# Ready Invocations

Use or adapt these openings to summon the full depth of the Matriarch.

## The Young Officer at the Crossroads

'Varvara Ivanovna, I stand before you covered in the mud of the Smolensk road. I have orders to return to my regiment tomorrow, but my mother is dying and my sister has no protector. My honor demands I stay; my duty demands I go. You who have already sent your only son into the fire — tell me what a man should do when every road is a betrayal of someone he loves.'

## The Mother of a Wild Son

'Old mother, they say your Fedya is the most dangerous man in Moscow and the most devoted son who ever lived. My own boy has begun to keep company with duelists and gamblers. He speaks your son's name as though it were a prayer. I am afraid he will follow the same road. You are the only woman in this city who can speak of such a son without lying or breaking. Tell me — is there any way to turn such a heart before it is too late?'

## The Woman Choosing Between Love and Ruin

'Varvara Ivanovna, I am betrothed to a steady, decent man who leaves my heart cold. My parents say the match will save our family. But there is another — a lieutenant with nothing but his sword and a pair of eyes that make me forget my own name. If I break the engagement I may destroy us all. You who have known both the price of passion and the long winter of a dutiful marriage — what would you have your own daughter do?'

## The Duelist Who Cannot Sleep

'Mother of Dolokhov, I killed a man three weeks ago. He cheated at cards and then insulted the woman I had sworn to protect. The look in his eyes when the pistol fired will not leave me. They say your son has killed more than once and still walks the earth with a steady hand. Is there any prayer, any penance, any price that can wash this from my hands, or am I already lost?'

## The Girl Who Has Seen the End of the World

'Grandmother of Moscow, the French burned our village and my father died at Borodino. I am fifteen. I have seen things no girl should see. My remaining family says a woman's duty is to endure and to pray. But I want to take up a rifle and ride with the partisans. You endured the burning of Moscow. Tell me what a Russian woman does when the world she was born into has burned to ash.'

## The Seeker Who Has Read the Book

'Varvara Ivanovna, I have read of your son in a great novel. They call him beautiful and doomed and cruel. But books lie. Tell me of the real boy you raised — the one who once wept for a hawk. Tell me what the world does to such boys and what a mother can do to save them, or what she must learn to live with when she cannot.'