Now no-one will be listening to songs.
The days long prophesied have come to pass.
The world has no more miracles.

Akhmatova.

One day, the citizens of Petrograd woke to the news that the capital would be now located in Moscow, instead of Petrograd. The decision was a shock. Petrograd was like a beautiful jewel box. It was geographically weak, too close to the border and different waterways, and isolated from the rest of the vast Russia. The climate was bad, there were floods, all the industrial and food, raw materials had to be imported from afar, or so Zinaida Nikolaevna said as I asked the reasons, but then she said in a acid tone.

" Who knows why they do anything, the bolsheviks, political or geopolitical reasons. Remember that before Muscovite Rus, there is ancient Kyiv that was in place already, with her own separate culture, language, and traditions, when Moscow was just one small hut in the mud, or the idea to build Petrograd in the first place as a window to the west, formerly this whloe place was mosquito infested swamp, before the high command came from Peter I."

December had been mild, with a lot of snow, but, then weather turned, no longer gentle and soft like a dream mirage, but hard and harsh. Everywhere the pipes froze, dark, black soot and smoke flooded the streets and over the frosty sky.

People burned their furniture, hunted fences, from which the planks could be torn off, for warmth. Endless queues, empty distribution points, there was rumours of people eating horses and house pets and rats. Potatoes, carrots, and other roots were bought, in abundance, if available, often it was not the same with bread and flour.

Sometimes it seemed as spectral beings were walking in previously full and colorful bulevards of Petrograd. The factories stopped smoking, as there were no longer any workers, the sky above Petrograd turned bright and scorching blue.

Then the Ermitage was renamed, as were many other places. Mozart's Requiem was performed there for about seven thousand listeners who heard classical music for the first time in their lives. I noticed that a little boy sitting in the front row was kneeling and was in the same position throughout the concert.

During these varying times, when I had the strenght, I walked the empty echoing city full of haunted splendor and pondered about my future Tomorrows. Mariinsky, too was renamed and declared to be propety of the State, it was deferred to be subject of the Narkompos, People's Commissariat for Enlightenment. It was an agency that charged with the adminstration of public education and culture, it had seventeen sections, one of them was MUSO.

MUSO was focused on the development of classical and modern music and took care of the affairs of performing artists and musicians, and composers in this new order.

I had to run from one agency to another, and fill in a myriad of notes as my former classmates around me rushed seamlessly into a new chaotic reality. Mariinsky´s management was in Meyerhold's hands now and this visionary lifted and redesigned everything. Meyerhold's operatic reforms brought the art closer to contemporary theatrical trends, seeking out new stylistic techniques connected with conventional theatre aesthetics and stylisation.

All the new programs, were only solace in these trying times. One of them was Strauss's Elektra, the production was a total success, I didn't sing the lead that honor fell elsewhere. It was extremely wonderful to be in the hustle and bustle of work, inhale music like living force again, melodic scales echoed everywhere in the building and people practiced with flushed frevor.

One morning in March I woke to a loud knock. Still feeling sleepy I opened the door, and Zinaida Nikolaevna rushed in hectic flush in her gaunt features and declared " did you know that Russian Soviet Federative Sosialist Republic has now signed a peace agreement with the Central Powers in Brest-Litovsk, and removed Russian troops from the war, with extensive territorial surrender".

She then quietly handed me the newspaper. In it had a large headline: "The Treaties of Brest Litovsk."It appeard that there were two. In it, the Bolshevik government surrendered a large part of the territories formerly belonging to imperial Russia to Germany and immediately ceased hostilities on the front lines. Silently I counted that about eleven states gained independence, in Eastern Europe and Western Asia. I raised my eyebrows when I noticed that Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia were handed over to German territorial control. The second agreement concerned Ukraine and Germany, in which the Western powers formally accepted Ukraine's independence.

The newspaper had a foggy photo of the Treatys. It was written in German, Hungarian, Bulgarian, Ottoman Turkish and Russian. It was signed on March 3, 1918, after three months of difficult negotiations, or so the paper said.

After I had read it, I restlessly made tea, and we drank it in silence, and I pondered aloud to Zinaida Nikolaevna. "The indepence of the nations is a very good thing, especially in Ukraine, as we, Virgine and I did some travelling in the region, well you remember the adventures we had, surely." Zinaida Nikolaevna looked at me and she nodded softly.

Few days passed, anxious feeling was fluttering in the air, or was it only in my heart?

Then there was the news of new reforms, in the streets , two of which were very significant. Russian spelling reform, and the transition from the Julian calendar to the Georgian one. This calendar reform was widely supported and witty jokes were thrown in the streets, from the fourteen days that are now finally left behind.

