The Mirrored World

bearing her husband’s corpse from the sleigh.

Xenia howled. I have never heard such a terrible noise except from wolves. Then she threw herself at his body with such wildness that the alarmed servants laid him down where they were and withdrew. Bent over him, she keened, stroking his face and then shaking him as though to force him back to life.

I went to her and put my hand to her back. At my touch, she wrenched herself round to face me: green fires pulsed in her eyes, violent and remote as the aurora lights. I was afraid.

By now, the whole of the house had been roused from their beds, and one by one they gathered at the door. Their grief chorused beneath hers.

I know not how long Xenia went on, but at last her strength gave out. Drawing her breath in hiccoughs and gasps, she slumped over the body and was too exhausted to resist when I lifted her off him. I gave orders that she be carried to her bed and that Andrei’s body also be taken inside. A soft voice behind me said, “I have send my carriage for a priest.” Turning, I saw the musico. I had forgotten he was there. Tears had etched runnels in his powdered and rouged cheeks. He looked ludicrous.

“I may do some further service?” he asked.

I thanked him and said that I could manage, but he seemed not to understand. He made no move to take his leave.

“Without the carriage, I have no means home, signorina. And I cannot danger the voice.” He patted his throat. I noticed then that he was shivering with cold.

“Oh, forgive me. Come inside. We will wait for the priest together.”

I have no further recollection of that morning. In the front hall, I sat down that my boots might be removed, and rested my head against the wall. As soon as I was off my feet, I was gone.

When I awoke, it was still dark. Or dark again, I did not know. I smelt incense and heard the murmur of someone praying, and instantly remembered, though what I remembered had the quality of a dream. I stood up and moved like a somnambulist towards this low voice. In the drawing room, Andrei’s body had been laid out on a table. A cloth had been spread over him to serve as a funeral pall and hide that he was still clothed in Xenia’s dress. Two candlesticks were placed at his head, and their dim pool illuminated Andrei’s features as well as the face of a priest bent close, reading the prayers. As the waters fail from the sea, and the flood decayeth and drieth up, so man lieth down, and riseth not: till the heavens be no more, they shall not awake, nor be raised out of their sleep. His voice was low and intimate, as though he were in private conversation with Andrei. O that thou wouldest hide me in the grave, that thou wouldest keep me in secret till thy wrath be past. I had the strange thought that I should not disturb them, but I stayed in the doorway for a time, letting the words crest over me.

Without benefit of a taper, I felt my way up the stairs and to Xenia’s room. She was still clothed and propped upright on her bed, but she did not respond to my coming in. When I asked Masha if her mistress had slept, she said no, and then yes, and then that she did not know. She crossed herself and wept.

“Xenia?” I whispered. She did not answer. Her face was gray, and her eyes, though open, were entirely empty. I was put in mind first of Andrei lying downstairs and then of the wax effigy of Tsar Peter that resides in the Kunstkamera. Seated on a great throne, it glares so steadily that one is compelled to look away. Only upon nervous sidewise glances can one detect the ruse: though it is in all other ways the perfect copy of a man, the figure is too still and the enamel eyes have no animation. Even so, it is too disquieting to contemplate directly.

So it was with Xenia. I took her limp hand into mine. Her gaze, directed towards the stove, remained blank. I noted the subtle rising and falling of her chest. “Should I stoke the fire?” I asked, as though I were responding to a subtle hint.

The room was already sufficiently warm, but not knowing what else to do, I sent Masha downstairs to fetch some brandy, and busied myself with the tinderbox. I devoted excessive attention to my task until Masha returned with the brandy.

“Here, this will revive you.” My voice in my own ears sounded like pots clattering to the floor, but Xenia remained insensible. I held the glass up and pressed it against her lips, but she did not drink. “Here, just a sip,” I coaxed. Tilting back her head, I poured the liquid into her opened mouth. It dribbled back out and ran down her chin. “You must try, darling.” She made no answer.

