“I … I don't … we can't … we must not, Nikolai. … I don't know how that happened….” There were tears of distress in her eyes as he took her hands in his own. He was the first man she had ever kissed, or who had kissed her. At nineteen, he had opened a door for her that had never been opened to her before, and she had no idea what to do now.
“I know exactly how it happened, Danina,” he said, sounding calmer than he felt. As he looked at her, his heart was pounding. And now he was terrified to lose her. Perhaps with one brave gesture he had driven her away from him forever, and the prospect of that filled him with terror. Whatever happened now, he could not lose her. “I fell in love with you the first time I saw you. I never thought you would live through the night. But I was haunted by you for all those days, you were an illusion of grace and beauty, an injured butterfly I thought would not be spared. But I had no idea who you were, I knew nothing of you … until now … until you came here, and we have sat talking every day. And now I love everything about you, your mind, your spirit, your kind heart…. Danina, I cannot live without you.” It was a plea for clemency as well as a gift he gave her, and she knew it.
“But Nikolai, you are married,” she said, with tears in her eyes, and a look of sorrow. “We cannot do this. We must not … we must forget it….”
“I am not married, except in name. You know that, even from the little I have told you. Surely, you must have sensed it. I have never done anything like this before. … I swear it … you are the first woman I have ever loved. I'm not sure Marie and I ever loved each other. Not like this. And certainly not now. Danina, I swear to you … she hates me.”
“Perhaps you're wrong, perhaps you do not truly understand her feelings, or her unhappi-ness being here in Russia. Perhaps you should move to England with her.” She was pacing now, and looking agitated and distraught, and he was more than ever afraid to lose her. And then she turned to him, and said the words he feared the most, other than if she had said she didn't love him. But the moment she kissed him, he knew she did. She felt the same way that he did, although she was deathly afraid to admit it. “I must go back to St. Petersburg. You must let me. I cannot stay here.”
“You can't go back. You're not strong enough to live in that freezing barracks, or to dance again. You will not be well enough for months, you'll fall ill again. It could be disastrous for you.” He was near tears as he said it. “I beg you, don't leave here.” He couldn't bear the thought of her being far away now.
“I cannot be near you … we will both know now that we carry in our hearts a terrible secret, a dreadful sin, for which we will be punished.”
“I have already lived my punishment for fifteen years. You cannot condemn me to that life forever.”
“What are you saying to me?” Her eyes leapt and she covered her mouth with her hands, as though in horror at what he was proposing.
“I am saying I will do anything for you. I will leave my wife, my family…. Danina, I will do anything to be with you.”
“You must not do that, or even say it. I can't bear thinking of your doing something so terrible…. Nikolai, think of your children!” She was in tears as she said it, but so was he when he answered.
“I have thought of them a thousand times, every day, ever since I met you. But they are not babies anymore. They are twelve and fourteen, in a few years they will be grown men, and I cannot live with a woman I cannot bear for the rest of my life in their honor … nor forsake the only woman I have ever loved. Danina, don't run away, please … stay here with me … we will talk about it. … I will not do anything you don't want me to do. I promise.”
“Then you must not speak of this again. Ever. We must both forget you ever said it, if we can. I cannot be anything more to you than I am. Your life is here, with the Czar, and your family. Mine is at the ballet. I cannot give myself to you, I have no life to give you. My life belongs to the ballet, until I am too old to dance, and then I will give it to the children, like Madame Mark ova.”
“Are you telling me you must be a nun to be a dancer?” It was the first he had heard of it, although he knew she had never been in love, or been close to men, because she had said so in one of their many conversations.
“Madame Mark ova says that an impure life, a life of men, is distracting. One cannot be a great dancer if one wants to be a harlot.” She said it bluntly and he looked startled.
“I was hardly suggesting you be a harlot, Danina. I was telling you I love you, and want to marry you, if Marie will divorce me.”
“And I'm telling you I can't do it. I belong at the ballet. It is my life, it is all I know, it is what I was born to. And I will not let you destroy your life for me.”
“You were born to love, and be loved, as we all were, and to be surrounded by a husband and children who love you, not to dance in drafty halls, breaking your back and risking your health until you die, or are too old and crippled to serve any longer. You deserve more than that, and I want to give it to you.”
“But you cannot,” she said, sounding distressed again. “You don't have it to give. And what if Marie would not agree to divorce you?”
“She would be happy to go back to England. She would gladly pay for her freedom by agreeing to divorce me.”
“And the scandal? The Czar could no longer have you near his family, nor should he. You would be an outcast, a disgrace. I will not let you do that. You must forget me.” The tears ran down her face as she said it.
“I will forget everything we said tonight,” he said with difficulty, “if you promise you will stay here. I will never mention it again. You have my solemn promise.” A promise it nearly killed him to offer.
“All right.” She sighed deeply and turned her back to him, her head bowed, as he watched her, aching to put his arms around her, but he knew he couldn't. She looked desperately unhappy, but not nearly as unhappy as he was. “I'll think about staying,” was all she said, and she did not turn around again to look at him. She couldn't. She was still crying. “You must go now.” He could not see her face as she said it, only the straight young back, and the proud tilt of her head, and the shining dark hair cascading past her shoulders. And he longed to touch it, and hold her.