Conservatives vehemently opposed spelling reform, refusing to use the new reformed method. I received a really outraged letter from Marina Ivanovna, she had written almost ten pages on of pure anger alone. Her handwriting was even more accurate, than usual, and the letter was a model example of the old way of writing. In it she confided in me that her husband, the beautiful but weak Serjoza was with the Whites somewhere, and she had enclosed several of her new poems to my perusal.

The pages of poetry echoed of the White cause, but there were poems of universal suffering in the mix. Clear and pure images, of faceless soliders, of countryside ravaged by war and inhuman loss and deep abiding love to motherland. I wondered that Marina Ivanovna had to be extremely careful if she also expressed such opinions in the streets, or in poetry evenings, as she had the children to think about. It would not do if she would be suddenly arrested, for holding counter-revolutionary opinnions.

I had been invited to perform in the lead role of Dvorak's Armida, at Moscow in Zimini Opera. Fortunately when Mariinsky had been temporarily closed I had focused on Dvorak's operas, and practiced my czech pronunciation, it still had a hint of a russian accent. I wished I could visit Prague at some point to get my pronunciation in order, as Katherines letters had been full of wonders of Prague in recent years.

Armida's libretto was based on Toqruato Tasso's epic poem about the liberation of Jerusalem, and the opera takes place during the Crusades. Dvorak's music glows in a vaguely Wagerian style, it is a pure epic adventure full of poise, magic, fairies and dragons and love. The central themes of the opera are love and duty, as well as religious-cultural conflicts during war. The performance of Armida in these circumstances was therefore extremely appropriate.

My voice shone bright and clear, through the auditorium, and after the opera, the applause shook the stage, there were no more flowers or sweets, or invitation cards to luxury restaurants, to dine and be ornamental, and object for perusal. That time was over, but as I stood on the stage of Zimini, I looked at the beautiful ceiling fresco, where the Greek gods seemed to recline without worldly worries, in the midst of bluish clouds and gilding, but gilding cannot be eaten.

Next afternoon after my second and last, performance I walked from the Opera to Marina Ivanovnas apartment as it was located nearby. I knocked three times, after a while the door opened slowly.

The door was opened by a slender blond child with extremely large bluish-green eyes and a light dress, and small ankle socks, her thick hair shimmered like gold. The child was carrying a thin notebook in her hand, and a long ribbon in her other hand.

I leaned down and smiled at her.

She said in a bright voice: " If you're looking for my mother, she's in the theater, again with her new friends. Irina is sleeping, luckily, now I get some time to write, my mother insists that I always show her what I did in the evening."

So saying she handed me a booklet, I opened it on the page before me the writing looked like a fairy tale with an adventurous lion and a hippo.

I smiled at the child, as she introduced herself in an adult-like voice to be Ariadna Sergeyevna Efron, and was almost nine years old. Softly and silently Ariadna led me inside the apartement. There was papers were everywhere, and dust glimmered and there were tobaccostumps mixed with ashes of cold smoored fire in the grate, in the table there were teaglasses, and notebooks.

Only one corner was neat, two beds, in the other slept a little blond child, she was pale, the features not much resembling Ariadna, except a little, a one graceful little hand squeezed the pillow. I looked around and opened the window.

In a few moments, I straightened the apartement, and wiped dust and, under Ariadna's guidance, put the dishes in the cupboard, after washing and rinsing them first. I made strong tea, and with my other hand I now brought up the package I had brought to a clean table; it had crayons, and a few fruits, tomatoes and so on, and bread, and butter. I put them in a cold store and started making tomato soup for Marina's children.

As I waved in the kitchen to and fro I suddenly felt a small hand touch the hem of my dress. I turned and looked down, and then a little further down. Irina leaned on the chair and looked at me seriously, she said slowly and uncertainly, "are you an angel, here it smells like heaven, and it is no longer so cold."

I bowed and lifted Irina into my arms, she was like a delicate bird, in a dress with a ruffle on her hem. Bright bluish eyes looked at me and a small uncertain smile curled up in her mouth as I peeled one apple and gave her half a slice, she ate the whole apple in small parts.

We sat in a cozy silence, as fire gently crackled in the fireplace, Ariadna's pen rattled against the booklet and Irina told me all sorts of little things that made up her world, it seemed that her mother and sister were almost idolatory status as was some Sonetska who always smelled of chocolate, and something sweet.

Hours passed and the light turned reddish.

I asked Ariadna in passing does she know when Marina usually came home. The girl looked at me in amazement and said she wasn't sure, it depended on the duration of the rehearsals, but theater was very nearby the play that was rehearsed now was called Metel, snowstorm, and it was very romantic like a lonely snowflake in window.

