In the drawing room Ivan had set up the coffee table, and Natalia sat down to serve the hot black beverage to her guests. In France this, too, was handled by servants, but Natalia preferred the Russian custom of more personal hospitality. She liked to have something to do with her hands. Boris was dispensing liqueurs to the gentlemen, and Natalia listened to the conversation going on around her. She felt a pleasant afterglow from the meal.
To her right the man whom she still hesitated to call her husband was murmuring something in a low voice to the charming Chaliapin. “Feodor,” Boris was saying, “Caruso’s reputation among the French—among all the Western Europeans—has been established for a long time now. Even if he’s a tenor and you a basso profundo, he is your sole rival in the world of opera, in terms of attracting an audience. For you to try to challenge him so soon after conquering the French would be sheer folly! Wait several years. In the meantime, go to Paris as much as you want, but not at exactly the same time as he. Put some distance between you.”
“Yes, of course, Borya,” Chaliapin replied, thoughtfully. Here was another conversation with ominous undertones, Natalia thought.
When everyone had left, Boris seemed in extremely high spirits. What a handsome man he was, she had to admit. Blond and fine and priceless, like an antique. Joy made him buoyant, alive, and his skin seemed ruddier than usual. He put his arms around her waist from behind, and rocked her quickly back and forth, a strange, mesmerizing dance. “A perfect evening,” he commented.
When she turned around with a quizzical expression on her face, he shook his head. “This is not the time for explanations, my pet,” he told her, and touched the tip of her nose with a playful finger.
In the early part of December Diaghilev called on Boris at his Petersburg apartment on the Boulevard of the Horse Guard. Boris was in his study, perusing some first editions of artistic works on Christian iconography. He wore a maroon smoking jacket and was nonchalantly holding a pipe. A fire blazed in the hearth. His friend appraised him shrewdly and commented: “You are the very picture of comfort.”
Boris’s eyes narrowed. “And you, Serge, look like a network of exposed nerves. Won’t you have a cognac?”
Diaghilev shook his head, drew up an armchair, and sat down, rather heavily. “What game are you playing now?” he demanded.
“Game? Why, my dear fellow, life’s too serious for games. I play for my share of flesh and blood, like Shylock.” Boris puffed on his pipe and reclined in his seat, his elegant, lanky body conforming to the cushions. He smiled slightly: “What’s on your mind?”
The two men stared unabashedly at each other for a full minute. They were no longer smiling. Finally Diaghilev broke the silence. Dramatically, he burst out: “Years of devoted friendship! Years! You were still at the May Gymnasium when I met you—a boy of sixteen! That’s half a lifetime ago, do you realize that? Nearly eighteen years of being your guide, your mentor—including you in all my endeavors! You needed me, for you do not possess one ounce of personal talent!”
Boris nodded. “Indeed. Neither do you, Serge. You find it, and I finance it. Two sides of the same coin. Symbiosis. It seems you’ve needed me too in your time.”
Diaghilev waved these words aside as though they were annoying flies buzzing around his head. “At first I thought it was a mistake, a network of impossible, unfortunate coincidences. The Tzar’s final, unequivocal refusal to subsidize our enterprise, now and forevermore. Then Feodor’s telling me he won’t sing in Paris next year, when he’s pivotal to our season. Then your lame excuses for not lending me funds with which to get that goat of an Astruc off my back. Bits and pieces of conversations came back to me. Kchessinskaya’s sudden friendship with Natalia. And so it occurred to me that all this can be traced back to her—to Natalia and the scandal that I luckily averted in Paris last May. Yet somehow I believe there’s more to the issue. You are trying to ruin me—but not just me. What is it, Borya?”
The insolent ease with which Boris had been listening to his friend was replaced by an alert tautness. Boris leaned forward. “You’ve used me before, Serge,” he said in a low voice. “Often. Flattering me, coddling me. You knew that I realized it was a ploy to obtain Kussov money. I played along, and you knew that I was playing along. I truly think we both enjoyed the game, and each other’s cleverness. But there was no need to involve Natalia.”
