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.‘I hate this stultifying Russian society, where appearances must be kept up at any cost, and where one’s social position is all-important!’‘Think about it,’ Katya said, and rose, moving to the door.‘Oh, and Caroline—if you should break down, and shed tears at the wedding, no one will think it strange.In this stultifying society of ours, weddings and funerals are two occasions when one is permitted to show emotion.’Caroline could do little else but think about the matter.Before, she had deliberately closed her mind to the actual wedding day.If she had had any plans for herself on that day, however vague, it would have been to remain hidden in her room like a wounded animal.But now it seemed inevitable that she would have to participate in all the pomp and ceremony.And it wouldn’t only be confined to the actual wedding day.There would be the preliminaries; the choosing, fitting and making of her gown; the endless discussions upon every detail of the ceremony, until she felt that she would go mad.One night as she lay wide-eyed and sleepless in bed, she faced the fact that she couldn’t go through with it.No matter how hard she tried, she would never be able to stand at the altar by Katya’s side, and take an active part in her marriage to Sacha.She would be driven to some desperate action.Katya had said that no one would think it remarkable if she shed tears.But neither Katya nor anyone else knew that there was a grave danger of Caroline spilling something far more shattering than tears.How, she wondered in anguish, could she be certain that she would not be driven to blurting out in front of everyone the fact that Sacha was not her brother? That he was a peasant changeling, born not to Euphemia, Countess Antonov, but to Anna Barovska, serf? How did one know beforehand how much the human spirit could endure without cracking?The thought became an obsession with her.At night, when she did succeed in sleeping, she had a recurring dream in which she was running through the corridors of the Winter Palace, laughing wildly and shouting that Sacha was not an Antonov, and that he should be marrying her instead of Katya.She grew thin and introspective and quiet.If Sacha noticed the change in her, he made no comment.But one morning Grigori cornered her in the library, and said gently, ‘My dear Caroline, something is troubling you.What is it?’Sacha’s marriage is troubling me.He is not my brother, and I love him.Her heart began to hammer in her breast.Had she spoken the words aloud? She couldn’t be sure.Dear God, she was going mad.‘Are you ill?’ Grigori’s voice, sharp with anxiety, reached her.‘You looked—quite dreadful—for a moment!’Relief flooded through her.She had not spoken the fateful words aloud after all.But for how much longer could she restrain the compulsive need to betray Sacha?‘Caroline,’ she heard Grigori say softly, ‘tell me what the trouble is.I should like to help you.’As if one mad impulse could effectively prevent her from giving way to another, she unbuttoned the top of her bodice and reached for the silver and sapphire necklace which Sacha had bought for their wedding, and which she always wore like a hair-shirt next to her skin.‘If you wish to help me, Grigori,’ she said wildly, ‘then sell this for me! I need money.I can’t bear to remain in this house, in St Petersburg, in Russia, any longer!’He turned the necklace around in his hands, and then slipped it back over her head.‘Keep it, Caroline,’ he said.‘Tell me why you wish to leave, and if you can convince me that this isn’t some impetuous whim which you’ll later regret, I’ll help you to get away.’CHAPTERSEVENWith a cunning born of desperation, Caroline sought for the most effective means of persuading Grigori to help her.She sat down, her hands clasped in her lap, her eyes downcast as she thought rapidly.The truth could not be told, and so she would have to find some other way.To win his sympathy perhaps it would be well to convey, obliquely, sympathy for his own cause—that of Nihilism.‘It is no impulsive whim,’ she began.‘I have been growing increasingly disillusioned with Russian society.The gross inequalities, the lavish balls in the fine houses while outside the beggars starve [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
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.‘I hate this stultifying Russian society, where appearances must be kept up at any cost, and where one’s social position is all-important!’‘Think about it,’ Katya said, and rose, moving to the door.‘Oh, and Caroline—if you should break down, and shed tears at the wedding, no one will think it strange.In this stultifying society of ours, weddings and funerals are two occasions when one is permitted to show emotion.’Caroline could do little else but think about the matter.Before, she had deliberately closed her mind to the actual wedding day.If she had had any plans for herself on that day, however vague, it would have been to remain hidden in her room like a wounded animal.But now it seemed inevitable that she would have to participate in all the pomp and ceremony.And it wouldn’t only be confined to the actual wedding day.There would be the preliminaries; the choosing, fitting and making of her gown; the endless discussions upon every detail of the ceremony, until she felt that she would go mad.One night as she lay wide-eyed and sleepless in bed, she faced the fact that she couldn’t go through with it.No matter how hard she tried, she would never be able to stand at the altar by Katya’s side, and take an active part in her marriage to Sacha.She would be driven to some desperate action.Katya had said that no one would think it remarkable if she shed tears.But neither Katya nor anyone else knew that there was a grave danger of Caroline spilling something far more shattering than tears.How, she wondered in anguish, could she be certain that she would not be driven to blurting out in front of everyone the fact that Sacha was not her brother? That he was a peasant changeling, born not to Euphemia, Countess Antonov, but to Anna Barovska, serf? How did one know beforehand how much the human spirit could endure without cracking?The thought became an obsession with her.At night, when she did succeed in sleeping, she had a recurring dream in which she was running through the corridors of the Winter Palace, laughing wildly and shouting that Sacha was not an Antonov, and that he should be marrying her instead of Katya.She grew thin and introspective and quiet.If Sacha noticed the change in her, he made no comment.But one morning Grigori cornered her in the library, and said gently, ‘My dear Caroline, something is troubling you.What is it?’Sacha’s marriage is troubling me.He is not my brother, and I love him.Her heart began to hammer in her breast.Had she spoken the words aloud? She couldn’t be sure.Dear God, she was going mad.‘Are you ill?’ Grigori’s voice, sharp with anxiety, reached her.‘You looked—quite dreadful—for a moment!’Relief flooded through her.She had not spoken the fateful words aloud after all.But for how much longer could she restrain the compulsive need to betray Sacha?‘Caroline,’ she heard Grigori say softly, ‘tell me what the trouble is.I should like to help you.’As if one mad impulse could effectively prevent her from giving way to another, she unbuttoned the top of her bodice and reached for the silver and sapphire necklace which Sacha had bought for their wedding, and which she always wore like a hair-shirt next to her skin.‘If you wish to help me, Grigori,’ she said wildly, ‘then sell this for me! I need money.I can’t bear to remain in this house, in St Petersburg, in Russia, any longer!’He turned the necklace around in his hands, and then slipped it back over her head.‘Keep it, Caroline,’ he said.‘Tell me why you wish to leave, and if you can convince me that this isn’t some impetuous whim which you’ll later regret, I’ll help you to get away.’CHAPTERSEVENWith a cunning born of desperation, Caroline sought for the most effective means of persuading Grigori to help her.She sat down, her hands clasped in her lap, her eyes downcast as she thought rapidly.The truth could not be told, and so she would have to find some other way.To win his sympathy perhaps it would be well to convey, obliquely, sympathy for his own cause—that of Nihilism.‘It is no impulsive whim,’ she began.‘I have been growing increasingly disillusioned with Russian society.The gross inequalities, the lavish balls in the fine houses while outside the beggars starve [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]