by E. P. Clark
“A child should not be a punishment,” Slava said, once it appeared that Andrey had finished his rant. The sight of so much sorrow mingled with so much stupidity was almost unbearable. She wondered what Andrey Vladislavovich would have been like had he been born a woman. Perhaps even almost tolerable. Sometimes life was such a tragic waste. Sometimes people were born in punishment, even though they shouldn’t be…
“But so often they are, Tsarinovna!” Apparently Andrey Vladislavovich had not finished his rant after all, probably driven on by the horrifying knowledge of his own guilt in the production of a punishment-child. “How many parents do you know who wish they’d never had their children, or how many children do you know who wish they’d never been born? I certainly wish Olga and I had never had Lisochka,”—Slava didn’t know whether it was good or bad that he was admitting it, but she nodded sympathetically nonetheless—“just between you and me, not that it’s any great secret, I suppose, and I’ve no doubt she feels the same way—both Olga and Lisochka, that is, they both feel the same way, I’m sure of it. You have no children, do you, Tsarinovna?”
“Not as of yet,” said Slava.
“And you’re right to do so! None of us should have been born, Tsarinovna! Look at what trouble we get into, look at what misery our lives bring us! By all the gods, I wish I’d never married!”
“Your mother arranged the marriage, did she not?” asked Slava softly.
“She did, the Black God take her! I hear they’re planning to send me back to her, as if I were a…a bolt of cloth that turned out to have a tear in it. Is it true?”
“Nothing has been decided yet,” Slava told him gently. “That is why I came to talk to you, Andrey Vladislavovich. I wanted to find out…”
“Why I did it?” Andrey interrupted her. “You wanted to know what I could have possibly been thinking, to go chasing after that girl, with no thought to my own or anybody else’s honor or convenience?”
“I think I know why you went chasing after her,” said Slava softly. “I know a thing or two about mad passion myself.”
“You! Mad passion! What do you know about anything! And women…They talk and talk about love, about passion, but what do they know about it? No, it’s all business to them! Women don’t care about people, they don’t care about happiness, they don’t care about passion, they just care about continuing the family line! We—we men, we children—we’re just grist to their mill! Just breeding animals on their farms! What do you know about passion?”
“A little while ago—not as far back as I would like it to be, not so far back that I can blame it on my giddy youth—I went chasing after someone too,” said Slava.
“You did, Tsarinovna?” Andrey stopped staring inwards at his own unhappiness, and stared at Slava for a moment instead. “Why?”
“Because I thought I couldn’t live without him, and I thought he felt the same, or at least, I could make him feel the same,” said Slava. Somehow, the fact that she was confessing this to Andrey Vladislavovich, whom she didn’t know very well and didn’t like at all, made it easier to tell this story, which still made her feel sick with shame and sorrow every time she awoke in the middle of the night and remembered it.
“And, Tsarinovna?”
“I was wrong,” said Slava. “I wanted to give him everything I had in my power to give, and all he wanted was…I don’t know. I don’t think he knew either. He just let me turn his head, but it turned out there wasn’t much more to him than his head. No heart, or rather, his heart was small, and it was all filled up with him, there wasn’t any room in there for me, I guess. He was…He wasn’t a nobleman, he was a bard, wintering in Krasnograd, and he liked the idea of having the Tsarinovna’s heart in his hands, but the reality was much less pleasant. It turned out my heart was both heavy and fragile, and the burden was too much for him. When he was with me, he was intoxicated by the vision and I became the most wonderful woman in the world to him—I could see it in his eyes—but as soon as I was out of his sight, he began to think of all the reasons why he didn’t want to have anything to do with me. He had—I only see this now, or rather, I only let myself see this now, before I always turned a blind eye to it—along with all the good things about him, he had a weakness to his character, so that other people only existed for him if they were in front of him. If they were out of his sight, or if they needed more from him than he was willing to give, they were not people for him at all. So he spun me some pretty tale—he was good at that!—and left for another town, saying he would be back soon.”
“And!?” cried Andrey.
“And he wasn’t. So I became worried—because how could he lie to me? I was the most wonderful woman in the world to him, I could see it in his eyes! Something must have happened to him!—and I set off in search for him. I spun my sister some pretty tale too—I am not normally good at that, but that day I was the most silver-tongued bard in all of Zem’—and I set off down the Krasna after him, and then I found him.”
“And!?” cried Andrey.
“In the arms of another woman,” said Slava. “He had sung for his supper at a small waystation where I stopped late one night, and the station-mistress’s daughter had invited him out to the stable afterwards. You can guess why. Only I arrived very late and disturbed them.”
“And!?” cried Andrey.
“He told me he was no good for a fine lady like me, a Tsarinovna, that I needed a great prince, and he was destined for nothing more than giving himself to every girl who needed a man and couldn’t find a better one, and that I should leave and forget about him.” Slava smiled painfully. “I argued, of course. I told him he was destined for better things, if only he’d let himself take them, instead of rolling around in the filth like that, and that I’d help if he’d let me, because I saw something great in him, and not only that, I saw that he loved me, and it must be true because my eyes were the mirror that reflected only reality.”
