Lady of the Snakes
Page 32
Countess Maria Petrovna Karkova was a tall woman, her thick, chestnut hair held in place with many pins. Her gray eyes glowed with warmth and determination, with fire held in check. Picture her standing in the cold hall alone at midnight. What has called her from her warm bed? What force is about to propel her out the heavy front door into the night?
Consider that here was a woman who had lost a child. For weeks after little Vanya’s death from pneumonia, Karkova had refused to leave her room. Vanya had been her special one, her angel, with his dark curls and infectious laugh. He was by all accounts a warm, affectionate boy, the kind of child who seems to have an intuitive understanding of the emotions of others. When his mother was happy, he would tease her and beg to be tickled. When she was pensive or busy, he would sit quietly beside her, or trot unobtrusively at her heels as she went about her business on the estate, the great bunch of keys dangling from her waist, their noisy jangling a cheerful sound but also a warning to the household servants that they had better get busy. When his mother was sad, Vanya might sit in her lap or bring her a flower from the garden to cheer her up.
Vanya became ill the week before Christmas, 1882. Karkova, beside herself with worry, tried to hide her anxiety from the children. In her diary for December 22, 1882, she wrote:
I am ill, ill with fear and despair. How brave my Vanyushka is! How he tries to cover up his weakness, to smile and to chatter to me when I sit beside his bed. “Hush, starling,” I tell him. “Rest.” “Do not be sad, Mama,” he says. “I will always love you, and I am not afraid, whatever may happen!”
But how can I not be afraid? All night I am on my knees to the mother of God. She smiles her fixed, golden smile and looks down upon me with her sad eyes, as if to say, “I have lost my only son; why should you keep yours?”
Maria Petrovna Karkova was a woman of many guises. At times she was the purely maternal figure her children knew—life-giving and generous, like the fertile earth of Mother Russia herself. In controlling the finances and overseeing the workings of Dve Reckhi, Karkova did what was at that time considered a man’s job. In her careful renderings and descriptions of the wildlife of the estate, she exhibited a naturalist’s eye. The mystical, gorgeously poetic entries in her diary are the work of a literary artist, but they only hint at the literary masterpiece she would produce in 1884. The months just preceding her death in August of that year would be the most surprising and creative of her abbreviated life. It was as though she stripped away the masks she had lived behind until then—wife, countess, mother, manager, nurse, diarist—and revealed her true face.
Well, Jane thought, flexing her fingers and leaning back in her chair. Wasn’t there more to any of us than the face we showed to the world, or regarded every morning in the cloudy mirror?
There was a knock on the door and Billy came in. He was wearing sweatpants and a ripped T-shirt, and his hair stuck up unevenly.
Wasn’t that the trick? Jane thought. To see past the masks we made for ourselves, deep into the humming possible?
“I came up to see if you were hungry,” Billy said. “The rest of us are.”
Jane blinked, pulling herself back into the room. “Does that mean I should come feed the baby?”
“Soon. I’m making pancakes for Maisie. Do you want some?”
Jane yawned and tried to tell if she was hungry. Billy came over and put his arms around her, and she leaned into him. He smelled of cotton and frying butter.
“Billy,” Jane said into his solar plexus. “Can you see through my masks to who I really am?”
He pulled back and looked into her face. “Sure,” he said.
“Who am I, then?” she asked.
“You know who you are,” Billy said.
Acknowledgments
So many people generously supplied much-needed information and expertise for this book. Scott Craven let me sit in on his class on terrestrial vertebrates at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Sibelan Forrester provided Russian translations, recommended books, and read the whole manuscript for Russian-related errors (any errors that remain are mine). Alison Hinderliter and Sara Austin at the Newberry Library answered many questions about the workings of that wonderful institution. Greg Anderson, John Galligan, Linda Falkenstein, Julie Nishimura-Jensen, Lauren Shohet, and Jennifer Snead all provided useful information.
Thanks to Julianna Baggott, Amy Benson, Betsy Bolton, Fleda Brown, Sarah Coleman, Lisa Davis, Ann Packer, Matt Pitt, and David Scott for reading this manuscript at many stages. Thanks especially to my mother, Linda Pastan, who has read it almost more often than I have.
Thanks, too, to the wonderful childcare providers without whom this book could never have been written: Danielle Strawn, Becca Kavanagh, Joanne Muldoon, Trisha Barczewski, Red Caboose, The Eyman Children’s Center, and Trinity Cooperative Day Nursery. My apologies to the city of Madison, which actually has an enviable number of terrific daycare centers.
My immeasurable gratitude to Henry Dunow and Rebecca Saletan for their patience, intelligence, and advocacy, and for bringing this book into the world.
Questions for Discussion
What does the opening of the novel tell you about Jane and her relationship to literature, particularly the work of the Karkovs?
Jane’s graduate adviser, Professor Shombauer, tells her on page 7, “You can’t serve two masters. It’s not possible!” Given how the novel progresses, do you think she is right? How are Jane’s home and work life at war for her heart and attention?
How do things change for Jane and Billy once they have Maisie? In what ways does Jane compare her role as a wife and mother with Masha’s?
On page 24, Billy asks Jane, “Everything you feel, did Maria Petrovna feel it first?” What is he implying? How does this comment reflect his feelings about Jane’s work?
As an academic, Jane’s job is to analyze literary works, to study events and symbols, probing them for meaning. How does she apply these skills to her own life? What does she overlook, despite her typically careful scrutiny?
Jane is shocked to discover that her former mentor has given up her career to be a stay-at-home mother. How does seeing Helen in her new life affect Jane’s perspective of her own? Do you think Jane and Helen are essentially different types of women, as Jane begins to believe?
Compare Jane and her student Felicia—how are they similar? How are they different? On page 58, Jane wonders who Masha would be more like if she lived in the present time—Jane or Felicia. What do you think, and why?
Snakes appear throughout Pastan’s novel. What do you think their significance is?
Masha Karkova wrote, “What happens between men and women changes everything, and yet it changes nothing. We remain two separate kinds, unknowable to each other, gazing at one another with suspicion and longing.” Do you think the events of the novel support this observation? Why or why not?
There are many models of womanhood offered by Lady of the Snakes. Discuss how the various women in the novel—Jane, Professor Shombauer, Helen, Felicia, Susannah Olen,and Masha—choose to express their identity. How are their lives influenced or not influenced by men?
Similarly, the male characters in the novel offer various models of manhood. Consider how Billy, Grisha, Otto, Paul, and Greg Olen each perform their duties as husbands, fathers, and privileged members of what some call a “man’s world.” How are they similar? How are they different?
About the Author
© Lance Harkins
Rachel Pastan is the author of This Side of Married. Her short fiction has earned a number of awards, including a PEN Syndicated Fiction Prize. She lives with her family in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, and teaches at Swarthmore College and the Bennington Writing Seminars.
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