A Double Life

by Barbara Heldt

  Madame Valitskaia also found her lucky star at that moment. The princess, accompanied by Vera Vladimirovna, was walking toward the door. This door opened, and Cecily entered in a cloak and hat, ready to ride with her mother.

  “Well, here she is!” exclaimed the princess. “We shall ask her immediately. Listen, ma chère enfant, Ivachinsky is asking for your hand in marriage; your mother agrees; do you wish to marry him?”

  Cecily blushed, grew pale again, and said in happy confusion, “If Mama agrees, I will be happy to!”

  “There, you see,” the princess joined in, “I was right. The poor children! Well, now everything is all right. I will send someone to tell him right away.”

  Vera Vladimirovna could not speak, could barely even understand.

  The door opened again. Madame Valitskaia and Olga appeared as if called forth at this decisive moment. Her instinct had guided her as surely as the raven points its way to carrion.

  No sooner had she entered than she was completely at ease: at one glance, she could guess everything.

  “Congratulate Cecily,” the princess told her. “She is Ivachinsky’s fiancée.”

  Olga hugged her best friend; Madame Valitskaia clasped her good friend’s hand with great feeling.

  “You are a happy mother!” she told her.

  Vera Vladimirovna began to cry.

  The kind princess sent her carriage for Dmitry. He arrived. Everything followed the usual order. Everyone was very moved, especially Natalia Afanasevna. Even Vera Vladimirovna’s husband came home. Madame Valitskaia, upon meeting him, immediately informed him of what had happened, and that the only thing lacking was his consent. He consented and gave his daughter his blessing.

  Vera Vladimirovna shuddered with sudden vexation at herself: in her confusion, she had forgotten about her husband! He might have been a means of salvation if he had seemed not to want to give Cecily in marriage to Ivachinsky. Now it was already too late to grasp at this straw.

  The princess was showered with blessings and praise. She let it be known that she was entirely content with her morning and named herself as sponsor at the wedding.

  Dmitry Ivachinsky stayed to dine and entered into all the rights of a fiancé. Vera Vladimirovna was, like all women of good society, sufficiently educated and polished to assume when necessary an air that in no way corresponded to her inner feelings, and was able even now to observe all the proprieties in splendid fashion. For Cecily, this day went by in a state of joyous excitement; she could hardly believe in the truth of what had happened.

  So she was really Dmitry’s fiancée? The obstacles that had frightened her had vanished. The difficulties were all smoothed over. Her dream come true was within reach.

  The evening went by extraordinarily rapidly. It was already late when Vera Vladimirovna sent Dmitry home.

  Weary with happiness, Cecily entered her room. Mechanically, she began to undress, and mechanically, she got into bed with a single, ecstatic thought. A bountiful atmosphere of peaceful happiness surrounded her and gave her life. Every thought caressed, every feeling lulled her …

  Her quiet smile met the dream that was growing nearer … It was already hovering over her …

  And far away there were so many wonderful visions, bright joys …

  And the wind barely whispers, softly wafting;

  Through the mist of branches the moon looks on;

  And the unending avenue of trees

  Is full of the thick twilight.

  Who, standing deep within,

  Is seen briefly through the moonlit garden?

  The mute shadow comes closer, blackly,

  The starry glance shines brighter.

  “Yes, I know, you are coming again;

  Again you are looking into my heart;

  Again your word will thunder forth,

  And shatter my youthful dreams.

  Sorrowful force, you always turn

  My happiness to lies;

  Like a flame burning in a censer,

  You light a ray of thought in me.

  Leave me alone, stern spirit!

  You grow sadder and gloomier;

  I fear your revelations,

  Your pitiless love.

  Let me accustom my soul

  To its trivial daily lot:

  I do not wish to foresee more,

  No more do I wish to know!

  Why do you tear in vain

  Its mute prisoner from the world,

  And teach an earthly being

  To live without an earthly idol.

