Debra Dean - The Mirrored World

“His wife, Xenia Grigoryevna…” A delicate hand started to flutter and then, deprived of a fan, wilted. “I saw her inside. She is recovered?”

I looked about but did not see her. “She is not yet well but is better than she was.”

“I may call on her?”

From habit, I replied that she would be grateful, though in truth she certainly would not. She had received no one since Andrei’s death. I looked about for the sleigh, thinking that perhaps she was waiting in it, and I might get away. Near the street, a knot of people had gathered round a half-naked woman, one of the klikushi who are possessed by demons and are often taken with fits when they visit a church. Then I saw I was mistaken. It was Xenia.

When I got to her, she was trying to remove her chemise, but her fingers trembled so that she could not undo the laces. I grabbed her hands to still them. “Are you mad?”

“I am out of coins,” she said. Her voice quaked from cold, but otherwise she seemed unperturbed.

Looking for something to cover her, I saw the trail of her clothing, each garment now in the possession of a beggar—her skirt covering the lap of an old woman, and beyond that her shoes and overshoes, the fur pelisse and its matching muff, and so on to the empty coin purse.

I snatched the pelisse back and wrapped it round her shoulders. “Would you freeze to death? Is that your wish?”

She considered this; the prospect did not seem to disturb her.

That Lenten season, I had no need of bells to call me to prayer nor icons to put me in mind of our Savior’s suffering. I had Xenia. Very early every morning, she set forth to matins. I went with her, but my own piety was a fraud, compelled as it was by apprehension of what she might say or do were I not there to prevent it.

Before leaving the house, she stuffed her purse with kopeks and silver rubles she had taken from the household strongbox and filled a basket with bread she had taken from the kitchen. These she distributed to the unfortunates outside the church, who began to greet her by calling her matushka , “little mother.” As she emptied her purse and basket, she drew from them stories of how they had come to their situation, labyrinthine tales of illness and death, lost positions, failed crops, violent or cheating masters. Once when I was late in rising, she had already gone, and when I arrived at the church, I found her sitting on the ground in the company of the beggars, quite as though she meant to set out a begging bowl herself.

More respectable persons kept a discreet distance. Her look barred their approach, and those few who braved addressing her were rewarded with disinterest or, worse, her unmodified thoughts. A singer in the choir who had regarded himself as a rival to Andrei tendered his condolences to Xenia. He heaped extravagant praise on her husband and claimed a great affection for him.

Xenia cut him off. “You were jealous of him.”

“It was I who brought the largest wreath for his casket,” the man protested. “I might have expected a word of thanks.”

“You already have your reward. He is dead.”

Feeling the eyes of those round us, I hurried her into the church. “You should not have done that.”

“His compliments were lies. He showed no affection to Andrei while he lived.”

“He meant no harm,” I answered. “It is what people say when someone has died.”

She slapped my hand from her shoulder. “What do I care about that?”

When she was safely in prayer beside me, I tried to turn my mind to God but I could not, except in anger. Is this what you want, I demanded, that she should wreck herself so publicly?

After the service, she asked again to be taken to Smolenskoye cemetery. She had not yet been to his grave, for I had feared it might further unhinge her, but plainly I had no power to protect her from herself.

“As you wish,” I replied.

Her eyes sharpened inquisitively.

Yes, I knew the pettiness of my tone, the martyred weariness, but I thought myself justified in it.

For all my misgivings, the cemetery did not disturb her. She did not even weep at the sight of his grave but stood looking on the new stone and the raised mound of snow as though she were absorbing the truth of them. Then she sat right down on the ground beside his head. She ran her fingers over the letters of his name. After a while, she said, “Leave us.”

I hesitated. “I will wait in the sleigh.” She did not answer.

She was gone so long that I began to worry and to repent my former harshness, but at last she appeared from out of the trees and without a word climbed into the sleigh. I could not read anything in her countenance; she was only quiet.

The large circle of Andrei and Xenia’s friends who had called at the house after little Katenka’s death kept away now, as though so much sorrow and ill fortune were a contagion. I do not fault them. Had she been receptive to their sympathy then, she might have had it now. No matter; she did not want it. She would not receive even her own mother. After that incident, a friend of Aunt Galya’s would not be put off by my saying that Xenia was indisposed to visitors and insisted on going upstairs, since Xenia would not come down. “She only thinks she wants solitude,” said this woman whose name I have forgotten. She knew what it was to mourn a husband, the woman said, “but trust me, too much solitude is the worst cure.” Finding Xenia in her room, she tried to comfort her with assurances that this grief would pass.

“I thought I should have died with my husband,” Madam Somethingorother said. “Nothing could console me. My appetite suffered, and I took no pleasure from my friends. I could not be amused. Then one day”—the widow’s round face brightened at the memory—“I was brought a little china dish of strawberries and cream. Eating them, I thought I had never tasted anything so lovely. And after that, all my old delights returned to me, one by one.”

Xenia looked at her, impassive. “So you believe I may also become an idiot again?”

This is not to say we were entirely without company. Gaspari was insensible to her slights. The first time he called, she happened to wander into the drawing room shortly after him. She was wearing Andrei’s jacket, a habit she had acquired that seemed to comfort her. He stood and bowed, and she perused his person.

“Are you the eunuch?”

He answered with no sign that the question was rude. Thus encouraged, she sat down beside him. “Did it hurt when they cut you?”

“I do not remember it. I was given opium.”

“My heart has been cut out of me, yet I still feel such pain.”

He nodded. “There is no opium for this wound,” he said, touching his breast. “I am sorry for the loss of your husband.”

With matching graveness, she replied, “And I am sorry for the loss of your eggs.” They sat together without speaking for another few moments and then, abruptly, she stood. “I must return to my prayers.” And with this, she turned and left the room.

When he took his leave, he presented his card and asked me to extend to her his apologies for having come at an inopportune hour, promising to try again for a more agreeable time.

We were host as well to increasing numbers of beggars. Though Xenia was discourteous to her friends, she took exceeding care of those beneath her, and those most in need she brought back to the house with us. She offered them food and a place to sleep and whatever else they expressed a desire for. One cannot fault such behavior; those who have read the Domostroi will recognize that these acts conform exactly to its prescriptions for Christian charity. That said, so literal an interpretation was exasperating. Many of these unfortunates were pulsing with fleas and stank so strongly that Marfa would not tolerate their sleeping in the servants’ room. I tried to make Xenia see reason. Where were we to put them? Her answer was to bed the worst offenders in front of the stove in the drawing room that they might be out of the way, and to have their food brought there also. The stench could never be aired entirely from that room, but as we no longer had respectable visitors, it was, I suppose, a moot concern.