“So you think, if Natalia is to be avenged, then the whole Russian season must be wiped out, discredited. Actually, I wanted Natalia for some very important roles in 10. Regardless of your role in her life, she is as fine a dancer as Karsavina, and while she was in Paris, the French adored her. I need Natalia! And Pavlova won’t be back this year, so I shall need her even more. I also need you. Why should I deliberately alienate you? To make a display of authority? That would be childish, wouldn’t it? No, there’s more to this. You’ve been using me in an attempt to do something quite different.”
Boris burst out laughing. “What do you want, Serge?” he asked.
“The question is, what do you want? I am prepared to name you co-director of this enterprise if you could see fit to be part of it again. You—and Natalia, of course.”
“And in return? I am to pay Astruc?”
Diaghilev smiled. “That would be nice, yes. You might also speak to him about a reconciliation. We could go to Paris together to see him.”
Boris shook his head. “That is not enough. Natalia will be pleased, I’m sure. The money would have to be paid in smaller lumps, and as a legal loan, so that I could collect from you if you should default. You would have to find other financiers for this project, as I can certainly not be responsible for all of it on my own. My fortune is not inexhaustible, as my father has oft pointed out. There are the French Jews—the Deutsch de la Meurthe brothers, the Rothschilds, the Gunzburgs; we could certainly try to inveigle them to donate funds. I would be more than willing to help you, as your ability to wade through financial matters is nil. But, as I said, that won’t be enough to tempt me back.”
Diaghilev scrutinized his friend and did not say a word. Presently Boris spoke, his tone offhand, casual. “How well our first encounter worked out,” he said. “Now all the Paris salons are wearing the wild colors of our friend Bakst—and all the grandes dames are undulating in vaporous gowns like Ida Lvovna Rubinstein’s. And Benois—the delicate pastels of his Pavilion d’Armide! Our artists have outdone themselves.”
“Indeed,” Diaghilev asserted. He leaned forward and waited. Boris smiled.
“But artists are extravagant, Serge. Their montages always turn out to be more expensive than in the original proposals. We shall have to cut expenses somehow, my dear fellow.”
“You just said that Bakst and Benois have enriched both art and fashion with their confections,” Diaghilev countered. “How would you trim their budgets?”
“Oh, not theirs, exactly. I would trim ours. Why do we need hangers-on, not-quite-there young artists such as Pierre Riazhin? He’s been disappointing, Serge. I expected him to make miracles, and instead he’s merely tried to copy Léon Bakst—at his worst.” He paused. Then in a low, barely trembling voice, he added: “We can’t afford him anymore, dear friend. Not anymore.”
Diaghilev raised his eyebrows and nodded ponderously while he took in this information. He looked at Boris, smiled briefly, and stood up. “And Feodor? Will you woo him back?” he asked.
Boris shook his head. “Fedya is best left out of this. Let’s have a season of pure ballet this time. Besides, do you want to ruin him, pitting him against Caruso?”
A momentary flash of anger came into the eyes of Serge Pavlovitch. “We shall see,” he said.
Boris rose too and came across the room to his friend. They smiled at each other and opened their arms. Then, laughing, they hugged each other. “Co-director! That’s not half bad for a ploy, Serge,” Boris said. He slapped his friend on the back. “Come by to see Natalia,” he added cordially, escorting the other to the door. “You flatter her by
your presence. She’s still a charming child at heart.”
“It’s interesting how you find these rustic young geniuses,” Diaghilev remarked lightly. He slid his arms into the sleeves of his coat, which Ivan was holding out for him. Boris’s expression did not change. Diaghilev shrugged lightly and said: “Goodbye, dear boy.”
The door closed on Diaghilev’s back. Ivan unobtrusively disappeared. Boris slammed a fist into the palm of his other hand and ground his teeth together. He imagined Pierre standing before him, his large black eyes glowing in the firelight, his tense young thighs taut with nervous energy. He saw him sitting at Diaghilev’s table, eagerly expounding ideas for settings, for costumes. But there had been the still life on the steps of the house of Avenue Bugeaud, the look that had passed between them. It did no good to go back, to reevaluate. Boris had never made it a habit to retrace his steps, and he was surely not going to do it now.
