“They will follow us to the Kremlin,” she rejoined quietly. “My aunt never gives up.”
“A worthy quality, mademoiselle,” I remarked, “and madame may follow as soon as the marriage is consummated. She cannot prevail against the church.”
“In any case, madame will not prevail,” remarked M. de Lambert, quietly; “Najine has consented to be my wife, and I trust that I am able to fight her battles as well as my own.”
“There is no doubt about your ability to fight your own, monsieur,” I remarked, laughing to myself as I thought of his duel with Apraxin; but neither Zénaïde nor Najine understood my reference, and I felt M. de Lambert stir uneasily, probably afraid of alarming his fiancée. I laughed the more, knowing how she admired her lover’s prowess and how little she esteemed the vanquished, for she had a spirit that despised all cowardice and meanness. In spite of my anxieties, I found much food for amusing reflection,—the embarrassment of the czar, finding mademoiselle as a suppliant for her lover; the mad folly of M. Apraxin, and the fury of that shrew Madame Zotof. Meanwhile we had been driving rapidly, and in a quarter of an hour the carriage stopped within the Gate of the Redeemer, and, leaving the women in charge of M. de Lambert, I went to find a priest whom I could trust with this delicate affair. After a little inquiry I was directed to the Cathedral of the Assumption, and, returning for the others, we went there together, and I found the priest whom I sought. It was, however, not an easy matter to induce him to perform the ceremony; our nationality, the haste, and the hour—it was now long past midnight—aroused his suspicions, and he looked long and searchingly at mademoiselle’s muffled figure. It was certain that I would never have prevailed over his scruples without Mentchikof’s signet ring. The sight of it had an immediate effect upon him, and shook his resolution; he dared not offend the all-powerful favorite, and in ignorance of the extent of the risk involved, he finally yielded a reluctant consent to my persuasions, and went into the center of the church for the ceremony. Najine was agitated, and clung to my wife for support and encouragement, realizing that it was a decisive step, and that she was imperilling her lover’s liberty and perhaps his life, for if the czar’s mood changed it might be the simplest way to make her a widow. M. de Lambert’s own face was pale, but with emotion rather than anxiety, and he stood beside his bride, the picture of a gallant soldier. Mademoiselle had thrown back her hood, and I thought, as I looked at her in the light of the tapers that they held in their hands, that I had never seen a bride more lovely in all the splendid attire of the court, than this young girl in her long gray cloak that fell from throat to feet, the fur-lined hood thrown back, and her face fair and pale as a white lily against the gloom of the vast interior of the cathedral. There were no lights behind us, only those before the altar; and they served to increase the darkness of the nave while illuminating the splendid golden iconostase, blazing with precious jewels around the faces of Madonnas; above was the great dome, about us were the mighty pillars with their images of saints and martyrs, rising one above another, while on every side from the golden background loomed the dark forms of pictured angels and archangels; and on the pavement beneath our feet had knelt, generation after generation, the Grand Dukes of Muscovy and the Czars of all the Russias.
My wife and I and our attendants stood a little apart to witness the ceremony, while the white-haired priest united the lovers. Softly intoning the service, he placed two golden crowns upon their heads and, clasping their hands in his, led them three times around the great taper that he had lighted in the center of the church, and which shone like a star. I looked at the picture that they made with strange reflections: here was a young and beautiful woman willing to forego the splendors of a throne to become the wife of a French soldier, preferring his love to a power that might have been almost absolute with the czar; for I had seen enough to be convinced that Peter loved Najine with all the strength of his fierce nature, and that she could have swayed him as no other woman ever would. How strange is the course of destiny! Here was a woman who might have been Empress of all the Russias and she preferred to be the wife of a gallant gentleman of the French King’s household. After all, was not her choice wise? For her undoubtedly, but for some women impossible. There are souls that covet the slippery heights of power, that long to rule the destinies of men, and there are women to whom a lot of domestic obscurity would mean bitter unhappiness. I could not imagine Catherine Shavronsky content with such a fate; she would fight for power, while she lived, and wade through the mire of personal degradation to obtain her goal. No cost would be too great, no sacrifice too supreme, for her consuming ambition. Such were my thoughts while I stood listening to the solemn words that made Najine Zotof the wife of Guillaume de Lambert,—strange reflections, no doubt, yet I believe that my wife’s were nearly identical, only that she had a woman’s quick sympathy for the young girl’s emotion; a woman’s appreciation of her purity and truth, which not even the most splendid temptations of a court could sully or corrupt. As for the two lovers themselves, they were too absorbed in each other, too devoutly attentive to the priest, to be conscious of any world outside their own, and I saw Zénaïde’s eyes moist with sympathy as she watched them. The last words of the benediction spoken, M. de Lambert turned to us with radiant eyes, and Najine threw herself into my wife’s arms with a little sob of deep emotion.
“I owe all to you, monsieur,” M. de Lambert said warmly, as he clasped my hand; “I have been a rash fool, and without you would have failed miserably.”
“Nay,” I replied, smiling, “you were no fool in the one quarter where wisdom was most desired, monsieur; and you owe much, too, to Madame de Lambert.”
He smiled at the name, and glanced at Najine, who turned now to me with her own sweet manner, thanking me for all my kindness to her until I was myself embarrassed, feeling that I scarcely deserved so much, and so turned it aside with a jest.
“Nay, madame,” I said, “do not thank me too much for making you the wife of a poor man, when,” I added in a low tone, “you might have been an empress.”
She looked up at her husband with a glance of proud affection.