A Double Life

by Barbara Heldt

  The time for the concert finally arrived. The guests, whose number had increased, pressed into the room and began listening very patiently to variations and fantasias, arias and duets, accompanied by the constant movement of chairs set down for new arrivals. An Italian duet sung by Olga and Cecily ended the concert. It was delightful, of course, since it had been taken from the latest opera, and of course it gave the listeners enormous pleasure. A ripple passed through all three rows of toques and mob-caps in front of the pianos. All the men, mercilessly squeezed into the corners and along the walls, clapped their hands in a storm of delight. Dmitry Ivachinsky, who had just come in, was so unsparing of himself that he tore his gloves to shreds. Prince Victor himself applauded more than when he had heard Grisi in Paris. The duet, in short, produced a huge effect, after which everyone dispersed into the garden with sincere delight.

  Cecily took Olga by the arm and ran with her toward her own room in order to escape the general gratitude, correct her hair, and change for the ball. In the doorway stood Dmitry Ivachinsky. He bowed to her and whispered five or six words. Cecily nodded her head and passed swiftly by.

  “Olga,” she said, after running upstairs to her room and smoothing the dark waves of her hair before the mirror, “are you engaged for the mazurka?”

  “Since yesterday morning,” Olga answered in a voice so content that one could have no doubt as to whom she was promised. “And you?”

  “Since just a minute ago,” Cecily said, even more content, throwing her marvelous scarf on the sofa.

  She felt extraordinarily happy, somehow wildly and boldly happy. She gave herself over to new, enthralling impressions. She was dimly aware of certain unknown possibilities. The daughter of Eve was tasting the forbidden fruit. The young captive was breathing in free, fragrant, unfamiliar air, and it intoxicated her. This was something that Vera Vladimirovna had never wished to foresee. Those prudent, vigilant, cautious women never do. They rely totally on their maternal efforts. They are extremely consistent with their daughters. In place of the spirit, they give them the letter; in place of living, feeling a dead rule; in place of holy truth, a preposterous lie. And they often manage through these clever, precautionary machinations to steer their daughters safely to what is called “a good match.” Then their goal is attained. Then they leave her, confused, powerless, ignorant, and uncomprehending, to God’s will; and afterward they sit down tranquilly to dinner and lie down to sleep. And this is the very same daughter whom at the age of six, they could not bring themselves to leave alone in a room, lest she fall off a chair. But that was a matter of bodily injuries—bloodshot eyes, frightening, physical pain—not of an obscure, mute pain of the spirit.

  One could be consoled if only bad mothers acted in this way: there are not many bad mothers. But it is the very best mothers who do it and will go on doing it forever. And all these educators had been young once, and had been brought up in the same way! Were they really so satisfied with their own lives and with themselves that they are happy to renew the experience with their children? Is all this absurdity as long-lived as those reptiles that continue to exist after they are cut into pieces? Didn’t these poor women weep? Didn’t they blame themselves and other people? Didn’t they look for help in vain? Didn’t they feel the meaninglessness of the support given them? Didn’t they recognize the bitter fruit of this lie?

  But many of them, perhaps, did not! There are incredible cases and strange exceptions. There are examples of people falling from the third floor onto the pavement and remaining unharmed; then why not give one’s daughter, too, a shove?

  And it also must be said that so much is forgotten in life, the years change and reshape us so strangely! So many young, inspired dreamers in time become tax-farmers and distillers. So many carefree young idlers become owners of Siberian gold mines. So many frivolous scoundrels become merciless punishers of any enthusiasm. Time is a strange force!

  When the friends came downstairs together in their ball gowns and appeared among the guests, they were truly beautiful. Olga, in a white dress of exceedingly expensive simplicity, with cornflowers in her long, blond curls, was astonishingly lovely; but Cecily, who was also all in white, with a crown of white roses set over her proud black braids, was even lovelier. Olga was still searching for something; Cecily had already found it. Olga glowed with hope; Cecily shone with victory. In her face, her smile, her whole glance, her every movement, there was something even too beautiful for good form, something splendidly ravishing, a kind of victory at Poltava. And this was only the shadow of love! But love is so inexpressibly ravishing that even its shadow is full of charm and better than anything else.

