“What a fault! To-morrow is the Heavenly Queen’s Assumption, and I had forgotten all about it. Fancy leaving her, our Lady, without a lamp! Will you read the lauds, Alexis? Shall I get the reading desk ready?”
On the eve of each great feast, as he had no chaplain, he used to officiate himself, reading the lauds, and chanting the psalms.
“No, not yet, dearest, perhaps a little later on. I feel tired, my head aches.”
“You should drink less wine, Alexis.”
“It is not the wine, but my thoughts; the news was so joyous.”
Afrossinia, on her way to the bedroom, stopped at the table to select from the basket which the German had brought her, a ripe peach; she enjoyed eating a dainty before going to sleep.
The Tsarevitch came up and embraced her.
“Afrossinia, my dearest, aren’t you glad? You will be queen—and he, the babe——”
He was persuaded that Afrossinia would bear him a son. She was the third month with child. “You are my gold, and the boy will be our silver,” he would tell her in moments of tenderness.
“Yes, you will be the Tsaritsa, your boy the heir. We will call him Ivan, the most pious Tsar, Ivan Alexeyevitch, Autocrat of all the Russias.”