  Should we really walk the path

  Of Earth so anxiously and so in vain,

  Love only what is impossible,

  Only believe in what is far away?

  Why could you not leave my heart

  A brief day of deception?

  Why give me this ruinous lesson

  In advance, so early?”

  “In order that you might discern

  Where fateful eternity awaits;

  That you might understand something other

  Than that series of empty cares.

  In order that the light of your soul

  Might not go out in the dark of Earth;

  In order that you not commit

  Sacrilege upon yourself.

  Arise out of the dust of life!

  Calm the confusion in your heart!

  Look without fear, immortal soul,

  Into the face of truth!

  Understand that all desires are vain,

  That existence is a series of losses,

  That its sacrifices have no recompense,

  That its sufferings have no reward.

  And feel that within you there is something

  Inexplicable at present,

  Higher than any calculation,

  And any blessings, any losses!”

  1.A reference to an assassination attempt on the rue Saint-Nicaise on December 24, 1800.

  Following the memorable morning that so suddenly decided Cecily’s fate, everything around her changed and came to life, as usually happens in the house of a bride-to-be. The days went by swiftly, one after the other, so filled up that they became completely empty. The ardent bridegroom, as is the custom, pleaded to hasten the wedding date; the prudent mother postponed it, asking for the time necessary for preparations. Vera Vladimirovna, seeing that there was now nothing to be done, proved that she was a very clever woman by deciding, to spite her foes and her friends, to be completely satisfied with this marriage, and using it as a frame into which she began to insert to great advantage a considerable portion of her virtues (unselfishness, magnanimity, maternal love, and so forth and so on), so she might have the pleasure of speaking fine phrases and receiving touching praise.

  The house was taken over by merchants, shop assistants, upholsterers, Tatars, seamstresses, milliners. Samples, parcels, hatboxes, packages lay about everywhere. There was no end to congratulatory visits; excursions, dinners, evening parties succeeded one another. All that busy whirling pace of society life accelerated to the point where it made one’s head spin. This state of lively tension, the jolly noise that surrounds brides, call to mind that accidentally deafening music and beating of drums by which soldiers are led into mortal combat. So little time remained to make the necessary arrangements. One had to worry about so many crucial details, peruse so many fashionable journals, choose from so many materials and fabrics of all kinds, talk so frequently with the diamond merchant and the goldsmith, try on so many dresses, peignoirs, cloaks, shawls, hats, mob-caps and headdresses—in short, be so occupied with the heart of the matter that not one free minute remained to muse idly upon any other thing.

  And anyway, what was there to muse about, and to what purpose, especially for Cecily? Her wishes had been fulfilled, her secret dreams realized. Around her, all was bright and beautiful. She had reached those enchanting hours of life when the curtain on a marvelous future near at hand rises a little, minute by minute, allowing her chaste eyes
to take a fleeting glimpse and her sensitive heart to tremble joyfully.

  And it all was so new for her, so unexpected, so inconceivable. This whole world in which she suddenly found herself had always been kept so secret from her until now, so carefully put to one side and concealed, that her understanding could conceive of no comparison with anything similar, and she had to consider herself as some kind of blessed, magnificent exception to the general rule. Dmitry, moreover, did not modify the customary habits of fiancés, and as innocently and good-heartedly as all of them, led this ignorant, gullible soul from one deception to another, from delusion to delusion, each more consoling and delightful than the last. For the lies of a watchful mother he substituted the lies of a tender lover, saving the inexorable truth for the dicta of a stern husband. Wherever one looked, there was concession and flattery, merry faces and friendly words. Whatever was there to think over and contemplate? Precisely nothing. Everything was presented in a fine light; Cecily could not conceive of anything better.

