Heart of Iron

Chapter 2

The rest of the season went slightly better — I had an opportunity to meet several young women close to my age, from the families of Golitsyn and Obolonsky, Lermontov and Muraviev — all old families, which shared history with mine. There were balls and there were visits, tea, walks, and carriage excursions. The young women were neither mocking nor particularly kind to me, and I suspected that the rumors of Eugenia’s outburst would die if only I could let them. As it was, every time I walked into a room and people stopped talking, I suffered a long spell of blushing and mortification, convinced they were talking about her — about us.

Meeting young men was especially vexing: most of them managed to be simultaneously terrified and scornful of my aunt, and while I suspected that my looks would not detract from the appeal of my future titles and fortune, the mere idea I was related to Eugenia made me, if not a monster in their eyes, then something at the very least deeply unpleasant, like a toad or a water snake.

We stayed in St. Petersburg through most of the winter, and I watched the black Neva waters grow at first a lattice and later a carapace of green ice, turning into a gigantic chrysalis suspended between the gray stone walls, and I wondered if any of the submarine boats were caught under it.

That year, it did not snow until December, and until then the frozen cobbles sung under the thick soles of my winter boots, and I wrapped myself in my coat, while drinking in the sights. I still preferred my solitude, going for walks whenever the wind ceased cutting like a knife, and the damp cold off the Finnish Gulf retreated, allowing the sun to shine.

Anichkov Bridge quickly became a favorite destination thanks to the savage though immobile life of its rearing horses. I could stand and look at them for hours on end; it was a childish conviction, but I believed at times that the moment I would turn away they would spring to life, their muscles knotting and sliding under their stone skin, and thunder away down the embankment, and then I would feel a fool for having turned my back on them. Thus compelled, I stared at them until the cold stung my eyes with bristling tears and my hands grew numb; I stomped my feet to keep warm and stuffed my mittened hands into my sleeves. In retrospect, I recognized this behavior as the first sign of my willingness to search the world for the unusual, a quality foreign to both my mother and my aunt. Yet, it was the latter who furnished me with the opportunity to realize this secret potential.

We returned to Trubetskoye in late January, and as much as I missed Anichkov Bridge, I was relieved to be home. My mother cried a bit because she missed her friends, and Eugenia threw herself into business affairs, since she could not quite believe that the estate had not fallen apart without her. We celebrated Maslenitsa with its usual abundance of blini, and welcomed Great Lent as a relief from such excess. We observed the holy days on my mother’s insistence, even though Eugenia was of the mind that such pettiness as keeping track of who ate what when was unbecoming to a deity who had any ambition of looking important.

Before Lent was over, a letter was delivered. The three of us were resting after our supper in the parlor, where the fire burned brightly and my mother’s aging cat purred asthmatically in her lap. My mother was knitting, and Eugenia worked on an estimate for the next planting season. When the letter was brought to us, my mother grew agitated at the sight of the imperial seal, convinced that the emperor wanted to honor poor dead Papa in some extravagant fashion; I suspected the emperor had finally recovered from the verbal lashing he had received from Eugenia (the letter was addressed to her), and had come up with a deserving repartee three months later.

I was closer to the truth — the envelope contained two items. The first one was a new ukaz, which Eugenia glanced at briefly and then read more closely. She let out a great whoop of joy. “Ha!” she yelled, jumping up and twirling in the most undignified manner. “The old goat listened! Look at this—‘St. Petersburg University welcomes young ladies from noble families among its hallowed walls… ’ Nonsense and circumstance… ‘to be housed in the newly remodeled dormitories at the Vasilyevsky Island… chaperons… ’ ” She looked at me brightly and laughed. “Well, you get the idea.”

I did, and felt a little nauseated as I eyed the second piece of paper that Eugenia let drop to the floor in her haste to read the imperial ukaz. Presently, Eugenia picked it up and glanced at it, her grin growing even wider. “This is for you,” she told me, sly. I took the letter with trembling fingers, and stared at the list of the first ten noble young ladies to occupy the newly renovated dormitory come next August. I recognized most of the names — Golitsyna and Obolonskaya, and Dasha Muravieva was there as well. But my main consternation was directed at the last line — Trubetskaya, Alexandra.

