Berezovo: A Revolutionary Russian Epic

Immediately, Chevanin released her wrists, and allowed her to move away out of his reach. Turning away from her he leant against the wall of the consulting room, he gave a deep sigh of despair.

“You see, it’s true,” he said dully. “I do love you. I would rather die than ever hurt you, but I just cannot bear not to hold you when you are near. You don’t understand.”

“Yes I do,” she replied. “All too well. But this must stop, Anton. It isn’t right.”

“Right? But how can it be wrong?”

Cautiously, she approached him again.

“Look at me, Anton.”

Slowly he turned his head and gazed beseechingly at her.

“What do you see? A married childless woman of thirty-five, who spends her days alone in her house and her nights listening to her husband telling her all about the different aches and pains people bring to him. Your love isn’t for me. At best it’s based on pity, and pity is the first thing that flies out of the window when two people get to know each other. You should be pursuing younger women, girls your own age, not unhappy housewives. Can’t you see what a shameful mockery all this is?”

“No, I can’t,” he retorted fiercely. “All I can see is that you don’t love me as much as I love you.”

A stray lock of hair had fallen over his forehead. Stretching out her hand, Yeliena smoothed it carefully back into place.

“You are still so young,” she said. “One day you will understand that I would not speak to you in this way if I didn’t care for you.”

“Care?” he echoed. “My father had a dog once which he used to ‘care’ for. I thought… I thought that I meant more to you than that. Is that all I am then? A pet?”

Moved by his unhappiness, she took one of his hands in hers and squeezed it.

“Of course not, Anton! But before you are very much older, you will see that there are many other ways of loving someone besides the way you feel for me.”

“Never! I will always love you, Yeliena Mihailovna,” he vowed. “Always! And the difference in our ages doesn’t matter a damn. Look at you and Vasili… I’m nearer your age than he is.”

“It’s not a matter of mathematics,” she replied wearily. “Just as you saw things differently as a child than now, so you will change your opinions. You will come to realise that, despite how much you want something, sometimes you just can’t have it. All the wishing in the world cannot change that.”

Pushing himself away from the wall, Chevanin returned to his desk still keeping his back towards Yeliena.

“I’m sorry. I’ve been so stupid,” he mumbled pathetically. “You see, I thought you wanted me as well.”

Going to him, Yeliena took him by the arm. Beneath his jacket, she could feel his young muscles tense as she pulled him round to face her.

“Anton, I am not made of wood,” she said gently. “But it doesn’t matter how I feel about you. I can’t have you, and that is an end to it.”

“But you can!” he insisted, slipping his arms around her waist.

She tried to twist away, but he held her tight, determined that she would listen to what he had to say.

“It’s very simple. I love you and you love me. But,” he explained, punctuating his words with quick darting kisses at her face and throat, “because of the external factors affecting our situation, we can never be together. That doesn’t mean that we may not hold each other and steal the occasional kiss, does it?”

Turning her head this way and that, Yeliena tried to evade his lips but the strength of his arms and the determination of his assault both frightened and excited her, weakening her resolve.

“Please, Anton, stop this…”

“Just one last kiss,” he demanded.

“No, I…”

“Just one little kiss?”

She became aware of the warmth of Chevanin’s body against hers.

“Do you promise? And then you’ll let me go?”

“I promise. Trust me.”

Slowly she raised her mouth to his.

Chapter Six

Tuesday 13th February 1907

Berezovo, Northern Siberia

Still dressed in her morning gown, Nina Roshkovskaya lay on the chaise longue, staring disconsolately at the hands of the ornate cloak on the bureau. It was a quarter to two in the afternoon, and still Dr. Tortsov had not called.

With a sigh, she glanced across at her husband who was occupied poring over the book of giant maps that lay open upon the heavy tea table. The table, like the bureau and the chaise longue, like all the good furniture in the house, was an heirloom of her grandmother’s estate.

Getting no reaction, she picked up the magazine she had been reading and started to leaf through it once again. Less than a month old, the magazine was a gift from Irena Kuibysheva, who regularly supplied her with any light reading matter that her husband might bring back with him when he returned from his travels. Usually Irena Alexandrovna brought such things herself, but this time she had sent it via her maid, with the explanation that her mistress was indisposed and was not making house calls at present.