The Model Page 5

  “You are asked only to sport with Rurik. He asks only to sport with you.”

  “I have playmates already, Papa.”

  “But you haven’t even seen Rurik?”

  “Clémence saw him once, Papa.”

  Her Father began again to pace, trimly as a generation ago.

  “Suppose I die of debt?”

  “You are far too athletic ever to die of anything, dear Papa.”

  “Suppose I die of your ingratitude, Elena?”

  So there was little alternative to Elena setting out for Smorevsk as soon as possible.

  Of course there were farewells to come first, however provisional.

  Partir, c’est mourir un peu.

  Every time it was true, though Elena had decided there should be only three times.

  From these three persons news of her departure (for the time being) would reach everyone else. She also thought that these three might understand things.

  When the time came, it was hard to say whether or not they did.

  Tatiana had been asked by Elena to come back to the Timorasiev house after their lessons. Now they were in Elena’s big bedroom, and Tatiana was weeping wildly. The book lay rejected on the rug, and Elena’s further explanation had gone for nothing. Elena was afraid that Tatiana might become demented and do one of them, or perhaps someone else, a mischief.

  Silke, to whom less could be elucidated, but by whom more was divined, neither wept or protested nor did he attempt to dissuade.

  “I shall never see you again, Elena Andreievna,” he asserted with finality.

  “Of course you will, Silke. I could never manage anything without you.”

  With Mikhail, Elena was walking down one of the muddy, misty roads that lead nowhere.

  “You are too young to do this, Elena.”

  “The book says not and Irash said I was a ballerina already.”

  “That is absurd, Elena.”

  “I have no choice, Mikhail Mikhailovitch.”

  “Endure for a few more years and then marry me, Elena. It was always what we planned. Then we shall go away, but together.”

  “I may come back and do that, Mikhail Mikhailovitch.”

  “Waking and sleeping I think only of you, Elena. All that I do is for you. All that I am.”

  “I know, Mikhail Mikhailovitch.”

  He began to sing. The music of the song was traditional, fifty or a hundred years old at least, but the words were original.

  A sparrow came to me and said,

  Love.

  A blackbird came to me and said,

  Love on.

  A swallow came to me and said,

  Love now.

  An eagle came to me saying,

  Love forever.

  A flashing, darting parakeet said

  Love.

  A pigeon queen of all the words said,

  Love afar.

  A hooting, melting, moulting owl said,

  Love at night.

  A lovebird, pink and blue, came whispering,

  I am love.

  But Mikhail had left behind his balalaika because Elena that day had seemed so serious; and now the mist was filling his throat, so that he was compelled to stop, because it was essential to close his mouth. Weathermen might by now have called it fog.

  So winter seemed nearer than ever, and it was essential for Elena to reach Smorevsk before it arrived. After all, she did not wish to join the unnamed multitude who each year simply died on the roads. The three to whom she had spoken had thus far kept silent, as she had made each of them swear to do; but the oath expired as soon as she was gone, and it would be unwise to expect too much, especially of Tatiana, who had almost immediately taken to her bed with a low fever, and was living exclusively on skimmed goats’ milk and gelatin.

  The road to Smorevsk was at least believed to go there, and Elena had met people who had been there or come from there along it, Irash presumably of the number; but to Elena it looked, in the fog, much like any other road, but perhaps a little less frequented. Many people might find it discouraging that there was no community for seventy-two versts. Elena had little idea of what there could be for seventy-two versts. The railroad, in every way superlative, did not go to Smorevsk, only to some vague unknown place in the south. Wearing her gray winter tunic and skirt for the first time that autumn, her ordinary gray cloak, and her gray fur hat, Elena stepped out strongly. She would have liked to appear in Smorevsk wearing her green velvet cloak, but, fingering its thickness, and rubbing her cheek against its pile, she had realized that it was more for receptions than for excursions. She might be able to send someone back for it when she was a ballerina. In any case, it would still of course fit her when she returned from Smorevsk, as she planned. As things were, she was missing Tatiana at every step, and Mikhail whenever she thought about him.

  The very first living thing that Elena encountered in the fog (or the very first living thing that was large enough to be seen) was a bear. It was standing in the very middle of the mud as if it were waiting for her. As far as Elena could tell it was a brown bear, but she had never before seen a bear out of captivity, often very mournful captivity. Elena emitted a slight shriek, which was immediately strangled by the fog, and then called upon her now almost habitual recourse of calm, normality, and absence of all feeling, as with ordinary people.

  “Hullo,” said Elena.

  The bear seemed to smile, as far as the shape of its features permitted, and then shambled towards Elena like a dog, and began to snuffle round her ankles and the bottom of her skirt. Probably it sought sustenance, but Elena had none to spare. On so long a journey she could not burden herself with tidbits for every random quadruped. She patted the bear a little dubiously on the head, at which the bear began to slaver over her boots.

