“You have a lot of work to do, Danina,” Madame Markova said sternly, as Danina nodded. Her body had become her enemy in four brief months, and did none of the things she expected of it. And that night, when she went to bed, every muscle she had used for the first time in months was screaming at her. She could hardly sleep for the pain she felt everywhere, nor get up the next day, as she felt every muscle in her body tighten. The effect of the past four months of indolence and happiness had been brutal.
But no less so than the rigorous training she launched into at five o'clock that morning. She was in her first class at six, and worked until nine o'clock that night, and through most of it, Madame Markova watched her.
“Your gift was not given to waste,” she said harshly after the first class, and then warned her even more sharply that she would never get back what she had lost if she didn't push herself well beyond her limits. And then she added, “If you are not willing to pay for it with blood, Danina, you do not deserve it.” She was visibly furious at what Danina had lost in her months away from the ballet, and she reminded her unkindly that night that her place as their first prima was not simply something they owed her, but an honor she had to earn back if she intended to regain her position.
Danina was in tears when she went to bed that night, and again several times the following day, and finally at the end of the second day, exhausted beyond anything she had ever known, she sat down and wrote Nikolai a letter, telling him what she was going through and how much she missed him. More than she had ever thought possible when she left him.
The torture they put her through went on for days, and by the end of the first week, Danina was sorry she had ever returned to the ballet, particularly if she was leaving. What was the point, and what did she have to prove to them now, if she was going to return to Nikolai and stop dancing? But she felt she owed it to them to finish honorably, and even if it killed her, she was determined to do so. But at that point, dying from sheer exhaustion and endless pain seemed not only desirable, but likely.
It was at the end of the second week that Madame Markova called her into her office, and Danina wondered what it meant. In the past thirteen years, she had rarely been there, though others had been, and always emerged in tears, sometimes to leave the ballet within hours. Danina couldn't help wondering if this was to be her fate now. Madame Markova sat very still across the desk from her, and stared hard at her protegee before speaking.
“I can see what has happened to you, from the way you dance, from the way you are working. You don't need to tell me anything, Danina, if you do not choose to.” Danina had been planning to tell her everything, but not like this, not yet, not until she heard from Nikolai, and so far she hadn't, and she was worried about it. And at times, Madame Markova was right, her love for Nikolai was distracting her from dancing. She couldn't completely give her all to her dancing, as she once had. It was more something spiritual than something physical that had happened. But it amazed her that Madame Markova could see it.
“I'm not sure what you mean, Madame. I have been working very hard since I got back.” There were tears in her eyes as she spoke, she was not used to being reprimanded, or having her work belittled by her mentor. Madame Markova had always been so proud of her, and now it was obvious that she wasn't. The mistress of the ballet was furious with her.
“You have been working hard. But not hard enough. You are working without soul, without spirit. I have always told you that unless you are willing to give it every ounce of blood and soul and love and heart you have, you will be nothing. Don't bother dancing. Sell flowers on the street, clean toilets somewhere, you will be more useful. Nothing is worse than a dancer who gives nothing.”
“I am trying, Madame. I was away for a long time. I'm not yet as strong as I was.” The tears flowed down her cheeks as she said it, but Madame Markova showed no emotion other than disdain and anger. She looked as though she felt she had been cheated by Danina.
“It is your heart I am talking about. Your soul. Not your legs. Your legs will come back. Your heart will not, if you have left it somewhere else. You must make a choice, Danina. It is always a choice here. Unless you want to be like the others. You never were. You were different. You cannot have both. You cannot have a man, or men, and be a truly great prima. And no man is worth your career … no man is worth the ballet. In the end, they will always disappoint you. Just as you are disappointing me now, and cheating yourself. You have come back to me with nothing. You are a shell, a nobody, a little dancer in the corps de ballet. You are no longer a prima.” It was the crudest blow of all and almost broke Danina's heart to hear it.
“That's not true. I still have what I did before, I just need to work harder.”
“You have forgotten how to. You do not care anymore. Something has come into your life that you love more than ballet. I can see it, I can smell it. Your dancing is pathetic.” Just listening to her made Danina's skin crawl, and as she looked into the other woman's eyes, she knew that she had no secrets from her. “It's a man, isn't it? Who did you fall in love with? What man is worth this? Does he even want you? You are a fool if you sacrifice everything for him.”
There was a long moment of silence between them, while Danina weighed her words and how much to tell her. “He is a very good person,” she said finally, “and we love each other.”
“You are a whore now, like the others, the little cheap ones who dance and play, and to whom it means nothing. You should be dancing on the streets in Paris, not here at the Maryinsky. You don't belong here. I always told you, you cannot be like them if you truly want this. You must choose, Danina.”
“I can't give up my whole life forever, Madame, no matter how much I love dancing. I want to do the right thing, I want to be great, I want to be fair to you … but I also love him.”
“Then you should leave now. Don't waste my time, or that of your teachers. No one wants you here unless you are what you were before. Nothing less is worth it. You must choose, Danina. And if you choose him, you will be making the wrong decision. I guarantee it. He will never give you what we do. You will never feel about yourself as you do on the stage, knowing you have given a performance that no one will ever forget. That's who you were when you left here. Now you're nothing more than a little dancer.”
She couldn't believe what she was hearing, except that the words were familiar. She had heard Madame Markova's point of view before. To her it was a sacred religion one sacrificed one's life for. She had, and she expected everyone else to do it. And Danina always had, but now she couldn't. She wanted her life to be more than just the perfect performance.
“Who is this man?” she asked finally. “Does it even matter?”
“It matters to me, Madame,” Danina said respectfully, still believing she could do both, finish well and honorably here, and go to Nikolai when he was ready for her.
“What does he want to do with you?”
“Marry me,” Danina said in a whisper, as Madame Markova looked disgusted.
“Then why are you here?” It was too complicated to explain and she really didn't want to.
“I wanted to finish properly with you, maybe even for the next year, if you want me, if I work hard enough and improve again.”
“Why bother?” And then her eyes narrowed suspiciously, and she proved once again to Danina that she was as all-knowing as Danina had always thought her. “Is he already married?”