Author: Michael Phillips
Category: Literature
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Before Anna could catch herself, suddenly her feet flew out from under her and she was on her back.
“Ouch!” she cried, looking up to where Sergei towered above her.
“It may take a while,” he said, “but you will get the feel of it.”
“It’s already far different than with sticks,” she replied, reaching up for his hand, while rubbing her sore bottom with the other. “That hurt!”
Sergei laughed. “You can depend on the ice for two things,” he said. “It’s cold, and it’s hard!”
Timidly Anna crawled to her knees, gingerly putting one skate under her weight, then the other, hanging on to Sergei for dear life, propriety all but forgotten.
“Up you come . . . there! Now if we can just get moving, it will be easier.”
Again Sergei began slowly to ease his way across the ice; this time, however, grasping Anna’s left arm firmly while his right stretched around her waist for support.
Steadily their speed increased, Anna’s two feet wobbling back and forth uncontrollably. Her legs started to split apart . . . wider . . . wider . . .
“I can’t—!” she cried, but it was too late.
Clutching desperately at Sergei’s arm to keep from falling, Anna toppled over sideways, pulling him along with her. The next moment they were a tangled mass of legs and scrapes and bruises.
Sergei was laughing so hard he could not speak.
“Wouldn’t you rather skate with someone else?” said Anna mournfully. “I don’t think I’m going to be able to do it.”
“Nonsense!” rejoined Sergei. “Just see how much farther you made it that time. Why, I haven’t had such fun in years! Come on, up we go!”
He scrambled to his feet, and before Anna could protest further, they were off again. This time she was able to keep her feet from slipping so widely apart as before, though it was only about thirty or forty feet before suddenly she crashed down onto the ice again. Sergei, however, managed to keep her from falling with her full weight. Quickly he pulled her back to her feet, and they continued around the ice.
When Katrina skated past them ten or fifteen minutes later, Anna still clutched at Sergei’s arm and side frantically. They had proceeded twice about the huge oval without a spill, and for brief moments Anna had forgotten her newborn-colt-like wobbly knees long enough to feel the exhilaration of the biting chill against her face and the river sliding away beneath her feet. Katrina was with a different partner than Dmitri, a boy several inches shorter than she, and who looked a few years younger. She wore a sour expression, one which did not improve as she passed to see her maid on her brother’s arm—the brother she had been looking for to rescue her from this awful fate!
Sergei merely waved gaily, ignoring her look of angry pleading.
“I kidnapped your maid for my partner!” he shouted after her. “I hope you don’t mind!”
But Katrina had no immediate chance to reply, for she was already too far past them. And when she came round again, Sergei didn’t even see her. He was too occupied trying to haul Anna back to her feet after another painful spill.
Katrina did not see Dmitri, except from afar or whizzing past too rapidly to notice her, for the rest of the afternoon.
28
Katrina climbed into the sleigh next to her brother and made no effort to conceal her mood. Dmitri had begged leave to depart with his friends; what had begun as a dream ended as a nightmare.
“Why, Katitchka,” said Sergei affectionately, “you look awful. Did that nice boy you were with not treat you well?”
“Oh, pooh to him! He wouldn’t know how to treat a lady—well or otherwise.”
“I’m sorry if you did not have a good time.”
“Sorry, ha!” she snapped back. “It is your fault!”
“Mine?”
“How could you humiliate me so? Going off and skating with my maid, when I invited you to come today to skate with me!”
“You seemed to be in good enough hands.”
“Oh, Sergei, you’re impossible! You have no decency! How could you take her under your wing like that? Next thing I know she’ll get uppity on me, and I’ll have you to thank!”
“So that’s what this little tiff is all about!” He shook his head. “Your superior attitude does not become you, Katrina.”
His sister sat pouting, unwilling to tell him that the real reason she was upset had nothing to do with either Anna or him.
“Your Anna happened to be cold, alone, and in need of some lively company. I merely did what any halfway considerate young man would have done under the circumstances.”
“But . . . a maid!”
“I did not see a maid when she was standing there in the snow, but a nice-looking young girl whom I thought I might be able to cheer up.”
“Didn’t you see the plain woolen scarf tied around her unruly hair, or those hand-knit mittens her mother made for her? Why, she stood out on the ice like a sore thumb!”
“To tell you the truth, until you mentioned it, I hadn’t even noticed.”
“What will people think of you, skating with a scullery maid?”
“You forget, Katrina—she is not so lowly any longer. She is personal maid to a princess!” His eyes sparkled with teasing fun. “And besides, I don’t care a straw what people think. Let them say what they will.”
“You are impossible. You act as if there is no difference between a peasant girl with woolen mittens and a nobleman’s daughter wearing gloves of fine calf skin! But there is a difference—and you know it!”
“Maybe the texture of hands is different, or what those hands wear to keep out the cold. But inside, if there indeed is a difference, I for one do not know what it might be.”
“Don’t let Papa hear you talk like that.”
Sergei did not reply. Now it was his turn to be silent and thoughtful.
