A Somnolent Presence

Letter I

To Countess Ludmila Ermakova, St. Petersburg.

Sevastopol, September 10th, 1989.

My Dearest Wife,

After a long and ponderous passage, the Sokol has finally reached the ports of Sevastopol. Here now she lies, among other frivolous and friendly frigates, sails loose and hanging sleepily whilst a general air of slumber prevails over the coast. It is, as you know, a time of inactivity for the Black Sea Fleet, yet a presence must always be maintained in all corners of our great Empire. A seaman’s duty lies forever amidst the high masts of his ship and so this poor servant must for a while be separated from you, my lovely wife. Yet, although my feet stroll the docks of this fair city, overlooking our impressive fleet, my heart and mind lies with you in stately St. Petersburg.

It seems so long ago since that last night at the Winter Palace! I remember it well - the torch lights playing along the Neva as the guests arrived for the ball. Already it has the surreal quality of a lucid dream, figures drenched in exaggerated light and you waltzing in my arms, one of many silk clad sprites spiraling sedately through the ball room. Was it not sensational to dance as Tchaikovsky conducted the orchestra? Call it national pride but I daresay his musical talents surpass those of that highly praised Austrian. Just as well that Russia now takes front stage in the cultural spotlight of the globe!

The firework display that closed the evening was as breathtaking as the music, all those fiercely burning sparks ripping apart the night sky, reflecting on the Neva’s glassy surface. I can still feel you shuddering with a sort of frightened excitement as the cannons exploded, commencing the brilliant light show over the water. It surely cannot be denied that the Romanovs know how to entertain a crowd. I overheard a German consul say - albeit grudgingly - that the balls at the Winter Palace put those in Berlin to shame. What a source of pride that must be for our Tsar Alexander, considering the long standing animosity between him and the Kaiser.

In a few months time, I shall be able to take leave and come be with you once more. We are young still and one may hope for many more nights of dancing before our feet become marooned in the straights of old age. In the meantime, I hope you shall enjoy yourself without me and keep me well abreast of your social activities so that I may not parish here from tedium but live vicariously through you.

Alas, dear friend, I must bid you adieu for now to attend my duties in this harbor. Remember that no minute passes but that you are on my mind and so I will end this letter with some lines of famous prose, which are undoubtedly familiar to you:

When tired, in my lone nights,

I lie down to pause --

And see your beautiful sad eyes,

And hear your merry voice.

And so I do, Ludochka. So I do.

Yours Truly, Husband and Servant,

Rear Admiral Ruslan Ermakov.

Letter II

To Rear Admiral Ruslan Ermakov, Sevastopol.

St. Petersburg, October 21st, 1889.

My Dear Husband,

I promptly apologize that I only now set myself down to the business of replying to your missive. I wish I had some excuse for my absent minded behavior, yet the truth is not so exciting. I have been applying myself tediously to the running of this household, which is no easy feat with you away. Mamma and my two sisters have come to visit from Moscow and it has been very tiring indeed trying to keep them entertained. There have been no balls of the sort which you remember so fondly and just as well for I cannot imagine going to one without you. You lead so gracefully in the dance that I become a flagship in your arms, one tossed and turned by the swooning sway of the waves. Whoever said a sailor’s legs are heavy upon land must be a liar!

Mamma has been overbearingly obsessive over my health, anxiously hoping that I am perhaps with child. However, we were but so newly wed before duty called you away from me that there was not much time to fulfill our obligations. Being the eldest daughter - and the first to be wed - much expectation is placed upon my shoulders about progeny. Yet, would it be selfish of me to say that I am happy to wait for children? I have only just turned one-and-twenty, and although you are my senior by a good decade, I feel like we both have time enough for family in the future. I would so very much like to enjoy more dancing before hand!

In other news, there have been rumors of a new bout of illness in the city. Some think it is the Cholera again, yet there has been no confirmation of this. So far no one we know has been afflicted, although there was a warning issued to remain indoors. I hardly think that it is much to worry about myself. Very likely it is another peasant illness affecting those less fortunate and I see no reason to keep apart from social life, especially with the new ballet season upon us. Speaking of which, there is a performance set for tonight at the Mariinsky Theatre - a French ballet, Giselle. Can you believe that this is the first time I will be seeing it? It has been so widely popular here and everywhere else in Europe. Mamma, Eugenia and I are going to attend a reception at the Famenko’s before hand. Between you and I, Mamma is hoping to begin matchmaking for Eugenia, so this will be a good social introduction for her.

I wish that I had your flare for poetics, dearest Ruslan, so that the ending of my letter could sound less simple. However, you are the romantic one of us two and will have to settle for my more bland declarations of love! I am now and always

Your Loyal Wife,

Ludmila Ermakova.

Letter III

To Countess Ludmila Ermakova, St. Petersburg

Sevastopol, November 4th, 1889.

My Darling,

I wish I could claim that the sea is as clear as azure on this day but, alas, this is not so. The sun has been shrouded for weeks and the wind is anything but faint, whistling between the stripped masts along the harbor. The start of November has brought with it a Northern chill that reminds me of home and makes me long to look into your eyes, grey as the tempests on this Autumnal sea - twin storms wherein alone I can find peace.

I apologize if I am being overly dramatic. In this city there is not much to do but ponder and be morbidly romantic. Several decades later and Sevastopol is still recovering from the effects of the wars, making cultural amusements few and far between. It is a shame I missed seeing Giselle with you, as it is the most delightful of spectacles. I hope that you enjoyed the performance and that Eugenia had a lovely time at her first reception. She is a well mannered and soft-spoken young lady and I am certain your mother will have an easy time finding her match.