“We should get her out of these clothes and into bed. Sleep is the best thing.” I removed her stockings and wrested her loose of her bodice. Her inert limbs provided no assistance and were remarkably heavy in their inanimate state, but with Masha’s assistance I freed her of her petticoats. We pulled a nightgown down over her head, worked her arms into the sleeves, and then arranged her limbs in an attitude of repose, with her gaze redirected at the ceiling.

I do not recall the feeble winter sun rising or setting, only perpetual darkness broken at intervals by my imperfect vigil. Like the apostles in Gethsemane, I tried to keep awake and pray but could not. So it went for an unmarked procession of time. The priest downstairs chanted the psalms over Andrei’s body, mourners came and left, but I took no notice of them, nor of the servants, who, being so suddenly deprived of both master and mistress, left off their customary duties and gathered aimlessly in the halls and the yard.

At some point, I was called downstairs to see Nadya, who had appeared at the house complaining that she and her mother had not received mourning cards to inform them of Andrei’s death and had learnt of it only as strangers might. “Our mother was offered condolences by a neighbor in the street,” she fumed.

“Xenia is overcome with grief,” I said.

“Do you know he is laid out in a woman’s dress? With only a priest praying over him, and some strange woman? His friends shall think Xenia unfeeling. There is no coffin lid at the door, and the girl told me that no preparations have been made for the funeral dinner.”

When I answered that these duties were quite beyond Xenia’s capacity, that she could not even rise from her bed, Nadya went up the stairs, thinking, I suppose, to scold her sister into action. Finding her immune to rebuke did not soften Nadya’s mood.

“Has she been bled?”

I replied that she had not.

“I shall send my surgeon.” Shaking her head, she left.

Andrei was without family, excepting some distant cousins in Little Russia. As for Xenia’s close relations, evidently Aunt Galya was too distraught by the news of her daughter being widowed to come to the house, and Nadya was too vexed to return. There being no more immediate candidates in line for the offices of family, I elected myself. With Masha, I first washed Andrei’s body and dressed him in his uniform, then had a casket sent from the cabinetmaker. There is a tremendous amount to do when someone leaves the world. I ordered more flour and nuts and vodka, boiled wheat for the kolivo, and set Marfa in the kitchen to making blinis. Masha was charged with watching Xenia and changing her bedding while I gathered up her clothes for dyeing. When the surgeon came, I left off plucking a goose and escorted him upstairs.

The surgeon was a brisk man. He gave Xenia hardly a glance before unpacking his instruments and setting the cups onto the stove to warm. Pulling a chair to her bedside, he took her limp arm, pushed up its sleeve, and tied it off above the elbow with a strip of linen. He worked the arm like a pump and then studied its length, flicking his middle finger against the skin.

“She has been like this for near two days now,” I said.

He nodded and took up the other arm. His self-possession was comforting. When he found a vein to his liking, he removed a lancet from its case, cocked the spring, and by means of a button released it, driving the blade into her flesh. Xenia jerked, blood bubbled up, and he covered the wound with one of the heated glass cups. The cup was shaped like a hand bell topped with a brass nipple. Into this he fastened a syringe. This further encouraged the vein to breathe by sucking out the blood and ill humors. When the cup was full, he instructed me to fetch a bleeding bowl from his box. He emptied the cup and put on another. At this, Xenia turned her dull, fish-eyed gaze upon her arm. The sight of her blood seemed to provoke a terror in her, for she started to shriek, to tremble all over, and to sputter unintelligible noises. The surgeon, far from being alarmed, expressed satisfaction at her liveliness and drew yet more blood until her agitation subsided and she went slack again.

“I shall come back this evening,” he promised.

Andrei was laid to rest the next day. My parents had arrived from the country, my brother, Vanya, from his regiment, and together with the other mourners—all but Xenia—we set out just before dawn, our heads veiled, and followed his hearse on foot through sleeping streets. We approached the church, its spires black against a watery