“Would it not be better,” I said, “to abandon them now, before it is too late, and have recourse to the clemency of the Empress?”
He smiled bitterly. “No; the time is passed. I shall end as I began. Who knows?”
Our Tartar was humming a plaintive air; Saveliitch, sound asleep, swayed from side to side; our kibitka was gliding rapidly over the winter road. I saw in the distance a village well known to my eyes, with its palisade and church spire on the steep bank of the river Iaik. A quarter of an hour after we entered the fortress of Belogorsk.
XII. MARIE.
The kibitka stopped before the Commandant’s house. The inhabitants had recognized the usurper’s bells and equipage, and had come out in crowds to meet him. Alexis, dressed like a Cossack, and bearded like one, helped the brigand to descend from his kibitka. The sight of me troubled him, but soon recovering himself, he said: “You are one of us?” I turned my head away without replying. My heart was wrung when we entered the room that I know so well, where still upon the wall hung, like an epitaph, the diploma of the deceased Commandant. Pougatcheff seated himself upon the same sofa where many a time Ivan Mironoff had dozed to the hum of his wife’s voice. Alexis’ own hand presented the brandy to his chief. Pougatcheff drank a glass and said, pointing to me: “Offer a glass to his lordship.” Alexis approached me, and again I turned my back upon him. Pougatcheff asked him a few questions about the condition of the fortress, and then, in an unpremeditated manner, said: “Tell me, who is this young girl that you have under guard?”
Alexis became pale as death. “Czar,” said he, a tremor in his voice, “she is in her own room; she is not locked up.”
“Take me to her room,” said the usurper, rising.
Hesitation was impossible. Alexis led the way to Marie’s room. I followed. On the stairs Alexis stopped: “Czar, demand of me what you will, but do not permit a stranger to enter my wife’s room.”
“You are married?” I shouted, ready to tear him to pieces.