“Why, Sasha, that’s you.” My mother pointed over my shoulder and beamed; I was not certain if she fully realized what was happening and why I felt simultaneously terrified and elated, but she smiled, Eugenia smiled, and somehow I felt quite certain that the positives would outweigh the sheer terror of having to attend the university — something I frankly had not previously considered but evidently acquiesced to.

I was not the only one with apprehensions, as it turned out — five out of ten young ladies named as the occupants of the newly renovated dormitories expressed their gratitude but turned down the appointments, citing various obligations and excuses, from a case of nerves to the impending matrimony. “Same thing, really,” Eugenia judged. “Cowards.”

I did not allow myself to feel bad about my lack of matrimonial prospects, and spent the summer focusing on my education. Miss Chartwell felt her reputation was at risk, and she spent entirely too many lovely summer days making me conjugate English verbs and calculate derivatives (my hatred for Herr von Leibnitz I could not describe), with an occasional foray into Spinosa or Pushkin.

By the time my departure for the university had arrived, my head felt as if it had swollen three sizes. I suspected, with a hint of wistfulness, that I would probably never be as smart again — and it was all thanks to dear old Miss Chartwell.

The Englishwoman had grown resigned to my leaving, and she came with the rest of the household to bid me goodbye. Her eyes had turned suspiciously red-rimmed and she kept swiping at them with her handkerchief — for her, it was a display of emotion much more extreme than my mother’s unabashed keening.

I felt my eyes water as well when I embraced, in turn, my mother and Eugenia. “Worry not about your governess,” Eugenia whispered. “I’m not letting her go, and you will see her when you come back home for winter recess.”

I hugged Miss Chartwell, tears now running freely down my face, and promised to see her come winter. And with that, there wasn’t much to do but to get myself into the coach where my suitcases and a maid — barely older than I and who was leaving home for the first time as well — were already waiting.

The coach took us to the train station. Ever since the railroad had reached Trubetskoye the spring before, the village had rapidly begun losing its backwater status. As much as I feared the railroad’s presence would disrupt the village’s unhurried, pastoral appeal, I also felt reassured my separation from home would be neither final nor lasting. Returning home would not even be arduous since getting to the capital was now only a matter of a short carriage ride and a day on the train.

From the first time I set a foot onto the throbbing, chugging step of the train, I fell in love with its power and its iron solidity. My maid Anastasia found a free compartment, which she busily filled with our belongings, and I settled on a seat by the window. The great puffs of steam exhaled by the locomotive hid the sight of the train platform and the peasant women with their wicker baskets containing produce and geese. It was like flying through the clouds, with one or another detail of the surroundings momentarily snatched and cast in naked relief before being hidden again in the dense fog. Only the sharp voices and laughter of the women on the platform reached us and convinced me that we were still moored to the earth rather than hurtling through the unending expanse of the summer sky.

Then it was time. The train gave a low whistle, prompting everyone to board in a hurry, and chugged slowly away from the platform. The steam cleared and I watched the yellowing fields run past the windows, faster and faster, and then a forest of tall spruce and ash trees walled the train tracks in on both sides. The train passed lakes and crossed over rivers, it entered villages and towns, piercing through them like a sewing needle, and continued on its way as the scenery opened in front of it and closed behind. I remained transfixed, my forehead pressed against the window, until it had grown dark.

Only then did I notice that Anastasia and I were not the only passengers in the compartment — we had been joined by a small, dark-skinned and narrow-eyed young man dressed in a silk tunic with a high buttoned collar and matching trousers. A plain white cap covering his long braided hair. He sat next to Anastasia, on the bench opposite me, and smiled when he noticed I was looking at him. He introduced himself as Chiang Tse. “I am a student at St. Petersburg University,” he informed me in English. “But I come from the glorious city of Hong Kong, the port of a thousand masts and home of the air dragon ships.”

“Sasha Trubetskaya,” I said. “I mean, Alexandra. I’m going to the university too.”

Chiang Tse proved to be a pleasant companion — now that I could not look outside, I was just as content to talk. Anastasia lit the gas lantern mounted on the wall of our compartment, ran to the restaurant carriage and brought us tea, and the three of us spent a pleasant evening trading stories and carefully skirting around the anxieties of starting a new life as a student.

