determined the course of the war.
In the summer of the following year, when the baby would be a few months old, Stash assured Francesca thatthey would move to London, buy a house, get properly settled in and make that their home base for the future, but meanwhile they lived those first months of their marriage in a state of such incredulous adoration of each other, such passionate absorption in each other’s body, that neither of them wanted to travel any farther than to Evian, just across Lac Leman, where they went from time to time to gamble at the casino. The trip by lake steamer in the early evening was a dream of pleasure as they stood together at the rail and watched the small boats, their yellow, red and blue sails like huge butterflies, heading for the harbor in the sunset When they took the midnight steamer home to the Ouchy landing stage, they were never sure if they had won or lost at chemin de fer , nor did they care.
To mark the passage of the weeks, Stash gave Francesca more of the Fabergé rock-crystal vases from his mother’s collection. Each one held a few sprays of flowers or branches of fruit worked in precious stones, diamonds and enamel: flowering quince, cranberry, and raspberries, lily of the valley, daffodils, wild roses and violets, all fashioned with the most imaginative and delicate workmanship, so that the rich materials never overwhelmed the reality of the flower and fruit forms. Soon Francesca had a flowering Fabergé garden growing by her bedside, and, when he learned of the coming child, Stash gave her a Fabergé egg made of lapis lazuli mounted in gold. The egg contained a yolk of deep yellow enamel. When this yolk was opened it activated a mechanism that caused a miniature crown to rise up out of the heart of the egg, a perfect replica of the dome-shaped crown of Catherine the Great, paved with diamonds and topped by a cabochon ruby. Inside the crown still another egg was suspended, formed from a large cabochon ruby, hanging on a tiny gold chain.
“My mother never knew if this was an Imperial Easter egg or not,” Stash told her as she wondered at it. “My father bought it from a refugee after the Revolution who swore that it was one of those presented to the Dowager Tsarina Marie but he couldn’t account for how he happened to have it and my father knew too much to insist … however, it bears the Fabergé mark.”
“I’ve never seen anything so perfect,” Francesca said, holding it on the palm of one hand.
“I have,” Stash answered, running his hands down thelength of her neck until they found her breasts which were growing fuller and riper with each passing day. The egg fell to the carpet as he fastened his lips on her darkening nipples and suckled as demandingly as any child.
In Lausanne, as winter closed in on the great villa, Stash exercised the large bays in his stable during the afternoon, and Francesca napped under a light, mauve silk eiderdown, waking only when she could tell, from the subtle smell of snow that invaded their room, that he had returned.
After tea, if the early evening was not too windy, Stash took Francesca for a horse-drawn sleigh ride, and often, seeing the moon rise as they returned to the huge villa, as welcoming, cheerful and brightly lit as an ocean liner, listening to the snuffling of the horses and tender music of the sleigh bells, warm under the fur-lined lap robe, with the hood of her full-length sable coat drawn up over her chin, Francesca felt tears on her cheeks. Not tears of happiness, but rather tears of that sudden sadness that comes at those rare moments of perfect joy that are fully realized at the exact instant at which they are being experienced. Such knowledge always carries in it a premonition of loss, a premonition which needs no reason or explanation.
Just as Francesca grew expert in the ways of the great silver samovar that occupied its traditional place of honor on a round, lace-covered table in the salon, she became
In the summer of the following year, when the baby would be a few months old, Stash assured Francesca thatthey would move to London, buy a house, get properly settled in and make that their home base for the future, but meanwhile they lived those first months of their marriage in a state of such incredulous adoration of each other, such passionate absorption in each other’s body, that neither of them wanted to travel any farther than to Evian, just across Lac Leman, where they went from time to time to gamble at the casino. The trip by lake steamer in the early evening was a dream of pleasure as they stood together at the rail and watched the small boats, their yellow, red and blue sails like huge butterflies, heading for the harbor in the sunset When they took the midnight steamer home to the Ouchy landing stage, they were never sure if they had won or lost at chemin de fer , nor did they care.
To mark the passage of the weeks, Stash gave Francesca more of the Fabergé rock-crystal vases from his mother’s collection. Each one held a few sprays of flowers or branches of fruit worked in precious stones, diamonds and enamel: flowering quince, cranberry, and raspberries, lily of the valley, daffodils, wild roses and violets, all fashioned with the most imaginative and delicate workmanship, so that the rich materials never overwhelmed the reality of the flower and fruit forms. Soon Francesca had a flowering Fabergé garden growing by her bedside, and, when he learned of the coming child, Stash gave her a Fabergé egg made of lapis lazuli mounted in gold. The egg contained a yolk of deep yellow enamel. When this yolk was opened it activated a mechanism that caused a miniature crown to rise up out of the heart of the egg, a perfect replica of the dome-shaped crown of Catherine the Great, paved with diamonds and topped by a cabochon ruby. Inside the crown still another egg was suspended, formed from a large cabochon ruby, hanging on a tiny gold chain.
“My mother never knew if this was an Imperial Easter egg or not,” Stash told her as she wondered at it. “My father bought it from a refugee after the Revolution who swore that it was one of those presented to the Dowager Tsarina Marie but he couldn’t account for how he happened to have it and my father knew too much to insist … however, it bears the Fabergé mark.”
“I’ve never seen anything so perfect,” Francesca said, holding it on the palm of one hand.
“I have,” Stash answered, running his hands down thelength of her neck until they found her breasts which were growing fuller and riper with each passing day. The egg fell to the carpet as he fastened his lips on her darkening nipples and suckled as demandingly as any child.
In Lausanne, as winter closed in on the great villa, Stash exercised the large bays in his stable during the afternoon, and Francesca napped under a light, mauve silk eiderdown, waking only when she could tell, from the subtle smell of snow that invaded their room, that he had returned.
After tea, if the early evening was not too windy, Stash took Francesca for a horse-drawn sleigh ride, and often, seeing the moon rise as they returned to the huge villa, as welcoming, cheerful and brightly lit as an ocean liner, listening to the snuffling of the horses and tender music of the sleigh bells, warm under the fur-lined lap robe, with the hood of her full-length sable coat drawn up over her chin, Francesca felt tears on her cheeks. Not tears of happiness, but rather tears of that sudden sadness that comes at those rare moments of perfect joy that are fully realized at the exact instant at which they are being experienced. Such knowledge always carries in it a premonition of loss, a premonition which needs no reason or explanation.
Just as Francesca grew expert in the ways of the great silver samovar that occupied its traditional place of honor on a round, lace-covered table in the salon, she became
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