  The weather was most propitious. The starry night breathed a marvelous, life-giving warmth. The ball, or rustic ball, as it was called, was modeled on a celebration recently given in Paris and quite in the new fashion. The carefully rolled courtyard in front of the entrance to the house served as a ballroom. It was tightly encircled by a double row of laurels and orange trees and tall, rare flowers. Among the branches, gas lamps were burning, pouring their bright light onto the whole scene. The adjacent garden was also illuminated, but more dimly, with small flames in translucent porcelain globes and alabaster vases. It had been transformed into a drawing room, withdrawing rooms, and a buffet. Opulent furniture was artfully arranged throughout. Tea tables were standing under fragrant shrubs. Pyramids of fruit rose in the middle of multicolored dahlias and beautiful camellias composed into luxuriant bunches. Mysterious lights glowed fantastically through the dark green. All this was indeed amazingly fine.

  From behind a thick mass of acacias, an invisible orchestra struck up and the ball began. Thanks to that unusual setting and the attractive novelty of it all, the decorous, indolent, aristocratic company came unexpectedly to life. Dances followed swiftly one after the other. At times, light, feminine laughter was heard in the night air. Everything was movement, noise, and gaiety. The tranquil stars looked down from their heights; a few old trees stood in sullen silence, gloomy and motionless among the crowd.

  Time passed. The dances continued. Cecily, who always tired quickly, felt no fatigue that evening. A new, inexplicable existence was growing in her. One of those rich hours of life had struck when the heart is so self-confident that no happiness is capable of taking it by surprise. At that moment, a miracle would have seemed natural and ordinary to her: she would not even have paid it any attention. If one of those shining stars had fallen to Earth before her, she would have simply pushed it away with her foot.

  Providence sometimes bestows such moments on earthly existence!

  It was close to midnight. The party, as always happened around this time, reached its most brilliant moment. There was noise and movement everywhere. Everywhere through the greenery glimmered dresses of different colors, floating scarves, and glittering bracelets on white arms. Everywhere voices were heard: jokes, mockery, compliments, slander, the vulgarity of some, the wit of others, the coquetry of still others—all mixed and blended into one general sound. From its fathomless darkness, the night sky shone strangely above this turmoil. Those drawing-room speeches, those empty words sounded somehow insolent in the dark infinity; the worldly, false, “civilized” life sounded somehow sinful and sacrilegious in God’s free expanse.

  After many quadrilles, Olga, Cecily, and another young girl sat down to rest, the three of them on a small divan in a cozy, half-hidden corner of the garden. Dmitry Ivachinsky came up to them and began to talk with the third girl; she laughed and answered him animatedly. Suddenly, the mazurka started. Olga took her neighbor who had been talking with Dmitry by the hand and ran off with her. Cecily also stood up, took a couple of steps, looked around, and stopped. For a minute, she was alone with Ivachinsky.

  “Dmitry Andreevich,” she said suddenly, with a charming blush, “I have a request to make of you: don’t play cards as you did yesterday at Ilichev’s. You will promise, won’t you? You won’t gamble any more?”

  “I won’t,”
he answered, “if you’ll give me that flower you tore off your bouquet and are holding in your hand.”

  The mazurka thundered louder. Cecily flitted through the garden, but the flower fell from her hand onto the path.

  She stopped for a second, at the turning of the path: did she really have to look to see if he would find it? The flower was in the hand of Dmitry, who was following her. She stretched out her own hand a little, with the sincere intention of taking it back, but her look was more honest than her hand. There was no one in the garden. Dmitry grasped her outstretched fingers and swiftly kissed them.

