“But it will take some financial resources, Uncle Alexander.”
“We’ve managed to save a little, in the south.”
“Lord in Heaven!” cried Maria Petrovna. “You’d better spend it quickly. At the rate that new paper money is going down — why, bread was sixty thousand rubles a pound last week — and it’s seventy-five thousand now!”
“New enterprises, Uncle Alexander, have a great future in this new age,” said Victor.
“Until the government squashes them under its heel,” Vasili Ivanovitch said gloomily.
“Nothing to fear, Father. The days of confiscations are past. The Soviet government has a most progressive policy outlined.”
“Outlined in blood,” said Vasili Ivanovitch.
“Victor, they’re wearing the funniest things in the south,” Irina spoke hurriedly. “Did you notice Kira’s wooden sandals?”
“All right, League of Nations. That’s her name. Trying to keep peace. I would love to see the sandals.”
Kira raised her foot indifferently. Her short skirt concealed little of her leg; she did not notice the fact, but Victor and Lydia did.
“At your age, Kira,” Lydia remarked pointedly, “it’s time to wear longer skirts.”
“If one has the material,” Kira answered indifferently. “I never notice what I wear.”
“Nonsense, Lydia darling,” Victor stated with finality, “short skirts are the height of feminine elegance and feminine elegance is the highest of the Arts.”
That night, before retiring, the family gathered in the drawing room. Maria Petrovna painfully counted out three logs, and a fire was lighted in the fireplace. Little flames flickered over the glazed abyss of darkness beyond the big, bare, curtainless windows; little sparks danced in the polished curves of the hand-carved furniture, leaving in shadows the torn brocade; golden spangles played in the heavy gold frame of the only picture in the room, leaving in shadows the picture itself: a painting of Maria Petrovna twenty years ago, with a delicate hand resting on an ivory shoulder, mocking the old knitted shawl which the living Maria Petrovna clutched convulsively over her trembling shoulders when she coughed.
The logs were damp; a fretful blue flame hissed feebly, dying and flaring up again in a burst of acrid smoke.
Kira sat in the deep, silken fur of a white bear rug at the fireplace, her arm encircling affectionately the huge monster’s ferocious head. It had been her favorite since childhood. When visiting her uncle, she had always asked for the story of how he had killed that bear, and she had laughed happily when he threatened that the bear would come back to life and bite disobedient little girls.
“Well,” said Maria Petrovna, her hands fluttering in the fire glow, “well, here you are back in Petrograd.”
“Yes,” said Galina Petrovna, “here we are.”
“Oh, Saint Mother of God!” sighed Maria Petrovna. “It makes it so hard sometimes to have a future to think about!”
“It does,” said Galina Petrovna.
“Well, what are the plans for the girls? Lydia darling, quite a young lady, aren’t you? Still heart-free?” Lydia’s smile was not a grateful one. Maria Petrovna sighed: “Men are so strange, nowadays. They don’t think of marriage. And the girls? I was carrying a son at Irina’s age. But she doesn’t think of a home and family. The Academy of Arts for her. Galina, do you remember how she used to ruin my furniture with her infernal drawings as soon as she was out of diapers? Well, Lydia, are you going to study?”
“I have no such intention,” said Lydia. “Too much education is unfeminine.”
“And Kira?”
“It’s funny to think that little Kira is of college age, isn’t it?” said Victor. “First of all, Kira, you’ll have to get a labor book — the new passport, you know. You’re over sixteen. And then....”
“I think,” Maria Petrovna suggested eagerly, “that a profession is so useful nowadays. Why don’t you send Kira to a medical school? A lady doctor gets such nice rations!”
“Kira a doctor?” Galina Petrovna sneered. “Why, the selfish little thing just loathes physical injury. She wouldn’t help a wounded chicken.”
“My opinion ...” Victor began.
A telephone rang in the next room. Irina darted out and returned, announcing aloud with a significant wink at Victor: “For you, Victor. It’s Vava.”
Victor walked out reluctantly. Through the door, left open by a draft, they heard some of his words: “... I know I promised to come tonight. But it’s an unexpected examination at the Institute. I have to study every minute of the evening.... Of course not, no one else.... You know I do, darling....”
He returned to the fireplace and settled himself comfortably on the white bear’s back, close to Kira.
“My opinion, my charming little cousin,” he stated, “is that the most promising career for a woman is offered not by a school, but by employment in a Soviet office.”
“Victor, you don’t really mean that,” said Vasili Ivanovitch.
“One has to be practical nowadays,” Victor said slowly. “A student’s ration doesn’t provide much for a whole family — as you ought to know.”
“Employees get lard and sugar,” said Maria Petrovna.
“They are using a great many typists,” Victor insisted. “A typewriter’s keys are the stepping stones to any high office.”
“And you get shoes, and free tramway tickets,” said Maria Petrovna.
“Hell,” said Vasili Ivanovitch, “you can’t make a drayhorse out of a racing steed.”
“Why, Kira,” asked Irina, “aren’t you interested in the subject of this discussion?”
“I am,” Kira answered calmly, “but I think the discussion is superfluous. I am going to the Technological Institute.”
“Kira!”
There were seven startled voices and they all uttered one name. Then Galina Petrovna said: “Well, with a daughter like this even her own mother isn’t let in on secrets!”
“When did you decide that?” Lydia gasped.
“About eight years ago,” said Kira.
“But Kira! What will you do?” Maria Petrovna gasped.
“I’ll be an engineer.”
“Frankly,” said Victor, annoyed, “I do not believe that engineering is a profession for women.”
“Kira,” Alexander Dimitrievitch said timidly, “you’ve never liked the Communists and here you select such a modern favorite profession of theirs — a woman engineer!”
“Are you going to build for the Red State?” asked Victor.
“I’m going to build because I want to build.”
“But Kira!” Lydia stared at her, bewildered. “That will mean dirt, and iron, and rust, and blow-torches, and filthy, sweaty men and no feminine company to help you.”
“That’s why I’ll like it.”
“It is not at all a cultured profession for a woman,” said Galina Petrovna.
“It’s the only profession,” said Kira, “for which I don’t have to learn any lies. Steel is steel. Most of the other sciences are someone’s guess, and someone’s wish, and many people’s lies.”
“What you lack,” said Lydia, “are the things of the spirit.”
“Frankly,” said Victor, “your attitude is slightly anti-social, Kira. You select a profession merely because you want it, without giving a thought to the fact that, as a woman, you would be much more useful to society in a more feminine capacity. And we all have our duty to society to consider.”
“Exactly to whom is it that you owe a duty, Victor?”
“To society.”
“What is society?”
“If I may say it, Kira, this is a childish question.”
“But,” said Kira, her eyes dangerously gentle and wide, “I don’t understand it. To whom is it that I owe a duty? To your neighbor next door? Or to the militia-man on the corner? Or to the clerk in the co-operative? Or to the old man I saw in line, third from the door, with an old basket and a woman’s hat?”