That April there was a school performance of another Fokine production, Les Gobelins Animés, in which Natalia danced in a pas de trois with another girl and a boy. Then in autumn, she became a professional at last. Now, at seventeen, she experienced a change. Lydia and the other dancers treated her as a peer, and all at once no restrictions existed. She could take a walk without asking permission; she could choose her own clothing. Away from Varvara Ivanovna’s influence, she saw that another reality existed outside of dance. She entered it with caution.
Natalia had never taken the time to consider the character of those around her. The governesses and masters at the school had simply been there, to be pleased, avoided, or humored. Katya had been so close to her, expressing each thought and feeling that occurred to her, that it had been unnecessary to wonder about her inner being. Natalia had never thought that by failing to display her own heart she might have been hurting Katya’s gentle nature, so trusting and sharing. Lydia had been the mirror image of Natalia herself grown wiser and more cynical, without the driving force and the talent to set her apart. Natalia had lived the most egocentric of lives, yet without the experience to know that she was shutting out others. She had concentrated only on her body.
Now the world began to intrude upon her in numerous ways, and at first she fought its challenges. The first time she danced alone as a member of the Mariinsky, and a group of eager young men in the pit began to clap, she felt jarred. They had intruded into her life: They were no longer part of her anonymous public, but her “claque”; every time she reappeared before them, they cheered her. She realized that she owed them the excellence of her performance, much as a dutiful wife owes her husband her sexual consent. But she was uncertain how to accept this new responsibility, for she had always lived a life devoid of debt: What she had was hers alone, obtained by her own means. “Don’t complain,” Lydia told her. “Only the most inspiring dancers have claques. No one has ever noticed me!”
Natalia had thought of herself as a finely tuned instrument, to be kept in shape, but not as a woman with female charms or emotions. Similarly, she had been an avid reader and a good student but had merely considered this a vital necessity: She was a nobody and needed to survive. Her intelligence would get her by where others used their family connections or their social graces. But that she might one day be important to anyone but herself, in anything other than her dancer’s role, she had simply not considered. Natalia’s shutting out of the world had gone this far: Not wondering about others, she had never thought that others might wonder about her.
She earned sixty-five rubles a month as a member of the corps and contributed to the upkeep of the apartment and to the cost of food. Her clothes were simple, for she had no social life during those early working days. She had met other dancers, but their lives seemed far removed from hers, with families and friends she did not know. Lydia, of course, knew a great many people, but her older friends did not know Natalia and had no reason to include her in their reunions. Lydia invited some of her acquaintances to the flat; but when she met them, Natalia remained quiet, listening to this outside world that sounded no gong of recognition in her own experience. “Why do you saddle yourself with little Miss House Mouse?” one of Lydia’s friends mischievously asked her one evening. “Are you growing charitable in your old age?”
“She’s a great deal more than you think,” Lydia retorted. “Watch her.”
And then, one day in the early part of November, the old nurse greeted Natalia at the door with an ivory-colored envelope bearing her name. The young girl was puzzled. She thought that the handwriting looked familiar: elegant, petulant, vain. She frowned and slit it open, removing a stiff card. “What’s a dîner de têtes?” she finally asked Lydia.
Her friend was intrigued. “That’s something French; it isn’t usually done in Russia. It’s a dinner where the guests come in fancy headdresses. I suppose the Parisians have them instead of costume balls. For a supper, one could disguise one’s head alone, but of course not for a ball: That would look a bit ridiculous, don’t you think? Formal gown and strange headdress?”
“It seems I’ve been invited to one,” Natalia stated evenly. She handed Lydia the card. “At Count Boris Kussov’s. What an odd man he is: the pearl necklace, then nothing—and now this. I wonder why he suddenly remembered me?”
“Boris Vassilievitch Kussov does nothing lightly. He is good at recognizing talent. Surely you do not think you will remain in the corps for long? Everybody knows you will soon be a soloist. Perhaps our fair count wants to give you a foretaste of the society that a Petersburg ballerina is supposed to keep. But this dîner de têtes, now. You will enjoy yourself. Boris Vassilievitch is a magnificent host, and if he has decided that the French have a good thing, then we must believe him. He forecasts trends before they become fashionable. The dîner de têtes will be a society staple within the year—mark my words.”
