"How helplessly chilled was my chest, yet
My footsteps were nimble and light.
The glove that belonged on my left hand
I unconsciously put on my right".

Akhmatova.

The weather was typical of St. Petersburg's winter, with snow, incisive coldness, and wind, betweeen bright and honeyed afternoons, dark purple shadows on the snow. There was the typical sleigh rides on the Neva, and dances, as months were slowly turning towards spring, and Easter and great fasting, but not yet.

Often now when I got home, from Conservatory, in the evenings, our table, was full of composing sketches, from which I deduced that Virginie had decided to try and implement Renee's suggestion to practice. The papers were in neat stacks, a few strips here, and there loose, the others tied with silk ribbons of different colors. The bench of the harpiscord was pulled at an angle, and there was no ordinary scarf folded over it, but the beautiful glowing embroidery of Zinaida Nikolaevna, the silky tasseled ends of the scarf, swaying slightly, and our smoky gray kitten, Zvezda, tried to reach for them, one tiny paw streched. I glanced at one page in passing, and I smiled, for both the French style and the Russian influence in structure were visible, the goal seemingly to be some hybrid, but it all depended on the poems themselves. I sifted through the papers and read the poems Renee had sent, and I noticed that Virginie had indeed highlighted something essential in her outline, the notes seemed to wrap around the text like light silk, and highlighted just the right passages, but this was only one variation, so I decided to wait for the final work to be completed.

The scent of strong brewed tea, fresh blinis, and jam hovered in the air. Virginie rested, dark lashes on her cheeks, she was curled in the green divan, ink stains on her fingers, her ring gleaming in the other narrow hand, the amethyst reflecting light. A small gnawing moth of fear crept into my soul, deeply rooted, of Virginie not toiling and exhausting herself too much. It seemed that I always nowdays counted the hours, of the ever fading time, our time together, the thought of hurry was constantly in my subconscious, like some gloomy quiet cloud. She had forbidden me to make travel plans, but slowly I began to consider different options, for travelling in the full flush spring or summertime, Canada, or the Pyrenees, in an endless circle in my subconscious, even as I sat at the Conservatory, listening to lectures, or waiting for Mariinsky's backstage for my turn in the stage in the current production in play.

I had spotted one of Mariinsky's stars at work, on stage, watching her was like looking straight at a sparkling star, or into the sun.

I thought again about my dream, to perform on that same stage, and perform one of the big roles, but not La Traviata, I prayed every night that the production would not come to me, when it was my turn to finish my year, and graduate, fortunately we, as students were usually allowed to choose our own, aria or duet, or quartet, that we woud perform in the stage of Mariinsky, in front of everyone. I truly did mean everyone, the Imperial family, assorted aristocrats, and dignitaries, the selections of ministeries, officals from Duma and also few reporters.

Luckily, it was still a few years before I graduated, but we followed our superiors and upperclasses, and preparations for the final concert started on time, the process was familiar to everyone as well the dire competition to the possibility to get a contract in Mariinsky itself, the final glittering goal. Verdi's singing was part of the usual opera repertoire, so I was forced to practice Violetta, like the composer's other heroines, but I was never able to sing Addio, without the feeling of falling into emptiness, and the emotions that colored my voice well, were mostly fear, resignation and despair twined together with deep love, as they were in the first time that I had sung the aria for Virginie. Apparently my rendering of Violetta had been noticed, by someone higher, as I had had to sing her so often in recent weeks that I felt Verdi's music, beating in my blood as I walked home from the Conservatory.

So the end result of that, was I was often so exhausted these days that at our home I played mostly Chopin, and I didn't even sing a note unless she asked, and if I asked I stayed away from Violetta, and focused on Rossini, or Bellini, though it wasn't easy for Semiramide, Juliette or Norma either. The mezzo-parts were more dynamic, they got to be active, in stage, in a different sense and to fight, sometimes even with swords like Romeo, or be temptressess like Carmen or Dalila, or suffering back breaking tolling like Angelina, or share doomed end like Tchaikovsky's Joan, but as a soprano I could not sing them well, my lower register did allow me peek into them, but I could not do them proper justice. I often pondered weather I would grow to be more coloratura, lyric or dramatic, in the fullness of time and all the different roles that would come to be, what fragments of my soul and experience I would leave to future roles and publics consciousness.

