“The Volkonsky song. A lullaby. It was how the wolf princess hid her diamonds …” Dmitri whispered.
“Perhaps that’s why it was important for my father to be a poet,” Sophie said. “Although he may not have known why.”
She stared at the letter again, traced her finger over the strange letters. At the bottom, though, the letters of the Russian version of her own name. CO???,Sofya, Sophie.
“I need someone to help me learn Russian,” Sophie said. She looked at Dmitri’s kind, earnest face. “Will you help me?”
His face was open and relaxed. He nodded. But then almost immediately he turned away. “How can I? You are leaving us!”
Sophie held the letter in her hand.
What should she do? What should she do?
Masha had tied a bright scarf around her head in honor of Sophie’s leaving. She, her mother, and her grandmother had come up from the Under Palace to say good-bye. Sophie kissed Masha’s mother. Thebabushkastroked Sophie’s cheek.
“I feel I need to ask forgiveness from yourbabushka… and from you … I did a dreadful thing when I gave Anna Feodorovna the diamonds.”
Masha shook her head. “The diamonds brought her no happiness,” she whispered. “We knew that they would not help her.”
“I’m not sure she understood happiness, really,” Sophie said quietly. “She thought if she was rich, she would be happy.”
Masha shook her head again. “You have to have diamonds in your soul to be happy.”
“The general has them now,” Sophie said. “Perhaps they’ll bring him better luck.”
“Volkonsky diamonds not like that.” She was quiet for a moment.
“What do you mean?”
“They have to be given with love. They cannot be bought or sold.” She squeezed Sophie’s hand in hers. “This the way of the Volkonskys.”
“But they’re his now.” Sophie felt exasperated with herself. “I had them … and I lost them.”
“Better lost,” Masha whispered, “if having them hardens the heart.”
“What areyougoing to do, Masha?” Sophie said sadly. “You and Dmitri and your mother andbabushka?”
Masha looked up, trying to smile, but her eyes were wet. She sniffed and wiped her nose on her sleeve.
“We’ll watch,” she said. “We’ll wait. For our wolf princess.”
Sophie ran down the steps to join the others, who were already tucked under their bearskin rug on a newvozok, this one smaller than the sleigh swallowed by the ice, and painted a cheerful, defiant red.Dmitri didn’t look at her. She knew he was upset about her leaving. She mustn’t cry; she didn’t want to embarrass him or herself.
The bells of thevozokrang out as Viflyanka snorted through the snow. They wound around the birch forest, Sophie unable to stare at the trees without feeling a pull of deep sadness. How long would it be before she could return? Her whole life she had dreamed of having a home, and now, having found that place, she had to leave it. She wished she could have said good-bye to the wolves, but was grateful that they were out in the forest, hunting, as they should after their months of confinement. No wolf garden would ever be large enough for them, nor any meat — however expertly chopped by Dmitri — be as enticing as their own kill.
Dmitri stared straight ahead. She sensed his disappointment in her, as if she were betraying him for a second time: the first time by giving the diamonds to Anna Feodorovna, and now by leaving him and his family behind.
Marianne and Delphine must have realized how difficult it was for Sophie. They sat under the bearskin, not speaking.
The white train was waiting, steam pouring from the funnel. Ivan helped the girls down and opened the carriage door, checking his watch. Then he turned to Sophie and offered his hand to help her into the train. “Princess,” he murmured.
“Give me a moment,” she whispered. She traced the lines of the wolf’s head painted on the carriage door. The open jaw, the sharp teeth no longer looked frightening to her; instead they gave her a feeling of reassurance. It told her something about herself, the girl who had never known anything about who she was or where she came from: If you were a Volkonsky, you fought like a wolf to protect what was dear to you.
She stood on the tiny platform. The snow was falling lightly. She looked into the woods, those trees she had dreamed about so often. And through them, now, she could see the wolf pack. They loped toward her, each one in its favored position. They seemed so much a part of the forest and the snow that they could not exist in any other place, she thought. Viflyanka whinnied, but Dmitri calmed him. The wolves hung back.
Vladimir and Sofya, she realized in that clear moment, had done so much — given up their lives — to ensure there would one day be a Volkonsky on this estate. And now she felt as if she were letting them down. They had died to save their child, but she, their great-granddaughter, was going back to London. Why? Perhaps she didn’t deserve to be a Volkonsky after all. Perhaps she was a coward.
The forest and the snow and the wolves seemed to spin around her. It was just a moment, a single moment in her life, and yet it was like looking at everything through the drops of the chandelier. Everything was contained in it. She wanted to be brave. She wanted to trust in what she was feeling.
