Husband and Wife- for Prim

South-Eastern Roads, Russia, 1794.
The War with the Ottoman Empire and Russia has now ended, the Treaty of Jassy being rectified, granting full surrender form the Ottoman Empire.

Dyusha after serving through the whole war, having escaped the hell and horror of Turkish imprisonment and torture-and rescuing Yesaul Yemelan Krasnovk- is finally returned home, having been discharged from service in the remaining years of the war as cause of his wounds which nearly killed him. Three months have passed, he is now in complete convalesce of his wounds, though he is still not quite as strong as he should be.

Lyubova, being strong in spirit, traversed all some 200+ miles form their home to the battle encampment on the borders of the Caucus and the Ottoman empire, where Dyusha had been among the wounded in the squalid camps where the scarce frantically endeavored to tend to the vast number of wounded and sick. Conditions were horrific, supplies scarce, and often infection and disease were prevalent, due to improper hygiene that was unknown in this time. Many wounded had no alternative than allow the doctors to carve, prod, and give all sorts of concoctions and purges and bleedings,more prone to kill than cure, and in such squalor conditions, there being not even beds, just glorified benches as filthy cots or the muddy and bloody ground.
(For best reference of how just rudimentary medicine was in this era, consult the film, "Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World"

She found him near death, nearly dying from his fatal, partic, the 50 lashes on his back he received by Turkish Jannisiries during his captivity and torture., The doctor had grimly told her, that he would not live, as the wounds were too infected but she believed otherwise, and firmly refuted the doctor's prognosis and she took him from the camp and tended to him in a Coptic monastery till he healed and regained his strength for traveling back home.


With two servants Makarvich and Grisha, they returned to the estate.
Here this portrait is of Dyusha and Lyubova, (their carriage wheel being snapped off the spoke, and Grisha and Markarvich harangued over the best manner to repair the wheel and axle) Lyubova struggles to restrains tears, as she now ponders the choler epiphany of Dyusha's imminent death in the war, and she also how much he has suffered, yet he speaks not one word of it, and he is resiliently resolved to take over as patriarch of the family as Father Konstantin-Lyubova's father and Dyusha's adoptive father- had died while serving as a chaplain-he was an Orthodox priest in the same war. Dyusha comforts his wife, and they are in sorrow over Konstantin ' death and how the war had altered their lives. But God can heal all things, so they hold faith in that truth.


This is for my dear online surrogate mother, the ever kind, and generous and loving , it is her birthday, so this my birthday gift to her for her kindness, love, and prayers she has shown me!

You are always in my thoughts and prayers, Mother Prim!