Berezovo: A Revolutionary Russian Epic

Gripping the edge of the breakfast table for support, she levered herself to her feet. So keenly had she been concentrating on the contents of the morning’s correspondence that the ill effects of the previous day’s feasting had been temporarily forgotten. Now, upon her attempting to rise, they returned with a vengeance to remind her of her own excesses with the result that no sooner had she summoned up enough energy to call out to her maid than she promptly sat down again in her chair with a bump. Plucking up the discarded flannel once more, she pressed it feebly to her brow, praying that the room would stop tilting long enough for her to decide what she should do.

There was little point in confronting Tolly with the matter at that precise moment, she reasoned. She would get no sense out of him, whether her fears were justified or not. Yet the bill was completely unacceptable and, which was worse, it was on their breakfast table. If the Mayor had pledged to meet it out of his personal funds, it was only because of this wretched monument business. There seemed little chance now of her husband having a door nail named after him, she thought, much less a statue; not after what had happened to Illya Kuibyshev.

Picking up her small silver hand bell she again summoned her housemaid. Masha appeared and was promptly dispatched to seek out pen, ink and paper. When Madame Pobednyeva had written her reply, she ordered the maid to take it at once to the Hotel New Century and deliver it in person to the hotel’s proprietor.

“Shall I wait for an answer, Ma’am?” the girl asked.

“Certainly not!” exclaimed her employer crossly. “There can be no answer. The very idea!”

* * *

At the Kavelin household, Tatyana Kavelina was considering the small envelope that had been delivered that morning by messenger. Raisa’s unmistakeable copper plate handwriting had changed little since they had been school children. Walking into the kitchen she consigned her friend’s invitation unread to the flames within the kitchen stove, using a padded towel to protect her hand as she opened the stove’s iron plate door.

* * *

At number 8 Ostermann Street, Yeliena Tortsova was reading aloud to her husband; she, for once, sitting in the chair he usually occupied beside the hearth while the Doctor lay recumbent upon the sofa. As she read, a portion of her mind was engaged upon the task of composing a note; one that would retrieve her honour. Like Matriona Pobednyeva, her husband was also suffering from the after effects of the premature celebration. He had dutifully kept his promise to Colonel Izorov and had stayed until the exiles had arrived. Upon discovering that they already had a fully qualified physician travelling with them, he had left in disgust and had been escorted safely home in much the same fashion as Illya Kuibyshev had arrived three hours before. Now, as Yeliena read to him, he lay propped up on the cushions of the sofa, drifting in and out of sleep and prey to fitful dreams in which the Hospital Administrator Modest Tolkach leered at him grotesquely over bottles of poisoned wine.

“‘Everyone was loudly expressing his disapproval,’” Yeliena read, “‘and repeating a phrase someone had uttered: “Lions and gladiators will be the next thing.” And everyone was feeling horrified; so that when Vronsky fell and Anna moaned aloud there was nothing out of the way in it. But immediately after, a change came over Anna’s face which was positively unseemly. She completely lost her head. She began fluttering like a caged bird at one moment getting up to go, at the next turning to B… “Let us go! Let us go!” she cried’.”