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.
“No, no, kitten.” Olga corrected me gently, and, closing the book, returned it to its place. “You do not want to do that. It makes a woman barren.”
There was no fate so fearful as this, and Olga’s warning should have been sufficient to cure me of my fault, but it was not. I had such a hunger for words that I took to spying on my brother whilst he was at his lessons. Afterwards, I would hide myself in the wardrobe for hours, the Psalter opened on my lap and a candlestick set on the floor beside me. In its flickering light, the strokes and curls on the pages slowly began to yield their mysteries. Then Nadya had found me and reported to my mother. I was whipped not only for my disobedience but also for taking a taper into the wardrobe and thereby endangering the lives of my family.
Now, fingering the lace, my mother lamented, “What man will want a girl who defies her parents to read?”
“I’ve heard that the German princess is fond of books,” Aunt Galya said, but this was no comfort to my mother.
“My daughter can ill afford such quirks.”
Aunt Galya hit upon an inspiration. “Why not bring her out with Nadya? She is young, as you say, but such a season will not come again with all its chances to make a match. And if it happens not this year, she will have that many more years to try.”
My aunt pleased herself further with the argument that in truth it would represent an economy to bring out all three girls at once. We might share dresses and ribbons and whatnot, and the savings from this could even be put towards engaging a French dance master.
On the morning of our first dancing lesson, Olga dressed us in our mothers’ hoops and skirts. We were further outfitted with heeled slippers, fans, and little porcelain bonbonnieres. So attired, we seemed suddenly to outgrow our childhood and the confines of our bedroom as well. With whalebone panniers strapped to our hips, our skirts extended us each to the width of three persons, and we maneuvered in the small room like the square-rigged ships one sees crowding the Neva, under full sail and narrowly avoiding collision at every tack. Only by turning sideways were we able to pass through the door and sidle down the corridor to the drawing room. Though my mother’s slippers were stuffed to hold my foot, and the extra length of her skirt pinned up so that I should not trip, I preened, newly a lady, and anticipated the impression I would make on the dance master.
When finally he was announced, though, it was he who was to be admired, not we. Monsieur La Roche was a knob-kneed man with rotting teeth and a horsehair wig so puny that it rested atop his own hair like a weasel slaughtered and powdered to serve the purpose. But as befitted one who was French, he was full of condescension. As we were introduced, only the languid transfer of his gaze from one of us to the next distinguished him from a portrait. Without breaking his pose, he uttered a few syllables in his native tongue. As Monsieur La Roche spoke no Russian, our instruction was conducted entirely in French, a language known to us formerly only through our mothers speaking the occasional phrase.
Society may be a masquerade, but I discovered that it was not sufficient merely to don the costume. As with any theatrical, there were lines to be learnt and attitudes to be committed to memory, and with them the intricate language of the fan by which such attitudes were signaled. To touch your left cheek with a closed fan meant no, the right cheek meant yes, and if you then unfurled the fan before your face, this signaled to the observer that you wished him to follow you. A dozen different meanings were assigned to fluttering the fan, depending upon rapidity and placement.
It was too much for me to remember, hampered as I was by my great fear of forgetting. Even a curtsy was more exacting than it appeared. I dipped, positioning my foot precisely so and sweeping my arm out slowly, now sliding my fan open and holding it just so, then casting my eyes downwards in a show of modesty. Resting, I then prepared for the final challenge: to undo all I had just done and haul up the anchor of my skirts whilst conveying the impression of floating.
With painstaking slowness, we progressed to the various figures of the minuet, which were a trial to Xenia as well. She had a natural expansiveness of gesture common to tall people and a restlessness particular to her. Though she might tamp down her spirit to fit the small, slow movements that Monsieur dictated, her face reflected like a glass all the effort it cost her, and she instantly undid any success with a burst of jubilation that caused him to chide her again.
Nadya’s talent for imitation answered Monsieur’s haughtiness with her own. She even improved upon it. “Oui, c’est ça exactement!” he exclaimed as she rose from her curtsy. That she did not care if he praised her seemed to please him all the more—she had mastered the aloofness that underpinned every other attitude. From a resting posture of aloofness, one need make only minute adjustments to signal displeasure or its hardly perceptible opposites, approval or amusement.
After several weeks, Monsieur at last satisfied himself. He posed us each with an imagined partner, and taking himself to the rented pianoforte began to plink its keys. This was Xenia’s downfall. She was entranced by the melody: her arms lifted of their own accord, and her head swayed like a daisy in the breezes of the music. Springing off her toes, she gave the impression she might well take flight with the next step.
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