R. Morris: A Razor Wrapped in Silk

Yelena Filippovna was often described as a beauty and yet, to Maria, this hardly did justice to the extraordinary quality of her presence. It seemed that Yelena possessed a knowledge not granted to other women, and it was this, or the promise of it, that made her so desired by men.

‘Go to her!’ Aglaia’s tone was angry and dismissive. ‘I know you want to.’

‘No. She despises me. Why should I want to expose myself to her contempt?’

Aglaia Filippovna seemed to consider Maria anew. ‘That is the very thing you want. That is what they want, too. Weak natures such as yours …’

‘You think I’m weak?’

‘You will go to her, no matter what you say.’

‘Who are those men?’

‘The Seven Knights.’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘You know the story, The Dead Princess and the Seven Knights .’

‘The older man?’

‘That is Bakhmutov.’

‘He looks at her as if he owns her.’

‘He did once. She is his to dispose of. You see Velchaninov, the fresh-faced youth with him?’

Maria looked at the young man. His cheeks shone with a babyish pink glow, and his hair was fair and silky, like an infant’s. He was standing very close to Bakhmutov, inclining his head towards Bakhmutov’s for a stream of confidences. All the time he kept his gaze on Yelena Filippovna, his eyes wide open in an expression that seemed to combine both naivety and greed.

‘A pretty young thing, isn’t he? And from a good family, though sadly impoverished. Fortunately, Bakhmutov, the eternal benefactor, bestowed ten thousand roubles on the young man. The only condition was that he take my sister off his hands.’

Maria’s scandalised reaction must have been everything Aglaia had hoped for.

‘You are very innocent.’

‘As well as weak? No doubt that is a deplorable combination in your eyes.’

‘It is unfortunate — for you. It doesn’t matter much to me. You are wrong to condemn Yelena, by the way. She would have nothing to do with their little arrangement, once she found out about it — and so it fell through. But you know, things have not been easy for her, for either of us. We lost our parents, you know.’

‘Yes, I know. It happened while we were at the Smolny.’

‘Did Yelena tell you the details?’ Aglaia asked with an unseemly relish.

‘No. She never spoke of it.’

‘Papa blew his brains out over some scandal at the department. The usual financial misunderstanding. Mama found the shame unbearable. And then there were the debts. It broke her. It wasn’t long before she followed him, although her own chosen method of self-despatch was poison. She wrote a note saying that she did it for us, for Yelena and me.’ The laughter that broke out of Aglaia was as startling as a wild animal breaking cover. ‘Can you imagine? What she meant, I have no idea. And so we were left orphaned, friendless and without fortune. It was at that time that Bakhmutov began to take an interest in my sister. She saw him as her saviour.’

‘That word does not seem appropriate to such a man.’

‘You’re looking at him as if you believe him to be the devil! He’s just a man. But perhaps you have no experience of men.’

‘Thankfully, I have no experience of men of his type.’

‘Shall I introduce you?’

‘Please don’t.’

‘He’s very rich.’

‘What’s that to me?’

‘Are you not trying to raise subscriptions for your school?’

‘Nonetheless …’

‘You cannot afford to allow your moral compunctions to stand in the way of your pupils’ welfare. Money is money. What matters is the use to which you put it, not from whence it comes.’ Aglaia’s cheeks glowed pink now, as if the exercise of cynicism invigorated her. She was almost panting for breath, baring her teeth, which for all their delicacy had a predatory form. Maria found herself fighting the urge to slap Aglaia, and the more she looked at her face, the stronger the urge became.

It was as if the thought called forth the deed, for the unmistakable sound of a hand striking skin was now clearly audible, bringing a sudden startling silence to the room. Maria instinctively looked towards Yelena.

Yelena’s face was fired with outrage. A young Guards officer in a white dress uniform stood before her. Even with his head bowed, he towered over her; his inability to abase himself sufficiently seemed to add to whatever insult he was guilty of. He held his black shako in one hand, tucked back against the inside of his forearm, its enormous horsehair plume projecting stiffly like a miniature lance ready for the charge. His hair was dark, almost black, and he kept it long. It fell forward in two long bangs either side of his face, but failed to hide the patch of colour that blazed across his right cheek above his beard. Even allowing for the fact that anguish and embarrassment distorted his face, Maria could not help remarking on his ill-favoured features; she might have gone so far as to describe him as ugly. Even so, there was something compelling, something animalistic about his face, a barely controlled energy that seemed on the verge of breaking into wildness.

‘My God!’ cried Aglaia, finding voice at the same time as the rest of the room. ‘She struck Mizinchikov!’

The officer deepened his bow and clicked his heels, then detached himself from the group around Yelena.

Maria saw Velchaninov’s youthful cheeks flush even more brightly, as if he had been the one struck. His ear now almost touched Bakhmutov’s whispering lips. His eyes shone with an eager, unpleasant delight.

‘It seems the drama has begun already,’ said Aglaia, with evident satisfaction.

The scene between Yelena and the young Guards officer transformed the collective mood once more. The excitement tipped over into a wild nervous energy. Some people forgot themselves so far as to applaud, much to the disgust of Prince Naryskin. His long hair and large silk cravat marked him out as a liberal of the old school, one of the generation of the forties. But the hypertensive bulge of his eyes suggested that he was beginning to wonder if the conservatives had not been right all along. His wife, Princess Yevgenia Andreevna, sunken-cheeked and possibly consumptive, seemed particularly on edge. She could be heard insistently urging him to ‘do something’. And, indeed, there was a general sense that something should be done, though the Prince was not alone in being at a loss to know just what.

The incident seemed to take on a significance greater than the personal, to be about something more than simply a fiery-tempered woman redressing an insult. In that slap, something had been unleashed, something ugly that seemed to have a bearing on them all. Yelena’s dangerous glamour spread like a contagion.

Words were exchanged between Prince Naryskin and his son. It seemed that Prince Sergei was being directed to take his fiancee in hand. An anticipatory thrill set the assembly abuzz, for it was clearly felt that to do so would provoke further, perhaps greater, scandal.

All eyes were turned on Prince Sergei as he approached Yelena.

His words to her were not heard. But Yelena’s laughter, the brittle laughter that was her last defence, crashed over them all like splinters from a fallen chandelier. For a second time, she had silenced the room. Those who had predicted a greater scandal were proven right. There was in this laughter, in its abandon, something far more shocking than a mere physical blow. What made it seem more callous still was that Prince Sergei was known to have a pronounced stammer.

Maria’s impressions of what happened next were confused. She was certain that she saw the second blow, the one that fell with a dull knuckle-crack across Yelena’s cheekbone; certain too that she heard Yelena’s scream, and her terrible masochistic cry to Sergei: ‘Yes, beat me! Beat me like a dog!’