and table. The jest only half conceals a real anxiety. Every year, I draw water from a little closer to the bottom of the well, and I have feared outliving my money. I also worry that by spending on strangers, I am depriving Matvey of an inheritance. He has never spoken a word of reproach. Still, when I am gone and have left nothing behind, might he not think that I loved him no more than the flotsam that washed onto my doorstep?
In spite of this, I have continued to take them in, those that Xenia sends as well as those who seem to arrive of their own volition. After Gaspari died, I sent half of his money to his mother, thinking that what remained would be sufficient to keep me. Naturally, I had not accounted for the feeding of so many guests. In spite of every frugality, most of the remaining sum was run through in eight years. To make ends meet, I rented the downstairs of the house, but even this did not cover my expenses. I began to look on each person who came here as another debit and to consider how I might prevent Xenia from bringing more.
Then my father died. My mother, who had been by all accounts in the most perfect health, followed him into the hereafter within a few short weeks. I would not have thought her so attached but have learnt it is unwise to judge these bonds by their outward appearance.
In short, being the only remaining heir, I was left the estate unencumbered, and it was sold. Between the modest proceeds and what I receive in rent from the glovemaker downstairs, I have the means to continue on here for perhaps another two or three years. After that, we shall see. I have no gift to foretell the future, not even from one day into the next.
Seeing that the child would not touch her plate, I excused myself and took her away from the table to a quieter corner of the room. I pulled her onto my lap and rocked her. I hummed aimlessly, following with one ear the conversation that continued at the table. Because Matvey would be stopping one night in Moscow, Varenka was telling him something of the city, though it seems doubtful she was ever there. Without teeth, her speech is very mumbled, but the others listened politely—even Marie, who understands no more than a few words of Russian. All except Stepanov-Nelidov. He has most certainly visited Moscow but could add nothing to the general wisdom, as he had drifted into sleep, his chin on his chest and a light snore emanating from his open mouth.
The child squirmed, then gradually her restlessness slowed, and at last she could not fight sleep any longer. As she drifted off, limp and open-mouthed, her breath was a rasping whisper. I adjusted the sharp little elbow that was digging into my side. Except that her belly distended unnaturally, she seemed not to have enough flesh on her to anchor her to this life. Then again, children are sturdier than I credit them or none would live past his first year. With sufficient bread and meat, who knows.
By ones and twos, my guests excused themselves and took their leave. I do not think a one of them has a particular place to go, but they are careful to pretend that they do. In the worst of winter, some will return here at night to sleep, but even then only the sick remain past the morning.
It was nearly two o’clock when the bell rang again. Two policemen were at the door. The more senior of the two asked for “the one who is called Andrei Feodorovich.” I could not tell whether his phrasing denoted honor or suspicion.
“Andrei Feodorovich has been dead now for more than thirty years,” I said.
“We are looking for the fool who goes by that name.”
I was able to say with honesty that I had not seen her since late spring and, for the moment, to be grateful of this.
“What is it you want with her?” I asked.
“There is talk that this person has spoken out against Her Imperial Majesty and means harm to her.” He then cited a rumor that Xenia had been seen in the streets ranting about rivers of blood.
“Yes, yes, so they say.” The rumor had been repeated for some twenty-five years, ever since the murder of Ivan Antonovich. “Even if there were anything to it,” I said, “it is cold gossip indeed.”
He was not pleased by my impertinence. They had been ordered to find Xenia and bring her in.
I expect the recent insurrection in France has made Her Imperial Majesty newly fearful for her crown and alert to any stirrings in the population here. Emigres fleeing from Paris to Petersburg are bringing with them alarming reports of soldiers and priests and commoners rising up in arms against their nobles and their king.
For all that Catherine is well-loved, it has not been forgotten by some that she came to the throne by means of a coup and that perhaps others had a more rightful claim to it. And while it is strange to think of our most reason-loving Empress being made uneasy by a fool, she would hardly be the first. Elizabeth before her kept poor babbling Ivan Antonovich a prisoner of the crown all her days. Even so, they say, it was fear of him that kept her awake nights. And before that, Saint Basil is said to have caused Tsar Ivan Grozny to tremble when the holy fool presented him with a slab of raw meat, saying that a murderer needn’t bother with keeping the fast. Our Sovereign may not herself credit the rantings of fools, but others do, and when the world has gone topsy-turvy, even a fool may be dangerous to the crown. Especially one such as Xenia, who will not keep silent.
“Do you know her whereabouts?” the officer asked.
“She is a wanderer,” I said, “and comes and goes according to her own dictates. She may stay for five hours or five minutes, but where she goes after is anyone’s guess.”
This was not the whole truth. I did not know where she was at that moment, but only recently one of the unfortunates who come here had brought with him a report that she sleeps in the Smolenskoye cemetery. Then again, gossip needs no carriage, and her fame has grown so great that she is rumored to be everywhere, within the city and without it. If all claims were believed, she would be pilgrimming continually from one holy site to another, for reports of her have returned from as far away as Siberia.
“Truly,” I added, “there is no cause to seek her further. Andrei Feodorovich would do no harm to anyone. She has been touched by God”—I tapped my temple—“but she always loved Her Imperial Majesty most particularly.”
He crossed himself, but instantly put on again his opaque manner and informed me that I was obliged to alert officials if she should come to this house or if I should hear anything pertinent to her whereabouts, and with that they left. I feared for Xenia if the police succeeded in finding her, for she would certainly be unable to give her interrogators satisfaction.
It is a peasant belief that, as we are all equal in God’s eyes, He must surely confer on fools unseen, compensatory gifts. And so our peasants attend fools with great reverence and scrutinize their gibbering for veiled wisdom and prophecy. Even the more enlightened prefer them in their charity over the ordinary poor. For this reason, the streets are thick with counterfeit fools who don chains and profit by feigning madness. The credulous lump all these together and call them the blessed ones.
Because I have known Xenia as she was—bequeathed every worldly advantage of wit, modesty, and riches —I know she is not a pretender. At the same time, it is hard for me to accept the loss of these advantages as a sign of God’s favor. I should still choose for her the easier blessings.
Chapter Seventeen
As so often happens in Petersburg at this time of year, the sun made its first, brief appearance that day even as it was setting. Unexpectedly, it peeked from beneath sodden clouds, flared, and then dropped into a narrow band of sky on the horizon gone suddenly bright. The world, gray since dawn, saturated with color. On the church, the unpainted brick glowed warm as a stove and the tiny icicles on its cornices glittered. The hem of the clouds was streaked vermilion, and even the air itself was amber as honey. For a few moments everything was luminous, like a hand-tinted drawing. And then it was over. The band of light dissolved, and the sky began to fade.
A new church is being built on the grounds of the cemetery. I have watched it go up for two years, until now only the belfry remains to be finished. This last is the slow labor of ants, for the workers must climb to the top of the scaffold and then pulley up each load of bricks. Recently, though, the tower has grown more rapidly, so that it will certainly be completed soon. The workers know me—I go there most every week to tend the graves—and they will wave when I pass. At that hour, though, only two remained, packing their tools, and they expressed surprise to see me.
“This is no time to visit the dead, Matushka.”
I said that I was looking for the fool Andrei Feodorovich.
