“Some secrets are only learned in ‘the secret place of the Most High,’” Ivan answered softly.
Neither he nor Clémence was at all aware that they themselves were slipping unconsciously from the moorings of their own ancestral creeds, and that their study of the Scriptures was bringing them nearer day by day to the present standpoint of Henri.
Not long after this sorrow, joy came to the household. When the first days of the short Russian summer smiled upon Nicolofsky, a little guest was sent to the old castle. Very proud was Ivan of his first-born child; and to Clémence it seemed as if no one since the beginning of the world had ever been so happy as she. It was agreed that the babe should bear the name of Madame de Talmont; so a little “Rose” budded soft and fair amidst the snows of Russia, giving promise of one day unfolding its petals in full beauty and fragrance.
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
A ROSEBUD.
“Mais elle etait de ce monde où les meilleures choses
Ont le pire destin;
Et Rose elle a vécu ce que vivent les roses,
L’espèce d’un printemps.”
A happy quiet year passed away at Nicolofsky; then Ivan and Clémence removed to St. Petersburg, where they established themselves for the coming winter in one of the palaces on the Fontanka. Clémence, upon this her first visit, found the city wonderful and fascinating in its very strangeness. It seemed a thing of yesterday; the magnificent buildings, the stately streets and squares, looked as if they had sprung into being at the touch of an enchanter’s wand. Not yet had the hand of time left its impress anywhere. When she arrived, all was life, colour, animation; every pulse of the great city was throbbing, and the din of its multitudinous and busy noises smote strangely upon ears accustomed to the quiet of the country. But soon a change came. The snow spread its soft white mantle over the crowded thoroughfares, the sounds of traffic were hushed, the steps of passers-by fell silently, and the bright blue waters of the Neva were chained by the genii of the frost. “It is like a city of the dead,” thought Clémence.
But she thought differently when Ivan took her, well wrapped in furs, for her first winter drive in St. Petersburg. It was pleasant to glide rapidly through the clear frosty air along the Neva Prospekt, filled with glittering throngs on foot or in gaily-decorated sledges. Costumes the most various and striking showed that every race and kindred, from Persia and Japan in the far East to the forests of America in the West, had its representatives in that northern metropolis. Tartars in their robes of fur, Cossacks in their hooded cloaks, mingled with bearded Russians in blue caftans, and Englishmen and Germans in the sober attire patronized by modern Europeans. Officers in uniform were without number; and the robes of ecclesiastics, Romish as well as Greek, diversified the scene; while fair ladies, in elegant though slightly exaggerated Parisian toilets, bowed from their sledges to their friends, or alighted at the doors of the handsome and brilliantly-decorated shops.