"The Rose of the Winds"

A great feast is gathering at the home of Countess Anna Ivanovna Starintseva, the "Rose of the Winds" mansion. In the living room nervously walks Anna Ivanovna Starintseva - a woman of extraordinary fortitude, but at the same time a gentle and vulnerable soul. Her looks seemingly simple, but behind this simplicity lurks a mixture of passion and divine obedience, which in itself is already wonderful. She looks as if to the bone undresses a man, and stands in front of her naked soul. The color of her eyes to describe - so it pulls, swamp, to enter and get stuck. She is about forty years old, of medium height and build, far from the ideals of her time, but at the same time everything about her is perfect. Her housekeeper Marie, a single close friend, is a Frenchwoman, has the mind to learn the language to match, but the body and face from Ryazan, from the village, the chic in it is, and having met both can be confused at first who is who. Marie is so tight at the waist that it is tight to exhale, and wished still not to become like her sister, Proskoveya. The first admirer peeks through the drawing-room window.

A Ivanovna: - Mari, was it worth celebrating like this? The Prince didn't deign to come, his wife has gout. Everything's out of place, everything's gone wrong today. He's wiping his forehead with a silk handkerchief. And it's hot, get me some lemonade.

Marie: - Oh, and you want to convince me that your name day isn't an occasion?

Anna Ivanovna: - You can count the occasions on the fingers every day in this wilderness. What's not an occasion for our people, a church calendar? Vaughan is covered with coal, every day they celebrate for Elijah the Prophet, Agafia, the saints, and the righteous, and yet they drink more. Am I wrong, eh? The Countess ran to Marie like a child and put her arms around her shoulders and whispered: "I am hot, Marie, hot.

Marie: - And what is your grace hot? I would have powdered your cheeks red with blush myself, but I think there is someone who will light them with kisses like apples on high. Will lemonade help?

Anna Ivanovna: - Well, you're an ugly girl, do you think there's one? The one who shares my day and my night. I see more and more faces, suffocating tails, unfaithful words, and I want Marie. Anna whirls Marie around the room:-I want Marie, to sing, to dance, and joke, and swing, Marie, so carved, wooden, big, to the sky and to the stars.

Marie: -You must have some lemonade. What are you years old for? I look at you, you're a girl. The Count has been waiting for you since morning. You've been tormenting him for two years. He's a good-looking man.

Anna Ivanovna: - Marie's torment makes the heart grow fonder. And I will fasten a brooch to my breast, and I will wait prayerfully for those who honour me with attention on my name day. Marie goes out for lemonade and returns, announcing the arrival of Count Anton Ivanovich Deltsov, a man of fifty-five, tall and eagle-eyed, with the kind of pride to which legends are written, his face plays with a smile.

The Count, entering the drawing-room: - Annushka, my happiness. He tries to put his arms around her shoulders. Anna gently breaks free, hitting the Count´s fingers with a fan.

Anna Ivanovna: - He is insufferable! No matter what you say, he keeps dragging you to the ugly business. Anna Ivanovna: Laughs.

The Count: - Me? He looks astonished and his face burns with righteous indignation.

 Anna Ivanovna: - You.

The Count: - But allow me, I have offered you my hand and you refuse every time!

 Anna Ivanovna: - Your mind is so non-pragmatic that I am not surprised at your indignation. Do you think I should bend over and beg you for a favour like a fluttering doe, and perhaps apologize? But just from this duty of mine I do not see that behind your soul, and also behind your hands stretches a network of deeds, you hide them, but their consequences are very loud. Of course you can take me to the nail for my novels, for the passions which they fear in heaven, but I do not deny my weaknesses. And it was not I who offered you my hand, but on the contrary.

Count: - But I did not have... 

Anna interrupted him: - I have not! And don't think it's possible to have! You, look deeper, wish for good in my soul, shower me, so to speak, with mercy, and in answer at once Yes! Yes? It will not be so. You make love's ode in your eyes, but behind your shoulders you whip, you gossip, so hard, that no one shall lay hands on your Anna. I have eyes, I see everything, but you shouldn't do that. Today's woman is passionate, with sense, and with dowry, a sweeter gift with raisins than your new-fangled beauties. So you, Count, with your voice, are still picking up suitors for me, and with your desire to humiliate my name, you turn heaven away from yourself. Do you want to tell me what this is all about? Is it for a joke? How is it not for the carnal that you have come here? To slander those to whom you yourself have reported. To discourage those who know you and report you to me, and in the moment of my weakness open their arms, and "boon" on my back like a whip. It will not work, Count, it will not work. It will not. The count, understanding the absurdity of this conversation, decided to change the subject to something more convenient for him.

