Sisters of the Cross

by Alexei Remizov

  And it was from the time of the artistes’ Christmas party that Vera Nikolaevna began to sing softly, sitting alone in her room and taking her mind off her textbooks. She would sing melodies in an old-fashioned way, and from her age-old melodies one caught the sense of a Russia long since past.1

  She would begin with a melody about the seven wild oxen and their mother, telling how seven oxen with their golden horns were going along by the blue sea, how they swam across the blue sea to come out on the famous island of Buian, and there they met the great ox who was their mother. So her young told her how they had chanced to go past Kiev, past God’s Church of the Resurrection, and they described the miracle they had seen there: how a maiden came out of the church carrying a golden book on her head, how she waded up to her waist in the River Neva; she laid the book on a burning white rock and started reading the book and weeping. Then the mother ox explained the marvelous miracle to her young: that maiden was the Virgin Mother of God and she was reading the golden book, the Gospel, and as she was reading she wept, hearing the misfortune befalling Kiev and the whole of Holy Russia.

  Behind the oxen there rose up in all his heroic stature the mighty Il’ia Muromets; the hero breathed in his heroic spirit at the tomb of Sviatogor, the third white foam issuing from the tomb that hurled Il’ia aloft and tossed him about with what immediately became his own strength. And then, here she is, the Mother Superior Churilia, the red vixen with forty maidens in black following on behind her like rooks; and already the frightening elder Igrimishche-Kologrenishche, rattling and banging away, has come out of the Bogoliubov monastery, wanting to save his soul and send it to paradise; he is dragging a sack along and in the sack a white cabbage, a bitter radish, and a red beetroot, the black-haired girl.

  And once again the oxen with their golden horns are swimming through the deep blue sea to meet their mother, telling her a wondrous tale. And their mother explains to them that the maiden was the Virgin Mother of God and that the book she was reading was the Gospel, and that as she was reading she wept, hearing the misfortune befalling Kiev and the whole of Holy Russia.

  Vera Nikolaevna would also sing the brigand’s song about the bewhiskered heroes, and she sang about the joyous wandering minstrels:

  “Play softly, you minstrels, play softly and happily!

  My poor little head is aching and my heart feels grief…”

  In the kitchen Akumovna is praying before three icon lamps that never go out, praying for her mistress, for her mistress’s brother, for her own son. In the farthest room in front of three lamps that never go out Adoniia Ivoilovna remembers Parasha’s ships, but, making no sense of the words, she weeps.

  It seemed as though something had happened to Vera Nikolaevna; she felt lazy and burst into song.

  Entering Vera Nikolaevna’s room unexpectedly, Verochka Vekhoriova once said to her: “I swear to God, you have fallen in love with Sergei Aleksandrovich!” casting cunning looks at her, with provocation and even with spite.

  And Vera Nikolaevna, usually so pale, flared up and then fell silent, uttering not a word. For after all, she would never say a single word to him; she would die without saying anything—there are such people in the world. That is why her age-old melodies with their sense of Russia long since past are filled with heartrending melancholy.

  Vera Ivanovna Vekhoriova, who for some reason they called Verochka almost from the very first day, would rarely spend an evening at home. Akumovna would also call her a “shameless hussy,” but she said it kindly, not as a slight. She would be at school during the day, would run home for an hour, and then off to some theater. If she wasn’t going out anywhere, she would sit with the Damaskins. Sergei Aleksandrovich was teaching her dancing. She was supple, slender, and light as a feather and, when they danced together, it was as though they both had wings, like birds. They had a merry time together.

  Marakulin dropped in once when they were dancing and began to visit his neighbors even more often, and because Verochka was there, he always felt in good heart with them. However, after Christmas Vera Nikolaevna no longer called in on the Damaskins. She always made some excuse and sat by herself, immersed in her textbooks, or it would turn out to be one of her days on duty in the hospital.

