" There are flowers and birds on the walls,
And the birds all grieve for a cloud".
Akhmatova.
St. Petersburg is shimmering.
The popularity of the Romanovs has waned over the years, even though the 300th anniversary of the Romanovs was celebrated handsomely, in February amid all the snow and ice. In Mariinsky's imperial ballet, Krezinskaya shone, she was proof of how high artist and demimonde could climb. The boulevard magazines described her outfits, diamond necklaces, pearls, and lavish feasts held in her honor, in expensive restaurants, as well as her new type of townhome, the one with Art Noveau style and wonderful balcony, in Petrogradskaja, in a neverending cycle.
Some hated and despised her, considered her immoral, depraved, and extremely wicked, but many were enchanted by her art of dance, "the whole of St. Petersburg" went to see performances, a Peterburskaya Gazeta reporter described as breathless the audience who had arrived at the Mariinsky Theater; countless dresses, in every possible color and nuance, diamonds glistening on the shoulders, endless suits and tailcoats, chattering in English, and French, a intoxicating scent of fashion perfumes.
Rumors rushed through the streets, creating a bond between the bohemian world of a modernist cabarets and the giant stage of the Imperial Mariinsky, intimacy and privacy no longer existed, speculation, rumors, love adventures, scandals, they were openly discussed in the streets, whether they were associated with a famous poet or dancer, or a tsarina and a man, holy or not that was named Rasputin.
In such atmosphere, my career had begun to rise, quickly, commendably brightly. I performed in the Mariinsky with the best of them, in different productions, critics and adulations flow like an endless wave ever going higher:
" Grayzonians Violetta is a mixture of unforgettable, fragility, sensitivity, and sincere bravery mixed with defiance, is heart-stopping, in this sometimes somewhat worn-out opera, but the stage charisma and devotion of this performer elevates Verdi's music and libretto to a higher level".
I give my all, and the audience pays for it with ever growing favor. I hear talks of a new opera performed in Dresden, composed by Strauss, an enchanting and tragic story, its libretto written by Hoffmansthal and openly mocking the rules and norms of society, the timeliness and social inequality of its satire, the nobility, the rising bourgeoisie, and the various adventures of love, and that music, moving, shimmeringly dreamy. I decided that at some day, some point in time, I want to see that opera, its name is Der Rosenkavalier.
Often it feels like I play at life, imitate it like pale shadow, just going through the motions, like Olympia, that mecanical doll in Les Contes de Hoffmann.
Katherine left from Russia in early October last year, full of eagerness to travel again as she had in her own words: "coddled me enough", her sarcasm as biting as ever, but the hidden worry was clear in her amber eyes, as she waved me goodbye at the train station. My lilac colored cocoon of depression slowly rolls backwards, and forwards, in endless rolling waves, that some days it feels like I am drowning. The hours seem to be running forward at a fast pace, everything seems sticky and cloudy, like moving in a syrup. Letters have been flooding to me, concerned once from Nathalie, Anne, and course as always from Walter, I reply to them, or not, can not seem to remember.
Sometimes I visited the Бродя́чая соба́ка, Stray Dog, a place that was a favorite of the St. Petersburg elite. The role of the place in Russian culture can be compared to the cafes on the left bank of Paris, but it was more elitist and sophisticated than La Cupoule, or Les Deux Magots, or Closerie des Lilas. It was located in in a house that had once belonged to the Jesuit Brotherhood, in the Ploshad Isskustv. The basement hosted lectures, poetry readings, avantgrade art exhibitions, Caucasus theme week, Marinetti week, and so on. I went there sometimes around midnight, and wrote my name in a thick book and plunged into the shadows and celebrations.
