(My translation continues, slowly but steadily. Until I have to return the book to the library. I may have to buy it.)
The Chapter In Which The True Heroine Of This Tale Does Not Yet Emerge
The Chapter In Which The True Heroine Of This Tale Does Not Yet Emerge
St. Petersburg, capital of the Russian Empire, 1893
The old man sat on a bench in front of the Winter Palais and fed the snowflakes.
Next to him lay a leather pouch, from which he now and then pulled out a handful of silver dust, and with a soft, joyful laugh, scattered it into the air before him. The wadded flakes that had fallen incessantly for days from the gray sky, swarmed to him from all directions equally and clustered themselves around the glistening clouds. When they reached the ground, the dust disappeared. The snowflakes had eaten it up.
The man was big and of a brawy build, despite his great age. Nobody had dared to claim the free space on the bench next to him. One could not see much of his weather-beaten features, as they were them behind a full bushy beard, as pale as the snow in the northern taiga. His eyes, amidst the weathered star-shaped creases, gleamed a crystal blue.
The man wore a coat of bear’s fur, and a snow-powdered cap, though he seemed to give them hardly any worth: the coat stood open, the headpiece was carelessly askew. The cold could not touch him.
“Good day, Father Frost.”
The man looked up. For the blink of an eye his smile faded, as someone had dared to disturb his feeding the snowflakes. But then he recognized the woman who had spoken to him. His smile returned.
“Lady Spellwell?” he asked. “Tamsin Spellwell?”
A woman stepped out of the driving snow like a motley specter. He cinnabar-colored coat reached all the way to the floor. The shoes that peeked out from underneath were pointed like tusks – and painted purple. On her head she wore a felt top hat that was much too big, squashed together like an accordian, as though someone had sat on it. A cheerfully colored scarf was looped many times around her neck, and yet still so long that the ends dangled almost to the ground.
Rainbow-bright as well was the closed umbrella that she held in her hand. In the other she carried a tattered leather suitcase.
She stayed standing in front of the bench and indicated the free place next to him with a nod of her head. “May I?”
Father Frost sealed the pouch shut and made it disappear under his coat. “It’s been a long time since someone has dared to sit next to me.”
Tamsin took a seat, shoved the umbrella through the handles of the suitcase, and placed both next to her on a snowbank. Then she laid her hands with their clumsy mittens in her lap. Under the battered brim of her hat, a few violet locks of hair lay like the tips of the feathers of an exotic bird.
“Do these people know who you are?” She indicated the few pedestrians that crossed the square in front of the Palais, faces bent low against weather. Horse-drawn sleighs glided past behind curtains of snow. No one took notice of the two curious shapes on the bench.
The bearish old man shook his head gloomily. “They feel something that keeps them away from me. But they do not recognize the truth. That was different, once upon a time.”
Tamsin thought that she smelled the scent of vodka on his breath. Dark times, she thought, when even the master of Russian winters mourns for the past. “Thank you for answering my call,” she said.
“Your father was a friend.” Father Frost hesitated a moment. “I am sorry, about what happened.”
She did not want to speak about her father’s end. Not enough time had passed since the death of Master Spellwell. “How long has it been snowing this hard?”
Father Frost looked at the sky. “Since a few days ago. And before you ask: No, I don’t have anything to do with it. And I can’t change it.”
She cursed softly. Only one reason came to her mind, why St. Petersburg would be plagued with such a snowfall.
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