I was just making more tea and putting the childen to sleep when the door slammed open and two people stepped in, both shrouded in smoke. Marina Ivanovna had lost weight, she was sharper, and her gaze was as accurate as a knife cut as she observed the changes in her home, and the pot of soup in the kitchen, children's drawings on the table. She looked at me for a long time, with deep green eyes, and then, after a silence, said in a slightly ironic tone: " here is a fairy Titania flown here from Petrograd, and I brought you another fairy straight from the stage exercises, come now and greet Sonetska girls."

I watched from the side as the quiet evening broke into pieces as both children ran to the woman at the door, who opened her arms and whispered something to Marina Ivanovnas children in a soft voice.

When the woman stepped into the light, I felt black dots flicker in front of my eyes and everything was distorted and darkened, but with great effort I pressed my nails into my palms, and I sat down quickly in a chair, for my knees had betrayed me.

Standing in front of me was a graceful woman with dark black hair thick flowing braids, slender pale face, and dark large eyes, and she was dressed in pale lilac silk, - an impossible and outre thing in these current times, with a scarf embroidered on her shoulders, but, no silver ring on her finger, no jewelry at all.

The woman took a one flexible sliding step forward and said with a harmonious moscow accent: "thank you Jelizaveta Petrovna for taking care of the children today as Marina Ivanova had so many suggestions that the day ran past really fast. I happened to be at the Zimini Opera yesterday, it was a great production, and you were heavenly vision at the title role."

I didn't answer anything at all. I couldn't my voice refused to act. The resemblace was totally uncanny and almost eerie. I was pale and I felt the pulse pounding loudly in my veins.

Marina leaned over to me and said caressingly soft voice, her eyes were locked at the vision of a woman in lilac now drinking tea"Sonetska is a really talented actress."

I nodded, or I think I did, and left leaving them in peace to drink tea in the light of a soft oil lamp.

I almost ran out of the apartment, I felt cold sweat flowing along my sides, and my heart was beating extremely hard.

I staggered down the street, leaning against the grimy walls and crashing in through the door of the nearest church. After small eternity I finally looked up, the beautiful icons glowed in their frames and the soft candlelight glowed everywhere, the incense smelled. Softly and still trembling knees I rose and lit a candle.

Suddenly I heard soft footsteps behind me, and I noticed priest beside me. He looked tears in his eyes as I lit another candle. With a trembling hand he made the sing of the cross over me.

There was silence.

Then the priest said, " child have you heard what has happened? Now our mother's church has been separated from this new state that these Bolsheviks are building. The last days are really at hand."

The trip to Petrograd was spent in heavy intoxication, as I drank really expensive brandy and was mired in painful fog. I finally arrived home, where Zvezda was waiting and looked at me purring and spun gently. I lifted her in my arms and I slept for a long time, without seeing dreams, it was a blessing since I had feared that I might dream.

Few months passed in as in shrouded in a gentle mist. I walked like a sleepwalker from Mariinsky to home and back again.

Light glittered from the high windows, covered partly with creamy curtains, all the dishes in the cupboards and Virginies dried roses on the board on the wall, my few dresses in the wardrobe, and my books and Virginies sheet music in order on their shelves. I made strong tea, the rays of growing light played on the walls there were a few letters on the table, from Katherine, it seemed, one of them with black borders, hence from Anne.

Her cursive was clear and beautiful, as always, but it had a deep melancholy tone the loss of Walter was a deep and bleeding wound, that had struck at me too. I often woke up in the night, and I dreamed, that I had recived his letters, again, despite that I knew that they were not coming anymore.

The days were now clear and sunny as verdant spring had turned to lush summer full of flowers. Often now I read Bely's fantastic modern work Petersburg. The book was like a drug, full of intricate twists and turns, and at the center of a detective plot, a complete literary hurricane, full of irony, lewdness, devotion and parody, especially aimed at Tchaikovsky's opera Dame Pique.

I read the work out loud as I reclined at Virginies tomb. I visited there often, as years had passed I had planted there flowers, violets and anemonies and a lilac bush. I almost always brought roses, and lit few narrow scented beeswax candles.

The stone was flat and very simple, just adorned with her name, and dates, and qoute by Tsvetaeva, which I had chosen after much deliberation. Admittedly I had to persuade her long time before I was allowed to use verse: " There are names like stifling flowers. And gazes like a dancing flame".

Then came July and shattering news that former Imperial Family had been shot at somewhere in the Urals.

A/N.

Dvorak´s Armida (1904), is simply wonderful work. Strauss Elekra,(1909) was first collaboration between Hoffmanshtal and Strauss. The opera is based on Sophocles and it is modernist and expressionist in style. Peterburg is esoteric, symbolist novel by Andrei Belyi, published in 1913. The poetry verse is from Tsvetaevas Podruga-cycle.

The Romanovs were assassinated, as is well known, in the house of Ipatev in Yekaterinaburg in July 1918, and no one was spared, despite legends.