  Two minutes later, she began dancing the mazurka with him and slipped into the bright circle, surrounded by chairs, among the crowd of onlookers. But who among them could see how tenderly that trembling little hand, which had been kissed for the first time, was grasped?

  It was the same simple story once again, old and forever new! It was true that Dmitry was captivated by Cecily. The magnetism of other people’s opinions always had an astonishing effect on him. Seeing her that evening, so dazzling and so surrounded, he could not fail to be satisfied with her and far more satisfied with himself. He was one of those weak creatures who grow drunk on success. At that moment, he was no longer merely calculating: he saw himself placed higher than all the rest by Cecily, higher even than Prince Victor, the arrogant object of his secret envy; and his head began to turn. Inside him started up youth’s wildness and its irresistible burst of passion, as at the height of battle, when the warrior rushes blindly forward to tear the standard from the enemy ranks at any cost. It really did resemble love, perhaps mixed with some attraction of the heart as well, but this was only that ruthless masculine feeling which, if the woman inspiring him had committed some awkwardness, had worn some unattractive coiffure or unfashionable hat, could at any moment change into fierce malice.

  But one could lay odds that Cecily was incapable of committing the slightest awkwardness and would always be perfectly dressed and coiffed.

  The mazurka ended at last. Supper was waiting on various tables, large and small, placed about the garden. Cecily and Dmitry sat as far as they could from one another. They now intentionally kept their distance; they were already two conspirators hiding their association.

  The party was coming to a close. Coaches and carriages were brought round. As Madame Valitskaia had requested, Dmitry found her carriage and escorted her to it. While they were walking, he bent toward her a little and whispered in a voice full of meaning:

  “Permit me to call on you tomorrow morning, Natalia Afanasevna. For I have to request of you an important service.”

  “I will expect you with great pleasure,” she answered. “Come after midday.”

  The lackey opened the doors of the carriage. Madame Valitskaia sat down feeling almost as lively and happy as her daughter.

  The short summer night was already turning pale by the time the guests had all left. It may be said that everyone (or nearly everyone at least) was satisfied. They had rushed about, danced, made noise, and amused themselves to the point of exhaustion. For her part, Vera Vladimirovna lay down to sleep quite satisfied. Her party had been a complete success, and Prince Victor had looked at Cecily often and had twice declared that she was extremely lovely. Madame Valitskaia also lay down to sleep very satisfied: just one more little push was needed to get that dangerous Cecily out of the way. Olga went to bed even more satisfied: the prince had talked a lot of nonsense to her during the mazurka and had remarked that her dress was exceptionally becoming. Dmitry could not be dissatisfied: his vanity was still running high and, as he fell asleep, he felt inwardly victorious. Prince Victor always went to bed completely satisfied with himself and with others. Finally, even poor Nadezhda Ivanovna—who never succeeded in anything, who never arranged anything or expected anything, whom no one danced with or spoke to—even she fell asleep extremely satisfied, for no reason at all.

  But Cecily lay down to sleep with the abounding happiness that sometimes fills an eighteen-year-old heart for a moment, and that is so alive that in quiet and solitude, it becomes almost painful. She could not think, but there was turmoil in her breast, and dreams flickered. Her closed eyes still saw the ball, the bright-colored crowd, and the illuminated garden. And her drowsing consciousness grew inexplicably somber with some unaccountable feeling. Happy, she sighed mournfully, not knowing why. And a languorous drowsiness descended comfortingly on her. It was as if echoes of the orchestra were still drifting through the silence—distant, half-sorrowful harmonies, now stopping, now starting up again, and melting into strange talk, mysterious conversations, marvelous, wished-for sounds, his call, into his greeting:

  “The far-off star

  Has long been flaming;

  Long have I waited,

  The hour goes by.

  Languishing in an evil dream

  In that strange land,

  Awake, beloved,

  In your own country;

  Among the victorious

  Sacred things of night,

  Leave the deception

  Of material worry.”