I am, however, concerned with this illness you mention as there have been reports of it here in recent days. It must have spread and strengthened in ferocity since the time you sent your letter. I have kept to staying indoors myself, and I suggest you and your family do the same for the time being. It is said that the peasantry has been dropping dead like poisoned rats back home and that the upper classes have not been entirely immune to it. So I must beg of you to please take care of yourself, Ludochka!

On a more cheerful note, I have put in a request to travel to St. Petersburg as an envoy in December and am currently waiting on approval from seniority. I hope that the scare of this ailment diminishes by then. As it may be, this letter may only briefly outpace me to your loving arms. I am forever

Your Loving Husband,

Ruslan Ermakov.

Letter IV:

To Rear Admiral Ruslan Ermakov, Sevastopol.

St. Petersburg, November 20th, 1889.

My Dearest Husband,

This time my fool hand will be quick to reply in earnest, as opposed to keeping you waiting. My hope is that this letter could reach you well before December with one simple, if perhaps cruel, request:

Do not come here!

I have been so wrong to dismiss the rumors of this illness. After that fateful night at the reception and ballet, many of our friends have been stricken down with this very ailment - which now we know is called the Influenza. The two young Famenko sons have since passed due to this deathly sickness, their parents still lying in silent pallor on the deathbed. The Nikitov and Luckyaninko households have also been consumed, along with several other gentry houses of your acquaintance.

Yet I am afraid this is not the worst news. We have been lucky to escape the first bout of Influenza and for the most part have stayed indoors. That is until this last Saturday past, which was the anniversary of my grandfather’s death. Mamma insisted on going to church for commemoration and although both Eugenia and I tried to convince her otherwise, she would not hear it. She claimed that it would be a sin not to order a service for his soul and that God would not strike down the faithful. She went out, along with a reluctant Eugenia, whilst Ulyana and I stayed behind.

By the end of the night when they returned, they were both hot with fever and the delirium overtook their minds on the next day. Even now, they lie as though encumbered by some intoxicating presence, sweat drenched bodies straining with the most violent cough. As of yet, it has not afflicted me, but I fear the worst for both myself and them.

And so again I beg you - do not come here.

Sincerely,

Your Loving Wife,

Ludmila Ermakova.

Letter V:

To Rear Admiral Ruslan Ermakov, Sevastopol.

St.Petersburg, November 25th, 1889.

My Ruslan!

Again I do beseech you not to come and pray that this second letter will add weight to that first.

I am so sorry for these garbled lines, the words escape me now, dancing away from my trembling pen. You spoke sometime of lucid dreams and until now I do not think I knew just what you meant. The candle is burning brightly and its flame has warped around the edges the fabric of my reality. The sickness has me too now. In its grasp I lay for long, lethargic hours, lanced through by internal heat. Before my vision flounced fevered memories of times gone by, like dancers in the ballroom or gliding moths before a flame.

I do not know how long I lay like this, entrenched in madness: a sad invalid, immobile and deranged. So many long years passed in the blink on an eye. And then, amidst it all, came suddenly a clarity. I came back to myself, as though a traveler returning from a foreign land, to find my body ravished and diseased. Within the deserts of my soul I wandered long and so it seemed that every ugly thing in my nature has been exposed to me. Every mean remark or unpleasant thought, each moment of disobedience and rebellion, they confronted me there as I lay shaking weakly. But in suffering I was redeemed of sin, and pain promptly purged me. Then, rising from the bed, I felt awfully calm, although every bit of me shook from fever and my lungs began to burn from the strain of coughing.

The house was quiet as a tomb as I stumbled from my room. It had been days since I could check on Mamma and my sisters and a sudden urge beset me to find out how they were. No servants met me and even as I called out, no one answered. It then occurred to me that they too were likely thrashing in the grip of sickness, consumed by it like their poor masters. Upon reaching Mamma’s door, I entered slowly, the wooden floor creaking beneath my bare, hot feet.

They were all there. Mamma and Eugenia lay together upon the great bed and Ulyana reclining on the sofa by the window. I knew it before I came near them that they had been gone a while and all that was left was a somnolent presence lurking behind their glassy eyes. A light moan caught my attention and, looking over, I saw Ulyana stir. I came and whispered to her, running my fingers through the child’s hair. She did not reply and when her eyelids flickered open, there was no recognition there. If I had come back from wandering in my soul’s desert, the road to her, it seems, was closed. My hands, of their own accord, retrieved a pillow and brought it to her face.

And now I am here and there is another road ahead of me. I feel delirium set in once more just as the last lines of this letter form beneath my pen. It seems I cannot wait for you and now that I remember it, no servant here is left to carry this final missive. Here then it shall await you between the frozen fingers of

Your Loving Ludmila.

Letter IV:

To Countess Ludmila Ermakova, St. Petersburg.

Moscow, November 24th, 1889.

To My Dear Wife,

This shall be a quick message with none of my romantic flare. I received an order for a quick departure to deliver important documents to St. Petersburg. With the sea being dangerous this time of year, I left the Sokol in Sevastopol and took a private coach. A necessary stop in Moscow for a few days was imminent, but from here I thought I should inform you to expect me soon. The rapid nature of my departure meant, unfortunately, that I failed to receive any other letters from you. However, seeing you shall make up for it tenfold.

I am told that this Influenza sickness has really been rampant in Russia, not to mention in other parts of Europe and even the United States. I have been lucky to avoid it and can only pray that my darling remains in good health. I am delightedly looking forward to seeing you in a few days time, my dear Ludochka.

Your Loving Husband,

Ruslan Ermakov.