Anna worked diligently without thought of complaint, even though the pace increased after Nina’s departure. Katrina did her best to press into service other servants from about the house, but with limited success. Throughout she maintained the managerial post, issuing orders and instructions from her command post atop the daybed—the last piece of her furniture to be removed.
“Don’t drop that lamp,” she cried out in one direction, jumping down the next instant to run to the other side of the room where a crate was being packed. “You can get more in there,” she said, “but get more straw—those dolls will break if you handle them roughly! No, no, no!” she cried again, this time spinning around to where two servants were beginning to roll up the rug. “Don’t take up the carpet yet—it will raise an awful dust!”
About an hour before lunch, Katrina instructed Anna to crate up several stacks of books. Two burly men Katrina had taken from their duties elsewhere on the manor grounds then picked up the solid wood bookcase and began maneuvering it out of the room. Its size and weight did not make the operation an easy one, and Katrina found the security of her perch momentarily endangered. Her commands and orders to the two men now came, therefore, with redoubled intensity and volume.
Meanwhile, as she knelt on the floor beside the empty crates and began to fill them with the books, Anna could not keep her mind on her work. There were probably only thirty or forty books stacked in front of her, nothing compared to the thousands of volumes in the mansion library of Katrina’s father. Yet Anna had never seen so many books at such close range, in the very grasp of her own fingers!
She had seen books in the priest’s library in Katyk. And a few weeks ago she had peered through the glass into a bookstore in St. Petersburg. But those books had been as unreachable to her as the sky. The old priest had lent her two or three volumes to read, but after his transfer to another parish, his successor was not given to lending to a peasant girl what few books he possessed. And the bookstore—well, Anna could no more think of buying a book than she could imagine traveling to the faraway places written about in those books!
Here was a wealth indeed, right on the floor in front of her!
Such lovely, ornate covers! Just to run her fingers across the leather spines and to feel the fine bindings sent an indescribable thrill of pleasure through Anna’s body. Slowly, handling each book with a love and care that could not have been matched had they been her own, Anna tenderly placed each in the box, making sure the edges and corners would be protected against bumps and any jarring that might occur.
Gradually the box filled, first with one pile, then with another alongside it, until Anna’s hands fell upon the largest book in all the princess’s collection. Instantly her hands stopped; she held the most beautiful Bible she had ever imagined. Tooled with ornate inlaid designs across the cover, the gilt letters read, “Holy Bible.” Her fingers traced the gold etchings as her thoughts went to the small Bible back in her room. Her mind returned to the night when her father had given it to her. The most priceless thing she had ever possessed suddenly seemed old and small and ragged by comparison. Yet even this expensive edition could never make her father’s gift less than a treasure of inestimable value.
Anna lifted the leather-bound cover, and slowly turned one page, then another. Rich illustrations and lettering captured her attention, some as lovely as any icon she had ever seen in church. Turning the pages of the volume, Anna searched for her favorite book, the Gospel of St. John. Finding it, she paused to admire the huge first letter of text, decorated with grapevines weaving around the large character, reminding her of the words in the fifteenth chapter. She turned the exquisite page, and scanned until she came to the third chapter. There she read:
For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
These were the first words she had ever learned to read. How vividly she could recall poring over and over them, thinking about them day and night, trying to decipher and unlock the message of what that love of God might mean for her. And what wonder had followed when she began to grasp God’s wondrous promise!
She smiled. She could still see the light in the old priest’s eye as he had taught her the words, and had seen the young girl’s wide-eyed awe—both at being able to find meaning in the black marks on the page, and in the content of the message itself.
“What are you dawdling about, Anna?” Katrina’s words suddenly jolted Anna awake in the midst of her reflections. “Is there some problem with the books?”
“Oh, no, Princess,” replied Anna, closing the Bible quickly and placing it on top of the two piles she had already made in the crate.
“It almost appeared that you were reading it.”
“I . . . I couldn’t help myself, Miss. I’m sorry.”
A bewildered look passed over Katrina’s face, as if the very notion of reading anything, much less a Bible, were too foreign a thought for her brain to make sense of.
“Oh yes,” she said after a moment, “I recall my brother mentioning your fondness for books. It seems you are the wrong one for this job.”
“I have been very careful with your books, Princess,” said Anna.
“Oh, I have no doubt of that,” rejoined Katrina with a superior tone. “Too careful! But you are wasting precious time. See, the bookcase is gone. These books must follow it, and you are only half through.”
She turned and called out an order to a porter just returning to the room, but then glanced back to where Anna had now finished filling up the first box and was beginning the second.
“How did a peasant girl like you learn to read, anyway?” she asked.
“A priest in my village taught me.”
“My father used to be involved with the Education Ministry. I will have to tell him.”
“What will you do with these books, Princess?” asked Anna, just as Katrina was turning away to return to other matters.
“Well, that one you are holding was a gift from my father—I can’t throw it out. But I never use it. And most of the rest are so childish. I suppose I will have them stored away with everything else. The library is already filled to bursting.”