Count: - You believe in yours, Anna. You can't prove my love. Perhaps I intended to eliminate my rivals in a strange way for you. Let us leave it alone while we talk of something pleasant, or else your admirers will swoop down, and the chief of them. Anna Ivanovna, taking the interlocutor under her arm: -Who's in charge? Who are you talking about?

Count: -Don't you know?

Count: -Don't you know, coquette? Alexei Stavropolsky. I have not yet understood what kind of man he is. Dressed simply, but speaks quite brazenly, with aplomb. Like he's got a lot of connections in high places. Young, hot, obnoxious with his appearance everywhere. Like the devil out of the snuffbox appears in all the places I go, and invariably mentions you.

Anna Ivanovna blushed: «Does he speak kindly of me?

The Count: - Which is strange. You refused him the grace of coming to your house.

The Countess: -I refused him, I had my reasons.

At that moment Anna Ivanovna's admirer enters the drawing-room.

Anna Ivanovna, would you be so kind as to receive him?

He hands the Countess a le

what is this?

Worshipful man: - I sent you flowers the other day, but I have orders, I know it was not given by you, not to give you anything. And they've done a strange thing to my basket. Osip, your groom took it to the back outhouse, and put something in it. He crumpled the flowers, the scoundrel! I went up and saw it in the flowers. Perhaps my foolishness is not to your heart, but in the papers may be something important.

Anna opened the envelope, her face changed with every line. Now a smile played on it, then in a second she ran away, and her eyebrow raised in surprise. – Anton Ivanovich, and you are kind. Come over for dinner. I have urgent business, I must ask you to leave me. The visitors went out, and Anna lay down on the sofa in the drawing-room. The sofa was behind a heavy portier and hid the hostess from anyone who entered the living room. Such an idea – to separate part of the space came to her father, when the ladies were fainting because of tight corsets, and they were helped here, behind the portier. Anna half-lounged on the sofa, it was obvious that her thoughts were sad, she herself did not notice how she fell asleep from nervous tension.

She awoke just in time for dinner from a conversation.

Two voices were heard, both male. One belonged to the Count, the other to Alexei Stavropolsky. Anna Ivanovna looked out from behind the curtains a little, and listened.

Earl: - You spoke to me not long ago of the riot of feeling in your breast and of my unworthy behaviour, and of my happiness to love her.

The Earl lifted his hands to heaven- Her, an angel in demonic form, drawing to debauchery, and sharpening our weaknesses with his heavenly voice. And this is all an obnoxious mask. The mask of prosperity.

Myself! The Count struck himself in the chest with his fist, he himself saw how her eyes lit up from the message.

It does not belong to you or to me. Neither matter and pleasures, nor carnal lust, though she rules it! There is something hidden, something dreadful, that I wonder at, and from which I cannot find room. It will be, it will be, mark my words!

Alexei Stavropolsky, smoking a cigar: - Is this what you sent for? What's not to love? Strange man, you speak of the divine, you hang epithets, and you yourself understand that it's the heart, the heart we are talking about?

Do I care as much as you – what kind of writing is sent there, and who is the author?

I am interested in her pain, why she is sad, why do not accept flowers than her tender soul suffers. What fear is there? Love reigns there. And you will not see it!

Count: - I'll cease your appeals to my honour. I am of a different age, I have power, but yours is not sweet to her. I know, I feel, it will be the descent of our race from the pedestal in another form!

Write it down for yourself – she is a demon, a tempter of lambs.

Alexei laughed:

- Yes, if so! To serve her I have promised, and I will not refuse. For the sake of her peace. Are you a lamb?

Fear God, it suits you better as a sacrificial bull.

Count:

- Don't you dare! Go away from here!

Alexei:

-With great pleasure, only you with me too!

Anna Ivanovna's housekeeper rushed into the living room, panting, her hat pulled down.

Marie: - Aexei, Count, I can't find my mistress! I came back from the market, she's gone, she's not in the garden, she's not in the house. She's gone.

The men went out into the garden to help in the search. Anna was alone in the living room, came out from behind the curtains and said aloud: - I have made up my mind. To be as I think.

And what do you think, will Anna Ivanovna choose Alexei, or will pride and prejudice incline her heart in favor of the count?