  Elena might well have walked on because no one could claim that the bear was blocking her path, but she hesitated. Perhaps it really was time for her first soupçon? Ismene’s Father, on almost the only occasion she had been alone with him, had told her how important it was that men on the march be fed small amounts frequently. He had remarked upon it, even though he himself was in the police—in two kinds of police. Elena seated herself on a stone and ate two radishes and half a slice of rich cake. Though it would be necessary to conserve supplies, she offered the bear a radish. It was the largest radish in the sack, but the bear refused it, with a short bark, so that the radish fell in the mud and was spoiled, unless for cooking. The bear then ambled away, looking disappointed, and was almost immediately lost to sight in the fog, for all its bulk.

  Elena’s next encounter was with an old, gray woman, far grayer than anyone Elena had previously ever seen. (Elena herself was of course dressed in gray, but that was another matter.) The old woman was spare as a gray reed. She stared straight before her, but Elena wondered whether she saw anything at all. In both her hands were gray bones. Elena could not decide what kind of bones they were because the woman was on her way with them almost as soon as Elena had sighted her. The woman’s legs were like broomsticks, thrusting and fatless.

  Then Elena was overtaken by a coach. She had heard rumblings for some little time but had supposed them to be caused by marsh gases. The coach proved to be drawn by four horses, as like one another as beans, black beans; all of which was unusual in Elena’s small town, where most people had to take what they could get. What was more, the coach was being followed by a whole pack of wolflike dogs, all groomed and glistening, though possibly with exertion and vapor from the atmosphere.

  The coach stopped and the sleek, moist dogs clustered round it and Elena like waterweed. Elena felt a thrill of fear. This might well be Count Wilmarazov-Totin, on the way to one of his manors; or even the frightful goblin, Rurik, for whom a partner in sport had to be purchased and paid for—if anyone were rich enough, which of course no one was.

  The coach window descended with a crash, and a strange head obtruded. Again, Elena had seen nothing like it, but she had no idea what C
ount Wilmarazov-Totin looked like.

  “Mademoiselle, would you care for a ride?”

  The voice was high and chanting, and the words almost those of a song. However, the accent was purity itself.

  “I don’t think so,” said Elena, who was never a little goose. “I have made my own plans.” That was another useful expression which Elena had picked up from someone or other.

  Elena courteously but concisely added, “Thank you very much.”

  The high voice uttered again. “One hour ahead, the road is blocked by dragoons. You will not be permitted to pass, and you will be in mortal danger.”

  Elena considered. She saw that she must at all costs make a calm and rational decision. “Are you going to one of your manors?” she inquired.

  “I no longer possess manors, mademoiselle. I have sold them all and abandoned everything.”

  “Why?” asked Elena instantly.

  “For the cause of freedom.”

  “For freedom?” cried Elena. “Then you are not Count Wilmarazov-Totin?”

  “I shall simply observe that I am sure you do not know what you ask.”

  “No,” said Elena. “I don’t.” She wanted to say no more, nor to think more, of Count Wilmarazov-Totin or of his appalling family, so, in order to say something, she remarked, “I am under a spell,” which she believed to be nothing but the truth.

  By now Elena had realized that this host of dogs was strange too. It was as if they were waiting for an order, and could do nothing without one.

  “Where is the spell taking you?” asked the strange man.

  “To Smorevsk, where I am to be a ballerina.”

  “You are a coryphée!!” cried the strange man in a voice higher than ever, far higher. “You are lost in dreams!”

  “No, I am not lost,” said Elena, smiling as she stood amid the silent, motionless dogs.

  The strange man was trying to open the carriage door himself, instead of waiting for the footman to leap down and do it. In any case, the footman sat stolidly on the box, looking like a toad. The coachman looked a little different: more like a frog.

  “Let me help,” said Elena, politely grasping the big outside handle of unpolished brass, and giving it the sharpest wrench she could. She realized that the man would have wished to hurl the door open for her with a single fling. To things like that she must now accustom herself, and to gracious helpfulness when they did not occur.

  “Enter!” said the man, now a little more reserved after the episode of the door. “For you my coach is floored with cloth of gold.”

  Before shutting the window he hung out once more and shouted to his retainers as if to a droshky driver in Petersburg: “To the Opera, and hurry.”

  The coach began to rumble on; not particularly fast, Elena thought. But then the floor was not of gold cloth. It was of bare damp wood, which Elena thought might easily be rotten in places. There were probably worms and slugs creeping round her boots all the time. She looked out. The dogs were hardly needing to trot.

  “I must present myself,” said the strange man. “I am Prince Alexei Vladimirovitch Popelevski. I am the Patron of the Smorevsk Opera. It is a hereditary position, one among many.”

  “Oh!” said Elena, regardless of all rules.

  “I am usually addressed as Lexi. Will you do that?”

  “I shall try,” said Elena, a little doubtfully.

  “I am a strange person,” said Lexi.

  “I thought you were,” said Elena.

  “I am at once everything, and nothing.”

  “I have a friend like that. He is called Mikhail.”

  Lexi looked away from Elena for a moment. “He is a young boy?”

  Elena laughed, which until recently she would never have been able to do. “He is a man. He is more than twenty.”

  “Tell me about him.”

  “Mikhail looks like a Grand Duke. He writes poems. He paints pictures. He sings in the fields and roads. There is nothing he cannot do. Or not many things.”