“Good night, Danina,” he said in a voice filled with regret and longing, and then a moment later she heard the door close behind him, and she turned to look at it, sobbing.
She could not believe what they had done, what he had said, and the worst of it was that she also knew she loved him. But he was a married man, and she could not let him destroy his life, or lose his work or his children, for her sake. She loved him too much to let him do that. And she had her obligations to the ballet. She remembered all too clearly a lifetime of Madame Mar-kova's dire warnings. Madame Mark ova had always told her she was different, that she didn't need a man, that she must remain pure, that she had to live for and grow through her art, her dancing had to come before anything else in her life, and it had till now. But now suddenly with Nikolai, she saw that it could be so different. A life with him would mean an eternity of happiness, but not if it cost him everything he held dear to have her. She couldn't let him do that. She knew she should go back to St. Petersburg, but she couldn't bear leaving him now. She couldn't think of not seeing him every day, any more than he could give up seeing her. All they had to do now was pretend this had never happened between them, which would be far from easy. But she was determined to do it. And as she walked into her room, and began to undress, she felt her knees begin to shake violently. She had to sit down, and as she did, all she could think of were his lips on hers, and what she had felt when he had kissed her. But no matter what she felt for him now, she knew with her entire heart and soul that she could never have him. But at least, if she stayed, they could still see each other. She sat looking at her reflection in the mirror, thinking of him, and wondering how they could do it. It was going to be anything but easy.
Chapter 4
Nikolai didn't come to see her at al
l for the next two days, nor did he go to the palace. But finally he sent her two new books with a message that he had caught a bad cold and didn't want to give it to her. And he would see her as soon as he was no longer contagious. She had no idea if it was true or not, but if so, if nothing else, his absence was at least convenient. And it gave them both time to regain control of themselves, and try to forget what had happened.
But without his visits, she paced uncomfortably around her small house, tried to sleep and found she couldn't, and by the end of the first day had a dreadful headache, and refused to take anything for it. Her nurses found her uncharacteristically short-tempered and fretful, and she apologized to them a thousand times for her ill humor, and blamed it on her migraine. And by the end of the second day, she was despondent. She wondered if he was angry at her, if he regretted what he had said and done, if he had been drunk and she didn't know it, if she would never see him again. She could bear burying their secret and never mentioning it again, but what she realized now with full force, was that she couldn't bear not seeing him.
And when he appeared at last, as she stood in her small living room, watching the snow fall in her garden, she didn't hear him come in. She turned, with tears rolling down her cheeks, thinking of him, and when she saw him, without thinking, she flew across the room into his arms, and told him how much she had missed him. He was not sure what it meant at first, if she had changed her mind and was willing to go forward with him, or simply what she said, that she had missed him.
“I've missed you too,” he said in a voice that still sounded hoarse, so she knew that his excuse for not seeing her had been sincere, and that relieved her. “Very much,” he said, smiling at her. But this time, he was not foolish enough to kiss her. He had taken her at her word two days before, and was determined not to cross that line again, unless she invited him to do so. And she herself made no move to kiss him. She went straight to the samovar, and poured him a cup of tea, and handed it to him. And as she did so, her hand was shaking but she was beaming.
“I'm so glad you've been ill … oh … I mean … that sounds terrible. …” She laughed for the first time in two days, and he laughed too as he sat down near her in the cottage's small, cozy parlor. “I was afraid you didn't want to see me.”
“You know that's not true,” he said with eyes that told her everything she longed to hear but would never allow him to say again. She was desperately happy to see him. “I didn't want to make you ill after all you've been through. But I'm feeling much better.”
“I'm glad to hear it,” she said, feeling a trifle awkward with him, but looking at him intensely. He looked even more handsome to her now, taller and more powerful. In an odd way he was hers now, and she knew it, and it made him even more precious to her, even if they could never have what they both longed for. And with good reason. “Were you very sick?” she asked solicitously, and he was touched. She looked incredibly pretty in a pink wool dress that made her seem even younger than he remembered. She had looked very glamorous and very grown up in the blue velvet gown two nights before, and now she looked like a young girl, which more than ever made him want to kiss her. But this time, he knew he couldn't.
“I was not as sick as you were. Thank God. I'm fine now.”
“You shouldn't be out in the snow,” she chided him, and he smiled at her in answer.
“I wanted to come and see Alexei,” he explained, but his eyes told her something else as well. He had wanted to see her even more than Alexei.
“Will you stay for lunch?” she asked politely, and he nodded and smiled with pleasure.
“I'd like that.” And as he said it, they both thought that they could do this. They could spend time together, just as they had before, without ever divulging their secret, even to each other. But she had already begun to wonder what would happen when she went back to St. Petersburg in a month or two. Would they forget each other, or would he come to see her? Would it just become a cherished memory, and their love for each other fade like the residue of her influenza? It was already hard to imagine leaving.
