Debra Dean - The Mirrored World

“La Principessa di Courland,” Gaspari whispered, and raised his eyebrows meaningfully. “Sta conversando con l’ambasciatore olandese. E quella è la sorella del Signor Shuvalov.”

In past seasons, the cognoscenti had reserved all their raptures for another musico, Lorenzo Saletti. No one, they had said, could equal his Berenice. One might have thought that his being of middle years, wrinkled, and shaped like a dumpling would have marred his impersonation of a young maiden, but not so; for the aficionado, it was the voice alone that mattered, and there was even said to be a particular thrill in such confusion of the senses. However, when Saletti left the employ of the Imperial court and returned to Italy to recover his health, allegiances had shifted with alacrity. In Araja’s most recent opera, the famed Giovanni Carestini had sung the primo uomo role, and in place of the departed Saletti, this Gaspari had taken the secondary part. These two had dazzled Petersburg with their bravura. They were said to be like a pair of preening peacocks, unfurling glorious trills and flourishes, one displaying and then the other answering with mounting virtuosity until women fainted from their chairs. Such sweet tones were too divine, the cognoscenti crooned, to come from mortal men.

Even up close, there was no telltale sign of manhood, no shadow of a beard, no Adam’s apple. Gaspari’s wrists were slender as a lady’s, and his figure had the soft and rounded shapes no man can feign. Yet he was not quite female, either. He had the appearance of having been put together from the parts of different persons. I cannot explain how this worked on me except to admit that I could not easily wrest my eyes from him. He was at once repugnant and fascinating.

I could pick out only the occasional name from the stream of their conversation, but I followed their eyes and the movements of Gaspari’s fan. Like a weather vane in a shifting breeze, it wavered and held in one direction and then in another as he pointed out various persons in the room. Their disguises were no hindrance to him; he seemed to know the identity of everyone. Perhaps it was for this reason that Andrei had sought him out.

Gaspari’s fan singled out a thin-faced woman in the lacy garb of a dandy and identified her as Countess Stroganova. Her name, I recalled, had been linked to his. If the rumors that circulated round him were to be believed, his being unmanned was no impediment to his skills as a lover. He was as famous for his love affairs as for his voice, and it was said that certain practical ladies in the court preferred him over men who might get them with child. Others whispered that, though he was himself without sensation, he could pleasure a woman until she was nearly dead of it.

My glance stole from the Countess back to Gaspari, and I found him looking at me knowingly. “We are not…” he began, and then halted. Tapping his temple with his fan, he asked Andrei, “Che cos’è la vostra parola per ‘sembra’?”

“Appear.”

He turned back and ducked his long neck towards me to whisper, “We are not what we appear, signora . Yes?”

It was the sort of banal observation that persons say when they are in costume and cannot think of an original remark, but I heard more in it, as though he were confiding something to a fellow conspirator.

The musicians lumbered into a solemn polonaise and every eye turned, anticipating the arrival of Her Imperial Majesty. It was not she, however, but the Grand Duke and Duchess.

Had one but the wit to see it, the future was writ large in their appearances. Everything that made Peter seem unfit to rule was magnified by his being in feminine attire. He looked feeble and foolish, a sickly girl with narrow shoulders and lanky, thin arms. It did not go unremarked, moreover, that his gown was made of Prussian blue, like a thumb in the eye of his people. By contrast, Grand Duchess Catherine had elected to dress in the uniform of the Preobrazhensky Guards, her thick chestnut hair tied with a simple ribbon beneath the hat. She was splendid and strong and carried herself with such uncompromising dignity that she might have been born to wear breeches.

As they processed into the hall, Peter mechanically offered his arm to his wife. She took it without seeming to notice his presence. The assembled courtiers fell into line to be received, and, as the royal couple passed, Catherine obligingly acknowledged her guests. Peter glowered at them, as though he were looking over his subjects for one he might whip. The courtiers fell in behind them, processing into the polonaise.

As they approached our threesome, I dropped into a deep curtsy, noting as I did that without the cover of skirts, my knees splayed unattractively. I raised my eyes in time to see His Imperial Highness salute the musico with an excessive, smirking courtesy. His eyes darted maliciously to gauge his wife’s reaction, but she was resolutely impassive.

“Mi permetta?” Gaspari proffered his arm to me, the fingers extended daintily. “You would do me the honor?”

Having been cautioned by Andrei against speaking, I looked to him now for rescue, but he offered no assistance and, stepping back, gallantly handed me off to the musico.

It was part of the Empress’s enforced amusement that the women should lead their partners. However, a lady up the line was so tentative in this that dancers had begun to pile up behind her, and the men, unaccustomed to the girth of their skirts, threatened to topple the whole pattern like dominoes. Like a troupe of clowns, we made our graceless promenade round the hall until at long last it was cleared of nearly all but the Imperial servants stationed at arm’s length along each wall. A hundred or more of them in their green-and-yellow livery stood at attention, giving the impression of guards placed to prevent any disheartened guest from escaping the dance. I searched in vain for an apricot dress.

“It seems Andrei Feodorovich he has left you in my care.” Gaspari had read my look. “Perhaps he has been discovered by a friend of his wife?” His dark eyes were mischievous.

I felt myself flush.

“I have seen Xenia Grigoryevna.” He reached for my hand and feathered the back of it with his fingers. “She is more white and more tall.”

He smiled and did not let go of my hand. “You do this why?” Tipping his head to one side, he waited on me to answer. For all that it was a pose, his curiosity was not unkind.

“She is my friend and she was… she needed me.”

He nodded approvingly. “That is a good answer. I would like such a friend.” He lifted my hand to his painted lips. “If you are not too fatiguée … ?” The line of dancers had begun to divide into two parallel columns, threatening to strand us between them. “The bird may hide best in the …” He searched for a word. “Many?” He fluttered his fingers.

“The flock,” I said.

“ Sì, sì, the flock, sì .” He gestured me towards the line of mock men and fell back with the other mock women.

Through this gauntlet, each couple was compelled to come together and process at a pace measured enough to allow the onlookers’ appraisal. The polonaise is the most stately of dances, designed to display the nobility of the dancer. But garbed as they were, an attitude of nobility was beyond the reach of most. The women took pains to rise above their discomfort; robbed of their wigs and their fans and with their fat or spindly calves on exhibit, they nevertheless cast proud looks down the line, as though to hold themselves aloof from their own ridiculousness. But few of the men troubled to disguise their ill-humor at being exposed to mockery; they resembled humiliated prisoners being led to the gallows. The glittering lights of the candelabra could not dispel the heavy air in the room.