  Dmitry was not wealthy—in the understanding of society, he was almost poor—but even this very circumstance enhanced her pleasure. Despite everything she heard and saw, despite all the opinions expressed by everyone and all her mother’s moral instruction, she (God knows why) unaccountably felt within herself that it was somehow nobler and better to prefer poverty to wealth, Ivachinsky to Prince Victor. She sincerely rejoiced in her choice. It is true that she understood poverty after her own fashion, as something refined, attractive, a kind of new outfit that would be very becoming to her; and already she was impatiently constructing in her mind a restricted way of life in which more money actually would be spent than in a luxurious one. She dreamed of how sweet it would be to live in poverty; to wear the simplest of dresses, sewn by Madame André, whose style would be worth twice as much as the material itself; to furnish small rooms with skill and elegance; to ride in a light, beautiful carriage, harnessed with only a pair of fine grays; even sometimes in good weather to walk with her husband in a smart cloak or in a velvet coat lined with ermine. Other constraints she did not know and could not imagine. Naturally, she sometimes noticed an ugly dress or the old, clumsy carriage of some other woman about whom it was said with insulting pity that she was poor; but this was indeed only ignorance, a lack of taste. How could it be possible not to be able to order a fashionable dress and own a decent carriage? What kind of poverty does not allow even that? It happened on her outings that she saw nasty hovels and met women in miserable, threadbare clothing, who in freezing weather were covered only with an old shawl, pale men in ragged overcoats, wasted children in repulsively filthy little shirts; but these were already inhabitants of another world—beings of another order with whom she could have nothing in common. She had before her eyes every day an example of another, perhaps even more pitiful existence, the striking example of drawing-room poverty—Nadezhda Ivanovna—but that was something totally different too, that was Nadezhda Ivanovna; but she didn’t even come to mind.

  And so what was there left for her to wish for? Dmitry was passionately in love with her, he was very good-looking, extraordinarily comme il faut, and perfectly educated and clever. He could not appear otherwise to her. She who had lived her whole life in this all-pervading atmosphere of banality could not be struck by Ivachinsky’s banality, just as a pallid artisan who never leaves his dirty workshop does not notice the oppressive airlessness of his dwelling. Besides, even for a woman of broader outlook, it is not easy to identify the mediocre mind quickly amid the conventional, cultivated forms of society. How and by what means may one in an aristocratic drawing room distinguish the vulgar man from the brilliantly intelligent one? Surely only by the fact that the former usually seems more clever. Finally, in addition to everything else, Dmitry was unbelievably kind and impossibly meek, even almost too meek—the distinguishing trait of all future husbands, an excess that happily disappears later on.

  So, again, what more could Cecily wish for? How could she not feel herself to be a blessed creature in the world? What did she lack?

  Perhaps one thing: a few truths among all this fine phantasmagoria. But what is truth?

  The sun went down behind the variously colored houses in the park. The elegantly dressed residents spilled out from them. Most of these suburban dwellers, these charming lovers of nature, drove along the noisy avenue to the brilliantly illuminated theater that attracted them with a new French light comedy. The evening renewed the usual everyday movement. What had happened yesterday repeated itself monotonously and inexhaustably in Petrovsky Park, just as it did in the heavens where, against a flaming sunset, a white moon rose and Arcturus glimmered, still only barely visible.

  In Vera Vladimirovna’s drawing room, a very lively and interesting conversation was in progress. Along with a few women friends, among whom Madame Valitskaia maintained first place (so skillfully and artfully had she known how to hide her brilliant matchmaking), Vera Vladimirovna was occupied with the chief concern of her maternal heart: Cecily’s imminent wedding. She was seeking friendly advice concerning the wedding dress and the precious stones sent by the jeweler, which were spread out on the table in front of her. She needed to choose those that were the most becoming to the bride.

  “I have given her the best part of my own diamonds for her wedding, and they reworked them very tastefully,” she said. “But I don’t know what to decide on for the other ensemble. Turquoise does not suit her at all.”

  “These amethysts are very good and the work is excellent,” one lady remarked. “But amethysts, however good they are, never produce an effect.”

  “Choose opals,” another lady proposed. “In my opinion, they’re the best stones.”