“You do not even wish to keep the Bible?”
“I shall keep it,” Katrina snapped back defensively. “But it’s a child’s Bible, and I don’t want it around any longer. There are plenty of religious books in the library should I ever fancy them. But what am I explaining myself to you for?” she added, turning away again. “Just finish packing up these books, Anna. It’s almost noon.”
Anna returned to the second crate with greater speed, daring no longer to pause over the beautiful volumes of many sizes as she stacked them inside and carefully placed straw and paper around them for protection. An illustrated edition of Aleksandr Pushkin’s fairy tales caught her eye, but even for her favorite author she knew she must not stop lest the princess scold her again. What a dreadful waste it seemed to Anna, who never could have enough books to read, to see these beautiful volumes relegated to a boxed crate to be stashed out of sight in a basement somewhere! The very thought of sending them away to an exile of dust and mold nearly brought tears to Anna’s eyes.
Twenty minutes later she watched with an inward sigh as they were carried off by a porter, thinking she would never see any of them again.
39
Princess Natalia did not like to see her baby daughter grow up so quickly. But because of the great effort required to oppose the process, she resigned herself to accept it passively.
Several mornings later, however, she looked upon her daughter’s newly redecorated room with a feeling of regret and loss. This was a lady’s room . . . a stranger’s room. Natalia had a headache for the rest of the morning and all afternoon.
Katrina saw the look on her mother’s face, and thus made a conciliatory visit to Natalia later in the day.
“I simply do not know what to say about your rooms, dear,” sa
id Natalia, in a tone as near to remonstration as her languid voice could get. “It seems so unlike you, so cold and cheerless.”
“But are they not tasteful, Mother?” asked Katrina, knowing the answer to her question full well. She had summoned the finest decorator in all St. Petersburg to oversee the process. And if that were not enough, she had innately good taste herself. The rooms were beautifully done, and Katrina knew it.
“It’s not that, my dear,” sighed Natalia. “Something seems missing from the old gaiety, that’s all. I . . . that is, where are all your dolls?”
“Packed away, of course.”
“But why, dear?”
“I don’t play with dolls anymore, Mother.”
“Perhaps not . . . but it’s so . . .” Her voice trailed away. She seemed unable to explain her meaning with words; in truth, only Natalia herself vaguely grasped what her heart was struggling to say.
“Come with me, Katrina, dear,” she went on in a moment, rising from the rose-colored settee in her sitting room and motioning her daughter to follow into the bedroom.
Once inside she held up a pale hand to indicate a velvet bench against the far wall. On it sat three dolls, in the same undisturbed posture they had occupied for many years, all quite lovely for their age and frailty.
“These were mine when I was a child,” said Natalia, smiling as she approached the bench. “Sasha in the middle was given me by my own dear grandmama.”
“Yes, Mother, you’ve told me about them many times,” said Katrina with great patience.
“Of course I don’t play with them anymore either, dear. But I wouldn’t dream of . . . of getting rid of them. They are still my friends, keepsakes . . . very special to me.” She paused, and then added as if continuing with the conversation from the other room, “I thought you’d have felt the same about your childhood treasures. I bought most of them for you myself.”
She sighed and sat down on her dressing table stool. This effort to be a dutiful parent to such an independent girl clearly taxed Natalia’s strength.
Usually Katrina could easily shrug off her mother’s listlessly boring speeches. But something in the rare poignancy of her tone on this day could not be ignored. Katrina had unwittingly tread upon a tender nerve in her mother’s character, and she was not so cold-hearted that she could fail to be moved by the princess’s words. Her response was uncharacteristically contrite.
“I am sorry, Mother,” she said. “I was so intent upon the decorating and the paint and carpet and furniture, that I suppose I wasn’t thinking of anything else. Will you forgive me?”
“Of course, my dear little Katitchka!” She held out her arms to her daughter. “Come and give your mama a hug.”
Katrina went to her mother, put her arms around her, and planted a loving kiss on her forehead.
As Katrina was about to leave the room, Princess Natalia gave her a sweet little smile and said, “The room is lovely, dear. To think you did it all by yourself!”
Her final words contained no hint of sarcasm. For to a woman with as little drive as Natalia, a daughter with such an independent spirit as Katrina’s was a marvel indeed.
An hour later Katrina made her way through the ground floor to the storeroom where her things had been sent for storage. She could have sent a servant, but her genuine concern over her mother’s words compelled her to go herself.
As she entered and glanced about the darkened, musty room, an eerie feeling came over her, and an involuntary shiver ran up her spine. But she quickly suppressed any thought of fear, walked further inside, and peered about. As her eyes grew accustomed to the dim light, she began to search among the dingy, cobwebbed storage containers for her own things. She found the cartons easily enough, for they were mostly in front, the only ones without several layers of dust.
It took some moments before she located the particular box into which her dolls had been placed. She set the lid aside, pulled out the straw and paper, and began to look through the assortment of her old childhood friends.