I learned from Chiang Tse that there were very few Chinese students at the university in St. Petersburg — there were several more at Moscow University, he said, because it was marginally closer to his homeland. He had great hopes for the railroad currently being constructed. The route cut across Siberia and offered an easy passage between Europe and Asia — it had now almost reached Beijing. “I understand there is some apprehension about the Orient moving suddenly close,” he said and smiled to show he was only joking.

I smiled back. I could imagine what it was like for him — to be so alone and far away from his compatriots, to be so different from his new classmates, to anticipate their mistrust, their inevitable disapproval. I understood because the same was true for me, and I felt like crying again, even though it was hardly an opportune moment. I could not help but think the girls who declined the imperial invitation were correct to do so — despite being Eugenia’s niece, I did not seek to attract attention or to struggle against the current; the only reason I went was because I feared disappointing her more than I feared scandalizing the entirety of polite society.

Chiang Tse was a better sport than I — he changed the topic to his home city, of which I had only a vague notions in connections to the recent war between China and Britain. He told me Hong Kong was now a free port under British control, and I gathered from his reserved manner that he had no love for the British. He also mentioned the unrest that was starting in the Guangxi Province and the dangers it presented to the travelers.

“When one’s country is so war-torn and ravaged,” he said as he poured another cup of tea, “one cannot help but feel guilt in escaping to a place so peaceful, so… ” his fingers threaded the air, searching for the right word to pluck, “so northern. And yet, I am very grateful for being here. Perhaps, here I could learn to live in peace with the West.”

“It’s never an easy peace,” I said. “Why, our emperor fought in the Napoleonic invasion. And as much as Peter the Great wanted us to become westernized, it is always a struggle; Russians have a deep seated mistrust of the West.”

“You do not see yourself as western?”

I thought a little. “My aunt certainly does. My mother and I… I’m not so sure. I am less enamored of the reforms, but I certainly find this train convenient.”

Chiang Tse nodded, pleased — at least, his sparse mustache bristled in a small smile. “You don’t think you’re a part of Europe. And yet you speak English.”

I shook my head, momentarily despairing to explain the national anxiety about being and yet not being European in a few words, when Anastasia, quiet until then, spoke. “The Countess tells me that you can see Europe from St. Petersburg — across the bay just so, on a clear morning. And how can you see something that you’re a part of?”

“Exactly,” I said, relieved.

Chiang Tse nodded with some hesitation. “There seems to be much for me to learn.”

“You will,” Anastasia said generously, and patted his shoulder.

Chiang Tse and I traded a wide-eyed look, and he couldn’t suppress a laugh. I suppose he found being patronized by a servant amusing, and I decided not to scold Anastasia for her treprass.

I dozed off for an hour or two, and woke up due to Anastasia’s soft snoring. Our companion was sleeping as well — in the uncertain light of the dimmed gas lamp, I could see his head pitched back, exposing his dark throat over the white collar of his jacket, his hands folded in his lap. I would not confess my relief to anyone, least of all Chiang Tse, but I thought it was good to know someone — besides the girls who would be in as much distress and confusion as I — who was not like me and yet understood my discomfort.

Most male students hired rooms in the city. Girls, apparently, could not be trusted to find their own rooms, pay the bills, and protect their own virtue, so they were housed in the dormitories. I was quite pleased with my assigned dormitory — it occupied a low building, with each of the apartments containing two bedrooms, a small room with two cots for the maids, a parlor, and a kitchen. Each apartment was supposed to be shared by two women, but since half of us did not show up, we each had an entire apartment to ourselves. There were three on the second floor and three on the first, with one of the apartments on the first floor given to an elderly woman who was charged with making sure that we were accounted for at all times.

I helped a shocked Anastasia prepare our beds and unpack the suitcases. There was no reason for me to play the lady and not be of use. After all, was I not a modern university woman? Soon enough the kitchen was furnished with shining pots, and a kettle bubbled happily over the stove. Anastasia boiled some water and set an enameled tub in front of the kitchen woodstove so I could wash off the grime and fatigue of the road. Afterwards, Anastasia went to the market to procure supper, and I spent the rest of the afternoon unpacking and hanging my clothes and filling the spacious chest of drawers thoughtfully placed in my bedroom with my underthings. By the time Anastasia had returned and cooked our supper, the apartment felt almost homey.

