#sim: praskovya sergeyevna narukhina

[cringeborg]

Portrait of the Count and Countess, 1783

Here's a portrait I made for my story. It's just this one painting, with three different colors for the frame. Enjoy!

Requires Get Together

§3,155

3 swatches

Download (SFS)

Alt Download (Mediafire)

[forgetalltime]

Christmas passed surprisingly quickly. It was not nearly as bad as Kolya had anticipated. He ended up finding an acceptable costume - one of his father's old uniforms from the previous century. And he actually got along quite well with Marie’s sister, Irina. She was similar to him in a lot of ways, except that she was thirty, unhappily married, and a mother of three. She wasn’t very similar to him at all. But she was friendly, and she never ran out of things about which to speak. Her gossip was especially enticing. But of course, Kolya was not one for gossip. Not at all.

Soon enough the night was over, and soon enough the year was over. A few days into 1816, he received a letter.

Narukhin,

Sovyanekov demanded I write to you and tell you that he is engaged to be wed. He said it would seem like greater news if I wrote it. That man has some strange ideas. He also tells me, “don’t forget to invite him to the dinner,” so I am inviting you to his celebratory dinner next Friday. He assures you that it won’t be a bore. That is all. Dear Konstantin is still your beloved buffoon, as you can tell.

Perhaps it is not truly “all”. There is something else which I should like to say to you, while we are both sober. I am putting my pride aside to apologize. It was not my intention to frighten you, and I hope that I can still call you a friend after what happened between us last year. I don’t apologize for beating you, for that was entirely warranted and I refuse to believe anything else. But we have kept too many secrets from one another. I’d like you to meet my family someday; write back to me and tell me when this will be possible.

Yours,

Captain Ivan Kuzmich Vnesky

[forgetalltime]

Really, Lyuba was far too big to be on the sofa. She was no lap dog, but she was the apple of Kolya’s eye and thus he spoiled her at every opportunity. If he were to have a daughter, he might just name her Lyuba in honor of the dog. If he had a son, he would name the boy Platon, like his childhood dog. Platon Nikolayevich was not a bad name. Lyubov Nikolayevna, too…

The sound of the door opening took his attention from such frivolities as future children. The person who entered was his mother, brandishing a letter.

“Oh, it would be so pleasant if we were to celebrate with the Chirnitsyns this year, would you not agree with me, Coco?” asked his mother, sitting down by the harpsichord.

Kolya’s hands paused, and Lyuba looked up at him with large, questioning eyes. “With the Chirnitsyns? Are you certain? It is a time for family, Maman…”

“Oh, but they are family, even if not through their blood! I have never been more certain in my life, my dear. I admit Tatyana Pavlovna may have coerced me–” here she displayed the note from the Chirnitsyns again– “but would it not be nice to spend Christmas with kind people such as them? You like young Mariya Alexeyevna, is that not so? C’est une fille astucieuse! I am sure she would not mind the company of my darling Coco.”

Kolya quite disagreed—in fact, he was positive that Marie despised him at the very least as much as he despised her, but he said nothing of the sort. Of course. Marie was a wonderful girl.

“Of course. She is a wonderful girl, Maman.”

The Countess sighed happily. “Oh, it shall be delightful, just wait and see. Do you have a costume planned yet? You must get to that, one should never dawdle.”

Kolya clicked his tongue. “You know very well I will dawdle for as long as I like.”

His mother laughed. “Yes, well, that is not how I raised you. All your father’s fault, I would assume.”

“Oh, apropos of that, where is Father? Over and over I have reminded him to help me clear out Leonty’s bedroom, and yet we still have not done it. It is ridiculous.”

“Ah, I left him in his study. Why do you want to clear out your uncle’s bedroom now? It’s useful for storage.”

“For Vasya. Of course it’s no urgent matter, but she will eventually need her own bedchamber.”

“Oh. Of course, for your sister,” said the Countess. Any mention of her daughter always provoked the same reaction from her. Kolya wasn’t sure what it was. Confusion, maybe. Fatigue. She rose, forgetting entirely about the letter which she had laid on the harpsichord. “I’ll leave you.”

The door closed. Kolya sighed, looking to the ceiling which he had known for twenty years.

Furniture entered and left the room, walls changed, floors changed. New portraits were hung and old ones discarded in uncle Leonty’s bedroom. But the ceiling did not change. The ceiling went forgotten.

Perhaps Kolya, the one whom everyone remembered, was the only person to care for the ceiling. He was the only one to notice it. The ceiling was still too young to understand why its family forgot about it. It was far above everyone else, far up in the heavens, destined for greatness. And thus, no one could see it.

[forgetalltime]

“Do you know, brother? She still hasn’t responded,” Kolya spoke up, feigning some degree of nonchalance. Sasha took his attention from his cravat for a moment to give his brother a confused look.

“Who are you talking about now?”

“Sonya! She did not respond to the letter I sent last month, nor the letter from last week. If I knew no better I would think she is tired of me.”

“She came to her senses, then.”

“Don’t joke, don’t be stupid!” Kolya sighed. “It is a serious matter, Sashka, I worry for her.”

The evening passed most uneventfully. He hated to admit it, and he certainly would not wound his mother by telling her, but Kolya was sick of her parties. Each one was a terrible bore of its own kind, and none of the guests were anyone he even wanted to be with.

The youngest Chirnitsyna, Marie, she and her mother were there every time, and Kolya always found himself being left to speak to the daughter, who in his personal opinion was quite the unpleasant girl.

But he knew he was wrong. It only took a moment to realize—who was right? His mother, the angel, or he, the miserable wretch?