  “No,” Madame Valitskaia exclaimed, “if you wear opals, then they should be unusually fine and priced for a tsar. I would take emeralds; they go wonderfully with black hair and fair skin like Cecily’s.”

  “I would prefer them myself; they are indeed very good on her,” Vera Vladimirovna said. “But if this is so, then I will take the set that they brought yesterday. It’s incomparably better than this one. These stones are fairly ordinary. They would lose a lot by comparison with Sofia Chardet’s emeralds, and I don’t want that. Have you seen them?” she added, turning to one of the ladies present.

  “Yes,” this person answered. “The young lady wore them two days ago at her aunt’s soirée. They are amazingly good, especially the bracelets and buttons, and that necklace went superbly with her pale yellow dress.”

  “She dresses beautifully,” another lady said.

  “Especially since she married a moneybags,” added a third, smiling.

  Vera Vladimirovna also smiled.

  Then she said very seriously, “I cannot fathom how one can sacrifice one’s daughter for money in this way. I do not believe that a mother’s duty lies in acquiring a rich son-in-law. I understand it differently and in a higher sense. Every mother has a holy responsibility placed upon her, and she is guilty if she does not prefer her daughter’s happiness to all other calculations and advantages.”

  “You do not merely content yourself with defining a mother’s duty beautifully,” Natalia Afanasevna answered her, deeply touched, “you fulfill this duty even more beautifully, a much rarer thing.”

  “I can at least bear witness,” Vera Vladimirovna continued, conscientiously and modestly, “that my words and deeds are in harmony with each other. I have always proclaimed my convictions sincerely and have always acted in keeping with them.”

  While these deliberations were going on, Cecily was sitting some distance away with Dmitry and listening only to his quiet words, spoken almost into her ear as if they were a secret, although there was no secret at all to them. The commonplaces that he confided to her in this fashion could have been proclaimed anywhere at all and announced to the whole world; but all these empty speeches seemed to her, of course, interesting in the extreme. After all, it wasn’t a matter of what was said. It was the magnetism of a glance, a smile,
a voice that was effective here. Meaning was hidden in a thousand imperceptible details. This amorous whispering, this intricate conversation, was of course sensible and proper to the utmost degree. But no matter how well the young couple observed the rules of good society, no matter how decorous Dmitry was, no matter how superbly Cecily had been brought up, they still could not act like complete puppets, and between themselves, they concealed continual transgressions of society’s strict laws from Vera Vladimirovna’s gaze. And all this was being done so secretly that it resembled a sinful act and was all the sweeter for that.

  And what maidenly soul does not understand the charm of these slight transgressions? What woman, making a confession to herself, has not admitted that to touch these heartfelt, troubling joys on the sly, casually, with fear and trembling, is a hundred times more intoxicating than to taste them openly and calmly? And that we, daughters of Eve, all share more or less the opinion of that Italian countess who, eating some delicious ice cream on a torrid day, exclaimed sincerely, “Ah, what a shame that this is not a sin!”

  Cecily got up from where she was sitting and went out onto the balcony. Dmitry soon followed her, and they found themselves almost alone. Two thick orange trees whose countless blossoms smelled sweeter toward night separated them from the drawing room and concealed them. Twilight was already closing in; distant stars began to shine brightly, one after another. There were no other witnesses, and Dmitry understood that under God’s heaven with the stars watching, it was not shameful to abandon himself to the movement of his heart; he quickly clasped his lovely fiancée and pressed his lips boldly to her pale cheek…. She shuddered and tore herself away … and then remained motionless, leaning against the glass door. Something had awakened in her and had begun to shine brighter than those stars of the night. Through all the mental veils, through all the ignorance, through all the falsehood of her life shone a gleam of heavenly truth, a sincere feeling, a revelation of the soul … a minute flowed by, perhaps unique in her earthly existence … and she quietly went back into the drawing room and sat down, lost in thought.