They talked well into the afternoon, she returned some of his books to him, and he promised to come and see her again on his way home that evening, and everything seemed normal again when he left her. But he did not return that evening after all, and instead sent her a message. Alexei wasn't well, and Nikolai was spending the night at the palace with his patient and Dr. Botkin. Because of his hemophilia, the child needed careful observation, and Nikolai didn't think it wise to leave him. But Danina understood, and curled up in her bed with one of his books, feeling relieved to have seen him that morning. His two-day absence after their drama after the dinner party had been excruciating for her. Her migraine had disappeared the moment she saw him.
And it was a relief to her again when he appeared the next morning to have breakfast with her. But even she was not unaware that there was suddenly a greater intensity between them. Although they had agreed not to discuss their feelings for each other again, it was suddenly clear that his visits meant the world to her, and he himself had begun to feel anxious whenever he wasn't with her. But they were both still convinced that they could control the blaze of what they felt, forever if they had to, and she was determined to keep it in check, and never speak of it again for their entire lifetimes. Nikolai was growing less certain day by day that he could do it, but knew he had to do as she wished, for fear that if he didn't, he would lose her.
He spoke at length of Alexei that day, and explained the nature of his illness in detail to her. And it led them into a discussion about the joys of having children. He told her that she must not deprive herself of that, that he felt certain she would make a wonderful mother. But she only shook her head, and reminded him of her commitment to the ballet. And he told her again that he thought her unnecessary zeal on that subject unreasonable and unhealthy.
“Madame Mark ova would never forgive me if I left,” she said quietly. “She has given her entire life to us, and always will,” she said simply to him after breakfast. “She expects the same of me.”
“Why you more than any of the others?” he asked pointedly, and this time she laughed when she answered, and for the first time in days, her eyes seemed full of mischief.
“Because I'm a better dancer than they are.”
He smiled broadly as she said it. “And certainly more modest,” he teased. “But you're right. You are a better dancer, but that's still not a reason to give your life up for it.”
“Ballet is more than just dancing, Nikolai. It is a way of life, a spirit, a part of your soul, a religion.”
“You're crazy, Danina Petroskova, but I love you.” The words had just slipped out, and he glanced up at her in terror, but she said nothing. She knew it had been a mistake, an accident, and she decided to ignore it.
It had stopped snowing again by then, after nearly two days of heavy snowfall, and they walked out into her garden, and a moment later, she began pelting him with snowballs. He loved being with her so much more than he could tell her, he loved her childlike spirit, coupled with her great intensity, and devotion to all that she believed in. She was an extraordinary young woman. And by the time he left her that afternoon, to go home and change after his night with his young charge, they were feeling relaxed and at ease with each other again. The cloud that had hung over them for the past few days seemed to have dispelled to a tolerable degree, and they were both confident that they could live with the restrictions Danina had imposed on them. And at the end of another week, they were completely comfortable again with their arrangement.
Nikolai came to see her at least twice a day, and whenever possible, even more often. He frequently had lunch or dinner with her, and sometimes arrived early enough to spend breakfast with her. The weather had been severe that month, and they stayed inside most of the time, but by the end of January it was slowly getting better. As was her health. She was making steady progress in her recovery, but she was still a long way from returning to th
e ballet, and Danina didn't push it. She had originally begged Madame Markova to only stay a month, but it had always been Nikolai's recommendation that she stay until March or April. And when she wrote to Madame Markova again, she told her that she had agreed to it. It was exactly what she needed. And Madame Markova was relieved to hear it. As was the Czarina. They loved having her with them.
The Grand Duchesses came to tea whenever they could and weren't busy with their nursing or their lessons. And Alexei loved playing cards with her. She seemed a perfect addition to the family, as far as he was concerned. And it was Alexei who announced that she had to come to his parents' ball on the first of February, it was the first one they had given in ages. The Czarina had been feeling so sorry for her daughters having had no fun in so long, and no break in their nursing, that she had convinced her husband that a ball would lift everyone's spirits. And after telling Danina about it, he informed his mother that he wanted her invited.
The Czarina said there wasn't anything she'd like better, and without waiting for an answer from Danina, she sent a number of gowns over for her to try, just as she had for their far less formal dinner. But the gowns she sent this time were truly spectacular, and Danina was overwhelmed when she saw them.
There were satins and silks, and velvets and brocades, they were fit for a queen, or for a Czarina, and Danina was almost embarrassed to wear them. She chose a white satin finally, with a gold brocade bustier, which cinched her tiny waist in so tightly that she looked like a fairy queen more than just a ballerina. She looked, as Alexei said, when she tried it on for him, like a fairy princess. Nikolai had not yet seen it, but had heard all about it. And the white satin cape which went with it was lined in the same gold brocade as the bustier, and trimmed in ermine. It was indeed very regal, and with Danina's dark hair she looked more striking than ever. In some ways, it felt like a costume to her, but it was more beautiful than any she had seen or worn, or even dreamed of. And Nikolai was pleased to hear that she was going. As he had before, he cautioned her not to exhaust herself, and to leave as soon as she was tired. But he had no objection to her attending the Czar's ball, and offered to take her there himself, as he had to their dinner.
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