He came to all her performances after that, or as many as he was able to attend. And her father came to one as well, as he did each year, but unfortunately they were never at the same performance, so she couldn't introduce Nikolai to her father.
But tragedy struck her family the week before Christmas. Her youngest and favorite brother was killed in Molodechno on the Eastern Front during a battle, and she was in deep mourning for him during her last performance, and still in a somber mood when Nikolai came to take her back to her little guest cottage at Tsarskoe Selo, and he was deeply solicitous of her loss. Knowing her brother was gone now pained her deeply, and even Alexei thought she looked very sad, and much quieter than usual, as he reported to his parents, after he visited Danina just after she arrived.
But Christmas with them was magical, and her spirits rose as she spent time with Nikolai, talking quietly, exchanging books as they had before. He stayed with her openly, as he had at Livadia that summer. They talked about how much they loved each other, and the good times they had shared, but there was little they could say now about their future. Marie had remained entrenched in her unreasonable and immobile position. But he had nonetheless begun to look at small houses for Danina, and was determined to save up enough money to buy one so she could give up dancing, and come to live with him. But they both knew that it would take time, perhaps even a great deal of it, before either of them could afford it. She had promised herself, and him, that she would dance through the spring now, and perhaps until the end of the year.
But as soon as she returned to the ballet this time, she began feeling ill. She ate even less than before, and when he saw her at the end of January, he was seriously dismayed by the way she looked, and how pale she was.
“You're working too hard,” he complained, as usual, but more stridently this time. “Danina, they're going to kill you, if you don't stop.”
“You can't die of dancing.” She smiled, hating to admit to him how ill she felt. She didn't want to worry him, with Marie being so difficult, and the Czarevitch sick again. Nikolai had enough problems to concern him, without adding her health to the rest. But she was growing dizzier by the day, and had nearly fainted twice in class, though she said nothing to anyone, and no one seemed to notice how miserable she felt. By February, she felt so ill that she was actually unable to get out of bed one morning.
She forced herself to dance that afternoon anyway, but when Madame Markova saw her, Danina was sitting on a bench with her eyes closed, and she was looking gray.
“Are you ill again?” Madame Markova asked in an accusing tone, still unwilling and unable to forgive her for her continuing affair with the Czar's young doctor. She made no attempt to hide the fact that she thought it a disgrace, and had distanced herself from Danina.
“No, I'm fine,” Danina said weakly. But Madame Markova followed her with worried eyes all through the next days, and this time when Danina nearly fainted in a rehearsal late one night, Madame Markova saw it instantly and came to her aid.
“Shall I call a doctor for you?” She asked more gently this time. In truth, Danina was giving them all she ever had and more, but it was no longer enough to satisfy the debt Madame Markova felt she owed them. She had been merciless with her, but seeing how ill Danina was, even she relented. “Do you want me to send for Dr. Obrajensky?” she asked, much to Danina's dismay.
Danina would have liked nothing better than to have an excuse to see him, but she didn't want to frighten him, and she felt sure that she was very ill. It was more than a year since she had had influenza. But in the ten months since she had returned to the ballet she had pushed herself so relentlessly that she began to think she had destroyed her health, just as Nikolai had warned. Her head swam constantly, she could no longer eat anything without becoming violently ill, and she was exhausted. She could barely put one foot in front of the other, yet she was dancing sixteen and eighteen hours a day, and every night when she went to bed, she felt as though she would die in her bed. Perhaps Nikolai had been right after all, she thought one night as she lay in bed, wanting to vomit and not having the strength to get up again to do it. Perhaps the ballet was going to kill her after all.
Five days later, she was unable to get out of bed, and she felt so ghastly, she didn't care what Madame Markova did to her, or who she called. All Danina wanted to do was lie there and die. She was only sorry she wouldn't see Nikolai again, and wondered who would tell him when she was gone.
She was lying with her eyes closed, drifting out of consciousness, as the room spun slowly around each time she opened her eyes, when she dreamed that she saw him, standing beside her bed. She knew he couldn't be there, and wondered if she was delirious again, as she had been with the influenza. She even heard him speaking to her, and calling her name, and then she saw him turn and say something to Madame Markova, asking her why he hadn't been called sooner.
“She did not want me to call you,” she heard a vision of Madame Markova say, and then she opened her eyes again to see him. Even if the vision wasn't real, she thought, it looked just like Nikolai. She felt his hand on hers then, as he took her pulse, and he bent very near her and asked her if she could hear him. All she could do was nod, she felt too ill to speak anymore.
“We must get her to a hospital,” the vision said very clearly. But she had no fever this time.
He did not yet know what was wrong with her, except that she had been so ill, and hadn't been able to hold anything down, not water or food, in so many days that she actually appeared to be dying. As he looked at her, his eyes filled with tears.
“You have literally worked her to death, Madame,” he said in barely controlled fury, “and you will answer to me if she dies, and to the Czar,” he added for good measure. And as Danina listened to him speak, she realized that he was real, and this time she wasn't dreaming. It really was Nikolai.
“Nikolai?” she said weakly, as he took her hand in his again, and whispered as he bent close to her.
“Don't talk, my love, try to rest. I'm here now.” He was standing next to her and they were talking about hospitals and an ambulance, and she was trying to tell him that she didn't need one. It all seemed like too much trouble. She just wanted to lie in her bed and die, with Nikolai there near her, holding her hand.
He sent everyone away, and examined her quietly, remembering the graceful body with longing. He hadn't been with her for two months now, and nothing had changed. He was as much in love with her as ever, but for the moment the ballet still owned her, as Marie did him. He was beginning to wonder, as was Danina, if they'd ever be together, or if it would always be this way.
“What has been happening to you? Can you tell me, Danina?”
“I don't know … sick all the time …” she mumbled, drifting off to sleep as she talked to him, and then waking again, feeling desperately ill and retching. But her stomach was long since empty. She was beyond bile now. All she had were the dry heaves, as she had had for days. It was easier not to eat or drink at all, so she wouldn't be vomiting every moment. And she was still dancing sixteen hours a day, forcing herself to go on, until she could do no more.
“Danina, talk to me,” he insisted, waking her again. He was beginning to worry that she was going to slip into a coma, from starvation, dehydration, and sheer exhaustion. They were working her to death, literally, and her body seemed to be giving up from the constant pressure, and lack of anything to sustain it. “What are you feeling? How long have you been this way?” He was growing frantic, and they were still waiting to hear if he wanted to take her to the hospital or needed an ambulance. He still wasn't sure, but he was growing more frightened by the way she looked.