Granny Dan

“All right.” She sighed deeply and turned her back to him, her head bowed, as he watched her, aching to put his arms around her, but he knew he couldn't. She looked desperately unhappy, but not nearly as unhappy as he was. “I'll think about staying,” was all she said, and she did not turn around again to look at him. She couldn't. She was still crying. “You must go now.” He could not see her face as she said it, only the straight young back, and the proud tilt of her head, and the shining dark hair cascading past her shoulders. And he longed to touch it, and hold her.

“Good night, Danina,” he said in a voice filled with regret and longing, and then a moment later she heard the door close behind him, and she turned to look at it, sobbing.

She could not believe what they had done, what he had said, and the worst of it was that she also knew she loved him. But he was a married man, and she could not let him destroy his life, or lose his work or his children, for her sake. She loved him too much to let him do that. And she had her obligations to the ballet. She remembered all too clearly a lifetime of Madame Mar-kova's dire warnings. Madame Mark ova had always told her she was different, that she didn't need a man, that she must remain pure, that she had to live for and grow through her art, her dancing had to come before anything else in her life, and it had till now. But now suddenly with Nikolai, she saw that it could be so different. A life with him would mean an eternity of happiness, but not if it cost him everything he held dear to have her. She couldn't let him do that. She knew she should go back to St. Petersburg, but she couldn't bear leaving him now. She couldn't think of not seeing him every day, any more than he could give up seeing her. All they had to do now was pretend this had never happened between them, which would be far from easy. But she was determined to do it. And as she walked into her room, and began to undress, she felt her knees begin to shake violently. She had to sit down, and as she did, all she could think of were his lips on hers, and what she had felt when he had kissed her. But no matter what she felt for him now, she knew with her entire heart and soul that she could never have him. But at least, if she stayed, they could still see each other. She sat looking at her reflection in the mirror, thinking of him, and wondering how they could do it. It was going to be anything but easy.

Chapter 4

Nikolai didn't come to see her at all for the next two days, nor did he go to the palace. But finally he sent her two new books with a message that he had caught a bad cold and didn't want to give it to her. And he would see her as soon as he was no longer contagious. She had no idea if it was true or not, but if so, if nothing else, his absence was at least convenient. And it gave them both time to regain control of themselves, and try to forget what had happened.

But without his visits, she paced uncomfortably around her small house, tried to sleep and found she couldn't, and by the end of the first day had a dreadful headache, and refused to take anything for it. Her nurses found her uncharacteristically short-tempered and fretful, and she apologized to them a thousand times for her ill humor, and blamed it on her migraine. And by the end of the second day, she was despondent. She wondered if he was angry at her, if he regretted what he had said and done, if he had been drunk and she didn't know it, if she would never see him again. She could bear burying their secret and never mentioning it again, but what she realized now with full force, was that she couldn't bear not seeing him.

And when he appeared at last, as she stood in her small living room, watching the snow fall in her garden, she didn't hear him come in. She turned, with tears rolling down her cheeks, thinking of him, and when she saw him, without thinking, she flew across the room into his arms, and told him how much she had missed him. He was not sure what it meant at first, if she had changed her mind and was willing to go forward with him, or simply what she said, that she had missed him.

“I've missed you too,” he said in a voice that still sounded hoarse, so she knew that his excuse for not seeing her had been sincere, and that relieved her. “Very much,” he said, smiling at her. But this time, he was not foolish enough to kiss her. He had taken her at her word two days before, and was determined not to cross that line again, unless she invited him to do so. And she herself made no move to kiss him. She went straight to the samovar, and poured him a cup of tea, and handed it to him. And as she did so, her hand was shaking but she was beaming.

“I'm so glad you've been ill … oh … I mean … that sounds terrible. …” She laughed for the first time in two days, and he laughed too as he sat down near her in the cottage's small, cozy parlor. “I was afraid you didn't want to see me.”