguely familiar. Where had I seen them before? Slowly, a memory emerged. Surely it must have been in Father Ioann’s orchard above the frog pond, on a hot June Sunday morning? These boys — much younger then — in sailor suits, with their nursemaid ... I must have come there with my mother, perhaps after church, and while she was talking to our hosts indoors, I strolled out into the orchard and saw a strawberry. A single ripe strawberry, glowing red among the green of the leaves . . .
The boys with their nurse were walking in front of me. I waited for them to turn the corner at the end of the path, and when they disappeared behind the lilac bushes, I walked back, drawn by that strawberry as by a magnet. Dare I? It would be stealing . . . Nela, Father Ioann’s daughter, who prided herself on her gardening, would notice at once . . . Suddenly the temptation was too strong for me. I crouched, plucked the strawberry and put it in my mouth. It was only half-ripe, green on the underside, and its sour taste pricked my tongue. I rose to my feet with a thumping heart, turned to go . . . How did that wretched nursemaid manage to come back so quietly? She was standing on the path a few feet away staring at me. She rolled her head from side to side in a gesture of disapproval.
All my blood seemed to rush to my head. Humiliated, ashamed, I did not know whether to go forward or retreat. Some power — I expect a kind of pride — made me go forward. The girl did not wait for me, she went ahead and I followed. In a summer house, perched on a steep bank above the frog pond, her two charges were sitting, chattering, swinging their legs, I sat down on a separate bench. The nursemaid ignored me. She was holding an unripe apple in her hand which she offered first to one of the boys, then to the other. They did not want it. Then suddenly she tossed it into my lap. It was a gesture of scorn, and I knew it, and it stung me to the quick. She wanted to show me that because I stole the strawberry, she expected me to covet the apple as well,
I did not touch it, I let it roll off my lap on to the ground. No one picked it up. The nursemaid said something to the boys and they all laughed. I slid off my seat and walked away, trying not to run.
How long ago was all that? The memory had haunted me for years — or was it months? When it was still fresh, I wondered every time I met Father Ioann or one of his family whether they knew about the strawberry and what they thought of me. Will they forever think of me as a contemptible little thief? Had Nela told my mother? What if my father got to know of it? How ashamed they would be of having me as their daughter! I really felt contemptible and deeply upset at having ‘ruined my reputation’ with Father Ioann and his family. Then the memory faded . . . And now I was not even sure that these boys were the same boys. If they were, would they recognize me? They showed no sign of it: they clutched my hands, one on each side, and we all wheeled round the jolka, now left, now right, under Monsieur Rodionov’s expert direction. On a sign from him the polka tune changed into a march, then into a gallop, and stopped with a flourish. It was the end of the horovod.
The ring broke up and we all returned to our mothers, who were watching us from a row of chairs set against the walls. But my mother hardly had time to mop my forehead with her handkerchief and to smooth back my hair when the band struck the tune of a vienghérka, and I saw one of my partners in the ring coming towards me with his toothy smile. He bowed clicking his heels, and murmured the accepted formula of invitation: ‘May I ask you? . . .
I had so hoped that Monsieur Rodionov would ask me: with him I could be sure of dancing well. With this unknown partner not much bigger than myself how could I be certain of not making a mess of it? But I had to accept him because it had been impressed on me that you should not offend anyone by a refusal unless you were very tired or unwell. So with some misgivings I took his proffered arm and we joined some young couples already doing their steps on the floor.
My partner knew the steps but he did not have a good ear for rhythm, so that his hopping and heel-clicking failed to synchronize with my steps or with the beat which accompanied them. I felt acutely embarrassed and avoided looking at him or around me.
When he took me back to my mother after the end of the dance, I sat uneasily on the edge of my chair, trying to catch Monsieur Rodionov’s eye. He had danced the vienghérka with his daughter Olia, the slow one, perhaps because no one else had asked her ... I wished the next dance to be a waltz, but not unless he asked me to dance it with him.
The band struck up a waltz, ‘On the Hills of Manchuria’ — but it was my partner of the vienghérka whom I saw picking his way across the room in my direction. I looked the other way, desperately hoping, almost praying: ‘God, please make him ask someone else.’
A voice said: ‘May I ask you? . . . ’
I tried not to hear and continued looking the other way. My mother touched my shoulder.
‘Leda, someone’s asking you to dance . . . ’
The boy standing before me was not the one I had expected to see. He was much older though not much taller, more thick-set, with an egg-shaped, closely cropped head and small, deep-set eyes. The other boy, whom he had beaten by a fraction of a second, had not had time to change direction and was standing a step or two behind, looking very self-conscious.
The bigger boy bowed and murmured his name: ‘Martynov’.
‘Go on,’ said my mother. I went with a sinking heart.
The steps my partner did were surely those of the polka, not of the waltz! He leaped about like a grasshopper, completely out of time with the music, clearly unconscious of his incompetence. Desperately I did my best to swing in rhythm with the music — he jerked me out of it by his wild hops. 1 tried to get free of him — he clutched me harder still. 1 was scarlet with shame — what an exhibition we made of ourselves! ‘I’m feeling faint. . . ’ I pleaded, remembering that this was a permitted way of escaping from an impossible partner - but he did not hear me. Finally, beside myself with frustration, I wrenched myself from his grasp and ran across the floor to my mother, leaving him gaping in the middle of the room.
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