“But I won’t go,” Natalia replied lightly. “I am not a commodity, a display piece. I am a dancer.”
“You, my friend, are only a fool,” Lydia said. “A scared fool, too. You must go, and you must look beautiful and be clever. If you’re afraid of people, then you must face them squarely and overcome your terror. Human beings eat up those who are frightened of them, and you can’t avoid the world forever. A dancer cannot soar above herself if she does not know how she fits into the larger framework. Do not be afraid that those who touch you will automatically violate you: That is emotional frigidity.”
Natalia stared at Lydia, her great brown eyes wide with outrage and panic. She felt as she had after the performance of The Daughter of Pharaoh, eighteen months before: like a cornered wild animal. But Lydia shrugged her shoulders and grinned disarmingly. “We must think up a head for you,” she said.
As he had written on his invitation, Boris sent his covered troika to fetch Natalia on the appointed evening. She was sitting stiffly in the small parlor, her young body sheathed in a low-cut crimson gown that revealed the tops of her breasts and her graceful arms. Around her long, slender neck lay the pearl necklace. She had chosen to wear a traditionally Russian headdress, the kokoshnik: a diadem of rubies, sapphires, and emeralds worn at the coronations of the Tzars. Lydia had found it at the Jewish market, and of course the stones were clever imitations. The gown had been sewn by the old nurse. Her entire appearance was striking: the pale, smooth skin, the enormous eyes, the gilded headdress on the shining brown hair, the brightness of the cloth over her small shapeliness. She looked at once very young and frozen with apprehension—detached and aloof, regal and imposing.
During the drive over the snow-covered pavement, she did not move. The darkness outside hypnotized her, and the horses’ hooves reverberated inside her head. But when the Swiss doorman of the building on the Boulevard of the Horse Guard opened the front door, and when, at the entrance to the huge apartment, she heard the noise of laughter, a shaft of pure pain pierced through her. She had never felt so oddly set apart as now. The door opened, and a servant removed her wrap; she fancied that he disapproved of it, for it was old and out of fashion. At last she stood in the brilliant room.
She stood there for a full minute before she was noticed. Then she saw strange heads turn toward her—Napoleon in his tricornered hat, a bewigged Louis XIV, Mary Stuart. She noticed the room with its intimate silks and velvets, its oil paintings, porcelain vases, and lamps of opaline and jade. It was all a dream. Louis XIV was coming toward her, executing an elaborate bow, and he said in the ironic voice of Count Boris Kussov: “A charming sight. Come, ma chère, I shall introduce you.”
There was nothing to say. So many faces thrust at her, so many names—names that all meant something to her. There were singers, actors, painters, statesmen, names from books and periodicals, names whispered in gossip. There were ballerinas present, too, but none with whom she was personally acquainted. She could barely speak, but Boris kept her arm in his, and was murmuring to her, with a certain familiarity that she found p
uzzling. She did not belong here at all, any more than her mother had belonged in the salon of Baroness Gudrinskaya.
“You see, dear Mala,” a gruff voice said jovially, “our little
dove is in awe of you tonight, but I assure you, one day she will provide you with some interesting challenges.” Beneath the Louis XIII plumes, Natalia saw that the speaker was the Grand-Duke Vladimir, and that the woman he had addressed so lightly was his son Andrei’s acknowledged mistress, Matilda Kchessinskaya, the prima ballerina assoluta of the Imperial Ballet. Natalia had no idea how to accept this compliment with grace: She wanted to die, and executed a deep curtsy. Then, thankfully, Boris brought her to yet another luminary.
Alone in the corner Pierre Riazhin waited. Tonight he resembled a figure from a painting done by Frans Hals in the seventeenth century. His dark face, with its serious black eyes, seemed ápropos beneath the Dutch hat, so large, imposing, and classical. His fingers closed around the thin stem of his champagne glass as he watched Boris and the girl. How proprietary Boris looked. The girl seemed removed, in a stupor. He could well understand. It had taken him two years of exposure to learn how to be clever in society, and as it was, he was most often rude and unable to conform to polite and witty rituals. She was so beautiful, he thought, and something inside him swelled with pain. Pierre suddenly hated the girl for being slim and pale and wide-eyed; he wanted to strangle the life out of her, to obliterate the vulnerability and empathy that she brought to the surface in his own heart.
