find most useful once Lent is over
, Sophie had written.
The errors she made were slight—a few spelling mistakes, a “soft
znak
” omitted here and there. She handed me her own quill, and I made the necessary corrections in the margins.
Every time I pointed out an error, Sophie made a comic groan. “How silly of me not to notice,” she would exclaim. “How foolish!” When I finished and curtsied, ready to leave, she stopped me.
“I’m sorry to be such a bother,” she said.
I looked at her face, the tensing of her lips. “It’s nothing,” I muttered.
I watched her turn to the mantel for a small package wrapped in yellow cloth. “I hope you’ll accept a gift—a trifle, really.”
“There is no need,” I protested immediately, but she shook her head. I felt her fingers on my arm; I saw her eyes look into mine.
“Please, Varvara Nikolayevna,” she said, handing me the package. “But don’t open it now.” She stopped me from removing the purple ribbon with which it was tied.
Later, alone in my room, I untied the purple ribbon. The yellow cloth slid off, revealing a piece of amber cradled in white satin.
I took it out and raised it to the light. It was a superb piece of amber that must have cost Sophie far more than she could afford. In honey-colored resin, two large bees were entangled in an embrace.
I admired the bent, stick-like legs, the folded wings, the abdomens with invisible stings, curled and bare.
I wondered how the bees had died. Was it duty or hunger that had lured them to the same sticky grave? Or a curious need to explore what was not meant for them at all? The courage of wanting more? A longing to stand by each other even if it meant death?
We are both foreigners here
.
Is that why I did it? My first reckless act of transgression? To hold on to this sweet warmth I had so very nearly forgotten? To make it last for a few more moments, before caution and fear crept back? Or was it mercy, another name for the sin of hubris? A lesson in survival, my gift to her?
For she had been terribly foolish with her writing.
Not with the maxims or ambitious plans for self-improvement, not with her own written portrait in which she called herself a “
Philosophe
at fifteen,” even though her fifteenth birthday would come only in May. But with the page I retrieved from the bottom of her drawer.
MEMOIR OF AN ELEPHANT
You come in your finery, you see me and you gasp: “How big he is, how strong and yet how docile.” You think me reconciled with my captive state; you think yourselves grand, for you have enslaved a giant.
You talk of bringing me a wife, you make plans for my unborn children, foolish plans, for a captured elephant will never reproduce for the profit of the tyrant who has taken away his liberty.
You watch me, but I watch you, too, and I find you small and fearful, a pitiable race I offer this warning:
Accept the virtues of a simple life, of modest and natural customs. Bow to reason and not to fear. Bend your knees before kings but not before tyrants.
Such is the wisdom of elephants.
I held the paper in my hands for a long time, studied the elegant, even loops of Sophie’s handwriting, the elongated
f
and
l
. I imagined the Chancellor’s glee, his praise for my skills.
I imagined Elizabeth’s wrath.
On the silver tray where Sophie kept her bottles with barley and lavender water, I lit a candle.
I let the page burn, watching the fire eat the words she should not have written. Then I doused the flame, leaving the remnants of the blackened sheet on the tray.
I hoped Sophie would know what it meant.
I prayed no one was watching me.
“The little
Hausfrau
must be doing something wrong, Varvara,” the Chancellor snapped when I reported how Sophie kept herself awake long into the night to study her Russian vocabulary and Orthodox prayers. “Surely the Princess of Anhalt-Zerbst is not a saint.”
I tried not to think how slight and pale she had looked that day when her
, Sophie had written.
The errors she made were slight—a few spelling mistakes, a “soft
znak
” omitted here and there. She handed me her own quill, and I made the necessary corrections in the margins.
Every time I pointed out an error, Sophie made a comic groan. “How silly of me not to notice,” she would exclaim. “How foolish!” When I finished and curtsied, ready to leave, she stopped me.
“I’m sorry to be such a bother,” she said.
I looked at her face, the tensing of her lips. “It’s nothing,” I muttered.
I watched her turn to the mantel for a small package wrapped in yellow cloth. “I hope you’ll accept a gift—a trifle, really.”
“There is no need,” I protested immediately, but she shook her head. I felt her fingers on my arm; I saw her eyes look into mine.
“Please, Varvara Nikolayevna,” she said, handing me the package. “But don’t open it now.” She stopped me from removing the purple ribbon with which it was tied.
Later, alone in my room, I untied the purple ribbon. The yellow cloth slid off, revealing a piece of amber cradled in white satin.
I took it out and raised it to the light. It was a superb piece of amber that must have cost Sophie far more than she could afford. In honey-colored resin, two large bees were entangled in an embrace.
I admired the bent, stick-like legs, the folded wings, the abdomens with invisible stings, curled and bare.
I wondered how the bees had died. Was it duty or hunger that had lured them to the same sticky grave? Or a curious need to explore what was not meant for them at all? The courage of wanting more? A longing to stand by each other even if it meant death?
We are both foreigners here
.
Is that why I did it? My first reckless act of transgression? To hold on to this sweet warmth I had so very nearly forgotten? To make it last for a few more moments, before caution and fear crept back? Or was it mercy, another name for the sin of hubris? A lesson in survival, my gift to her?
For she had been terribly foolish with her writing.
Not with the maxims or ambitious plans for self-improvement, not with her own written portrait in which she called herself a “
Philosophe
at fifteen,” even though her fifteenth birthday would come only in May. But with the page I retrieved from the bottom of her drawer.
MEMOIR OF AN ELEPHANT
You come in your finery, you see me and you gasp: “How big he is, how strong and yet how docile.” You think me reconciled with my captive state; you think yourselves grand, for you have enslaved a giant.
You talk of bringing me a wife, you make plans for my unborn children, foolish plans, for a captured elephant will never reproduce for the profit of the tyrant who has taken away his liberty.
You watch me, but I watch you, too, and I find you small and fearful, a pitiable race I offer this warning:
Accept the virtues of a simple life, of modest and natural customs. Bow to reason and not to fear. Bend your knees before kings but not before tyrants.
Such is the wisdom of elephants.
I held the paper in my hands for a long time, studied the elegant, even loops of Sophie’s handwriting, the elongated
f
and
l
. I imagined the Chancellor’s glee, his praise for my skills.
I imagined Elizabeth’s wrath.
On the silver tray where Sophie kept her bottles with barley and lavender water, I lit a candle.
I let the page burn, watching the fire eat the words she should not have written. Then I doused the flame, leaving the remnants of the blackened sheet on the tray.
I hoped Sophie would know what it meant.
I prayed no one was watching me.
“The little
Hausfrau
must be doing something wrong, Varvara,” the Chancellor snapped when I reported how Sophie kept herself awake long into the night to study her Russian vocabulary and Orthodox prayers. “Surely the Princess of Anhalt-Zerbst is not a saint.”
I tried not to think how slight and pale she had looked that day when her
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