"You have just guessed my wish—that my wedding-dress should be pink. White makes one look pale, and I am pale enough without that."
"This wine from the Amur we will drink at your wedding-breakfast."
"And I too will taste it. We will drink to each other. 'As many drops in this goblet, so many years our love shall last!' Is not that the saying?"
"Then you shall take up your residence on his estate. How strange that I should have just given him back his confiscated property! He shall have his ancestral castle put in order for you to live in, and I will come and visit you constantly."
Sophie clapped her hands with delight, her pale cheeks aglow. Then suddenly the light in her eyes died away.
"But is all this only joking?"
"Joking? Do I ever joke with you?"
"That Aleko should pay court to me, that you should give me to him for wife, that the Patriarch should marry us on a lovely day in the lovely month of roses. Is it not all a dream?"
Alexander, instead of answering, took her in his arms and closed her mouth with kisses.
Yes, poor child, it is real. The only unreal part of it is that before those roses shall have blossomed you will be—