I often found myself humming that unforgettable aria of Joans while walking or doing things like shopping, or running errands, for Virginie, to my surprise, that role was also composed for soprano, although mezzos performed it more commonly, so there was a slight chance that some far off day.

I lifted kittten into my arms, she spun, and touched my braid with her paw, I lowered her into her basket, near the bookselfs. I walked to the kitchen corner and made a plate for Virginie. The crystal tea glasses would ring as the hot drink rushed into them, I placed the jam on the plate, and a few blins, and I bowed down to look at Virginie.

She looked calm, a small wrinkle between the eyebrows, the pulse was steady, and a little fast, but so it was always, the skin a little damp, a slight fever therefore. I stroked her hair lightly, and I opened the braid, took the comb, and began to comb, from the bottom up, a hundred strokes. I had reached about seventy or so, when I felt her hand touch mine, and I heard her voice, it was soft, and a little cloudy.

"darling, I feel like I want to travel in the spring or summer, but not to the Pyrenees, not yet, do you think we can go to Canada, I would like to see Rainbow Valley and meet Walter, if that is possible, we can always ask, them if it doesn't pan out, we can go to Paris ?"

So the very next day I wrote letters, to Ingelside, to Anne and Gilbert, and my normal monthly letter to Walter. I asked Anne for permission to come in the summer, if at all possible, and in Gilbert's letter I described the situation of Virginie, that she was a kindredspirit, and we lived together to save on expenses, as we had met in Paris and asked him, his professional opinion, the reasonableness of the whole possible next month, and half, passed like dancing in hot coals as I waited for an answer, and soon the long waited, letters crumbled to our carpet in a small tapping noise.

I read Gilbert's letter first, his handwriting was sure, strong, clear. The letter was long and sympathetic. In it he described his own personal experience of the disease, apparently his now deceased father had been healed of his own disease, after living for a few years on the prairie, in the midst of magnificent nature, and dry healthy air. It was that case that had been one of the impetus for his own career as a doctor, and for his ambition to fight the Great Destroyer, always in wahatever form possible. So Gilbert definitely recommended the same thing as a local doctor, traveling somewhere warm, high, or dry, but there were no guarantees, and every case is different.

As for Ingelside's visit in the summer, he wrote that of course we would both be welcome. Anne's letter glowed she was extremely excited about the opportunity to introduce Glen St Mary to us.

Walter wrote that he too, was extremely happy to have the opportunity to meet face to face, and talk about Russia and everything, also naturally literature, and to introduce his own personal places to us. Finally, he thanked very briefly, almost an afterthought for Kuzmin, for the work had given him much to think about.

The tone of Walter's letter was similar as always, clear charming, and in places mystical, just as he felt the world and all its events behind slim rippling opaque gauze, even more now than usual. I wondered what had happened, for his writing seemed little shaky, and uncertain, as if he did not had much strength.

So little by little we started making travel preparations, the weather warmed up, the Lent ended, and I had moved to Puccini at the Conservatory, practicing his various heroines with varying degrees of success. Virginie had sent letter to Renee, and along the melting, dripping snow, as the spring slowly wakened, we were literally flooded with delighted and ecstatic letters, from Renee, but also from Nathalie too, that required us to come to Paris as well, if we went as far as to an island in Canada, to stop at Paris would cost us nothing in the grand scene of things.

So I went to visit Dom Muruzi and I said that we would be away for the summer, and asked if Zvezda could stay with Zinaida Nikolaeva, in the duration and I asked also if she would know anyone willing to live our palce in the interim.

Zinaida Nikolaevna said she would ask around and in a few weeks later, a note fluttered to our home, with one sentence in it.

"All is well, go and have fun!"

A/N:

Thank you very much, readers, and commentators. I am heartglad, that this little story of Elizabeth's journey is of interest.

As for the operatic roles that Elizabeth ponders and names in this, all of them are in their way some part of the standard repertoire for a student, to know in some level of competence.