  Sad is the smile on his lips,

  His words flow more gently:

  “O, eternal error of the heart,

  How early you have grown close to her!

  How soon the voice of bold convictions

  Has been awakened in her!

  How many painful revelations,

  How many sorrows lie ahead!

  How life will try in vain to disenchant

  Her soul to the very end!

  Alas! There in the world all is unclear,

  There all is blind and false raving!

  With dark, mute thought, you

  Will search for me alone:

  It is in me your soul believes,

  Me that you love, not him.

  But in the midst of changing vanity

  In your routine of every day,

  I will remain an unclear sadness,

  A dream of the heart unrealized.

  And sensing light in the depths of gloom,

  Trusting in an unearthly secret,

  You will travel from ghost to ghost,

  From one sorrow to another.

  In everything that will be dear to your heart,

  In everything you will see the same lie;

  You have not loved the infinite,

  You wait for the immeasurable.

  It is not life, O fateful thirsting,

  That will assuage your pain!

  You will have a different future,

  Different streams of life.

  So let stern fate take its course,

  The bright paradise of hopes vanishes!

  Get used to a difficult path

  And learn the strength of the weak.

  Understand that the Lord’s Commandments

  Have doomed you, defenseless ones,

  To unconditional patience

  To a task higher than that on Earth.

  Learn, as a woman, the suffering of a woman,

  Know that, submissive, she

  Must not seek the path

  To her own dreams, her own desires;

  That her heart protests in vain,

  That her duty is implacable,

  That all her soul is in his power,

  That even her thoughts are fettered by him.

  Prepare all the strength of youth

  For mute tears, for an obscure struggle,

  And may the heavenly father give you

  An unconquerable love!”

  The following morning, even before midday, Natalia Afanasevna was sitting on her terrace. On the little table in front of her stood a cup of chocolate and the latest of Alexandre Dumas’s countless novels; but the cup with its delicious beverage remained full and the book by the absorbing storyteller unopened. Madame Valitskaia was in no mood for chocolate or stories just now: she was preparing the denouement to the prologue of a certain real-life novel of great interest to her. She leaned her elbows m
editatively on her soft armchair, took a watch from under the sash of her peignoir and cast a momentary glance at it, then from time to time got up, walked to one side of the terrace from where she could see the broad avenue of the park, and looked through her lorgnette into the dusty distance. Returning dissatisfied to her armchair for the third or fourth time, she began toying impatiently with the little knife with a mother-of-pearl handle that was placed in the book.

  Steps were heard, and Nadezhda Ivanovna appeared on the terrace, very red and exhausted.

  “Where have you been?” asked Natalia Afanasevna.

  “Walking with Olga almost halfway around the park. We’re all tired out.”

  “Why do you go walking in the heat? Where is Olga?”

  “She went with Miss Jeffries to her room. As we were coming back, we met some young people—Sofia Chardet and her husband. They were in a carriage.”

  “Indeed?”

  “Yes, she was wearing a marvelous cloak.”

  “Have you sent to find out about Katerina Vasilevna’s health?”

  “Yes; they still haven’t returned with an answer.”

  Again Madame Valitskaia glanced at her watch. While continuing to ask empty questions out loud, inwardly she was asking herself completely different, uneasy ones: “Surely he hasn’t had second thoughts and won’t be coming? Impossible. How shall I manage Vera Vladimirovna? She won’t agree: it’s not a fantastic match. Will I really not be able to handle this? I have to think up something! But what?”

  A swift droshky pulled up with a clatter and stopped. It was Dmitry.

  At that exact moment, as if it were called forth by the clatter of the wheels, Madame Valitskaia was struck with a sudden, completely unexpected, bold, and magnificent idea.

  “Nadezhda Ivanovna,” she said hurriedly, “please tell them to harness up the carriage for me, and leave me alone with Ivachinsky. I have to talk over some business with him. Tell them not to receive any visitors. And not to come in to announce when the carriage is ready; I will ring for it myself. Go on now.”