The Nightingale of St. Petersburg

Chapters 8-9

Chapter 8

That night I sat and pondered the mystery voice. Maybe I was hearing things that weren’t really there; perhaps this voice didn’t really exist after all, could it be I had made her up? I knew if I told Martha Ivanovna about it, she would surely think I was losing my mind. Maybe even I would believe I was losing my mind if she had remained nothing more than a voice singing in the streets at night. But I had gone to her home, I had found her room and I had conversed with her; I felt her presence every time I was with her. It’s hard to explain this, but we blind people can feel if there is a person in the room. We can feel their distance from us, we can feel their bodily presence and I certainly felt that someone else was in those four walls with me. The problem was, even though I could felt her as a presence, I had nothing physical to tie her down too. I had no idea  who she really was and I couldn’t get her to allow me to find out. I was dying to discover what she looked like, but because she always kept her distance from me, and there was no way for me to feel her.

I know this may sound strange, a man wanting to touch a woman, but a blind person can only see through touch. I just wanted to hold her hand, touch her face, make a mental picture of what she looked like. But even if she just tell me her name, given me her identity I would be happy. At least  I could be sure she was in fact something physical, something of this world. Besides the mystery of her identity, there were other things that didn't make sense about her. For example, why was she up there in that room? And what did she mean when she had told me that her wings had been clipped? Was her room really a cage, did she really have wings; was she really a bird, or a half bird perhaps?

Nothing she told me about herself made any sense and I had a funny feeling that she was doing that on purpose; but for what purpose I couldn’t understand.

Yet, despite all the secrecy, and mystery and lack of logic to her existance, I found that I could not stay away from her. I suppose it would be foolish for me to confess that I had fallen in love with the voice, but I had. I of course, didn't tell anyone about this, because confessing that you have fallen in love with a voice that calls herself a nightingale would make me sound like a raving lunatic. Maybe I was a lunatic, or becoming one, perhaps she had placed a spell on me, I don't know. All I do know is that all too soon tthe only thing I looked forward to was that one hour with my mysterious nightingale.

Margarita Vladimirovna was getting frailer and frailer and mroe often than not she would drift off to sleep while I was playing for her, giving me the freedom to go and converse with my nightingale. The hour always consisted of us simply talking to each other and we talked about many things. We spoke about my humble childhood, about my time in the musical conservatory and of the death of my father. About how I had struggled for a long time, living as a beggar with hardly any food and how I had at last managed to secure a job at the public ball house. We spoke of how I had met Martha Ivanovna, how we now lived together as mother and son and took care of each another. We talked about music and songs, and I found out that all the songs she sang were written by her. Perhaps that was why they all had a tint of this sadness in them, like the rustle of the birch tree when the wind blows.

We spoke of poetry and literature and I quickly discovered that this nightingale was a well educated nightingale who had read a great many books  Since I could not read I was always very interested when she would relate to me all the books she had read and give me her opinion of them.

We often discussed our country and the city of St. Petersburg, we spoke of the Emperor, we spoke of society; we discussed the rich and the poor. So many subjects we covered and I never got closer to knowing anything about her than when I had first met her. I have to admit, that hour with her was the crowning moment of my day.