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the end of these long evenings, he would return down the hall which led to his quarters, unfastening
the cuffs of his tuxedo as he walked, loosening his tie and waist sash, sometimes even slipping out of
his shining black shoes and carrying them, dangling lightly from his fingertips. The hall was long, but,
when he finally got to the end, for the first time in his life he had a room of his own.
Konstantin was introduced to Tatiana the first week he came to the palace. Filip had just been
granted his most recent promotion, and Tatiana had thus been invited to join the tsarina’s court of
ladies. She had learned with a remarkable swiftness, despite her utter lack of experience with
dance. There is not much waltzing in a slaughterhouse.
Theirs was not a case of love at first sight or even at twentieth sight. Nor did they have that
sort of instant antipathy that often masks sexual attraction. Instead they began with a matter-of-fact
appraisal of their role in each other’s new life: She must learn to dance and he must teach her.
Tatiana could not have named the precise day when she became aware that her excitement about the
next lesson might truly be an excitement at seeing her dance master. Konstantin understood only in
hindsight that at some point he had begun to put on his best shirt on the days he was to instruct her, that
he took the time to rub powder into his palms before he led her to the floor, that he remembered her
favorite waltz song and would request the pianist play it for their practice sessions. But a passion
that develops over time has a unique sort of magic - it comes not with bells and fireworks but rather
with the slow awareness that assumptions once taken for granted are now no longer true. Falling in
love slowly is like awakening one morning to find that the sun has risen in the west.
They laughed about it later, their initial disregard. Konstantin’s tutelage had been polite but
firm; her willingness to practice - even on five days a week when he had suggested only three - had
been nothing more than conscientious. Tatiana’s position in the tsarina’s court would require her to
learn many skills, and she had been relieved to find that at least one of them came easily to her.
Her talent was a relief to him as well. He was one of many dance masters and eager to make
his mark. Because he was the most recent addition to the royal contingent, he had been saddled with
the most hopeless of the Romanov ladies - the tsar’s squirming young daughter Xenia, the ancient and
arthritic Princess Louisa, and Ella, who looked as if she should be able to dance like an angel, but
whose reserve made her awkward on the ballroom floor. These were women for whom no amount of
instruction would improve their musicality or grace, women destined to clatter their heels to the
marble floors with each step, to clutch his shoulder as if they were drowning, to grow dizzy in the
spinning and thus require their partner to constantly step in to smilingly rescue them from their own
ineptitude. Konstantin feared that if people judged him by the progress of these three pupils he
would be sent back to Siberia on the next train.