The visitors they lived for themselves and the audience, played the role of the imperial bohemian capital in that little cellar, that intimate parade of poets, and the artists present were just invited to the stage, where elsewhere would have seen Tamara Karsavina – the celebrated ballerina of Imperial Mariinsky, dancing in a large mirror, or the poet Mayakovsky sitting in his striped shirt on a drum, or Anna Ahkmatova standing all ethereal queenly grace, in black silk, pearls around her slim neck, reciting her precise, surgical verses, as if imported from Tolstoy's Anna Karenina subconscious, into the 20th century, all about whips, honey, of love, and loss, gleaming autumn, and delicate spring, rippling shadows in Summer Garden, and mysterious, secret meetings, of Pushkins eternal versers glimmering in the very air of Tsarskoje Selo. I leaned my head in my purple, gloved hand and watched the candles play with the impressive features of the poetess, her solemness and sadness, and wondered how Walter would love this atmosphere! Art, and innovations glowed everywhere, in sweet harmony, wine and champagne flowed, and at times the muses of inspiration seemed to almost float palpably in the air as the silm, fatefull and golden Olga Glebova danced her "goat-footed dance" accompanied by wild applause and and roses, thrown to everywhere!
The different newspapers faithfully reported on the situation in the Balkans as it has been turbulent for years, first there was the Bosnian crisis, and then the Italo-Tukish war, and the formation of the Balkan League and made the situation even more difficult. As I had traveled in that region, with Virginie I still had great intrest in it, and I felt that these rumblings were not a good sing at all.
I still lived in Dom Muruzi, in Litenyi. I had become known for wearing either purple, lilac or pale rose, and I had embraced that particular perfume. I now understood quite clearly why Renee, dear, Renee had worn flowers, and accents on her clothes, they truly made it easier to keep a memory close, if there is something concrete to keep such as a letter or picture.
I had one photo of Virginie. In it she smiled towards me, half leaning against the railing of Point Neuf, Virginie glows in her mauve dress and lace gloves. The performance of Renee's poems had gone well and we walked in peace everywhere and all of a sudden Renee had insisted on finding a photografer, and paying for this shot. And I had her letters to me, in my early years in St Petersburg, but after, there was no need of letters as, we did share space, she had sometimes left me funny and loving litte notes, tucked in my valise, or under pillows. We had a game of hide and seek of those little notes, full of wim and nonsense, the type of warm humour, that was more akin to Annes than me. For all of her solemness and wistfullness Virginie had playful side in her too. Admittedly, I played the composition, her composition, always at midnight after my performances, the music glowing, fiery, enchanting, and painful around me, like a shadowy caress, of past, unforgettable.And Zvezda was truly a comfort, playful and queenly in turns. Waiting me to come home after performances, her green eyed gaze knowing, and mysterious like only cats eyes can be.
Letters from Canada flow gently like a tide..
Our bond holds, the that subtle ephemeral thing, between Walter and I. He had contracted a severe typhoid and for a very long time it seemed that he would not recover, as all the diseases had always struck him with great rage and severity. During his illness, I lit candles and prayed daily for his recovery. In the summer of 1914 I received a package from Ingelside it, containing a thin, graceful dark green-bound work. Walter had published, at last. Owen Ford's publisher had only once glanced at the poetry script and picked it up with adulations.
Something was coming, there was electricity in the air, something had to break under pressure, the pressure that had accumulated for years. Then there is headlines that blaze around the world, and that piper call of Walters is heard all over as young men from all over march to war, in the banks and fields of Europe, that were soon to be filled with crossing trenches and barbed wire.
Thousands of people flooded Palace Square, carrying flags, icons, portraits of the emperor. When Nikolai II and his wife, Aleksandra, still beautiful, remote, appeared on the balcony of the Ermitage, the crowd fell to their knees and sang the national anthem. The city was ruled by fervent patriotic fervor, most of German shops were looted, and I witnessed as the large cast-iron horses on the roof of the German embassy were thrown into the street. Feeling cold I walked to nearest church and I lit a candle in memory of Virginie. I was now glad that she did not live to witness this utter bedlam. In the vicious charm of August 1914, the name of the city was changed to Petrograd. The face of the city which was built by an imperial decree into a swamp, its glittering face was now the face of war.
Only now, the city give the last farewell to the 19th century.