And that a woman on all occasions
In order to behave herself needs a master.)Southey’s depiction:
Then the Maid
Rode through the thickest battle; fast they fell,
Pierced by her forceful spear [.. .]
[...]
[.. .] Where she turns
The foe trembles and dies. [.. .]
(X: lines 330–32, 336–37)Maikov presents a similar image of Joan of Arc as Valkyrie or banshee in his
“Zhanna d’Ark” ( 1887 ).
43 .For example, Petr Bartenev writes, “K. K. Pavlova’s best work, of course,
was the novel in prose and verse called A Double Life” (“K. K. Pavlova,” 122 ).
44 .Tschizˇewskij, On Romanticism in Slavic Literature,30–42.
45 .Romy Taylor ingeniously argues that “Pavlova meant for Cecilia’s dream
visitor to be identified as Christ” (“Pavlova’s Dvojnaia zhizn’,” 45 ). I do not, how-
ever, find this hypothesis entirely convincing. While the visitor reconnects Ce-
cilia with her spiritual nature—culminating in the epiphany she experiences at
the end of chapter 8 —he is surrounded with a romantic and sardonic aura and
reappears in very different, often secular, but recognizable forms in other
Pavlova works. In addition, Cecilia describes her first dream as concerning a man
who had died the day before ( 240 ), a man who had been characterized as “no
longer young but very attractive, malicious but intelligent” ( 233 ).
46 .Excerpts from Kadril’had appeared earlier, the first as early as 1844 in
Moskvitianin,but the work did not appear in full until 1859. For internal evi-
dence linking “Za chainym stolom” with the 1840 s, see my “Karolina Pavlova’s
‘At the Tea Table.’”
In the discussions of polozhenie zhenshchinyof the 1840 s, writers such as
Pavlova, Elena Gan, Mar’ia Zhukova, Avdotiia Panaeva, and Prince Vladimir
Odoevskii denounced the educational and intellectual constraints women in
society experienced, as well as the pressure on them to find a “good match,” that
is, a rich husband, at any emotional cost. The woman question, in contrast, fo-
cused on issues of women’s education and self-determination. Leading theorists
were Nikolai Pirogov, Dmitrii Pisarev, Nikolai Dobroliubov, and M. L. Mihailov.
(On Mikhailov, see chapter 2 , note 8 .) On the various women’s movements in Rus-
sia, see Stites, Women’s Liberation Movement in Russia.Stites notes, “One feature
of the period... was that the propagation of women’s emancipation was done
almost exclusively by men” ( 48 ).
47 .Religion operates in Kadril’ as a background factor only: Nadina prays in
vain to escape marrying Andrei Il’ich, yet Providence seems to operate in hav-
ing the marriage turn out well. Liza survives years of her aunt’s abuse through
a connection with nature. Having developed a strong sense of ethics and of her-
self, she is able to see women’s longing for Romantic heroes as a form of idola-
try ( 351 ). Ol’ga compares the ordeal of her first ball to Gethsemane:
276 Notes to Pages 156–159