“Ivan!” he called. “I shall be going to Paris next week. Prepare my bags, will you?”
Chapter 10
At the end of the spring season Natalia was promoted to soloist of the first degree. She was twenty years old and beginning to shine among the ballerinas of the Mariinsky. Her career seemed to be steadily progressing. Boris thought: It was wise to have secured her as my wife. He began to plan for the summer season with Diaghilev.
In the midst of helping to create new ballets he took time to have his principal assets transferred to France. There were bad seeds in the wind, unrest in Russia, disquiet at Kaiser Wilhelm’s court in Germany. Boris clearly remembered the small Revolution of 1905 and the disaster that had preceded it, the war with Japan. The French, he felt, were less likely to turn hysterical, and in that country the Kussov fortune might grow faster than here, where Tzar Nicholas paid no heed to his people’s cries. Whether war came or another small revolt, the Russian economy would be the first to suffer.
When this transfer had been smoothly accomplished, Boris felt a wave of relief. He could resume his concentration on the finer things in life, the arts, the dance. The 1910 ballet season came upon the Kussovs as a small whirlwind. Natalia was enjoying herself. Diaghilev’s dancers went from Germany to France, and in neither country did Marguerite appear. Everywhere Fokine’s choreography was applauded and the ballerinas acclaimed. Both Karsavina and Natalia took turns partnering Nijinsky, whose ability to stay in the air like a magic bubble was already becoming a legend. Natalia was given the chance to demonstrate her own virtuosity as never before: She danced in a new production based on a vivid Russian folk tale, The Firebird, to unusual, strident, and dissonant music by a young composer, Igor Stravinsky, whom Diaghilev had discovered. The score was arresting, unsettling, and hinted at the supernatural in every phrase.
In her Firebird costume Natalia was, indeed, a plumed being endowed with magic powers. Her brown and white coloring had been transformed into a turquoise transparency, with jewels in her hair and threads of gold twisted into her locks. When she begged for her release from her captor Ivan, her entire being pulsated, throbbed, and the feathers danced with her in sweeping arabesques. The audience clapped and cheered, and the men stood up with excitement. That evening, in her Chinese lacquered boudoir, Natalia looked at herself in the mirror and wondered whether she would ever dance another role so perfect for her temperament as this magnificent Russian folk bird, proud, vulnerable, passionate, and graceful. She truly was the Firebird, where she had only played at being the Sugar Plum, Aspitchia, or Columbine.
The Firebird pleased Diaghilev because it was his first full-length original ballet, but Natalia sensed that her unqualified success had irked him, wounding his pride and hurting his single-minded championship of Nijinsky. She was thoughtful as she combed out her long, silken hair, so fine on her shoulders. She “belonged” to Boris, and Nijinsky “belonged” to Serge Pavlovitch. Did neither of the two mentors realize that, in spite of their youth and lack of worldliness, the young dancers possessed souls and wills of their own? It was almost as if, in their odd rivalry, Boris and Diaghilev had wound up two mechanical dolls and pitted one against the other. Her friend Karsavina was independent, and suddenly Natalia envied her. She had a life of her own!
This, then, summed up Natalia’s problem: Her professional existence was dependent on Boris, but she had no life aside from her work. Boris had turned her into a magnificent plumed firebird, spoiled by his wealth and by the roles that he obtained for her. But she was a woman, and this fact stood between them as no other could. He owned her but did not possess her. It had been so long since a man had wanted her enough to try to possess both her body and her soul, to want her not for what she was but for who she was. Pierre had consumed her, and she had fought the demanding pressure of his ardor—but Boris lacked all ardor, and in her heart there was a dryness, a thirst—a vague longing. With unexpected ferocity, she posed the question that had been nagging her for an entire season: Whom had Pierre offended that he was still in Russia, that no one dared to voice his name aloud in the Ballets Russes?
Perhaps it’s better this way, she thought, closing her eyes. With him in Russia I won’t be reminded of him. When we are in the same city, that knowledge alone is enough to set me back, to make me remember. Onstage and at the rehearsals, at the lovely receptions where she was feted, Natalia could reduce the memories, crush them with the toe of her ballet slipper. But not alone, at night . . .
