• Пожаловаться

Danielle Steel: Granny Dan

Здесь есть возможность читать онлайн «Danielle Steel: Granny Dan» весь текст электронной книги совершенно бесплатно (целиком полную версию). В некоторых случаях присутствует краткое содержание. год выпуска: 2000, ISBN: 9780440224822, издательство: Random House, Inc., категория: Старинная литература / на английском языке. Описание произведения, (предисловие) а так же отзывы посетителей доступны на портале. Библиотека «Либ Кат» — LibCat.ru создана для любителей полистать хорошую книжку и предлагает широкий выбор жанров:

любовные романы фантастика и фэнтези приключения детективы и триллеры эротика документальные научные юмористические анекдоты о бизнесе проза детские сказки о религиии новинки православные старинные про компьютеры программирование на английском домоводство поэзия

Выбрав категорию по душе Вы сможете найти действительно стоящие книги и насладиться погружением в мир воображения, прочувствовать переживания героев или узнать для себя что-то новое, совершить внутреннее открытие. Подробная информация для ознакомления по текущему запросу представлена ниже:

Danielle Steel Granny Dan

Granny Dan: краткое содержание, описание и аннотация

Предлагаем к чтению аннотацию, описание, краткое содержание или предисловие (зависит от того, что написал сам автор книги «Granny Dan»). Если вы не нашли необходимую информацию о книге — напишите в комментариях, мы постараемся отыскать её.

Danielle Steel: другие книги автора


Кто написал Granny Dan? Узнайте фамилию, как зовут автора книги и список всех его произведений по сериям.

Granny Dan — читать онлайн бесплатно полную книгу (весь текст) целиком

Ниже представлен текст книги, разбитый по страницам. Система сохранения места последней прочитанной страницы, позволяет с удобством читать онлайн бесплатно книгу «Granny Dan», без необходимости каждый раз заново искать на чём Вы остановились. Поставьте закладку, и сможете в любой момент перейти на страницу, на которой закончили чтение.

Шрифт:

Сбросить

Интервал:

Закладка:

Сделать

The teacher signaled her class to stop, and Madame Markova introduced Danina and explained that she had come from Moscow to live at the school with the others. Now she would be the youngest student, and the most childlike. The others had a strict, disciplined quality that made them seem older than they were. The youngest student was a nine-year-old boy from the Ukraine, and Danina was only seven. There were several girls who were nearly ten, and one who was eleven. They had already been dancing for two years, and Danina would have to work hard to catch up with them, but as they smiled at her and introduced themselves, Danina began to smile shyly. It was like having many sisters, instead of only brothers, she thought suddenly. And when they took her to see her place in the dormitory after lunch, she felt like one of them when they showed her her bed. It was small and hard and narrow.

She went to sleep that night thinking of her father and her brothers. She couldn't help but cry, missing them, but the girl in the next bed, hearing her cry, came to comfort her, and soon there were several others sitting on her bed with her. They sat with her and told her stories, of ballets, and wonderful times they had shared, of dancing Coppelia and Swan Lake, and seeing the Czar and Czarina come to a performance. They made it all sound so exciting that Danina listened to them intently and forgot her miseries, until at last she fell asleep while they were still talking to her about how happy she would be there.

And in the morning, they woke her at five o'clock with the others, and gave her her first leotard and ballet shoes. They ate breakfast every morning at five-thirty, and by six o'clock they were in their classrooms, warming up. And by lunchtime, she was one of them. Madame Markova had come to check on her several times, and watched her in her classes each day. She wanted to keep a close eye on her formation, and make sure that she was learning properly before she even began to dance. She saw immediately that the little bird that had flown to them from Moscow was a remarkably graceful child with the perfect body for a dancer. She was perfect for the life her father had chosen for her. And it was clear to Madame Markova, and her other teachers, in a short time, that destiny had brought her here. Danina Petroskova had been born to be a dancer.

As Madame Markova had promised from the first, Danina's life was one of rigor, backbreaking hard work, and sacrifices that demanded more from her each day than she thought possible. But in the first three years she was there, she never wavered or faltered in her determination. She was ten by then, and lived only to dance, and strove constantly for perfection. Her days were fourteen hours long, spent almost entirely in classes. She was tireless, always determined to surpass what she had previously learned. Madame Markova was well pleased with her, as she told Danina's father whenever she saw him. He came to see Danina several times a year, and was always pleased with what he saw of her dancing, as were her teachers.

When he came to see her first major performance on the stage, when she was fourteen, she danced the role of the girl who dances the mazurka with Franz in Coppelia. She was a full member of the troupe by then, and no longer merely a student, which pleased her father greatly. It was a beautiful performance, and Danina was breathtaking in her precision, elegance of style, and the sheer power of her talent. There were tears in her father's eyes when he saw her, and in hers when she saw him backstage after the performance. It was the most exciting night of her life, and all she wanted to do was thank him for bringing her here seven years before. She had lived at the ballet for half her life now, it was the only life she knew, the only one she wanted.

