Enchantments

Enchantments
Kathryn Harrison

From one of the most admired literary voices of our time, a magical, riveting story of doomed love, set at the fall of Russia's last Tsar.St. Petersburg, 1917: as the New Year dawns, a diver pulls the murdered body of Rasputin, the Mad Monk, from the icy waters of the Neva River. Hours later, his daughters are taken to the Tsar's palace, where the Tsarina makes a shocking request: would Masha, 18, take on her father's role as healer at the sickbed of the Tsarevitch Alyosha? Shaken, Masha agrees to do what she can for the young prince, haunted as she is by questions about her father's powers and her future in a country accelerating toward political apocalypse.Two months later, the Bolshevik Revolution forces the Tsar to abdicate, and the whole royal family is placed under arrest in the Alexander Palace. Trapped together in increasingly harsh living conditions, Masha and Alyosha find themselves taking increasing solace in one another's company. The two teenagers, with radically different experiences of Russia, of Rasputin, and of Alyosha's parents' unlucky reign, create a private realm of magic and of love, as Masha introduces the young Tsarevitch to a wild and beautiful land he will never live to rule.An unusual love story, stitched delicately into the rich tapestry of Russian history, Enchantments brings to life the final days of Rasputin and the Romanovs. It is a breathtaking tour-de-force by one of our most acclaimed writers.

Kathryn Harrison

Enchantments

A Novel

Dedication

For Joyce

Epigraph

The eyes those silent tongues of love.

—CERVANTES

Contents

Cover (#ulink_88e74752-416c-5193-a0a8-51ef7a29e498)

Title Page

Dedication

Epigraph

The Hole in the Ice

A Red Ribbon

House Arrest

The Old Guard and the New

The Tea-Tray Toboggan

Handsome Alyosha

The Virgin in the Silver Forest

A Stately Pleasure Dome

The Poplar Grove

A Sunny Child

The Wayward Hand

A Demon in Her Womb

These Things Can’t Happen

Ill Omens

Holy Rollers

The Wild West Show

Russian Roulette

Chicanery

Travel by Combustion

A Prophecy

Spiderweb

Stitches Large and Small

Hothouse

City of Light

Exile

Katya

Last Rites

A Bureaucratic Adventure

That Hollywood Bear

It Was Magic

The Window in the Egg

Tickets to an Execution

The Four Brothers and the Four Sisters

Acknowledgments

About the Author