The sleigh behind them moved quietly along, making its way back through the estate. Had Anna suspected that she was the central topic of conversation in the sleigh they were following, she would surely have been horrified. Even deeper would have been the mortification to know that she was the cause of dissent between the young prince and princess.
“Where did you find her, Katitchka?” asked Sergei after a lengthy pause. His voice had now resumed its normal congenial tone.
“In the Promenade Garden,” replied Katrina in like manner. She really didn’t want to be angry with her brother. They had always been on good terms, despite that she saw so little of him lately. He was the only one she would ever allow the privilege of calling her by the diminutive of her name, “Katitchka.” She hated the childish nickname, but it was somehow acceptable coming from him.
“What was she doing there?”
“She sneaked in from the kitchen where she had been working. Now that I know what a timid thing she is, it surprises me she had such gumption.”
“She is a remarkable girl, Katrina,” said Sergei, his serious voice containing sufficient genuine admiration to alarm his sister all over again. Yet she respected Sergei, and thus his words could not help but begin to put her peasant maid in a new light.
“Do you know that she reads?” Sergei went on.
“I see nothing so remarkable in that,” answered Katrina matter-of-factly.
“I mean reads! Not just that she knows how, but that she is an extremely literate young girl. Pushkin is one of her favorites. She understands him and can quote him. Also Lermontov. And probably others for all I know. I didn’t have a chance to find out much more than that. But I do know that she loves to read, yet very little has been accessible to her . . .”
Katrina yawned and gazed at the passing sights in the descending dusk.
“Katrina, promise me you’ll give her access to the library.”
“That’s really up to Papa.”
“He’ll do whatever you ask.” Sergei paused. “That girl should be given whatever advantages are possible,” he went on. “She might even be a help to you in your stu
dies.”
At the moment Katrina couldn’t have cared less, either for Anna or her studies!
“Now there is an idea!” Sergei went on with growing enthusiasm. “Let her sit in during your lessons, Katrina. It would be a great benefit to you both.”
“Oh, Sergei, really!”
“Katitchka, do it as a favor to me? Won’t you?”
“I suppose I have noticed that there is something different about her. But why should you care what happens to Anna?”
“I don’t know. She just seems . . . that she ought to be more, somehow—that she deserves the chance to see what she can make of herself.”
Katrina turned toward her brother. This was an entirely new side of him she had never noticed before. Was the army turning him not only into a social liberal, but an ally of the downtrodden as well? She eyed him curiously. She wasn’t sure whether she liked him taking such a personal interest in a servant—especially her own maid. Whatever reforms he wanted to undertake with the lower classes, let him do it with someone else’s people! She was not ready to lose Anna or to have her start putting on airs because of ideas her foolish brother had put into her head. Let her brother toy with servants and peons if he wanted, but not with her servant! She had worked too hard to get her.
“I’ll think about it, Sergei.”
“Do, Katitchka. I am sure it would benefit you as well.”
Katrina eyed him noncommittally. Who could tell, maybe it was a good idea. Even Katrina would not deny that she needed help with her studies. And she was probably making too much out of the day’s events. Sergei had always been a hopeless do-gooder, and who was she to think she could change him?
Still looking deeply into her brother’s face, Katrina tapped her finger against her lips.
“Sergei, might you do something for me . . . in exchange?”
“Anything.”
“You are attending the New Year’s ball at the Winter Palace?”
“Of course.”
“Then let me have a dance with you.”
“Your older brother is flattered!”
“You will grant my request?”
“Certainly, but why?”
“I just don’t want to be stuck dancing with children or fourteen-year-old boys all evening!”
“Oh, my little Katitchka! You wish to grow up so quickly.”
“And what is wrong with that?”
“Nothing, I suppose,” mused Sergei, though his tone obviously was meant to convey the opposite.
“I’ll be sixteen in a few months.”
“But, Katitchka, growing older will only place many more burdens on your shoulders, things you cannot even imagine now.” He gazed with melancholy eyes out on the white sidewalks, now grown gray in the fading light.
“You take life too seriously, Sergei.” The conversation had not exactly gone the direction she had anticipated when she began by asking him a favor. Nevertheless, she pursed her lips determinedly and went on, bringing their talk back to the New Year’s ball.
“Could I put the names of one or two of your friends on my dance card?” she said. “Dmitri, perhaps . . . ?”
“Of course. I’ll ask him. I am sure he will be more than happy to dance with you.”
For the time being Katrina was content, and her gloomy countenance lifted sufficiently to allow a brief smile of thanks to her brother. They settled back and rode the rest of the way in the silence of their own thoughts.
How Katrina expected a dance with Dmitri to be any more effective than the disastrous afternoon on the icy river, she could not imagine. But if young Katrina Viktorovna Fedorcenko possessed nothing else, she did have an enormous reservoir of confidence in her own charm, good looks, and personal abilities—a characteristic self-reliance that would one day prove both her greatest strength as well as her mortal demise.
29
Anna sat down on the side of her bed and glanced over the paper she held in her hand.
