“I do not care for them either; they are flighty, and too much imbued with the German spirit. Well, is it Miloslavsky?”
“No, not he.”
“God be with him, he is rich and stupid. Who then? Eletsky? Lvoff? It cannot be Ragouzinsky? I cannot think of anybody else. For whom, then, does the Czar want Natasha?”
“For the negro Ibrahim.”
The old lady uttered a cry and clasped her hands. Prince Likoff raised his head from the pillow, and with astonishment repeated:
“For the negro Ibrahim?”
“My dear brother!” said the old lady in a tearful voice: “do not destroy your dear child, do not deliver poor little Natasha into the clutches of that black devil.”
“How?” replied Gavril Afanassievitch: “refuse the Emperor, who promises in return to bestow his favour upon us and all our house.”
“What!” exclaimed the old Prince, who was now wide awake: “Natasha, my granddaughter, to be married to a bought negro.”
“He is not of common birth,” said Gavril Afanassievitch: “he is the son of a negro Sultan. The Mussulmen took him prisoner and sold him in Constantinople, and our ambassador bought him and presented him to the Czar. The negro’s eldest brother came to Russia with a considerable ransom and——”