Mademoiselle, my father and my grandfather came away
from their native wilds to seek a lady who would condescend to love
them, in the polite society of Tobolsk. I have gone farther afield: I
have sought in Paris, Berlin, Vienna, St. Petersburg. But I saw no lady
to whose heart my heart responded, till I came back once more to old
Tobolsk. There, mademoiselle, there I saw one whom I recognized at once
as fashioned for me by heaven. Mademoiselle Davidoff,--I tremble to ask
you, but--I love you,--will you share my exile?" Olga looked at the handsome young man with unconcealed joy and
admiration. "Your exile!" she murmured softly, to gain time for a
moment. "And why your exile, M. le Baron?" "Mademoiselle," the young Buriat continued very earnestly, "I do not
wish to woo or wed you under false pretences. Before you give me an
answer, you must understand to what sort of life it is that I venture to
invite you. Our mountains are very lonely: to live there would be
indeed an exile to you, accustomed to the gaieties and the vortex of
London." (Olga smiled quietly to herself, as she thought for a second of
the little drawing-room at The Laurels, Clapham.) "But if you can
consent to live in it with me, I will do my best to make it as easy for
you as possible. You shall have music, books, papers, amusements--but
not society--during the six months of summer which we must necessarily
pass at my mountain village; you shall visit Tobolsk, Moscow,
Petersburg, London--which you will--during the six months of holiday in
winter; above all, you shall have the undying love and devotion of one
who has never loved another woman--Alexander Niaz.... Mademoiselle, you
see the conditions. Can you accept them? Can you condescend of your
goodness to love me--to marry me?" Olga Davidoff lifted her fan with an effort and answered faintly, "M. le
Baron, you are very flattering. I--I will try my best to deserve your
goodness." Niaz took her pretty little hand in his with old-fashioned politeness,
and raised it chivalrously to his trembling lips. "Mademoiselle," he
said, "you have made me eternally happy. My life shall be passed in
trying to prove my gratitude to you for this condescension." "I think," Olga answered, shaking from head to foot, "I think, M. le
Baron, you had better take me back into the next room to my mother." II. Olga Davidoff's wedding was one of the most brilliant social successes
of that Tobolsk season. Davidoff père surpassed himself in the
costliness of his exotics, the magnificence of his presents, the
reckless abundance of his Veuve Clicquot. Madame Davidoff successfully
caught the Governor and the General, and the English traveller from
India _viâ_ the Himalayas. The Baron looked as gorgeous as he was
handsome in his half Russian, half Tartar uniform and his Oriental
display of pearls and diamonds. Olga herself was the prettiest and most
blushing bride ever seen in Tobolsk, a simple English girl, fresh from
the proprieties of The Laurels at Clapham, among all that curious mixed
cosmopolitan society of semi-civilized Siberians, Catholic Poles, and
orthodox Russians. As soon as the wedding was fairly over, the bride and bridegroom started
off by toross to make their way across the southern plateau to the
Baron's village. It was a long and dreary drive, that wedding tour, in a jolting carriage
over Siberian roads, resting at wayside posting-houses, bad enough while
they were still on the main line of the Imperial mails, but degenerating
into true Central-Asian caravanserais when once they had got off the
beaten track into the wild neighbourhood of the Baron's village. Nevertheless, Olga Davidoff bore up against the troubles and discomforts
of the journey with a brave heart, for was not the Baron always by her
side? and who could be kinder, or gentler, or more thoughtful than her
Buriat husband? Yes, it was a long and hard journey, up among those
border mountains of the Chinese and Tibetan frontier; but Olga felt at
home at last when, after three weeks of incessant jolting, they arrived
at the Buriat mountain stronghold, under cover of the night; and Niaz
led her straightway to her own pretty little European boudoir, which he
had prepared for her beforehand at immense expense and trouble in his
upland village. The moment they entered, Olga saw a pretty little room, papered and
carpeted in English fashion, with a small piano over in the corner, a
lamp burning brightly on the tiny side-table, and a roaring fire of logs
blazing and crackling upon the simple stone hearth. A book or two lay
upon the shelf at the side: she glanced casually at their titles as she
passed, and saw that they were some of Tourgénieff's latest novels, a
paper-covered Zola fresh from Paris, a volume each of Tennyson,
Browning, Carlyle, and Swinburne, a Demidoff, an Emile Augier, a _Revue
des Deux Mondes_, and a late number of an English magazine. She valued
these things at once for their own sakes, but still more because she
felt instinctively that Niaz had taken the trouble to get them there for
her beforehand in this remote and uncivilized corner. She turned to the
piano: a light piece by Sullivan lay open before her, and a number of
airs from Chopin, Schubert, and Mendelssohn were scattered loosely on
the top one above the other. Her heart was too full to utter a word, but
she went straight up to her husband, threw her arms tenderly around his
neck, and kissed him with the utmost fervour. Niaz smoothed her wavy
fair hair gently with his hand, and his eyes sparkled with conscious
pleasure as he returned her caress and kissed her forehead. After a while, they went into the next room to dinner--a small hall,
somewhat barbaric in type, but not ill-furnished; and Olga noticed that
the two or three servants were very fierce and savage-looking Buriats of
the most pronounced Tartar type. The dinner was a plain one, plainly
served, of rough country hospitality; but the appointments were all
European, and, though simple, good and sufficient. Niaz had said so much
to her of the discomforts of his mountain stronghold that Olga was quite
delighted to find things on the whole so comparatively civilized, clean,
and European. A few days' sojourn in the fort--it was rather that than a castle or a
village--showed Olga pretty clearly what sort of life she was henceforth
to expect. Her husband's subjects numbered about a hundred and fifty
(with as many more women and children); they rendered him the most
implicit obedience, and they evidently looked upon him entirely as a
superior being. They were trained to a military discipline, and
regularly drilled every morning by Niaz in the queer old semi-Chinese
courtyard of the mouldering castle. Olga was so accustomed to a Russian
military _régime_ that this circumstance never struck her as being
anything extraordinary; she regarded it only as part of the Baron's
ancestral habits as a practically independent Tartar chieftain.