Innocence

Chapter 1 "Innocence"

The wind blew lightly and cold out in the open field where people, dressed in obliged fancy balck gowns, gathered, some seated some standing, around the grave of a most known man.  It was, indeed, the cousin of the tsar who had died. His coffin, wooden made, embeded in gold with the symbol of royalty and his initials, lay deep into the earth, side by side with the one that held his late wife’s bones.

Only the most respectable people in the Russian ton accompanied the aristocrat in his last jurney. One could think that Vladimir Nikolai Mikhalovich had been a very much loved man, for the people attending the ceremony could be counted by the thousands. But the reason in this was far more superficial. Vladimir had always been a cold man, sublemiley egocentric in his ways, and most of all: ambitious. Not even his cousin, the Tsar, had been able to fullfil all of his whims throughout a lifetime of lazyness. No, the reason for most of the people attending could be seen seated at the very front, in a royal chair far taller than all. Looking down with his large eyes was Peter the First, cousin of the late Vladimir. His expression rather bored, for it was known to all that Peter had never held much affection for the deceased, nor for the son, whom sat to his right.

Nikolai Sergei Mikhalovich held a neutral face. But in his mind the thoughts and feelings of repugnance grew by the second. He knew why all these people stood there, gossip was one of the ton’s triats. He knew why his uncle sat there next to him, because he wanted to see for himself, not whitout a little satisfaction, that the person he had loathed so much in life was finally disappeatring from this world. A paria, that’s what Nikolai’s father had been to the Tsar, and he was finally gone for good.

“Hipocrytes”          Nikolai thought with dislike. Not that he held a very deep affection for his father either, but at least he had a good, respectable reason to be there. After all, Vladimir had been his father, the man who had allowed him life, the man who had raised him to be the man he was.

He could see all eyes in him as well as the Tsar. He knew what they were thinking “Poor boy, the Tsar’s nephew, yes, but he is far from the right track”. Pity, always pity when they looked at him, when they held a conversation with him. Pity and fear. Yes, so he gambled, yes so he may have seduced a lot of women since he was 13, so what? They were just jealous, they didn’t understand. Nikolai Mikhalovich was far more than they made him out to be.

The only thing that made him feel a little better was knowing that after this dreadful ceremony he could hide away, in the company of his best friend Nathaniel, in a samll hidden whore house and drink till unconciousness. And perhaps in between he could tumble a whore or tow…just to remind himself he was not the one in that coffin.

…….

She wished she was the one in that coffin. Laying peacefully on the wet dirt, not breating, not feeling, not thinking. Her hazel eyes were filled with tears as Natalya held her younger brothers’ hand in hers, looking at her mothers’ precious blue eyes for the last time, while the half drunken priest mumbled thing not even him could understand. This wasnt the burial her mother deserved, she had been a most loving woman, always taking care of everyone else around her, always filling their house with laughter.

Natalya and her brother, Alexander, had had to dig the whole in the earth where her mother lay now, without a proper coffin but a wooden box courtesy of Mr. Karev who kindly had built it for dear old Sonia. And now only her and Alexander stood around it, and the priest, whom they had given the last licor father had left at their home in form of payment. 

Alexander cried silently at her side. Natalya wouldn’t let herself cry, even though tears formed in her eyes as she wished she had died too. Because she knew from now on life wouldn’t be even a resemblance of what it was before. When her father was still at home, when her mother lived, when her brother was a happy boy. But it all had changed the moment her father had been obliged to leave home and do forced labor in the constuction of Saint Petersburg. Tall, well built men had come that day, the whole town mortified at their precense, and they had taken away every male over 13, leaving only the old and the sick looking.  Short after, Sonia, Natalya’s mother, had fallen sick. The local doctor said it was a vary bad fever, but Natalya knew it was more than that, it was a broken heart. The man Sonia had loved the most had gone away and it had been 2 years without a letter with news of him. Everyone thougt him death and Sonia had lost her faith in seeing him again, life was not worth it anymore.

Natalya knelt down in front of her brother and hugged him tightly. He was all that was left to her, all that was dear. “Everything will be all right little one, I promise” But even though she had made promise, she knew not of how to keep it. They had no money left, no property, no family. Nothing but the hope that in Moscow, Natalya would find a suitable job and could give Alexander a modest life, an education that would teach him to be a man of good in the future days.