The chaperon, Natalia Sergeevna, stopped by to make sure we had everything we needed, and stayed for tea. She was a kindly, plain woman, who called me “dearie,” and seemed quite pleased to meet Anastasia. I let the two of them babble about the price of wheat that year, and drifted to my bedroom. I had arrived before the rest of the dormitory’s occupants, and felt alone in the mostly empty building, its cheerful wallpaper decorated with cornflowers notwithstanding. I wished my mother or Aunt Eugenia had come with me, to at least help me settle in. I chased away my resentments and reminded myself that I was a grown woman now, and honored to be accepted by the university — what else was there to desire? Masha Golitsyna would of course tell me there was marriage, the route she herself had chosen. And yet, even though I was never opposed to the idea itself, I looked at myself in the mirror and knew I would be foolish to have expectations of attracting someone’s attention with my appearance. There were better things to be than pretty — the advice I had heeded since I was ten to such good effect that I felt no pangs of regret or self-pity.

The steady rising and falling of the voices in the parlor, coupled with the clinking of teacups, lulled me. I sank into a chair by my bed and closed my eyes for a moment, and then the train was swaying and the steam was covering the windows when we stopped at some station, and the tea was poured and I stared into the dark almond-shaped eyes of Chiang Tse. His voice told me of the tall masts and the awkward flights of the airships. Then his face elongated into the sly muzzle of a dragon wearing a red and gold dressing gown. The dragon winked at me, poured tea, and spoke of his ambitions in calculus, and inquired about Miss Chartwell’s availability.

I remember vividly my first day as a student. I remember waking up before dawn and looking out of the window at the rows of linden trees, their leaves already turning the color of gold, and maples so red their branches seemed wrapped in living flames.

I got dressed with excruciating care, accompanied by Anastasia’s constant nagging. I wore a simple two-piece dress in blue and gray plaid, with a crinoline small enough to not impede sitting in narrow auditorium seats. The weather was cool enough to justify kid gloves and a new muff, of the same soft beige fur that trimmed my cloak.

Classes had been selected for the female students by several deans in consultation with the emperor himself. After I looked at the schedule, I became convinced that Eugenia had a hand in it as well — among expected languages and classics and philosophy, there were swaths of natural sciences, physics, and calculus. In the second year, we were supposed to start taking engineering classes and chemistry. I thanked my lucky stars and Miss Chartwell, and headed for the building indicated on my schedule.

One of the other women students joined me. She was someone I had not previously met, and I was pleased when she introduced herself with none of the languor found in most of the young society ladies I had encountered. Her name was Olga Sokolova, and among the women admitted she was the only one who was not from a noble family; she told me as we walked across the island to the university campus that her father was a mere corporal but he had served the emperor well, and now his service was rewarded by making his daughter an oddity — a strangely hostile gesture disguised as kindness, we both agreed. Despite that, Olga expressed great eagerness for learning, and it made me like her immediately.

Arm in arm now, we found our assigned building; it was newer than most of the university’s buildings, and painted bright blue. A copse of poplars surrounded it, and a long flowerbed orange with the last nasturtiums and edged with white stone ran along the path leading to the front door. There were several young men milling outside, and they gave us a few measured and curious looks. Olga blanched and squeezed my arm tighter, and I found myself leaning closer to her. We walked down the path under the veritable assault of the alternately lewd and disapproving gazes directed at us; it felt like running a gauntlet.

“Is it going to be like this every day?” Olga whispered, and her voice shook as if she were about to burst into tears.

“I hope the novelty will wear off after a while,” I answered. “But where’s that chaperon woman when you need her?”

Olga smiled at that, and we found our assigned auditorium. It was still mostly empty, and the professorial lectern towered at the front. Rows and rows of chairs upholstered in red velvet opened amphitheater-style back from the small stage, like petals of an enormous flower.

“Let’s sit in the back,” Olga said.

