So when the mating season burst around him, when the cry of a bird made him look up and hear the echoing desire of the female, he imagined the celebration of consummation.
And in his mind, he returned incessantly to the image of the horsewoman. He sensed that the vision was not a dream, a mere chimera caught in the summer sunlight. There was nothing evanescent about the strength and haleness he had seen in the figure on horseback. The curve of the small of her back, her skirt sweeping through the hawthorns, her golden hair streaking through the sunlight—he was obsessed by it all. Everything about the young woman attracted him, down to her determination to cross his path, then cut him off. It was a game that had instantly threatened what little remained of his self-control.
And yet he had resisted the urge to respond and let life slip away.
The thought of this lost chance at a rendezvous represented the only real terror of his existence: the fear of dying without ever having loved, of meeting death without ever having lived.
Leaning out the window of her carriage, as was her habit, La Potemkina spotted the rider far off in the forest. Ah, the cherkeska. Not the long, black one, but a cherkeska of azure blue, with an officer’s collar of green velvet and the silver epaulets she so fancied. On each side of the breast was a ghizir, not with seven-cartridge belts but Russian-style ghizirs of fourteen cartridges circled with rings that gleamed in the sun. It was superb and represented everything that she admired. The ladies of the prison committee could say what they wished, but this costume, when worn as it should be, was still the most dashing of all uniforms.
The horseman trotted toward her, passing near the fences of the last houses on the outskirts of Torjok. She was blinded by the morning light and the little clouds of dust stirred up by his horse’s hooves. She would wait until he came alongside the carriage to flag him down and ask him for a favor. It was a stroke of good luck to have run into this strapping lad, who could help her get through a change of horses at the relay post of Torjok.
She had missed the turn-off to Machouk, the domain of her Olenin nephews. Now she would have to continue into the city, leave her own team, turn around and go back. Her doctor, her priest, her reader, and her two maids were all ready to give up and stop here for the night. Well, too bad. She was not one for putting off until tomorrow what could be done today. The trip promised to be full of inconveniences, and they might as well get on with it. She wanted to arrive at her nephews’ place today. So what if they didn’t expect her to arrive before the weekend? All the better for them, for the sooner she got there, the sooner she would leave. It was indeed a piece of luck to have happened upon a lieutenant in the lancers of His Imperial Highness’s guard (as she had discerned from the color of the trimming on his epaulets, as well as his rank, regiment, and the number of his division), one who had galloped through the forest and was coming home before the heat of midday. Unless of course the reverse was true, and he was leaving the city. She had been wandering through the forest for so long, and, having gotten lost and turned around several times, she was no longer sure in which direction she was going. Imagine that. Arriving here, in this God-forsaken outpost, only to run into a Cherkess—no doubt a Muslim—of this rank and distinction. The Lord always showed her the path, leading her evermore in the direction of His lost lambs.
“I say, Lieutenant?”
He stopped and leaned politely toward the door of the coach.
“Would you be so good as to—What? It’s you! You’re not in Poland? I thought you were in Covensk.”
With her lace cap and ribbons fluttering in the window frame and her two clusters of black ringlets that hadn’t yet gone limp from the journey, La Potemkina seemed to have sprung forth from another world.
“What on earth are you doing in this hole, my poor friend?” she continued.
The “hole” in question spread across the two banks of a wide river. It counted over thirty chapels, ten churches, a cathedral, and a monastery of incredible wealth. The virtuosity of the spinners of Torjok had made its gold thread famous throughout all of Russia. Most of the gold-embroidered court robes and church vestments came from Torjok, as well as the sacerdotal tiaras and chasubles. A hole? More like a hive. The hum of spinning wheels filled the air in every house, bells rang the hour from every campanile, and the “smell of Dame Daria’s meatballs,” whose recipe Pushkin had immortalized in one of his poems, wafted from every kitchen. The sleepy banks of the river that flowed into the Volga a few versts from Torjok were dotted with long barracks that could be spotted through the linden trees. For over half a century, the light cavalry had been stationed here. And for the past three years, in the absence of the soldiers currently bivouacked in Poland and Hungary, the military administration had been building new barracks and an entire camp for the garrison.
The officers rented apartments in the city or outbuildings of the nearby manors. Jamal Eddin, who lived off his pay, hadn’t the means to afford one or the other and lived with his men. But his comrades, officers belonging to the nobility who were posted at the garrison of Torjok, enjoyed a wide selection. Most of the domains surrounding the city belonged to one or another branch of their relatives. They could live at Mytino, the domain of the Lvov princes, with the Poltoratsky princes of Grousino, or with the Olenins of Boristovo, who would house them at Machouk. All of the aristocratic families, both from Saint Petersburg and Moscow, possessed at least one manor in the area. And with good reason. The region was situated on the Sovereign’s Road, the royal path that linked the two capitals. Four hundred versts from the Winter Palace and three hundred from the Kremlin, Torjok was an unavoidable relay post. The entire empire passed through its courtyard. Even the czar changed horses at the relay post of Torjok; even he dined and slept here.
So when La Potemkina implied that she was setting forth into a desert, she was simply demonstrating her usual disingenuousness with regard to anything that annoyed her. She had only reluctantly abandoned her dear Gostilitsy and the prospect of festivities at Peterhof and intimate soirées at Alexandria cottage. Among the many properties she possessed was a country home at Torjok (along with several thousand souls there, for whom she was responsible). For over fifteen years, she had put off coming to have the roof repaired and the church restored—in short, to look after her affairs here in person. She had finally decided to do so. During the work, she would stay with her closest neighbor, the son of her late sister, the painter Piotr Alexeyevitch Olenin.
“Will you come keep me company there, Jama?” she simpered, employing a diminutive she had never used before. “They’re nice, my nephew’s family, but so very provincial. Do you know them? Yes, of course you know them.”
Her urbane prattle took him by surprise. He had forgotten this chatty tone. Amazing, wasn’t it, how La Potemkina’s voice was enough to evoke the air of Petersburg, a breath of court air right here under the pine trees. It took him a few moments to get in tune with her.