Dancing with Bears by Michael Swanwick

you with my own two hands.”
    The room fell silent. Then Gulagsky said, with heavy emphasis, “You have committed an unspeakable breach of hospitality.”
    Arkady opened his mouth to speak, but Darger, quick-thinking as ever, clapped a hand over it.
    “Oh, you want to tell me your side of this story, do you? As if I didn’t already know,” Gulagsky said furiously. “Well, let me tell it to you instead: An inexperienced boy falls for a woman better than he will ever deserve. She’s young and foolish and a virgin to boot. All of nature is on his side. But who’s on hers? Not he! She is promised to another, greater and richer than he can ever hope to be. If he so much as touches her, I have been reliably told, she will burn. So if he wished the best for the young lady, he would keep his silence and leave her ignorant of his feelings for her. But he does not. So for all his passion, he doesn’t really care for her, does he? Only about his own sentiments. And what is he sentimental about? Why, himself, of course.”
    The boy struggled to free himself from Darger’s grip.
    “Well, this shall not be. By God, I swear—”
    “Sir, do not be hasty!” Surplus cried.
    “If anybody so much as touches one of the Pearls while they are under my roof—even if it is only with the tip of one finger, I swear that with my own two hands I will—”
    “Think!” Surplus urged him. “ Think before you make any rash oaths, sir.”
    But now, unexpectedly, Koschei placed himself directly before Gulagsky, who angrily tried to shove him aside. Unheeding, the strannik seized his arms in a grip of iron and without visible effort lifted him bodily off the floor. Ignoring Gulagsky’s astonishment, he said, “You were about to swear that you would kill your own son if he crosses your will. That is the same oath that Abraham swore—only you are not so holy a man as he. God does not so favor you.”
    He restored the man to the floor. “Now control yourself, and do not add blasphemy and filicide to the myriad sins which doubtless already blacken your soul.”
    Gulagsky took ten ragged breaths. Then, somewhat unevenly, he said. “You are right. You are right. To my shame, I was going to promise something rash. Yet it must be said: If anyone in this village so much as touches one of the Pearls, he will be exiled—”
    “For at least a year,” Surplus said, before his host could add “forever.”
    Gulagsky’s face twisted, as if he had just swallowed something foul. But he managed to say, “For at least a year.”
    He sat back down at the table.
    Surplus felt a tension in himself ease. It was not good to allow absolutes to enter into one’s life. They had a habit of turning on one.

    At that very instant, the door at the top of the stairs opened, and a Russian woman appeared in it. Gulagsky stood, chair toppling behind him, mouth open in astonishment. Then he recovered himself. “Lady Zoësophia. Forgive me. For a second, I thought you were…well, never mind.”
    “In turn, you will, I hope, forgive me for borrowing these clothes, which I found in a trunk in the attic, and which I presume belonged to your late wife.” Zoësophia glanced down at her admittedly admirable figure. She wore a long and sturdy red skirt that brushed against the top of her oxblood boots, a russet-and-gold embroidered jacket over a white blouse, and kid gloves long enough that not a speck of wrist showed. An umber scarf was tied so artfully about her head that it took a second glance to realize that beneath it, a second, flesh-colored kerchief concealed her mouth and nose. “They fit me perfectly. She must have been a very beautiful lady.”
    From an ordinary woman, such words would have sounded conceited. But not from a Pearl.
    “Yes,” Gulagsky said, almost choking. “She was.”
    “I thank you for their use. I must go out now, and I did not wish to draw undue attention to myself by wearing outlandish clothing.”
    “Where, if I may ask, are you