“Sometimes our eyes deceive us in matters of love,” said Andrey softly.
“Sometimes, yes, but not this time—for if he hadn’t loved me, at least a little, he wouldn’t have run so far so fast, or thrown himself so hard into the arms of another woman. But even in my madness I had the sense not to say that to him. Instead I begged him to return with me, I told him I would forgive everything, because I couldn’t live without him. But he refused, of course.”
“Of course,” said Andrey. His face was drawn with pain, and just then he looked less like a sulky child and more like a man. “Of course he did.”
“Yes,” said Slava. “The reality that my eyes reflected was, for once, the better part of his soul, not the baseness I normally see. I wanted him to be a man worth loving, you know, and so I searched out the parts of him that deserved my love. Underneath, you know, he was a good man. I really do still believe it—or rather, I believe that there were good things in him. I still believe in what I saw in there, in his soul, just as I know that some tiny part of him really did love me. But it was buried too deep under fear and all the other things that people wrap themselves in, and he couldn’t unwrap himself from that cloak. He didn’t even want to try, and I didn’t want to see that. I was so used to seeing the evil in people that I had almost learned to overlook it. I had grown accustomed to telling myself not to take so much heed of their bad points, their dark sides, because I was tired of seeing it and I was afraid that I would never see anything else. So this one time I overlooked all that. I begged and begged him to let me help him, but in the end I saw that he didn’t want my help. I may have been the most wonderful woman in the world to him, but he didn’t want the most wonderful woman in the world, he wanted to think about how he had let the most wonderful woman in the world slip through his fingers. And of course he didn’t think about my pain at all. Even the most wonderful woman in the world was still just a hollow doll to him, something to admire and then discard with no regret except for the effort he had expended on her. I…I could look at him and see a kindred soul, but whe
n he looked at me, he saw…nothing but a receptacle for his own desires. As he made abundantly clear that fateful night.” She shuddered and fought back the bile that threatened to rise in her throat at the memory, even now. “So I rode home and fell ill,” she continued, pushing the unhappy words, the hateful, hateful words he had said, the words that still made her want to die, out of her mind. “No, that’s not quite right. I rode home and I waited and waited for him to come back to me. I told him I would wait before I left, and I thought—I was so foolish—I thought that he would come to his senses and realize I was right. Then I fell ill. Then, a year later, I heard he was married. He had married some station-mistress’s daughter—not the one I had found him with, a different one—who, they said, sold herself to travelers looking to buy their men some quick and shameful pleasure…they say it helps keep them under control…to think that a mother would do that to her own daughter!...The West is not the only place where people sell their daughters into slavery! But no matter. That is not the point. The point is that he had sunk so low he would even consider such a thing...Then I fell ill again. I thought I had known before everything there was to know about the depravities of the human heart, but I was wrong. So many times I had seen people pretend to be good, when they were rotten on the inside, but this was the first time I had seen someone throw away and trample on their goodness like that, even when I begged them not to. Well, the first time it had touched me so directly. It’s a common-enough sight, if you pay attention. I would have helped him, if he’d let me! I would have made him happy, if he’d let me! They say he’s lost his talent and taken to drink, that he’s crushed everything good he had in him, crushed it and thrown it away! And worst of all—no, I’m afraid I’m not that selfish, the taking to drink is worst of all, but—almost as bad! I was so foolish! I was tired of believing what I saw all the time, for what I saw all the time was so grim, and so I decided to try to see as others did, and I was sorely punished for it—just as they so often are. And every time I think of it, I feel so ill I wish I could just lie down and never get up again.”
“So you were right, Tsarinovna,” said Andrey. “You couldn’t live without him.”
“Well, I didn’t die, in the end,” said Slava. “It turns out it’s much harder to die of love than we would like. I did think about it a lot, though.” She felt lighter, having told someone all this, after carrying it around in silence for such a long time, but then she remembered that she had come to listen to Andrey’s problems, not burden him with her own, and felt ashamed for her outburst. But then she looked at Andrey’s face, and saw that she had done the right thing, because by telling him her story she had stopped being a hollow doll for him, and become a person.
“The Black God take singers, eh, Tsarinovna?” said Andrey with a painful smile that matched Slava’s. “Why did the gods make them so beautiful? Milochka was the most beautiful girl I’d ever laid eyes on. And she sang so sweetly, too. And she always looked up at me and smiled when she sang. And…well, it was just as you described it, Tsarinovna. Or at least, it felt like that to me. Almost mad with loneliness here, with no one but my vapid, foolish daughter to give me company, I had befriended some of the guards and grooms, and we had taken to going out into the town together. Most of them were coarse and foolish, of course, but I…I had never had any brothers, or any real friends, either, and they were so easy to win over! For the price of a glass of vodka and a word in the princess’s ear, they would say they loved me like blood kin. I guess that should have been a warning to me, but I was too infatuated, and so were they. And then…a sanctuary brother came, and introduced us to his friend, his new friend from the West, from the Middle Sea…he was the handsomest man any of us had ever seen, and he made us feel…as we’d never felt before. Special and important and powerful, like we could snap our fingers and others would—should!—jump to obey us, and if they didn’t, we could—should!—crush them beneath our boots. We roamed all over town together, in larger and larger groups, and soon I could tell that I had…a following, followers loyal to me and not to my mother or my mother-in-law. It was when we were out together that I first saw her in the market, and I was so enchanted I asked her to come and sing in the kremlin, and she did. And I asked her to come again, and she did, and again, and she did. She came and sang for me, just for me, all winter. Whenever she was with me, I felt like I was the most wonderful man in the world to her. For once in my life, it seemed like a woman loved me. I felt like a starving man who’d suddenly had a feast set before him. Do you know what that’s like, Tsarinovna?”