  Marakulin took to Verochka. She danced well and could read aloud with true emotion in her voice. She had come from the south, but had been brought up in Moscow, and her speech bore the marks, neither of tedious southern twittering, nor of northern coldness born of freedom restrained. Her voice had strength, however, and a certain Muscovite quality provoking desire. After they had danced, Sergei Aleksandrovich, who loved poetry, always asked Verochka to recite something. Several times she repeated for him Onegin’s letter: “I see it all. You will be hurt by the explanation of my sad mystery….”

  What struck Marakulin, and what at first might have completely alienated him from Verochka, was her extraordinary self-confidence, amounting to arrogance and self-praise almost equal to a traveling actor’s self-promotion. There were times when one blushed for her, but she took any objection as an insult. She would get so carried away that all words were reduced to the same meaning—not the call of those who see the true state of things, but a challenge, a wild shout about some special right that she claimed to overcome all earthly resistance, as the old phrase goes, by climbing a stairway to heaven, or by using a ring buried in the earth, to turn the whole world upside down. But the main thing was that she got so carried away, clamoring with a mad scream about her rights, that she didn’t ever realize how ridiculous she sounded. And he felt sorry for Verochka.

  She used to say that she was a great actress: not only had she no need to learn, but everyone else must learn from her, and if she had entered some sort of stupid school, then that was only in order to forge her way ahead. You couldn’t avoid doing so. And she would forge her way ahead, revealing her real worth, and then they would all see.

  “And then they’ll see!” screamed Verochka with unfeigned emotion. “Many people will be sorry, but by then it will be too late!…” Going through the names of celebrities and, as it were, comparing them to herself, she would smile, now with pity, now with contempt. “You’ll see who I really am then,” she said, her eyes flashing with fervor and simultaneously burning with fierce hatred: “I’ll show the whole world who I am, and let them see….”

  “But who does she mean by ‘they’?” Marakulin asked himself more than once, thinking about Verochka more and more often. Verochka was quite willing to talk a bit about herself, but she was somehow always saying different things, and you couldn’t fathom where the real truth was and what was just her imagination.

  When her father died she was still small. Her father had been an officer. His regiment was stationed at Voznesensk in Kherson. Her mother moved from there to Moscow and took up employment as housekeeper to an old general, one of her husband’s relatives. Verochka entered a finishing school and was still studying when her mother died. The general was sometimes visited by a rich factory owner called Vakuiev, who was doing some profitable business with him; Vakuiev was not young, but he was in good health and a fine-looking man and was famous for that in Moscow. Anisim Nikitich started to pay court to Verochka, and she liked him. So somehow it came about that, with the general’s permission, Verochka moved in with Vakuiev, who owned an old nobleman’s house on the Arbat. His wife had died, and his children had set up for themselves. His brother had gone bankrupt, leaving him three elderly nieces who were running the house. Verochka lived for a year with Vakuiev, and we can only surmise that over the course of that year he wearied of her, and we may also surmise that she did not lead the most joyful of lives on the Arbat. According to what she said, Anisim liked change and variety. Everything went well for him and he never got into trouble. It was Anisim who sent her to Petersburg to study, remitting her thirty rubles a month, on which money she lived.

  “Is it Anisim and his three nieces, the ones whom she has so taken against, are they the ones who will the
n see?” Marakulin asked himself more then once, thinking about Verochka more and more often. Once during St. Fiodor’s Week, at the beginning of spring, Verochka came home so full of joy and animation that everyone was amazed at her. Adoniia Ivoilovna, usually so tearful and unyielding, forgot her tears and, her face still wet with them, started bustling about as though Verochka were her own daughter who had come back home to her, so joyful and lively. Akumovna also bustled about with great animation, as though this was no ordinary day, gazing occasionally with particular tenderness on her “shameless hussy.”

  Then in spring there came a sunny day, with its warmth beckoning everyone out onto the spacious Belgian Society yard, where the snow was melting, the black hill of coal was shrinking, and smoke was mounting steadily up to the sky from the four brick chimneys that circumscribed the windows of Burkov House, while the little children poured out onto the broad space in front of the building and even babies were coming out with their nannies.

