Within St. Isaac's all was hushed and reverent, though gorgeous and magnificent in its adornments. The lights from the eight great candelabra threw their beams on the golds and purples, the reds and blues of the mosaic decorations, and flashed forth in myriad reflections from the jewels that gleamed and sparkled in the costumes of the Court ladies.
The ceremonial was of the grandest; the Metropolitan, vested in cloth of gold, entered by the central door and was met by a procession of priests, who walked before him to the great altar, where the eight massive malachite columns, and priceless lapis-lazuli shafts, separated "the holy of holies" from the body of the cathedral. The trained voices of the Imperial choir rose and fell in regular cadences, unsupported by instruments of any kind, but perfect in harmony and unison. The bells chimed at intervals, while the worshippers, as they fell upon their knees, repeated again and again the symbol of the cross on forehead and breast.
And so it was that Olga Naundorff became the wife of Ivor Tolskoi.
Sanctioned by the most solemn ritual of her faith, surrounded by the highest nobility of her land; loved, admired, feared, and envied, Olga, the beloved of Vladimir Mellikoff, pledged her vows to Ivor Tolskoi; and shuddered even as she did so, at the light of triumph that flashed in his bold blue eyes, when, as her husband, he bent his head, and for the first time pressed a kiss upon her proud lips.
She had made her choice. But, after all, was it a wise one? Could she be sure of ruling this lover, who had now become her husband? Despite the insouciance of his boyish face, despite the frank boldness of his blue eyes and innocent smile, was he not destined to be the master, she the slave? Already she could feel the iron hand beneath the velvet glove, already she descried the touch of cruelty beneath his gayest smile, the echo of tyranny beneath his fondest caress.
Alas, poor Olga! If the dawn of her marriage morning was marred by such fore-bodings, what were its noontide and evening likely to prove?
We may not follow her so far into the future; and even if we dared, it were wisest to draw the curtain close about that ruined life, and not seek to pry into its wretchedness. A woman scorned is of all beings the most desolate, so Vladimir Mellikoff had said, little thinking that his prophecy was one day to come true of his passionately-loved Olga. Let us refrain from gazing on her in her hour of despair.
There is no fairer woman to-day, in all Russia, than Olga Tolskoi; one more envied and feared, nor one more hopeless and beyond hope. Like her Imperial ancestress, she has forsaken the good for the evil; and, in giving rein to the lower passions of her nature, has lost for ever the power of repentance and contrition. She who once ruled supreme, is now the neglected wife of a husband who is one in name only, and whose indignities have long since reached the climax of insult.
Ivor has risen higher and higher on the wave of success. He holds a foremost place in the Imperial Councils, he is esteemed and feared in the Chancellerie, bowed down to and fawned upon at Court. Only within the privacy of his own household is his true character known; only there does he lay aside the mask of hypocrisy, and let loose the passions of cruelty and oppression; only there does he give rein to the bitter joke and cutting mockery, which are all that remain of the once humble wooing and suppliant entreaty.
And Olga, knowing how he has deceived her, finding out too late by what cunning subterfuge he turned suspicion upon Vladimir Mellikoff, and thus won from her the only free gift a woman has to bestow—herself—hates him, with an ever increasing hatred and loathing, that drives her to the wildest deeds of imprudent folly.