“All too well,” said Slava softly.
“I was starving, Tsarinovna, starving! Anyone could have had me for a kind word, Tsarinovna, and she gave it to me! But then she snatched it back. She told me there was no point, a prince like me, and married to boot, and a simple village girl like her, and besides, she’d met a man who was closer to her station, who could make her happy, and she wanted nothing more to do with me. I begged her to reconsider, I gave her all the same reasons you did, Tsarinovna, but she refused to listen! She snatched the food out of my hands, Tsarinovna, and left me to starve again! She ran off and left me, and I thought I would die, Tsarinovna, I thought I would die without her! So I ran after her! I couldn’t stop myself, Tsarinovna! I couldn’t stop myself!”
“And then?” asked Slava softly.
“And nothing! Some of my new friends, one of whom is now guarding my door, helped me go to her village, but she refused me yet again, and then she ran off with her other lover. Well, her only lover. I would be flattering myself grossly if I counted myself as one of her lovers. I was never her lover at all, except in my own mind.”
“And?” asked Slava.
“And I fell ill, Tsarinovna, just as you did, ill from a broken heart, and my men brought me back to Lesnograd more dead than alive. I, too, thought a lot about dying, life seemed so joyless without her, but I didn’t, alas, I didn’t!”
“And the village?” asked Slava. “The villagers? What about them?”
“What about them?” asked Andrey, puzzled. “No doubt they had a good laugh at my expense, that’s what.”
“But the village! It was burnt to the ground!”
“What!” cried Andrey. “When! By whom?”
“By you!”
“What! Says who!”
“Andrey!” cried Slava. “Why do you think all this trouble has arisen? Not merely because of some singer from some gods-forsaken village! The village was burnt to the ground and all its inhabitants lost their homes and their livelihoods, and they claim it is because of you! Lyudmila’s brother has accused you directly—that’s why he came to Lesnograd, that’s why he came to the kremlin! Not just his sister, Andrey, but the entire village!”
“Burnt to the ground!” repeated Andrey, shocked. “Burnt to the ground! This is the first I’ve heard of it! I knew that Lyudmila’s brother had come and accused me, but I thought…All I heard was that it was about Lyudmila, and I thought it was because I’d gone after her, and she’d run away. I never raised a hand against the village or anyone in it, Tsarinovna, my head for beheading, such a thought never even crossed my mind.”
Slava stared at him, also shocked. She examined his face, his shoulders, his whole body for signs of a lie, but found none. Either he was telling the truth, or he believed he was telling the truth. Could he have done it and then, overcome with guilt and remorse, convinced himself that he hadn’t? Slava had heard of such cases before, and Andrey Vladislavovich did not possess the strongest of characters. If there was ever a man who could face the truth unflinchingly, he was not that man. But still, that seemed mad even for him.
“Nothing?” she repeated. “You know nothing of this?”
“Nothing!” he insisted. “It’s a lie, I swear, Tsarinovna! The villagers…Someone is setting me up, Tsarinovna, someone is plotting against me! As usual! I have enemies everywhere, Tsarinovna! They won’t let me have a moment’s peace or a morsel of happiness!” His face had gone
back to looking like a sulky child’s, and the brief moment of communion between him and Slava, which had arisen over their mutual broken hearts, was ended. Once again Slava found herself feeling genuinely sorry for his genuinely sorry situation, while also feeling repulsed and annoyed.
“I will get to the bottom of this mystery,” she told him. “I will make sure the truth comes out. And now…Wait!” Slava suddenly remembered her original reason for coming to see him. “However it ends, whatever truth comes out, you may not want to stay here in Lesnograd, Andrey Vladislavovich. You may not even be able to stay here in Lesnograd. You have said you do not wish to return to your home in Vostochnoye Selo, is that right?”
“Right,” said Andrey, now looking distinctly sullen again. “Return to my mother’s apron strings, a man of forty! Anything is better than that!”
“So where would you like to go, then?” Slava asked. “What would you like to do, Andrey Vladislavovich?”
“Come to invite me to Krasnograd, like you have everyone else, Tsarinovna?” asked Andrey, and now there was a hint of a sneer on his face. Whatever brief moment of kinship they had shared had been well and truly crushed and disposed of before it could trouble him any more, and he was once again looking at her as if she were nothing more than a hollow doll, nothing more than a thing whose only worth was in how well it made him feel good about himself at this very moment. Slava told herself she should not be so surprised and disappointed at how quickly he was able to shake off his previous, better feelings, but somehow she was anyway.