A Double Life, by Karolina Pavlova (chapter 1)

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ut are they rich?”

“I think so; the estate is sizable. They live well enough. Besides the usual Saturdays, they give several balls during the winter; he himself doesn’t enter into things; his wife handles everything; c’est une femme de tête.”

“What’s the daughter like?”

“Nothing special! Good-looking enough and not stupid, they say, but who is stupid nowadays? Anyway, I’ve never discussed anything with her except the weather and dances, but she must have a touch of her father’s German blood. I can’t stand all these Germans and half-Germans.”

“A good match?”

“No! There’s a younger brother.”

“What do people do there on Saturdays?”

“Well, they mostly talk. Not too many people there. You’ll see.”

“Oh, I’m so fed up with conversations! You can’t escape from them.”

The carriage stopped at the entrance of a large house on Tverskoi Boulevard.

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“Here we are,” said one of the two young men who were sitting in it, and both got out and ran up the wrought-iron staircase. In the vestibule, they made sure with a glance that their German-tailored clothing was fitted just right; they entered, bowed to their hostess, and looked around.

In the elegant drawing room were about thirty people. Some were talking among themselves in low tones, some were listening, others passing through; but it seemed as if all of them were weighed down by a sense of duty, evidently quite onerous, and it seemed that they all found amusing themselves a bit boring.

There were no loud voices or arguments, nor any cigars either.

This was a drawing room completely comme il faut; even the ladies did not smoke.

Not far from the door sat the hostess on one of those nondescript pieces of furniture that fills our rooms these days. In another corner stood a tea table. Nearby, some exceedingly nice young girls were whispering among themselves. A bit farther away, next to a large bronze clock on which it had just struck half past ten, a very noteworthy and graceful woman, submerged (so to speak) in a huge velvet armchair, was conversing with three young men sitting near her.

They were talking about someone.

“He died this morning,” one of them said.

“Nothing to mourn about,” answered his lovely neighbor, looking at him in the most charming way.

“Well,” said one youth, smiling, “he was not so young anymore but very handsome; he was wicked but clever.”

“He was simply unbearable,” said the lady, “and I never liked his looks; there was something angry about them.”

“Who has died?” softly asked a shapely, pale, dark-haired girl of eighteen, going up to the tea table and bowing to one of the ladies near it. “Who has died, Olga?”

“I don’t know,” Olga replied.

The dark-haired girl sat down at the table and started to pour tea.

The graceful lady in the velvet armchair continued her clever conversation with the three young men. Judging by that conversation, it was limp and banal enough, but to judge by the expressions, the smiles and glances of the people talking, it was extremely lively and sophisticated.

“Who is that, Cécile?” Olga whispered to the young girl pouring tea.

Cecily looked up.

“The man who came in with Ilichev? I forget his name. It’s the first time he’s ever come to our house. It seems he’s a poet.”

Olga gave a haughty pout and turned her head toward the other side of the room. Two more men appeared. One of them led the other to the hostess, Vera Vladimirovna von Lindenborn, and introduced him. She greeted them most pleasantly.

“I am truly glad to be able to meet you at last. I hope that some time you will give us the pleasure of hearing you read your work.”

Vera Vladimirovna was not only a highly educated woman who entertained poets and artists, but also a woman of tact. She did not wish to put her visitor’s talent to use the very first time.

In the opposite corner of the drawing room, a distinguished man with graying hair barely perceptible in the candlelight, with a certain artificial carelessness in his dress and pretensions to profundity and perspicacity, went up to a young dandy leaning toward the window,

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whose eccentric hairstyle and spotless gloves were silhouetted very effectively against the heavy, cherry-colored curtain that fell to the parquet floors and set off his waistcoat, of the latest Parisian cut. He did not even contemplate having any other affectation.

“Look at the group near the tea table,” the distinguished man said to him. “Shall I tell you what is going on there? Sophia Strenetskaia is wondering where she can find a magnanimous bridegroom who will rescue the family from inevitable poverty and clear their debts to the Board of Guardians. Olga Valitskaia is out of sorts because Prince Victor has not come. Princess Alina is laughing so hard in vain; the victorious Uhlan won’t leave her cousin alone today, and the latter is using him to infuriate a certain other gentleman in the room. Amusing, isn’t it?”

“You’re a terrible man!” the young dandy respectfully answered, twirling his whiskers.

The terrible man smiled condescendingly.

In the mature ladies’ circle, the conversation was more innocent.

“Will you be moving to the Park soon?” Vera Vladimirovna was asked by a tall, important-looking lady sitting next to her, who until then had observed a strict silence.1 “In about two weeks, at the beginning of June,” she answered. “It seems the bad weather has passed. Will you be there too?”

“Yes, I love it. At least there you can spend the summer in good society, not like in the country, where you have to get along with God knows what kind of neighbors.”

1. The “Park” referred to was an open, landscaped area within the city limits, with high-end dachas for rent during the summer months. Petrovsky Park is northwest of central Moscow. In Pavlova’s time, it had become a fashionable location for dachas by the royal edict of 1836.

PRAISE FOR A DOUBLE LIFE “Rich with wit, Pavlova’s only novel is a masterful sendup of high society.”

—KIRKUS REVIEWS (starred review) “Karolina Pavlova’s 1848 novel made a splash when it first appeared, and for good reason. It is interesting in form, mixing prose and poetry, and full of sharply ironic insights about Russian society of the day, especially the lives of young women. This beautiful new edition of Barbara Heldt’s translation offers the chance to appreciate a work of nineteenth-century Russian literature that deserves attention, the writing of a remarkable poet and author.”

—S IBELAN FORRESTER, Swarthmore College

“Pavlova’s A Double Life is a landmark of nineteenth-century Russian literature. With its multilayered account of a young society woman’s mysterious transformation into a poet, the novella explores a host of social, spiritual, and aesthetic questions. Indispensable, particularly in this revised edition of Barbara Heldt’s translation.”

—THOMAS HOD GE, Wellesley College “Published in the revolutionary year of 1848, A Double Life traces the awakening of a young noblewoman who by day submits to the prose of high society matchmaking, while at night she is a poet in her dreams of true love.

Before Kate Chopin and Virginia Woolf, there was Karolina Pavlova.”

—H ILDE HO O GENBO OM, Arizona State University

Columbia University Press New York cup.columbia.edu Printed in the U.S.A.

ISBN: 978-0-231-19078-7