  Vakuiev, Anisim Nikitich himself, had come to Petersburg and met Verochka on Nevsky Prospekt; that is what had happened and that was the real cause of her happiness and the extraordinary euphoria that animated her.

  Verochka did not come home that night, and in the morning, as soon as she got back, she started to go over her room, to give it a thorough spring-clean. And she, who in general was so slapdash, so disorganized, so unlike Vera Nikolaevna, now displayed such inventiveness; she blew away each tiny speck of dust, pushed a wedge of paper under an unstable table leg to stop its wobbling, and placed her hairpins in little boxes. And how much bustle and preparation there was, with her even producing a flower as though it were Trinity Sunday. She was expecting a special guest to visit her, none other than Vakuiev, Anisim Nikitich himself, and it was such a sunny spring day, beckoning everyone out with its warmth.

  The day went slowly by, and the evening set in, bringing its anxiety. When suddenly the bell rang in the hall, the whole apartment froze in silence, all four rooms and the kitchen. Marakulin was going to put out the light, but the lamp went out of its own volition as though there was rumbling thunder such as we hear in Moscow.

  It was just some technical student who had hit on the wrong door as he was looking for a friend of his. And Akumovna had to argue with him for a long time, because somehow he could not accept that there was no Liubimov living here, and never had been.

  “That just cannot be right,” the student insisted indignantly. “You don’t have any right to say that.”

  Somehow or other they managed to get rid of him and the blind-drunk student disappeared at last, but they did not expect any other visitors.

  Verochka was walking tirelessly up and down the room, not with her usual soft pace, but her steps were firm like the claws of a bird of prey and her eyes shameless and piercing like two sharp knives. For some reason it felt rather frightening.

  Feeling the beauty of this lovely spring day, Adoniia Ivoilovna was sitting by the samovar with Akumovna, trying to foreglimpse her summer season of prayer: it was time for her to be on her travels—spring had come.

  “Twig intertwines with twig,” she could hear Akumovna’s voice filled with emotion, “and one shoot with another.”

  Meanwhile Vera Nikolaevna had finished her work and was quietly singing her favorite age-old melodies, and from her songs one caught the sense of a Russia long since past and a numb, heartrending melancholy:

  “Play softly, you minstrels, play softly and happily!

  My poor little head is aching and my heart feels grief…”

  Then suddenly she fell silent, uttering not a word. She would never say a single word to him; she would die without saying anything.

  “Twig intertwines with twig, and one shoot with another…” they could hear Akumovna’s emotional tones: “Spring has come.”

  And it was even more difficult to bear, because Adoniia Ivoilovna began to weep even more loudly than usual, most likely remembering her husband and how in the cemetery the ground was giving way under his body and collapsing.

  Verochka was walking tirelessly up and down the room, not with her usual soft pace, but her steps were firm like the claws of a bird of prey and her eyes shameless and piercing like two sharp knives. For some reason it felt rather frightening.

  But the singing samovar had fallen silent, all the tears had been shed, the footsteps had stopped, and everyone had fallen asleep in the house and around the yards outside; no motor horns sounded from the Fontanka, and in the Obukhov Hospital the little light began to flicker like a star in the night. And a star rose above the brick chimneys of the Belgian factory, peering in at the window, the great evening star of springtime. It was after midnight when Marakulin thought he heard a strange sound like that of someone knocking. He grew alert, began to strain his ears and realized that the sound was coming from Verochka’s flat; something was knocking in her room. Then he realized Verochka was alone in her room; she had not gone to sleep, nor would she; without tears or any lamentation she was beating her head against the wall. Her eyes were wide open, but no tears came; when things are really bad, people don’t cry.