“Nonsense,” I replied. “They’ll know we are here anyway, but if we sit in the lecturer’s sight, no one would dare direct disrespect.”

Olga smiled gratefully. “How do you know these things?”

“I don’t,” I answered honestly. “I’m just thinking of what my virgin aunt would say in this situation.”

We rustled our skirts and settled in the first row. Both Olga and I had small notebooks tucked into our muffs — unfortunately, our dresses and cloaks lacked any significant pockets. I considered buying a handbag just to carry pens and notebooks; I hoped we were not expected to transport our textbooks anywhere.

Once we had settled, I watched the door. Several Chinese students filed in, and I recognized Chiang Tse among them. He acknowledged me with a small bow, and I inclined my head. The Chinese students, some of whom were dressed in gray suits while others wore more colorful jackets and long robes, stiff with gold embroidery, and black cloth slippers, settled in a row behind Olga and me. It reassured me — I felt as if I were being shielded from the judging eyes of my male compatriots.

Gradually, the auditorium filled with a shuffling and coughing of young men. Some of them smoked, and strolled through the aisles with a leisurely demeanor that I could easily imagine was a mask concealing cruelty. It was deeply disturbing. Most of these men were not noble, only sons of merchants and engineers. I was their better, and yet defenseless and vulnerable if they decided to vent their unhappiness in my direction.

Three other women soon joined us, and introduced themselves — Larisa, Elena, Dasha — before settling next to us. With the bright jackets of the Chinese students and the girls’ dresses standing in such contrast to the prevalent male brown and gray, I felt a part of a small isle of color, and that day my heart chose its allegiance. I turned and smiled at Chiang Tse over my shoulder, and he smiled back — warmly, as a friend would.

The lecturer — a solid, gray-haired and gray-bearded professor — arrived a few minutes late, and he spent a while longer inspecting the front of the auditorium. “Welcome,” he finally said, “to our new students. This is a class on human biology, and we will start by examining the differences between races and genders. I expect you—” his gaze locked with mine for a moment before drifting to the next female student—“to take notes. If you feel scandalized by the material, you may excuse yourself.” He paused while some tittering laughs flitted about the audience. “I still expect you to know the material.”

After the classes were over, I lingered behind, waiting for the auditorium to empty out. Olga and the rest of the girls went ahead, as they chatted in an overly familiar ritual of getting to know one another.

Chiang Tse too split from his companions, and waited for me in the aisle between the empty seats, his profile dark against the golden brilliance of the autumn outside spilling through the open door and tall arched windows.

“That wasn’t too bad,” I said as soon as I was an arm’s length away from him.

He shrugged. “I suppose it could be worse.”

Neither of us acknowledged it explicitly, but I was glad he waited for me — at least I assume it was me for whom he awaited. We walked outside together.

The nasturtiums had grown transparent in the sun, each petal like a tongue of living flame rising from the flowerbeds, and without saying a word both of us stopped to look. It was strange to walk with him like that, without speaking, but moving in unison, in some magically silent accord.

The campus had grown quiet in the few minutes between the end of classes and our delayed exit. Only a few figures moved at a distance, with an occasional staccato of hurried footsteps reverberating on the newly laid blocks of pavement. It was all just as well — without knowing why, I was already feeling our walk, innocent as it was, was somehow illicit.

My feelings were confirmed when we turned around the corner of the lecture hall and came across a group of several young men, their clothes betraying means if not breeding — they all wore long sack jackets with upright collars and wide ascots, and formidably tall hats. The five of them crowded the pavement, and I flustered, stepping right and left, trying to find a way between them. They merely watched, dead-eyed and threatening despite their passive demeanor. Finally, I stepped onto the pavement and cringed as my shoe hit a puddle cunningly hid by a narrow strip of the curb; the water splashed all over the hem of my skirt.

Chiang Tse ignored the snickering of the hoodlums, and joined me in the puddle, without regard for the dirty water seeping into his shoes and trousers. I shook the water out of my skirts and thought woefully that this particular arrangement was likely to become a tangible metaphor for my stay at the university.

Chiang Tse was apparently of the same mind. His fingers touched my elbow gingerly as he said, “I enjoy standing in the puddle with you. It is refreshing, don’t you think?”