She danced the role of the Lilac Fairy in Sleeping Beauty a year later, and at sixteen, she gave a miraculous performance in La Bayadere. At seventeen, she was a prima and performed so breathtakingly in Swan Lake that no one who saw her could forget it. Madame Markova knew that she lacked maturity in some ways, she had seen so little of the world, knew nothing of life, yet her technique and her style were so extraordinary that they took one's breath away, and put her far above the others.

The Czarina was well aware of her by then, as were her daughters. And at nineteen, Danina danced at a private performance for the Czar at the Winter Palace. It was April 1914. In May, she was invited to dance for them at their villa on the Peterhof estate, and dined with the family in their private quarters, with Madame Markova and several stars of the ballet in attendance. It was a treat for her, beyond any she had known, and a tribute that meant more to her than any other. To be recognized by the Czar and Czarina was the ultimate accolade, the only tribute she had truly longed for, and she put a photograph of them in a small frame next to her bed. She had particularly liked meeting Grand Duchess Olga, as she was only a few months younger than Danina. And Danina was enchanted by the Czarevitch, who was only nine then, but he thought Danina was very pretty, as did everyone who saw her.

As she matured, Danina had a rare graceful quality, a sense of gentleness and poise, a bit of mischief, and a lovely sense of humor. It was not surprising that the Czarevitch loved her. He was delicate, and had been ill throughout his childhood. But despite his fragility, she teased him and treated him normally, and he loved it. He was a particularly wise, soulful child, and spoke longingly of what she did. She seemed so strong to him, so healthy.

Danina promised to let Alexei watch her in class one day, if Madame Markova would let them, but she couldn't imagine Madame Markova saying no to such an important visitor, if his health would permit it, and his doctors. Because of his hemophilia there was always one of two physicians hovering near, making sure no accident befell him. Danina felt sorry for him, he seemed so ill, and so intolerably frail, and yet there was something warm and kind and very loving about him. And the Czarina was very touched when she saw how kind Danina was to him.

As a result, that summer, Madame Markova received an invitation from the Czarina to come to stay at Livadia for a week, their summer palace in the Crimea, and to bring Danina with her. It was an enormous honor, but even then, Danina was reluctant to do it. She couldn't bear the thought of abandoning her classes and rehearsals for seven days. She was conscientious to the point of being driven. Hers was a rigid, grueling, brutally demanding monastic life, which required everything of her. She gave it everything she had, everything she could, all she dared, and she had long since far exceeded even Madame Markova's wildest dreams for her. It took Madame Markova nearly a month to convince her to accept the Imperial invitation, and only then because the ballet mistress convinced her that it would be an affront to the Czarina if she didn't.

It was the only vacation she had ever had, the only time in her life, since the age of seven, when she hadn't been dancing, when she didn't begin each day with warm-ups at five, classes at six, and rehearsals by eleven, when she didn't push her body for fourteen hours a day to its outer limits. At Livadia, in July, it was the first time in her life that she dared to play, and in spite of herself, she loved it.

Danina seemed almost childlike to Madame Markova as she watched her. She played with the Czar's daughters in the sea, cavorted with them, laughing and splashing, and was always gentle with Alexei. She had a motherly touch with him, which touched his mother's heart deeply. And all of the children were startled to realize that Danina didn't know how to swim. With all her discipline and the agonizingly stern life she led, she had never had time to learn anything but dancing.

Читать дальше

Шрифт:

Сбросить

Интервал:

Закладка:

Сделать

Похожие книги на «Granny Dan»

Представляем Вашему вниманию похожие книги на «Granny Dan» списком для выбора. Мы отобрали схожую по названию и смыслу литературу в надежде предоставить читателям больше вариантов отыскать новые, интересные, ещё не прочитанные произведения.


Danielle Steel: Echoes
Echoes
Danielle Steel
Danielle Steel: H.R.H.
H.R.H.
Danielle Steel
Danielle Steel: Remembrance
Remembrance
Danielle Steel
Danielle Steel: Sisters
Sisters
Danielle Steel
Danielle Steel: The Cottage
The Cottage
Danielle Steel
Danielle Steel: The Gift
The Gift
Danielle Steel
Отзывы о книге «Granny Dan»

Обсуждение, отзывы о книге «Granny Dan» и просто собственные мнения читателей. Оставьте ваши комментарии, напишите, что Вы думаете о произведении, его смысле или главных героях. Укажите что конкретно понравилось, а что нет, и почему Вы так считаете.