Inventing Wonders

Chapter 4: Did You Call Me?

That evening, all of Lara's new acquaintances froze in anticipation of the shot: Lara was aiming at Evgeny Petrovich's head. There were not many moments when Lara reflected on the meaning of what she was doing, but this was not one of those times. She was showing off.

It had all started that morning when the incredible happened and Kondraty Fyodorovich had deigned to invite Lara to his house for a poetry reading. Lara wasn't sure how well men treated women in the 19th century, but she suspected it wasn't great. She came to this conclusion after spending an entire evening trying to remember any famous Russian female writers from the 19th century and then realizing that education here was also somewhat problematic. She wasn't sure, but she remembered from her Russian History course that women were allowed to attend university lectures only around the 1860s. Lara had remembered this only because she had envied the previous state of affairs—she had to attend her lectures regularly.

One could say a lot about the place of women, but Lara loved her literature lectures and knew for sure that the image of Tatyana Larina was typical of women of that time: elevated, melancholy, and prone to fainting. From that list, Lara only knew how to faint.

But back to the shot. It all started with Anya:

"Larisa Konstantinovna," Anya addressed her hesitantly.

Larisa Konstantinovna mumbled something but preferred not to wake up.

"Larisa Konstantinovna," Anya repeated louder, "a letter has been delivered for your brother, and they asked to pass it on urgently."

"What brother?" Lara woke up in surprise.

Of course, she had a brother, but not in this century and not a real one. And in any case, she didn't want to receive a letter for him, even in the morning of the nineteenth century.

Through the thick curtains, morning light was breaking through. It was impossible to tell whether it was morning or day. November had descended on St. Petersburg, cold and damp, when you waited for the central heating to be turned on. Oh, yes, there was no heating here. Lara longed for her native bath with a heated floor, which was so pleasant to lie on when you couldn't tell whether it was morning or day.

"For Maxim Konstantinovich..." Anya said uncertainly. "But I think they have the wrong address; Maxim Konstantinovich doesn't appear here..."

"Maxim Konstantinovich doesn't exist," Lara yawned. "It's just a name."

Anya gasped and covered her face with her hands:

"Larisa Konstantinovna, forgive me! I didn't think... What a tragedy... And your portrait... That's all that's left of him... And I wondered why you stared at it for hours... Accept my condolences!"

As always, Anya was fussing. Meanwhile, Lara snatched the letter and quickly opened it. Ryleyev's handwriting was beautiful but hard to read.

"Maximka is just a portrait; I like to talk my thoughts out loud and don't like it when people answer questions to which I already know the answers. I haven't lost anyone; I'm just very strange," Lara said, trying to grasp the gist of the letter.

"But who is Maxim Konstantinovich then?" Anya was completely puzzled.

"The author of progressive poems, which, judging by this, will be published in the same almanac as Pushkin," Lara smirked.

"Are you a man?" Anya blurted out.

"Are you out of your mind?" Lara looked up at her. "I'm a writer! You're the one who copies my works clean."

Lara sighed heavily. She didn't like to think poorly of women, hated gender stereotypes, but the only way she could describe Anya was as a blonde. However, it wasn't brains she valued in the girl. Lara had been engaged in journalism for a month now and had managed to publish a humorous feuilleton about prices in St. Petersburg, where one could live in an excellent apartment near the Winter Palace for two and a half thousand rubles a year, while a young girl left four hundred rubles at a tailor's at once. The piece was so timely that no one, except Ryleyev, suspected Lara as the author. She was paid nearly five rubles for the text and asked if there were other works by Maxim Konstantinovich. Now, under the authorship of Lara's portrait, there was a story, an article, and two feuilletons, and finally, Ryleyev had answered that he would take not all of her work but two poems for the almanac.