Debra Dean: The Mirrored World

As our mothers maneuvered us through the throng, Xenia scanned the room hungrily. “Dasha”—she elbowed me and jutted her chin upwards—“the Kaleidoscope.” Over our heads hung a gilt chandelier, its crystal pendants refracting each flame into a galaxy of lights.

We arrived at a clutch of women on the perimeter, the wives and widows of the Semeonovsky regiment, and our mothers set at once to work, offering commiseration on a husband’s gout, congratulations on a son’s promotion, and so forth. One might have thought they intended no purpose here except to reassure themselves on the health and well-being of each one of the women’s relations. In truth, their goal was this: that one of these women might send a page to retrieve an unattached son or nephew.

“And your youngest,” Aunt Galya inquired, “Grigory Vasilievich, he must be almost grown by now. That is he?” She feigned shock. “In the blue waistcoat? No, it cannot be. But he is a man already! The day is long but a lifetime is short, is it not so? Only yesterday my little Nadya and Xenia were in their smocks, and look at them now.”

Whilst our mothers labored on our behalf, what was required of us was only that we display a quiet demeanor and be at the ready if called upon. But Xenia could not attend to this little task. Her concentration continually reeled out to follow pairs of dancers revolving past us.

“Oh, look!” she cried out. She pointed to a lady’s enormous fan of peacock feathers blooming, eye by eye, with exquisite slowness.

The wives and widows turned as one, first to the spectacle of Xenia’s pointing finger and then to the lady with the peacock fan. Two eyes had been cut out from the feathers, and through these the lady’s own eyes were visible.

The women took note of the fan without wonder.

“It is a poor copy. Princess Dashkova’s had the edges tipped with gold.”

It is a commonplace that few who admire a painting have any acquaintance with a brush. Likewise, those viewing fireworks marvel at the counterfeit of a flaming bird or a flower blooming in the night sky without a notion how the effect is achieved. But here, the spectators were also the actors. There was no ruse of the tailor with which they themselves were unacquainted, no paint they would mistake for a blush. They, too, had bathed themselves in pigeon water and applied to their own skins pomades and powders and patches. They, too, had endured hours at the hands of their hairdressers and slept in chairs to preserve the sticky confection atop their heads. As such, they were severe critics of their fellows. Xenia’s delight showed a lack of discernment, and it made her seem impressionable as a peasant in their eyes.

When a chorister sang for the assemblage, she gaped at him openly in childish wonder. With his last note, she sprang to her feet and began to applaud with such enthusiasm that she drew the amused notice of those within earshot and then the entire room. She alone was on her feet, still clapping. The chorister gave a little bow in our direction, and this only encouraged her further. I blushed for her who had not the sense to blush for herself. Nadya, more quick-thinking, reached up and pinched Xenia hard.

She yelped.

Nadya hissed behind her fan. “Sit. Down.”

If Xenia had forfeited the women’s approbation, Nadya redeemed our mothers’ efforts by behaving precisely as she had been coached. She said little and not a word of it original or sincere, but the airs that she had practiced in our childhood games and perfected under the tutelage of Monsieur La Roche lent her the slightly bored appearance of one far above her rank. She was invited to dance, and when she did the honors and presented herself before the Empress, it was with the ease of one who had at last found her rightful place. As I watched her turn into the figures of the dance, I adjusted my bodice and scratched hungrily. My corset had long since transformed itself into a torture of binding and itches, but Nadya inhabited her own with the seeming disregard of one who had been swaddled in whalebone.

So fine an impression did Nadya make that she was summoned afterwards to be introduced to Countess Chernysheva. By this notice, her value increased again and even spilt over to Xenia and myself. Partners were produced for us as well. It had been decided beforehand that if I were asked to dance I should make a better impression by declining, but Xenia was allowed to be escorted onto the dance floor at the start of a minuet.

She drew notice round the room, the girl who had applauded the singer. However, I do not think she was aware of it. As she danced, her glance followed the chorister. When her escort whispered something to her shoulder, she startled and looked at him as though trying to place where they had met. At this critical moment, she failed to turn to the left and followed her escort to the right instead. Beside me, Aunt Galya gasped.

The circle of dancers had split into two lines, with Xenia amongst the gentlemen and facing her own sex. Looking up the line, she did some swift mental calculation and then made an ungainly dash across the open field. She wedged herself into the middle of the opposite line and, by so doing, further upset the pattern.

Each dancer was now aligned with a different partner. After the shuffle, Nadya drew an unlucky hand and found herself paired with a rotund courtier old enough to be her grandfather. Stone-eyed, she turned to watch Xenia, happy and oblivious, step out to meet her new partner.

It was this same chorister. He looked at Xenia with the winking amusement he had shown her earlier and made some remark. Her answer caused him to laugh aloud. They stepped forward, and for the remainder of the dance never ceased their bantering. Xenia gazed at him as though he were not a man but some magical being. She forgot her feet, forgot her counting, and as the chorister tipsily wheeled her about the room, they banked like billiard balls off the other dancers. The minuet was too slow to contain them.

At the end of the dance, he delivered Xenia back to us.

“I believe you have lost a daughter?” The chorister bowed low to Aunt Galya with a gallant if unsteady flourish. Recovering his balance, he introduced himself as Colonel Andrei Feodorovich Petrov.

“In truth, I had half a mind to keep her,” he confided, “but I would not want it said I am a thief. I have little but my honesty to recommend me to a mother, but perhaps this may earn me the gift of the daughter’s company again.”

It was a pretty speech, and Aunt Galya and my mother shared the view that there was not such a thing as an innocent remark. They turned their efforts to learning if any merits more than honesty might belong to this Colonel Petrov.

He was from Little Russia and the orphan of a landless noble—not, speaking generally, the lineage of a desirable suitor—but by virtue of his sweet voice Andrei Feodorovich Petrov had been brought as a youth to the Ukrainian chapel choir and there had befriended a fellow chorister.

As my mother was fond of saying, “Tell me who is your friend and I’ll tell you who you are.” Colonel Petrov’s friend was Count Alexi Razumovsky, whom wags called the “Night Emperor.”

Years earlier, when Elizabeth had plucked up the young Razumovsky and made him her favorite, Andrei Feodorovich Petrov had been well placed to catch some of the extravagant droppings that fell from Her Highness’s plate. He received from the Grand Duchess a position in the court choir and, after she assumed the throne, a military rank along with a doubling of his salary.

Not that Petrov lacked merits independent of the Empress and the Count. He was pleasantly featured and had the easy manner of one who desires nothing from his friends but their mirth, and so he had many of these. In fact, he seemed to be so universally well-liked that not even the enemies of his friends would speak a word against him.