Berezovo: A Revolutionary Russian Epic

The story had surprised Tatyana Kavelina on two counts: that it was a new story from her husband, and it was mercifully brief. Most of her husband’s anecdotes were usually long winded and inane, and greatly lengthened by embellishment at each retelling. She was pleased that, for once, he had actually said something witty and she had every reason to hope that his bon mot would gain a wider circulation. However much her young friend gave herself airs and graces, Irena Kuibysheva was not above enjoying and retelling good gossip; better to announce a secret from the steps of the Church of the Nativity than trust her to keep silent. If Tatyana Kavelina had one reservation about her husband’s telling of the story, it was that he had perhaps taken too much pleasure from their guest’s reaction. Men, she felt, were such children, displaying their toys for the admiration of those they sought to impress. However, this anxiety had been relegated to the back of her mind. Since her sudden arrival in their midst as the new wife of Illya Kuibyshev, Berezovo’s richest merchant, Irena had become a close friend; too close a friend for her to have any worries on that score. It was the certainty that her husband’s witticism would be repeated in all the best houses in Berezovo that gave her the sense of buoyant self-satisfaction, which she did little to disguise as she swept in the wake of her young friend into Madame Wrenskaya’s gloomy salon.

Acknowledging their greetings with a stiff formal nod of her head, Madame Wrenskaya watched as the two women took their places.

Here they come, the old lady thought, the town tart and her drab.

Her keen eyes did not miss Madame Kuibysheva’s gloved finger as it glided surreptitiously across the worn upholstery checking for dust. Hurriedly she turned her head. To think that she should be so insulted in her own house! Only the presence of Yeliena by her side prevented her from rebuking the young woman for her insolence. For two copecks, she told herself, she would have sent the new arrivals packing. After all, what was Kuibysheva but Trade: the wife of a jumped up pelt merchant? In the old days, the mere idea of inviting such a woman would have been inconceivable. Even Wrensky had understood that. He might do as he wished, she had told him, but as long as she lived she would never entertain such people in her house. She could see him now, standing in front of the hearth in that familiar posture of small town importance as he tried to persuade her.

“But my dear woman,” she could hear him saying (how that phrase had grated!), “you talk to them when you go shopping, and when you attend functions. And they regularly invite you into their houses and such like. Why can’t you reciprocate, out of sheer politeness if nothing else? Unless you don’t like them, of course.”

“Don’t be so ridiculous!” she would retort. “It’s not a question of liking them or disliking them. They invite me for who I am, not for myself alone. I am the wife of the most senior government official in Berezovo. I attend those ‘at homes’ because I am obliged to, not because I choose to. It is my duty and I accepted it when I agreed to marry you and brought you my fortune. But what are they? Merely the wives of sellers of rabbits’ fur and kindling. I am under no obligation whatsoever to invite them into my home, or even mix with them socially. If I should wish to do so out of personal friendship then I would, but I don’t. To me, they shall always be little more than peasants who have made good.”

She had been careful not to add the words ‘just like you’, not that it had been necessary. Her second husband had been under no illusion of her opinion of him. Now, as she watched Mariya pass between her guests with the plate of almond cakes, she thought of the satisfaction his ghost must be gaining from the scene being played out in her salon. Times had indeed changed.