Boris had brought Natalia before a zakuski table set against the wall and laden with hors d’oeuvres: meat-filled pastries, tongue, stuffed mushrooms, caviar, smoked whitefish, and salmon. He heaped a small dish of Sèvres china with various foods and handed it to her. “You see,” he was saying, his smooth tones easing her over the difficult moments, “King Edward charmed the French. Centuries of enmity—blood hatred—were somehow conquered by this English monarch, and if he can do it, so can we! A season of our robust Russian opera. Quite a change from Italian!”
“Why is it so important to spread our culture to France?” Natalia questioned. There was an edge to her voice because she was nervous.
“Why does anyone want to go beyond himself? This is the
human secret. I don’t know, my dear. Why did you decide to become a dancer?” He quirked one fine blond eyebrow, smiling ironically.
“I was too young to be a courtesan,” she retorted with asperity. Then, abruptly, she blushed. It had been an impulsive, defiant answer born of fear.
But Boris laughed. “Nevertheless, you wanted to be loved! Whether as Oblonova the ballerina, or, if you like, as Madame de Montespan, whore to Louis XIV”—and he looked into her eyes with calculated mirth—“you did not wish to remain an anonymous woman. A country is the same. Russia wants to be loved, by the French, by the British—because we are a vain lot.”
Pierre Riazhin had been watching them closely, and now he put down his glass and strode to them rapidly. There was a jerky quality to his movements, a half-repressed passion manifested in his limbs. Boris glanced up at the intruder with annoyance. “Ah, we have here our young genius, Pierre Grigorievitch Riazhin. Have you come to meet this charming lady?”
“I do not need an introduction,” Pierre said, looking directly at Natalia. She was so small, close up—small yet strong, compact, athletic. And grave. He liked her seriousness, which contrasted so vividly with Boris’s careless ease. Suddenly Pierre wanted to be very rude to Boris, to lash out at him. Instead, he said to Natalia: “I wondered if you would be so beautiful in person. I see that you are.”
Her brown eyes took him in, with his absurd Frans Hals hat, his earnest black eyes that seemed bottomless, his quick face, massive carriage, and slim waist. She shook her head, bewildered. “What do you mean?” she asked. She saw the dark, crisp hair, the large hands with their well-shaped, blunt fingers, the wide nostrils. She could almost breathe him. He smelled of maleness, a strange, unfamiliar scent that threw her off. She shivered, thinking of a Crimean wheat field swept by southern winds.
“He is paying you a compliment, Natalia Dmitrievna,” Boris laughed pleasantly. “But ignore the boor. He has all the delicacy of a young panther on the prowl.”
“No,” Natalia said, looking at Pierre, “it was the way you said
it—as though you had seen me before. but 1 do not know you. Yet something was eluding her, something in the not-too-distant past—the women after the performance of Chopiniana! “Riazhin,” she intoned with wonder. “Yes, you are a painter. But we have never met.”
“You have never met me, but I did meet you, two years ago. I saw you dance the Sugar Plum Fairy. I have never forgotten that night.”
“I was only an insignificant ballet student,” she stammered. The feeling in the black eyes that bore into her was disconcerting. She had never spoken to anyone like this young man, whose probing intensity dismayed her. She had not yet learned to parry compliments and was uncomfortable. “Please,” she said, and her voice trembled. “I am honored that you remembered me, but—”
“Pierre loves all beautiful things,” Boris commented. His fingers closed over Natalia’s delicate arm, but his eyes were leveled at Pierre Riazhin, and the girl stepped back, watching black eyes hold blue in an incomprehensible deadlock. She should have stayed at home. Here were Louis XIV and a seventeenth-century Dutch baron sparring. Around them floated the room, with its Renaissance medallions juxtaposed with artifacts of the Chinese Sung dynasty and laughing voices. Matilda Kchessinskaya, Feodor Chaliapin, and the minister of education. She felt ill, and unconsciously found herself leaning on Boris’s arm for support.