Whatever she may have said in the presence of her mother or Anna or anyone else, not even the stoic, determined, headstrong Princess Katrina Fedorcenko was immune to the tug of nostalgic memories. She sat down against the edge of the crate, and one by one reacquainted herself with many pleasant memories from years not so long ago. Had tears come easily to Katrina, she might have wept. But the only sign of nostalgia was the occasional glimmer of a sad, half-lonely smile that came to her mouth. The joys of childhood pull hardest on those most incapable of taking those pleasures with them into adulthood.
She remained in the storage room for nearly an hour, and dusk was well advanced before she rose to leave. From the collection she chose three to take back with her. One was a lovely golden-haired doll wearing an embroidered white-muslin dress which she had always loved and played with more than all her others. As she cradled it in her arm, she found herself grateful for her mother’s words. This doll was special, and it would have been a shame for it to be crated away forever. Another of her favorites, dressed in pink satin and lace, her mother had given her for her very first birthday. The third one had been a present from her father, the year she turned eight.
As she remembered her father, Katrina’s thoughts turned to the gift he had given her when she turned ten—the Bible that had been packed with the rest of her books. Would he take offense, as her mother had with the dolls, at her storing the precious gift away so heartlessly?
She looked about, intending to find the book crates, and retrieve the Bible too.
Setting the dolls down for a moment, she quickly located the two large boxes, took off the lids, and removed the top layer of packing material. There were the books, all right. But where was the Bible?
Quickly she lifted out one or two volumes, then a handful, first from one crate, then the other. Before long the whole stack of books was strewn about the floor and both crates lay empty. But nowhere was the Bible to be seen.
“Of all the brazen things!” she cried, spinning quickly around, then turning to give one of the crates a sharp kick. “She’ll not get away with it!”
She stormed from the room, forgetting her dolls where they lay in the gathering darkness, slammed the door behind her in a loud display of her indignation, and strode angrily down the hall and up the stairs to the first floor.
Katrina found Anna in the princess’s rooms folding clothes. To all appearances she looked the picture of the obedient servant. But Katrina was not so easily dissuaded from her mission, even though a small corner of her practical mind did not believe her hasty assumption. One aspect of her character took dominance over all else—that which craved superiority for its appearance of maturity.
“I am appalled!” she said heatedly, without preamble, “that a lady’s kindness should be returned with such contempt, such deceit!”
Anna looked up and stared blankly at her mistress’s tirade, wondering if there were someone else in the room to whom the words had been directed. But she knew she had been alone prior to Katrina’s stormy entry. And one look at her mistress’s red face and flashing eyes was evidence enough that Katrina’s ire was focused straight at Anna.
“I took a great chance,” Katrina went on angrily, “bringing one such as you into the household. I suppose I thought to help you better your position, imagining that you might even be grateful. But it is apparent enough that once a thieving peasant, always a thieving peasant. Still, I am shocked! How could you?”
From somewhere deep within her trembling heart, Anna found what was left of her voice. “My Lady Princess,” she said, “what have I done to displease you?”
“Enough of such shams, Anna Yevnovna! I was taken in by your innocent act in the garden. But no more! I see now that hiding behind those big dovelike eyes of yours is nothing but a thief and a liar! You have been found out! The Bible my father gave me is missing—the book you were last to have, as you knelt there looking upon it with such covetousness and greed!”
Huge tears formed in Anna’s eyes, but they were not enough to touch Katrina’s heart.
“Do not try to deny your guilt,” she went on, “for I have not the slightest doubt that I will quickly find it among your things!”
Katrina swung around, leaving the quietly sobbing Anna alone in her confusion, and marched through the small sitting room into the small cubicle occupied by her servant. It did not take long to rummage through Anna’s few belongings and the one or two pieces of furniture which had been provided her. But the fact that she returned from her search empty-handed in no way assuaged Katrina’s suspicions, or brought to the fore her more sensible nature. She strode back to where Anna stood still dumbfounded.
“Of course you’d be clever enough to put it where I would not find it so easily! I know your type, Anna. I’ve had other servants who tried to match their cunning with mine. But they found out what you will soon enough—that it can never work! Now tell me where you put it, Anna, or I will have you flogged immediately!”
“I . . . I put the Bible in the crate, my Lady Princess,” faltered Anna.
The quiet sincerity in Anna’s tone, bordering on desperation, caused Katrina to waver momentarily in her indignation. She was still struggling to come to grips with the implications of maturity, and as yet knew nothing of the complexities of protectorship that accompanied her position.
A voice of reason somewhere in her brain tried to remind Katrina how her father, and even her mother, dealt with such situations.
But she forced the thought away. She didn’t respect her mother’s ways. And her father . . . well, he was a man, and naturally did things differently!
Even if she had been of a mind to heed these inner warnings, Katrina had already gone too far to admit she was in the wrong. Her arrogance could never retreat, and thus she allowed it to remain in control.
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