  “Do you love him?”

  “I am too young,” said Elena, thus meeting the external and the internal situation with the same words.

  “Is he following you to Smorevsk?”

  “No. I told him not to.”

  “So he is distraught?”

  “Of course not. Soon I shall go back.”

  “You will never go back. You will go on.”

  Elena looked at him closely for the first time. She decided that the upper half of his face was masculine, the lower half feminine. It would be unwise, therefore, to rely upon every word he said.

  “I may be marrying Mikhail.”

  “Ballerinas can marry only their business managers.”

  “I read a book that said something like that.”

  “Marriage is for coryphées.”

  “Yes, the book said that too.”

  “Marriage is not for all, mademoiselle. I shall never marry.”

  “Why ever not?”

  “Would you care for a marron glacé?”

  “Thank you.”

  It was as big as a beetle and had much the same texture.

  “Prince Popelevski,” began Elena, with her mouth full.

  “Do not call me that.”

  “I am too young to treat you with familiarity.”

  Lexi leaned across the coach, and, even though his mouth was full also, kissed her energetically.

  “So much for familiarity,” he intoned.

  Elena remained calm. She looked out of her window for a moment at the slowly passing mud. The marron was stuck at the top of her throat, at once gluey and scratchy.

  She glanced back at Lexi. He was by no means following up his assault with the wild words and mad further actions of which Elena had both heard and read (at times, Tatiana spoke of little else). He was plunged back in his corner, gnawing convulsively, and quivering to excess. Elena felt very nearly sorry for him. Plainly it would be wiser not to address him by name of any kind. She succeeded in extricating the sweetmeat from her pharynx.

  “How do you manage to feed all these dogs?” No question could be more natural. It was also the question she had intended in the first place.

  “They are ancestors. They are all that is left. They cannot leave me. They need no feeding.”

  “Do you mean that they are only ghost dogs?”

  “Simple people might call them that. Birs and Fors do need feeding. You have seen them on the box. They are unemancipated serfs.”

  “But that is impossible! All the serfs are emancipated.”

  “Birs and Fors refused. They are obdurate and stupid. They contribute little but they refuse to be freed. They eat heavily.”

  Elena looked through the forward ornamental glasswork at the two bottoms, each wide as a wall, or wider. The ripple of the moving jaws ran through the two frames.

  “Which is which?”

  “I forget.”

  They came to the place where the dragoons were blocking the road.

  “Why do they do it?” asked Elena, as she peeked at the wild faces and copious whiskers through the mist.

  “They are under orders,” said Lexi.

  He was beginning to brandish his credentials, as the motion of the carriage slowly subsided.

  The noncommissioned officer in charge of the posse, portlier than the rest and even more hairy, passed the documents to a young recruit who could read. The recruit explained as best he could to the noncommissioned officer what was in the documents. The noncommissioned officer gave the recruit a playful, but manly, cuff, and took the documents back. The recruit, as he reeled sideways, kept his eyes away from Elena’s eyes, she being not so very different in age. The noncommissioned officer saluted, though perhaps a little less formally than he would have done to the Emperor, and in no time the cortege was on its way once more, with no lives lost or tears shed.

  “Who gives the orders?” asked Elena.

  “It is the way we are ruled,” said Lexi.

  Elen
a inquired no further.

  The cortege, equine, human, spectral, stumbled endlessly on through the eternal fog. No one overtook them though it would not have been difficult. No one came toward them either. Elena and Lexi nibbled delicacies and crudities alternately. Every now and then the horses had to be stoked up and watered. This was done by stopping at some place where more than the usual quantity of liquid had broken through to the surface, and then distributing feed in battered round cans bearing the Popelevski insignia, which was entwined dragons. The feed was sometimes augmented by produce from the land, harvested by Birs and Fors in their distorting topcoats and obliterating headgear. They chewed as they plucked.

  On the first night they stayed in the castle of an old Countess, who was mad, and invisible, though audible. Elena found the hours of darkness unpredictable.

  On the second night their host was a Baron, bluff and booming, though unable to paint or play or sing or read or write, as Elena soon detected. All his servants were men, but they wore no liveries. Many of them hardly wore clothes. Lexi had told Elena, before their arrival, that the Baron had beaten several wives to death because they had failed to give birth to boys, but that now he had undergone a medical operation on his brain and had lost all interest in women. Such things were perfectly possible with all the new discoveries, including devices for making people insensible while the things were done to them. Nonetheless Elena suspected that it was the Baron who battered at her door for hours (as it seemed) during the long damp darkness. Elena had shot the heavy wooden bolts, and turned both locks, and driven in several wedges intended for something else; so she simply waited for the din to stop, which in the end it did, though the door was too thick for her to hear retreating feet or boots. Earlier she had noticed that the Baron’s brutal-looking dogs had withdrawn shrieking from Lexi’s dogs. It had given her confidence.

  “How would you have fared for accommodation, mademoiselle, if you had been unprotected?” asked Lexi, as they rumbled away from the Baron’s establishment. Like the Countess’s castle, it had indeed stood far from the highway, and could never have been spotted by the naked eye at dusk in the almost permanent fog.