  And for some reason or other all Marakulin’s feelings—that savagery and despair of his, which looked as if they had calmed down for a time—all that now burst out again, engulfing the irresistible image of the general’s wife who had become so hateful to him. All in a fever, grinding his teeth with some foul vehemence, he imagined how that unfortunate woman, in rude good health, carefree, sin-free, and immortal, a vessel of God’s choosing, the louse, was sleeping the sweetest of sleeps. Marakulin suddenly wanted to speak about this to someone, to anyone, but he must do so immediately, before his heart burst. And panting, he sprang across to the little open window and shouted out with all his might: “Good Christian people of the Orthodox faith, the louse is sleeping peacefully. Help us!”

  And with this he began to feel the gradual approach of that extraordinary joy that he had felt before, and that his heart was about to flutter up and fill his chest to overflowing….

  “Who are you shouting for?” came that rasping voice, and from the dark corners there appeared Gorbachov’s hirsute nose with its tuft of horsehair.

  But the knocking was still going on. It was Verochka, alone in her room; she had not gone to sleep, nor would she. Without tears or any lamentation she was beating her head against the wall. Her eyes were wide open, but no tears came; when things are really bad, people don’t cry.

  Moments of cruel suffering and travail concluded Marakulin’s first year in Burkov House.

  The first to move was Adoniia Ivoilovna. She left for Kashin and the Most Reverend Anna Kashinskaia, and from Kashin to Murman to the Most Reverend Trifon in the Pechengsky Monastery. After Adoniia Ivoilovna, Vera Nikolaevna, having finished all her exams, went away until autumn to stay with her mother in Kostrinsk, her desolate, white old town on the River Ustyuzhin with its fifteen white churches—as unhappy as unhappy can be. Verochka was the last to depart. She had not taken her exams and had abandoned her theater school, since she had found another more certain and tested way to make her career—which, precisely, she did not say.

  She said: “Next year you will see. I shall show the whole of Russia who I am!”

  Marakulin went to see her off at the Nikolaevsky Station: Verochka was traveling via Moscow to somewhere in the Crimea. After the bell sounded for the train to move, he felt with particular keenness how sad he was that Verochka would no longer be there, and he stood motionless by her carriage. But she was leaning right out of the window in her own special way, casting impatient glances at the people on the platform and attracting their gaze in her turn, so slender, graceful, and light was she.

  And suddenly Marakulin smiled for the first time since he had been in Burkov House, not knowing how or why; he simply smiled, and she must have noticed this. It was so unusual and unexpected!

  “You should be weeping for me!” she said, drawing out her words in a theatrical fashion, narrowing her eyes—was it wi
th pity or disgust? She struck his arm with her umbrella and said all too solemnly, even putting on a slight frown: “I am a great actress!”

  At that moment he found it easy to believe with all his heart that Verochka was a great actress who really would show herself next year to the whole of Russia, and her name would resound throughout Europe and the whole world.

  When Marakulin returned from the station to his home on the Fontanka and found himself alone with Akumovna, he felt how his life had gone stale and that he could no longer live like that.

  One person has to betray in order—through treachery—to open up his soul and become his real self in the world. Another person has to kill in order—through killing—to open up his soul and at least die as himself. He needed somehow to write out a payment slip and give it to the wrong person in order to open up his soul and become his real self in the world, and not just any old Marakulin, but Marakulin Piotr Alekseevich—and see, and hear, and feel.

  But he is no longer willing to do so, because he cannot; he no longer consents to live like that, with no aim, simply seeing, hearing, and feeling: the life of a louse, carefree, sin-free, and immortal—life as an absolute entitlement, that drop of water which a simple soul seeks in the next world—he no longer wants any of this. He wants to live, and he will live to feel again at least one more time that extraordinary joy that he had felt since childhood and no longer knows, save on the occasion when it approached him on that night in spring, when Anisim did not come to Verochka, on that spring night when twig intertwined with twig, shoot with shoot, leaf with leaf; and there came into his mind, like leaves cleaving together, those words that Akumovna uttered as she was touched by the tender spring sunshine.

  And he felt so keenly, more bitterly even than the previous evening, the fact that Verochka was no longer there, as though there was embodied in her all that extraordinary joy of his—the source of his life.