Debra Dean: The Mirrored World

“It doesn’t move.” Nadya was suddenly beside me.

“What?” I asked.

“It’s made of ice, you goose. It will say eight o’clock for as long as you stand here.”

“I thought it might chime.”

I was foolish, she said. Telling me that she and Xenia had found something much better, she pulled me into the hall beyond the anteroom.

A table had been laid there. Glimmering plates and wineglasses and cutlery that seemed made of fine crystal awaited the pleasure of diners. Ice tapers stood in ice candelabra, ready to be lit, and serving platters held a glittering cluster of grapes, a transparent loaf of bread, a wedge that looked like cheese. As with the clock, every article resembled its counterpart in the world but was drained of color and substance, like a soul removed from its body. All except for this: on a small table in the corner of the room, three playing cards were frozen into the surface. They were just ordinary cards—a two of hearts, a knave, an eight of clubs—but amidst all the translucent delicacies of the room they appeared shockingly solid and coarse.

I ran my fingers over them, fascinated. “Look. They are real.”

Nadya shrugged. “What of it? They must have played cards last night.”

“Who?” I asked.

“That is what I have been trying to show you! The jester and his bride spent their wedding night here.” She was passing through the far doorway. I followed.

Here was a dressing table ornamented with various combs and brushes, pots and perfume bottles, and over the dressing table was a large, ornate mirror. The mirror was so perfect a counterfeit that I thoughtlessly glanced into it. I went sick with fright: there was no reflection. My limbs felt weightless, and as I looked into the gleaming blankness the disquieting thought rose up in me that I, too, had become a spirit.

“Come here,” Nadya said. At the center of the chamber, an enormous canopied bed had been chiseled, and draperies spilt to the floor round it like frozen waterfalls. Nadya stood beside it, and Xenia was there also, staring into the interior. Though apprehensive, I approached as though unseen forces were pushing me from behind.

“Look,” Nadya commanded, and then her voice dropped to a whisper. “This morning, the guards found them here. They were frozen dead in each other’s arms.”

Trembling, I made myself peer beyond the curtains. I expected to find Prince Golitsyn and his hunchbacked bride, their limbs locked in a stiff embrace, their flesh and bones translated to ice. But to my vast relief, there was nothing, nothing but sculpted pillows and bedclothes.

“You can see where they lay,” Nadya said. It was true: at the center of the bed, the ice had melted slightly and left a shallow depression. It was not hard to imagine the shape of two persons lying side by side.

A strangled whimper came from Xenia. I followed her stricken gaze and looked again into the bed. Frozen into the surface of a pillow was a ragged tuft of hair. It was bloody at the roots where shreds of scalp still adhered.

It has been said that they were brought straight from the church, and that Empress Anna’s guests complained at being made to step out of their carriages and follow the bridal couple out onto the river, where an icy wind cut through their wraps. But their sniping was silenced by the sight of the palace glittering in the frigid moonlight. Inside, they admired the cunning forgeries and paid lavish compliments to the Empress and the architect Eropkin on such a magnificent conception.

Golitsyn and the hunchbacked old maid were whisked into the bedchamber. There, the two were made to undress and were left naked. Guards were set at the door. It being customary on a wedding night to feast while the bride and groom consummate their union, the Empress Anna and her guests then hurried on to the banquet, their receding torches making a trail across the ice.

The particulars of what was said and done between Prince Golitsyn and the old maid after they were left alone in the darkness of their monstrous tomb—these things can no more be discovered than can the secrets of any other wedding night.

What is known is that they were found the next morning in the posture of husband and wife, lying in each other’s arms. And although their deaths were widely reported, they had survived the night—if only just—by virtue of the hunchback’s cleverness. While undressing, she had hid a pearl in her cheek, and this she later traded to one of the guards for his sheepskin coat. Bride and groom shared the warmth of the other’s body wrapped in this.

Though the old woman was dead of a cold within the week, years later Xenia would find a happy ending in the story. The wretched hunchback, lonely and unloved all her days, had saved the life of her husband and died a married woman. “I should have prayed for a fate so kind,” she confided.

In 1745, my thirteenth year, there were three more weddings, but so far as the populace of Petersburg was concerned, only one worthy of mention.

A German princess had been brought to the court the previous year for the purpose of providing Empress Elizabeth’s nephew with a wife. The general opinion was that she was hardly a beauty, but her ingratiating manner and the earnestness with which she applied herself to learning Russian had won her allies. It was hoped she might provide some needed ballast for the queer young man whom Fate had put in line for the throne.

The marriage of Catherine to Grand Duke Peter was to be the first royal wedding ever celebrated in Petersburg, and the Empress was determined it should rival in splendor the recent wedding of the Dauphin at Versailles. To this end, the whole town was cast into a frenzy of preparation. Sergei Naryshkin, it was rumored, had spent seven thousand rubles to refurbish his carriage and inlay its wheels with mirror. Tailors were already at work designing new livery for Leonid Vladimirovich Berevsky’s pages and footmen. Throughout the capital, nobles vied with one another to secure the last good bottles of wine and the services of the best musicians and chefs, and for any of these things the usual currencies of bribery and flattery were much increased.

This spirit of extravagance entered our household as well. Having turned seventeen, Nadya was to be brought out into society that season, and in anticipation of this Aunt Galya had purchased pandoras, little dolls imported from Paris and dressed à la mode so that a dressmaker might copy the fashions. Bolts of fabric were brought to the house for our mothers’ perusal, together with a quantity of ribbons and laces. It was decided between them that one court dress would not be adequate, and then there were further expenses to be incurred for morning dresses, shoes, and fans, and for bribes to arrange invitations.

“Perhaps this is not needed after all?” Aunt Galya handed a card of lace to my mother so that she might be contradicted.

“You might leave the neck plain,” my mother said, “but the dress will not look finished without a bit of lace at the sleeves.” She grew thoughtful. “It’s a pity Dasha is too young to be brought out this year. She might profit by some other occupation for her mind.”

“You mustn’t fret about Dashenka,” Aunt Galya said. “She will make some man a good wife.”

“Only if she can first be cured of her bad habits.”

The habits to which my mother referred were in truth only one, but it was sufficient to be more worrisome to her than many smaller ones. On several occasions, I had been found staring at the pages of the Psalter. At first this had been mistaken for piety and no thought had been given to it, but then I had made the error of confessing to Olga that I was trying to read.