“There now, Natalia Dmitrievna,” he said to her, “are you faint?”
“I’m quite all right, thank you, Boris Vassilievitch,” she replied.
“But you, Borya, are being neglectful of your other guests,” Pierre said. “Why don’t you leave Natalia Dmitrievna to me? I can entertain her.” Natalia thought: How rude he is, and yet what a relief it would be for Count Boris to leave me ...
“Yes, please, Boris Vassilievitch,” she interposed. “I should not like to think that I were keeping you from more illustrious and amusing company.”
Boris Kussov gazed at her through narrowed eyes, then at the young man. Natalia felt cold. Without a word, their host turned away and merged into the crowd of odd faces and hats. Natalia started to laugh nervously. “You were unkind,” she commented. “Are you not afraid to displease Boris Vassilievitch? I have heard that it is dangerous to upset him, and he did look somewhat . . .upset.”
“Yes, well, so much for him. Let us talk about you. When will you have another solo role? I would like to see you,’
“I’ll dance in the Pavilion d’Armide pas de trots on the twenty-fifth,” she replied.
An awkward silence ensued. He said irritably: “Do you like society?”
“If you could imagine how much I would like to die right now!” she cried, then bit her lower lip. “But that is most ungrateful, isn’t it? Somebody told me about you, Pierre Grigorievitch. You took part in the Russian exhibit in Paris last year, didn’t you?”
“Yes. I wanted—I’d hoped—” Suddenly he looked away from her in confusion. “Come with me,” he ordered. He offered her his arm, then walked rapidly from the drawing room into a small corridor. Away from the noise of the other guests, he faced her. “I must show it to you,” he murmured. Then he led her mystified, past a door into a square study upholstered in Cordova leather. A fire in the hearth burned orange and gold. Only a single lamp shone in the room.
“There,” Pierre announced, indicating the wall farthest from the door. Natalia looked up and started. A large oil painting hung in an ornate gilded frame, and she saw herself, small, wistful, mischievous, in her pink tulle outfit from The Nutcracker. It was unmistakably her, and not merely a resemblance. “Had anyone told you?” he asked, scanning her face for a reaction.
“Yes,” she whispered. She turned to look at him
and stiffened. This was all so bizarre, so unforeseen. “Who are you?” she demanded. “Why did you paint me?”
“I am an artist, like you. Why? Why does there have to be an answer?”
“Because!” She moved away from him, suddenly fearful. “You have taken me and put me in a frame, and I don’t know anything about you!”
He took a deep breath, and his nostrils flared. She knew she had made him angry. “You know more about me than anyone,” he stated. “Or you could, if you wanted to look. Look, then! I have put myself inside this frame as much as I have put you there, but you are too blind, too self-centered to notice! And yet the Sugar Plum Fairy was not self-centered. She was real!”
“You are the strangest man I have ever met!” she cried back.
They stood opposite each other, pent-up nervousness exploding, anger being released, unacknowledged emotions rising to the surface. His hands clenched into fists. They stared at each other in shock and surprise, as if suddenly naked and exposed. Then she stepped back, her lips parting in fear, and he moved forward, unthinking, elemental. He grabbed her shoulders and shook them once and then he bent toward her, roughly, his face flushed, hers white and drawn.
All at once the door swung open, and the sarcastic voice of Boris Kussov said: “Supper awaits, my dears.”
On November 25 the première of Le Pavilion d’Armide, an expansion of Michel Fokine’s Les Gobelins Animés, took place at the Mariinsky. Natalia danced in the pas de trois as she had in the former ballet. The choreographic innovations were well received by the aristocracy of St. Petersburg—so well received, in fact, that the composer, Tcherepnine, the designer, Benois, and young Fokine were all called forward for an ovation.
This presentation had been the culmination of much hard work. Fokine was a high-strung perfectionist, and his methods were so different from those of the classical choreographers, Petipa and Ivanov, that many of the ballerinas could not follow him well. Wills clashed more than once, and tempers were strained. But Natalia was the most junior of the ballerinas and knew how to hold her tongue. This was a marvelous chance for her, not one to be wasted. She avoided the troublemakers and practiced relentlessly.
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