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long.”<br />
Now this was an outrageous lie, perhaps the worst Tatiana has ever told. A single summer<br />
could be forever. Whenever she stopped to consider it, she was not sure she would survive nine<br />
weeks trapped in the villa of her husband. Konstantin suddenly sprang up, as if the same mental<br />
image had struck him at the same time, and began to dig once again into the pile of clothing.<br />
“I cannot seem to find my gypsy costume,” he said ruefully. “Which is a great tragedy for the<br />
mood of the day seems to require a gypsy. A snarling knife-wielding king of the gypsies, to be more<br />
precise.”<br />
“I suppose,” she said. This was possibly their last time together before she left, and Tatiana<br />
knew she was ruining everything with her mood. He was trying very hard to entertain her, was he<br />
not? He pulled on the rough woolen traveling robe of a monk – most likely Friar Lawrence from the<br />
abandoned Romeo and Juliet ballet - and turned toward with a wicked grin.<br />
“And what of this? Perverse enough to please you?”<br />
“Quite perverse. Shall I dress as a nun?”<br />
“No, too much the cliché. You shall be the grand lady who confesses her sins to the holy<br />
brother and then allows him to lead her into many more. Put your red dress back on. It’s beautiful,<br />
you know. I can hardly stand to see you in it.”<br />
“You must be careful. Someday when we are dancing your face will give you away.”<br />
“Or something shall.”<br />
She laughed and fished a single red sleeve from the pile of costumes, draping it across her chest<br />
like a military sash. She would give him this much, but she would not obey him completely. She was<br />
not in the mood for costumes today. “It’s the nicest dress I’ve ever worn.”<br />
“You’ll have nicer things yet when we’re in Paris.”<br />
She gave him a half-hearted smile. Paris, always Paris. Whenever things were tense between<br />
them, Konstantin would talk of Paris. The only place in the world where dancers were held in as<br />
high esteem as they were in St. Petersburg, so when he fantasized about them escaping, of course he<br />
would imagine them there. He claimed that he would get a job on the stage or perhaps instructing in<br />
the most exclusive academies. If he could teach hopeless Russian girls, then surely he could teach<br />
hopeless French ones, and then Tatiana would have dresses even more elaborate than the costumes of
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