She was wretched in Brussels, envying Karsavina’s freedom from the oppressions of patronage and jealous also of her colleague’s happy marriage. A life of her own offstage! Perhaps her old friend Katya had been less stupid than she had once judged her to be.
During the next year Natalia seemed to acquire new color, a rose tone that gave her more beauty, more delicate reality than her previous paleness. Her arms and shoulders were rounder. There was little doubt now that she was a beautiful woman, no longer a frail young girl blending into the background. But she did not notice the appreciation in others’ eyes. Her life had been spent training her body, and she still remembered the years on the farm when she had been the ugly daughter, ignored and deprecated. These memories still rankled within her. Her mother had finally written her, complimenting her on her brilliant marriage. The Gudrinskys were wondering when Natalia planned to come to the Crimea to show off her handsome count. They wanted to entertain the Kussovs at their family mansion if Natasha and Boris came during the summer hiatus. The entire community was agog with expectation—and Elena claimed she had always known her younger daughter was destined for glory. Natalia crumpled the letter into a small ball and felt the hot sting of humiliation. She dismissed her parents from her consciousness. On their Crimean farm they did not know that they had died for Natalia long ago. And so had the name Natasha. She would never again be that girl.
Back in the Russian capital Natalia was at once swept into a flurry of rehearsals. It was difficult to believe that Diaghilev was growing tired of Fokine’s choreography and had told Boris that it was old-fashioned, with its emphasis on times gone by and romantic, colorful places. At the Imperial Theatres Natalia still danced mostly classical ballets, with perfect symmetry in the corps de ballet and herself on pointe, showing off her prowess. Boris had also told her that Serge Pavlovitch was eager to form his own company, instead of waiting for the summer when vacationing dancers of the Moscow and Mariinsky Theatres would be free. Diaghilev—and Boris, too—were always surprising her with their ambitious ideas.
Toward the end of January 1911, Natalia and Vaslav Nijinsky performed the lead roles in Giselle. Alexander Benois had confectioned a short tunic for the young man when he had danced Albrecht in Paris, and now, instead of a more concealing outfit, Nijinsky insisted on wearing this costume, without undergarments. Teliakovsky was away, but Krupensky, his assistant director, immediately registered his opposition. But Nijinsky was most stubborn: He would dance Albrecht only in his Parisian attire.
During the intermission Boris was on his way to visit the dowager empress with a box of sweets
when he encountered Matilda Kchessinskaya in the corridor. She seemed particularly excited, her eyes sparkling. “What do you think of all this nudity?” she demanded.
“Whose nudity, my dear Mala?” he asked, suddenly wary.
“Why, Vaslav’s, of course. Maria Feodorovna was very upset. I’ve just been in her box. As the Tzar’s mother, she felt personally insulted by this unashamed display of ... male attributes. Placate her, will you, darling?”
“I will try. But something tells me you’re up to mischief. And it isn’t subduing the offended sensibilities of our honored dowager empress.”
Matilda Kchessinskaya kissed the tip of her finger and laid it lightly on Boris’s cheek. “Silly man,” she said archly, moving away in the opposite direction. She left him strangely unsettled.
The following day Diaghilev informed Boris that Krupensky had asked Nijinsky to apologize for his indecent accoutrement, but that he, Serge Pavlovitch, had advised him to refuse and to stand by his artistic decision. Krupensky’s response was immediate: He dismissed the young danseur from the Mariinsky. “And now,” Diaghilev said, smiling, “I can form a full-time company of dancers. Vaslav will not have to finish his five years of compulsory service in the Mariinsky.”
“And Matilda’s role in all of this?” Boris demanded dryly.
“Oh, she had no idea that she’d be playing into my hands. You did such a fine job convincing her last year of my ill will toward her that she was trying to organize a faction against me. She thought getting Vaslav fired was a good first step. But I’ve been waiting for just such a chance! If this hadn’t happened, he would not have been allowed to quit until May of next year.”
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