What is the story The Firebird's Nest about?

Answer 1

Mr. Maharaj, a powerless prince, has brought his American bride-to-be to his palace in India. There is a terrible drought. Mr. Maharaj talks of the firebird which "makes its nest in a secret place." Yesterday, in a dry water hole, a woman ignited. "The combustibility of women is a source of resigned wonder to the men." There is gossip about the American: "She is rich ...she will bring sons, and rain. No, she is poor ...the drought is in her body ...she is barren." They pass a wedding party. The groom is an old man, but the bride is young. In New York, Mr. Maharaj and the American ate an Indian lunch high above the park. He said their countries were alike. She "had a reputation in financial circles as a person who could ...conjure up, for her favored projects, the monetary nourishment they required. A 'rainmaker.'" She took him to the Opera and seduced him. His palace "crumbles, stinks." In her hot room, alone, she thinks of home, cries dry tears, and sleeps. Mr. Maharaj's sister, over sixty, but the greatest dancer in the state, says she is dancing to ward off the firebird. The American says that must be an old wives' tale. Miss Maharaj says, "Here there are no old wives' tales. Alas, there are no old wives." That night, there is an extravaganza in the American's honor. The prince reveals, bitterly, that he has conjured up this luxury beyond his means so that she can get money. She tells him she is pregnant. That night, she wakes to Miss Maharaj at her bedside. She says the prince won't let her leave because the villagers believe a baby boy will break the drought. If she does, he will keep the child. She feels a need for action. She begins to see through Mr. Maharaj. All he has is water. Again and again she awakes with Miss Maharaj murmuring: "once the men have spent their dowries, then the firebird comes. ...Do you know how many brides he has had?" The American confronts the prince: "Is it true you burn your brides?" In a fury, he brings her to his sister's dance class, and interrogates the students. When he asks his sister how many brides he has had, she says, "She is the first." The bride's health fails, and Miss Maharaj nurses her. She tells of a great prince whose bride retained her youth and beauty as he faded. Jealous, he burned the fortress, and both died. The prince was transformed into a giant bird, made of flames, which turns women to ashes at their husbands' command. The bride's illness recedes and she decides to take the child to America. She will grant the father free access, and make trips East. In the dead of night, a scratch armada of motor vehicles assembles. Miss Maharaj's women, with weapons, are piling in. The American goes with them. They pass through a ruined stone arch "into fiction." The old bridegroom is there, looking murderous, his young wife at his side. Facing them is Mr. Maharaj. In the background are the male villagers. The women rush in, shrieking. "The sister faces the brother. ...it is an opera without supertitles ...Miss Maharaj command[s] her brother, what started between our parents stops now ...his body turns to fire ...his words hang in the air as the firebird's breath scorches Miss Maharaj, burns her to a cinder, and then turns upon the dotard's shrieking bride. I am the firebird's nest." The American "crashes upon Mr. Maharaj like a wave, and the angry dancers pour behind her ...she feels the frontiers of her body burst and the waters pour out ...drowning the firebird and its nest ...carrying away the old dotard and his murderous fellows, cleansing the region of its horrors, its archaic tragedies, of life." It is reported that Mr. Maharaj and his sister were killed in the flood caused by an unexpected downpour. The American woman, Mr. Maharaj's fiancee, is flying home; her baby will be born in America: "She caresses her swelling womb. Increasing, she is both fire and rain."