It had been weeks since she had begun this letter to her family. Yet every time she tried to add to it, some interruption came. She had been too busy and exhausted during the weeks in the kitchen to be able to think of much else besides work and sleep. She had scribbled off hasty notes on each of the first two Thursdays, merely to tell her mother and father that she was well and remembering them every day in her prayers.
But she had wanted to tell them in more detail about her duties, and about the recent changes that had come to her life, and what she was thinking about. She had begun this same letter now three or four times, and still did not even have a full page written. Perhaps today would be different, for Katrina had gone to the city with her mother.
She had the entire afternoon to herself! And Anna couldn’t think of a better way to spend the time than with her father and mother and brothers and sisters. With Christmas approaching, she missed them now more than ever. These coming days were not going to be easy ones! As poor as they were, her mother always managed to make Christmas a special time. Anna had already shed a few tears over the thought of not being with them this year. And she was certain more tears would come before Christmas was past and the new year begun.
She drew in a long sigh and stared down at the paper again, reading over what she had written previously. Then she rose, walked to the small table on the other side of the room, sat down, dipped the pen in the jar of ink, and began to write.
Ten or fifteen minutes later, Nina—who had been excused from duty with her mistress in the city—walked into the room unannounced.
“Anna,” she said, “come with me.”
Anna laid down her pen and followed. Questioning what she was told to do had never been one of Anna’s faults. Though she might have preferred to remain and work on her letter, she obeyed without hesitation.
Nina led the way down the corridors and stairways which had by now become an intrinsic part of Anna’s daily existence. However, the moment Nina altered her course down a certain darkened hallway Anna had not entered in weeks, a chilling sense of foreboding swept over her—not from the cold of the deserted hallway, but rather from where it led. They were heading for the kitchen!
She felt her throat go dry; had Nina spoken to her now, Anna would have been utterly unable to reply.
On they proceeded, around one corner, then another . . . until, at last, the large iron-studded oak door loomed before them. Nina lifted the heavy latch, pulled the massive door toward them, and instantly Anna felt a rush of warm humid air from inside flowing out into the cool hallway. Even before they stepped inside, the smells and sounds borne on the warm current sent Anna back to her first days in St. Petersburg. She hardly had more than a second or two, however, to accustom herself to the inrush of familiar sensations, when suddenly a presence of dread approached and stood before them.
Olga Stephanovna!
“Thank you, Nina,” said the terrible voice. The next instant Nina had turned back through the door, which closed with a frightful sound, as of a prison door clanking shut, and Anna was left alone in the kitchen—her worst nightmare suddenly come to life—with the Iron Mistress!
Olga glanced up and down Anna’s frame, now trembling.
“Well, Anna Yevnovna, you appear no worse for being pampered in the main house, although your face is still white as death! But that’s no matter. Come with me.”
She turned and led Anna through the kitchen. Anna followed, daring not even to glance about for Polya’s friendly face.
Where was Olga taking her? To the stables—or wherever else it had been that Polya had disappeared for two days and been beaten black and blue!
Through dark familiar passageways they went, up a narrow flight of stairs, around two corners—they were going back to her old room! It had all been a dream! She looked down at her fine navy blue dress. That part of the dream somehow still lingered. Olga was taking her to her room; if not to beat her, at least to put her back in her old kitchen rags before sending her back down to peel and wash and scrub and sweat!
/> Anna’s heart sank. She was no longer afraid, just very, very weary . . . and sad. What would she be able to tell her mother and father of her new life now? Nothing but drudgery and misery, and only work and more work to look forward to!
Olga opened a door and walked into a room Anna had never seen before.
It was large, mostly empty except for a few pieces of furniture, and smelled musty. Cobwebs hung from the ceilings and corners.
“I need this room clean,” said Olga, as if she had been waiting fit opportunity to punish Anna for her good fortune. “I asked Nina if I might borrow you for the purpose and she agreed. You know where the brooms, buckets, and mops are. When you are ready to scrub, ask one of the men in the kitchen to help you bring up the water. It must be spotless, Anna Yevnovna, do you understand?”
Anna nodded, and the next moment was alone in the dark, stale chamber, not knowing whether to be happy or disheartened.
She never saw the triumphant glint in Olga’s eyes as the cook walked away.
When Anna finally returned to her own room, filthy and exhausted, her heart was heavy with many emotions. She wanted to cry. But instead she sank down beside her bed and fell to her knees.
At first no words would come, only thoughts of thankfulness that her new place in the house had not been a dream after all, thankfulness that she had been chosen as maid to the princess out of the midst of the kitchen drudgery. As she lifted up her heart to the God of her father, an awareness gradually began to steal upon young Anna Yevnovna Burenin that perhaps she had not been chosen by Katrina Fedorcenko or Katrina’s mother or Mrs. Remington at all, but rather by the God who orders all things in the lives of those who serve Him.
She remembered her father’s words, and as his voice came gently back to her, Anna’s heart grew peaceful and was glad: Remember that our God will hold you in His arms. You are nearly a woman, Anna, and not to be looked down upon by anyone . . . most of all, you must never forget how much I love you, my dear and special daughter.
Anna glanced over to the table where sat her few possessions. Her eyes rested upon the Bible her father had given her.