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Updated: June 1, 2025
When the frowning prince entered the apartment where lay his condemned wife, he was met by the boy, who presented him with a drawn sword, saying, "You are not alone, father. Your son will be witness to your deed." Vladimir's expression changed as he looked at the appealing face of the child.
One day a proclamation was issued at Kief, commanding all the people to repair to the river-bank the next day, there to be baptized. They assented without a murmur, saying, "If it were not good to be baptized, the prince and the boyars would never submit to it." These were not the only signs of Vladimir's zeal.
Then drawing her to the head of the bed and calling Gilbert to him, he placed his hands together, and standing behind them, embracing their shoulders in his powerful arms, and thrusting his head between theirs, he forced them, in spite of themselves, to bend with him over the dying man. Gilbert and Stephane closed their eyes. The Count's and Vladimir's were wide open devouring each other.
It was in Vladimir's power to settle matters in his own way by ignoring Emile's letter, and remaining where he was in enjoyment of the present idyll. As long as they kept out to sea they were safe. But he had pledged his word to answer any summons and to give his help, and with him, as with all men, love came only second to his work.
Yaropolk seized the opportunity thus offered, and made himself master of Vladimir's dominions also. Not long afterwards Vladimir appeared at the head of an army, and Yaropolk ran away to his own capital, Kiev. Vladimir at once resumed the throne, and sent word to Yaropolk that he would in due time return the hostile visit.
'Tfoo! curse it! he muttered, spitting into the water; 'here's a go. It's all you, you old devil! he added, turning wrathfully to Sutchok; 'you've such a boat! 'It's my fault, stammered the old man. 'Yes; and you're a nice one, continued my huntsman, turning his head in Vladimir's direction; 'what were you thinking of? Why weren't you baling out? you, you?
He built churches, he gave alms freely, he set out public repasts in imitation of the love-feasts of the early Christians. His piety went so far that he even forbore to shed the blood of criminals or of the enemies of his country. But horror of bloodshed did not lie long on Vladimir's conscience. In his later life he had wars in plenty, and the blood of his enemies was shed as freely as water.
It is a very small, very plain church which adjoined Prince Vladimir's summer palace, long since destroyed, and still preserves its gallery for women and servants, and a box for the ladies of the household. Everything about it is nine hundred years old, except the roof and the upper portion of the walls.
Ivan was, certainly, in a preposterous mood; and had not even grace enough to appreciate the long-suffering patience of his friend, who listened, with unfailing courtesy, to his eternal ravings over the nameless but perfectly well-known object of his undying adoration. There did, however, finally come a day when Vladimir's despairing wishes met with a kind of fulfilment.
Vladimir the Great asked in marriage the daughter of Prince Rogvold; as Vladimir's mother had been a serf, the princess proudly replied that she 'would not uncover the feet of a slave. At the present time in the east of Russia when a young girl tries to find out by divination whom she will have as a husband the traditional formula is 'Come and take my stockings off. Among the populations of the north and east, it is sometimes the bride who must do this for her husband on the wedding night, and sometimes the bridegroom for his wife, not as a token of love, but as a nuptial ceremony.
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